Three heavy knocks pulled her out of her reminiscing. She put her mug down and listened. The knocks came again, three large thuds. It wasn’t Harry – he was at work, and besides, he had a key. Was it the police again? Had they worked out her lie?
She moved quietly from the kitchen, through the corridor to the front door. She peered silently out of the peephole, then reeled back. The man from yesterday was standing there: black suit, black coat, black hair. She bit her lip, trying to decide what to do.
The door was her protection. Let him in, and who knew what would happen. But leave him out there and he’d never go away. He would continue to follow her, making her constantly nervous as to what he wanted. After all, calling the police wasn’t an option; the last thing she needed was more detectives sniffing around.
‘Open the door,’ he said, muffled through the thick oak. ‘I know you’re in there, Gabriella. Open the door.’
She glanced in the mirror and a meek, scruffy-haired girl looked back. She made a decision, pulled the bolts across and opened the door, squaring herself up to the man.
‘I’m not Gabriella,’ she said. ‘I’m Thea.’
He looked at her calmly, towering over her. Light hazel eyes sat deeply below dark eyebrows, the collar of his coat pulled up to his chin.
‘Don’t mess with me, Gabriella, I know who you are.’ He sighed. ‘I haven’t got the patience for this today.’ He had a strong American accent, elongating vowels into a drawl.
‘I’m not Gabriella, I’m her twin sister, Thea.’
‘Really? This is what we’re going with? You’ve been hiding from me for over a fortnight and this is the game you’re playing?’ He placed one hand squarely on the wood of the door and pushed it open. She stepped back into the hallway.
‘Look at me, do I look like Gabriella?’ she said, her chin jutting forward, determined.
He looked her up and down.
‘You look a mess, but yes, you look like Gabriella.’
‘We’re identical twins. If you know her so well, she must have mentioned me.’ Thea stood in front of him, all eight stone, five foot of her, compared to the six foot of him. He was slim, not stocky or muscular, but he would have overpowered her easily. He looked again. She was wearing her dirty cardigan, pyjamas and slippers, her black bobbed hair greasy and pushed back behind her ears.
He hesitated. ‘If you’re Thea,’ he said, ‘where’s Gabriella?’
She could feel her heart beating, the blood rushing in her veins; doing all she could to keep her voice steady. She didn’t like him being here, she wanted him to go as quickly as possible. ‘She’s in hospital,’ she replied. ‘She was attacked.’
All the wind seemed to go out of the man, and he sagged into the doorframe. ‘Attacked? How, when? Is she okay?’
Thea let him into the house, and he staggered towards the living room. He collapsed onto one of the sofas, looking up at her, all his bravado gone. ‘Is she okay?’ he said again.
She sat down on the chair next to him. ‘How do you know her?’ she asked.
‘She’s my wife.’
Thea forced a laugh. ‘And you didn’t realise you were following the wrong twin? How long have you been married?’
‘Three months. Has Gabriella never mentioned me?’
‘We don’t talk.’
‘How is she, please?’ He slumped back on the chair and sank into his coat, like a snail retreating into its shell.
‘She’s in a coma. She has some bleeding on her brain but they’re waiting to see how she recovers. I’m surprised the police haven’t spoken to you.’
‘When was she attacked?’
‘Early hours of Sunday morning. She’d been out at a club.’
He nodded. ‘Take me to see her.’ She hesitated. As if reading her mind, he said: ‘Take me to see her and I’ll leave you alone.’
She sighed. ‘Let me get dressed. Stay there.’ She went to go upstairs, then turned back and looked at him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Mortimer. Mortimer Breslin.’
Upstairs, Thea pulled a jumper and jeans on and dragged a comb through her hair. She went back downstairs again, slowly, and paused at the bottom, composing herself.
Then she put her coat on, picking up her car keys from the table by the front door.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, at last. ‘I’ll take you to the hospital.’
11
‘There. You see there?’ Briggs jabbed at the screen with his slim finger, leaving a greasy mark.
‘Rewind it.’
