Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

“Sally…”

“I was there,” she reminded me, poking me hard on the arm. “Don’t you forget that. I knew her too. I saw it all happen, and I’ll tell you now what I told you then. You’re an idiot, Max Thatcher, but you’re my brother. So, I love you.”

I grinned, leaning into her. “I love you too, Sal.”

“And so did she,” she added more gently. “So stop beating yourself up and stop running yourself ragged. I want to see this place look the way it used to, but for love of God, hire a constructor.”

I laughed through my nose at her tone and the look on her face as she scanned the dusty, cobweb ridden room.

“I’ll let you decorate a room,” I told her. “For you and Tom.”

“No one else will be allowed to sleep in it,” she said.

“I’ll make sure you have the only key,” I assured her.

Sally laughed then asked me. “You’ll keep it then? Get it running again?”

“Don’t see why not? Might move out here,” I said with a deep breath. “Get out in the countryside, turn the bar into a kitchen.” I nodded behind me.

“Bit of a journey for work every day,” Sally pointed out. “Especially when you get called out at three in the morning to go look at a dead body.”

That was true. I said nothing, and she turned to look at me.

“Right? Max? It’s too far?”

“Yep,” I sighed. “Too far.”

Sally looked me over suspiciously, and I hopped to my feet, extending a hand.

“Come look upstairs,” I said.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling with a dubious expression. “Is it safe?”

“Yes.” I snatched her hand and dragged her to her feet, pulling her along to the stairs. We headed up them, running as we used to do when we were children, and images of the place flooded my mind. Me and Sally on a summer’s day, running along the corridor, hands tracing the patterns on the wallpaper, sliding down the bannister. And in the winter, when the house was closed, and the windows were covered in frosts, blanket forts in the attic, sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags. Elsie was always in those memories, somewhere, laughing away. Elinor and Paul too, Sally’s baby brother running after us. My grandparents, watching fondly. And mother, usually sliding down the stairs with us, her laughter filling up the entire house.

We went up to the attic, the only room that I had finished, and Sally skidded to a halt, looking around.

“Wow,” she said softly.

It was not exactly clean, but it was decent. The beams were no longer caked in dust, the floorboards had been fixed, replaced where needed, the walls replastered, and I’d found a green wallpaper that reminded me of my mother, one with plants and vines that twisted from floor to ceiling. The lights were fully functional, and when I turned them on, Sally laughed. There was nothing else in here yet, a few pictures to be hung, a chest of drawers that I needed to get out of the way, but it looked almost like it used to. Sally drifted over to the round window, looking out at the oak tree.

“God, we had a good childhood, didn’t we?”

“All things considered,” I replied, standing next to her. It was dark enough outside that our reflections shone back in the window, her face grinning up at me. She almost looked seven again, and I grinned back before turning around to face the attic. I was proud of it, and it spurred me on to get the rest of it finished. I wanted to see it look how it used to, the old building that gave my grandparents so much pride.

“It’s amazing, Max,” Sally told me, resting her head on my shoulder. “It looks just like it used to.”

“Thanks, Sal.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? What a bit of guilt can do.” She said it as a joke, smacking my arm lightly before walking around the room, but I stayed put, her words running through my head.

Guilt. People did all sorts because of guilt. They lashed out, they shut down, they renovated bloody coaching houses with guilt fuelling them on. Billie had guilt, but she wore it on her sleeve, on her face, let us see it with every mention of her sister, her sister that she believed she had failed in some way. Fiona had guilt for not supporting her friend, for being dragged onto Edward’s side. The wrong side, perhaps. Maybe he was guilty too. Guilty enough to confront Stella in the park that day, guilty enough that, when Billie punched him in the face, he did nothing. Didn’t tell his friends, didn’t report it. If Charlie had known that Billie had punched him, I was sure he had told us that at the very off. But Edward had kept quiet. Out of decency, plausible, but, as Mills and I discussed earlier, not realistic. Maybe it was guilt that kept him quiet. Guilt that made him duck his head and forbid anyone from bringing up the Helman sisters.

I kept everything from my guilt, every photograph, every letter, every text from that year. Perhaps Edward did too, only not in the way we had thought to look. Not Billie’s threats, not her guilt. His own, in some way, shape, or form, a box or a bag all stuffed with something that he hated to look at but had to look at.

“Sally, you are a genius,” I told her, jogging to where she stood and kissing the top of her head.

“I know, but why?”

“I think I have an idea for what to do next,” I said, pushing her towards the stairs. I hit the lights, and we headed down to the ground floor, where I grabbed my coat and locked the place up. An idea burned all the doubt from my head as I said goodbye to Sally and jumped into my car, ready for tomorrow