The Stolen Sisters

‘What’s it gotta do wiv you?’

I keep my gaze steady, waiting him out.

‘No. Just me.’ He jabs his key into the lock but before he can climb inside, we both hear it. The shuffling coming from inside his vehicle.

‘I’m DC Ross,’ I lie. ‘Do you mind if I take a look, sir?’ I stride to the back of the van with a confidence I don’t feel.

‘I’ve told you there’s no—’

‘Then you won’t mind showing me, will you?’

Tutting, he unlocks the back doors. My heart races as he yanks them open. I make sure I’m not standing too close. There’s a delighted yelp as a white Staffie with a dark circle around one eye launches himself at his owner.

It’s just a dog.

I back away, feeling his glare on me. Flustered, I get in my car and start the engine, gears crunching as I pull back out onto the road, breathing heavily. I’m edging forward at the T-junction, waiting to turn left when I catch a flash of the profile of the driver who slides past me in a black car, indicating right.

It’s him.

The man who nearly broke me.

I’m frozen to my seat, neck rigid, willing my eyes to take a second look.

I catch him again as his car turns into the traffic. I’m not as certain as I was a few seconds ago that it is him. The jawline is wrong. A horn blasts behind me and in my rush to move forward I stall my car. I’m trembling as I twist the key to fire the engine to life once more.

It can’t have been him.

It’s impossible.

As I pull forward, I imagine him in his cell. The thick iron bars that contain him.

It’s the anniversary that’s made me so skittish, I know. Twenty years. It’s been almost twenty years.

I’m in a state by the time I pull up outside Marie’s flat. Noticing Carly’s car is already there doesn’t calm me.

Soon we’ll all be in one room.

Three sisters.

Nothing good happens when we’re all together.

I can just say no.

Above me the grey clouds break apart and rain lashes against my windscreen.

It feels like an omen. A sense of impending doom.

Chapter Three

Carly

Then

It felt like fate that something terrible would happen because she’d behaved like such a bitch. Acid coated the back of Carly’s throat. She swallowed her sickness back down. She had to be strong for the sake of the twins. They would be terrified.

She was terrified.

It had all happened so quickly. She could still feel the arm around her throat, another around her waist as she was manhandled into the van, struggling to get free. The catch on the door scratching against her cheek, tearing her skin. The scream that ripped from her throat as she saw the second man following, dragging the girls.

‘Run!’ Carly had shouted as she kicked out again, but she knew that even if one of the twins could wriggle free, they wouldn’t leave the other.

The arms restraining Carly hefted her from her feet, shoving her roughly into the back of the van.

‘Help!’ Carly’s voice growing hoarse.

That was when she saw a glint of silver. A sharp point pressed against her neck. Instantly the bottom fell out of her world, her body slackened. She had to stay alive for her sisters. Carly forced herself to be passive as her hands were wrenched behind her back. She was shaking so violently that the rope being twisted around her wrists chafed against her skin. Tape was smoothed over the lips she had thought an hour ago Dean Malden would be kissing. She was placid as her ankles were bound. A blindfold snatched away her last glimpse of the sun. She was astonished that something like this could happen in broad daylight. She felt a jarring against her arm. Heard the thud of the twins being shoved next to her and listened helplessly to Leah crying and Marie pleading,

‘This is a game, isn’t it? Please. This isn’t real.’ Marie’s small voice a squeak.

But the real games were being played in the park just metres away, the cheering of a goal drifting through the hedgerow, and Carly knew that whatever this was, it was deadly, deadly serious.

Still, she thought someone would have heard them, would swoop in and save them at the last minute. All her storybooks ended well and it had never really occurred to her that sometimes there might not be a happily ever after. That was until the door slammed shut, the engine roared and she crashed onto her side as the van pulled away.

The stench of petrol in such a confined space was overpowering, along with the stink of body odour. At first Carly thought it must be coming from the men until she felt her shirt sticking to her back with sweat and she realized it was emanating from her. The smell of her own fear.

