Chapter Twenty-Two
Isabella
I don’t want to have to go out after getting home with Alfie. He’s been heavily sedated and woke disorientated, uncoordinated on his paws. But James tells me I have to meet him at the police station.
‘Don’t say anything to Skyla,’ he hisses. ‘Tell her I had to go to work or something. Just get here, Gary’s waiting for us.’
I try to make it as comfortable for Alf as possible before I leave.
Top up his bowls with water and food, but for once he shows no sign of an appetite.
He flops down on his dog bed, droopy eyed, shivering.
Usually I wouldn’t put the heating on until October, but my heart can’t cope with looking at him like this, half of his body clean shaven.
It makes him look so much smaller, skinnier.
The pipes tick to life, the tiles warming.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ I whisper, stroking the tip of his nose as I leave, but he’s already asleep.
* * *
‘Twice in one week.’ DCI Gary Quinn breathes heavily as he opens the door to his office. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you two again so soon?’
He’s trying to be funny, but when we don’t laugh, his expression shifts.
‘Sit,’ he says, gesturing towards two black fold-out chairs that have seen better days.
I sit across from him, and Quinn listens intently as James tells him what happened to Alfie.
‘And your security cameras have been tampered with?’ he asks thinly, his thumb rubbing at his greying beard.
‘That’s right,’ James says, and I’m thankful it’s him doing the talking because I really don’t think I can bring myself to speak right now.
I should’ve told him and James about Raven yesterday when I had the chance. If I had, would it have stopped this from happening? Would Alfie still have been okay?
Quinn takes James’s phone and scrolls through the security camera app with his large, calloused fingers.
‘Are you able to recover the footage somehow?’ I ask, my words laced with hope.
Quinn blows out a breath that wafts towards me, coffee and something else, cigarette smoke perhaps, lingering in the air around us.
‘It’s not an easy process. Digital forensic tools will be needed. It’ll take time, if that’s the route you want to go down.’ He looks up at us, eyes heavy above the swollen bags that sag down the skin on his cheekbones.
‘We do,’ I say quickly, overriding anything James is going to say first. Acting quick, the way I somehow know I need to in this moment.
‘Okay.’ Quinn places the phone on the table between us.
‘Has there been any luck on the CCTV? From the accident?’ James asks.
‘Not yet. I’m working on it.’
‘D’you think these two things could be related?’ I search Quinn’s face, hopeful for an answer I know I’m not going to get.
‘Very possibly,’ he says, wrenching away any sense of safety I could have felt before. ‘A bit of a strange coincidence having two such . . . unfortunate things happen so close together.’ He’s choosing his words carefully, taking long pauses.
‘You think someone’s targeting us?’ James says drily.
‘I’m not one to make assumptions, Mr Rushmore. However, your family is considered to be more vulnerable than others, and we all know why that is.’
Back outside the police station, James and I stand facing each other. My big, strapping husband. His eyes are tired, sunken into their sockets.
‘Come here,’ he says softly, opening his arms for me to walk into. It’s a gesture that makes me want to cry, because he is my home, my teammate. We should be in this together, yet I’ve been feeling so alone.
I nuzzle into him right there on the steps of the station, knowing if anyone recognised us in this moment and took a picture, we’d be frontline news within hours.
Someone would come up with another fabricated story about us.
There’s been so many over the years that we’ve learned to be careful about how we interact with each other out in the open.
‘Alfie’s okay,’ he whispers into my hair.
‘Are we?’ I ask, a question I’d asked so often in the past, a constant cause of anxiety, but that I stopped asking many moons ago when it became obvious that we weren’t.
‘We will be,’ he says — and his response makes my heart thud down to the pit of my stomach.
He hasn’t said we are okay, but then, my husband hates to lie. Avoids it at all costs if he can. He’s terrible at it, anyway. I guess I should appreciate his honesty, and his optimism. We will be okay. Sometimes those words really are all I need to hear, even when I want to hear more.
I touch his wedding band, lacing my fingers through his. We stay there longer than we should, in an embrace I wish I didn’t have to break away from. Husband and wife, united again.
‘I love you, Bella,’ he says before he lets go. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been in the best place recently.’
Now, I think. Tell him now. Tell him Raven has been getting into my head, telling me she’s Robin. Tell him about the DNA test, out for delivery right now. Get him to come home, wait for the results to arrive together. Do it, together.
But I can’t. Why? I don’t know. I watch him get into his car and drive away towards the Model Village to pick Skyla up from her day with Oscar. As soon as the car is out of sight, I pull out my phone. A new message has flashed up on the screen, and I open it up nervously:
[DNA Match] Your DNA Match test results have been delivered.
* * *
There’s a pile of post scrunched into the letterbox when I get home, some of the envelopes jammed right into the corners of the stainless steel so violently the paper rips as I tug them all out.
I swallow my unease. Our postie would never handle our letters like this. I know she wouldn’t. Maybe she was sick today, someone else covering her round. Someone careless.
Rifling through the crinkled envelopes, my heart pounds against my sternum when I find what I’m searching for. It’s smaller than I imagined it would be, a simple white mailing envelope with a window to the left and, on the back, a business logo stamp. DNA Match.
I guess I was expecting something that looks a little more formal.
A brown A4 envelope, a thick wad of pages inside.
