The Stolen Sisters

Crunching.

Snapping.

Carly was certain they were walking across dried grass. Twigs. The woods? She could hear the whisper of leaves. The creaking of branches. But not enough for a forest. They were somewhere overgrown, at the very least. The breeze was welcome against her sticky skin but she wished she didn’t have tape around her mouth so she could breathe a little deeper. She couldn’t hear the second man following them and her dread at being separated from the twins, combined with the bumping sensation – each tiny movement causing her head, hanging upside down, to knock against the man’s back – sloshed nausea around her stomach. Carly swallowed hard. She hoped she wouldn’t be sick, she had no way of spitting it out. Fear that she might choke became her overriding emotion. Her skin once again clammy as her heart raced so faced the world spun. If the man abruptly put her down, she would fall.

Calm.

Carly thought of Leah and Marie. She had to keep her wits about her. The first opportunity she got, she needed to be able to run. To locate a house, flag down a car, find an adult who would help them. It was the thought of a grown-up taking charge that made Carly’s eyes burn with tears. She was only a child. Thirteen. She didn’t know what she could do. How she could possibly overpower a grown man, but she must. Right now, she was all the twins had.

She inhaled slower. Deeper. The smell of nicotine infused the man’s coat – and something else? Something earthy.

They still must be in bright sunlight because behind Carly’s blindfold her eyes flooded with red – the colour of staring at the sun too long.

The colour of blood.

The man slowed. Stopped. The hand holding Carly’s calves withdrew but she could still feel the weight of his fingers and it took her a second to realize she could move her legs. She bent her knees, drawing her heels back up to her bottom before driving her feet forward, her toes slamming into his chest. She braced herself to fall. Prepared to spring to her feet, stumble forward. To run whether or not she could see where she was going.

The man barely moved as she repeatedly kicked him.

He didn’t scream with pain, but inside Carly there were enough screams for the both of them fighting to be released.

A jangle.

A click.

A creak.

The hand returned to her calves and they were moving forwards again but this time it felt different. Instead of a crunch there was a clump-clump-clump. The sound of boots on a hard surface. The breeze kissing her skin wafted away.

They were inside. It smelled old. Musty. Unused and unloved.

Carly’s fear increased. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she was afraid of but she knew that without the possibility of someone stumbling across them – the potential of someone helping – the man could do whatever he liked.

The air inside felt thick and heavy. Somehow she knew they were alone in this building.

However much noise she made, there was no one to hear her.

Again, the man hesitated. Terror gripped Carly tightly as she imagined the next step forward would take them on a descent into a cellar. She’d had an unnatural dread of underground spaces since she’d watched Psycho with her dad last year, pretending to agree as she laughed along with him at how dated it was.

But Carly’s heart had hammered against her chest. She knew fear was amplified in the grey spaces between the black and the white.

The man’s fingers clutched at the back of Carly’s jumper. She was pulled away from his shoulder, which suddenly, inexplicably, now felt warm and safe and somewhere she wanted to stay. Her legs dangled helplessly until she was set down upon a soft surface. Not a staircase.

A mattress?

Vomit rose once more.

She swallowed, once, twice, unable to dislodge the painful lump in her throat, instead clenching her jaw so tightly that her temples began to pulse.

Don’t touch me-don’t touch me-don’t touch me.

She had seen the news. She knew what sometimes happened to girls.

Her body began to shake and she told herself it was just that. A body. A shell. Not the essence of her real self, which was buried somewhere unreachable. If someone had to be hurt it was better to be her rather than Leah or Marie. They were only eight. Babies really. Still at primary. She was older. She could cope.

Although she knew she couldn’t. Already something inside of her was cracking and breaking apart.

Don’t touch me.

He didn’t.

It took a beat for Carly to distinguish his retreating footsteps from the thump of her heart.

She lay rigid, scarcely breathing, ears straining.

Nothing.

There hadn’t been a sound of the door closing and yet Carly sensed that he was gone.

She threw her weight onto her side. The mattress stank of urine but she rubbed her cheek against it until she found the corner. Again and again – a cat batting its head, desperate for affection – Carly chafed her face against the hard seam until her skin was sore. With painstaking slowness, her blindfold began to slip.

