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She’d carried on talking, but I’d stopped listening. Through the pain, and the horror, and the grief, there was now one tiny glimmer of light.
They think I’m Mary Ellis. They really do. So what if …?
Did I tell the truth, put them straight? Just go back to my life, but without Mary now? Go back to my Bristol bedsit, do my exams, try to find a job, struggle on by myself? Or, could this change everything? Change my whole life, from this moment on? Could I do this? Was there a way they could find out, or could I just simply go along with what everyone clearly thought anyway, and justbecomeMary? I looked a bit like her already after all, and with the burns, the bandages … was it possible? They thought Amanda Archer was dead. ThatIwas dead …
We had the same blood type, I knew that. There’d been a leaflet about becoming a blood donor on the college noticeboard, and we’d both decided to do it when we turned eighteen, discovering in the process that we were both O positive. It wasn’t such a coincidence really – it’s the most common blood type in the world, after all – but it was something which had made us happy.
‘We both have positivity literally running through our veins – no negative blood here,’ Mary had laughed.
I worried, for a while though, about DNA; we’d learned about it at school, and I was terrified that there’d be some sort of post-mortem that would reveal the truth, that they’d find out that the young woman’s body pulled from the fire was not that of Amanda Archer after all. But, I reasoned, where would they get DNA to compare hers to? I had no living family members that I knew of, after all. But what about medical records, dental records? And then even that worry evaporated, when the same police officer returned to see me a few days later.
‘The fire investigators are still trying to establish what started the blaze,’ she said. ‘They think it was probably a stray ember from the fireplace in the snug, but as to why it spread so fast …’ She shrugged. ‘These old houses … so much wood … It goes up so quickly, and Mary, I know you’re keen to hold the funerals as soon as possible. We intend to release the remains tomorrow, so please let your funeral directors know that they can go ahead whenever you feel ready. Again, I’m so very sorry. And you were right about poor Amanda having no family. It’s so very good of you to give her a proper send off, and a headstone. You must have been very close.’
‘We were,’ I whispered.
Closer than you’ll ever know,I thought.
Later, when I read the fire investigator’s report, I learned that the bodies pulled from the ashes were so badly damaged that no formal identification had been possible – bones, teeth, everything, so damaged by fire and heat that it had been impossible to extract any DNA, or to retrieve anything to compare against old medical or dental records. And everyone knew, after all, who had been in the house that night, didn’t they? Gregor and Mary Ellis, and Mary’s friend Amanda Archer. If Mary Ellis, with her long, dark hair and her identity bracelet still on her wrist, was lying in a hospital bed, then the two bodies were obviously those of Amanda and Gregor, weren’t they?
And so the funerals went ahead, two graves, side by side. I sobbed that day, my heart splintering, the guilt threatening to overwhelm me, the firm, steadying hand of my grandmother in the small of my back. I saymygrandmother; obviously, it wasMary’sgrandmother, Celeste, swooping in from New York to rescue the burned, battered granddaughter she hadn’t seen since she was three years old, since her heartbroken son Gregor had fled the US and refused to return. She’d seen only a very occasional photo over the years, and the similarities between Mary and me, and my ability to imitate her slight American accent, plus my facial burns and bandages, meant that she simply never questioned my identity, not even once. I knew enough about Mary’s past, from our long, deep-into-the-night heart-to-heart chats over the months since we’d met, to be able to drop ‘memories’, little stories about ‘my’ early years and ‘my’ father into my conversations with Celeste and others. That, along with simply telling people that the past was too painful to talk about for long, seemed to be enough.
And it was Celeste who saved me, really. From the minute we landed at JFK airport, and she swept me out into an air-conditioned limousine and settled me into a cream leather seat with a cashmere blanket draped across my knees, I began to heal. Not just the physical damage, although she took care of that too, whisking me off to see the very best doctors, paying for me to have the best treatment. It was everything else; the years of feeling as if I didn’t belong, of being constantly on the move, of always,alwaysfeeling lost and insecure. Meeting Mary had started that process, but with Grandmama, as she liked to be called, I was finally home. I adored that woman from the first moment we met; before long, I loved her with every fibre of my being. For the next four years, she gave me everything: my health, my university education, security, love, laughter. Money too, of course. I was her long-lost granddaughter after all. But that, most of the time, seemed unimportant. Ihadmoney, inheriting Gregor’s estate, of course. And then I just had a bit more, when Grandmama finally passed away. But by then what I also had was so much more than just a financially secure future. I’d found myself; I’d finally left my dark childhood years behind me, and learned how to trust, and how to befriend, and how to love. It began with Mary, and her wonderful grandmother had, unwittingly, continued along that path with me. By the time I moved back to the UK, to take up a post-university job in London, I still had some physical scars – even the best reconstructive surgeon in New York couldn’t entirely erase the damage the fire had done to my face. But I was content with the work that had been done, the scarring on my face and wrist minimal, my ear partially rebuilt and easy to hide under my hair, which had grown back even thicker than before. And, more importantly, mentally I was healed. Amanda Archer, with her nightmarish past, was long dead. I was Mary Ellis, and I was happy, finally. Apart from the nightmares, of course. The fire will always haunt me, that terrible night of fear and pain and death.
And there’s the guilt too, of course. For years, there was the lingering feeling that somehow, somebody would find out the truth; that someone would realise what I’d done, who I really was. But they didn’t. Somehow, I got away with it. Everyone from my past thought Amanda Archer was dead, and there was nobody I’d ever been really close to anyway. Even if I did bump into someone I used to know, an old school mate or foster parent or social worker for example, I knew they’d never recognise me as Amanda anyway these days, not so many years on, not with the way I look now.
And Mary had only just arrived in the UK, and didn’t really hang out with anyone except me, so the same applied. Now and again over the years I’d get a letter or email from someone she’d vaguely known from her brief stays in Spain or South Africa, someone who said they’d heard about the fire and Gregor’s death and hoped that she was OK, but I always ignored the messages, and eventually they stopped coming. I knew that, like me, there was nobody Mary had ever been really close to; I’d been able to fool even her own grandmother, and I was confident too that, if by some huge coincidence at some point in the future I ever ran into anyone she’d actually known, I could easily pull off being her – a scarred, grown-up version of the girl they vaguely remembered.
The guilt never goes away, not entirely. But my life has continued, and it’s good. I am, to the whole world, Mary. It’s as simple as that.
But the truth is, if this serial killer wants to kill Mary Ellis, he’s far, far too late.
She’s already long gone.
And it’s time to let him know that, isn’t it?