It was hot. Bumpy. She swayed, unable to use her tethered hands to steady herself. She tried to breathe deeply to calm down but each time she inhaled the tape across her lips prevented air from entering her lungs. Her chest burned painfully. Her nostrils flared as she drew in short, sharp bursts of air until she felt dizzy. The knot from the back of her blindfold dug into her skull.

One of the twins was whimpering, the other frighteningly silent and it was the silence that scared Carly the most. The girls had been nothing but noise since they’d been born. Laughing. Crying. Playing. Chattering away in their twin language that no one else understood. Carly planted her heels on the floor, her ankle bones rubbing uncomfortably together, and dragged her bottom, weaving forwards, slow and uneven – a spider missing legs – until her feet reached something that could have been a body. She shuffled herself around, her hands groping until she connected with another hand. A frightened cry and then long fingers gripping hers. Piano-playing fingers. She thought it must be Leah.

Carly moved again, fumbling around until she located Marie. She was still. Too still. Afraid, Carly pressed against her wrist, willing a pulse to jump beneath her fingers. She blinked back tears of gratitude as she located the slow and steady thump. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry.

She had taken the twins out of the garden and got them into this.

She had to get them out.

Thoughts jostled for attention as Carly tried to process what had happened. Who had taken them and why, but nothing made any sense. Part of her clung desperately to the vague hope that it was a prank. The programme her parents liked to watch where unsuspecting members of the public were fooled – but the blood streaming from a gash in her cheek told her it wasn’t a joke. On TV, the tricks were unexpected, funny. Never cruel.

She rubbed her face against the wall of the van, trying to dislodge her blindfold. Each time they drove over a bump her head smashed painfully into the hard metal but still she persisted until at last she felt the material begin to slide.

She could see blurry shapes. She waited for her eyes to adjust.

The space was compact, dark. Only a small amount of light spilled through a grimy opaque window that led to the cab. Two figures sat shadowed in the front. Just two. Carly felt a flicker of hope. Although the twins were small, together they outnumbered the men. They had a fighting chance if only she knew what was planned for them. Where they were going.

She shifted her weight. If she could get close enough to the partition without being spotted she might be able to hear their conversation over the growl of the engine.

Always have a plan was her dad’s motto.

She might only be thirteen but they shouldn’t underestimate her.

Progress was slow as Carly rocked herself onto her knees. Using her toes for balance she moved her legs apart, waddling forwards, trying not to fall as the wheel dipped into a pothole. The engine grew louder as they gathered speed. They must have left town. A lump rose in Carly’s throat as she thought of the distance they must be from their house. Her pink flowery bedroom she was nagging her mum to decorate now that she was a teenager, her canopied bed she had loved at six but now found embarrassing. The twins’ mermaid room they insisted on sharing, stupid because their house was big enough for a bedroom each. Their cuddly toys lined up on the bed. Carly’s bears were stuffed at the bottom of her wardrobe. Still part of her, but not quite.

Focus.

She forced her left knee forward again as simultaneously the van flew over a bump. She toppled over, her face slamming against the floor. Stunned, she turned to the side, the tape that had covered her mouth hanging off. She spat out blood and a tooth, her nose hot with pain. She thought it might be broken.

She drew her knees to her chest and lay curved like a comma. Not a full stop. Not the end.

Her watch tick-tick-ticked.

Ten minutes? An hour? She’d lost all concept of time. She’d lost all concept of herself; a mass of pain and blood and fear, her cells skittering around her body as adrenaline flooded her system.

Fight or flight. She’d learned about it at school.

Determined, she dragged herself up onto her knees once more.

Another lurch. Wheels dipping in potholes. She was back on her side, juddering over rough terrain.

A slowing.

The crunch of the handbrake.

A momentary silence as the engine cut out.

Carly summoned all of her strength and drew her knees in before kicking both feet as hard as she could at the side of the van over and over. Screaming for help until her throat burned raw.

Someone would hear her.

They had to.

She squinted in the brightness as the door yanked open. She was dragged by her hair.

‘You’re a feisty one,’ a voice said but it didn’t sound angry, more amused. Her blindfold was retied tightly around her eyes. Too tightly. ‘That’s better. Three blind mice, three blind mice,’ he sang.

