Kitabı oku: «The Sea Sisters: Gripping - a twist filled thriller»

1
KATIE

London, March

Katie had been dreaming of the sea. Dark, restless water and sinuous currents drained away as she pushed herself upright on the heels of her hands. Somewhere in the flat her phone was ringing. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes. The bedside clock read 2.14 a.m.

Mia, she thought immediately, stiffening. Her sister would get the time difference wrong.

She pushed back the covers and slipped out of bed, her nightdress twisted around her waist. The air was frigid and the floorboards were like ice against the soles of her feet. She shivered as she moved through the room, her fingers spread in front of her like sensors. Reaching the door, she groped for the handle. The hinges whined as she pulled it open.

The ringing grew louder as she picked her way along the darkened hall. There was something troubling about the sound in the quiet, sleep-coated hours of the night. What time would it be in Australia? Midday, perhaps?

Her stomach stirred uneasily remembering yesterday’s terrible fight. Words had been sharpened to injure and their mother’s name had been flung down the phone line like a grenade. Afterwards, Katie was so knotted with guilt that she left work an hour early, unable to concentrate. At least now they’d have a chance to talk again and she could tell Mia how sorry she was.

She was only two steps from the phone when she realized it was no longer ringing. She hovered for a moment, a hand pressed to her forehead. Had Mia rung off? Had she dreamt it?

Then the noise came again. Not the phone after all, but the insistent buzz of the flat intercom.

She sighed, knowing it would be late-night visitors for the traders who lived upstairs. She leant towards the intercom, holding a finger to the Talk button. ‘Hello?’

‘This is the police.’

She froze, sleep burning off like sea mist on a sunny day.

‘We’d like to speak to Miss Katie Greene.’

Her pulse ticked in her throat. ‘That’s me.’

‘May we come up?’

She released the front door, thinking, What? What’s happened? She switched on the light, blinking as the hall was suddenly illuminated. Looking away from the glare she saw her bare feet, toenails polished pink, and the creased trim of her silk nightdress against her pale thighs. She wanted to fetch a dressing gown, but already the heavy tread of feet sounded up the stairway.

She opened the door and two uniformed police officers stepped into her hall.

‘Miss Katie Greene?’ asked a female officer. She had greying blonde hair and high colour in her cheeks. She stood beside a male officer young enough to be her son, who kept his gaze on the ground.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you alone?’

She nodded.

‘Are you the sister of Mia Greene?’

Her hands flew to her mouth. ‘Yes…’

‘We are very sorry to tell you that the police in Bali have informed us –’

Oh God, she began to say to herself. Oh God…

‘– that Mia Greene has been found dead. She was discovered at the bottom of a cliff in Umanuk. The police believe she fell—’

‘No! NO!’ She spun away from them, bile stinging the back of her throat. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.

‘Miss Greene?’

She wouldn’t turn. Her gaze found the noticeboard in the hallway where invites, a calendar, and the business card of a caterer were neatly pinned. At the top was a map of the world. The week before Mia left to go travelling, Katie had asked her to plot her route on it. Mia’s mouth had curled into a smile at that, yet she indulged Katie’s need for schedules and itineraries by marking a loose route that began on the west coast of America and took in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Vietnam and Cambodia – an endless summer of trailing coastlines. Katie had been tracking the route from Mia’s infrequent bursts of communication, and now the silver drawing pin was stuck in Western Australia.

Staring at the map, she knew something wasn’t right. She turned back to the police. ‘Where was she found?’

‘In Umanuk,’ the female officer repeated. ‘It’s in the southern tip of Bali.’

Bali. Bali wasn’t on Mia’s route. This was a mistake! She wanted to laugh – let the relief explode from her chest. ‘Mia isn’t in Bali. She’s in Australia!’

She caught the exchange of glances between the officers. The woman stepped forwards; she had light blue eyes and wore no make-up. ‘I’m afraid Mia’s passport was stamped in Bali four weeks ago.’ Her voice was gentle, but contained a certainty that chilled Katie. ‘Miss Greene, would you like to sit down?’

Mia couldn’t be dead. She was twenty-four. Her little sister. It was inconceivable. Her thoughts swam. She could hear the cistern downstairs humming. A television was playing somewhere. Outside, a late-night reveller was singing. Singing!

‘What about Finn?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Finn?’

‘Finn Tyler. They were travelling together.’

The female officer opened up her notebook and spent a moment glancing through it. She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any information about him currently. I’m sure the Balinese police will have been in contact with him though.’

‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Katie whispered. ‘Can you … I … I need to know everything. Tell me everything.’

The police officer described the exact time and location at which Mia had been found. She told her that medical assistance had arrived swiftly on the scene, but that Mia was pronounced dead on their arrival. She explained that her body was being held at the Sanglah morgue in Bali. She confirmed that there would be further investigations, but that so far the Balinese police believed it was a tragic accident.

All the while Katie stood completely still.

‘Is there someone you would like us to contact on your behalf?’

She thought instantly of their mother. She allowed herself a moment to imagine the comfort of being held in her arms, the soft cashmere of her mother’s jumper against her cheek. ‘No,’ she told the officer eventually. ‘I’d like you to leave now. Please.’

‘Of course. Someone from the Foreign Office will be in touch tomorrow with an update from the Balinese police. I’d also like to visit you again. I’ve been assigned as your Family Liaison Officer and will be here to answer any questions you have.’ The woman took a card from her pocket and placed it beside the phone.

Both officers told Katie how sorry they were, and then left.

As the door clicked shut, the strength in Katie’s legs dissipated and she sank onto the cold wooden floor. She didn’t cry. She hugged her knees to her chest to contain the trembling that had seized her. Why had Mia been in Bali? Katie didn’t know anything about the place. There was a bombing outside a nightclub some years ago, but what else? Clearly there were cliffs, but the only ones she could picture were the grass-covered cliffs of Cornwall that Mia had bounded along as a child, dark hair flying behind her.

