Page 80 of None of This is True

Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

The screen shows Tim, Angel and Fred.

The text underneath says:

Tim and Angel Hiddingfold-Clarke, current owners of Josie’s dog, Fred

Angel is feeding Fred a small treat.

The camera zooms in on him eating it, then pans back again.

Tim starts to talk.

‘We genuinely had no idea that Josie was a wanted woman. We’d been enjoying our honeymoon, hadn’t watched any TV , read any news. It wasn’t until we started messaging our friends about this crazy thing that had just happened, this woman giving us her dog, that we started getting replies going, er, you know that might be the woman that the police are looking for? And we were like, what woman? And then we went on to the internet and saw the photos of the woman, Josie, and yeah, it was her. And yes, of course, we went straight to the police. Absolutely.’

Screen switches to DC Sabrina Albright.

‘We got a call from the Cumbria Constabulary on Saturday the twenty-seventh. They’d had a call from a couple of holidaymakers who’d been handed a small dog to take care of a couple of days before. They said the photographs of Josie Fair they’d seen online matched the woman who’d handed them the dog. They said this all occurred in broad daylight, in an area busy with tourists; they said it happened in a flash. But they were able to give us more of an idea of what Josie was wearing, that she was trying to disguise her appearance with a hood and sunglasses. They said that she left heading towards the main village of Ambleside, carrying a small handbag.

‘We immediately started a street-to-street, house-to-house investigation. But it wasn’t until very late on Sunday that we had a breakthrough. A family dining in a restaurant in the village told us that a woman matching Josie’s appearance with a small dog had been staying at their lodge park. They said she’d arrived the previous Sunday in the middle of the day and had gone by Thursday morning. We contacted the management and they confirmed that yes, Mrs Fair had booked a lodge online two weeks earlier. They told us that the lodges were accessed via a keycode and that they had not had cause to meet with Mrs Fair face to face and that they were unaware that she had left the park on Thursday as her booking went all the way through to the following weekend and she had not notified them that she had checked out. We dispatched a team there immediately and entered the lodge just before midnight on Sunday night.’

The screen shows archive footage of police cars arriving at the lakeside park, late at night, their blue lights reflected in the dark surface of the water. The audio is a police recording from the night.

‘Water rescue team are going in. I repeat, water rescue team are going in. Stand by.’

Then the screen fades and changes to an artistic shot of the lake, with gentle music playing in the background.

It is daytime and the sunlight sparkles off the surface of the water.

A flock of birds swoops and whirls overhead.

The camera follows the arc of the sun until the whole screen is burnt white.

***

11 p.m.

Roxy calls Alix that night, just after Alix has climbed into bed.

‘How’s Erin?’

‘Still nothing,’ says Roxy. ‘But they say her vitals are improving all the time. They reckon she’ll wake up within the next few hours. What about you? Have you heard anything?’

‘Not yet. I suppose it’s getting a bit late now. But hopefully tomorrow.’ Alix pauses. ‘Your grandma told me about her and your dad today. That Walter used to be her boyfriend.’

‘Ew, yeah, I know. Gross, isn’t it? The whole thing … my family. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry? What for?’

‘Sorry you got involved. Sorry she dragged you in. Sorry you ever had to know about any of it.’

‘It was my choice, Roxy. I went to her, remember? I didn’t have to go to the alterations shop that day. I didn’t have to agree to her suggestion to make a podcast. I didn’t have to let her stay here after she claimed your dad had hit her. I could have pulled the plug on it at any moment, but I let myself be controlled by her. It was all me, ultimately. All of it.’

There’s a short pensive silence and then Roxy says, ‘What was it about my mum? Why did you want to do it?’

Alix stops and gives the question some thought. Then she says, ‘Honestly? I think I was bored, Roxy. I think I was bored and I was having problems with my husband, I was filled with anger and resentment, with this low-level rage, and your mum came along with her stories that made my problems pale in comparison and I think it just stopped me focusing on the shit in my own life. That’s all it was. A distraction. I overrode all my instincts when I said yes. And I think I did that deliberately, because I’ve been following my instincts for so long and making good decisions for so long, and a bit of me just wanted to see what would happen if I ignored them. If I was a bit reckless. You know, like when you’re driving down windy roads and you deliberately close your eyes for a second, just to see what happens. So that’s what I did. And now, well, here we are.’

---