The Other Twin by L. V. Hay

Author:L. V. Hay [Lucy V. Hay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910633793
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published: 2017-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Thirty-six

At the hospital, there are more consultations for my mother. It is agreed Mum is not responding to medication the way they’ve hoped. Sue arrives, a familiar face, asking if there’s anything specific – ‘other than the obvious’ – that could be troubling my mother? Tim shakes his head, baffled.

I tell Tim I think Mum knew India had been living what I euphemistically call, ‘an alternative life’. But Tim surprises me and says they’d both known India was gay.

‘When did she tell you?’

Tim sighs. I can see it written all over his features: Does it matter? But he goes through the motions, for my benefit.

‘Not sure. Two, maybe three years ago.’

‘Why didn’t either of you tell me she’d come out?’

‘Because that’s India’s news.’ Tim is diplomatic, as ever. He doesn’t make return accusations like Mum would have: You should have called her and talked to her properly, asked her about her life. I can feel the sting of the truth of this myself.

This avenue of enquiry closed, I think instead of India’s blog. I speculate whether Mum could have known about whatever my sister had been up to with it.

So I read the codenames out to my mother when Tim is not at the hospital with her, searching for recognition in her eyes. I get none. I don’t share my concerns with Sue. I’m scared to, in case my mother is an accessory, somehow. But Mum can’t be involved. Surely not. Mum’s behaviour with Alan and Matthew has to be the product of a mind gone awry after the tragedy of losing India … nothing more, nothing less.

To counter these uncomfortable thoughts, I consider the leads I have so far. The blog deleted, I pore over my written notes instead. JoJo is Ugly Sister, but India’s blog is addressed only to her, not Jayden Spence as well. JoJo might be shady, but she has an alibi. She was caught on CCTV and in front of a hundred witnesses at The Obelisk the night my sister died. I know DS Rahman himself has checked this, too.

I concentrate, try to think like a gambler would. Growing up around the arcade, helping Tim with the slips, I’ve become used to measuring life in odds and likelihoods. ‘All’s fair in love and war … and money!’ Tim would quip, before emptying buckets of change into the coin sorters for the bank.

So, maybe Jayden could have had my sister erased in revenge … for breaking him and Ana up, making their relationship ‘complicated’, as Ana calls it on her Facebook profile? Maybe Jayden Spence is one of the other names … The Wolf? Frog King?

If I were a betting woman, I would put money on Jayden being Frog King. He was the type to play the Big I Am. He’d survey his kingdom, doing the least possible while ensuring his minions did all the heavy lifting. And as I already knew, he’d been distracted, playing away with JoJo. I recall the ball in my sister’s dream.

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