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Chapter 4

Silence, like the split-second before an ancient tree, cut down, hits the earth.

Dad started forward, every step an exercise in agony. Mum, slack-jawed, let go of my hand, gripped and twisted the cotton top sheet through her fingers, a metaphor for a life irrevocably screwed. When Dad reached out and put his arms around her, she let out a deep-throated howl. I slipped off the bed, made way, excluded. Numbed, I couldn’t really take it in.

There were tears. I’d never seen my big tough dad cry. Not when Zach got expelled from school – again – not when he’d OD’d, not when my brother went to rehab that would make most prisons look like recreational facilities, not when Dad walked my sister down the aisle. Not ever. But he cried now.

“There must be some mistake.” Mum’s sobs were dry. Excruciating.

“No, my darling.”

“But—”

“I identified her.”

Mum pulled away. “You did?” She spoke in a small, wondering, vulnerable voice. “Surely, Nate—”

“Too much for the boy. I offered.”

“And you’re sure? You’re certain?”

“She’s gone,” he confirmed tearfully.

Mum wrenched back the sheet. “Then I must I go to her.”

“No, Amanda.”

“I have to see her, Rod.”

Stricken, I held my breath, watched as Dad put his solid hands on Mum’s shoulders, looked into her eyes. Firm. Back in control. All his ex-copper credentials showing through. “We can take flowers once the scene’s secured and preserved.”

Her mouth tightened, ugliness in her expression. “I don’t want to take fucking flowers. I want to see my baby.”

Dad glanced anxiously over his shoulder at me. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Maybe he was embarrassed because my mum never swore, and he wasn’t great with the drama. Maybe he feared the miasma of emotions about to break loose. Or maybe he was trying to protect me from what I already knew. My mother could live without any one of us, but not Scarlet.

“Amanda, listen to me. You have to be very brave.”

“I can’t,” she gulped. “I just—”

“You can. You must. For Scarlet.”

“Oh my Christ,” she burst out. “She always said she wanted to donate her organs. We can’t let that happen, Rod.”

“That’s not an issue at the moment.”

I frowned. What did Dad mean?

“But there will be a post-mortem,” he continued.

“No,” she snapped. “You tell him, Molly. Tell him it can’t happen.”

I stared from one to the other, my breath staccato and shallow. “Mum, I wish I could but—”

“Oh, what’s the use?” Ripping herself from dad, she tore out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Naked and unsteady feet crashed against polished wooden floorboards.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered, but the accusing light in her eyes said it all. When she’d needed me most, I’d failed her.

Dad stood up, met my wounded gaze. “She doesn’t mean it, Moll.”

My expression told him that she did.

“Leave her. She’ll —” He was going to say ‘calm down’ but, too late, realised the futility of it.

He sat. I stood. Lost. A hot ember of grief lodged so deep in my chest I thought it would never cool. I didn’t know what to say, or how to feel, other than crashing grief and guilt. I’d never be able to make it up to my sister now.

“Come,” he said, with a sad smile.

I went to him and threw my arms around his neck and rested my cheek against his big wide chest. As he stroked my head the years rolled back, except that Scarlet was no longer there to share them with me. Scarlet was a lonely shadow.

I pulled away, ran a knuckle underneath each eye. “How’s Nate?”

“In bad shape. Went to pieces at the hospital. I left him with his parents. There’s an FLO with him too.” Family Liaison Officer. I was fluent in my dad’s cop lingo.

“And now?”

“There will be an accident investigation followed by an inquest. Standard procedure.”

“What did you mean about organ donation? Scarlet believed in it so much.”

He let out a weary sigh. “I don’t know the RP SIO but, as a former police officer, I might be able to extract some inside information.” I dredged my brain. Dad meant Road Policing Investigating Officer. “It’s a confused picture but I got the impression that the police were holding something back. The fact that they want to prioritise the post-mortem indicates as such.”

I didn’t like the sound of this at all. I understood that reports could take a week or so, although initial findings could be disclosed earlier.

