Edward

“We’d like you to accompany us to the police station, please sir,”

Oh no, not again!

It was the story of my life.

“Look here, Officer,” I explained to him as he led me to the waiting police car. “I’ve been here at the university all day, giving a long boring lecture about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to thirty sulky students who probably wished I was robbing a bank. . .”

Of course it was Edward again.

Having an identical twin brother is not always a blessing – in my case it was a curse. That’s because Edward is nothing like me.   

We look identical and literally no one can tell us apart. But Edward is an idle charming criminal, while I’m a hard-working bore.

When we were children, Edward nicked sweets from the local shops, accused me, and I got the blame. When we were older, he had lots of girlfriends, but no one wanted me. Yet lovely looking girls I’d never met before were constantly coming up to me and slapping my face, accusing me of all kinds of calumny, refusing to believe I wasn’t Edward. One of them kneed me in the balls so hard I couldn’t sit down without pain for a week.

And you know what? Edward just laughed.

And so as soon as we could, we went our separate ways. Edward drifted into a life of petty crime, even went to jail a few times, while I studied hard and became a professor at Glampershire university, and was, as he put it, A dried up boring old fucker who no one wants to love.

I guess he was right.

My speciality was teaching Classics, the study of Greek and Latin, and also the history of ancient Greece and Rome. While Edward was ducking and diving and making love to sexy women, I knew that I had about as much charm as a chilblain, and had to live the life of an unhappy monk. My colleagues and friends at the university always sympathised when, as often happened in term-time, I was accused once again of robbing a bank, operating a moneymaking scam, even nicking property from a warehouse, and they hauled me out of lectures to be questioned. Things were even more complicated when the police routinely began to used DNA technology testing to solve crimes, because for twins like us, while our fingerprints are different, our DNA is identical. Meaning that if he cut his finger, or dribbled saliva or sweat at one of his crime scenes, even forensics would tie me to his crime. And if I hadn’t got a decent alibi, I was in dead trouble!

Of course, when my wife Celia ran away with Edward last year, that was the last straw, the final insult. I’d hated him before, but I really hated him now, with a vengeance. You see, Celia had been mu girlfriend, all mine, and Edward had snatched her right out from under my nose.

However the day finally came when his karma really caught up with him.

Because Edward went too far.

He murdered Celia!

Would you believe it? The idiot strangled her in a hotel corridor, in front of the hotel’s CCTV, and he was even seen by a witness who happened to come across them!

I knew that Edward was behaving in a more and more wild way, but to go this far was bizarre behaviour, even by his standards. But Mum and Dad always said that he’d come to a sticky end, and he had. Unfortunately Celia had been caught in the crossfire, but by now I hated her too, for betraying me.

Naturally, of course since she was my wife, it was me who would be the prime suspect, and I’d been hauled into the local police station and read my rights, told that even now the CPS were deciding whether to officially charge me with Celia’s murder.

I was really scared. How was I going to prove my innocence?

“Look, Mr Killigrew, we have you on camera murdering your wife, in the Hotel Locarno, last Friday afternoon.”

I sighed, closing my eyes. “I told you time and again. I didn’t do it. My brother must have killed her. He was staying in the hotel with her. It was him who’s on the CCTV.”

“But the two of you are identical, and he denies it, just as you do. He’s in custody too. He says he was in love with your wife, and you were jealous, and that’s why you killed her!”

“He’s lying. He’s made a career of lying. I’m not a violent man. I’m honest, whereas Edward’s got a criminal record as long as my arm – robbery, robbery with violence, grievous bodily harm! He was charged with attacking a woman only a year ago.”

The policeman looked at me, frowning. “As I say, he’s under arrest too. Both of you deny the charge. We know that one of you did it, we just don’t know which one.”

“Listen, officer” I explained reasonably. “I think I can solve this problem,. Whereabouts did this murder take place?”

“Wythenhaven. A little town on the south coast at the Hotel Locarno on the seafront.”

