The Liar's Sister (ARC) Read online

  ‘Come into the stable,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot to talk about.’

  I make my way back from the gate and stand closer to Rosie. Her eyes are filled with tears, as are mine, because there are two of them and they have guns, leaving us with no option but to do what they say. As we move closer to the open stable, a figure dressed all in white stumbles into the courtyard. Lynn. I’d forgotten all about her in the madness.

  She hurries towards her husband in her slippers and nightdress. Her hair is dishevelled, her eyes startled.

  ‘Colin! What’s happening?’

  Colin casts a cold glance at his son. ‘I thought you gave her the pills.’

  ‘I gave her sleeping pills,’ Peter says warily.

  ‘What about the Rohypnol you used on her?’ When Colin nods his head towards me, a jolt of shock jumps up my spine.

  I turn to Peter in disgust. ‘You drugged me. The night we went drinking.’ My mind goes back to the day I spent sleeping and out of it. I remember how I left my phone in the pub that night. ‘You stole my phone. And then you took it back to the pub knowing I’d think I’d forgotten it because I was drunk.’

  ‘You were already drunk,’ Peter says. ‘It was the perfect opportunity.’

  ‘What did you expect to find? Messages about Samuel?’ I ask, confused as to why he’d go to these lengths.

  He shrugs. ‘It was Ian’s idea. He wanted to know how much you knew.’

  ‘So that’s why … that’s why we …’ I wrap my arms around my body. Despite the immediate danger, this betrayal hits me hard.

  ‘Will someone please explain what’s happening?’ Lynn rubs the side of her head as though she’s suffering from a terrible migraine. Or a nightmare. It feels like the latter for me. ‘Do I need to call the police?’

  ‘No, love,’ Colin says, with a gentle tone to his voice. ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Colin. Why do you have the Sharpe girls here?’

  ‘Because it’s time to end this,’ he says, eyes focused on her.

  Colin kept all of this from his wife, but he chose to include his adopted son. Why? Is Peter as crazy as Colin? He’s right that there’s no place for Peter here if there’s nothing to inherit. But surely Peter doesn’t need to die because of his father’s failing. It’s possible that he will attempt to talk himself out of a prison sentence by making sure Colin takes the blame for everything.

  ‘Were you always going to bring me here to die?’ I ask, my gaze directed towards Peter. ‘The date planned for tomorrow. The suggestion of the woods. Is that why your father dug that hole?’

  ‘That was always for your sister,’ Colin says. ‘She would’ve gone there eventually.’

  Peter gives me one of those boyish grins I was once attracted to. ‘The walk in the woods was just a joke. I wanted to keep you busy while we organised things for Rosie. That didn’t work out, but I’m glad you sent me that message earlier so we knew tonight was going to be the night. It’s a shame Ian lost his nerve, though.’

  ‘He was more amenable when it was only Rosie. It would have been much easier to make just one of you disappear,’ Colin says.

  ‘What do you mean by disappear?’ Lynn says quietly.

  ‘Why don’t you go back to bed, Mum?’ Peter says.

  ‘Colin, I think you should give me that gun.’ Lynn reaches out towards her husband, but he yanks the gun away and pushes out an elbow that catches her in the ribs.

  When Lynn folds in half, clutching her side, Peter winces.

  ‘Your dad is a violent man,’ I say slowly.

  ‘That’s not even scratching the surface,’ Rosie says. She glares at Colin. ‘Is it? Are you going to tell your wife everything? Or shall I do it?’

  ‘Lynn, whatever she says, don’t believe a word of it,’ Colin tells his wife.

  But it doesn’t stop Rosie.

  ‘He lied to you,’ she says, her voice cold and hard. ‘He knows that Samuel is dead. Ten years ago, on the night he disappeared, there was a car crash. Ian Dixon, drunk, driving dangerously, ploughed into your son and killed him. He wouldn’t take responsibility for it. He convinced your husband, and my dad, to bury Samuel’s body on the moors. I had to hide the broken headlight because I was there too and I saw everything. The next day Ian had his car fixed out of town and no one was ever the wiser. If you go into the woods, there’s even a camera recording Colin shooting Ian in the chest.’

