I was home for the weekend for the first time in ages. My sister was working in the pub as usual, and I was sat by the bar and keeping her company. Which it seemed liked she needed, as the whole place was weirdly deserted, even for midweek in Maldon in the bleakest midwinter I could remember. There wasn\u2019t even anyone listlessly emptying their pockets into the fruit machine in the corner.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d been telling me some new gossip about someone or other in the far reaches of our family when a couple came in and interrupted her by daring, outrageously, to buy themselves some drinks. My sister glared at them throughout the entire transaction – some good old fashioned Essex friendliness – and even, it seemed, for a good while afterwards, watching them like a hawk until they\u2019d settled down at a table that was, unsurprisingly, as far from the bar as they could find.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that all about?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you remember her from school?\u201d my sister asked, motioning with her head at the woman who\u2019d come in. <\/p>\n
I shrugged, then looked around quickly at the woman for a second, then turned back towards my sister and shrugged again.<\/p>\n
\u201cVaguely,\u201d I said. \u201cMaybe. Was she in your class?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, you must remember her. Her and her sister. The twins?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, right, yeah. Was it\u2026 Carole? Carla? And George, maybe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, Carla. And Georgina,\u201d she said. \u201cGeorgina punched me in the mouth one time. She had to go to hospital with a broken bloody hand!\u201d<\/p>\n
My sister found this somewhat funnier than I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo which one\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarla. Georgina\u2019s in prison now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor punching you in the mouth?\u201d I said with half a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s much better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
My sister lapsed into a sudden self-satisfied smile, taking her time to wipe down the counter and clear away some glasses while she waited expectantly for me to ask her to explain.<\/p>\n
Which I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
But eventually she stopped rattling glasses around and told me anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few months ago, well, maybe a year ago now, one of the twins – no-one knows which – walked into the offie down near the hospital waving a knife about and made the bloke behind the counter give her all the cash from the register and as many packs of fags as he could grab off the racks behind him and shovel into her bag. And then she walked out and disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, she hadn\u2019t made any attempt to disguise who she was, and it didn\u2019t take long for the police to look at the CCTV, and ask around a bit and find someone who recognised who it was. \u2018It was that Carla, wasn\u2019t it? Or Georgina, maybe. Definitely one of those twins.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the man they robbed had no idea which one it was (I don\u2019t think he had any idea who they were at all), and no-one could tell from the CCTV. And neither of them would admit they did it, or even implicate the other one. Both of them simply said, \u2018I was at home that night, watching cat videos on youtube\u2019 or whatever. And they stuck to that story <\/p>\n
\u201cThe police never found any of the money either, or the bag full of cigarettes. Or any cigarettes at all. I don\u2019t think either of them even smoke anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut anyway, the police couldn\u2019t charge both of them. You can\u2019t send two people to jail just because you know one of them has done it. And it was clearly just one of them holding the place up. But they both look the same and dress the same and have the same identical haircuts, and neither one of them has ever put on even the slightest bit of weight. I mean look at her. Sickeningly skinny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve no idea if they planned it like that or not, or if they just stumbled across this\u2026 scam. Maybe one of them genuinely didn\u2019t know anything about it all, and really had been at home all the time. I don\u2019t even really know if you can call it a scam. A loophole. Some sort of legal stupidity, really, but you can\u2019t convict on chance, they say, and as both of them just said, \u201cNo, I was at home\u201d over and over again, they had to let them go. They knew – everyone knew – that one of them had done it. Just not which one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so they got away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you said one of them was in jail, now?\u201d I said. \u201cSo how did they get caught. It wasn\u2019t something stupid like one of them being left handed and one being right handed, was it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMirror twins,\u201d my sister said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re called mirror twins when one of them\u2019s left handed and the other\u2019s right handed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was that, then? That\u2019s a bit disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNah. And they\u2019re both right-handed, anyway, as far as I can remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