Briggs pressed the button and everyone moved in reverse, before starting up again. It was the footage from the street CCTV, grainy black and white and hard to make anyone out, let alone one individual face.
‘Can you see him now?’
‘Just about,’ Kate replied, squinting at the screen. Sure enough, a tall figure followed the tiny shape of Gabriella. ‘Have we got a better shot?’
‘I’ll see …’ Briggs scrolled back through a list of files and loaded up a new video. Kate waited impatiently for it to start, tapping her finger on the back of his chair.
He scowled up at her. ‘I can give you a shout when I’ve found it.’
‘I’ll wait,’ Kate replied.
Truth was they didn’t have much to go on. They had spent the morning following up on a few leads, but nothing had come to any fruition. Initial results had come back on the rock, the potential weapon, and the blood type was a match to Gabriella, but they would have to wait for more detail than that. This CCTV footage was turning out to be their only source of genuine information.
‘Here, here she is,’ Briggs said, pointing again. ‘And there’s the guy.’
Kate brushed his hand away from the screen. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Not a lot, but then, look …’ Briggs said, gesturing to the tiny figure. He was walking behind her – fairly innocently, Kate thought – but then Gabriella stopped and glanced behind her. At that moment the man dodged out of view behind one of the parked cars down the road, only emerging as Gabriella started on her way again, tottering off the screen.
‘See?’ Briggs said triumphantly, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair.
‘Who’s that?’ Yates asked, peering over their shoulders. She’d left her desk where she’d been raking through piles of evidence picked up at the scene, all neatly packed away into tiny plastic bags, red tape sealing the top. Forensics had already finished with them all, deciding crisp packets weren’t worth their consideration. Their feedback: tell us when you know what you’re looking for.
‘Not sure,’ Kate replied. ‘Briggs, print out an image.’ He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. ‘However grainy and crap it is. You never know.’ She looked at Yates, who was still hovering behind them. ‘Did you find something?’
‘No,’ Yates said. ‘But the 999 call has come in, if you want to take a listen.’ Kate walked over to her desk and sat next to her. Yates clicked on the file and a hiss of static filled the air. They heard the operator connect the call, a voice ask for an ambulance, then the line went dead.
‘That’s it?’ Kate asked.
Yates nodded. ‘Afraid so. Didn’t even give a location. It came from a TK so they traced the call and dispatched a first responder.’
‘Play it again.’
All three of them listened to the scratchy recording. The line from the phone box had been bad to start with, and the voice was muffled.
‘Definitely a man, right?’ Kate said, but her voice was hesitant.
Briggs frowned. ‘Maybe.’
Kate sighed and stood up. Another dead end. A few gruff words on a recording wasn’t going to get them far. She looked at the empty space on the whiteboard where the suspects should have been, then back to her computer. It was still showing the image of Harry Becker and his father.
She stared at the man on the screen. Was this the guy that had been following Gabriella? Or could it be the elusive spouse?
‘Briggs?’ she called
over. ‘Can you search for the husband next, please?’
He did a mock salute and she turned back to the screen.
She continued her search, linking to articles from the photograph of Harry Becker. Click-bait headlines flashed in front of her eyes, screaming death and betrayal and graphic descriptions of the people involved in the murder of the twins’ parents. Was it connected? Was a fifteen-year-old double homicide related to a woman’s attack in the dead of night? It was the same people, the same families, but was it any more than the same bad luck?
Morbid curiosity niggled in her mind. The way the investigation was going at the moment, it couldn’t hurt to find out a bit more about the murders.
She remembered when they’d happened; she’d been at university in Southampton at the time. People had murmured at supermarket checkouts, headlines huge and dominant, even in the national papers. Something like that, so wrapped up in scandal and passion, was bound to capture the imagination of the public. At the time she hadn’t given the teenagers involved the slightest consideration. Now she wondered – how had it felt to have your calm little life changed so violently overnight? Living at home, going to school, talking to their parents over breakfast. Then it all happened – their lives obliterated, in the blink of an eye. What would that do to a person?