  Lynn staggers back, finds an old milk-bottle crate and collapses onto it. The motion sensor floodlight comes on, momentarily blinding me. When my eyes adjust, I see that her face is blank with shock. She believes Rosie. That, at least, is one good thing.

  ‘But that’s not all,’ Rosie says. Colin gives her a sharp glance, but my brave sister goes on. ‘He cheated on you.’

  Peter grips the back of her neck and Rosie lets out a yelp. Her knees bend and I take a step towards her, but Colin moves the gun in my direction.

  ‘He had an affair with our mother,’ Rosie says, almost shouting through her pain. ‘Heather is his daughter.’

  Thirty-Nine

  Rosie

  Then

  It’s fair to say that there have been many contenders for the worst day of my life. Facing down Colin Murray with his shotgun is one of them, but the first one occurred when I was thirteen years old and I discovered a secret I was never supposed to know.

  Heather was just twelve at this point. She was chasing hens with Samuel in the field behind the farm, but I’d gone back to Midnight to check that he’d settled into the stables. It was our second trip to the farm, and Mum had stopped for a cup of tea before leaving.

  I thought she’d gone, but it turned out she hadn’t. As I always did, I moved quietly around the farm, and slipped into Midnight’s stable. There were two voices coming from the stable next door, and I realised quickly that they didn’t know I was there. I also realised that the voices belonged to my mum and Colin Murray. I noticed a tiny hole between the bricks on the connecting wall with the other stable. I placed my eye to the hole and watched them argue.

  ‘You need to figure out a way to get us out of this,’ Mum said. ‘The girls can’t keep coming here, it’s impossible. It’s ridiculous, considering everything that’s on the line.’

  ‘Lynn is already suspicious,’ Colin replied in a hard voice. ‘Unless you can think of a decent explanation that doesn’t offend her or piss her off, she’ll keep digging and eventually find out.’

  ‘We haven’t been together for twelve years,’ Mum snapped. ‘Why is she still suspicious?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Oh, I know why,’ Mum said. ‘Because you still can’t keep it in your pants.’ From my tiny slit in the bricks, I saw the twisted shape of her sneer. I’d never seen my mother make that face before.

  ‘There’s a lot at stake here,’ Colin continued. ‘There’s Heather to consider. And John. Imagine him finding out that Heather isn’t his daughter. Twelve years of lies.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Mum said.

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Colin said. ‘Just leave things as they are, Iris. Let the girls come. They’ll soon get bored. They don’t want to be working on a farm every summer. Let it play out.’

  I heard Mum sniff loudly. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘Just do nothing.’

  She let out a hollow laugh.

  ‘I need to go now,’ he said. ‘And so do you.’

  As he walked past the stable, my body trembled from head to toe. Heather wasn’t Dad’s daughter. I wished with every part of my body that I could have stopped myself from listening to that conversation, but now I was burdened with the truth. A terrible truth. One I never wanted to know.

  I moved closer to the door as Mum emerged from the neighbouring stable. Behind me, Midnight rubbed his nose on my shoulder as though he sensed my emotions. I froze, angry tears in my eyes, not knowing what to do or say. When Mum saw me, she started, and then her eyes grew wide.

  ‘Rosie,
’ she breathed. ‘Rosie, what did you overhear?’

  ‘Everything,’ I admitted.

  Her hand flew up to her mouth. ‘You know the truth?’ she asked.

  I nodded and wiped tears from my eyes. Then I unlocked the stable door and moved slowly towards Mum, trying to pull myself together in case Heather came along.

  Mum took me in her arms and held me tight. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. You shouldn’t have found out like that. And I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I need to know that you won’t tell your dad.’

  As soon as I rested my head on her shoulder, the sobs came out. In a high-pitched voice I answered, ‘I won’t.’