She tried to imagine how Mia could have fallen. Was she standing on an overhang and the earth crumbled? Did a sudden gust of wind unbalance her? Was she sitting on the edge and became distracted? It seemed absurdly careless to fall from a cliff. The facts Katie had been given were so few that she couldn’t arrange them into any sort of sense. She knew she should call someone. Ed. She would speak to Ed.

It was her third attempt before she managed to dial correctly. She heard the rustle of a duvet, a mumbled, ‘Hello?’ and then silence as he listened. When he spoke again, his voice was level, telling her only, ‘I’m on my way.’

It must have taken no less than ten minutes for him to drive from his apartment in Fulham to hers in Putney, but looking back she wouldn’t remember any of that time. She was still sitting on the hallway floor, her skin like goose flesh, when the intercom buzzed. She stood groggily. The floorboards had marked the backs of her thighs with red slash-like indentations. She pressed the button to let him in.

Katie heard the thundering of his feet as he took the steps two at a time, and then Ed was at her door. She opened it and he stepped forward, folding her into his arms. ‘My darling!’ he said. ‘My poor darling!’

She pressed her face into the stiff wool of his jacket, which scratched against her cold cheek. She smelt deodorant. Had he sprayed himself with deodorant before coming over?

‘You’re freezing. We can’t stand here.’ He led her into the lounge and she perched on the edge of the cream leather sofa. It’s like sitting on vanilla ice cream, Mia had said the morning it was delivered.

Ed removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, rubbing her back with smooth circular strokes. Then he went into the kitchen and she heard him open the boiler cupboard and flick on the central heating, which rumbled and strained into life. There was the gush of a tap as he filled the kettle, followed by the opening and closing of drawers, cupboards and the fridge.

He returned with a cup of tea, but her hands didn’t move to take it. ‘Katie,’ he said, crouching down so they were eye level. ‘You are in shock. Try and drink a little. It will help.’

He lifted the tea to her lips and she sipped it obediently. She could taste the sweet milky flavour on her tongue and the urge to retch was immediate. She lurched past him to the bathroom with a hand clamped to her mouth. The jacket slipped from her shoulders and fell to the floor with a soft thump.

Bending over the sink, she gagged. Saliva hit the white ceramic basin.

Ed was behind her. ‘Sorry…’

Katie rinsed her hands and splashed water over her face.

‘Darling,’ he said, passing her a blue hand towel. ‘What happened?’

She buried her face in it and shook her head. He gently peeled the towel away, then unhooked her dressing gown from the back of the bathroom door and guided her arms into the soft cotton. He took her hands in his and rubbed them. ‘Talk to me.’

She repeated the details learnt from the police. Her voice sounded jagged and she imagined that if she were to glance up at the bathroom mirror, her skin would be leached of colour, her eyes glassy.

As they moved back to the lounge, Ed asked the same question to which she wanted the answer: ‘Why was your sister in Bali?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Have you spoken to Finn?’

‘Not yet. I should call him.’

Her hands shook as she dialled Finn’s mobile. She pressed the phone to her ear and listened as it rang and rang. ‘He’s not answering.’

‘What about his family? Do you know their number?’

Katie searched in her address book and found it, the Cornish dialling code stirring a faint memory that she wasn’t ready to grasp.

Finn was the youngest of four brothers. His mother, Sue, a curt woman who was often harassed, answered, sounding half asleep. ‘Who is this?’

‘Katie Greene.’

‘Who?’

‘Katie Greene.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Mia’s sister.’

‘Mia?’ Sue repeated. Then immediately: ‘Finn?’

‘There’s been an accident—’

‘Finn—’

‘No. It’s Mia.’ Katie paused and looked at Ed. He nodded for her to go on. ‘The police have been here. They told me that Mia was in Bali … on a cliff somewhere. She fell. They’re saying she’s dead.’

‘No…’

In the background she could hear Finn’s father, a placid man in his sixties who worked for the Forestry Commission. There was a brief volley of exclamations muffled by a hand over the receiver, and then Sue returned to the line. ‘Does Finn know?’

‘I’d imagine so. But he’s not answering his mobile.’

‘He lost it a few weeks ago. Hasn’t replaced it yet. We’ve been using email. I’ve got his address if you want—’

‘Why were they in Bali?’ Katie interrupted.

‘Bali? Finn wasn’t.’

‘But that’s where they said Mia was found. Her passport was stamped—’

‘Mia went to Bali. Not Finn.’

‘What?’ Katie said, her grip tightening.

‘There was an argument. Sorry, I thought you knew.’

‘When was this?’

‘Good month ago, now. Finn spoke to Jack about it. From what I heard they had a falling-out – God knows what about – and Mia changed her ticket.’

Katie’s thoughts whirled. Mia and Finn’s friendship was unshakable. She pictured them as children, Finn with a wig of glistening seaweed draped over his head, Mia bent double with laughter. Theirs was a friendship that was so rare, so solid, that she couldn’t imagine what would be terrible enough to cause them to separate.

*

Ten days later, winter sun flooded Katie’s bedroom. She lay perfectly still, her arms at her sides, eyes shut, bracing herself against a distant threat she couldn’t quite recall. She blinked and, before she had a chance to recall why her eyelids felt stiff and salted, grief bowled into her.

Mia.

She curled into herself, tucking her knees to her chest and pressing tight fists to her mouth. She screwed her eyes shut, but disturbing images bled into her thoughts: Mia dropping silently through the air like a stone, the rush of wind lifting her dark hair away from her face, a rasped scream, the crack of her skull against granite.

She reached for Ed but her fingers met only with the empty curve of where he’d slept. She listened for him and, after a moment, was relieved to tune into the light tapping of a keyboard coming from the lounge: he would be emailing his office. She envied him that – the ability for his world to continue, when hers had stopped.

