She's Mine
Page 25
But the ‘yet’ said it all. The allure of Venice and the Gritti Palace was working its magic.
‘I’ve got a pharmaceuticals conference in Milan the week after next. This is my clever plan to bring you two girls together again. I know you’ve grown apart these past few years.’
Lara gave him a withering look.
‘Listen, Gabrielle is in need of a holiday. I’ve persuaded her to come to Venice while I’m at the conference in Milan. I suggested she could have two or three days seeing the art exhibitions on her own and I would join her at the weekend when the conference finishes. And then, this afternoon, at the clinic, I thought of asking you. We’ll keep it a secret from Gabrielle, so she’ll be surprised to find you there. It will be perfect for the two of you to have some time together, alone, without me, before the baby is born.’
The lift reached the ground floor and the doors opened, just in time, as Lara began to feel a claustrophobic panic coming over her. She pushed past him and walked out briskly onto the street. He ran after her and continued, earnestly.
‘You’ve seen so little of each other the past few years. And then I’m always there, and that causes tension for obvious reasons. She’s feeling jealous and depressed. The idea of the surrogacy brings back so many painful memories of the miscarriages and our stillborn baby. She says she can’t face seeing you, that just the thought of you being pregnant makes her hate you. It’s understandable. But once you’re together, I’m sure you’ll work it out. You can make plans for the baby and Gabrielle can start to feel she’s a part of it all. Besides, you deserve a holiday too. It’s so good and unselfish of you to help us in this way. It’s the very least that we can do. I’ll come and join you both in Venice at the weekend and we can all have some fun.’
‘I can make my own way home. Goodnight.’ Lara was losing patience with him. ‘I’ll think about it and let you know.’
‘Good luck,’ said James, as they parted ways. ‘I’ll be thinking of you on Thursday.’
*
On the evening of 7 May 2010, Lara boarded the plane at JFK airport bound for Italy. Lara’s new boyfriend was ‘gutted’ that she was going to Venice without him but since she had said she was going on holiday with her twin, he couldn’t very well protest. He would have been still more dismayed had he known that the true reason she had bailed on their lunch date earlier that same day was not because she was behind with her packing (as she had told him) but in order to attend her follow-up appointment at NYC Reproductive Medicine Associates. She had been determined to keep the surrogacy secret from him for as long as possible. For now, more than ever, her life was a tangled web of secrets and lies.
In the event it was not until after her appointment at the clinic and with a heavy heart that Lara had finally made up her mind to go ahead with the Italian holiday. Her doctor had confirmed what she already knew from having carried out a home pregnancy test. Unfortunately, the implantation of Gabrielle and James’s embryos had not been successful. She was not pregnant.
In view of the unique family circumstances of the planned surrogacy, Lara persuaded her doctor to allow her to be the one to communicate the sad news to the genetic parents that the embryo transfer had failed. Lara was not without empathy for her twin. She understood that Gabrielle would be bitterly disappointed, heartbroken even, and she resolved that it would be kinder to tell her in person, to discuss face-to-face the possibility of a second attempt and even to work towards a reconciliation by spending some time together in Venice before embarking on a second round of IVF.
*
Lara received VIP treatment when she checked in to the Gritti Palace on that sensational, sparkling morning in May. At reception Lara was greeted as ‘Mrs Hamilton’ and informed that her booking had been upgraded to the Hemingway Presidential Suite. She was not surprised to be mistaken for Gabrielle since this had happened on a regular basis throughout their childhood. She didn’t bother to correct the lady who handed her the key – as she was sharing the suite with her twin, it was of no importance. Hardly auspicious, Lara mused to herself, reading the name in the plaque on the door. She knew that cursed with bad luck, Hemingway had almost died twice in two separate plane crashes in Africa and had ended his life with a botched, but nevertheless fatal suicide by shooting himself in the head. Nevertheless, the presidential suite sounded pretty classy.
Unlocking the door, she was delighted to find that the accommodation more than lived up to the description in the leaflet.
This sumptuous suite features five floor-to-ceiling French doors that open onto a balcony affording magical views of the Grand Canal
The views were indeed breath-taking. She threw down her bag and looked out through the open French doors.
For once, the hyperbole was not an exaggeration. The room was extravagant and ornate with Venetian Rococo mouldings and Murano glass chandeliers. A collection of works by Hemingway was lined up on mahogany bookshelves. She ran her finger along the spines of the old-fashioned volumes – pausing for a few seconds when she reached the leather-bound edition of For Whom The Bell Tolls – the feel of the dusty spine and the yellowing pages making her nostalgic for her Oxford days, and those long hours in musty libraries each week of term, pooled in the glow of an old-fashioned lamp.
But the best thing was the view. The beauty of the scene made her heart ache.
As she headed for the balcony, she almost tripped over a suitcase and heard someone drawing back the curtains in the adjoining bedroom. Gabrielle must already have arrived.
She threw open the door, expecting to take her sister by surprise, but stopped in her tracks.
‘Oh… It’s you!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’ Looking every bit like he’d just stepped out of a Merchant Ivory film, in white cotton shirt and pressed cream flannels, James was standing by the open window watching the sunlight striking the silver dome of Santa Maria Della Salute. ‘I might have guessed… of course, how stupid of me!’ she said flatly.