  She stroked my hair and let out a long sigh. ‘I know this is a big ask. I know that it means you might have to lie to your sister, and I know how close the two of you are. But Rosie, I can’t help it, I’m relieved someone else knows.’ She pulled back, crouched a little and stared straight into my eyes. ‘I need your help.’

  And from then on, our relationship changed.

  I became Mum’s spy. It was my job, as the older sister, to be my mother’s eyes and ears at the farm. Did Colin talk to Heather today? She would ask me all kinds of questions in Midnight’s stable when Heather wasn’t around. Her primary focus was on Colin, because even though she knew that Heather played with her half-brother Samuel, I don’t think she ever imagined that anything could happen between them.

  And to be honest, neither did I. Heather had that air of the angelic about her, and I didn’t expect teenage hormones to affect her in the same way they did other kids. While I had been going through those changes, Heather had always seemed untouched by them.

  They hid it well. At first I thought they’d had a falling-out, and that was what I told Mum. She was now a little more concerned about Samuel than before, but because they’d only ever come across as friends, she still didn’t think anything bad would happen.

  Until the day of the incident.

  We were working there on the last Saturday of the Easter holidays and Samuel and Heather were stacking bales of hay in the barn while I was collecting the eggs. Colin was at a farmers’ market with Lynn, and their part-timer was minding the shop. Halfway through my collection, I realised that one of the hens had died in the night. Not wanting to touch a dead bird myself, I decided to go and get Samuel to help. But when I reached the barn, I heard a sigh followed by a kissing sound.

  Heather had her back to me, but Samuel was facing me and his eyes flicked open. He had one hand tangled in her hair, the other on her hip. Their bodies were pressed close together.

  He saw me hovering by the entrance to the barn. He saw the disgusted expression on my face. He pulled away from Heather, but before she could turn around, I ran away.

  I didn’t know what to do. I’d just seen my sister kissing her half-brother. I knew Heather had no idea who he was to her. I felt revulsion shudder through my body, like I might vomit, but I also felt weirdly jealous. As Mum’s faithful spy, I was expected to tell her, and I was dreading it. How long had this been going on? Had they gone further?

  In a daze, I found myself wandering into Buckbell Woods, near to Jack’s house. He didn’t frighten me in the way he did some of the kids my age, but at the same time I also didn’t want to be around him on my own. No seventeen-year-old girl would want to be around a man they didn’t know in an isolated place. I started walking quickly away from the cabin, trying to make sense of everything in my mind.

  And that was when I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. I spun around to see Samuel running towards me along the path.

  ‘Rosie, wait,’ he said.

  I turned around and carried on walking, because I didn’t want to face him.

  ‘We love each other. It isn’t anything seedy,’ he insisted.

  Finally, I stopped. Samuel was panting from the exertion, and his forehead was shiny with sweat. He wiped some of it away with his forearm.

  ‘You don’t know how disgusting it is,’ I snapped. ‘You have to stop. You can’t be with her.’

  I expected him to be angry, to demand to know what I was talking about. Instead, he calmly placed his hands on his hips and said, ‘You know, don’t you?’

  The words took me by surprise, and I remained silent.

  ‘Did your mum tell you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I overheard. You know that Heather is your half-sister?’

  He nodded his head slowly. ‘Dad saw us kissing and he told me. He said I should keep away from her. I’m pretty sure he’s going to stop you both from coming to the farm soon.’

  I covered my mouth with my hand and moved away. My stomach lurched and I dry-heaved. When I’d composed myself, I faced him again. ‘You carried on the relationship even after finding out you’re related?’

  ‘Half related,’ he said. ‘I don’t care. I love her. She’s my soulmate.’

  I shook my head. ‘You’re an idiot.’

  ‘Love is love,’ he said.

  ‘How far has it gone?’ I demanded.

  Samuel smiled. ‘We were thinking of taking things further soon. Heather wants to lose her virginity.’

