The Second Sister: The exciting new psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Claire Kendal. Claire Kendal

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СКАЧАТЬ myself, is real. This is where Ted and I used to lie on a carpet of grass on summer days when we were children, holding hands and looking up through the gaps in the treetop roof. There would be snippets of blue sky and white cloud, and a pink snow of cherry blossom.

      Your son is the most real thing of all. He bends down to scoop up a handful of papery leaves. ‘Hold your hands out,’ he says. When I do, he showers my palms with deep red. ‘Fire leaves,’ he says.

      I shut out the flower made of blood. I manage to smile.

      He cups a light orange pile. ‘Sun leaves,’ he says, throwing them high into the air and letting them rain upon us.

      He finds green leaves, too. ‘Spring leaves,’ he says.

      I lean over to choose some yellow leaves from our cherry tree, then offer them to Luke. ‘What do you call these?’

      ‘Summer leaves.’ This is when he blurts it out. ‘I want to live with you, Auntie Ella.’

      I stare into Luke’s clear blue eyes, which are exactly like yours. When I zero in on them I can almost fool myself that you are here. And it hits me again. I imagine your eyes, wide open in pain and fear, your lashes wet with tears.

      For the last few years, my waking nightmares about you have mostly been dormant. It took me so long to be able to control them. But a spate of fresh headlines last week shattered the defences I’d built.

       Unsolved Case – New Link Discovered Between Evil Jason Thorne and Missing Miranda.

      Eight years ago, when Thorne was arrested for torturing and killing three women, there was speculation that you were one of his victims. We begged the police for information. They would neither confirm nor deny the rumours, just as they refused to comment on the stories about what he did to the women. Perhaps we were too eager to interpret this as a signal that the stories were empty tabloid air. We were desperate to know what happened, but we didn’t want it to be Jason Thorne.

      Dad spoke to the police again a few days ago, prompted by the fresh headlines. Once more they would neither confirm nor deny. Once more, Mum and Dad grabbed at anything which would let them believe that there was never any connection between you and Thorne. But I think they are only pretending to believe this to keep me calm, and their strategy isn’t working.

      The possibility that Thorne took you seems much more real this time round. Journalists are now claiming that there is telephone evidence of contact between the two of you. They are also saying that Thorne communicated with his victims before stalking and snatching them. If these things are true, the police must have known all along, but they have never admitted any of it.

      ‘Don’t you want me?’ Luke says.

      Thoughts of Jason Thorne have no business anywhere near your son.

      ‘Luke,’ I start to say.

      He hears that something is wrong, though I reassure myself that he cannot guess what it really is. He walks in circles, kicking more leaves. They have dried in the lull we have had since yesterday’s lunchtime rain. ‘You don’t,’ he says.

      Luke, you say. Focus on Luke.

      I swallow hard. ‘Of course I do. I have always wanted you.’

      Don’t think about my eyes, you say.

      But everything is a trigger. I study Luke’s dark hair, so like ours, and imagine yours in Thorne’s hands, a tangle of black silk twining around his fingers.

       How many times do I need to tell you to change the picture?

      I try again to change the picture, but there is little in Luke that doesn’t visually evoke you. I search his face, and I am struck by the honey tint of his skin. Luke can actually tan, while you and Mum and Dad and I burn crimson and then peel.

      He must have got this from The Mystery Man. I once teased you by referring to Luke’s father in this way, hoping it would provoke you into slipping out something about him. But all it provoked was a glare that I thought would vaporise me on the spot.

      ‘Granny and Grandpa and I have always been happy that we share you,’ I say. ‘It’s what your mummy wanted. You know that. She even made a will to make sure you’d be safe with us. She thought of that while you were still in her tummy.’

      Luke wrinkles his nose to exaggerate his disdain. ‘In her tummy? I’m ten, not two, Auntie Ella.’

      ‘Sorry. When she was pregnant.’

      But why? It is not the first time this question has nagged me. What made you make that will then? Were you simply being responsible? Do lots of people finally make a will when they are expecting a child? Or was it something more? Did you have a fear of dying while giving birth, however low pregnancy-related mortality may be in this country? If you did, you would have told me. I think you must have had other reasons for an increased sense of vulnerability. Jason Thorne is not the only possible solution to the puzzle of what happened to you.

      Luke is waving a hand in front of my face. He is snapping his fingers. ‘Hello. Hello hello. Anyone in there?’

      Whatever questions I may have, I tell him what I absolutely know to be true. ‘That was one of the many ways she showed how much she loved you, how much she considered you. But it’s complicated, the question of where you live. It isn’t the kind of decision you and I can make on our own.’

      I don’t tell him how much our parents would miss him if he weren’t with them. Too much information, I hear you say.

      He smiles in a way that makes me certain he knows the match is his, and he is amused that I am about to discover this. ‘If you share me then it shouldn’t make a difference if I live with you instead of them.’

      ‘True.’ There is nothing else I can say to that one, especially when I am enchanted by this new vision of having him with me all the time. I cannot help but smile and add, ‘You will be a barrister someday.’

      ‘No way. Policeman. Like Ted.’ He kicks the leaves harder. Fire and sun and spring and summer fly in all directions. But nothing derails your son. ‘I told Granny and Grandpa it’s what I want. They said they’d talk about it with you. They said it might be possible. They’re getting old, you know. And Grandpa could get sick again …’

      ‘Your grandpa is setting a record for the longest remission in human history.’

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘And Granny sat there calmly while you said all this?’

      ‘She cried a little, maybe.’

      ‘Maybe?’

      ‘Okay. Definitely. She tried not to let me see. But Grandpa said it might be better for me to be raised by someone younger.’

      I’m sure our mother loved his saying that. No doubt Dad would have had several hours of silent treatment afterwards. Our mother is incapable of being straightforward at the best of times, and this is certainly not a topic she would want to pursue. She would have hoped it would go away if she didn’t mention it to me.

      ‘Then we will,’ I say. ‘Of course we’ll СКАЧАТЬ