He turned at the sound of her voice and drew her into his arms.
‘Look, isn’t this glorious.’.
‘Where’s Gabrielle?’ said Lara. She pulled away. ‘Don’t tell me, she’s gone shopping already.’
*
‘She’s not coming, is she?’ said Lara, as they sat down to a candlelit supper at a table laid for three on the terrace of the hotel. ‘You tricked me again. It was all lies.’ James remained silent, watching the gondolas gliding past in the shadows. Just below the terrace, water lapped softly against the stone walls.
Angered by James’ deception, Lara had deliberated all afternoon about whether and when to reveal that the embryo transfer had failed. She thought it only fair that Gabrielle should be the first to know.
‘I’m sorry.’ James had kept up the pretence all afternoon that Gabrielle had been delayed by work commitments and had made a last-minute change to her flight. ‘I knew you’d never come unless I made up a story about Gabrielle coming too. She’s at home. I thought of asking her but she’s preoccupied with a new photography project. She’s got an idea for a new exhibition at the gallery in Chelsea. Embryonic Love, I think it’s going to be called – photographs and a film montage with music and coloured lights, gigantic prints of microscopic images she’s managed to obtain from the New York clinic of the first few days’ development of our pre-implantation embryo.’
‘That woman is obsessed,’ said Lara. She bit into a black olive. Despite her annoyance she felt sad for Gabrielle. ‘What did you tell her?’ She licked the oil off her fingertip.
‘She thinks I’m at a conference in Milan – well that much is true. I did go to the conference. It isn’t all lies.’
In such a beautiful place, Lara found it difficult to be mad at him for long. She didn’t want to spoil the holiday for herself by telling James the truth. If she told him that the implantation procedure had failed, he would either cut short the holiday or spend it in a black mood. And she refused to feel guilty for her own part.
She was still planning to make a big sacrifice for Gabrielle – the most unselfish act she had ever contemplated in her life. She would be lending her body to her twin for a full nine months, putting herself through all sorts of physical and emotional traumas to give Gabrielle and James a child to complete their family. In return, it seemed only fair to ‘borrow’ her sister’s husband for a few days. The planned surrogacy provided the perfect cover. Gabrielle need never know. James would certainly never tell her. He had engineered the whole situation. And now in full confidence that the gestational pregnancy was underway, he was treating her like his new bride – the precious bridal vessel for his longed-for unborn child.
‘Come here,’ said James. He tasted of olives and red wine. ‘Like it or not, we’re bound together forever now.’
‘Are you kissing me or her?’ said Lara. She understood that in his mind, she and Gabrielle were one and the same – merging in his imagination like concentric circles into a single identity with him at the epicentre, until he could make love to them both without any consciousness of committing an infidelity.
He didn’t appear to be suffering any self-doubt or remorse. So why should she?
Carefree as young lovers, they spent the days basking in warm spring sunshine at over-priced cafes in the Piazza San Marco, gliding in gondolas though winding canals, wandering the maze of flower-fringed streets and bridges, shopping for perfume and leather goods and sinister carnival masks, sampling succulent Venetian cuisine, and making love in the opulence of their suite in the Gritti Palace hotel.
If Lara occasionally felt a frisson of guilt, like a cooling breeze in a shady canal, it simply added to the enticement of the romance. As she sat back on the balcony sipping prosecco and gazing over the panorama of palazzos, and bridges and boats, she fell easily into the role of the ill-fated romantic heroine of a late-nineteenth-century novel whose passions had been unleashed by the intense sunlight and brilliant colours, and overwhelming sensuality of the landscapes and the people encountered on her Grand Tour. She gave full reign to her literary imagination. It was delicious, so far from the frantic, yet mundane, reality of working life in the financial district of Manhattan.
Lara stopped James from taking any photographs – these days were for living, not recording, and it was too risky. She knew this passionate, technicolour sequence in their story could not make the final cut. So she was vigilant but, as it turned out, not vigilant enough. One moment of distraction, one pushy gondolier.
One image found its way into James’ wallet, one unfocused photograph, beneath the Bridge of Sighs, folded and soon forgotten.
*
A couple of weeks after she returned to New York, Lara purchased a pregnancy test from her local drugstore. The next day she woke early, breakfasted and spent more than an hour putting on her make-up and adjusting her hair. She had to look just right to carry this off. From her apartment, she walked briskly across Central Park and on to Seventh Avenue for an unscheduled meeting at NYC Reproductive Medicine Associates. Now that she was pregnant, there was some unfinished business she needed to attend to, a settling of old scores that would give her peace of mind.
Some twenty minutes later, she walked out of the clinic with a new spring in her step. She made her way down to the subway, overtaking commuters as she ran down the steps, found a seat on the crowded train, rubbed off and reapplied her lipstick, and untied and brushed out her hair. That done, now she put on her headphones, closed her eyes, and filled her head with visions of Venice while she counted the five stops to her Wall Street destination.
Later that day she phoned James with the joyful news:
‘Congratulations, we’re pregnant.’
