The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

Author:Claire Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781405957625
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2024-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

25

TASHA

Monday, 21 October 2019

Alice and I sit in shocked silence as Mum shows the detectives out of the door.

‘What the actual fuck?’ I splutter. ‘Are they saying Holly was here? I just – I can’t get my head around it.’

Alice has a strange look in her eye.

‘What is it?’ I ask her. ‘What are you not saying?’

She takes a sip of her water, then presses her lips together. ‘Nothing. It’s …’ she lowers her voice ‘… like I said the other day, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance before now, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mum and get her hopes up when …’

She stops talking when Mum comes back into the kitchen.

‘Well …’ says Mum, sinking onto a chair and looking flustered. Her hands automatically go to the gold locket at her throat. ‘I don’t know what to make of all that. Do they really think it could belong to Holly?’

‘I think that’s what they’re assuming,’ says Alice, gently.

‘So you’re saying you believe that Holly has somehow been in my house?’ I snap.

‘Well, that’s what the science is saying. Not me.’

I glance at Mum. She’s staring at the table and I can’t read her expression. I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s thinking or feeling. There is evidence that her long-lost child, a daughter she hasn’t seen in thirty years, has entered my house. That she’s not only alive but that she’s come home to us. Yet if this is true why has she not come forward? Asked to meet us? Why would she break into my house?

‘Does that mean they suspect Holly of attacking you and killing Kyle?’ Mum asks. Her eyes are red-rimmed and something hard seems to be lodged in my windpipe as the implications of all this dawn on me. ‘Are they saying Holly is a suspect in a murder case?’

‘I – I don’t know …’ Alice falters, picking at a dried-on fleck of poster paint on the kitchen table. ‘It doesn’t sound like they found any other DNA. But that doesn’t mean nobody else was here that night. It just means they could have been careful.’ She looks up at Mum. ‘But I’m so sorry, Mum …’ She puts a hand to her head and her eyes flicker from me to Mum. ‘I have to tell you both something.’

I take a deep breath. I feel sick and my knees start trembling. I don’t think I can take any more revelations today.

‘What is it?’ Mum asks, in a tight voice.

‘I wasn’t going to say anything because I thought it was maybe a hoax. But after today, well, now I’m not so sure.’

‘Go on,’ Mum says, folding her arms across her chest as though to protect herself from Alice’s words.

‘Back in May I was giving a talk about biochemistry in the health sector at a conference in Liverpool and, afterwards, this woman came up to me. She seemed nice enough and was initially chatting about the talk I’d just given.

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