I did not kill my sister.
When my parents died, I blocked it from my mind for such a long time. Sometimes I still do. But I can’t forget the image of Zoe lying in a bathtub of bloody water, with her wrists slit and one eye sewn closed. Whatever she did, or didn’t do, nobody deserves to die like that. Whoever did this to her is a monster, and I plan to find them and deal with them my own way. But first I need to know that Anna is safe.
I dial her number for the tenth time. It goes straight to voicemail again, as though it is out of battery or switched off. Having been married to her for ten years, I know that turning off her mobile is something Anna never does.
I need to find her, but I left my car at Priya’s house. I spot Zoe’s keys in the dish in the hall and head for the front door.
“Going somewhere?” Priya asks, seeming to appear from nowhere.
“Just stepping outside for some fresh air.”
“Okay.” She nods, and stands aside to let me pass. “Don’t go too far.”
Even she seems to suspect me of something now.
I walk out to the front yard, drinking down greedy gulps of the cool night air, still trying to sober myself up. I see Priya watching me from the window as I light a cigarette. It’s only when I give her a halfhearted wave that she steps back inside and lets the curtain fall. As soon as she is gone, I get in Zoe’s car and reverse out of the driveway as fast as I can.
The first place I stop is the hotel. The receptionist is asleep when I knock on the glass door. I can see her head resting on her arms on the front desk, a long brown braid resembling a rope. I bang a little louder and she glares in my direction, before pulling herself upright and strutting toward me. She has a large set of keys in her skinny little hand, but seems reluctant to use them.
“We’re closed and we’re full.”
She says the words slowly, and I wonder whether it is her inability to speak the language, or her belief that I won’t understand it that causes her to do so. I hold up my badge and she lets me in.
“I need to speak to one of your guests. It’s an urgent police matter.”
She looks horrified at the mere suggestion of it.
“I don’t know whether I’m allowed to wake people up in the middle of the night,” she says, her forehead fretting into a series of ugly lines.
“You probably aren’t, but I am. Her name is Anna Andrews.”
“She was here earlier!”
The woman beams at me, as though she just guessed the right answer in a game show.
“Great. Which room is she in?”
“She isn’t. The hotel is full.”
Patience is not something I have an abundance of at the best of times. I don’t mean to shout at her, but I can’t help raising my voice.
“I don’t understand, you just said that she was here earlier.”
“She was. About an hour ago. She thought that she had a reservation, but someone had canceled it. So, they left.”
“They?”
“There was a man with her. He seemed to have an idea of somewhere else to go.”
The dodgy cameraman, no doubt. I knew there was something not right about him.
“Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”
I drive around town twice, looking for any sign of the ugly blue crew car I suspect they are traveling in, knowing that Anna still doesn’t have her own. I stop at the first set of red traffic lights, but not the second. Then, for lack of a better idea, I drive to her mum’s house. I know how much she hates going there, but if the hotel was full, she might have decided to stay the night.
I knock on the door and wait, expecting a light to come on in the front bedroom. Anna’s mum is many things, but she isn’t deaf yet. When there is no answer, and no sign of life, I look beneath the flowerpot, but the key is missing. Luckily, I had a spare made a few weeks ago—I’ve always had a weird obsession with collecting multiple sets of keys in case I need them—and with my mother-in-law’s memory deteriorating at such a rapid rate, it seemed like a responsible thing to do. It takes me a few attempts to find the right key, but then it slots into place and I’m inside.
I turn on the light and I’m surprised to see stacks of boxes everywhere.
“The only way you’ll get me out of this house is in a coffin” is what she always said, whenever anyone suggested it might be time to move out. I used to think that Anna’s mother was holding on to this old house for sentimental reasons—memories of her husband perhaps—but Anna always insisted that it wasn’t that. Apparently, the marriage didn’t end well; her dad left them and never came back. Neither Anna or her mother ever talked about him and there were no pictures. She said it was so long ago, she wasn’t sure she’d even recognize her own father if she passed him on the street.