When I at last awoke from that terrible nightmare, I found myself struggling to hear my own thoughts amongst the storm in my head. I felt like a drunk after an all-night doze. Pushing myself out of the warm bed, I stumbled to the bathroom, crashing into the chair and clothes in the process. Groaning, I plunged my face into the crisp water from the tap. The coldness numbed the pain and reduced the pounding to a dull throb. I glanced at my face in the mirror; white and clouded it was. With a sigh, I scrambled to find my clothes just as the second alarm rang. How I managed to dress so quickly is still a mystery. Handbag and jacket in hand, I strode to the door. I would eat later; I had no stomach for a morsel of food. I grabbed the doorknob and was about to drag the heavy door open when I noticed a sticky note stuck on the panel. My hand shook as I ripped it from the tape. The words stared at me like a nightmare come to life. Confusion swept over me. The dull pain erupted into a frenzy, and I grabbed the locked door, reading once more the note. ‘Don’t trust the mirrors today,’ it said. Throwing my jacket and bag down, I rushed to the mirror and looked at the reflection. I was pale and trembling, like a ghost in the show I had seen the night before. I touched the mirror and shrank back at its coldness. A draft seemed to take the room. At that moment, the door burst open and a policeman entered, ‘Where’s the body?’ he said. I just stared. Another man entered. ‘On the bed, they said,’ he told the policeman. It was the man from down the corridor. I stepped beside them, unable to utter a word; they simply ignored me as if I wasn’t there. I followed their horrified faces and discovered a woman lying on the bed drowning in blood. She looked just like me.

The police officer looks just like my daughter. The paramedic with her flips me over - and it is me.

My daughter lets out a sob. The paramedic looks at her. I don't hear them.

My daughter steps away. A new officer arrives then, all suit and tie and police badge. The paramedic says 'suicide' and the officer says 'murder'. No one questions me as I climb into the ambulance, sirens off. The coroner does not notice me as she slices into my body, scalpel breaching layers of skin and muscle, cutting into my stomach, siphoning my blood. I sit in the morgue for five days, not feeling the cold, watching the other patients have their moment on the table. A boy thrown from his moped. An old man who succumbed to his melanoma. An infant girl with SIDS. When they bring me out again, my daughter stands there, out of police clothes. She sobs into her husband's shoulder. The coroner says 'suicide' and the policeman obliges.

But I know I didn't kill myself.