The Stranger in Our Home Read online

  ‘There are some basic brain stem reflexes but no higher function. She has sustained a severe brain injury. Several bones were broken in the fall, including her neck, but the trauma to her head is what we’re dealing with. We can keep her alive, as you see, observe a little longer, but we’ve reached a point where really a decision has to be made.’

  A decision. Isn’t he going to spell it out? He sounds sympathetic, a man who regrets this information. He knows the outcome. I feel detached; this isn’t me they’re talking about.

  ‘Caro?’ The voice is my husband’s.

  I feel my heartbeat falter. The machine beside me gives a skip. Craig. I can’t think of him without rage fizzing in my head. When we both tipped over the banister, he saved Caro, not me.

  The fucking bastard saved her!

  I want to spit in his face, to tear the skin from his cheeks.

  The noise of the machine skips again, rattling like drums in a carnival. I imagine the doctor frowning, reaching out to adjust the equipment, the monitor returns to a steady beat.

  ‘Yes.’ Caro speaks.

  She moves slowly across the room with her wild hair like a cloud about her face. She never did look after herself. But she’s fine, absolutely, bloody fine.

  Craig leans down and I feel his hand against my cheek. Like he cares.

  ‘We have to decide,’ he says.

  His words are like the touch of ice against my ear.

  How dare he? He’s my husband! And her – Caro. She isn’t my sister. Look at her standing there on the fringes of my sight, pretending to be my devoted loyal sister. I won’t have her as my sister. She was the cuckoo in our nest. She doesn’t have the right.

  Caro doesn’t reply.

  ‘I’ll leave you both for a little while.’ The consultant makes to leave.

  ‘How long?’ It’s Caro, rushing in. ‘How long does it take, after …’

  The consultant hesitates as if deciding how honest to be. ‘It depends, Miss Crowther. Steph’s on breathing support and medication to maintain her blood pressure. We will of course give her drugs to ensure there’s no pain.’ His voice softens. ‘Usually it’s almost immediate. As soon as the respirator is switched off.’

  ‘Will she wake up?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry,’ he says. He misunderstands.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Caro.

  ‘We’ll be outside, if you have any questions.’

  There are footsteps, a door closing and he’s gone.

  ‘Sit down, Caro.’ It’s Craig, pulling out a chair. I hear it drag along the floor.

  ‘I still can’t believe what she’s done …’

  Caro’s voice. How it grates on me.

  It’s snowing outside. Small white flakes driven by the wind, darting in different directions. Not big enough to settle, like gnats buzzing under a tree on a summer’s evening.

  ‘I know,’ Craig says. ‘But the police are sure. They have forensic evidence from Angus’s body, a clump of her hair in his hand. Enough to know what Steph did. He was blackmailing her.’

  Craig’s voice is almost a growl. I can hear his derision.

  ‘They’ve tracked the funds in his bank account back to Steph. She’d been paying him to keep quiet. Perhaps he got greedy.’

  Ha, yes, Angus helped. He hated Caro almost as much as I – he and Danny had been best mates at school, the two of them always up to mischief. Angus never forgot. And besides that, I told him he had to help us – he owed us a huge sum of money. Until Angus decided he would blackmail me. I wasn’t having that.

  But Craig helped so much more! It took a while to persuade him, especially after he found out I’d killed Elizabeth. Too risky, he said. Then I showed him the investment papers. Once he twigged about the inheritance, he was all for it.

  ‘I still don’t understand. I really thought that you wanted to kill me, you and Steph both.’ Caro’s voice is almost tearful.

  It gives me some satisfaction at least to hear her pain.

  ‘I told you. I knew she wasn’t in New York, but I had no idea what she was really up to. That she and Angus were using Elizabeth’s key to access the house and do those things. In all the time I’ve known Steph and Elizabeth, neither of them ever talked about Danny. Caro, you have to believe me when I say that Steph deceived me too. She was my wife – imagine how I feel about that! I’m so very sorry I didn’t tell you about our relationship. I didn’t know how to. I fell in love with you so fast, it became impossible to tell you about Steph.’

  Lies, so many lies.

  ‘When I realised what was going on,’ says Craig. ‘I had to play along with it, to delay things till I could figure out how to protect you!’

  I would laugh if I could. Oh, Caro! He’s lying, can you still not tell?

  Craig helped me from the start. He knew exactly where I was – with him at the cottage. He had the spare key Elizabeth gave him – he always was a charmer. He shifted the crate into the attic for me and moved the pear drum that night to freak her out. He put the rat in her bed. He even took her to the Wassail so she’d see the apple-bobbing – that one worked a treat. We did it together, Craig and me. We were a team. How convenient it is for him to blame Angus – he can hardly defend himself, can he!