Dad continued, as if on autopilot. “Every fatality on British roads is treated as a suspicious death and in this instance there’s two. In the normal course of events, a Collision Officer will identify and preserve records and review witness evidence, and a Vehicle Examiner will check out the vehicles.”

I didn’t speak for a moment. I couldn’t. I tried to absorb the news. Failed. “Dad,” I said gingerly, “When will they find out what happened?” I had to know.

“Sounds like a high-speed collision.”

“You think Scarlet was driving too quickly?”

“Maybe.” He shook his head. “But don’t tell your mother I said that.”

I squeezed his arm; saw a flicker of fear in his eyes. We both knew that my mum would never recover from this. “It might or might not be a factor, but Scarlet wasn’t driving her car.”

“How come?” I said, puzzled.

“Remember that prang she had a month or so ago?”

“Hit a gate-post.” Which was right out of character, I remembered with a twinge of anxiety. Scarlet was a good driver. Smooth. Fluid. Safe. Not like me with my tendency to curb it and poke my nose out too far at junctions.

“The Golf was in for bodywork repairs. She’d rented an off-roader for the week.”

“Maybe she didn’t know how to handle it.”

“A possibility,” he agreed.

“How long had she had it?”

“Three days.” Yes, I remembered now. She was on her way to drop off her car and pick up the courtesy vehicle when I’d picked a fight.

“Surely, she’d take it steady simply because she wasn’t used to driving the vehicle.”

“I have to admit it does seem odd, especially as she was on the wide straight stretch on the Old Gloucester Road, after Hayden.”

I knew my sister’s regular route. The speed limit was 50 mph, but drivers often took it more quickly. Me included.

A hard lump swelled in my throat, making it virtually impossible to swallow. Still the tears wouldn’t come. “Was it really awful, Dad? Seeing Scarlet?”

He glanced away, jaw bracing, his normal dark colouring a pale imitation. When he spoke his voice sounded raspy, dry and old. “I’ve seen many dead bodies, but nothing prepares you for—” He shook his head. Broken.

“Here,” I said, clumsily handing him a tissue. He took it, dabbed his face and blew his nose. “We have to tell Zach.”

“My job,” he said, stoic and uncompromising. A pulse ticked in his neck, his expression reminding me of the bad old days when Zach was in thrall to his druggie friends. He hung out with crazies back then. Dad knew most of them in a professional capacity. It wasn’t so much what Zach was doing to his body, destructive as it was, as what he was doing to our lives, Dad’s especially.

He pulled out his mobile.

“Wouldn’t it be better and kinder done in person?” In any case, Zach never answered his phone and, rarely, if ever returned a call.

Dad opened his mouth to speak then hesitated, whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of a loo flushing and running water.

“Let me tell Zach,” I murmured.

“No, I —’

“I want to, Dad.” I needed to be alone, to think and work out whether I was condemned to a lifetime of guilt. I shuddered to think that Scarlet was so upset by our row that she’d not paid attention on the road. Had I argued with her when she was already at a low ebb? Jesus Christ.

His sad eyes met mine. “Are you sure? You’ve had one hell of a shock.”

“Honestly, I want to help.” And do something of practical use. “It won’t be a problem. Promise.”

He clutched my arm. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?” His grip on me tightened.

“I am.”

Anxiously, his eyes darted to the en-suite. “I’ll take care of Mum. You go to Zach.”

Chapter 5

My brother lived a simple life in the arse-end of nowhere. It took me forty-five minutes to get there and then another fifteen through winding roads, flanked by high hedges hissing with heat, to reach the commune where Zach had lived for a decade. Thoughts fastened solely on my sister, my eyes clouded at the thought of never hearing her voice, never seeing her smile again. By the time I reached the potholed drive that led to Zach’s home, I was shackled by grief.

Parking up on a patch of scrub, the ground rutted and dry from two months of hot weather without rain, a kaleidoscope of images clattered through my mind. Scarlet pale and clammy with shock. Scarlet bleeding. Scarlet dying.

Eventually, I forced myself to get out of the van towards what was effectively a scattering of ramshackle dwellings surrounded by vegetable patches, washing lines and pens with livestock.