Carly could feel eyes on her. She clamped her lips together hard as he stretched another piece of tape across her mouth. She wouldn’t cry.

Her breath left her body as she was slung over a shoulder as though she weighed nothing.

She breathed in. Listened. Committing what she could to memory so later she’d be able to tell the police, her parents, everything she knew, for she had to believe there would be a later.

The smell of soil. A farm? The sound of rustling. Leaves?

Inconsequential details that would never make up for her putting the twins in danger.

It was wholly her fault.

The man began to walk, Carly curved over his shoulder. Again a comma, and that thought gave her strength. Not a full stop.

This wasn’t the end.

Chapter Four

Leah

Now

There’s a crackle when I jab the intercom with my finger and before I can speak, there’s the click of the front door releasing its catch. I hadn’t replied to Marie’s text but she hasn’t asked who is at the door. She doesn’t need to – she knew I’d come. The door sticks. I shoulder it open and the letterbox falls at an odd angle, like a slipped smile. I try to stick it back in place but it’s missing a screw.

The stairwell always smells of wee. I spiral my way to the third floor. Flat nine. Remembering her doorbell doesn’t work, I lift the knocker, which is ginger with rust, and let it fall, thumping my arrival. The vibration causes flecks of black paint to drift to the floor. Instantly, the door is yanked open, Marie’s arms wind around my neck, engulfing me in a cloud of the perfume she’s always worn, something woody. Nothing like the floral scent our mother used to wear, or still does wear perhaps. I wouldn’t know, it’s been so long since I’ve seen her. I return Marie’s hug, feeling the sparrow lightness of her jutting bones. She’s lost so much weight, it almost feels like I could snap her in two. She steps back and clasps my shoulders while she studies me. The bracelets that glitter on her wrists jangle as she twists me from side to side.

‘You look good.’

‘So do you. Are you okay?’ What I really want to ask is, are you drinking? – but I don’t. The whites of her eyes are tinged pink but that could be because of the tears we all shed at this time of year. I can’t smell any alcohol on her and that’s a good sign. There was a time we wouldn’t have to ask each other how we are. She used to know exactly what I was thinking. She felt what I felt, but over the years she has become a stranger to me, almost. What we went through brought us all together and then pushed us apart.

‘Carly’s here.’ She gestures me inside and as I squeeze past her I realize she hasn’t answered my question. Is she okay? Are any of us?

I make my way into the tiny kitchen that smells slightly rotten, as though the bin needs emptying.

Carly’s leaning against the old-fashioned gas cooker, fingers flying over the keypad of her phone. As soon as she sees me she tosses her mobile onto the worktop and pulls me close to her and for a few seconds I lose myself in her embrace as though I hadn’t last seen her a couple of days ago. Carly is the one I’m closer to now. She’s the one who stayed while Marie travelled the country, choosing draughty theatres over a proper home. Chameleoning herself into different characters, all of them as beautiful and as damaged as her. There are no happy ever afters in the dark productions she takes part in.

I shuck off my coat and unwind my scarf, piling them on top of Carly’s denim jacket.

‘I’ll make some tea.’ Marie fills the kettle as though this is just another social visit. My eyes meet Carly’s and she raises her eyebrows.

‘I’ve brought my own cup.’ I pull a mug wrapped in plastic from my bag and pass it to her. I’m poised to defend myself but she doesn’t ask what’s triggered my contamination OCD this time (although it’s probably obvious), or how long it’s been going on, and I’m glad. I’m not here to be judged.

A phone rings, the sound coming from the top of the fridge.

‘Do you want me to get it?’ I’m nearest.

‘No!’ Marie reaches for her phone and switches it off.

‘You didn’t have to do that. It might have been a job offer?’

‘It wasn’t. There’s some biscuits somewhere, Leah. If you can find them.’

I rummage around on the worktops, looking for snacks I will not eat.

