The woman is still talking, and I’m trying to focus on all the advice, but my mind keeps wandering. ‘Keep your cell door shut whenever possible, and if anything happens – anything at all – don’t report it, or you’ll risk being labelled a grass. Above all, stay humble, know your place.’
I don’t know why they’re called ‘Listeners’ – all she’s doing is talking. She clearly hasn’t finished her training.
After our chat, a thin, hyperactive officer leads me to my house block. She points out the showers, the tiny library (‘Don’t expect Booker Prize winners, but at least it’s warm and quiet in there’), and the communal room with a dartboard that has no darts, and a few battered copies of trashy magazines, each with the faces of disintegrating soap stars on the cover. The room smells like instant coffee, bleach, and feet. I feel my jaw clench involuntarily, the way it used to when Mum would start on at me about not making up my sofa bed.
I think back longingly to Bella’s beautiful flat and my one perfect, blissful day there. I later discovered it had a sale agreed before I even arrived on the scene, and I was forced to vacate it after a couple of weeks. I spent most of that time selling off Bella’s designer gear as she had no money in her bank account and owed thousandson her credit card. That money gave me enough to stay in a B&B until my court date.
A peer worker with a name badge reading ‘Kirsty’ is waiting for me at the main block. Kirsty has anxious hands but a kind smile. ‘First night is always the worst,’ she says. ‘After that, you kind of... flatten out.’
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to flatten out. I want to scream, to burn the building down, to maybe even swap my fate with the dead girl everyone thinks I am. But instead, I trail after Kirsty, learning about the timings for showers, the rules about kettles (‘No boiling anything but water – don’t ask’), and the unofficial hierarchy that governs the house block. Apparently, everything can be traded, from cigarettes to cheese triangles, but only if you know how to keep the IOUs straight.
Tomorrow, I’ll begin the induction process. This includes meeting with various agencies to assess my needs and going through an orientation to prepare me further for life in prison. Following this, I’ll commence a well-being week. I give a grim laugh at the thought of anything in here being labelled ‘well-being’.
I spend my first night on a mattress about the width of a yoga mat, and there’s a brownish-yellow stain on the ceiling, a far cry from Bella’s bedroom with its ornate ceiling rose and crystal chandelier. I stare at the stain until my eyes water, until my thoughts swirl back to the first moments I learned about Bella’s death, the endless sequence of panicked, improvisational moves I made to keep up the pretence that she was still alive and that I was her. If I close my eyes, I can picture the plasticine sheen of her face in the Polaroid that Corolla Man sent me as proof. It would be a lie to say I didn’t feel excitement in that moment, but the excitement was tangled up in a dark kind of horror, one I couldn’t name.
How have I swapped my freedom for this? How did I not see what was happening? How did I believe that Bella was living thischarmed life? Even before I came on the scene, her business was failing, and she was on the verge of bankruptcy, desperately trying to turn things around.
I thought she was living the high life without a care in the world, but in reality, she was going to investor meetings, schmoozing with clients, and meeting with her accountant and solicitor, trying to save her business and herself from going to jail. She was hiding the truth from everyone. Trying to fake the perfect life. Burying her head in the sand, rather than facing up to her mistakes.
The ironic thing is that my innocuous tip-off to HMRC was probably the nail in her coffin. I thought it would be just an annoyance, an irritation to add to the string of other irritations I lined up for her. I never could have imagined that it would lead to Bella being convicted and sentenced. Tomebeing convicted and sentenced.
The whole thing has backfired, and I’m on the hook for all of it. Mum thinks I’ve gone travelling abroad and has no idea I’m in prison as ‘Bella’. I can’t contact her because I don’t want to risk anyone discovering what I’ve done. As it stands, there’s a possibility I could be released after a year, but if the truth got out that I’m actually Jade, I could be convicted of murder. And then I might never leave this place. Or I might get sent somewhere worse. My pulse thuds in my wrists at the thought, a constant reminder that the only thing between me and a murder conviction is my own ability to perform. I’ve always been a decent actor, but being in here will test me.
