A Game For All The Family (46 page)

“No! I’m not throwing it again, Wenceslas. Enough! Run along, the lot of you.”

“I think Anne feels victimized,” I say. “Let down by her family—far more than any collection of autobiographical details can adequately explain. She’s a clever woman. She knew she was wounded and probably didn’t understand why. Maybe it was only the business with the dog, or maybe it was that and other things—other
ordinary
things. If you’re unusually sensitive, it’s possible to be destroyed by incidents that aren’t at all spectacular or dramatic—it doesn’t have to be full-on murder and horror to crush you.”

“So she invented a murdered sister and another one intent on killing her as justification for the way she felt?” Olwen asks. “So that no one would deny her right to feel as bad as she did, or does?”

“I think so, yes. Would you risk describing your emotional pain if you thought everyone would say, ‘Oh, come on, it’s not as if you’ve had a hard life’? I wouldn’t.”
Didn’t. Don’t.
“Anne needed a story that’d make anyone who heard it step back and say, ‘Wow. Poor you. How you must have suffered! Have
all
the sympathy and special treatment!’ She created a new family to make up for the one that failed her so badly, and, again, her fantasy of being Lisette Ingrey pursued by the vengeful Allisande proves to be exactly what she needs. It enables her to imprison her children, effectively, and claim it’s for their own protection. She’s overwhelmingly invested in her lie.”

“You think she’s come to believe it?”

“If I had to guess? Yes and no. She knows it’s not true by any consensus definition of truth. At the same time, she despises that way of defining things. Her story is
truer
than the reality. The
facts
of her life are untrue. So she doesn’t feel as if she’s lying. The story she’s shared with her husband and children and no one else—her secret name, her unverifiable, unrecorded, unwitnessed life—that’s the truth of who she is.”

“I’m not sure I’m with you.”

It’s frustrating that I can’t explain it properly. I know what I mean, but it’s hard to convey to someone else. “You and I and most people—we accept that fact is fact. Anne’s different. She’s not going to allow herself to be limited by reality. If she can’t alter it to suit her needs, she’d rather destroy everything. That’s why I can write her persuasive letters from now until the end of time and I’ll never get through to her. You couldn’t either. There’s only one person who maybe can.”

“Who?”

I run through the logic of it in my mind one more time before I take the plunge.

“Allisande Ingrey. Her sister.”

“But—”

“Allisande doesn’t exist? I know. That doesn’t mean no one can impersonate her. I couldn’t do it—Anne wouldn’t accept it coming from me, when I’ve been telling her over and over that I’m Justine and not Sandie—but someone else could try to be the sister she invented.” I smile. “Someone with a tennis ball in one hand and a plastic . . . ball-throwing contraption in the other?”

Olwen laughs. “Forget it, Justine. I’m not pretending to be Allisande Ingrey. I know I suggested it, but a) I suggested
you
should do it, not me, and b) I wasn’t being serious.”

“It was a good idea.”

“No. It really wasn’t.”

“Will you just—”

“No, Justine!”

“Olwen, there’s no one else I can ask! It’s just one email—maybe a phone call. You’re right, it won’t work. There’s no way Anne’ll go for it, but . . .” I lose heart before I reach the end of my pitch. “I don’t know, maybe I’m as crazy as she is, but I think if Allisande removed the threat—maybe even apologized for it—that might help things. Imagine if Anne were to get an email purporting to be from Allisande, saying, ‘Please can we meet and talk? I think I owe you a big apology.’ She’d know it wasn’t me; my strategy all along has been to deny I’m Sandie. And I’ve just emailed her a long letter in which I argue that facing up to the truth is the only way forward. So why would I suddenly change tack? So, a voice Anne doesn’t recognize, claiming to be Sandie . . . she wouldn’t think in a million years it might be me.”

“Right, but equally she would know it can’t be Allisande, who, after all, doesn’t exist!”