Marie’s flat is as chaotic and cluttered as her life. Washing-up piled in the sink. Every surface messy. Tubes of half-used make-up litter the small table in the kitchen where she eats her meals for one, a box of L’Oréal hair dye pokes out of the overflowing bin; it’s the complete opposite of my minimalism. Once my twin and I shared everything but now we don’t even look the same, I think, taking in her newly bleached hair, cropped close to her head. I still keep mine long. Although I’m only twenty-eight, threads of grey are weaving into my natural red but I’m determined not to start colouring it. Every few minutes Marie runs her hand over the back of her neck as though reassuring herself that her pigtails are gone. That no one can grab them again. It’s as though she wants to be somebody else – somebody different – and I understand that, I’ve felt it too. But we can’t run away from ourselves, can we? The things we’ve done. Years of therapy have taught me that.

‘Is Archie okay?’ Carly’s face shines as she mentions her nephew. It’s such a shame she’s never allowed anyone to get close to her. She’s never had a family of her own. It’s too much responsibility, she had said once when I’d asked her if she wanted children.

It took her a long time for her to be able to look after Archie. ‘I can’t,’ she had said when we had first discussed the possibility of me going back to work. I had taken her hands in mine.

‘I trust you.’

She had shaken her head. ‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Well, I do. George and I both do and… Carly, I couldn’t trust anyone else.’ There was no way I could leave Archie with a stranger.

‘What if…’ She had squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

‘We can’t live our lives by what-ifs.’

She had looked at me then with such a disbelieving expression on her face.

‘Okay,’ I had conceded. ‘I see the irony in that but I am trying. Try with me. You adore Archie.’ From the second she had first held him at the hospital and he had wrapped his tiny fingers around her thumb she was lost to emotions she just couldn’t fight.

‘It’s because I love him I can’t do it.’

‘It’s because you love him that you can.’

Now, Carly picks Archie up when I’m working at the insurance firm in town, processing policies for the fears that keep people awake at night – theft, death, illness, but I know these things aren’t the worst that can happen. Not by a long way.

‘Archie’s fine,’ I say over the sound of the kettle boiling. ‘I was mortified earlier though because all the other kids were already sitting in a circle when we got there. Sorry we’re late, he shouted. Mummy couldn’t get in the bloody bathroom because Daddy was doing a big poo. That child.’ I shake my head as though I’m despairing but we all know I’m not. Archie is the light of my life. ‘You must come and see him, Marie.’ I try not to sound critical that we see her so infrequently.

‘Yes. Sorry, I’ve been busy.’

‘Doing what?’ Carly asks. Marie was sacked from her last role for turning up drunk five minutes before she was supposed to go on stage. That was six months ago and she hasn’t worked since. She said it was the kick she needed to give up drinking and focus on the future.

‘This and that,’ she says vaguely. Her mouth gapes a yawn. There are dark shadows under her eyes. She’s not sleeping well either.

‘Something keeping you up at night. Or someone?’ Carly asks.

Marie doesn’t answer but her neck flushes red. She’s keeping something from us.

‘Marie, are you seeing someone?’

She doesn’t deny it, instead she busies herself splashing milk into mugs and fishing out teabags with a spoon. I don’t repeat my question. If Marie doesn’t want to tell us something, she won’t. She leads us through to the lounge, sweeping piles of magazines from the sofa onto the threadbare carpet. A stick of incense on a stand on the windowsill billows smoke. The scent is cloying. Momentarily it crosses my mind that she might be masking the smell of booze. I steal a glance around the room, searching for empty bottles stuffed into corners, lipstick-stained tumblers, but there’s nothing. My eyes meet Carly’s and she shrugs. I know she’s thinking the same as me. I set the chipped plate stacked with Tesco basic digestives on the table.

‘So—’ Marie beams a smile that doesn’t reach the rest of her face. Her lipstick has stained a patch of her nicotine-yellow teeth crimson.

‘I can’t do it this year,’ Carly cuts in. ‘I just can’t.’

The atmosphere, already heavy, thickens. I take a sip of my tea, trying to recall whether Marie had rested the teaspoon on the draining board before she fished out my teabag.

‘I know it’s difficult this year—’ Marie’s knee jiggles. She tugs her jumper down over her hands.

‘It’s difficult every bloody year.’ Carly pushes her hair away from her face. Her sleeve rides up, displaying the comma she has tattooed on her wrist.