Eventually the scrap of material had fallen from her eyes, across her nose. Carly’s nostrils were now covered, her mouth still taped shut. She couldn’t breathe. She shook her head in desperation until the blindfold fell another half an inch.

She could see.

Her eyes scanned the concrete floor coated with dust and rubble, the walls sheathed with graffiti. Something creaked behind her. She yanked her head around so fast her neck cricked, half-expecting to see Norman Bates’ mum in her rocking chair, but it was a tree outside the barred window dipping against the wind. The room wasn’t empty but Carly scarcely noticed her surroundings. Piles of rubbish, a cardboard box. She didn’t check to see if there was anything there she could use to escape with.

She didn’t have to.

The door was wide open.

She shuffled her body much the way she had in the back of the van – a snake shedding its skin – until she reached the wall. Carly drew herself onto her knees, then onto the balls of her feet, until she was standing. Her legs felt like the lemon jelly the twins loved so much. It was the thought of her family gathered around the table, eating dessert, that gave her strength. She almost believed she could smell citrus rather than the stench of damp and neglect. Carly began to jump – a sack race without a sack. Steadily, determinedly, momentarily pausing after each movement to regain her balance. She fell into a rhythm.

Jump.

Thud.

Jump.

Thud.

Into a corridor with multiple rooms to her left and right, doors hanging woefully from rusted hinges. At the bottom, a staircase with a makeshift ramp propped against the stairs. A battered skateboard on its side, missing a wheel. Cool air hit the back of her neck. Carly turned. The front door was swinging open.

Open!

Frantically she made her way towards it, as fast as she could.

Perspiration slicked her skin. She thought she could perhaps wriggle her wrists free of her binds if she tried but not until she was outside.

Not far now.

Her muscles trembled with effort. She moved more slowly, not covering the same distance as she had moments before.

Come on, Carly.

The twins cheering her name during sports day. The finishing ribbon in sight.

Jump.

It was so hard to breathe. She longed to tear off the tape, open her mouth wide and draw in air. Soon. Soon she would be free. At home. Snuggled on the sofa with Bruno and Leah and Marie.

Jump.

Dried grasses crunched beneath her feet as she landed. She’d made it.

She was outside, dizzy with effort. Dizzy with relief.

She heard two voices. Her muzzy head couldn’t make out what direction they were coming from.

Her head spun to the left; another building, windows smashed, spray paint colouring the brick. On its flat roof, a traffic cone. To the right; a clutch of bushes.

Which way should she go?

She needed to move.

Now.

Chapter Six

Leah

Now

‘What do you mean tell the truth?’ Shock jolts through my body. ‘You mean about me?’ I can’t believe Marie would betray me. Her eyes, the same green as mine, look at everything but me.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.’ The booming anger in Carly’s voice fills the room. ‘Telling everyone that Leah left the gate open won’t help anyone.’

‘I did leave it open, though.’ By some unspoken agreement afterwards we’d all claimed we couldn’t remember who closed the gate, that it must have blown open.

‘So? It doesn’t matter—’ Carly says.

‘But it does.’ It’s something I’ve never let go of. ‘If I hadn’t…’

‘If. If. If. We’ve all got a million ifs and not one of them makes any difference.’ Carly drops her head into her hands.

‘I didn’t mean tell the truth about the gate,’ Marie says but it doesn’t comfort me. The gate is the tip of the iceberg really in all the things I’ve done wrong. Got wrong. Under the surface lurk far darker secrets. As reluctant as I am to be on TV, it occurs to me that if we did share our side it might stop other journalists digging into the past, trying to create their own story. If anyone uncovers what I did a few years ago I could be prosecuted. Lose Archie. Panic is a heavy weight on my chest; I tap my fingers three times against my knee and try to breathe through it.

‘Leah?’ Carly slides across the sofa and drapes an arm across my shoulder. ‘You’re okay. You’re safe.’

‘I didn’t mean—’ Marie crouches before me and rests her hands on my knees.

