Where the Memories Lie

 

I kicked her foot but nothing happened. That was when I noticed the blood pooling out onto the tiles beneath her head along with some kind of other fluid.’

 

I fought the urge to retch. We’d been walking over that floor for years and all that time it was where Katie had been killed. No 280

 

Where the Memories Lie

 

matter how much scrubbing and cleaning you do, how can you ever get rid of that?

 

‘We’d done a first aid course a few months before at college and I felt her pulse. There was nothing there. She was already dead and it was too late to do anything. It was an accident. A terrible accident. I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t know what to do next.

 

I panicked. I panicked and ran home. I expected the police to knock on my door any second. But they didn’t. No one came. No one said anything about Katie being dead.’

 

‘Because everyone thought she’d run away,’ I said bitterly.

 

‘Yes.’ Her hands trembled at her sides.

 

I stood up and walked a few paces, hands on hips, staring at the ground, fighting for breath. ‘I can’t believe it.’ I thought about the scene in Tom’s room when DI Spencer and DS Khan were questioning him. Nadia had said Please, Dad. At the time I’d thought she was pleading with him to tell the truth but it was the exact opposite. She was pleading with him to stay quiet.

 

‘He was protecting me. Everything he did was to protect me.’

 

‘So you just let Tom take the blame for it? How could you? How selfish could you be? What did he say to you afterwards? “Oh, hi, Nadia. I’ve just cleared up that little mess you left in the kitchen and buried her under the garage. Don’t worry – it’ll be our little secret!

 

Oh, and can you pass the mashed potato, please? I’m starving”?’

 

I screamed out. ‘You let everyone think it was Tom! You let me think it was Ethan! You put us through all this and you had the bloody cheek to blame me for it all!’ I slapped her hard across the face, my chest heaving with rage.

 

Her head jerked sideways and she put a hand to her cheek.

 

Her shoulders sagged. ‘I deserve that.’

 

‘Did Ethan know?’ I glared at her.

 

She dropped her hand and stared out in the distance.

 

281

 

Sibel Hodge

 

‘ Did he? ’ I grabbed her chin between my forefinger and thumb and forced her to look at me.

 

‘No. No one knew. It wasn’t my decision in the end. When I came home Dad was working in the garden. I told him what had happened. I cried and cried and told him how it had been a horrible accident. He told me to stay where I was and not to tell anyone.

 

Not a soul. Ever. Maybe if there had been a trial I would’ve been convicted of manslaughter, not murder, but in those days if you killed someone you were sent to prison for life, not the few years you get now. And what if the jury didn’t believe it was really an accident?’

 

I shook my head, dropped my hand, unable to bear touching her anymore. I clenched my fists. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’

 

‘Dad didn’t want shame on the family. He didn’t want us all to suffer. He disappeared and came back in the middle of the night.

 

All he said was that he’d dealt with it, and I could never tell a soul.

 

When the police didn’t come knocking and everyone was saying Katie had left the village I thought that maybe I’d got it wrong.