  ‘It wasn’t me.’ Craig sounds tired.

  I can feel the tension. But Caro wants to believe, I can hear it in her voice. I saw the shock on her face when Craig pushed her out of the way, tried to stop us fighting. And then he saved her! Like he did at Carsington! I feel my hatred boil over – he kept that quiet, he must have had a backup plan all along. So now she believes him.

  ‘I know how it must have looked when I put you in the attic. I was terrified for you. She rang me that morning, demanding I come to the house. She was unhinged, I’d never seen her like that. I’d no idea that she’d killed Elizabeth, or Angus. Or that she planned to kill you – until I got there. I had to think on my feet, convince her I was loyal until I figured out what to do. There was no phone signal, I thought you’d be safe in the attic till I could get help. Look what she did to Mary Beth! She was a lunatic! Thank God Mary Beth survived. She was in intensive care for weeks, she was almost killed – that could have been you!’

  Oh, he’s so convincing! But then, don’t we believe what we want to believe? Caro’s so in love with him, even now.

  I can hear her crying, sobbing her little heart out. Poor Caro. He’s holding her, murmuring in her ear, playing it to the hilt. He’s very good! He’s still after the money. All the money. That’s what it’s been about for him, ever since I showed him the investments. He found a better tactic, dump me and take her. All those visits. He slept with her and liked it. I should never have allowed it! He preferred her. I should have seen it coming!

  It was my own fault. I joked about it before Christmas. Why don’t you fuck her? Go all the way? Then she’ll follow you around like a lamb and you can do anything you want, make sure she does remember. I was getting worried. After all, she’d kept her memories buried so long, there was never any guarantee our plan would work. When he did sleep with her, it spiced things up, turned us both on. He said it meant nothing.

  He was playing us both!

  But Mary Beth? That was my real mistake. He was already rethinking his plans after the police got involved. I see that now. When I stabbed her, he had to choose, to side with me and risk being arrested, or side with Caro and place all the blame on me. I made a huge mistake attacking Mary Beth. How could we possibly explain that? I lost control!

  The snow is slowing down, the flakes larger, fatter, clinging to the branches of the tree beyond the window. I feel so cold.

  I don’t need to kill Caro now – he’ll do it for me. When he’s ready. Craig knows how to kill. He killed Angus, not me. He took Elizabeth’s car and pushed Angus over the edge when he wasn’t expecting it. Craig must have planted my hair on the corpse just in case. I should have realised he’d have a plan B, he always was a calculating bastard, that’s why I loved him. He doesn
’t have to stick with her once they’re married. He can still engineer her ‘suicide’ or some kind of an accident.

  He’ll still get her money, all the money.

  ‘It doesn’t matter any more, Caro. She’s gone. Look at her.’ Craig touches me again.

  Doesn’t he remember he loved me once, that he’s still my husband?

  Caro’s chair scrapes on the floor, moving closer. She’s stopped crying now. She picks up my hand, holding it as if she cares. Now she’s reaching for my head, positioning it to face them both, gazing into my eyes as if searching, hoping that I’m still inside.

  Does she know? Has she guessed that I’m still there, that I can hear every word? I know what Caro is capable of. I saw it in her eyes that day at the summerhouse. She’s a killer. It’s all about losing your inhibition.

  Now she’s watching me, as I watched her at Elizabeth’s funeral.

  I can’t see the snowflakes any more. But I can hear them, soft smudges thudding against the window pane, like moths fluttering to their death. I can hear them, even though no one else can. They’re filling the glass, each flake merging with another, a wall of thick white snow like the fog that day at Carsington Water.

  It’s been, what, half an hour? They’ve been thinking about it, talking about it. Craig’s all over Caro, hands touching her shoulders, so caring, so supportive. Not exactly the grieving husband. He’s already made his decision. But what about her? What will Caro decide?

  ‘Shall I call them?’ Craig says.

  Caro nods, still watching me.

  He leaves the room and comes back. There are voices. The doors open, a nurse wheels in a trolley. They’d been waiting, as if they all knew which way it would go. There are loads of them now, doctors, nurses. They’re muttering, conferring. More people. They’re taking notes, readings from the machines, adjusting the drip. Is that how they do these things? Craig holds Caro’s hand. She leans back into him. Her gaze on me hasn’t wavered once.

  Someone pushes the bedside cabinet, placing it closer to me so they can pass. There’s not much on it. Just a picture in a frame. Caro gave it to me for Christmas. She must have put it there, an apparent gesture of affection. For the benefit of the staff. It’s an odd sort of Christmas present, I heard one of the nurses say. It’s a painting. One of hers. I can see it now.

  For the first time, I feel real fear.

