Joanna stares at the shape beneath the white shroud.
‘Yes,’ she croaks to the hand folding back the sheet in the cream-walled room and revealing the waxy quality of Caroline’s face, her naked shoulders. ‘Yes,’ she sobs, breaking down completely. ‘This is my sister. This is Carrie.’
Caroline Jameson lies stretched out under the starched sheet. Joanna studies the peculiar emptiness that has invaded her sister’s face. It is as if the horror of her death has been nullified and erased. Caroline’s skin, radiant and wrinkle-free, is flushed with a delicate tint of rosiness that softens her in a way life never did. Death, it seems, has transformed the forty-one-year-old Caroline into the girl she once was – the girl she was when she and Joanna had still been friends.
It is as if Joanna’s flood defences have crumbled, unleashing years of pent-up sadness and loss. Weeping uncontrollably, she holds Mike so fiercely he must prise her fingers, one by one, away from his arm. Then, helped to a chair and forced to sit, Joanna waits until she is able to walk out into the corridor.
Afterwards, seated alongside her husband in a barren interview room at the police station, she fires off question after question.
‘So, you’ve released this Kyle Norris without charge?’
‘That’s right, Mrs Peters. The CCTV the shop provided was pretty conclusive,’ Detective Sergeant Pike, a man sporting a set of teeth to match his namesake, does his best to clarify.
‘Conclusive ? How so?’ Joanna frowns.
‘In that it distinctly shows your sister pulling a knife from her bag and attacking him .’ He elaborates, ‘We’ve several witnesses who corroborate this too. Their statements are clear: Caroline tried to stab him, he grabbed the knife to save himself, but in the struggle between them – and it was quite a struggle – it seems your sister inadvertently stabbed herself.’ A pause. ‘She was very unlucky.’ He takes his time. ‘The single stab wound severed an artery. It meant she died before the paramedics could reach her.’
‘But – but this is … is … ’ Joanna can’t find the words. ‘Madness .’ She twists to Mike, then DS Pike. ‘Pulled a knife from her bag, you say – but why would she be carrying a knife?’
‘We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on that for us.’ The detective picks at a spray of tomato pips on his tie.
Joanna tugs out her bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know. Carrie and I fell out. Well, what I mean is, she fell out with me. At Dora’s funeral.’
‘And Dora was?’ the detective wants to know.
‘Our great-aunt. On our mother’s side. It was the last time Carrie and I saw one another. Ten years ago … ’ God, is it really that long ? she says to herself. ‘And apart from a couple of failed telephone conversations when our mum died two years ago, we’ve barely spoken.’
‘Right, I see. You say your sister fell out with you – can I ask why?’
Joanna swallows. Fiddles with the frayed hem of her scarf.
‘Look—’ Mike inhales through his nostrils. ‘To say Carrie wasn’t the easiest of people would be putting it mildly.’ Ever protective of his wife, he picks up Joanna’s hand and holds it against his chest.
‘It’s all right, Mike,’ Joanna says softly. ‘I’ll tell him.’ And taking back her hand, addresses the detective: ‘Things between me and Carrie were never all that good. We had a tricky home life,’ she says, as if this explains everything. ‘It was okay when we were kids, I suppose. Although,’ a quick glance at her husband, ‘we weren’t ever right after that summer with Dora.’ Joanna slides her gaze to the policeman again. ‘Some people would say what we experienced in that place should have brought us closer together, but it didn’t, it pushed us apart – not that I want to go into all that now.’ She pauses. ‘I’m surmising, of course I am, because I could never get my sister to talk about it, so I don’t even know if it was based on anything rational – but I think Carrie’s underlying problem with me was that I reminded her of that summer. But anyway, whatever it was, it just got worse when she hit puberty and then persisted right through her twenties … Carrie was thirty-one when I last saw her – I’m younger, four years younger,’ she tells him. ‘Our mum’s mental state was always pretty fragile, Carrie’s was the same. But I don’t want you thinking I was the one who gave up on her, I wanted to be there for her, we both did.’ Another look at her husband. ‘But she didn’t want me around. Simple as that.’
‘I see.’ A sober nod from the detective.
‘But what she did, it was so violent.’ Joanna has questions of her own. ‘Volatile, she might have been, but not violent. This is so unlike her.’
‘But a person could change drastically over a decade, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose,’ Joanna says, thoughtful. ‘But it still doesn’t make sense. Did this Kyle bloke and Carrie know each other?’
‘He says not,’ Pike replies mildly.
‘Poor guy. Was he all right?’ Joanna shrinks from her inquiry, fearing the answer. ‘He didn’t have to go to hospital or anything, did he?’
‘He needed medical attention at the scene for a cut to his arm, but no, he didn’t require hospital treatment.’
‘Poor bugger. He must’ve been pretty shaken up.’ Mike rakes a hand through his thick sandy hair.