  A red-hot flash of rage coursed through me. ‘No, she won’t,’ I spat. ‘Because I’m going to tell her everything and she’ll finish with you.’

  ‘You’re going to break your family up then?’ He smirked. ‘Your dad doesn’t know. My mum doesn’t know either. How would you feel knowing that you’re the reason two families have been torn apart? When your father moves out of the house and your mother has to sell because she can’t afford the mortgage, will it all be worth it?’

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ I mumbled, feeling unsure of myself.

  ‘It’s all right for you because you’ll be going to university in a year or so. But your mum will be alone. Depressed and alone. What if Heather is so angry that she never speaks to her mother again? What if she never speaks to you again?’

  ‘She … she wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he goaded. ‘How would you feel if you found out that your dad isn’t your dad?’

  I took a step away from him and shook my head. ‘Why are you being like this? You never used to be so … so … cruel. I don’t understand you.’

  He recoiled as though he’d been slapped. ‘You know nothing about cruelty. I’ve been bullied my entire life, just for being myself. I don’t fit the Buckthorpe cookie cutter and I’ve been punished for that. Were you there in Year Ten when Rhys Turner put pig’s blood in my pencil case?’

  I shook my head and briefly closed my eyes, repulsed. ‘No, I wasn’t there.’

  ‘But you heard about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you went out with him. You even had sex with him.’

  It was true. But it hadn’t meant anything. It was expected.

  ‘Why do you care so much about being popular in Buckthorpe? It’s a tiny village school, for fuck’s sake,’ Samuel said. ‘You do realise that once you go to university, you’ll be completely insignificant. None of this will matter any more.’

  ‘Will the bullying matter to you?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it? Maybe this is all I’ll get in life. I just want to be part of something, okay? I like how it feels.’

  Samuel took a step forward and kissed me. Not forcefully, but confidently. I placed both hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I turned to leave, but he shouted after me, ‘Don’t tell Heather. Please.’

  ‘I have to.’

  He grabbed me by the arm. ‘Please don’t tell her. I love her.’

  ‘You just kissed me!’

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’ He shook his head back and forth, and those dark blue eyes I had always considered gentle suddenly seemed manic. He was frightening me.

  I tried to prise myself out of his grip, but he held onto me tightly. He was too strong. I remember shouting ‘Get off!’ He slap
ped me once around the face and I kicked him then dashed away into the woods.

  After running for a while, I fell down a bank, ripped my breeches and lost a boot to the mud. I just sat down on the ground then and wished I could turn time back and right all the wrongs that had happened around me. But I couldn’t.

  Eventually I got to my feet and tried to find my way back to the cottage, abandoning my boot and, without realising it, my phone. As I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following me. Watching me. I thought it was Samuel. Sometimes I wonder whether he was considering hurting me that night, and that’s why the lie popped into my head. Dad looked me in the eye and asked me what had happened, and I blurted it out:

  Samuel hurt me.

  And then my life became even worse.

  Forty

  Heather

  Now

  When Peter throws Rosie to the ground, I fly at him, my body connecting with his. But he’s twice my size, and I barely knock him off balance. He grabs my wrist and bends it back until I’m screaming in pain, my body slowly crumpling to the ground. Once I’m on the hard concrete, he smirks and lets me go. I pull Rosie close to me and we huddle together.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way,’ she whispers.

  My heart beats twice before I remember what she means. Heather is his daughter. The words haven’t sunk in yet. I know that it means I was in love my half-brother, that all this time my father was someone else, and that our mother betrayed our family in a way I never thought possible. I want you to know that I never regretted anything. Was that a callous admission during her last moments? Or did she mean that she didn’t regret her affair because it resulted in me being born?

  How selfish of her to die without telling me the truth.

  ‘I never wanted you to find out,’ Rosie says.

  Standing above us both is the man who is my biological father. Do I resemble him? Do I have his eyes, his smile? That calm, resigned expression I see on his face now?