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Chapter 3

John Smith felt as surprised as the woman looked. After Kate's conclusion that the dead woman was the local teacher and her reassuring words that yes, she lived on her own in a small house out of town, he had suspected to find the place empty. Had he known that someone was likely to answer, he would have rung the doorbell instead of picking the lock, but what John really hadn't expected was to see a ghost and at first, that seemed to be the only reasonable explanation for what was happening.

The woman was brandishing a broomstick when they entered, but she soon seemed to notice the uniforms of the men behind him and lowered her makeshift weapon. She was still dressed in her dressing gown, the edges of a flowery nightie visible underneath, but that wasn't what had caught John's attention. It was her face. He blinked a couple of times and yet the sight still remained unchanged and John just couldn't explain it. Half an hour ago, he had touched her pale, cold skin. Half an hour ago, she had been dead. How could it be that Clara Oswald was standing right in front of him now, as alive as one could be?

For a detective, he was admittedly bad with faces and often forgot which witness was who, but he remembered this face. The round shape, the funny button nose, the carefully-shaped dark eyebrows. John had memorised it in an instant and now he was seeing it again and he wasn't sure what to think of it.

"Who are you?!" Clara Oswald's voice tore him out of his thoughts. "Why did you break into my home?"

The first thing he noticed was the absence of a Scottish accent and he remembered Kate telling him that she had only moved here a couple of months ago. She had come here from England – Lancashire perhaps, judging by the accent.

Finally, Kate seemed to wake from her trance and she stepped forward, even though the confusion and the shock were still written all over her face. She was struggling to comprehend the situation just as much as he was.

"You're alive," Kate uttered as if she needed to say it to believe it.

Clara Oswald uttered a short, slightly nervous laugh and her gaze wandered from Kate to John and then to the police officers behind them. Instantly, John turned around and waved at them so they would wait outside. There was no need for the entire team to be in here when there was obviously nothing for them to do.

"Of course I'm alive." There was a puzzled expression on Clara's face. "Why wouldn't I be alive?"

What happened next wasn't planned, John just acted on impulse. Maybe it was because he thought that Kate was too emotionally involved in the case. He couldn't blame her for that. Clara Oswald was someone she knew, someone who taught her children, she shouldn't be expected to deal with this professionally even though it had turned out that Clara wasn't dead after all. Maybe he just wanted the case to himself. Or maybe, just maybe, John wanted Clara to himself for some insane reason.

"Why don't you wait outside and I'll explain the matter to Miss Oswald?" John asked in a gentle manner as he stepped forward and looked straight at Kate.

She hesitated for a moment but eventually agreed. "I should call Osgood," she concluded. With a nod towards Clara, Kate retreated until he and Clara were on their own.

Suddenly, John felt a little at a loss. He was a good detective and he knew it; he had successfully closed countless cases in London and he would successfully close this one too, but as he stood in the small house and looked into Clara Oswald's confused face, the same face he had seen on a dead woman not even an hour ago, he wasn't quite sure where to start. He had expected to deal with grieving relatives, with the search for the killer of a young woman, or the suicide note of a young woman, but he hadn't expected to find the woman in question still alive. That really was a first in his career.

"What's going on?" Clara demanded to know and from one moment to the next, her attitude seemed to change. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and even though he towered over the petite woman, John suddenly felt a little intimated by her. And he should. They had just broken into her home. "Why did you storm in here like this? Why was Kate surprised that I'm alive?!"

John granted her a hesitant smile, probably the first sincere one he had managed ever since he had come back to Scotland. "Why don't we sit down and I'll explain everything?"

Clara shrugged and gestured towards the sofa and chairs in the living room behind her and John followed her lead because there was nothing else he could do. When he sat down in one of the chairs, he noticed the half-eaten toast and the mug of tea next to a stack of essays. They had interrupted her breakfast and he should probably apologise for that.

"I, um, I'm sorry we just broke in here like that," he said and glanced up, giving Clara another apologetic smile.