  It shows an old, flat gravestone beneath a juniper tree. It’s from the story I wrote for Caro. Ivy clings to it like in the summerhouse, fingers crawling into the tree. A boy sits on the grave. He’s only young. He holds a pear drum. Is it a boy? Or a girl? As I look at the painting I can hear the music. It grows and fades, grows and fades with each rotation of the handle.

  That drone, the vibration, it cuts through the very heart of me, almost sucking me in as it gets louder and louder …

  ‘Are you ready, Miss Crowther?’

  Caro looks at Craig. He looks at me.

  And she speaks.

  ‘Yes.’

  Author Note

  The Pear Drum story is loosely based on ‘The New Mother’ by Lucy Clifford, a children’s story published in her 1882 collection, The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise. This brilliant but disturbing tale has inspired several different literary interpretations and offshoots, and is also popularly retold by oral storytellers. But it caught my imagination because of its description of the pear drum – a colloquial term for a sort of mechanical violin called an organistrum (an early medieval musical instrument later reinvented as a hurdy gurdy). You can see a wonderfully surreal depiction of a pear drum in the third panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights, a late 15th century painting by Hieronymus Bosch. I can’t say whether or not Lucy Clifford was familiar with that painting, but Bosch’s inclusion of mischievous and devilish ‘little people’, both tortured by and delighting in the various musical instruments of Hell, could well be connected to the ‘little people’ referred to in the story. And they do say that the devil has all the best music …

  Acknowledgements

  One autumn, just after moving house to a renovated farm up in the hills of Derbyshire, I woke to mists rolling up against the windows and a pile of unopened packing cases. The place wasn’t yet home, and with the boys back at school and no neighbours for at least two fields in all directions, I felt a bit lost and alone. So I dug out my computer, lit the stove and started to write a story. It’s such a daunting task writing a book, I don’t think I quite realised what I had taken on. But it’s been a joyous journey, not least for all the support and help of the following:

  Beta readers and fellow writers: Gemma Allen, Fay Saxton, Glenda Gee and Carl McGarrigle. Fellow Doomsbury Group writers: Roz Watkins, Jo Jakeman, Fran Dorricott and Louise Trevatt. Each of you has been amazing, patient, funny and very kind. Artists: Jain McKay and Jenna Catton, for invaluable feedback on the characterisation of Caro.

  Coleen Coxon, a colleague and valued friend who read the book in its final stages one snowy weekend and made so many useful and astute observations. Mark Henderson, whose early support and championing of both my writing and oral storytelling has been tremendously encouraging. Giles Abbott – an oral storyteller with a rich, vibrant voice – for generously sharing with me the story of Eostre. Sue and Mark Tyrer for reading, chatting, walks, BBQs and patient ongoing support and encouragement.

  Writers/tutors: Alex Davis and Stephen Booth and the teams at Writing East Midlands, Winchester Writers Conference and the York Festival of Writing (who selected my book extract for the Friday Night Live 2017). And in particular all the agents, editors and experts I met over the last few years who gave advice and expressed an interest in my writing – there are some very kind and generous people out there in the publishing industry and writing community.

  Special thanks go to the team and judges at the Bath Novel Award 2017, especially Caroline Ambrose (chief organiser), Laura Williams (head judge and now my agent … ) and Joanna Barnard (who very kindly gave the book a ‘golden ticket’ for which I’m still very grateful!). This competition was a major turning point on my journey to publication.

  Ronald and Irene Draper, who have followed my literary exploits with equal thrill and excitement. Rob Snell, for being a critical sounding board and consistent support throughout the process, even when I had abandoned all pretence at doing my share of the housework, meals and school runs … and for chopping wood to stoke my study fire and keep me and the cats warm. Likewise, Ben, Jamie and Jasper, for putting up with my distractions and bringing such warmth and light into my life. Love you all so very, very much.

  A special thanks to the team at Avon: my editor Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks, who nudged several new scenes out of me that I now love, publicist Sabah Khan and everyone else who has given me such a warm welcome on my first steps to publication.

  And in particular to my agent Laura Williams, her colleagues at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, and her new colleagues at Greene & Heaton. Laura has been the most patient, editorially incisive, intellectually brilliant and hard-working agent. Thank you so much.

  Finally, to all my friends and colleagues in the fabulous oral storytelling community, who help keep all those amazing folk tales, songs and snippets alive, told and retold to each new generation, finding new audiences in an age of multi-media storytelling. I love stories in all their forms!

  About the Author

  Sophie Draper won the Bath Novel Award 2017 with this novel. She also won the Friday Night Live competition at the York Festival of Writing 2017. She lives in Derbyshire, where the story is set, and under the name Sophie Snell works as a traditional oral storyteller.

  About the Publisher

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