LITMIR.BIZ

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expression.

      “Sis,” he said, climbing out of the chair. “Something wrong?”

      “Is Tanya around?” Tanya was Zach’s long-suffering girlfriend. I thought it best if she were there too. As much as anyone had a steadying influence on my brother, she did.

      “Craft market in Ludlow,” he said. “Selling cards and shit.”

      “Right,” I said uncertainly.

      “So, what is it? You look like someone tramped over your grave.” The smile attempted on his face, packed up and retreated.

      “It’s Scarlet,” I said bleakly.

      At the mention of her name, he started. “What’s she done? Look, if she’s said something—”

      “Done?”

      He blinked. “You’re making me nervous. I meant what’s happened?”

      Whether it was the compressed heat or emotional overload, I caught that uniquely chilling vibe only a sibling can identify. Zach’s was no ordinary slip of the tongue. I thought back to before the argument, sitting in the garden at Mum and Dad’s, Scarlet preoccupied. Did Zach know something I didn’t?

      “Moll,” he said. “For Chrissakes, tell me.”

      When I did, he made a sound, half groan and half exhalation. Brain fried a long time ago; his emotional responses were complex at the best of times.

      A woman, with a flat nose and cracked lips, stirred. “Man,” she said. “That’s bad.”

      “Real bad,” the other drawled, raising her head, turning over, in preparation to flash-fry her back.

      Expecting a shedload of questions, I waited for Zach to fill in the gathering silence. But Zach wasn’t like other people. Hands cupping his elbows, he stood mute, blinking rapidly from the sun or distress, or both.

      Unsolicited, I gave him a précis of what Dad told me. “I want you to come home,” I said.

      “Nah,” he said. “I’m all right.”

      “You’re all right?” I was accustomed to my brother wittering on about his guilt, bad vibes and not wishing to further upset ‘the folks’, but what had started out as distance and separation, over the years had taken on the shape of a feud, the reason for its existence long forgotten by both parties. In the present tragic circumstances, it was pointless, ridiculous and a waste of energy, which is what I told him.

      “I didn’t mean it the way you twisted it,” Zach said petulantly.

      “They need you, Zach. Hell, I need you.” Why couldn’t he see it the way I saw it?

      “Aw Molly, don’t look at me like that.”

      “Like what? Jesus, Zach, this isn’t about you.”

      “I never said it was.”

      “Fuck’s sake, don’t you care?”

      “Of course, I fucking care. She was my sister too. And it’s horrible what’s happened.”

      “Well, then.”

      “Transport’s a problem. I’m not exactly on the doorstep.”

      “I can take and drop you back. It wouldn’t need to be for long.” I was pleading with him.

      “I have to be here.” He tilted his chin in the direction of the nearest hedge, bullish, as if he had urgent business on the other side of the privet.

      “For what exactly?”

      “Don’t you get it? They won’t want me around. Especially now.” His hands flew to his head, like he’d been caught in an explosion and was trying to protect himself.

      I knew my brother and he was hiding something, all right. And Zach’s initial question, about what Scarlet had done, had given them both away. A victim in a tragic accident, Scarlet was dead. Nothing could change that fact. But my brother and sister had shared a secret. And I had to find out what it was.

       Chapter 6

      “When did you last see Scarlet?” We sat in the shade with homemade lemonade. The citrus tang hit the back of my throat like a blade.

      Zach scratched his belly. “Last year, maybe.”

      “That long ago?”

      “Christmas,” he said emphatically.

      “Not around her birthday?” Four months previously.

      Zach tweaked his moustache, shook his head, dreads swinging. “She was going to come over at Easter but there was a change to her rota.”

      “Speak to her much on the phone?” I sounded like a Grand Inquisitor, but Zach had always been an impressive liar – rather came with the drug-ridden territory. Directness reduced his wriggle room.

      “Now and then. Seemed okay.”

      “She didn’t mention a disagreement?” I tried to sound casual. The root cause of my row with Scarlet was not about money, although to an outsider it might look that way, but about favouritism and the way she, according to me, sucked up to our parents. If Scarlet had confided in Zach, he’d probably pass it off as a scrap between sisters. Cash, or the lack of it, had never featured heavily in Zach’s life, because he was so adept at sponging off others.

      Zach’s brow furrowed. “Who with?”

      “Doesn’t matter. According to Dad, there’s going to be an inquest,” I said, not so skilfully deflecting.

      Zach nodded thoughtfully. “How is he?”

      I hiked an eyebrow. “Apart from being devastated?”

      Colour spread across Zach’s high cheekbones, shame and anger in his expression, most of it aimed at me. “I meant in general. No matter,” he said. Waspish.

      “He’s doing his best to look after Mum.” I kept my voice soft and conciliatory.

      “God, yeah, how is she?”

      “Taking it very hard.”

      Zach nodded, met my eye. Unlike me, he said it how it was. “Scarlet was always her favourite.”

      “Which is why it’s important we rally round. It’s what Scarlet would have wanted.”

      His answer to my lousy suggestion was to take a gulp of lemonade and top up his glass. “What happens next?”

      “Post-mortem.”

      Zach visibly shivered, the hairs on his arms standing proud. There was an irony that Scarlet had danced with death every day in her professional life as a nurse, and would probably be matter of fact about lying on a slab and being pored over by a stranger, but the thought completely did me in.

      “Dad wants to visit the scene to lay flowers,” I said.

      Zach gave a silent respectful nod. I could see that me trying to draw him out wasn’t going to cut through or penetrate his lassitude.

      “Zach, what did you mean earlier when you asked me what Scarlet had done?”

      He let out a laugh, dry and arid. “Jesus, Molly, you’re like a dog with a bone.”

      “Well, it was a peculiar—”

      “Nothing. I meant nothing.”

      Odds on, from my set expression, Zach recognised my bullshit detector had flicked on. I might not have a degree, but I had an honorary in truth finding. I was like my dad in this regard.

      We fell silent. I couldn’t take any of it in. Not Scarlet. Not the surreal conversation I was having with my big brother.

      Zach

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