Page 69 of Her Last Breath

Maeve wailed in anguish, her body shaking as she started to sob.

‘No,’ she insisted, her voice riven with pain and hurt. ‘Do you think I would let anyone hurt my child?’

‘You didn’t only let Ed down, you let them get away with it. Why? Because she was your sister?’

‘Jane, stop, please. You’re hurting me. My Ed …’

Maeve turned her face away, her body still trembling from her distress.

‘You let them carry on with their sick behaviour because you were so ashamed about what people might say. Do you ever think about how many other lives they might have ruined? Because you didn’t stop them.’

Maeve raised her hand, silently imploring Jane to stop, but she wasn’t done yet.

‘I was six years old, Mum. A child who had just lost her brother and, rather than comfort me, you blamed me for Ed’s death. You let me take the blame for their sick actions because you couldn’t deal with the truth.’

Maeve continued to sob, but didn’t say anything. Jane wanted to grab her, make her explain herself, answer her questions.

‘I came back home because I wanted you to have a good end. I didn’t want you to die alone, like Ed did. Or die without saying goodbye, like Dad. But now you won’t have that and I’ll continue to be punished for the rest of my life for something that I didn’t do.’

Jane slammed the door on her way out, unable to see her way to her car through her tears. Putting her head on her steering wheel, screaming her despair and anguish, she called her brother’s name over and over again. How could she make this right? She would never be able to save him. It was too late. She had failed him, just as everyone else had.

How could she go on living, knowing that?

Chapter 45

‘So what does this mean?’

Sameer kissed Jane’s neck, wrapping his arms tightly around her naked body. She felt him aroused again as he leant into her.

Jane pulled his arms loose, turning so that she was lying on her back. Still chasing intimacy, he rested his head on her shoulder, his fingers idly tracing her nipples, which hardened despite her reluctance.

She had texted him on her way to the hotel and he’d turned up fifteen minutes later. There was no subtext or confusion about what she wanted from him. Fast, hard comfort. He had obliged, and they had easily slipped into a rhythm she still remembered from back in training college.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her, getting up to make them drinks. Two tea tray mugs splashed with vodka. She sat up and sipped at hers.

‘Just wondering where my brain was when I decided to come up here. Everything is so fucked up.’

He sat down beside her, taking a sip from his own mug. Jane emptied hers and made him get up to refill it.

‘What’s going on?’

Jane thought sleeping with Sameer would make her feel better, but it hadn’t. It was her pattern ever since she was a teenager, her way of escaping. Men and booze. Maybe getting drunk would help her. Or maybe she just needed to say it out loud to stop it eating her up inside.

‘Ed … I found out what happened to him.’

Sameer put their drinks down, came to sit beside her.

‘The reason he killed himself … he was … fuck, Sameer, I can’t even say it. I feel sick at the thought. My poor, beautiful brother.’

‘Jane, what happened?’

‘He was being abused. By my own fucking aunt and uncle.’

Her voice caught as she said it, the tears coming fresh. Sameer held her tightly.

‘Bloody hell, Jane, I’m so sorry.’

They sat without speaking, Jane sobbing in his arms. Eventually disengaging, he got up to get her some water, tried wiping her eyes while making her gulp it down. She hiccoughed between swallows, but it helped quell the sobs.