“Maybe,” I say. “But she’d love her to be real and contrite, wouldn’t she? And if I’m right about her psychology, Anne believes Allisande
is
real, in the murky realm that facts can’t touch. At the level of emotional truth, Allisande is very real to Anne—more so than her living, breathing relatives, probably. Either way, would Anne be able to resist an invitation to meet someone claiming to be her nonexistent sister?”

“Meet? I thought it was just an email I was sending. What would happen at this meeting? What would I say? My answer’s still no, by the way. And to you, Good King Wenceslas—no more ball. I mean it.”

“You’d tell Anne she was right all along. That you were young and frightened. You took your fear out on her and lost a beloved sister, when you should have supported her. Together, the two of you should have stood strong, like she wanted to, and gone to the police with the truth. However hard it was. You’d cry a bit, ideally, while saying all this.”

“Cry?” Olwen tuts, as if crying is an activity she’s long disapproved of.

“Yeah. Lisette needs tears and begging—lots of both. She stuck up for what was right and fair, and she was made to feel like a traitor and a pariah.”

“Justine—”

“I know it’s all bullshit, Olwen. I still think a hefty dollop of fake contrition in her fake world might make Anne less dangerous to us all in the real world.”

“Even if I were willing, which I’m not . . . wouldn’t Anne assume I was a friend of yours trying to trap her?”

“You’re overlooking one crucial detail,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“You have dogs.”

“So?”

“Allisande and Lisette both loved Malachy Dodd, remember? Isn’t it plausible that, after Malachy’s tragic death, Allisande would decide to be a dog breeder and kennel owner when she grew up?”

“Oh God!” Olwen covers her face with her hand. “I hate to say it, Justine, but I’m worried all this is turning you as loopy as her.”

Something inside me hardens. This has to happen. I’ll find someone else to play the part of Allisande Ingrey if I have to.

“People believe what they want to believe, Olwen—all over the world, every single day. They ignore logic and evidence and basic human decency and believe whatever makes their life more bearable in the immediate short term. Anne will believe in Contrite Sandie because she’ll want to, desperately. It’ll be her perfect fantasy fulfillment.”

“Her fantasy, from what I can gather, is her killing Allisande before Allisande kills her,” Olwen points out.

“At the moment, yes—because it hasn’t occurred to her that her sister might grovel and admit that she, Anne-slash-Lisette, was right all along. I think she might go for that as an even more favorable outcome, and if she does, there’ll be no more death threats—from anyone to anyone. Isn’t it worth a try? What if all Anne needs is for someone—
anyone
—to take the time and trouble to apologize to her for everything she’s been through—all the pain and misery that she didn’t deserve. She might decide she doesn’t need to kill me if she hears you say, ‘I’m so sorry. You were as much a victim as Malachy Dodd, John Kirbyshire and David Butcher—a wholly innocent victim. Please tell me what I can do now to make it up to you, because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make this right.’ ”

Olwen sighs. “I understand the reasoning behind it, but . . . it won’t work. I hate to sound defeatist, but it just won’t.”

“All right, fine,” I say. “Let it not work. I’m asking you to try, not to guarantee success.”

“What if Anne agrees to meet and turns up with a breadknife in her handbag? You’re asking me to risk my life.”

“If she agrees to meet you, we’ll arrange it so that I’m there too. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. She wouldn’t try to hurt you, Olwen. I’m the one she wants to harm, not you. Ellen and Alex can go to Maggie’s so that they’re out of the way. And Figgy, in case she recognizes him. You’ve got a house full of dogs that look a bit like Figgy—that could work in our favor.”

“So she’s coming here, is she? To my house? That’s the plan?” Olwen closes her eyes. She knows that capitulation is not far away. It feels inevitable, to both of us. “How do my dogs work in our favor?” she asks.

I pick up a ball and throw it for Good King Wenceslas, who has been lingering hopefully near my feet.

