The next thing I am aware of is the scurrying of people around me. Nurses. The first with soothing, but firm, words telling me to calm down; everything will be all right. A second one with sterner words telling me not to struggle. That I am pulling out the drip. That I will hurt myself. And there is Luke’s voice too. Strong yet gentle.
‘Hey, hey, Babe,’ he is saying, using the pet name I haven’t heard him say recently. His tone is like the one he uses with the girls when they are upset, when Chloe has fallen over and cut her knee or like the time when Hannah discovered the tooth fairy wasn’t real. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything is going to be okay. I promise you.’
I want to believe him. I really do, but how can I when I am responsible for such a terrible crime? My body heaves and another sob erupts.
The last thing I remember is the cool sensation of liquid oozing into the back of my hand, smarting as it travels up my arm. I feel my body relax and then everything around me fades away as my mind drifts back to where this nightmare began.
Chapter 2
Six weeks earlier …
For a moment I think I don’t have to get up for work. It feels as if it should be a lazy, summery Sunday. The late September sun is still clinging onto warmer days and a small refreshing breeze billows the gauze curtain every now and then. I always like sleeping with the window open; it gives me a sense of being free.
But as I rouse further into the conscious world, the heavy weight of reality wraps itself around me. I’m anything but free. Particularly this time of year, as we move closer each day to my sister’s birthday.
I roll over and cuddle up against a still-sleeping Luke, seeking comfort from just the touch of another human. I check my watch and groan as I realise it’s a Monday. I stretch my arm back and switch off the alarm. I don’t know why I bothered setting it. I haven’t needed it these past few days as sleep has not been a good friend to me.
I think of Mum and how, now we are in the month of September, she looks a little longer at the calendar each day, silently marking time, anxiety levels rising as we stumble towards the twenty-eighth, just another forty-eight hours away. I should be used to this pattern by now. Twenty years on, it’s been practically a lifetime for me and yet I never quite anticipate the level of emotion this date evokes. It’s almost that, as I’ve grown older, the absence of my sister has grown bigger, more profound, hurting harder, cutting deeper. I feel my mother’s pain and my own.
So many times over the years I’ve wished Alice was here, and not just because of my mother’s own heartbreak but, selfishly, because I have always yearned for the black cloud hanging above us to disappear. As a child, I didn’t want to be known as the sister of the girl whose dad took her off to America and never came back or the daughter of the heartbroken mother. I wanted to be Clare Kennedy. I just wanted us to be normal.
I still do.
There’s half an hour before I have to begin the military operation of getting the girls moving for school and nursery. I snuggle a little closer to Luke. Sometimes, it’s as if he can absorb my sadness and anxiety, soaking it up so my feelings can move freely; no longer repressed.
I feel Luke stir and I tighten my arm across him, hugging him gently. After eight years of marriage and two children, we have never grown bored of each other. Luke rolls over and kisses me.
‘Morning, Babe,’ he says, without opening his eyes, then rolls back over. ‘Night, Babe.’
‘Hey, fella, you’re not getting away with that,’ I whisper in his ear as I run my hand down his body and pull him back towards me.
Luke opens one eye and looks at the clock. ‘Jesus, Clare, it’s only five-fucking-thirty.’
‘Never mind all that …’ I kiss away his protests.
I feel his mouth curve into a smile and he opens his other eye. ‘Now, that is cheating.’
He rolls over and swamps me in his arms and for a while I allow myself to forget the challenges of real life.
‘And how are we all this morning?’ says Mum coming into the kitchen as Luke and I are hurtling around getting breakfast ready and taking it in turns to direct the girls on what needs doing next. Okay, Hannah is rather more capable at seven years old and only needs encouraging, Chloe, however, at just three, needs the more hands-on approach.
We live with my mother, Marion, in the house I grew up in. Initially, we had moved in with her when Luke was a struggling artist and I had just taken my first appointment in chambers straight out of uni. Some would say that Luke still carries the struggling artist hashtag. By that, I actually mean my mother. Although, in her defence, she is very tolerant.
Since then the girls have come along and we have expanded to five of us in one house. Just as well The Old Vicarage, in which we live, is large enough to give Mum a separate living room to us and Luke his own studio in the annexe of the house.
‘Seems silly me rattling around in this big house on my own and the house prices around Brighton are ridiculous,’ Mum had said. ‘Besides, I’d like the company. I’ll be close to the girls as they grow up and you two would have a built-in baby sitter.’
And she was right. All these points made perfect sense and were very pragmatic, but we both knew the real reason why I could never move.
Not after what happened.
And, in truth, I wasn’t sure I could, even if my heart wanted to go along with Luke’s preferred choice of buying a place of our own, to make memories of our own, my conscience wouldn’t allow me. I couldn’t leave Mum all alone.
‘You can’t keep yourself hostage to something that happened in your childhood,’ Luke had said one night as we lay in bed, his last-bid attempt to change my mind.
The truth was, though, I could, and I had always known it would be like this. The only way it would change would be if Alice came home.
‘Come on, Chloe,’ I say, picking her up from the play mat. ‘Let’s get you to the table. Morning, Mum.’ I sit Chloe on the booster seat and push her closer to the table. I take the bowl of Weetabix Luke hands me. He is whistling as he makes a pot of tea.
‘Someone’s happy this morning,’ says Mum, helping herself to a slice of toast. The smile might be there, but the flat tone of her voice is a betrayal.
Luke and I exchange a look across the kitchen.
‘It’s a beautiful morning, the sun is shining and I have my lovely family around me. You included,’ Luke says enthusiastically. He gives Mum his best cheery smile in an effort lift her mood. Mum looks away, her eyes automatically seeking out the calendar on the wall and coming to rest on the date two days ahead.
‘I need to go into town today,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to pick something up from the jewellers.’
We all know, without Mum having to spell it out, that it will be Alice’s birthday present. Never a birthday nor a Christmas has gone by without Mum buying a gift for when Alice comes home. Never if, always when.
‘I’ll give you a lift in, if you like,’ says Luke. ‘We can drop Chloe at nursery and go on straight from there.’
‘Oh, would you? That would be kind,’ says Mum. This time her smile is warmer.
I like that Luke and Mum have a good relationship. It makes living together so much easier. Most families we know sit down in the evening for their quality time. In the Tennison household, breakfast is our family meal. I quite often don’t get home from work until early evening and it’s too late for the girls to eat. I appreciate it isn’t Luke’s ideal arrangement, but he always makes an effort for us all.