Sister: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

pleated skirt and middle-class outrage.

    The police station doors swung shut behind me. The dark, ice-hardened air slapped my face. Headlights and streetlights were disorientating, the crowded pavement intimidating. For a moment, amongst the crowd, I saw you. I’ve since found out it’s common for people separated from someone they love to keep seeing that loved one amongst strangers; something to do with recognition units in our brain being too heated and too easily triggered. This cruel trick of the mind lasted only a few moments, but was long enough to feel with physical force how much I needed you.

    I parked by the top of the steps to your flat. Alongside its tall pristine neighbours your building looked a poor relative that hadn’t been able to afford a new coat of white paint for years. Carrying the case of your clothes, I went down the steep icy steps to the basement. An orange street lamp gave barely enough light to see by. How did you manage not to break an ankle in the last three years?
    I pressed your doorbell, my fingers numb with cold. For a few seconds I actually hoped that you might answer. Then I started looking under your flowerpots. I knew you hid your front door key under one of the pots and had told me the name of the occupying plant, but I couldn’t remember it. You and Mum have always been the gardeners. Besides I was too focused on lecturing you on your lack of security. How could anyone leave their front door key under a flowerpot right by their door ? And in London. It was ridiculously irresponsible . Just inviting burglars right on in .
    ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked a voice above me. I looked up to see your landlord. The last time I’d seen him he was a storybook grandpa - stick a white beard on him and he’d be a regular Father Christmas. Now, his mouth was drawn into a hard scowl, he was unshaven, his eyes glared with the ferocity of a younger man.
    ‘I’m Beatrice Hemming, Tess’s sister. We met once before.’
    His mouth softened, his eyes become old. ‘Amias Thornton. I’m sorry. Memory not what it was.’
    He carefully came down the slippery basement steps. ‘Tess stopped hiding her spare key under the pink cyclamen. Gave it to me.’ He unzipped the coin compartment of his wallet and took out a key. You had completely ignored my lecture in the past, so what had made you suddenly so security conscious?
    ‘I let the police in two days ago,’ continued Amias. ‘So they could look for some clue. Is there any news?’ He was near to tears.
    ‘I’m afraid not, no.’
    My mobile phone rang. Both of us started, I answered it hurriedly. He watched me, so hopeful.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Hi, darling.’ Todd’s voice.
    I shook my head at Amias.
    ‘No one’s seen her and she’s been getting weird calls,’ I said, startled by the judder in my own voice. ‘There’s going to be a police reconstruction on TV this evening. I had to pretend to be her.’
    ‘But you look nothing like her,’ Todd replied. I found his pragmatism comforting. He was more interested in the casting decision than the film itself. He obviously thought the reconstruction an absurd overreaction.
    ‘I can look like her. Kind of.’
    Amias was carefully going back up the steps towards his own front door.
    ‘Is there a letter from her? The police say she bought airmail stamps just before she went missing.’
    ‘No, there was nothing in the mail.’
    But a letter might not have had time to reach New York.
    ‘Can I call you back? I want to keep this phone free in case she tries to ring.’
    ‘OK, if that’s what you’d prefer.’ He sounded annoyed and I was glad you still irritated him. He clearly thought you’d turn up safe and sound and he’d be first in line to lecture you.
    I unlocked the door to your flat and went in. I’d only been to your flat, what, two or three times before, and I’d never actually stayed. We were all relieved, I think, that there wasn’t room for Todd and me so the