Gareth, a skinny silent man from the Rhondda, was adjusting a halter on one of his horses. He supplemented his meagre living with woodcarvings and strange sculptures made from scrap metal. Nearby, two small children grubbed around in a makeshift sandpit. Think gypsy encampment meets Glastonbury on an unusually dry day and you get the picture. In front of the largest hovel, a raised piece of decking on which sat benches and old easy chairs with sagging bottoms, two semi-naked women sunbathed in the obliterating heat while Zach lay stretched out in a deckchair, legs apart, narrow feet bare. Clean for years and embracing abstinence with the same zeal with which he’d smoked crack cocaine, he looked reasonably healthy. If you didn’t know it, you’d never cotton on that he’d once been a hair’s breadth away from death.

He wore baggy shorts and a tie-dyed vest that exposed muscles rope-hard from manual labour. His weathered olive-skin looked as if it had been dipped in creosote. Like me, he had a wide brow, although his eyes were blue, like Scarlet’s. A hybrid variety, he had Mum’s pert nose and Dad’s full mouth. Beneath his dreads, his eyes were shut tight against the sun; they popped open at my approach, a loose smile spreading across his face that vanished the second he caught my mangled expression.

“Sis,” he said, climbing out of the chair. “Something wrong?”

“Is Tanya around?” Tanya was Zach’s long-suffering girlfriend. I thought it best if she were there too. As much as anyone had a steadying influence on my brother, she did.

“Craft market in Ludlow,” he said. “Selling cards and shit.”

“Right,” I said uncertainly.

“So, what is it? You look like someone tramped over your grave.” The smile attempted on his face, packed up and retreated.

“It’s Scarlet,” I said bleakly.

At the mention of her name, he started. “What’s she done? Look, if she’s said something—”

“Done?”

He blinked. “You’re making me nervous. I meant what’s happened?”

Whether it was the compressed heat or emotional overload, I caught that uniquely chilling vibe only a sibling can identify. Zach’s was no ordinary slip of the tongue. I thought back to before the argument, sitting in the garden at Mum and Dad’s, Scarlet preoccupied. Did Zach know something I didn’t?

“Moll,” he said. “For Chrissakes, tell me.”

When I did, he made a sound, half groan and half exhalation. Brain fried a long time ago; his emotional responses were complex at the best of times.

A woman, with a flat nose and cracked lips, stirred. “Man,” she said. “That’s bad.”

“Real bad,” the other drawled, raising her head, turning over, in preparation to flash-fry her back.

Expecting a shedload of questions, I waited for Zach to fill in the gathering silence. But Zach wasn’t like other people. Hands cupping his elbows, he stood mute, blinking rapidly from the sun or distress, or both.

Unsolicited, I gave him a précis of what Dad told me. “I want you to come home,” I said.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m all right.”

“You’re all right?” I was accustomed to my brother wittering on about his guilt, bad vibes and not wishing to further upset ‘the folks’, but what had started out as distance and separation, over the years had taken on the shape of a feud, the reason for its existence long forgotten by both parties. In the present tragic circumstances, it was pointless, ridiculous and a waste of energy, which is what I told him.

“I didn’t mean it the way you twisted it,” Zach said petulantly.

“They need you, Zach. Hell, I need you.” Why couldn’t he see it the way I saw it?

“Aw Molly, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what? Jesus, Zach, this isn’t about you.”

“I never said it was.”

“Fuck’s sake, don’t you care?”

“Of course, I fucking care. She was my sister too. And it’s horrible what’s happened.”

“Well, then.”

“Transport’s a problem. I’m not exactly on the doorstep.”

“I can take and drop you back. It wouldn’t need to be for long.” I was pleading with him.

“I have to be here.” He tilted his chin in the direction of the nearest hedge, bullish, as if he had urgent business on the other side of the privet.

“For what exactly?”

“Don’t you get it? They won’t want me around. Especially now.” His hands flew to his head, like he’d been caught in an explosion and was trying to protect himself.