“In her mind, Anne has made me Sandie,” I say. “I think she’s a proud woman—most people are who bury their own very real suffering and deny its existence—they’d find it too humiliating to admit to feeling the pain ordinary mortals feel. Anne’s not going to admit she’s wrong about the identity of her enemy-sister unless she sees a way to change tack without losing face. If I’m not Allisande but I turn out to be someone associated with Allisande—someone, perhaps, who got her dog from Allisande’s kennel . . . Make sense?”

“Too much.” Olwen sighs. “It’s way too rational for Anne Donbavand. She exists in another stratosphere—the woman’s completely loonytunes, Justine. We can’t just open the door to her elaborate fantasy life and stroll in as if it’s a . . . the local pub! It won’t work.”

“So you keep saying. Wouldn’t you rather be able to say, ‘It didn’t work’? What possible comeback will I have then? That’s the way to win the argument: prove me wrong.”

Olwen makes a frustrated noise.

“I promise you, Olwen: I won’t let her hurt you.”

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Lisette, it’s me -- your sister, Sandie. I need to talk to you. Ideally, I’d like us to meet. I know this suggestion will be anathema to you. I know that for many years you have been afraid of me. But you have nothing to fear from me now. I want to make peace. This bad blood between us has gone on too long.

I would like to invite you to my home in London. Can you come soon? Can you come now -- or tomorrow? If you want to, you can bring someone with you, if you’re worried I might harm you. Bring your husband. I would love to meet him. Bring your whole family if you wish.

In peace --
Allisande

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Who is this?

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

I am your sister, Allisande Ingrey. Come to London tomorrow. Take the 1007 from Paignton. It arrives at London Paddington at 1338. I’ll send a taxi to meet you and bring you to my house. There are things we need to talk about -- things we should have talked about long ago. It’s my fault that we didn’t and I wish to put that right. Please come, Lisette.

Sending you love and peace --
Allisande

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Lisette, you haven’t replied. May I assume you will be there tomorrow?

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

I’m not getting in your taxi. Tell me your address and I’ll make my own way there.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Sorry, I can’t do that. I’m not putting my address in an email that you could show to anyone. Let’s meet somewhere public. Why don’t I meet you off the train? I’ll wait on the arrival platform. We haven’t seen each other for years, but I’m sure you’ll recognize me. I have short spiky brown hair these days and I’ll be wearing a green coat with a large brooch on it: a boat made out of pearls.

In peace --
Sandie

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

I’ll see you tomorrow.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Thank you for agreeing to come, Lisette. This means so much to me. I promise you, you won’t regret it.

Your loving sister Allisande

“Is that my bit done?” Olwen asks. “Can I go?”

“Yes. I won’t be much longer. Half an hour after you, maximum.”

We’re in an internet café near Shepherd’s Bush tube station. I chose somewhere random and far from Olwen’s house. Just to be extra safe, I didn’t want any communication to Anne’s university address to come from a computer or device associated with Olwen. I can’t let her end up in any kind of trouble for doing me a favor.

She stops halfway to the door. “Why did I need to write the emails?” she asks. “You could have done it. You told me what to say, pretty much.”

“Author identification,” I mutter, already busy with my next online task. In my former life as a slave to the TV industry, I made a drama about a forensic linguistic analyst who worked with the police in murder trials. His job was to identify who wrote what when it really mattered—did this murderer write that letter? As part of my research for the program, I spoke to a real forensic linguistic analyst, Professor Malcolm Coulthard from Aston University in Birmingham. He told me it’s frighteningly easy to prove who wrote what if you have enough data to make comparisons.

Anne Donbavand has other correspondence from me. I don’t want her hiring an expert to tell her I also wrote Allisande’s emails. Olwen used words and phrases I’d never use, like “In peace” as a sign-off. And she uses a double-dash as punctuation—I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

“Justine?”

“What?”

“You don’t honestly think Anne believes those emails are from Allisande, do you?”