This feels too thin, no more than a couple of pages, if that.
It doesn’t feel sufficient for what it should contain.
Facts. The truth. Something official and validated.
Already I’m starting to doubt the competence of the company I’ve chosen.
Have I been scammed? The test kit wasn’t cheap, but now I’m thinking about it, shouldn’t there have been more legal hurdles to overcome to obtain this sort of information?
Could it be this easy to find out the truth, even if I can’t go to the police with it?
Very carefully, I open the envelope and pull out the paper folded inside.
For a while I stand there, motionless, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck.
Either way, this letter changes everything.
If Raven has been lying to me, tormenting me, then I have no choice but to end the friendship between her and Skyla.
I have to risk my daughter hating me in order to protect our family.
And if Raven’s being honest, if she is Robin — well, then what?
It doesn’t change the torment she’s put me through, but I suppose a part of me can try to understand that she’s troubled, hurting, that perhaps she’s terrified herself to re-enter our lives as Robin.
Maybe she’s been trying to feel us out. But then why tell me and not James?
Not Skyla? Out of all of us I’d have thought she’d trust Skyla enough to tell her, her own twin.
Or James who she’s developed some sort of a connection with.
Why tell me and not them? It makes no sense.
Absolutely nothing seems to add up. Muddled questions and theories swim chaotically through my head, giving me vertigo. Psyching myself up, I run a finger along the crease in the pages, smoothing them flat in my hand, and start to read:
Dear Mrs Rushmore,
Kindly see below the analysis and results of the DNA samples sent in concerning Sibling A: Skyla Rushmore and Sibling B: Raven Brody.
This letter confirms the parties tested have a biological dizygotic relationship, sharing 50% of their genetic markers.
Warmly,
Dr Jessica Reid
DNA Match
* * *
There’s only been one other time in my life where it seemed like the world stood still, and that was the night Robin was taken.
As I stand in the hallway with the DNA results pinched between my fingers, it’s like life is holding its breath, time suspended.
I don’t know what to do with this information.
The truth is right here, printed in black and white, a wet signature at the bottom of the page.
Raven is Robin. Raven is Robin! Robin is Raven . . .
She wasn’t lying. It wasn’t all some sort of sick ruse.
All of my foundations come down, the paper in my hand a wrecking ball, and I crumple to the ground.
It is all I can do, for now. I have to show James.
I know that much. And I know he’s going to be furious at me for doing this behind his back, but he’s rational, he’ll know how to handle this and right now that’s all I need because I sure as hell don’t.
My daughter has finally come home, the way I always knew she would.
Tears spring to my eyes, but they aren’t of joy.
They’re of fear, because if I thought our lives were in shambles before, that’s nothing compared to how things are about to go.
Everything is going to change. The life we rebuilt is over and while I can’t say it was ever truly good — there was always that missing piece — I can’t help but be terrified for this new chapter we’re going to have to embark on.
What should be the greatest gift, the most defining moment since becoming a mum, our daughter coming home after all these years, just doesn’t feel right.
How can that be? How can finally getting the one thing I’ve wanted all these years make my stomach twist into such tight knots?
A deep sense of unease starts to choke me.
As I sob on the warm tiles, I pull out my phone and call Carol.
I know I should call James; I know my priorities are skewed, but Carol knows about the DNA test, and I need to tell someone the outcome without having to defend myself.
If I call James, he’ll want to understand why I took the test in the first place.
He won’t understand, will he? He didn’t believe anything I had to say before, even if he was just trying to protect us.
Protect me. I know he didn’t want me to go down that rabbit hole again, of thinking someone is Robin when they’re not.
Of being irrevocably crushed by the pain of another day without my little girl.
And now, she’s back, and I hate myself for not wanting her, my baby, my responsibility, my everything.
I grit my teeth together to keep from screaming while I wait for the call to connect.
‘Verdict?’ Carol asks by way of greeting me when she answers the call. She’s always been this way, no-nonsense. It’s something I’ve always liked about her. She cuts the fluff, gets straight to the point.
I snivel, unable to speak. My eyes don’t leave the paper on the floor beside me.
‘Bella?’ she presses.
‘She was telling the truth,’ I whimper into the phone. ‘She’s Robin.’
‘Oh . . . my God.’ Carol’s words drag, laden with disbelief. ‘How are you . . . I mean, what’re you going to do?’
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. ‘I honestly don’t know. When she first arrived, I was so sure it was her. But then I got to know her, and I thought, no. It can’t be. But it is. It is.’
‘You shouldn’t be alone right now. I can be there in a couple of hours?’
‘You can’t drop everything for me,’ I sigh.
‘Yes, I can. You’re my best friend.’
It’s a statement that floods me with warmth, words we’ve never said aloud before but always knew. An understanding. Our friendship, something sacred to me.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper.
When I end the call, I go through the contacts on my phone, wondering who else I should tell.
My mum and dad? James’s parents? Harper?
Robin was their family too, and they have every right to know that she’s back, but just like my hesitation with telling James, something seems to be stopping me from opening the floodgates.
I drag the paper back towards me and stare again at the words confirming everything. Raven is Skyla’s twin sister. The timer on the heating stops, a gentle tick that echoes down the hallway. Only then do I realise how quiet it is inside.
‘Alfie?’ I call out, but the house remains silent, as if holding its breath.