She knew she must get to the shower. It would be too easy to remain cocooned in the duvet as she had done yesterday, not rising until after lunch by which time she was drowsy and disorientated. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself from beneath the covers.

Drifting towards the bathroom, she passed Mia’s room and found herself pausing vaguely outside the door. They had bought this flat using the small inheritance they received after their mother’s death. Everyone was surprised that they were moving in together, not least Katie, who had vowed she’d never live with Mia again after their acrimonious teenage years, yet she’d worried that if Mia didn’t put her share of the inheritance into something solid, it would slip through her fingers as easily as water. Katie had been the one to organize viewings, deal with estate agents and solicitors, and run through the rain with a broken umbrella to sign the mortgage papers on time.

Wrapping her fingers lightly around the brass door handle, she turned it. A faint trace of jasmine lingered in the cold, stale air. Mia had positioned her bed beneath the tall sash window so she could wake and see sky. A sheepskin coat, which once belonged to their mother, was draped over the foot of the bed. It was an original from the Seventies with a wide, unstructured collar, and she remembered Mia wrapping herself in it all winter like a lost flower-child.

Beside the bed a pine desk was heaving with junk: an old stereo, unplugged and dusty; three cardboard boxes bulging with CDs; a pair of hiking boots with their laces missing; a mound of paperbacks, well thumbed, beside two pots of pens. The bedroom walls were bare of the photos and paintings that had adorned Mia’s previous rooms and she’d made no attempt to decorate; in fact, it was as if she had never intended the move to be permanent.

Katie was the one who’d persuaded her sister to move to London, using words like ‘opportunity’ and ‘career’, when those words had never belonged to Mia. Mia spent her days wandering the parks, or drifting in one of the rent-a-rowing-boats in Battersea Park, as if dreaming she were somewhere else. She’d had five jobs in as many months because she would suddenly decide to get out of the city to go hiking or camping, and take off, just leaving a note pushed under Katie’s door and a message on her employer’s answerphone. Katie tried searching out job opportunities using her recruitment contacts, but fixing Mia to something was like pinning a ribbon to the wind.

Noticing a pair of mud-flecked running shoes, she remembered the evening Mia announced she was going travelling. Katie had been in the kitchen preparing a risotto, slicing onions with deft, clean strokes. She tossed them into a pan as Mia wandered in, a pair of white earphones dangling over the neckline of her T-shirt, to fill her water bottle at the tap.

‘Going running?’ Katie had asked, blotting her streaming eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan.

‘Yeah.’

‘How’s the hangover?’ When she’d gone to shower before work, Katie had found Mia asleep on the bathroom floor wearing a dress of hers borrowed without asking.

‘Fine,’ she replied, keeping her back to Katie. She turned off the tap and wiped her wet hands on her T-shirt, leaving silver beads of moisture.

‘What happened to your ankle?’

Mia glanced down at the angry red cut that stretched an inch above her sock line. ‘Smashed a glass at work.’

‘Does it need a plaster? I’ve got some in my room.’

‘It’s fine.’

Katie nodded, tossing the onions with a wooden spoon, watching their sharp whiteness soften and become translucent. She turned up the heat.

Mia lingered by the sink for a moment. Eventually she said, ‘I spoke to Finn earlier.’

Katie glanced up; his name was so rarely spoken between them.

‘We’ve decided to go travelling.’

The onions started to sizzle, but Katie was no longer stirring. ‘You’re going travelling?’

‘Yeah.’

‘For how long?’

Mia shrugged. ‘A while. A year, maybe.’

‘A year!’

‘Our tickets are open.’

‘You’ve already booked?’

Mia nodded.

‘When did you decide this?’

‘Today.’

‘Today?’ Katie repeated, incredulous. ‘You haven’t thought it through!’

Mia raised an eyebrow: ‘Haven’t I?’

‘I didn’t think you had any money.’

‘I’ll manage.’

The oil began to crackle and spit. ‘And what, Finn’s just taking a sabbatical? I’m sure the radio station will be thrilled.’

‘He’s handed in his notice.’

‘But he loved that job…’

‘Is that right?’ Mia said, looking directly at her. The air in the kitchen seemed to contract.

Then Mia picked up her water bottle, pushed her earphones in, and left. The pan started to smoke so Katie snapped off the hob. She felt a hot flash of anger and took three strides across the kitchen to follow but then, as she heard the tread of Mia’s trainers along the hallway, the turning of the latch, and finally the slam of the door, Katie realized that what she felt most acutely was not anger or even hurt, it was relief. Mia was no longer her responsibility: she was Finn’s.

*

It was mid-afternoon when the phone rang. Ed glanced up from his laptop; Katie shook her head. She had refused to speak to anyone, allowing the answerphone to record friends’ messages of condolence that were punctuated with awkward apologies and strained pauses.

The machine clicked on. ‘Hello. It’s Mr Spire here from the Foreign Office in London.’

A nerve in her eyelid flickered. It was Ed who reached for the phone just before the message ended. ‘This is Katie’s fiancé.’ He looked across to her and said, ‘Yes, she’s with me now.’ He nodded at her to take the phone.

She held it at arm’s length, as if it were a gun she was being asked to put to her head. Mr Spire had called twice since Mia’s death, first to request permission for an autopsy to go ahead, and later to discuss the repatriation of Mia’s body. After a moment, Katie pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. Bringing the phone towards her mouth, she said slowly, ‘This is Katie.’

‘I hope this is a convenient time to talk?’

‘Yes, fine.’ The dry, musty warmth of the central heating caught at the back of her throat.

‘The British Consulate in Bali have been in touch. They have some further news concerning Mia’s death.’

She closed her eyes. ‘Go on.’

‘In cases such as Mia’s, a toxicology report is sometimes requested as part of the autopsy procedure. I have a copy of it in front of me, which I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Right.’

