‘I’m telling you the truth.’
‘You flew her from her pathetic little London flat to my apartment.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘She did start out by making efforts to repair our relationship that day. She apologised for overreacting when I told her I was moving to New York. I listened. She said she always felt like the boring underachieving twin. Like she didn’t get as many of the good genes as I did in the womb or some bullshit. She was tired of people comparing us both, looking down on her. And then I moved to the USA.’
‘She was vulnerable.’
‘No,’ I say, draining my gin. ‘Molly wasn’t vulnerable. She was fucking dangerous. Unhinged and detached from reality. It was always me that was at risk. From her extreme nature. If anyone was vulnerable that day it was me. Having her inside my apartment.’
‘What happened?’
I keep the gun lighter pointed at his torso.
‘She talked. I listened. I was pretty stunned when she turned up unannounced like that. We drank a pot of tea and we chatted. Real, genuine talk like we’d done as kids. She told me how she’d got there, all about the journey over to New York, how it was done, how helpful you’d been, and that she was flying back later that same evening with you, meeting your car in the park. It was the most exciting thing that had happened to her for years. She told me how you used our childhood code in emails. We even spoke in our code together for a few sentences until we started laughing about the craziness of it. And then we both cried. From laughter to sadness. I don’t know what she felt, but I felt loss that afternoon. The impossible closeness turning into distance. Not just physical distance, but emotional distance. After the tea and the crying we were both exhausted. I suggested we sleep before dinner. She took the sofa and I took the bed. But I knew something was off. I don’t know how I knew – some kind of intuition. So I rested, but I didn’t sleep.’
‘She tried to attack you?’ he says, shuffling in his seat.
‘You move and I’ll shoot you in the abdomen,’ I say. ‘A slow and painful death. Molly did try to attack me, James, yes. She waited until she thought I was in deep sleep. We both sleep the exact same way: on our backs, with our faces pointing up to the ceiling; it’s an unusual sleep pose. I was under the sheets. She started to creep towards me and my pulse started racing. I thought maybe she was going to stab me or inject me with something. But then she took the pillow and she raised it up towards my face. Her expression was cold marble. Not evil, more blank. She started to push the pillow closer to me and I flipped her in one swift move. I’m a swimmer; she wasn’t.’
It’s possible she just wanted to lie down next to me. I’ve thought about that. But her expression suggested differently.
I’ve come to terms with what I did. I know in my heart that she was in my apartment to kill me. She couldn’t take it any longer and she wanted me gone.
‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ he says. ‘Where did we stay in Monaco for the Grand Prix?’
‘First night in the H?tel de Paris, second night on your schoolfriend’s yacht, the Lunar.’
He shakes his head again. ‘Your eyebrow scar?’
‘It took longer than I expected for her to go quiet. Even with my weight bearing down on her she fought, and I hardly had any advantage. I kept the pillow in place long after she’d settled. And then I told her goodnight.’
I’ve been suffocated my whole life. She only experienced it for a few minutes.
‘But the scar . . .?’
‘I plucked a line in her eyebrow so she’d look like me. I swallowed the plucked hairs.’
‘And your parents didn’t notice?’
I stroke the barrel of the gun lighter with my middle finger. ‘She didn’t look like either one of us by that point. Her eyes were red from burst capillaries and her skin was pallid. Her face looked awful. But she was at peace. She came to finish me and I turned the tables. It was self-defence. Completely justifiable.’
She’d smothered me ever since I was a young girl. Weighing me down. Making me feel guilty for living my life to the full. A professional energy thief even way back then, demanding Mum and Dad’s attention, forcing them to worry about her every day: emotional blackmail to ensure they kept her going, kept her on the level. She would make demands from across the Atlantic and I would distance myself, ignoring her, protecting my life, knowing that my actions would fuel her anxiety. An identical twin is in a uniquely powerful position to do something like that. The levels of trust are unfathomable to most people.