I wish I’d never recognised her. I wish I had let it go, ignored my nagging intuition that something was amiss with that woman and just got on with my life instead. But I didn’t. I dug and probed and followed and stalked. And now look at me. Bruised and battered, lying in a hospital bed with journalists waiting outside, hoping to get a picture of either me or Deborah once we’re discharged. We’re the latest news story; today's scoop, next week’s chip-shop paper.
I guess I understand the interest and intrigue. It’s an odd story, although the full truth probably won’t come out until the inquest has been completed.
‘Here you go.’ Deborah places a plastic cup down on the tray next to my bed. ‘Can you sit up? Here, let me help you. Easy does it now.’
She places her hands under my armpits and slowly shuffles me into a sitting position. It hurts, but not as much as it did a couple of days ago. Every day is a step closer to getting better. I’m counting down the days to a full recovery. Two cracked vertebrae and a fractured arm. Not as bad as it could have been. Maybe my brutal fitness regime helped keep me alive, strengthening my body. Here’s hoping it will aid a swift recovery as well.
Deborah passes me the coffee, her long fingers clasped around the rim as she carefully passes it to me. ‘Can you manage?’
I nod, blow on it and take a sip. ‘Caffeine. Thank God.’
‘So?’ she says softly, her eyes finding mine.
‘So,’ I say in return. ‘Time to talk, eh?’
I take another sip, let the scalding hot liquid do its thing, the caffeine finding a route into my system, and start to speak. ‘Yvonne is, was a twin.’
Deborah nods, as if she already knew this. ‘She had a sister or sisters, that much I do know, just from her ramblings.’
‘Yeah, two sisters. They both died. Her two sisters and both of her parents, they all perished in a fire. She was found outside, sitting near a patch of undergrowth, not a scar or burn on her. Somehow, she managed to get out of the house unscathed. At the time, everybody called her a miracle child, the local girl who survived a horrific fire. She was sent to live with an aunt. I can’t remember where, but I do recall what happened to the aunt quite a few years later.’
I take a rest, shut my eyes for a second or so before continuing. Who would have ever thought that speaking could be so exhausting?
‘So, what did happen to the aunt?’ Deborah’s voice is a whisper, a look of expectation evident in her expression. She knows what’s coming. I hardly need to say it but I do anyway.
‘She died. Fell over the edge of a high rock while out walking. With her niece. The same niece who survived a fire that killed the rest of her family.’
Deborah swallows, the lump in her throat bobbing up and down.
‘You think she was responsible for both incidents?’
I try to shrug, pain and dressings making it difficult for me to move properly. ‘Some people had their suspicions after her aunt died but nothing was ever done about it. It was years later. Many felt sorry for her, thought she’d had a tough life, told the ones who suspected her to stop with all the talk. I’d not seen her for years. After the fire she moved away. Her aunt lived closer to North Yorkshire but we heard about her death through the grapevine and I have to admit, it made my skin prickle.’
‘I take it the police didn’t suspect her then?’
‘No. Only local people who found it all a bit strange. You have to remember she was just a kid when the fire happened. Nobody would ever think to accuse a child of murdering their entire family, would they? But there was talk after her aunt died. She had always been a strange one as a child, really precocious and overly confident, and it all felt a bit – I don’t know – a bit coincidental.’ I lean my head back on the pillow, a crippling sense of fatigue suddenly hitting me. It’s a struggle to keep my eyes open – my sore, swollen, bloodied eyes. They’re as heavy as lead, gravity forcing them downwards. I blink, take a long sip of coffee, hoping it will wake me up. It’s these painkillers. They send me into a death-like exhaustion, knocking me out for hours at a time.
‘I guess we’ll never know now, will we?’ Deborah’s voice snaps me out of my reverie.
I nod, my voice raspy. ‘I guess we won’t but I had my own suspicions and then after you went missing, it got me thinking that if she was who I thought she was, that yet again something untoward had happened when she was around. And after the accident with Adrian, when she ran, I felt compelled to follow her. I knew then that something was up. I just wasn’t sure what. It was all instinct and supposition.’
‘Strange. Isn’t it?’ Deborah says. ‘How she went the same way as the rest of her family. I wonder if that’s why she did it? Her final way of admitting her guilt?’
‘Possibly. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what the police say after they complete their investigation. From what I’ve been told, her body was found on the sofa. She made no attempt to leave the house.’
Deborah closes her eyes for a second, lowers her head then looks up at me. ‘I get it now. That makes sense.’
‘What makes sense? I don’t understand?’
‘The drugs she gave me and Izzie. I’m willing to bet she took them. When she came back to see me one last time, I noticed that she was unsteady on her feet, her speech slurred. I’ll bet she was knocked out or maybe even dead before the fire got to her.’
We sit in silence for a short while, our breathing synchronised. I’m not sure what else there is to say so we say nothing for what feels like the longest time until Deborah stands up, reaches into her pocket, and brings out a small white envelope. She pulls out the piece of paper from inside it and hands it to me.
‘I can’t,’ I say quietly. ‘Too painful with these swollen eyes. You read it to me.’
So she does.
Dear Deborah,
I’m sorry for everything. It didn’t turn out as planned, our time together, and for that, I apologise. I wish things could have been different, our final hours more genial, less trying and hostile but like lots of things in my life, I cannot change them. They are what they are. I hope you realise that I was trying to make up for what I did to you, for what I did to our little family. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. Life has a way of dragging me downwards. Seems it’s the only direction I know.
Take care of yourself and stay safe. You always were the blessed one.
Love Sadie.
‘No.’ I try to sit up, shock jarring at me like dozens of tiny electrical pulses.
‘No what?’ Deborah stuffs the letter back in her pocket, a small line of anxiety forming between her eyes. She sits down and takes my hand between hers. ‘No what, Merriel? I’m not sure what you mean?’
‘No, that’s not her,’ I whisper, phlegm catching the back of my throat, forcing me into a painful coughing fit that seems to go on for an age.
Deborah rubs at my back and looks around for assistance.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine. I don’t need anybody. Just a drink of water, please.’
She hands me the glass and I take a couple of sips to alleviate the dry ache at the back of my throat.
Another protracted silence. And then, ‘What do you mean, that’s not her?’
I sigh, place the glass back in Deborah’s outstretched hand and speak. ‘Yvonne is Rosa Milburn. Sadie, her twin, died in the fire. I remember it well. Even visited her grave with a couple of other friends when we were older, placed some flowers beneath her headstone. I’ve no idea why she has called herself Sadie but she definitely isn’t her. Wasn’t her. Yvonne changed her name from Rosa Milburn.’
The fatigue creeps up on me again and this time it’s pointless fighting it. Better to sleep and let my body rest and heal. The sooner I heal, the sooner I can get out of here and back home to my own family, my own sisters. And my dad. That particular aspect of my life will be a hurdle I have to leap but leap it I will. He’s my father, my close family, and he needs me now more than ever.
I close my eyes and within seconds feel myself being carried away to another place where pain is non-existent and possibilities for a stress-free existence endless. I embrace it, my exhaustion a cavernous pit I’m powerless to fight. When I wake up, everything will be better, my body a step closer to being fit once again. I’m alive. Yvonne isn’t, and I’m good with that. It’s how things should be. How they should have always been.