‘The results indicate that at the time of death, Mia was intoxicated. Her blood alcohol content was 0.13, which means she may have had impaired reflexes and reaction times.’ He paused. ‘And there’s something else.’

She moved into the lounge doorway and gripped the wooden frame, anchoring herself.

‘The Balinese police have interviewed two witnesses who claim to have seen Mia on the evening of her death.’ He hesitated and she sensed he was struggling with something. ‘Katie, I’m very sorry, but in their statement, they have said that Mia jumped.’

The ground pitched, her stomach dropped away. She hinged forward from the waist. Footsteps crossed the lounge and she felt Ed’s hand on her back. She pushed him away, straightening. ‘You think she …’ Her voice was strained like elastic set to snap. ‘You think it was suicide?’

‘I am afraid that based on witness statements and the autopsy, the cause of death has been established as suicide.’

Katie reached a hand to her forehead.

‘I understand this must be incredibly hard—’

‘The witnesses, who are they?’

‘I have copies of their statements.’ She heard the creak of a chair and pictured him leaning across a wide desk to reach them. ‘Yes, here. The witnesses are a 30-year-old couple who were honeymooning in Bali. In their statement, they say that they had taken an evening walk along the lower cliff path in Umanuk and paused at a lookout point – this was close to midnight. A young woman, matching Mia’s description, ran past them looking extremely anxious. The male witness asked if she needed help and Mia is said to have responded, “No.” She then disappeared along what used to be the upper cliff path, which has apparently been disused for several years. Between five and eight minutes later, the witnesses looked up and saw Mia standing very near the cliff’s edge. The report says that they were concerned for her safety, but before they were able to act, she jumped.’

‘My God.’ Katie began to tremble.

Mr Spire waited a moment before continuing. ‘The autopsy suggested that, from the injuries sustained, it is likely that Mia went over the cliff edge facing forwards, which collaborates with the witnesses’ reports.’ He continued to expand on further details, but Katie was no longer listening. Her mind had already drifted to the cliff top.

He’s wrong, Mia, isn’t he? You didn’t jump. I won’t believe it. What I said when you called – oh, God, please don’t let what I said …

‘Katie,’ he was saying. ‘The arrangements are in place to have Mia’s body repatriated to the UK a week on Wednesday.’ He required details of the funeral parlour she had selected, and then the call ended.

She felt shooting pains behind her eyes and pressed the arched bones beneath her eyebrows with her thumb and index finger. In the flat below the baby was wailing.

Ed turned her slowly to face him.

‘They are saying it was suicide,’ she said in a small, strained voice. ‘But it wasn’t.’

He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘You will get through this, Katie.’

But how could he know? She hadn’t told him about the terrible argument she’d had with Mia. She hadn’t told him of the hateful, shameful things she’d said. She hadn’t told him about the anger and hurt that had been festering between them for months. She hadn’t told Ed any of this because there are some currents in a relationship between sisters that are so dark and run so deep, it’s better for the people swimming on the surface never to know what’s beneath.

She turned from Ed and stole to her room where she lay on the bed with her eyes closed, trying to fix on something good between her and Mia. Her thoughts led her back to the last time she had seen her, as they hugged goodbye at the airport. She recalled the willowy feel of Mia’s body, the muscular ridges of her forearms and the press of her collarbone.

Katie would have held on for longer, treasured every detail, had she known it would be the last time she’d feel her sister in her arms.

2
MIA

London, October Last Year

Mia felt the soft cushion of her sister’s cheek pressed against hers as they held each other. She absorbed the curve of her chest, the slightness of her shoulders, the way Katie had to stand on the balls of her feet to reach.

Mia and Katie rarely hugged. There had been a time, as children, when they were entirely uninhibited with each other’s bodies – squeezing onto the same armchair with their hips pressed tight, plaiting thin sections of each other’s hair and securing bright beads at the ends, practising flying angels on the sun-warmed sand with their fingers interlaced. She couldn’t say at what point that physical closeness was lost to her. Katie remained warmly tactile; she welcomed people with a hug or kiss, and had an inclusive way of reaching out mid-story to place her hand on someone’s arm.

The last time they had embraced like this must have been on the morning of their mother’s funeral, a year ago. Dressed in black, they had exchanged forthright words on the narrow landing of their childhood home. Eventually it was Katie who had extended her arms when, in truth, the gesture should have been Mia’s. They had clasped each other and, in whispers broken with relief, a truce was made. But not maintained.

Now, as they held one another in the check-in area at Heathrow, Mia felt a tightening in her throat and the prick of tears beginning beneath her eyelids. She stiffened and let go. She wouldn’t look at Katie as she picked up her backpack and hoisted it over her shoulders, tugging her hair free from beneath it.

‘So this is it,’ Katie said.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Got everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘Passport? Tickets? Currency?’

‘Everything.’

‘And Finn’s meeting you shortly?’

‘Yes.’ Mia had arranged it so his and Katie’s paths wouldn’t have to cross. ‘Thanks for bringing me,’ she added, touched that Katie had taken the day off work to do so. ‘You didn’t have to.’

‘I wanted to say goodbye properly.’ Katie was dressed in a well-cut grey dress beneath a light caramel jacket. She slipped her hands into the wide pockets. ‘I feel like I’ve barely seen you recently.’

Her gaze slid to the floor; she’d been finding reasons to stay away.

‘Mia,’ she said, taking a small step forward. ‘I know it’s probably seemed like I’m not happy for you – about you travelling. It’s just hard. You leaving. That’s all.’

‘I know.’

Katie reached out and took her hands. Her sister’s fingers were warm and dry from her pockets and her own felt clammy within them. ‘I’m sorry if London hasn’t been right for you. I feel like I pushed you into it.’ Katie twisted Mia’s silver thumb ring between her fingers as she said, ‘I just thought, after Mum, it would be good for us to stay together. I know you’ve been having a tough time lately – and I’m sorry if you haven’t felt like you could come to me.’

