Sisters and Lies Read online

  Bernice Barrington

  * * *

  SISTERS AND LIES

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Epilogue

  Follow Penguin

  SISTERS AND LIES

  Bernice Barrington works in media and has been writing since she was a child. She lives in Dalkey, County Dublin, with her husband, Brian.

  For the beloved trio who made this happen: Brian, Mum and Dad

  And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes.

  C. S. Lewis

  1.

  Rachel: day one, 3.50 a.m.

  Afterwards, everything she had done made sense. All those decisions I had questioned, those aspects of Evie that had seemed strange and contradictory, suddenly joined up, like dots on a page. And my own part in the drama seemed inevitable. Fated, even.

  But when my mobile rang, deep into that warm August bank holiday, none of this had revealed itself yet. All I knew was that it was the middle of the night and that my phone was ringing and that such phone calls never spelled anything good.

  ‘Rachel Darcy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Daniel Ainsworth here, apologies for disturbing you like this.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s about Eve Durant. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you but she’s been in a car accident. A single-vehicle collision in Lewisham about four hours ago.’

  A noise erupted from my solar plexus. Somewhere between a whinny and a scream.

  ‘She has survived,’ he added hastily. ‘However, she’s badly injured, and currently in a coma. We found your number on her donor card. You’re her ICE.’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘Her “In Case of Emergency”. Are you a family member?’

  ‘Sister,’ I whispered.

  ‘And are there any other family members? A husband? Parents?’

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘No, there aren’t.’

  Detective Inspector Ainsworth paused for a moment, coughed. ‘The doctors have described her as serious but stable. May I ask where you’re based?’

  ‘Dublin,’ I said, gathering breath. ‘But I’ll be on the next flight to London. Which hospital is she in?’ I scrabbled for a piece of paper and a pen as he called out the details. The Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich, he seemed to be saying. Not far from Evie’s flat.

  ‘It’s a terrible shock for you,’ he continued. ‘Take care if you’re driving. Even better, get someone else to drive. Do you have someone else?’

  ‘Yes,’ I muttered. A lie.

  ‘No point there being two accidents.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll call you later in the day to arrange a meeting. Once again, I’m sorry for having to relay this bad news.’

  I put down the phone and leaned against the nearest available wall. The clock over the kitchen arch read four minutes to four.

  Evie. My artist. What have you done to yourself?

  I leaned heavily against the wall, but it didn’t seem solid any more – more of a blancmange texture that I could feel myself sinking into. A more logical woman would have grabbed onto something – a chair, a doorframe – to stop herself slipping.

  But I didn’t resist.

  I allowed myself to fall.

  When I came to, my cat, Erica Jong, was licking my face, bravely trying to resuscitate me. I held her furry body against me, attempting to catch hold of everything I’d just heard. Had I really understood that policeman correctly? Was Evie really in a coma?

  I stumbled to the kitchen and forced down a cup of disgusting sweet tea. Then I tried to think logically about what I should do. First things first: the cat. With a calmness I didn’t feel, I knocked on my elderly neighbour’s door to ask her if she could mind Erica Jong for a couple of days. She agreed – kind of her, given that I didn’t even know her name and it was the middle of the night – then took the writhing animal into her arms without further comment.

  After that, I checked my handbag to make sure it still contained my passport and wallet (I’d just arrived back from a trip to Australia, so it did), then packed a tiny night-bag and switched on the security alarm. Ten minutes later I was speeding towards Dublin airport in a taxi, deserted streetscapes flickering past me as we drove.

  The taxi driver didn’t try to talk, which was good because I could barely breathe.

  Evie. Light of my life. My sister.

  The left-hand part of my brain reminded me again and again that she wasn’t dead. She was serious but stable.

  In a coma, though.

  How could that be regarded as stable?

  I twisted my wedding ring round and round my finger, soothed by its solidity. I should ring Jacob. Let him know what was happening.

  The first tear since the phone call collected in my eye, then fell, hitting my lip, like a salty snowball. But I wiped it away. There could be no tears. Not yet. Not when there was so much to be done.

  ‘The first flight this morning is full,’ said the woman at the Aer Lingus desk, her fingernails click-clacking across the keyboard. She had the heavily trowelled-on make-up of all women in that business, and her hair was styled in an immobile top-knot. ‘But I can get you onto the seven twenty. Do you want to pay cash or credit card?’

  I wanted to tell her about Evie, about the crash, because maybe then she would help me. But when I tried to enunciate the words, nothing would come out.

  ‘Cash or credit card?’ she asked again.

  ‘Credit card,’ I mumbled, handing over my Visa. She raised her face to mine, and I saw her taking in my appearance – my smattering of tattoos, my nose stud – before she processed the transaction and handed me back my card. ‘Have a nice trip.’