‘He was rather traumatised, yes.’
‘I can imagine.’ Mike raises his eyebrows.
‘You say Kyle lives in Bayswater?’ Joanna asks DS Pike. ‘That he moved to the area six months ago.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Could I see him, d’you think? Talk to him?’ She wrings her hands in her lap.
‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Peters.’ The detective shuffles his papers together. ‘As terrible as this is for you and your family, the man did nothing wrong.’
‘Oh, no. No . Of course he didn’t. I wasn’t for a minute suggesting he had,’ Joanna, backpedalling. ‘But he might know something, something that’d help me to understand why Carrie did what she did.’
‘Leave it, love,’ Mike advises. ‘We’re the last people he’d want to see. We should think ourselves lucky he’s not pressing for damages.’
‘But how am I going to find out what happened? I’ve got to find out why she armed herself with a knife – haven’t I?’
Joanna gives way to further tears. Sitting on her hands, she half expects someone to dig her in the ribs, to tell her to pull herself together, but no one does.
A door creaks open behind them. ‘Sarge?’ The brown head of a uniformed officer beckons to his superior.
‘Won’t be a moment,’ Joanna and Mike are informed as Pike rises from his chair and leaves the room.
‘Why don’t they know anything, want to know anything? Don’t they want to find out what happened?’ Joanna keeps her voice low.
‘It’s not that they’re not interested, Jo-Go.’ Mike yawns: jet-lagged after his unexpected need to fly home; he hasn’t even had the chance to change out of his suit. ‘It’s probably got more to do with limited manpower, resources, that kind of thing. Because I’m telling you, if your sister had survived this, well –’ he loosens his tie ‘– she’d be in pretty hot water, wouldn’t she?’
‘I should have been there for her. I should have tried harder. I was a rotten sister.’
‘No, you weren’t.’ Mike slips an arm around her, cuddles her close. ‘Everything we ever did she threw back in our faces. And I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, babe, but your sister was her own worst enemy.’ He buries his nose in his wife’s saffron curls. ‘And I’m sorry to say it, but I could see it a mile off, even if you couldn’t – Carrie resented you, pure and simple.’
‘I suppose.’ Her response smothered by his shoulder. ‘But she was my sister – I was all she had.’
‘Then she should have looked after you better then, shouldn’t she?’ Mike is firm.
‘I know what you’re saying, but I should’ve tried harder to stay in touch. Just because she could be a bit difficult—’
‘A bit difficult ,’ Mike splutters, releasing his hold. ‘Remember when you were going through your chemotherapy, the way she spoke to you. The way she slammed the phone down on you.’ His face is serious. ‘That was the most terrible time in your life and she treated you like that? What was it she said – oh, yeah, that’s right: “It’s all about you , isn’t it?” – well, yeah, for once it was, and if that wasn’t a sure indication of how little she cared, then I don’t know what was.’ He tips his head to the bald bulb above their heads, blinks back tears. ‘I’m sorry, Jo, but I can’t forgive her for that, and neither should you. Yes, of course I’m sorry she’s died, that she died in such an awful way, but I’m not having you blaming yourself for the way her life worked out – you did nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to reproach yourself for.’
‘I know.’ Joanna forces a smile. ‘You’re right. I know you’re right.’ She listens to the emptiness of her words. This isn’t what she feels, not deep down, but her relationship with Caroline has been a bone of contention between her and Mike throughout their fifteen years of marriage and she hasn’t the strength to argue about it now.
‘I’m only thinking of you, love.’ Mike softens, conscious of the opening door and the re-emergence of DS Pike. ‘I just don’t want you making yourself ill again, that’s all.’
‘Sorry to abandon you like that,’ the detective apologises and passes Joanna a large plastic box. ‘Your sister’s things,’ he explains. ‘They were found on her when she died.’
Joanna squints through wet lashes at the array of objects. There isn’t much, but in the same way Mike does, she looks at them carefully. Aside from a large handbag, there’s a decent-looking watch, its leather strap smeared with what can only be blood. A credit card. A ten-pound note along with some coins. A thin gold chain knotted with her sister’s brown hairs.
‘And, I’m sorry if it’s distressing, but I do need to ask … ’ The detective holds up a clear plastic bag, its insides streaked with blood. It contains a hefty-looking knife with a German inscription etched along its blade. ‘You don’t happen to recognise it, do you?’
Joanna sucks back her breath. ‘Is that it? Is that the knife … the knife t-that … that killed her?’
The detective’s expression confirms it is.
‘But … but—’ She struggles to unravel what it is she’s seeing. ‘That was Dora’s … Dora’s dagger … ’ she splutters, jabbing a finger at its silver cross-guards and swastika logo. ‘It belonged to her father … our great-grandfather. I thought Dora chucked the bloody thing out years ago.’ Her revelation splinters the unforgiving light. ‘What the hell was Carrie doing with it?’