An oily slick of guilt slid down the back of Mia’s throat: How could I come to you?

She thought back to the day she’d booked this trip. She had woken on their bathroom floor, her cheek pressed into the cool, tiled floor, which smelt of bleach. Her dress – a jade one of Katie’s – had twisted around her waist and her shoes had been abandoned, one beneath the sink, the other caught on the pedal of the bin.

Katie, wrapped in a soft blue towel, had been standing in the doorway. ‘Oh, Mia…’

Mia’s head had throbbed and the sour taste of spirits furred the back of her throat. She had pushed herself upright and a bolt of pain clenched at her temples. Snapshots of her evening flashed in her mind: the low-lit red booth, the empty whisky glasses, the grungy beat of an R&B track, the musky tang of sweat in the air, another round, a cheer of male voices, a familiar face, the irrepressible desire for risk. She remembered slinging her bag over her shoulder, tipping the final whisky down her throat, and then weaving along a darkened corridor. The memory of what happened next was so fresh and laced with so much shame, that she knew she had to leave. Leave London. Leave her sister.

A passenger announcement boomed over the tannoy bringing her back to the present.

Katie said, ‘I worry about you.’

Mia withdrew her hand, pretending to adjust her backpack straps. ‘I’ll be fine.’

They both turned as a middle-aged couple hurtled past, the man muttering, ‘Christ!’ as he pushed a luggage trolley behind his wife, who was struggling to run in heels, her painted fingernails gripping a bundle of documents. The man glanced across at Katie. Even when rushing for planes, even when their wives were at their sides, men couldn’t help but look. They were drawn to her like bees to a honey pot, or like flies to shit as Mia had once said in anger. It wasn’t just Katie’s petite figure or honey-blonde hair, it was a warm confidence that breathed through her pores, saying, I know who I am.

Katie didn’t notice the admiring glance as her attention had been caught by someone else. Finn came loping towards them wearing his daily uniform of T-shirt, jeans and Converse trainers. A tattered army-green backpack hung easily off one shoulder.

Katie took a slight step backwards, aligning herself with Mia, and fed her hands deep into her pockets.

Finn’s gaze moved slowly over them both. Then the corners of his mouth turned up in an easy, wide smile. ‘The Greene sisters!’ If there was any awkwardness on his part, he didn’t show it. ‘Coming with us, Katie?’

‘I’ll be living the trip vicariously from all the emails Mia will be sending.’

Mia smiled. ‘Hint duly noted.’

An airport vehicle towing a row of luggage trolleys beeped as it rolled towards them, causing the three of them to bunch together.

‘So how are things?’ Finn asked Katie. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Yes, it has. Everything is fine, thank you. Work’s busy. But good. And you? How are you?’

‘Feeling pretty pleased about having a year off.’

‘You both must be. It’s California first?’

‘Yes, for a few weeks of coast-side cruising, and then on to Australia.’

‘Sounds wonderful. I’m incredibly jealous.’

Is she? Mia wondered. Would she want this: wearing her life on her back and moving from place to place with no plans?

‘Right,’ Katie said, taking the car keys from her handbag. ‘I best get going.’ She glanced at Finn, her face turning serious. ‘You will look after her, won’t you?’

‘You know that’s like asking a goldfish to babysit a piranha.’

Her features softened a little. ‘Just bring her back safely.’

‘I promise.’ He leant forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Take care.’

She nodded quickly, pressing her lips together. ‘You’ll call?’ she said to Mia. ‘You’ve got your mobile?’

‘I’m not taking it.’ Then, seeing Katie’s expression, she added, ‘It’s too expensive abroad.’ But cost wasn’t the real reason: Mia didn’t want to be contactable.

‘I’ve got mine if you need us,’ Finn said. ‘You’ve got my number still?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

There was a brief silence between them all. Mia wondered what Katie would do with the rest of her day. Catch up with a friend over coffee? Go to the gym? Meet Ed for lunch? She realized she had no idea how her sister spent her time.

‘Can you let me know when you’ve arrived?’

‘Sure,’ Mia replied, with a shrug she hadn’t intended. She wanted to tell Katie that she loved her, or say how much she’d miss her, but somehow she couldn’t find the words. It had always been that way for her. Instead, she lifted a hand in wave, then turned and left with Finn.

*

Pressing her nose against the window, she watched London disappearing beneath the white wings of the plane. They rose through a layer of cloud and suddenly the view was swallowed. She sank back in her seat, her heart rate gradually slowing. She had left.

On her lap rested her travel journal. She’d bought it at Camden Market from a stall that sold weathervanes, maps and antique pocket watches. She’d been drawn to the sea-blue fabric that bound the cover and the thick cream pages that smelt like promises.

She opened it, clicked her pen against her collarbone, and wrote her first two lines.

People go travelling for two reasons: because they are searching for something, or because they are running from something. For me, it’s both.

She tucked the journal into the seat pocket alongside the laminated flight-safety procedures, and then closed her eyes.

*

As the plane descended over the Sierra Nevada range, Mia gazed at the clouds drifting below. They looked soft and inviting, and she imagined diving into them, being caught in their fleecy hold and floating with the air currents.

‘Not as comfy as they look,’ Finn said, as if reading her mind.

Finn Adam Tyler was her best friend and had been since they’d met aged 11 on the school bus. Four weeks ago she’d called him at work to tell him she was going travelling. She was sitting on the kitchen worktop, her heels dangling against the fridge door. When he answered, she said only, ‘I’ve got a plan.’

‘What do I need?’ he’d replied, a throwback to their teenage years when a plan, if conceived by one of them, had to be adhered to by the other.

She grinned. ‘Your passport, a resignation letter, a backpack and a typhoid jab.’