Kate had to know more. She downloaded the police file from the archives and started to read.
12
Mortimer insisted on bringing his own car to the hospital, so they drove in convoy, the black BMW trailing the red Micra like an unwanted shadow. Turn after turn, she watched it in her rear-view mirror, still uncertain whether she was doing the right thing. But she was committed now; what choice did she have? He waited for her as she parked, pushing her hair behind her ears and slamming the door closed.
‘After you,’ he muttered.
They walked down the brightly lit, sterilised corridors. Past orderlies pushing old ladies in wheelchairs, a smoking area where wrinkled men loitered in their dressing gowns, guiltily sucking on their very reason for being in hospital in the first place. She could feel his eyes on her, boring into her back, adding to her jitters. She paused in front of the lift and pressed the call button.
The lift pinged and the doors opened.
‘Top floor,’ she said as they got in. ‘ICU.’
They stood in silence as the lift began its tortured ascent, and she chanced a look at Mortimer. Not classically good-looking, his nose was far too big for his face, and he was dark and brooding. He seemed older than her: a scattering of grey ran through his black hair, lines etched on his forehead. He was too serious. Too American. He wasn’t Gabi’s usual type.
The doors opened to intensive care, and Thea led the way to the reception desk. A nurse looked up from her computer and greeted them with a smile, then gestured to the man.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked.
‘Her husband,’ Thea said, and the nurse raised her eyebrows, waving them through.
Back down the overheated corridor, into the room at the end. The curtain was pulled back, the dull grey from outside barely permeating the gloom. Mortimer hesitated as they moved closer.
Gabriella lay slightly tilted in her hospital bed, her neck supported with a pillow. Both guardrails were up and the blue blanket was tucked under her arms. An IV drip was inserted into one arm and connected to a bag of clear fluid hanging next to her, the oxygen monitor clip stuck to one of the uninjured fingers on her right hand.
‘Oh, Gabriella,’ Mortimer said, his voice breaking. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He sat heavily on the chair closest to her head. ‘How did this happen?’ he asked, looking up at Thea. ‘Was she … Was she raped?’
‘I don’t know,’ Thea said quickly. ‘Speak to the police.’
‘The police …’ Mortimer said quietly, gently stroking the top of Gabriella’s hand with one of his fingers.
Thea hovered at the foot of the bed and watched him, all his attention focused on the tiny figure under the covers. ‘Why had Gabriella walked out on you?’
‘We had a fight,’ Mortimer said, without looking away, his shoulders slumped. ‘Just after New Year’s. She was telling me what I was doing wrong, why I wasn’t right for her, trying to push me away. It was nothing new, but usually I ignored her. It’s not easy for her to get close to people.’ He looked up at Thea, his face showing his regret. ‘But this time I snapped. I shouted at her. I did exactly what she said I would do, and she walked out.’ He ran his finger up her arm, touching the tape holding the IV tube. ‘She’d left her phone behind, so I couldn’t call her, but I remembered what she’d said about having a twin and the old house, so I went to see if she was there. When I saw you, I thought we could make up, that I could apologise. I didn’t realise you were identical.’
‘Stalking someone is a funny way to apologise.’
‘We have a funny sort of relationship. I know what happened in her past. That fucks a person up, I think.’ He looked up quickly, realising who he was speaking to. ‘I’m sorry, I mean …’ He turned his eyes away, guiltily. ‘It can’t have been easy for her. For you both,’ he added. ‘I need to make allowances for that.’ They heard the squeak of shoes on the tiled floor and he glanced away from the bedside. A nurse had walked down the corridor, past the open door. He frowned. ‘I’m going to find a doctor.’
She watched him as he marched out, full of purpose. She moved to sit next to her sister, in the seat Mortimer had vacated. She gently touched her hand with one finger as he had done.
She felt hot tears behind her eyes and a lump in her throat. She bit her lip, trying to stop herself crying. Was he right? She had never thought of herself in that way, as fucked up, but maybe Mortimer had seen something that she’d never wanted to admit. The murder of your parents was something no teenager should ever have to live through; it was crazy to think they could have come out the other side unscathed.