"You should be," she replied sternly, but if he wasn't entirely mistaken, there was a hint of amusement in her voice. "You're lucky I didn't call the police."

John chuckled. "You wouldn't have waited long. We were already here," he attempted to joke, hoping that Clara would forgive them their rude entrance.

Normally, he didn't care much for manners when he was in the middle of a case. Often, his gruff behaviour made the guilty party crack sooner or later because they were scared of him. But Clara Oswald shouldn't be scared. Until he had learned more about the dead woman and the teacher in front of him, Clara remained an innocent party, one they had disturbed early in the morning. If she continued to be mad, he would just have to blame it on Kate.

"Want to tell me why you broke into my home on a Sunday morning?" Clara enquired curiously. She reached for her tea and John watched her take a sip and wrinkle her nose in disgust when she noticed that it was cold.

John inhaled deeply while he pondered where to start. "We received a call this morning about the body of a woman who had washed up on the coast. Kate believed that it was you."

Clara Oswald set the mug back down and didn't look at him. "Oh?"

"To be fair, I can understand her confusion. The resemblance is remarkable."

She raised her head and for a moment, John couldn't place the expression on her face. Was it confusion? Surprise? Shock? Curiosity? He decided to continue.

"Kate suggested that we should have a look around your house, see if anything suspicious popped up," John explained and suddenly, he wished that Clara had offered him a cup of tea as well just so he would have something to fiddle with. He didn't know what to do with his hands and he didn't know where to look either because the sight of Clara confused him a little. In his mind's eye, he still saw the pale, lifeless face that resembled hers.

"So you're looking for whoever killed her?" Clara asked him.

John frowned at her in response. "I never said anything about a killer."

She shrugged. "Well, isn't there a killer?"

It wasn't right to share details of an ongoing investigation at such an early stage, John was fully aware of that, but it was her face, her very much alive face that so resembled that of the dead woman, that somehow compelled him to at least give her something.

"We're not ruling out anything at this stage," he explained quietly. "We don't know whether it was suicide or an accident or if there was someone else involved. We don't even have the autopsy report yet. Your house really was the first stop on our list."

Clara nodded slowly and finally, it dawned on him that he hadn't even asked the most important question yet. Despite being a good detective, he could be quite slow sometimes.

"Did you know the woman?" John wanted to know.

Clara seemed surprised by his question and hesitated before she spoke. "I don't think so," she replied. "I mean, sure, I've met people who look a bit similar, but no one you could actually confuse me with."

"You should probably come down to the mortuary tomorrow and have a look," John concluded. "See if you recognise her."

"I doubt I will," Clara replied at once. "There's really no point."

John granted her a smile. "It's on your way home from school. And I promise we won't keep you long."

Clara didn't answer immediately, but as she considered her response, her eyes remained fixed on him. There was a sudden hostility in her gaze that he didn't understand and he knew that the time had come for him to leave her alone – as soon as he had convinced her to take a look at the body. While the woman remained a Jane Doe, the investigation would be slow and maybe Clara could help even if she didn't believe she could. At least that was the most obvious reason. The other reason was that a strange part of him wouldn't mind seeing her again.

"Alright, I'll stop by after work and-"

Clara didn't have a chance to finish her sentence as the door suddenly burst open once again and when John turned around to see what had disturbed them, he spotted a young redhead standing right behind him. The woman looked distraught.

"Oh my God, Clara!" she exclaimed in a heavy Scottish accent before she darted forward and flung her arms around Clara. "Brian said he found a body and that the police were headed towards your house. I almost had a heart attack."

So John's suspicions had been confirmed. News really did travel fast in this corner of the world and he had little doubt that by the end of the day, everyone in the vicinity would have heard of the dead body and the fact that somehow, Clara Oswald was caught up in it all. While she was busy calming down her friend and reassuring her that she was, in fact, very much alive, John quietly rose to his feet and excused himself.