It looks like Bella’s parents are worse than my mum. I still can’t believe they never showed up to court, never visited. Neither did Bella’s so-called best friend, Tori. Or Reece – so much for us being soulmates. Like rats leaving a sinking ship.
I think when I get out of prison, I’ll go back to my real identity. Live as Jade again. That way, I’ll have a clean record, and at least I’llhave Mum. She’ll be happy to see me ‘back from my travels’. Maybe I’ll go travelling for real this time. Or try to get accepted on to a college course for something I actually enjoy. No idea what that might be, but at least I’ve got some time to figure that out. Apparently, tomorrow I’m having an assessment to determine my educational needs. Maybe I’ll study while I’m in here. Then, when I get out, I can get some proper qualifications and really make a go of my life.
I try not to think about my twin. I didn’t think getting rid of her would affect me, but I have nightmares about it. Keep seeing that gruesome proof-of-death photo in my head. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake it. Especially as it looked just like me. The reality is, I’ll always be haunted by her. She’s the ghost in my bloodstream, the itch in my scalp, the voice in my head saying, ‘You’ll never be free.’ I try to block her out, but she always finds a way back in.
Even now, I can’t tell if I regret it or not. I don’t know if I’m sorry, or just sorry I got caught. Maybe that’s the same thing.
Epilogue
Sitting in a beach bar, sipping cocktails, it feels as though we’re on holiday.
But we’re not.
This is our life now.
My father orders drinks in Spanish so heavily accented that the bartender grins, instantly forgiving. We lounge like tourists, sunglasses and all, but we’re not on holiday. The truth is, this is now home. And this beach bar is the South American version of our favourite restaurant back in Lymington. It’s Portofino ‘Exile Edition’, with rum in place of rosé, and blinding sunlight to bleach away the memories.
One of the older British ladies, who we see most days, gives us a cheery wave from her table under the cabana. Mum and I wave back, and Dad gives her a friendly nod. The other ‘expats’ have become a tribe, gathering at the water’s edge most afternoons, sharing crab legs and local gossip. Others are quieter. The girl with the sunglasses – I don’t know her real name, but everyone calls her Montreal – told me, ‘We’re all ghosts here, so we don’t tell ghost stories.’ I nodded as if I understood. But I was still too new, too recently dead, to let the old stories go.
We’re all running from something – disappointments, bad divorces, criminal charges. They’re all here, and now, so are we.
It was a gift from heaven when Jade decided to steal my life. I used her grisly plan as a way to escape and start again abroad. And now I’m in a beach bar in Belize with my parents. We all have new identities and new, relaxed lives. My parents liquidated all their assets, and we’re living simply here by the beach.
There’s a strange kind of peace to being in hiding. Maybe it’s that you’re constantly surrounded by the threat of discovery, so every moment you’re not discovered feels like a small, secret victory. Maybe it’s the drink, or the endless palette of turquoise and ochre outside the window, or the way the air blows in off the ocean with a lulling, amnesiac quality. Maybe this is what it means to acclimatise. Or maybe it’s just the first wave of delusion, as all the things you’ve fled from – the people, the mistakes – crash over you and then, for a time, roll away.
‘How are you doing, Munchkin?’ Dad asks, his gaze softening across the sun-worn table.
‘Good,’ I reply automatically with a nod, despite the ever-present guilt tugging at my stomach.
Mum, sitting next to me, rubs my shoulder. ‘Are you sure? You look like you’re brooding.’
She’s not wrong, but I don’t want to delve too deeply into how I’m feeling. The past few months have been such a whirlwind of shocks and revelations. I think – I hope – we’re finally acclimatising. But I’m not sure if it all feels quite real yet. ‘Not brooding,’ I answer. ‘Just... zoned out for a bit.’
I catch my parents glancing at one another. Not quite worried, but not quite happy either.