There was a pause. Then, ‘Mia, what have you done?’

‘Reserved two round-the-world tickets: America, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Vietnam and Cambodia. The flights leave in four weeks. You coming?’

There was silence. It had hung between them long enough for her to wonder whether her impulsiveness had been a mistake, whether he’d say of course he couldn’t just up and leave his job.

‘So this typhoid jab,’ he’d said eventually, ‘is it in the arm or the arse?’

She looked at Finn now: his knees were pushed against the seat in front, a newspaper spread on his lap. The mousey curls of the schoolboy she’d known had now been cut short and rough stubble shadowed his chin.

At the end of their row a voluptuous woman with dangling gold earrings unclipped her seat belt and stepped into the aisle. She moved towards the toilets, gripping the backs of headrests for balance. Mia turned to Finn. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘If it’s about that last meal, I swear, I thought you wouldn’t want to be disturbed.’

She smiled. ‘It’s something important.’

Finn folded the newspaper over and gave her his full attention.

A few rows in front the faint grizzling of a toddler started up.

Mia tucked her hands beneath her thighs. ‘This may sound odd,’ she began uncertainly, ‘but after I booked our tickets, I realized that there was another place I needed to visit on this trip.’ She should have talked to Finn about it sooner, only she was afraid to voice the idea in case she set in motion something she wasn’t ready for. Sometimes she wasn’t aware that an idea was brewing until it suddenly popped into her mind and she acted upon it. ‘I’ve booked us an extra stop.’

‘What?’

‘After San Francisco, we’ve got a flight to Maui.’

‘Maui?’ He looked blank. ‘Why?’

‘It’s where Mick lives.’

She waited a beat for him to place the name. It had been a long time since he’d heard it.

‘Your dad?’

She nodded.

The grizzling child had found its stride and a captive audience; the crying grew louder and something was tossed into the aisle.

Finn was staring at her. ‘You haven’t talked about him in years. You want to see him?’

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘Has he … have you been in contact?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Neither of us.’ Mick had left when she and Katie were young children, leaving their mother to bring up her two daughters alone.

‘I don’t understand. Why now?’

It was a fair question, but one she wasn’t sure how to answer just yet. She shrugged. Ahead, she heard a taut whisper from the toddler’s parent: ‘That. Is. Enough.’

Finn ran the knuckle of his thumb under his chin, a habitual gesture when something was worrying him. ‘What does Katie think?’

‘I haven’t told her.’

She could see Finn’s surprise and sensed he wanted to say more, but Mia turned to the window, ending the conversation.

She willed her thoughts to drift away with the clouds, knowing it wasn’t the only thing she was keeping from her sister.

3
KATIE

Cornwall/London, March

Katie sat pin straight on the church pew, her feet pressed together. Biting sea air crept through the cracks in the stained-glass windows and twisted beneath the heavy oak door. Her fingers were curled around a damp tissue, Ed’s hand resting on top. Eighteen months earlier had seen her seated in this same pew when they buried her mother, only then it had been Mia’s fingers linked through her own.

Her gaze was fixed on the coffin. Everything about it – the polished shine to the elm wood, the brass clasps keeping it sealed, the white lilies arranged on top – suddenly looked wrong. Why had she chosen to bury Mia beside their mother, when her sister had never once visited the grave? Wouldn’t cremation have been more suitable, her ashes dispersing on a breeze over a wild sea? Why don’t I know what you’d have wanted?

It would have been almost impossible to conceive that Mia was inside the coffin had Katie not decided, two days ago, that she needed to see the body. Ed had been cautious on her behalf. ‘Are you sure? We don’t know how she may look after the fall.’ That’s what people were referring to it as: the fall, as if Mia had no more than slipped in the shower, or toppled off a stool.

She wouldn’t be dissuaded. Seeing Mia’s body would be agony, but to not see it would leave her with the smallest fraction of doubt – and if she allowed that doubt to grow over time to hope, she’d be in danger of deluding herself.

When Katie had stepped behind the heavy purple drape in the funeral parlour, she could have fooled herself that Mia was merely sleeping. Her willowy figure, the sweep of dark hair, the curve of her lips, looked as they always had. Yet the proof of death lay in Mia’s skin. After months of travelling she would have been deeply tanned, but death had left behind its ghostly pallor so that her skin appeared a strange insipid shade, like milk spilt over a dark floor.

The funeral director had asked if Katie wished to choose an outfit for Mia to be buried in, but she had said no. It had seemed presumptuous to dress Mia, for whom fashion was something indefinable. She fell in love with clothes for their story, choosing a loose shift dress in a deep blue that reminded her of the sea, or picking a second-hand pair of heels because she liked to imagine the places they’d already walked.

On the night Mia died she had been wearing a pair of teal shorts. They had been arranged too high up her waist, not slung low over her hips as she would have worn them. Her feet were bare, a silver toe ring on each foot, her nails unpainted. On her top half she was wearing a cream vest over a turquoise string bikini. A delicate necklace strung with tiny white shells rested at her throat, a single pearl at its centre. She looked too casual for death.

Katie had reached out and placed her hand on Mia’s forearm. It felt cold and leaden beneath her fingertips. Slowly, she traced her fingers towards Mia’s inner elbow where thin blue veins criss-crossed, no longer carrying blood around her body. She drew her hand over the ridge of Mia’s bicep, across her shoulder and along the smooth skin at the nape of her neck. She brushed the faint scar on her temple, a silver crescent, and then her palm rested finally against Mia’s cheek. She knew the back of Mia’s skull had been cracked open on impact, but there were no other marks on her body. Katie was disappointed: she had been hoping for a clue, something the authorities had missed that would prove Mia had died for a reason more bearable than suicide.