“And how far is this place from Glampershire University?”

“I don’t know. About 40 miles I think.”

I smiled with relief.

“Then I can prove I’m innocent. Celia was murdered at around 1.30 pm, last Friday afternoon, right?”

“Right.”

“Well between 9am and 1pm that day I was giving a lecture to 200 students at my university campus.”

“So?”

“And between 2pm and 4pm I was also giving lectures, with another batch of students. All of these students will testify that I was there. I had just one hour, to travel to Wythenhaven, kill Celia, then travel back again. The fastest way to get there would be by road, and I don’t drive. So even if I got a taxi, he’d have had to drive at 90 mph all the way, without even stopping at any traffic lights!”

“Hmm.” Inspector Leftly looked thoughtful. “Yes, Mr Killigrew, that’s a different matter. I do see what you mean.”

He picked up his phone and pressed a number and spoke quietly for a while, then phoned more people. When he hung up, a long time later, he smiled for the first time.

“Well, sir, I’ve spoken to various people, and all that you’ve just told me does check out. You have got 400 witnesses who’ve given you a rock-solid alibi. Even an identical twin can’t be in two places at once!”

We both laughed at his joke. “Between you and me, my instinct told me that between the two of you, it was your brother who was the wrong ’un, he was the one I’d have automatically suspected first, with his background. The sticking point was that you had the stronger motive. I mean, divorce is expensive and you’d have had to give her half your assets, and I’m guessing her life was insured. There’s your motive. Where’s his motive?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? I’d say it must have been a crime of passion. They’d recently started living together. Maybe he flew into one of his rages after a row – did you know that during one of his prison stays he was diagnosed as having uncontrollable violent tempers? They said he had psychotic tendencies. He’s always been a very violent, dangerous man.”

“Yes, sir, I see what you mean.” He stood up. “Well, you’re free to go sir, I’m very very sorry about your loss, and also for accusing you of this terrible crime.”

“One other thing you got wrong, Inspector.”

“What was that?”

“I had no motive to kill Celia. I still loved her, you see. I hoped that when she found out what Edward was like, that she might come back to me. Now she’s gone, I’m going to be more lonely than I ever imagined possible, without even the thought of her coming home to give me a bit of comfort. My wretched brother has even taken that one hope away from me.”

“Then I’m even more sorry for causing you extra stress, sir, at this difficult time.”

“I don’t blame you at all, Inspector. You’ve got a job to do.”

When the officer led me to the ground floor and I walked down the steps to the pavement, the first face I saws was Lucy’s.

“Darling!” she said, as she came up to me, and I held her in my arms as we walked away. “I’m so sorry about all this. You must be devastated.”

“I am.”

We walked along the road into the afternoon sunshine, and I felt so glad that after Celia left me I had been able to find happiness with this lovely young policewoman. PC Lucy Carpenter was like no girl I had ever known before. For the first time in my life I was deeply, truly, in love. So much in love that I’d started doing daring, different things, things I’d never have done before I met her.

“No expensive divorce and you can keep the house, a blimmin’ big payout on her insurance, and bloody nuisance Edward locked away for years and years,” Lucy said, smiling. “That’s what I call a result.”

“For the first time in my life I’ve won and Edward has lost! Tell me, Lucy, are you really one of their top police drivers?”

“Oh yeah! I’m their star driver all right. Blue lights flashing, the sirens wailing, split-second decisions, all that shit never fails to give me a buzz. You enjoyed it from the back seat, didn’t you, even though you were ducking down out of sight? Scaredy cat!”

My mobile rang and I answered it. Within the last few moments the sunny day had broken down, clouds had gathered and rain was beginning to fall.

“Oh fuck,” I told Lucy when I’d finished the call, my mood wrecked. I suddenly felt like crying. “That was the police. Seems that after they charged Edward, he went back to his cell. He hanged himself using a sheet.”

That was when I knew what a fool I’d been.

I was the one in prison now, a prison of guilt that I could never escape from.

And Edward had finally won.