Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,92

the table.

‘No need to be nervous,’ said Kathleen. ‘I can’t tell you how much better I feel for coming clean. I hope my apology has made you feel vindicated,’ she added, checking Susanna’s face for a reaction.

Vindicated? Not really, thought Susanna. Sad, yes. Unnerved, certainly.

She suddenly realized something. She was now responsible for her mother’s peace with the world before she died. And her mother had put her in that position. It didn’t seem fair. Susanna felt a tightness across her chest, a pressure she hadn’t wanted.

But if she admitted to these crimes . . . did it even matter? If Kathleen was going to keep it a secret, then she could say anything and in the same breath secure her future.

That would make her feel vindicated, she thought. After all these years, actually getting the windfall that was her rightful inheritance.

‘There’s something else,’ said Kathleen, ‘that you might not have thought about. If you tell me what you did, then of course the money is yours. But after you there’s Abby and Ellie. It’ll go to them. So in a way, you’ll also get to make amends.’

‘Why don’t you just leave it to them in the first place?’

‘Because I don’t owe them.’

Susanna looked at her mother, saw the watery eyes, the fadedness of her, and marvelled at how such an old woman could still have such a hold over her. She pictured a moment in the future, a time when she got a call from some hospital saying her mother had very little time. Would she be so weak that she’d no longer have the reach and power to make Susanna feel so belittled?

‘You never met Ben,’ she said.

‘What?’ Kathleen was wrong-footed by this change of topic.

‘My son. You didn’t ever meet him. He died at eleven months and you never made the effort.’

Kathleen was rattled. ‘That’s because I made mistakes back then. I told you.’

‘Nor did you come to the funeral.’

‘Your father was away on business. I couldn’t face it alone.’

‘Liar.’ As soon as the word came out of her mouth, Susanna’s heart started to race. Her mother looked as if she’d been physically assaulted. She even raised a papery hand to her cheek. Buoyed by this rare upper hand, Susanna spoke again. ‘You simply weren’t interested,’ she said. ‘He and Abby were too young at the time for you to want to bother with them. It was only when my children got older, when you felt you could have a hand in shaping them, making them what you felt was worthy of being your grandchild, that you paid them any attention.’

For once, Kathleen had no comeback. It was strangely satisfying, but only in a temporary way. Like eating fast food you’d craved for ages and then regretting it. That’s enough, thought Susanna. You’ve had your say. It was something she hadn’t thought she had in her, to speak to her mother like that. But she wasn’t about to set fire to this new bridge Kathleen had built between them. And anyway, she couldn’t afford to.

SIXTY-EIGHT

It was strange being on the other side of the desk. Matteo sat facing the two Spanish detectives, feeling the invisible wall of authority that ran across the middle of the tabletop. At the side of the room, Santini sat on a chair, which he occasionally tipped against the wall. Matteo could feel his eyes boring into him.

He wasn’t under arrest, simply ‘helping them with their enquiries’. The way the phrase was put, it sounded as if they were all in this together. But Matteo knew better than that.

They’d started by asking him about his job, what it was like working for the Carabinieri, comradely questions designed to make him feel part of one big police club. He’d had a few questions of his own, chiefly, where was Lieutenant Colonel Baroni? He hadn’t seen her since she’d got out of the car at the murder scene that morning, when she’d taken that call. The detectives had claimed not to know much, except that she was in the building somewhere. Matteo had learned that she’d got herself a lift back to the station before him and he suspected her rapid departure had something to do with the telephone call she’d received in the car.

One piece of information the detectives had been very forthcoming with was the news that the bullet had been extracted from the victim and it matched those in his police weapon. He’d somehow known this to be the case but nevertheless