Carefully, she untucked Mia’s vest and rearranged her shorts so they rested on her hip bones. Then she leant close to her ear. Her sister’s skin smelt unfamiliar: antiseptic and embalming lotion. She closed her eyes as she whispered, ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Katie?’ Ed was squeezing her hand, pulling her thoughts back to the funeral. ‘It’s you, now.’

He moved his hand to her elbow and helped her stand. Her legs felt light and insubstantial as she left the pew and drifted towards the lectern like a spectre. She tucked her tissue into her coat pocket and pulled from the other a square piece of card on which she’d noted a few sentences.

She glanced up. The church was full. People were standing three deep at the back. She saw old neighbours, friends of Mia’s from her schooldays, a group of Katie’s girlfriends who’d made the long journey from London. There were many people she didn’t recognize, too. A girl in a black woollen hat sobbed quietly, her shoulders shaking. Two rows back, a thin young man blew his nose into a yellow handkerchief and then tucked it beneath his order of service. She knew that the circumstances of Mia’s death would be lingering in everyone’s thoughts, but she didn’t have the answers to address their questions. How could she when she didn’t know what to believe herself?

Katie gripped the lectern, cleared her throat twice, and then began. ‘While the authorities have made a grey area of Mia’s death, her life was a rainbow of colour. As a sister, Mia was dazzling indigo, challenging me to look at the world from new perspectives and see its different shades. She was also the deep violet that drove all her actions straight from her heart, which made her passionate, spontaneous and brave. As a friend she was vibrant orange, spirited, plucky and on the lookout for adventure. As a daughter, I think our mum—’ she struggled on that last word. Closing her eyes, she focused on swallowing the rising lump of emotion.

When she opened them, she could see Ed nodding at her, encouraging her on. She took a deep breath and began the sentence again. ‘As a daughter, I think our mum would have said Mia was love red, as she filled her with happiness, warmth and laughter. She was also the sea green of the ocean, in which she spent her childhood splashing and tumbling through waves. Her laughter – infectious, giddy and frequent – was brilliant yellow, a beam of sunlight falling on whoever she laughed with. And now that Mia has gone, for me only cool, empty blue remains in the space where her rainbow once danced.’

Katie left the card on the lectern and somehow her legs carried her back to Ed’s side.

*

The coffin had been lowered into the ground and the funeral party were returning to their cars when Katie saw him.

Finn looked different from the man she’d said goodbye to at the airport. His usually fair skin was bronzed, his hair lightened by the sun to a golden brown, and he looked older, too, having lost the boyish softness in his cheeks. Finn’s family had been unable to get in contact with him until three days ago. He had boarded the first flight back to London and arrived yesterday. Flanked by two of his brothers, he glanced up and saw her. His eyes were bloodshot and the skin around his nose was red raw. He moved towards her warily.

‘Katie—’ he said, but faltered when he saw her expression.

Her voice came out as cold and flat as the sky. ‘You left her, Finn.’

He closed his eyes and swallowed. She saw that his lashes were damp. Beyond them a car door slammed and an engine started.

Katie was standing with her back to the stone archway at the rear of the church. She thrust her hands deep into her coat pockets. ‘You were supposed to be travelling together. What happened?’

The question seemed painful for him and he looked beyond her as he answered. ‘We had an argument. It should never have happened. Mia didn’t want to be in Australia—’

‘So she went to Bali,’ Katie finished. ‘Why?’

Finn’s left foot, in an unpolished black shoe, jigged up and down. She remembered the gesture; she’d once thought it was a mark of impatience but later understood it to be a sign of nervousness. ‘We’d met people who were going out there.’

‘I just don’t understand any of it.’ Katie’s hands were beginning to tremble in her pockets. She balled them into fists and lifted her chin. ‘Why was she on that cliff top?’

‘I don’t know. We didn’t speak after Australia. She emailed once—’

‘You didn’t think to tell anyone?’ Her voice was growing louder and she was aware of glances being exchanged between Finn’s brothers who were hanging back.

He turned his palms towards the heavy grey sky, helpless under the fire of her questions. ‘I thought Mia would have said—’

‘You should have stopped her!’ A sharp gust whipped Katie’s hair in front of her face. She swiped it aside.

‘She is headstrong,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

‘Was headstrong. Was. She’s dead!’ The last word was the cold truth between them and the power of it pushed Katie on, anger rising like venom in her throat. ‘You promised me you’d look after her.’

‘I know—’

‘She trusted you, Finn. I trusted you!’ She stepped forward, extended her arm and slapped him, once, hard, on the left cheek.

Above, two seagulls screamed.

No one moved. Finn, shocked, held his face. Katie felt a smarting in her fingertips. After a moment it looked as if he was going to say something, but all that came out was a sob. She had never seen him cry before and was shocked at the way his face collapsed, as if the tears dragged all of his features downwards.

She watched, motionless, until she felt the firm pressure of Ed’s hand on her shoulder. He steered her away, moving towards an area near Mia’s grave where tributes had been laid. He didn’t mention what had just happened, but simply buttoned up his dark overcoat, and then began carefully picking up the tributes. One at a time, he read each message aloud.

Katie wasn’t listening. She was still thinking of the red handprint she’d left on Finn’s cheek, as if he’d been branded. She had never hit anyone before. Ed would later tell her that Finn was grieving, too, and she should have allowed him the chance to explain – but what was there to say? Mia was dead. If she didn’t blame Finn, she was only left with herself.

‘This is unusual,’ Ed commented. He was holding a single flower; from its blood-red centre three white petals swept outwards like fans. He passed it to Katie, who lightly fingered the velvet petals. It looked like a type of orchid and she brought it close to her face to smell it. The scent conjured up another place – somewhere sweet and warm, filled with fragrance and light.

When she looked up, Ed was holding the small card that came with the flower. ‘What is it?’ she asked, noticing the change in his expression.

He said nothing, just handed the card to her.

Turning it over, she saw that the sender hadn’t included his or her name. There was only a single word on the card: Sorry.