  The flight wasn’t boarding for nearly two hours so I slumped into a metal seat, nauseous with exhaustion but unable to close my eyes. I thought of the book tour, the six-week trip around Australia and New Zealand I’d just arrived back from. Had that really been yesterday? It felt like a million years ago.

  My m
ind drifted towards Jacob again – I hadn’t seen him in nearly two months. We’d separated shortly before the trip – or, more specifically, I’d moved out of the home we’d shared. ‘It’s for the best, Jacob,’ I’d told him, forcing myself to believe it. But on the book tour I’d staggered around as if I were wounded – insomniac, drinking too much, incapable of taking off my ring.

  I gazed at my phone now, desperate to talk to him. But it was only five o’clock – way too early. I stood up and returned to pacing.

  At a certain point, I started to pray.

  In London the skies were grey, clouds pregnant with rain. I waited in the taxi queue, smoking a cigarette. One of the few (very few) perks of not being with Jacob any more. No more busting my balls about lung cancer.

  I gave the name of the hospital to the taxi driver and he nodded. Unfortunately, unlike my previous chauffeur, he seemed to want to talk.

  ‘Lovely day, innit? Your first time here? Business or pleasure? Do you know Woolwich at all?’

  He was young. Too young, maybe, to realize you didn’t ask people going straight from a flight to a hospital if they were there for ‘business or pleasure’.

  ‘I’m going to see my sister.’

  ‘She okay, is she?’

  ‘She’s in a coma.’

  ‘I saw a documentary once. This bloke was in a coma for twenty-three years. Then one day he woke up. And he could speak German.’ He was looking at me in his rearview mirror, almost jovial, awaiting my response.

  For a moment I wanted to scream at him – call him out for being such an insensitive prick – but in the end I didn’t have the will. ‘I’m sorry, I’m tired. Do you mind if we don’t talk any more?’

  The driver glanced at me, a surprised, hurt look on his face. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, dropping his eyes. We drove in silence for the rest of the way.

  In the hospital a heavy-set blonde woman was manning the reception desk, wearing a futuristic headset. As I approached, she held up her finger as if to say, ‘One sec,’ while she answered a call.

  I stood there, inhaling the aroma of bleach and illness, wanting to scream at her, ‘Hurry up! Hurry the fuck up!’ until she finally glanced in my direction. ‘Yes, madam? May I help you?’

  ‘My sister Evie. Eveline Darcy. She was in a car accident earlier this morning. She was brought here – a garda rang me. I mean a policeman. A policeman rang me …’ I stumbled to a halt, my breath ragged in my chest.

  The woman ran a manicured nail down what I presumed was an admissions list, then tapped something into the computer. ‘I’m sorry, but no one of that name has been admitted.’

  ‘She could be under Eveline Darcy-Durant, or maybe just Eve Durant.’

  ‘Can you spell that?’

  I did.

  ‘Oh, right, yes, Eve Durant. Here she is.’ She looked up at me. ‘Intensive Care. Second floor.’

  ‘How is she doing?’ I whispered, desperate for even the remotest hint that Evie had improved since DI Ainsworth’s phone call.

  ‘The ward sister will brief you on your sister’s condition,’ she boomed, as if we were in a veterinary surgery and she was talking about my cat. Then she looked over my shoulder and nodded at the next person.

  I stomped off, muttering, ‘Useless,’ under my breath, only to find the lift was almost as ineffective as the receptionist.

  ‘You’ll have to take the stairs, love,’ the electrician explained, as he fiddled about with a mish-mash of wires, so I did, jumping two steps at a time so I could get to Evie quicker.

  And finally I found myself outside the ICU. The place where my baby sister was lying, somewhere between life and death.

  Evie, my beautiful mixed-up Evie.

  How the hell could this have happened?

  But then it dawned on me. This day had been coming for a long time. Had, perhaps, always been coming. And I had done nothing to prevent it.

  2.

  I made my presence known to the ward sister, and shortly after that a consultant arrived through the swinging double doors to talk to me.

  ‘Your sister has sustained injuries to the head, which have induced coma,’ the petite brunette woman explained, in a voice somewhere between factual and empathetic. ‘Dr Elizabeth Bartlett’ was written on a name tag pinned to her chest. ‘From CT scans we have ascertained that the cerebral cortex has been damaged – that’s the grey matter, which covers the brain. It looks after perception, sensory input, all of the neurological functions, actually.’

  ‘But she will wake up, won’t she?’ I said, hearing my voice rise to a level just under hysteria.

  The consultant fixed me with her bright blue eyes. ‘Ms Darcy, I’m sorry but I need to give you the full facts. The truth is, we don’t know. She may wake up today, but it could be next week, next month, next year, even.’