‘What did you mean? The truth?’ I am desperate to know. If she didn’t mean me, then what?

‘We’re not doing it, Marie.’ Carly squeezes my shoulders. ‘I don’t want to and Leah… Well, just look at her,’ she says but not unkindly. Once more, I am the youngest, the one they need to protect. If only they knew what I was really capable of. Again, my breath catches in my throat. Sweat trickles off my top lip, coating my mouth with salt.

‘I’m sorry, Leah.’ Marie rests her head on my lap. I begin to stroke her hair, as I would Archie’s. The feeling calms me.

The silence settles around us, we are all lost in our individual thoughts. Twenty years is a huge milestone and the lead-up to the anniversary has been worse than usual. I’ve changed my mobile number countless times but journalists still call at all hours. Notes are pushed through the letterbox because I refuse to answer the door when I’m not expecting anyone. Business cards – Call me scrawled on the back – are left under my windscreen wipers. It’s awful, I know, and I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but I long for something to happen that will deflect the attention away from us until next week slides by. A collapse of the government, a celebrity death. I know it’s horrible but still, it’s been a slow news month and the papers have pages to fill. How deep will they dig?

‘What did you mean, Marie?’ I ask again.

‘I don’t know really. Just a different angle.’ She pushes herself to standing and stamps her feet. ‘Pins and needles. Anyway, sorry I’ve upset you, Leah. Both of you. I just wanted—’

‘The cash?’ Carly says wryly.

‘It wasn’t only about money. I spoke to our publisher recently and book sales have picked up this year, interest is high again. Our royalty statements should be pretty healthy this time. I just wanted… closure, I suppose. Forgiveness.’

‘What do you need forgiving for?’

She shrugs. I study the emotions that pass over her face, she’s always been so hard to read.

‘Marie?’

She begins to cry. ‘It’s always been my fault.’ She furiously swipes her eyes with her sleeve.

‘It hasn’t!’ I stand to face her. ‘Look at me.’ I rest my fingertips on her cheeks. The dampness of her tears seeps through my cotton gloves. I had never heard her openly blame herself. I knew she carried it still – that was apparent from the whisky on her breath, the shiny red tinge to her skin – but I thought that was trauma. Shock. Not guilt.

‘It was down to me.’ She takes a long, juddering breath.

‘I can’t bear it if you blame yourself.’ I can feel my own tears building. ‘I hate that this whole thing has driven us apart. I need you, Marie.’ I rest my forehead against hers. ‘Sometimes I feel I’ve lost you,’ I whisper.

‘You’ll never lose me,’ she says. ‘But it was me that threw Bruno’s ball over the fence. If it wasn’t for that—’

‘Enough. This is precisely why we shouldn’t do the interview,’ Carly says. ‘We each think we’re at fault and maybe it’s time to let it go. All of it.’

Carly’s right. We all blame ourselves. Twenty years on and we all still blame ourselves. Marie for throwing the ball over the fence, me for not shutting the gate properly and Carly for taking us with her to look for Bruno. We’ve heard a million times that it wasn’t our fault. Our parents repeated it endlessly when we first came home, as did the police officers, the therapists we’ve tried and discarded over the years – but hearing something is different to feeling it. Guilt is corrosive. It eats away from the inside out. We paint on smiles and it looks like we’re coping but we’re not, not really. I don’t think we ever will. Two years, twenty years, it still feels the same. I know we weren’t the first children to be snatched and we won’t be the last, but the why – I can never get my head around the why. How different our lives would have been if we had never been taken. But I can’t allow myself to think that way. If I had a different life I might not have George and Archie.

‘It is time to let go. Twenty years of suffering is twenty years too much. That’s why I thought opening up might help. It wasn’t all about the money,’ Marie says. ‘Although God knows, I could do with it.’ She gestures around her tiny flat. ‘But it’s been a lot to carry, hasn’t it? Sometimes I feel I’ll snap under the weight of it all. I don’t know how you both cope, living in the same town full-time. At least I get to leave, go on tour.’

‘But you always come back,’ I say quietly.

