She waved the blade a little less convincingly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Clearly no one for you to worry about. I’m bringing stuff in, not taking it away. Reverse burglary.’ I carried on emptying the bags. ‘Put the knife down and get some clothes on. And while you’re in there, tell Sam his sister’s here.’
She obeyed me, even coming back in a scruffy tracksuit and making a token gesture at washing up while introducing herself as April.
Sam shuffled out a few minutes later, olive skin wan under his black beard. I handed him a bacon sandwich, set down a mug of tea, and tried to hold back my newly resurrected tears, and my temper.
‘Would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes, please, April?’ I asked.
April, one of the many, many sorry young women to fall for Sam’s brooding good looks and artistic talents, ducked her head. ‘Is it all right if I have a shower, Sam?’
He ignored her. April disappeared, and I took a seat opposite my brother.
‘Tell me.’
He rubbed his face, took a gulp of tea, and started to weep.
A short while later, having read the letter from the probationary service explaining that Kane would indeed be freein two weeks’ time (unless something miraculous happened like he murdered someone else or tripped in the shower and broke both legs and arms), we were wrung out like damp washing.
We had no reason to believe Kane could find us, even if he tried. Sam and I both took different names after the trial – and no one alive knew save for the original Family Liaison Officer assigned to the case and a couple of social workers we hadn’t seen in over a decade. While we did currently live in our mother’s home county, we were several miles from Brooksby, 119 miles from where we had lived with Kane, and 250 from the prison that would release him. It had been eighteen years. He would be on probation for the rest of his life, one of the conditions being that he never attempted to contact us. He had other things to worry about, scores to settle.
Did all this make the slightest bit of difference to the lightning bolt of terror that had struck the centre of our brains?
Nope.
I called Sam’s mental health nurse and told her he was struggling. She promised to be round after wading through the other reams of dangerously distressed patients on her books, most of whom were without a sister with bucketloads of free time to care for them. I sat with Sam through a couple of hours of daytime quiz shows, then double-checked for hidden booze stashes. Before leaving, I firmly told April her new boyfriend was an addict with serious mental health issues, and in no fit state to offer any sort of relationship. If she did insist on hanging around, and did anything – at all – to empower his addictions, I would take her teeny, tiny knife and chop her fingers off one by one.
Yes, I was feeling angry and defensive that morning. My past-life ferocity had been awoken from its recent slumber. I was talking the finger-chopping talk. Would I walk the walk? Probably not.
I paced the streets around Sam’s flat, ending up on a bench near to the cemetery. Having brought my hyperventilating under control, I called Marilyn.
‘Faith! How are you doing? Did you destroy the Ghost Web?’
Least of my problems.
‘Hi Marilyn. I need cake. And a baby to cuddle. Are you busy?’
‘I have nine-month-old twins, I’m always busy. Yet never too busy for cake. I’ll leave the door on the latch in case I’m feeding. Or just too knackered to get off the sofa.’
I spent the rest of the afternoon tickling fat tummies (Nancy’s and Pete’s, not Marilyn’s) and eating millionaire’s shortbread, which Marilyn found amusingly appropriate.
Halfway through the afternoon, Perry texted to say he’d booked the wedding with HCC.
That led to a wrestling match with Marilyn while she prised my phone away and started typing a reply saying I wanted to get married in Grace Chapel and have my reception at Mirabelli’s on the Water.
‘Marilyn!’ Nancy chose that moment to throw up on her activity centre, allowing me to get the phone back. ‘I don’t care. I just want things over with, with as little fuss as possible so I can get on with being Perry’s wife.’
‘As little fuss as possible? And you see that happening at HCC? Have you met your future mother-in-law Larissa Upperton? Have you been to a committee meeting? Did you not used to work at HCC as events manager? Short-term pain for long-term gain, Faith. That man appears to be bonkers about you. Why do you think he would object?’ She paused in her cleaning up of Nancy’s sick and waggled the muslin cloth at me.
I waggled my hands back. ‘Hello? Haveyoumet my future mother-in-law Larissa Upperton, the Achilles’ heel?’
‘You need to come back to the choir with me next week. Get some personal power.’
‘You’re going back to the choir? Hester didn’t even let you sing.’ I sat back, surprised.
‘I don’t care. I liked listening. And my sister doesn’t have to know that when I ask her to babysit again. Two hours without my delightful children. Three if you count the journey there and back. And once James is gone again, the chance of a breather might be the only thing keeping me from going bananas.’
James, Marilyn’s husband, worked as a consultant geologist. This meant frequent long stretches away while he mined for valuable minerals in places like Antarctica or at the bottom of the ocean. Marilyn told me that before the twins had been born, she had found this lonely and frustrating, but got on with it. Judging from the state of the cottage of chaos while James was around, I didn’t want to think how she would cope alone with two demanding, exhausting babies added to the equation.
