Page 28 of Silent Scream

Mrs Downs stepped back from the door. ‘I can't deal with you. I'll speak to Nicola. She's far more pleasant than you are.’

Tell me something I don't know, Beth thought.

She continued to stare the old woman down until the door finally closed. She allowed herself a small smile. That little exchange had made her night.

She jangled the keys a few more times before finally letting herself into the apartment.

Beth placed the walking stick over the edge of the sofa and sat down. She rubbed at her knee. The cold was giving it murder.

She reached for the slippers parked on the edge of the sofa. The maroon leather uppers were soft and smooth; the fur luxurious and warm.

She took off the flat-heeled boots and eased her feet into the expensive footwear. They weren't hers but Nicola wouldn't mind. They had always shared. That's what twins did.

She stood and shook out the ache from her knee.

She tapped on Nicola's door lightly. No answer. What had she been expecting? Of course her whore of a sister was not at home. She was out dancing and showing off her body for money.

She opened the door and stepped in. As usual, the room took her breath away. It was the room they'd dreamt of as children as they'd laid side by side at Crestwood.

Their room would have matching pink covers and pillows. An awning would circle the beds, held in place by beautiful lace. They dreamed of a wardrobe as magical as Narnia. Shelves would be filled with stuffed toys and snow globes. Fairy lights would be draped around the head of both beds. Their imagined bedroom would be magical and light and filled with things that were theirs and they would drift off to sleep making shadows on the wall.

Beth stepped further into the room. Her hand trailed along the shelf above the fireplace and landed on the single brown teddy bear at the end. She opened the door to the walk-in closet and stepped inside.

Nicola's clothes, underwear and shoes were folded, stacked and organised according to colour. Two drawers were dedicated to jewellery. One drawer held expensive, delicate pieces stored in their original boxes. Beth spotted one from Cartier and two from De Beers.

The second held bolder, heavier pieces that Beth guessed were used for her work. She closed the drawer quickly and moved further along. She didn't like to think of her sister at work.

A dressing table separated the wardrobe from the shoe cupboard. A single strand of clear fairy lights lined the mirror's edge.

Beth returned to the bedroom and sat on the four-poster bed. It was a room fit for a princess, just as they'd planned. It was the place they had vowed to live together for ever and ever and ever.

It was the room of which they'd dreamed; except there was only one bed.

One bed to be enjoyed by the sister who had it all.

What Nicola had didn't anger Beth anywhere near as much as her sister's refusal to admit what she'd done.

Her pathetic denial of their past infuriated Beth more and more with each passing day. No apology could ever take it back.

Nicola's actions had destroyed their chances of any life together and still she maintained her ignorance of the facts.

I don't know why you hate me. I don't know what I've done. I don't know how I hurt you.On and on and on with the denial.

However much Nicola protested otherwise, Beth felt the truth in her heart.

Somewhere deep inside, she knew.

Seventeen

‘Jesus, Bryant, will you keep still?’

He moved from foot to foot. The overnight temperature had dropped to minus three and the ground still held an icy core that seeped up through the shoes and into the bones.

He blew warm breath into his cupped hands. ‘For those of us not made of titanium, it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.’

‘Man up,’ Kim said, walking to the edge of the site.

The area itself was the size of a football pitch. It rose gently towards a row of trees that obscured the north tip from the council estate. On the west side was a road separating the site from the Rowley Regis crematorium. The remains of a large building sat at the southern edge nearest the road, behind a bus stop and a street lamp. The upper floor peered over at a row of terraced houses on the other side of the road. A six foot fence formed a snug perimeter around the structure, obscuring the lower level from view.