*

After the funeral there had been drinks at the village pub, where people huddled by the fire, stamping their feet to get the blood moving again. Katie stayed for an hour at most, making sure she thanked everyone who’d journeyed a long way, before quietly slipping out.

As she and Ed crossed the car park, someone called out, ‘You’re leaving?’

They both turned. It was Jess, her best friend, a girl who used to take Katie dancing to a bump-’n’-grind club in a dingy corner of their university town, but who now had a high-flying job as the sales director of a pharmaceutical company.

‘Sorry, I know we’ve hardly talked, but … I…’

‘Katie,’ Jess said, flicking her cigarette to the ground. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Thanks for coming today. It means a lot. And thanks for your messages, too.’ Jess had called every day since Mia’s death, leaving voicemails telling Katie how loved she was and passing on news and condolences from mutual friends. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch. I keep meaning to ring … but, well …’ Katie stalled, not knowing how to explain. She was grateful to Jess – to all her friends – but she hadn’t felt ready to talk about Mia. Not yet.

‘You’ve lost your sister. I understand.’ Jess stepped forward and wrapped Katie in her arms. ‘No more apologies, okay? Just take your time. We’re all here for you when you’re ready.’

‘Thanks,’ she sighed, breathing in the cigarette smoke that clung to Jess’s hair.

Jess squeezed Katie’s hands and then turned to Ed, wagging her finger. ‘You make sure you look after her, you hear?’

He smiled, putting an arm around Katie’s waist. ‘I intend to.’

It was Jess who’d introduced Katie to Ed at a riverboat party on the Thames. Katie had just come out of a relationship and wasn’t interested in rejoining the dating scene so soon. Yet, Ed, with his handsome face, quick-witted banter and devastating smile, managed to persuade her otherwise. They had slipped free of the party the moment the boat moored and went on to a bar where they shared a bottle of Merlot and talked and laughed until the place closed. Eighteen months later, Ed got down on one knee to offer her a diamond ring and a lifetime together. She found herself grinning and saying yes.

It was a long drive back to London, but Katie couldn’t stay in Cornwall with the sharp sea air and the waves that whispered with memories. In the flat, she unzipped her black dress, which fell to the floor with a swoosh. She stepped from the dark puddle into a fleecy jumper and pair of jogging bottoms belonging to Mia. The hems trailed around her feet as she padded along the hall. She hesitated only a moment before entering Mia’s room.

Her sister’s backpack was propped against the bed. It had been flown back from Bali several days ago, but Katie hadn’t wanted to look through it before. Airport tags curled around its straps and strands of Indian leather were attached to each zip. There was a badge on the front of a woman in a hula skirt, and a picture of a daisy had been doodled on a side pocket in thick black marker. She unbuckled it, loosened the drawstring and reached inside.

Pushing her hand into the belly of the bag she felt her way through various items, pulling out one at a time like a game of lucky dip. She tugged free a burnt-orange beach dress that smelt of jasmine laced with the holiday tang of suncream and salt. She smoothed out the creases and then set it on the bed. Carefully, Katie removed more items: a pair of Havaiana flip-flops with worn-down soles; a travel towel stuffed into a net bag; an iPod in a clear case; two novels by authors Katie hadn’t heard of; a slim torch gritted with sand; and a man’s jumper, with thumb holes in the sleeves. Finn’s?

She continued searching until her hand met something hard. Katie had been told that Mia’s travel journal had been located by the police, who had examined it, but found nothing that could be considered as evidence.

Mia had always kept journals. Katie found it disconcerting that her sister preferred to share her feelings on paper rather than in person. As a teenager the temptation to read one had been irresistible. She had twice searched Mia’s room hoping to uncover information that only her journal would reveal but, for all Mia’s clutter and disorganization, she was fastidious about hiding them.

Carefully, Katie slid the journal free. Glimmering sea-blue fabric was stretched across the cover and it felt heavy in her hands. She traced a finger down the spine and then opened it carefully, as if Mia’s words were butterflies that might flutter free into the air.

She turned the pages slowly, admiring her sister’s elegant handwriting. In some things, Mia was lackadaisical and careless – her wallet was a brick of receipts, and her books were dog-eared with doodles filling the margins – yet the handwriting in her journal was graceful and refined. The entries were crafted around pencil sketches, handwritten notes, corners of maps and fragments of memorabilia from places she’d visited. Each page was a work of art brimming with its own tale.

‘Everything okay?’ Ed was standing in the doorway to Mia’s room.

She nodded.

He glanced at the backpack. ‘You’re going through her things?’

‘I’ve found her travel journal.’

He straightened, surprised. ‘I didn’t realize she kept one.’ He pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘Are you going to read it?’

‘I think so. Yes. There’s so much I don’t know about her trip.’ And about her, she thought. They’d barely spoken while Mia was away. She wondered when this distance had grown between them. They used to be close once, but not lately. She sighed. ‘Why did she go, Ed?’

‘Travelling?’

‘Yes. She booked the trip so suddenly. Something must have happened to make her leave.’

‘She was just impulsive. Young. Bored. That’s all.’

‘I shouldn’t have let her go.’

‘Katie,’ he said gently, ‘you’ve had a long day. Perhaps you shouldn’t be looking at her journal tonight. Wait till morning, at least. I was just about to make us a snack. Why don’t you come into the kitchen? Keep me company?’

‘Maybe in a minute.’

When the door closed, she flicked through the pages and picked an entry at random. As she began to read, her gaze jumped from phrase to phrase – ‘cinder desert’, ‘Finn and me’, ‘deep violet sky’, ‘lunar landscape’ – as if each word was too hot for her mind to settle on. She squeezed her eyes shut and then reopened them, trying to focus on a single sentence. But it was hopeless; her gaze roamed over the words, but her mind refused to digest them.