  ‘Yes, but people always wake up, don’t they?’

  ‘They don’t always,’ the doctor said, continuing to hold my gaze. ‘But we’ll do everything we possibly can for your sister.’

  For a second we stood in silence. ‘Can I see her?’ I whispered.

  ‘Of course,’ she said gently. ‘We’ll just need you to wear a protective mask, and to clean your hands with the antibacterial liquid.’ She pointed at a plastic container attached to the wall.

  A few minutes later, when I was suitably attired, she guided me through the double doors and towards a single room where my sister lay. ‘Please try not to be too upset by her appearance,’ she said. ‘Remember, she’s getting the best possible care and any bruising or cuts you see are merely superficial.’

  ‘Merely superficial’. That was ironic. Evie was the cleverest, most creative person I knew, but in the last few years she had become obsessed with her appearance. These days, she was all angles, highlights and expensive make-up.

  ‘Her heart rate is stable, although we’ve had to ventilate her with a tube to help with breathing. And, as I said, her other injuries are minor: two fractured wrists, probably sustained on impact. Some bruising.’

  I knew the doctor was trying to make me feel better but it wasn’t working. ‘Can I touch her?’

  Dr Bartlett hesitated, then nodded. I edged towards the bedside and slowly reached out for Evie’s hand. It felt surprisingly warm.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone for a few moments,’ the doctor murmured, and the next sound was that of the door closing.

  I didn’t notice that I was crying until the tears ran into my mouth at a funny angle. I wiped them away with my sleeve. ‘Evie. Sweetheart. What have you done to yourself? Why didn’t you tell me?’ I held her hand tighter, as the heart monitor pulsed in the background. Now that the initial shock was out of the way, I allowed myself to look at Evie’s face more closely. She had a purple bruise above her right temple and numerous scratches across her face, but the doctor had been right: they would all heal. None seemed deep enough to leave a scar.

  I reached out my other hand and touched her hair, half expecting her to jolt awake with surprise. But of course she didn’t. She remained cadaver-still. I allowed my hand to explore her face, using one finger, as if searching for dust. I started with her forehead, tracing a slow vertical line between her eyes, moving downwards, along her nose. It still amazed me, that nose. Or should I say that new nose? (It was not the one she had been born with.) Finally, I ran my finger over her lips and finished at her chin, the road map of my sister’s face complete.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Darcy. Your time’s up, I’m afraid.’ The consultant was back in the room, still carrying her notes, her voice sympathetic but firm. ‘You could sit in our waiting area, but my best advice would be to go to your hotel or wherever you’re staying and get some rest. I imagine you need it.’

  Reluctantly, I rose from my chair, hovered over Evie and kissed her forehead lightly. ‘Fight, Evie,’ I whispered. ‘Promise me you’ll fight.’

  I was disappointed when she didn’t respond.

  Out in the corridor the doctor gave me some more information a
bout the extent of Evie’s injuries – something about a Glasgow Coma Scale; Evie rated quite badly – and told me she or a member of her team would ring me immediately if there was any change in my sister’s condition. ‘You’re staying in London for the time being, I take it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For as long as is necessary.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘As I said, we can’t be certain of a time frame. There is a possibility she’ll wake up in the next forty-eight hours. Many patients do. It would probably be as well if you could stay around here.’

  ‘I will,’ I said.

  ‘Do you need help with accommodation? I can arrange to have our patient liaison officer help you find a hotel if that would –’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ I said. ‘I’m going to stay at Evie’s.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, adding, ‘You seem close.’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, although now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure. Why, for example, did I not know that Evie was driving again? That she had a car?

  ‘Oh, it was her boyfriend’s, I think,’ Dr Bartlett said, when I voiced my confusion.

  ‘Her boyfriend? Evie doesn’t have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Well, her friend, then. He was in here directly after the accident, but before you arrived. I think he said his name was …’ She scrunched up her face. ‘Doe-nah?’

  Doe-nah? I’d never heard that name. Was it Middle Eastern? Asian? ‘Where was he from?’

  ‘Ireland, I think.’ She paused for a moment as if double-checking her memory banks. ‘Yes, definitely Ireland.’

  It suddenly dawned on me. Donnagh. The Celtic name, meaning ‘warrior’. Pronounced ‘Dun-ah’. ‘Do you have a number for him?’

  Dr Bartlett tucked a rogue strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t, Ms Darcy. Although, no doubt, the police will have all that information for you.’

  I sighed, annoyed at the lack of clarity. Who was this man? Why hadn’t Evie told me about him?

  Dr Bartlett turned to leave, giving my arm a quick squeeze. ‘Stay strong,’ she said. ‘There’s always hope.’

  She reminded me of my mother then. The gentle look. The half-smile starting at the corners of her lips.