I knew my brother and he was hiding something, all right. And Zach’s initial question, about what Scarlet had done, had given them both away. A victim in a tragic accident, Scarlet was dead. Nothing could change that fact. But my brother and sister had shared a secret. And I had to find out what it was.

Chapter 6

“When did you last see Scarlet?” We sat in the shade with homemade lemonade. The citrus tang hit the back of my throat like a blade.

Zach scratched his belly. “Last year, maybe.”

“That long ago?”

“Christmas,” he said emphatically.

“Not around her birthday?” Four months previously.

Zach tweaked his moustache, shook his head, dreads swinging. “She was going to come over at Easter but there was a change to her rota.”

“Speak to her much on the phone?” I sounded like a Grand Inquisitor, but Zach had always been an impressive liar – rather came with the drug-ridden territory. Directness reduced his wriggle room.

“Now and then. Seemed okay.”

“She didn’t mention a disagreement?” I tried to sound casual. The root cause of my row with Scarlet was not about money, although to an outsider it might look that way, but about favouritism and the way she, according to me, sucked up to our parents. If Scarlet had confided in Zach, he’d probably pass it off as a scrap between sisters. Cash, or the lack of it, had never featured heavily in Zach’s life, because he was so adept at sponging off others.

Zach’s brow furrowed. “Who with?”

“Doesn’t matter. According to Dad, there’s going to be an inquest,” I said, not so skilfully deflecting.

Zach nodded thoughtfully. “How is he?”

I hiked an eyebrow. “Apart from being devastated?”

Colour spread across Zach’s high cheekbones, shame and anger in his expression, most of it aimed at me. “I meant in general. No matter,” he said. Waspish.

“He’s doing his best to look after Mum.” I kept my voice soft and conciliatory.

“God, yeah, how is she?”

“Taking it very hard.”

Zach nodded, met my eye. Unlike me, he said it how it was. “Scarlet was always her favourite.”

“Which is why it’s important we rally round. It’s what Scarlet would have wanted.”

His answer to my lousy suggestion was to take a gulp of lemonade and top up his glass. “What happens next?”

“Post-mortem.”

Zach visibly shivered, the hairs on his arms standing proud. There was an irony that Scarlet had danced with death every day in her professional life as a nurse, and would probably be matter of fact about lying on a slab and being pored over by a stranger, but the thought completely did me in.

“Dad wants to visit the scene to lay flowers,” I said.

Zach gave a silent respectful nod. I could see that me trying to draw him out wasn’t going to cut through or penetrate his lassitude.

“Zach, what did you mean earlier when you asked me what Scarlet had done?”

He let out a laugh, dry and arid. “Jesus, Molly, you’re like a dog with a bone.”

“Well, it was a peculiar—”

“Nothing. I meant nothing.”

Odds on, from my set expression, Zach recognised my bullshit detector had flicked on. I might not have a degree, but I had an honorary in truth finding. I was like my dad in this regard.

We fell silent. I couldn’t take any of it in. Not Scarlet. Not the surreal conversation I was having with my big brother.

Zach drummed his fingers on the table, searching around for something to say. When he spoke next, he was quick to change the subject and asked about business. He had as much interest in my shop as he had in earning a living. I read it as his cue for establishing that my time with him was up and gave a bland reply. Zach reciprocated with one of his own.

“Saw Chancer last week.”

Chancer or Tristram Chancellor was Zach’s oldest friend. They’d been at school together. Unlike the rest of Zach’s mates, Chancer had stayed in touch, I suspected to keep a benevolent eye on my brother to ensure that he stayed on the straight and narrow. Weird really because Chancer was the opposite of my brother in every respect: successful, moneyed and happily married. The thought made me curdle inside. Long ago, I’d been smart enough to recognise that Chancer was way out of my league.

“He and Edie are having problems,” Zach continued.

As surprised as I was, I couldn’t give a damn. Exasperated, frustrated, I wished I could grab my brother and shake a normal emotional response out of him.

“Think the marriage is on the rocks, to be honest,” Zach said. “Needy Edie certainly seems to think so.”

