28

By Sunday Geraldine was exhausted but there was no time for her to have a lie in. She had too much to do, but she didn’t mind that. Her days off were generally empty, unless she was going to see one of her sisters. She thought wistfully of her lazy mornings in North London, when she had been working for the Met. Occasionally she used to get up late and wander along Upper Street for coffee and breakfast in one of the smart cafés along the High Street in Islington. Today she had to settle for a home-brewed pot of coffee and some toast. She had decided not to go and see either Helena or Celia that weekend. For a while she had been bouncing from one to the other, depending on which sister she felt most guilty about not visiting.

Celia had a new baby, which gave her a claim on Geraldine’s attention. Although they were only sisters by adoption, they had grown up together and developed a far closer relationship than Geraldine was ever likely to establish with the birth twin she had recently met. But balanced against Celia’s situation was the fact that Helena was a recovering heroin addict who had recently come out of a private rehabilitation clinic, which Geraldine had paid for. It was difficult having to opt for one sister or the other, and she was never sure whether she had made the right choice. But today was different, because she had work to do.

Geraldine resolved to call them both that day, whatever else happened. Right now, her immediate concern was the investigation into the deaths of Mark and Amanda. Over breakfast she phoned Celia to apologise for not being able to see her that weekend, due to pressure of work. Helena’s call could wait until later. She probably wasn’t even awake yet.

‘Don’t worry, I know you’re on a case,’ Celia replied promptly. ‘And I know you’d come and see us if you could.’

Somehow Celia being so understanding made Geraldine feel more guilty than before. Both of her sisters seemed to react to her in extreme ways, at opposite ends of the spectrum. Promising to call Celia for a proper chat as soon as she could, she hung up and leaned back in her chair, momentarily overcome by weariness. Life was never simple. If only Helena could be even half as reasonable as Celia, she and Geraldine might be able to build a relationship.

She spent most of the day sitting at her kitchen table with a pot of coffee, poring over her iPad. She had to stay on top of information flooding in as all the officers on the case logged their reports. If she failed to keep up to speed, the amount of new information could become impossible to absorb. Initially she focused her attention on Mark’s wife and son. Close to the victim, they were the most likely suspects in the absence of any hard evidence. Charlotte had an obvious motive for killing Mark, since his death made her a wealthy woman. Eddy seemed an improbable suspect. Not only was he Mark’s son, he was less likely to inherit any of his father’s estate now that it had all gone to his stepmother. So although he had struck Geraldine as a shady character, he had no apparent motive for killing his father. In fact, it would have served Eddy’s interests had his stepmother died before his father as the latter was more likely to bequeath his fortune to his son.

Of the two suspects so far, Charlotte also seemed more likely to have wanted to kill Amanda, considering her sister-in-law had accused her of murdering Mark. If Charlotte really was responsible for Mark’s death, and Amanda had been outspoken in her presence, Charlotte might have wanted to silence her, especially if she learned that Amanda had reported her suspicions to the police. But without evidence, this kind of speculation led nowhere. In the end Geraldine gave up trying to work out the reason for the two murders, and focused on reading all the reports, hoping that a detail would strike her as significant, or a pattern would become apparent, as sometimes happened. But she was disappointed.

Before preparing her supper, she phoned Helena.

‘There’s someone here who wants to say hello,’ her sister said.

Geraldine was surprised to hear the voice of her former sergeant, Sam.

‘Geraldine!’ Sam greeted her. ‘How’s it going up there in York?’

‘We’ve got a new case.’

Before she could elaborate, Helena came back on the line.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Helena said. ‘Sam and I are going out for supper.’

‘That’s nice.’

Helena hung up without even saying goodbye.

‘Well, please don’t wait to go out on my account,’ Geraldine muttered. ‘It was nice talking to you too.’

Geraldine had asked Sam to look in on Helena once in a while, and she and Helena seemed to have hit it off leaving Geraldine relieved, but also slightly envious of their friendship. The possibility that Helena was putting on an act in order to make her jealous seemed too petty to be true. All the same, she was bitterly disappointed about the way Helena treated her. It seemed that nothing Geraldine said or did satisfied her sister. She desperately wanted to bond with the only blood relative she had, but Helena seemed to have an agenda of her own, which involved blatantly taking as much from Geraldine as she could.

Reminding herself about the sad life Helena had led before they had met, she wondered whether she might be partly to blame for Helena’s shortness with her. She could hardly have done more to help her twin, but she hadn’t invited Helena to come and live with her, balking at such an unwelcome intrusion into her own life. They were effectively strangers who had known nothing of one another’s existence until they were forty. They just happened to have been born together. Geraldine had been far more generous than many other people would have been in her situation, footing the bill for Helena’s stay in a rehab clinic and now paying her rent. Perhaps Helena resented her because Geraldine was in a position to do that. In Helena’s eyes, Geraldine must appear wealthy and successful. The reality was very different. But she was afraid that if she exposed her own needs, she might end up suffering worse humiliation. Appreciating Geraldine’s neediness might encourage Helena to try and exploit her even more, and if she failed to wheedle more money out of Geraldine, she might use the knowledge of Geraldine’s emotional vulnerability to punish her. Geraldine felt uncomfortable acknowledging that she didn’t trust her sister, but it was the truth.

She wished she could be more like Sam, and make allowances for what Helena had suffered. But Sam could remain emotionally detached from it all. If Helena returned to her former habit Sam would be disappointed, but she could choose to walk away from the situation. Helena knew that if she reverted to her former lifestyle, Geraldine would be devastated. All Geraldine could do was try to conceal that she would do almost anything to try and protect her sister. She had already ruined her own career by helping Helena to escape from her drug dealer. Thinking about how Helena was taking advantage of her without any show of gratitude, she wondered miserably what more Helena could want from her.

Even a phone call from Ariadne asking if she wanted to go out for dinner failed to lift her spirits. She explained that she was too tired, and they agreed to go out the following evening. Geraldine should have been pleased. She wanted to start making friends in York, and she liked Ariadne, but as she leaned back and closed her eyes, she felt miserable. She tried to reassure herself that slowly she would establish a new life for herself in York, and Helena would settle down into her new life in London, and meanwhile they would track down whoever had killed Mark and Amanda, and everything would be all right. But she felt increasingly uneasy knowing that somewhere in the darkness outside a killer was hiding.