‘I come back for you two,’ Marie says. ‘And it’s hard. Every bloody time I drive past that place. How can you bear it?’

‘I think it’s easier, staying. Everyone knows us and what we’ve been through but because of that everyone protects us – or tries to, at least.’

There was a shift in the town when we had finally been found. The streets, once filled with kids kicking footballs, racing around on bikes, were empty. In supermarkets mothers would tightly hold on to their children’s hands. Cars jammed up the residential roads around the primary school. Nobody let kids walk anywhere. There was a sharp decrease in independence for the kids. A sharp increase in fear for the parents. And guilt. Neighbourhood Watch groups were formed and Mum had said they were full of the ‘if only we’d all been more vigilant’ and the ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ brigade.

It’s all changed now of course, but nobody has really forgotten and it’s because the community felt they had let us down that they close ranks when reporters ask for snippets of ‘What are the Sinclair Sisters really like?’ gossip. If we moved away people would still find out who we were and we wouldn’t feel as… safe, I suppose, although I don’t think any of us have ever felt completely safe since before we were snatched. It wasn’t only our physical selves that were taken away but our innocence and our inherent naive faith that people were good and adults could be trusted.

‘At least here I know that no one will ask me out,’ Carly says.

‘I wish you’d meet someone,’ I reply. Carly, more than anybody, deserves to be happy.

‘I can get you not wanting kids,’ Marie says, ‘But… you must get lonely.’

‘Not really. I’ve got you two. And Archie and that’s enough for me. Imagine falling for someone and they turned out to be… bad. You never know who to trust, do you?’

I know what she means. Monsters walk among us and sometimes they look like you.

Sometimes they look like me.

The conversation stutters again. Carly wipes away tears that are streaking her cheeks. I want to tell her that letting George into my life was the best thing that ever happened to me. That she too can learn to allow someone in – but I think of the secrets I carry inside and outside of my marriage and I know that would make me a hypocrite. Who am I to give life advice when I am making such a mess of mine?

‘You should speak to someone, you both should.’ I’d tried to get them to see my last therapist. Francesca. I had connected with her in a way I hadn’t with those who had come before her. She seemed to genuinely care, spending more time with me than she was obliged to, making sure she understood our family’s dynamics. She even helped explain to George what was happening mentally to me a few years ago and because of this he tried his best to support me through it. Love me through it. Of course I didn’t tell her everything, I’ve never told anyone everything. I haven’t seen her for months but I know what she would advise us to do right now. ‘Francesca says—’

‘No offence, Leah,’ Carly says. ‘But we’re indoors and you’re wearing gloves. I love you but you’re the least sorted of us all.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you, either of you,’ Marie says. ‘I thought it might help. Really. Not just sharing what happened but talking about how we’ve felt, I suppose, since.’

‘We can do that without an audience,’ I say.

‘I guess,’ Marie says. ‘It’s just that with an interviewer present I thought we’d all be more… in control of our feelings, I suppose.’

‘Feelings. Everyone’s obsessed with feelings,’ Carly says. ‘I was coming out of Tesco’s last week when a journalist showed me a picture of the grave and asked me how I felt about it now. I told them I felt nothing. Nothing. I wish now I’d told them I felt glad.’

I tell Carly that I was shown the same photo too. The cemetery where one of our abductors was laid to rest. His plot a tangle of weeds. Unkept and unloved. No flowers, no sense that anyone ever visits. They probably don’t. I don’t say that, unlike her, I felt something when I saw it. In fact, I felt everything: sadness, remorse, anger, regret and relief. I had felt relief that he, at least, couldn’t hurt anyone again. But he hadn’t acted alone.

Our rare openness of a few moments ago vanishes. The air chills and I know we are all thinking the same thing.

‘He’s due out of prison again next year.’ Carly doesn’t speak his name. None of us do. I’ve tried but the letters twist and tangle and form a ball in my throat.

Him.

The air chills.

‘Let’s talk about something else.’ Carly lifts her mug and gulps coffee that must be cold. ‘Tell us how Archie got on with his first swimming lesson, Leah.’

