Sister: A Novel by Rosamund Lupton

deal.
    ‘We’re obviously still concerned about her welfare,’ said DS Finborough. ‘But there’s no reason to think anybody else is involved.’
    I briefly paused, for formality’s sake, to check the small print of the deal. ‘What about the nuisance phone calls?’
    ‘Dr Nichols thinks Tess most probably overreacted because of her fragile emotional state.’
    ‘And her broken window? There was glass on the floor of her bedroom when I arrived.’
    ‘We investigated that when she was first reported missing. Five cars in the road had their windscreens smashed by a hooligan on Tuesday night. A brick must have also gone through Tess’s window.’
    Relief washed the tension from my body making space for overwhelming tiredness.

    After they’d left I went to see Amias. ‘You knew her baby had died, didn’t you?’ I asked him. ‘That’s why you said I may as well give away all her baby things.’
    He looked at me, distressed. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you knew that too.’
    I didn’t want to go down that track, not yet.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell the police anything about the baby?’
    ‘She’s not married.’ He saw the lack of comprehension on my face. ‘I was worried that they’d think she was loose. That they wouldn’t bother looking for her.’
    Maybe he had a point, though not exactly as he meant. Once the police knew you were suffering from post-natal depression the search for you stopped being urgent. But at the time this fact hardly registered.
    ‘Tess told me her baby had been cured?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes, of cystic fibrosis. But there was something else they didn’t know about. His kidneys, I think.’

    I drove to Mum’s to tell her the good news. Yes, good news, because you were alive. I didn’t think about your baby, I’m sorry. As I said, a devil’s deal.
    And a false one. As I drove, I thought I’d been a fool to have been so easily conned. I’d wanted so much to accept the deal that I’d blinkered myself from the truth. I’ve known you since you were born. I was with you when Dad left. When Leo died. I know the big stuff . You would have told me about your baby. And you would have told me if you were going away. So something - someone - must have prevented you.

    Mum felt the same relief as I had. I felt cruel as I punctured it. ‘I don’t think they’re right, Mum. She wouldn’t just take off somewhere, not without telling me.’
    But Mum was holding the good news tightly and wasn’t going to let me take it away from her without a fight. ‘Darling, you’ve never had a baby. You can’t begin to imagine what she must be feeling. And the baby blues are bad enough without all of the rest of it.’ Mum’s always been deft with a euphemism. ‘I’m not saying I’m glad her baby died,’ Mum continued. ‘But at least she has a second chance. Not many men are prepared to take on another man’s child.’ Finding a bright future for you, Mum-style.
    ‘I really don’t think she’s gone missing voluntarily.’
    But Mum didn’t want to listen to me. ‘She’ll have another baby one day in far happier circumstances.’ But her voice wavered as she tried to put you into a safe and secure future.
    ‘Mum—’
    She interrupted me, refusing to listen. ‘You knew that she was pregnant, didn’t you?’
    Now, instead of projecting you into the future, Mum was going backwards into the past. Anywhere but what was happening to you now.
    ‘Did you think it was all right for her to be a single mother?’
    ‘You managed on your own. You showed us it’s possible.’
    I’d meant it to be kind, but it infuriated her further.
    ‘There’s no comparison between Tess’s behaviour and mine. None. I was married before I was pregnant. And my husband may have left the marriage, but that was never my choice.’
    I’d never heard her call him ‘my husband’ before, have you? He’s always been ‘your father’.
    ‘And I have some concept of shame,’ continued Mum. ‘It wouldn’t hurt Tess