Abby
Abby
Abby sits on the sofa in her living room, opposite the family liaison officer, unable to digest what she’s just been told.
Jack killed Isla.
Jack took Nicole’s car, drove it illegally, and killed Isla.
And Nicole covered it up.
The news seems unreal, as though she has found herself in the narrative of someone else’s life.
‘Do you think it was an accident, or...?’ Abby cannot bring herself to say it explicitly.
The family liaison officer shakes her head. ‘It’s too early to say. But it does seem possible that what happened was a terrible accident. That’s what both Jack and Nicole maintain.’
Abby nods, still unable to take it in.
She thinks about how she has watched Jack grow up over the years. How he has always been such an uncomplicated boy – personable, friendly, well behaved – how she and Nicole have often joked that at least they both have one teenager who never gives them any trouble.
Except now one of those children is dead and the other is in police custody.
She is overcome by such a complex mesh of emotions that she does not know where one ends and another begins. Anger with Jack for being so reckless. Fury with Andrew for seducing her daughter. Resentment at Nicole for her multitude of lies. Frustration with Clio for having made Abby suspect – even for a moment – that she may somehow be involved.
‘Can I get you anything?’
Abby shakes her head. There is nothing, she knows, that will ever completely dispel these feelings. Anger is only the tip of the iceberg. There is also her grief. Huge, unwieldy swathes of grief: for Isla, for Stuart, for her friendship with Nicole.
She thinks about the past five weeks, about Nicole sitting beside her on the sofa, wrapping her arms around her, grieving with her. She thinks about Isla’s funeral, how Nicole had taken care of everything – the flowers and the catering, the transport and the wake – and how Abby was in such a daze she did not even think to thank her at the time, had felt so guilty about that later. She thinks about Nicole’s daily check-ins – the visits, phone calls, messages – the care she has bestowed on Abby and Clio. She thinks about the unfailing interest Nicole has taken in the progress of the police investigation: interest that made Abby believe Nicole was almost as invested as she was in Isla’s killer being brought to justice. Now, she realises, Nicole’s enquiries were nothing more than calculated self-interest.
There can be no recovery, she knows unequivocally, for her relationship with Nicole.
The door to the sitting room opens, and Clio stands beneath the architrave. Her eyes clock the family liaison officer and she hovers, uncertain, like the inquisitive child she used to be in the not-so-distant past.
Abby does not know how to tell Clio what has happened, does not know how to convey that her sister was killed by a boy she has known since she was born, or that the crime was covered up by one of the most trusted adults in her life. She does not know if there are words to explain all that. For now, she opens her arms, invites Clio inside, and wraps her in all the love she has to give.