‘Oh God.’ My cheeks colour thinking about it. ‘The instructor sat the kids down before they even got wet and asked them the things people worry about when they go swimming so he could set their minds at rest. One little girl said she worries she’ll swallow some water. Another that the pool would be too deep and she wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom. Archie said… no. Archie shouted, “My mummy worries about wearing a costume because her bum is wobbly and her legs look like orange peel.” Honestly…’ I shove Carly. ‘Shut up. It wasn’t funny. Everyone stared at me.’

‘Ooh, did the instructor want to see your bum as proof? Was he hot?’ Marie waggles her eyebrows.

‘I thought you had a new man, Marie,’ Carly teases her.

‘It’s early days. It’s complicated.’

‘Actually, the instructor wasn’t bad,’ I say.

‘Don’t let George hear that!’ Carly laughs. ‘You’ll ruin your perfect marriage.’

‘Nothing’s perfect,’ Marie says and the atmosphere that felt lighter moments before feels heavy once again.

Nothing is perfect. My marriage the least of all.

I start when I check the time on my phone. It’s almost time to collect Archie. An email alert tells me my parcel has been delivered. I jump to my feet.

‘I have to go, George will be…’ home to discover my secrets. I finish my sentence in my head. Really, he’s the last person I want to see after last night but I can hardly avoid him.

‘George will be what?’ asks Marie.

‘I just have to go, that’s all.’ My tone is sharper than intended, but then fear has the ability to harden; a soft stomach filled with knots, a tightening of the chest, muscles tense and solid.

The set of a jaw.

A clenching of the fist.

Chapter Seven

Carly

Then

Carly’s fist would often dangle a toy above Bruno the boxer’s head, until he’d hurl himself at her in a bid to reach it, his body slamming into hers, surprisingly heavy and solid. That’s the way her body felt now as she gathered her energy to jump again.

Heavy.

Solid.

As though her blood had been removed and replaced with stone. She was so tired it was almost impossible to move but she had made it outside. She had to keep going.

She was almost at the corner of the building. Strands of her blonde hair worked free from her scrunchie, trailed in front of her eyes. With the tape covering her mouth, she couldn’t huff it away. She wished again her hands were free.

Voices.

Louder now.

Carly took two quick jumps and stopped, shielded by the side of the building. She peeked back around the corner. The men were striding towards the front door, each carrying a twin over their shoulders as though they were weightless. As though they were nothing. The gold crosses the girls wore around their necks inverted like a sign of the devil as they dangled upside down. Not that her family were religious but the twins had discovered early Madonna.

‘I don’t know why you’re so fascinated with her,’ Carly had said just weeks ago as her sisters had chewed gum and loaded their wrists with bangles. ‘She’s been around forever.’

‘So had Marilyn Monroe when you plastered your wall with her posters,’ her stepdad had kindly pointed out. That was true so, instead of laughing at the twins, Carly helped them draw thick black lines under their eyes and crimp their hair when they played dress-up.

Now Leah’s hands – which had donned black lace gloves – were clenched into tight balls as she struggled to be free.

Marie was listless. Hanging limp.

Carly faltered. Her head urging her to move, her body crying out for a rest, and her heart? Her heart wanted to bound back towards the twins and reassure them it would be okay, but that was a lie.

Even then she knew that none of them would ever be the same again.

Think.

The men had disappeared in the building. In seconds they would realize she was gone. They’d know she hadn’t got far with her wrists and hands still tied. They’d expect her still to be blindfolded.

Carly had to move, but where should she go?

Her eyes scanned the area. There was a tank decorated with purple, pink and yellow spray-painted flowers, its gun pointing to the ground as though it was hanging its head in shame. Giving up hope. A water tower rose towards the sky. To her right was a larger building, ivy desperately clinging on to the crumbling stone columns that flanked its entrance. A sign that once hung straight and proud – NORCROFT ARMY CAMP – dangled vertically from a single rusted chain. She knew where she was now. An abandoned military training ground a few miles from town. She remembered Mr Webster, her teacher, projecting photos from his laptop onto the whiteboard of how the base used to look before it crumbled to dust while waiting for planning permission for a housing estate that never seemed to come.