Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,38

force them to stop? Sweat beaded on her upper lip but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by wiping it away.

Abby tried to look nonchalant as she passed the police officers. A few seconds later they crossed into France. Abby realized she’d been holding her breath and exhaled loudly.

‘Can I speak now?’ asked Ellie, through gritted teeth.

Abby glanced behind in her mirror, saw the police station receding into the distance. ‘Sure.’

‘Where are we going? I mean, we can’t just keep on driving.’

Abby didn’t need to look at her sister to know she was about to kick off. It seemed safer not to answer.

‘What next? Spain? Portugal? We keep on going until we fall off the edge of Europe into the Atlantic?’

Again, Abby didn’t answer.

‘We need to stop!’ Ellie smacked her hand on the dashboard for emphasis.

‘And do what?’ said Abby.

‘I don’t know. Something! Anything!’

‘Neither of those suggestions are particularly detailed, or helpful.’

‘You always were patronizing.’

Abby looked taken aback. ‘Who, me?’

‘Yes, you! Always thinking you’re better.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Could have fooled me.’

Abby was trying to keep her patience. ‘Look, I don’t know what to do for the best. I’ve never been in this . . . situation before.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘What?’

‘Situation.’

‘You know.’

‘I want you to say it.’

‘Seriously?’ asked Abby, exasperated.

‘Yes. Go on, say it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Where my sister has killed my mother!’

Ellie took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Well, thanks very much. You . . . you’re so heartless. Always were. Got no feeling.’

‘Maybe I had it squeezed out of me as a child by a mother who didn’t care.’

Abby suddenly took a left turn, heading south towards the French coast. Somehow she felt better about changing the road she was on every now and then. She looked up in her mirrors, just to check she was alone, but instead of the reassurance of an empty road, her heart began to race.

‘Shit!’ she said, swiftly followed by an urgent, ‘Don’t look behind.’

Ellie, who had half turned her head, stopped in alarm. ‘What is it?’

‘Police. Behind us.’

‘Oh my God! Are they here for us?’

‘I don’t know. Shit.’ They were nearing a roundabout where there were three other exits – a two in three chance of losing them. Abby slowed and did a perfect manoeuvre at the first exit, heading for a small town. Then she surreptitiously checked her mirrors again.

‘Have they gone?’ asked Ellie nervously.

‘No.’

‘But they’re French police, right? Not Italian?’

‘Jesus, Ellie, you think they’ll forget about us? You think they don’t have translators?’

‘All right, no need to be so bloody superior.’

They were nearing the town now and Abby did her best to keep calm. Just a little further. Don’t look suspicious. She continued until she came to the town centre, and then casually turned down a side street.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.

Ellie glanced in her side mirror, started at what she saw. ‘They’re still following us, Abby. What do we do?’

‘It’s OK. Keep calm.’ She could feel the sweat pooling on her back. Her palms were slippery on the steering wheel as she turned again. Please don’t let them follow, she prayed, and as her eyes flicked to the mirror she almost cried with relief when she saw them drive on.

‘Have they gone?’ asked Ellie.

Abby pulled over. She lifted herself from her seat and peered out the back of the car, just to be sure. ‘Thank God.’ She turned back around and saw Ellie was slumped in her seat, her forehead resting against the dashboard, her hands protectively over her head. After a moment, Abby saw her sister’s shoulders heaving. Then the sounds came and Ellie was openly weeping – deep, inconsolable sobs that caught in her throat.

Abby tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK. They’ve gone now.’

But Ellie kept on crying. Abby tightened her grip, turned it into an awkward one-armed hug. To her surprise, Ellie lifted her face from the dashboard, her eyes red and streaming with tears, and in them Abby caught a raw, unrestrained grief. Ellie put her arms around Abby’s neck, clung to her.

‘I miss her, Abby, I miss her so much.’

A bolt of realization froze Abby for a moment. Susanna. Then she held her little sister, feeling the shuddering, great rifts of grief escaping from her body. They stayed there a while, parked up on the edge of a small square, neither of them noticing the man watching from the bench by the fountain.

Crying was normal, it was acceptable, especially after everything Ellie had gone through, but there