We both glanced over towards Carla then, and yes, she was holding her pint in her right hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, yeah, you\u2019d have thought that would be that, wouldn\u2019t you? You\u2019ve got away with it once, you wouldn\u2019t chance your arm doing it again. I mean the next time maybe the police\u2019ll find some discrepancies in your stories, or catch you while you\u2019re doing it, or just charge the pair of you out of spite. And they only got a couple of hundred quid, and some fags they probably had to dump somewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter to just chalk that one up to luck, smile sweetly and innocently whenever anyone brought the subject up, and get on with your life. That\u2019s what I\u2019d have done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe too,\u201d I said. \u201cBut then we\u2019re not twins so what would we know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly. So then a month ago, one of them came in here, waved a knife around in my face, and stole a thousand pounds out the till.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe came bursting in, all out of breath and with a nervous sort of worked up fury, screaming at me, waving her bloody blade around, pointing it at my heart and neck. It was pretty scary. Then she went sprinted off, and I called the police. I never told you about this, did I?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shook my head. I was slightly shocked, and ever so slightly furious. Although with my sister or with Georgina I couldn\u2019t really tell.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you alright?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, fine, fine. Anyway, this time the police went straight round to their flats and arrested the pair of them, and took them down to the cells and questioned them and bullied them and whatever else it is the police do to you when they\u2019re pissed off with you.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Georgina told them, \u2018Well, I was at home, again, watching all those cat videos on youtube\u2019 and that\u2019s all she would say. \u2018I never left the house at all.\u2019 Insistent on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Carla, she says, \u2018Well, actually officers, I was down in the pubs by the Hythe all night, having a drink with my boyfriend.\u2019 And they checked the CCTV and asked the bar staff and sure enough there she was, flitting occasionally between the two pubs down there. Making an almost conspicuous show of herself. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s her alibi. And there goes her sister\u2019s. So now Georgina\u2019s up for armed robbery, although only the one count, rather than two.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was quick,\u201d I said. \u201cDid she plead guilty then?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNah, she\u2019s still claiming she was at home all night. That she didn\u2019t do it all. But she can\u2019t make bail, or they won\u2019t give it to her, or whatever it is, and so she\u2019s in jail while she\u2019s awaiting trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe must be absolutely furious with her sister for fucking it all up,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s funny you should say that. Because, like I said, I was here that night. And the thing is, I know I was scared, but also\u2026 I know these two girls. I\u2019ve known them for years. And I\u2019m almost certain it was Carla with the knife that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then, why would Georgina say she was at home when she was clowning around down the pub?\u201d I asked. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty bloody stupid thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. Maybe she was telling the truth. <\/p>\n
\u201cI tried it out the other day, you see, and you could climb out the windows in the toilets down there and no-one would see you, and then you could sprint along Down\u2019s Road you can get here in about five minutes. Although of course you\u2019d be pretty out of breath by the time you got here\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut why would you do that to your own bloody sister?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I was thinking about that, too. I might be able tell the difference between them, but…\u201d She glanced over one last time at Carla and her boyfriend in the corner. \u201cThere\u2019s no guarantee that he ever could.\u201d\f<\/p>\n
__________<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
1. Written on the 19th and 20th May, 2016<\/em> I was home for the weekend for the first time in ages. My sister was working in the pub as usual, and I was sat by the bar and keeping her company. Which it seemed liked she needed, as the whole place was weirdly deserted, even for midweek in Maldon in the bleakest midwinter I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[258,120,23,314,162],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-short-story-or-two","tag-crimes","tag-essex","tag-fiction","tag-one-more-moment-in-a-lifetime-of-failure","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":913,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2. I don’t really like this that much<\/em>
\n3. But I’ve included it here because it’s the only thing I’ve ever had shortlisted for an award<\/a><\/em>
\n4. It didn’t win, obviously<\/em><\/p>\n__________<\/br>Support An Accumulation Of Things<\/a><\/h3>If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon<\/a> or my ko-fi<\/a>. <\/br><\/br>Patreon subscribers<\/a> get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.<\/br><\/br>(Ko-fi contributors<\/a> probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). <\/br><\/br>Thank you!<\/i><\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"