“Don’t be horrible.” Edie was Chancer’s wife. She wasn’t simply in Chancer’s league; she sat astride it. The daughter of a wealthy investment banker, she came from a stocks and shares, Ascot, Wimbo and a jet-setting lifestyle. “What about the kids?”

Zach pulled a face and shrugged. I drained my glass and stood up.

Zach stood too. I read everything in his expression: Off the hook. She’s going. Thank Christ.

I could have asked him to reconsider his decision, to change his mind and come back with me right now, this minute, but knew it would only make us both angry. I had to face it. Even an event as momentous and monstrous as the sudden death of our sister was not going to drag Zach home, or turn him into the prodigal son.

He slung an arm around my shoulder, clumsily drew me close and kissed the top of my head and walked me to the van. “Give my love to Mum and Dad.”

I gave it one last shot. “Think about coming home, Zach.”

He looked down, scuffed the dry ground with a bare heel, kicking up dust. Not a chance in hell, I thought, climbing into the Transit and bumping back along the drive.

Chapter 7

Dispirited, I turned onto the main road and, after a few miles, pulled over into a lay-by from where I called Nate. My brother-in-law and me had always got on.

“Nate, I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing you can say. I can’t believe it. I mean what the fuck? Straight road. Glorious day.” There was a long pause. “Jesus,” he said with a hollow laugh that battered the metal walls of the van, “me an atheist and I actually prayed and pleaded for her to pull through.”

“I’m so terribly sorry.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. When he did his voice was all twisted up. “But Molly, how are you doing?”

To be fair, I didn’t have the words to adequately and accurately answer his question. Most of me was in denial. I mumbled clichés about expecting this kind of thing to happen to other people. “Is there anything I can do for you, Nate, anything at all?”

“Be good to see you.”

“What about your parents? I don’t want to tread on anyone’s toes.”

“They’ll go home. Mum, well, you know, her intentions are good, but what with the police updating me every five seconds, I need time to think and process and—” Nate broke off. At first, I thought he was crying, then realised that something was up. “Actually, I really need to talk. In confidence.”

“How about I drive over after I’ve finished up here? About sixish?”

“That would be good. I’ll see you then.”

I strained every sinew to focus on the road. What did Nate want to tell me in confidence? Was he going to reveal how upset Scarlet had seemed a few days ago? Was he going to ask me why? A fresh wave of shame flamed my cheeks.

I reached Lenny a little over an hour later. Single-handedly, she’d shifted all the furniture from upstairs. Stacked. Packed. Ready to roll. Red-faced and done in, she stood with her back to the wall.

As I slid down from the van, she walked towards me, solemn faced, with open arms. “Your dad phoned. I’m so sorry, hon.”

Solid, dependable, anarchic Lenny enveloped me in a sweaty embrace. A tight dry sob I’d bottled for hours escaped from the back of my throat.

I clung on, loss excavating a hole through my heart. I’d never dealt with this kind of news before. Scarlet gone. Scarlet dead. A moment longer and I’d start bawling and never stop. To head it off, I said, all business, “Could you run me home, then bring the van back to load up and take it to Flotsam?” This was my shop in Malvern Link. “I’ll pay you extra, of course.”

“No way,” she said, as we clambered into the van. “And don’t worry about the shop this week. I can handle it.”

A day ago, it would be unthinkable for me to consider relinquishing control. Now it didn’t matter.

I stared out of the window, remembering me and my big sister at my first pop concert; both of us poring over wedding dresses; a pub lunch when I’d shaken the ketchup and the top hadn’t been screwed on properly and sauce flew all over Mum and we’d cackled with laughter until we were nearly sick. Happy days. Light days. Would I ever feel that carefree again? As stuffy and hot as the day was, I suddenly felt as cold as winter. Lost, I could make no sense of anything.

We pulled up outside my house. “Any particular jobs that need to be done this week?” Lenny said.

I shrugged my shoulders. I still had Mr Noble to contact, I vaguely remembered. He’d have to wait. I had one concern only and it wasn’t to clear my conscience. I needed to understand what the hell happened on that road this morning.