I glance across at the silent police officer, wondering if she’s going to ask any questions.
“When I saw the viral photo. I know a lot of people thought it was me, but I knew it wasn’t. I had no recollection of walking down that road in such disarray.”
“But you are suffering with young-onset dementia?” he asks. “That’s what you told PC Forrester.”
“Yes. But it is mostly being controlled with medication at the moment. Obviously, it will progress, but I still have an awareness of what has happened to me.” It feels as though I’m warping the truth to make myself appear strong and together, the version of myself I used to be. My mouth is dry and I wonder where that glass of water is.
“You didn’t ever try to find any siblings before then?” Oliver asks.
“No,” I say.
“And you’ve never met Claire Blackburn?”
“I already told you. No.”
PC Henry looks to DS Oliver who nods. She leans down under the table and produces a large ziplock bag containing the clothes found at my house. She dumps it on the desk and pushes it towards me.
“Twins may look identical, but their DNA is not,” DS Oliver says. “There’s blood on the clothes inside that bag. And the blood belongs to Claire Blackburn.”
When DS Oliver says the word “blood”, the room fades in and out of focus and I slump forward in my seat. I hear someone mention a glass of water but I can’t tell who’s speaking. Then a moment later PC Henry returns with a plastic cup filled with tepid water. I drink it in two gulps.
“Are you all right, Mrs Mathis?” DS Oliver asks.
I nod and place the cup carefully on the desk in front of me. “Luckily for you, you’ll never get to experience the wonderful symptoms of the menopause, which includes hot flashes. Thank you very much for the water. That helps a lot.”
He smiles thinly. “Why do you think finding out about the blood on the clothes led to such a strong reaction from you?”
“Like I said, DS Oliver, I am in the middle of the menopause, and this is a stuffy room. But also, because now I know my sister has been hurt and that is a distressing thing to hear.”
“Even though you’ve never met this sister?”
“Yes,” I say. “We’ve never met but I still feel a connection to her. I want her to turn up alive and well.”
“No one said she was dead, Mrs Mathis,” he says.
“I know,” I say calmly. “Neither did I.”
We’re irritating each other. He’s hoping for a rise from me and I’m pushing down the rage his questions are provoking. I hear the insinuations in his voice. The accusation in his tone. He thinks I might have hurt Claire. Or worse. My house is the last place Claire was seen and they found blood on her clothes inside. None of this looks good for me.
DS Oliver slides a notepad and pen over to me. “Could you write down your whereabouts for the last twenty-seven days?”
I take hold of the pen and click it three times. The police clearly suspect me of a crime, but I’m not guilty of anything except trying to get on with my life. These past few weeks I’ve felt as though I was the victim, and yet here I am having to account for my movements and explain the strange circumstances that have led me here. I close my eyes and the twisted grimace on Claire’s face from the doorbell footage lurches into my mind. She was stalking me. She wanted to hurt me. But now I wonder if she is trying to frame me. I put my head in my hands and try to rub away the image of her from my brain, pressing and clawing at my scalp, pushing the spectre of her away.
“Are you well, Mrs Mathis?” Oliver raises an eyebrow. “You’re quite pale.”
I look up and the room shifts. I’m in a hospital room with my dad, staring at machines, too afraid to look at his withered and grey face. I am sick to my stomach with the guilt of worrying about myself as he’s dying, wondering how on earth I will cope without him. Then I blink again and DS Oliver stares at me with his head tilted. This time his expression shows genuine concern.
I’ve forgotten the name of the other officer. Oliver is hard to forget – he wants to arrest me, he wants to put me in prison. He says something but when he speaks, his words sound jumbled up. I don’t understand what he’s saying. And then a great sense of exhaustion washes over me and I slump forward. Arms pull at my shoulders, sitting me up straight.
“Is there someone we can call?”
“What?” I shake my head.
“Is there someone we can call to collect you, Mrs Mathis? Or would you like to go to the hospital?”
“To see my father?”
The strangers in front of me regard each other with a look of confusion before gazing back at me.
