Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📕

place of a bilge pump. Screwed into a hole in the stern of a boat while it’s at sea and taken out on land to drain any water. The divers also found at least half a dozen holes in the hull, four and a half inches in diameter. Probably made with a hole saw. The bottle screws and retaining pins had been removed from the mast. Which basically means that it was taken down, collapsed. When the boat sank, the mast is what would have given its position away.’ His gaze refinds mine. ‘Visibility was poor on the third. East of Inchkeith, the boat would already have been hidden from Edinburgh and Burntisland. So, when she sank – when she was scuttled – as long as there was no floating debris, it could be assumed she would never be found.’

‘Okay.’ I can’t see Logan any more – he’s just a crouching silhouette.

‘It also looks like both the EPIRB and the GPS unit were destroyed, which explains why there was never any signal. And the life raft was still stowed in a locker on deck.’ A pause. ‘It looks like self-sabotage.’

Self-sabotage? I think of that blue kayak in the shed. ‘Okay,’ I say.

‘They found something else,’ Shona says. She gets up and moves closer to Logan in a small white-blonde blur. Immediately, he stands up again, blocks her off, moves closer to where I’m sitting.

‘The divers found something else,’ he says, slow and horribly careful. I can smell his deodorant, the sweeter chemical smell of whatever shit he uses on his ridiculous hair. ‘Inside the boat’s cuddy.’

‘Okay.’ I realise that Ross is standing behind me, his arms reaching around my shoulders. I look down at the flex of his forearm muscles, the raised hairs and goosebumps on his skin.

Doom, I think. Doom.

‘They found a body,’ Logan says. ‘A female.’

Ross’s arms tighten around me; his fingers dig into my collarbone.

Logan looks so pained, so wretched, I nearly get up to comfort him. ‘The Greenock Dive and Marine Unit recovered her this morning,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

*

The windowpane is cold against the pads of my fingers. It vibrates every time a bus rattles past. I’ve been standing here for less than an hour, but it feels like days before DI Kate Rafiq’s very shiny silver BMW parks in front of the house and she gets out. A few minutes later, I hear her come into the drawing room, but I don’t turn around.

‘Catriona, how’re you holding up?’

I turn around. ‘It’s not her.’

Rafiq marches to the centre of the room, indicates the chesterfield with the flat of her palm, nods once when I sit down on it. ‘We don’t know anything for sure yet.’

‘You know it’s her boat,’ Ross says. He sits on the footstool, nearly missing the edge of it and ending up on the floor instead. He looks like I do: shellshocked, slow, confused. Maybe he’s not as resigned to El’s fate as he thought.

‘Aye. But at this stage, that’s all. We don’t know if the … deceased woman is Ellice. And while you should both prepare yourselves for that possibility, it’s also important you don’t leap to conclusions before we have any.’

I don’t see how managing both is even possible. ‘Have you seen her?’

She looks at neither of us when she nods. ‘I’ve come from the City Mortuary. It’s why I wasn’t able to be here earlier, I’m sorry.’ She clears her throat, indicates a tall, skinny man standing behind her. ‘Iain Patterson here is a forensic scientist,’ she says. ‘We want to be able to give you both an ID as soon as possible, all right?’

With his solemn frown, black suit, and big case, Iain Patterson looks like a cross between an undertaker and a Mormon. He nods at Ross, and then at me. Sets his case down and starts unzipping it.

‘Ross,’ Rafiq says. ‘Would you mind maybe finding something of El’s? A hairbrush maybe, or a used razor?’

He stays half-squatting on the footstool. ‘I already did that,’ he says, looking up at her. He sounds like a little boy. ‘Didn’t I?’

‘Aye, you did, that’s right. We’ve already got her toothbrush. But two samples are always better than one. Shona, you want to give him a hand?’

Shona helps him up like he really is a child, and moves quickly into step alongside him, her hand hovering at his back as they leave the room.

Rafiq waits until the sound of their footsteps disappears before turning back to me. Her expression is either very grim or very pained, it’s hard to tell which, but that look makes me feel claustrophobic all of a sudden. She’s looking at me too hard, like she’s hoping I’ll trip up. I have no idea why.

‘Catriona, would you give your consent to Iain here taking a DNA sample?’

When I don’t immediately reply, she comes closer, lays a hand on my arm. Her nails are short and neat and white. ‘Initially, we’d only take reference samples from the missing person’s belongings, rather than kinship samples from relatives, but in this case—’

‘Because we’re twins.’

She nods. ‘Because you’re identical twins, aye. You have exactly the same DNA. So, d’you give your consent?’

‘Yes. Of course, yes.’ I look at her. At that expression. ‘Is … is there something else?’

Rafiq is quick to shake her head, force a smile, but I know there is. And I know, too, that whatever it is – whatever it is she thinks she knows, or thinks that I know – she isn’t going to reveal it until she’s ready to. My stomach clenches; the fog in my brain only gets thicker.

Rafiq nods at Iain Patterson, who gets up from his crouch after taking a plastic test tube out of his bag.

‘Afternoon,’ he says with gusto. His voice is so low, it’s more a vibration than a sound. He takes a long cotton bud out of the test tube. ‘Now, if you can just tip your head back a wee bit, and open your mouth wide,