She’s right.

Each year around the anniversary of our abduction Marie’s always desperate to rake it over. Unwilling to let the dying embers of our trauma crumble to ashes.

It wasn’t as bad as we thought, was it?

It’s made us into the people we are today.

It’s as though she wants to make it into something else, something different.

She can’t.

I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the only way she can handle it. We all cope the best we can, Carly not allowing herself to love anyone new, me with my routines.

‘But…’ Marie continues as though Carly hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s twenty years and I’ve been approached by a journalist—’

‘We’ve all been approached by journalists these past few months.’ That was a given; THE SINCLAIR SISTERS – WHERE ARE THEY NOW? I don’t like the direction the conversation is going in.

‘She wants us to go on TV to mark twenty years. It’d be live, of course, that only gives us a few days to prep—’

‘Absolutely not,’ Carly says firmly.

‘I know you don’t enjoy being in the spotlight, but I’ll take the lead. You don’t have to say much as long as you’re there,’ Marie says matter-of-factly. This would be her starring role, us her supporting cast. ‘Leah?’

‘There’s nothing worse I can think of than going through it all again.’

I can just say no.

‘You said yes last time,’ Marie says.

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. We were offered a book deal around the tenth anniversary. Carly and I weren’t interested but Marie had begged, said the exposure might kick-start her career and we so wanted her to succeed. My therapist at the time thought it might do us good to share our story. Take away the stigma and the shame that we feel; that I feel, at least. She thought if we spoke about it exclusively to one source it would stop the vultures picking over the rest of our lives. We could finally move on. The publisher introduced us to a ghost writer. All we had to do was meet him a few times while he recorded our stories on a dictaphone and that was it. Six figures each. We weren’t expected to write a single word ourselves.

‘The book deal was years ago,’ I say to Marie. ‘Things are different now. I’ve Archie to think about.’

Archie starts primary school next September and I don’t want to be playground gossip any more than I already will be. The headteacher is the same one Marie and I had when we were abducted. Some of the other parents will be kids I shared classrooms with, but the advantages of having him go to the same school that I went to is knowing the layout, the routines. If I needed to get to Archie quickly, I could.

‘I don’t want to stir up bad feeling,’ Carly says. ‘I don’t want the community to think we’re blaming them for not being vigilant.’

‘I agree with Carly.’ The locals look after their own. I don’t like the thought of them watching me on TV. I won’t make my life a media circus again. I’ve no reason to. ‘Besides, going over what happened again—’

‘It’s not just that,’ Marie pushes on. ‘The network wants to know what long-term effects it’s had on us.’

‘Nothing. We’re fine. Now.’ Carly lightly runs her finger over her tattoo as her voice cracks with emotion. I sit there, palms damp in my gloves.

‘I’m not fine,’ Marie says quietly. ‘My career is… well, I’m resting at the moment and honestly, I could do with the cash. Couldn’t you?’

It’s true my bank account could do with a boost. I hadn’t touched a penny of our advance until I met George. I paid for our house, although he insisted the deeds were in my name. He hadn’t wanted anyone to think he was after me for my money. I remortgaged the first time to start him up in his own architectural firm and then again because his income isn’t what he’d hoped for – no one is building with the economy in the state it’s in.

‘I make a living,’ Carly says. With the publishing advance she could have afforded a small house in our area but she bought a flat instead. It doesn’t have a garden. With the remaining cash she trawled the charity shops looking for bargains that she later sold on eBay. This is how she gets by, that and the small wage I pay her for childminding.

‘Well, good for you. I ploughed everything into funding that tour of the supernatural play.’ Marie had had high hopes but nobody had understood the plot. ‘The TV people have offered us a ridiculous amount of money if we can tell them something that’s not in the book.’

‘We can’t tell them anything they don’t already know.’

‘Yes, we can.’ Marie swallows hard. ‘We can tell them the truth.’

Chapter Five

Carly

Then

Tell me who you are, Carly screamed inside her head, but the man carrying her over his shoulder couldn’t hear her. He strode on, strong and purposeful. She tried to identify her environment from the sound his footsteps were making.