The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

now, about Mrs Allen and her impersonation of your real mother? We’re finding all this very difficult to understand. How long has it been going on, for a start?’

I swallow. I’ve been dreading this bit.

‘Not long. I think it was a bit of an experiment, really. She’s very arty. She works in a gallery and she’s into drama too – acts in am-dram productions. And I think she just wanted to see if she could pull it off – to become another person for a little while, to see if she could convince people she was someone else. A bit like a living art installation. I mean, it was cruel, yes. I fell for it, and so did everyone else in my life. But I don’t think there was anything sinister about it. She wasn’t trying to steal money from me or anything. She was on a sabbatical from work, and it was a project for her, a way to challenge herself. And she pulled it off, didn’t she? Pretty impressive, when you think about it. She said she was going to tell me the truth at the party on Friday, and apologise and go home. But obviously something went wrong.’

The police officer’s looking at me with a sceptical expression, and I know that as far as lies and cover stories go, it’s about as weak as it gets.

I’ve blown it, I think, mentally cursing the idiocy of myself and Crystal. When we talked it through last night, we’d both decided it might just work.

‘There’s enough truth in there to make it stand up,’ she said. ‘The art gallery, the acting, the fact that she wasn’t trying to steal from you … well, she was trying to steal your life and your happiness, in actuality, but it wasn’t for financial gain. Yes, it would be a very, very peculiar thing for anyone to do. But people do peculiar things every day, and if you just tell it straight, you might get away with it. And Beth … if you ever tell anyone that I, a respected barrister, have been helping you to mislead the police like this, I will have to kill you, OK?’

She looked deadly serious for a moment, then a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. I wanted to hug her, so I did. I was grateful, so very, very grateful to her, and to Jacob, for understanding and for not pressuring me to tell the police the truth about what Alison really did and why.

‘What’s the point?’ Jacob said. ‘She might go to prison, she might not, but if she’s as sick as she says, well … and if she is telling you the truth about your real mother, and you find out who she is, then she’s done you the biggest favour ever, in the end, hasn’t she?’

But now the police officer’s nodding slowly, and it seems that by some miracle he’s accepted my ludicrous story.

‘Pretty horrible thing to do if you ask me,’ he mutters. He makes some more notes on his pad. ‘But if you don’t want to press charges …’

‘I don’t,’ I say quickly. ‘She’s so ill, as you said. And while it was a shock when I found out, there’s no lasting harm done. She was quite good fun to have around, a lot of the time.’

And she was, wasn’t she? I think. Not everything I’m telling you is a lie.

Now he’s wrapping up the interview. He closes his notebook and puts the cap on his pen, telling me to call him if I remember anything at all that might help the investigation. I know I need to get my question in now, quickly, before he ushers me out again.

‘I was just wondering,’ I say casually, ‘about the location of the DNA samples? You said DNA from my biological mother was found on the pelican lamp, but that there were other samples, possibly older? I just wondered if you could tell me where exactly? Would that be possible?’

He furrows his brow, looking at me questioningly, then shrugs.

‘Suppose it can’t hurt,’ he says. ‘Hang on, I’ve got the full report here somewhere.’

He flicks through a cardboard file that’s lying on the table and pulls out a sheaf of papers.

‘Right, DNA, DNA …’ he mumbles, turning the pages slowly. Then: ‘Ah. Here it is. There was matching DNA on the lamp, on the front door – probably from when she was entering and leaving the house – and on some books.’

‘Books? Can you be more precise?’ I say, puzzled.

He checks the report again.

‘Yep. There were a few books in a pile, on a small table in the lounge. Agatha Christie books, it says here. Your biological mother’s DNA was found on those.’

Chapter 45

I’m standing at the edge of the car park opposite the surgery, looking down the road towards Nadia’s doorway. It’s another warm morning, nearly midday now, and the sky is azure blue. The street is quiet. A man with a small, over-fed dog ambles along the far pavement and a mother with a pushchair walks briskly past me, her baby silent under a pink blanket. I’m almost too overwhelmed, too stupefied, to take the few steps I need to take now, and so I stand and I breathe and I look. She’s there, as she always is, face tilted up towards the sun, her eyes closed. Even from this distance I can see that she looks calm – serene almost. And then, quite suddenly, as if she can sense my presence, she opens her eyes and turns her head. Our eyes lock and a shiver runs through me.

Mum? Are you really my mother? How can you be, Nadia?

And then she raises a hand, slowly, so slowly, and I know. And I know that she knows I know, and that she’s been waiting for me, all this time. I start to walk, then somehow break into a run, and seconds later I’m falling to my knees beside her.

‘Hello, Beth,’