29
Scarlett
After Gabrielle locks us in, Christina collapses onto the bed, weak with emotion. I release her hands by biting through the cord binding her wrists, and swab her face improvising a cold compress with one of the towels hanging by the sink. I can scarcely trust myself to talk. Eventually I say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a twin? Why didn’t you tell the police? What have you dragged me into?
She says nothing.
I search the room for something I can use to break down the door or smash open the porthole. There’s nothing.
‘How long have you been here?’ I ask.
‘I’ve lost track of time,’ she says. ‘I came onboard the night I had dinner with Damien at Clamities.
‘I warned you that was a bad idea!’ I mutter.
I hammer on the door with my fists and yell ‘open the door’ again and again, fighting a wave of panic as the claustrophobia of being trapped takes hold.
Get a grip, I tell myself.
I roll backwards on to the bed and try kicking the porthole with my feet. Not even a tremor. The safety glass is solid. It’s not exactly a prison cell but we’re well and truly her captives.
Surely it would only be a matter of time before Mitch told Costa. Costa will come and rescue us. I don’t really believe it, but I’ve got to keep the panic down somehow.
As I roll off the bed, I feel something hard, digging into my back.
The gun.
I could kick myself. If I hadn’t been so paralysed with shock at the sudden appearance of Christina’s twin, I might have had the sense to make good use of the weapon. But it all happened so quickly.
Just then, there’s a rumble above us, followed by a loud splash. I leap up and peer through the porthole. The water surrounding the yacht shimmers with light as its security lights come on. The dinghy comes into view. That’s what made the splash – as they launched it into the water.
There are two people in the dinghy: that traitor Damien, now in jeans and a T-shirt, and Gabrielle – Gabrielle-not-Christina – wearing a thick sweater over her white shirt.
But there’s no Katie. What have they done with her? Is she still alive?
I hammer on the porthole with the palms of my hands, and yell at the top of my voice.
‘Stop, stop, let us out…’
I have no idea if they can hear me or not but Gabrielle turns briefly. I see her mouth move as she says something to Damien and they both laugh.
What a bitch!
*
My stomach starts to churn as the yacht rises and falls in the swell. They’ve anchored it here – with us imprisoned onboard. That woman abducted Katie. But if Katie’s not hidden here, then she must be hidden somewhere else. Was this the plan all along? To lure Christina and I on to the boat leaving the coast clear for Gabrielle and Damien to collect Katie from wherever they’ve hidden her and make a quick getaway?
After the initial shock of seeing Christina’s twin things are falling into place. Those things I’ve been grasping for like lost images from a dream, are now resurfacing in my head – the description of the woman in the witness statement, the vile parody of Christina I encountered at the villa, the images of ‘Christina’ that Costa identified on the CCTV footage carrying away Katie’s birth certificate and other papers, the glimpses of someone in my room when Gabrielle defaced my mirror with lipstick, and even that morning at the apartment in New York where I caught Damien red-handed going through Christina’s desk, rifling through her documents. Now it all makes sense. Gabrielle’s been playing with us. It’s all been part of a long-planned, elaborate charade to lure us onto the boat and make us her hostages while Katie is spirited away.
It’s just after midnight but there’s still no sign of Mitch or Costa.
‘Come on boys, where the hell are you?’
How long does it take to send out a police patrol boat and a helicopter?
In this part of the world, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a way of getting Katie off the island. They’ll simply disappear into some Latin American hellh
ole and wait for the trail to go cold.
With each passing second, I feel more despondent.
What if my phone ran out of charge? What if Mitch couldn’t work out how to use it? What if the police don’t launch a rescue operation until dawn or at all?
We lie side by side on the narrow bed, locked in the single cabin. I’m aching all over from my night under the stars in the rowing boat. Christina’s battered and exhausted. She’s mute, shivering and moaning. I stare at the ceiling wondering what to do next.
I pull the blanket up round her.
‘Is your sister completely mad or just a very bad person?’ I ask. ‘If you want to find Katie and get out of this alive, you’ve got to talk – now.’
She covers her face with her hands.
‘Come on, Christina. Tell me the truth. We’ve got to work out what the hell’s going on, or she’ll be gone, perhaps forever, you may never see her again.’
At last she sits up and leans against the glass porthole, looking out to sea.
‘She’s finally beaten me,’ she says.
‘I won’t let you give up!’ I scream at her. Then I take her hand and speak gently. ‘You’ve known all along it was Gabrielle, haven’t you? From the moment you heard Katie was missing, you knew that Gabrielle had taken her.’
She nods. ‘Yes. I never really believed Katie had drowned. I know what she’s capable of. She’s my twin after all. That’s why I’ve been trying to shake her off ever since Katie was born. She’s a psychopath – it’s as simple as that.’
Suddenly Christina leaps off the bed. ‘There’s got to be something we can use to break out of here,’ she says, flinging open the cupboards and tugging uselessly at the pipes under the sink.
There’s nothing.
‘The only thing that might get us out of here is this gun,’ I say. ‘We could try and shoot the bolts off the door. But we’ve only got five bullets and I don’t want to waste them.’