And she had lost her sister, too, that day. For so long they’d been on opposite sides of the world. While they’d been living their separate lives, she’d kept quiet that she had an identical twin. The few people she had mentioned it to had been surprised, shocked even, that there was that much distance between them.
‘Can you feel her pain?’ they would ask. ‘Can you communicate telepathically? Did you ever swap clothes and pretend to be the other?’ Predictable, boring questions, and she would laugh them off, while deep down desperately missing the sister she had grown up with.
She heard shouting in the hallway and hurriedly wiped away her tears, getting to the doorway in time to see Mortimer march away. A red-faced nurse stood next to the reception desk, her colleague gently patting her arm.
Thea looked at them quizzically as she followed Mortimer, breaking into a run to catch up with him in the corridor.
‘Mortimer! Wait!’ She grabbed his arm when she was alongside him, holding onto it to slow him down. ‘What happened?’
He shook his head, wordlessly, his jaw clenched. Thea could feel his muscles tense. He shook her off and turned away, trying to gather his composure.
Thea came up behind him and put her hand on his back. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Apart from the obvious?’ he barked at her. ‘Apart from the fact my wife is lying unconscious in hospital and I have no idea how she got there, or even what the hell she has been doing for the past few weeks?’
Thea looked up at him, the anger clear on his face. But also something else: worry. Grief. Pain.
‘They won’t tell me anything,’ he said, quieter this time.
‘Who? The doctors?’
‘They say they have no proof I am who I say I am. That the police haven’t told them she has a husband and they’ll only talk to her next of kin – you.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Thea said. ‘I’ll ask them, I’ll tell you.’
‘Why do you believe me?’ Mortimer said. ‘She hadn’t told you about me either.’
Thea thought for a moment. ‘She didn’t tell me anything, ev
er. Having a secret husband isn’t so strange for her.’
‘That’s just it,’ Mortimer said, turning his back and walking away from her. ‘Why am I such a fucking secret?’
Thea watched him go this time, his shoulders stooped as he strode down the corridor. She sighed and shook her head. Yet another person broken by Gabriella. Yet another person miserable because of her.
13
The road was empty, spots of concrete dimly highlighted by streetlights. Kate locked her car and looked out into the gloom.
She pulled her coat tightly around her, feeling the biting cold already chilling her to the bone. She shoved gloves on her hands and started to walk, her pace quick.
Southampton Common was a massive park, to the north of the main town. By day it was frequented by dog walkers, cyclists, joggers and mums with kids, taking advantage of the many paths that criss-crossed the woodland. By night, it was a different matter.
Kate had wanted to see Gabi’s route for herself. The wide concrete path led her through a patch of forest, overhung with large oak trees, their branches bare, ivy covering the thick trunks. Kate noted the lack of CCTV as she walked through.
She tried to imagine what Gabriella had been thinking. Dressed in no more than a tiny dress, she’d stumbled through here, probably at about three a.m. Somewhere between here and the end of this path, she’d lost her bag. Somewhere along here she’d been attacked and left for dead.
The trees had cleared and she could see across a wide expanse of grass. The moon peered through the grey clouds, the concrete path snaking ahead. She picked up her speed, feeling very vulnerable.
That afternoon, Yates had started on the club CCTV while Briggs tracked down the mysterious husband. There were no marriages recorded in the UK system, but they’d found a wedding a few months previously in America. Gabriella Patterson and Mortimer Breslin. Married 15 October 2018, at the Loving Hearts Chapel, Las Vegas. ‘Sounds like a classy place,’ Briggs had muttered.
The wedding may not have been posh but his current home definitely was. He lived in a particularly nice part of town, alongside CEOs and footballers in big houses about three miles north of the common. So she’d been found in between the nightclub and his house. Had she been trying to walk there? Or perhaps trying to get to her sister’s – Thea’s house was in that direction too.
Ask Me No Questions Page 6