‘Give me the gun!’ she yells. ‘I’ve got to get out. God only knows what’s happening to Katie. I can’t bear to think of it.’
She starts feeling her way manically round the walls of the cabin, beginning to pant and hyperventilate.
I grab her wrists and speak to her very firmly, as if to a child.
‘Christina.’ I make her look at me. ‘I don’t want to waste the bullets. We’re safe for now. The police should be on their way. Costa won’t abandon us here. Let’s give them two more hours. If there’s no sign of the police by 3 a.m., we’ll blast our way out. Now, while we’re waiting to be rescued, tell me everything you know. There might be something we’ve missed – some clue as to where Katie is hidden.’
Eventually she calms down and staring through the porthole into the blackness, the words come flooding out at last.
‘It’s not the only time Gabrielle’s tried to kidnap Katie. The first time was when Katie was just five days old. There had been some complications at the birth so we had to stay in the hospital until I was fit enough to go home. I was taking a shower when Gabrielle came into my room. I had left the door to the shower room a few inches open. Katie was sleeping peacefully in the cot when Gabrielle walked in and just took her. The nurses on duty saw her going out of the room with Katie wrapped in the pink shawl and mistook her for me. As I was rinsing my hair I had a sudden surge of panic. Maybe it was that twin telepathy or I had felt her shadow passing behind me. Anyhow I leapt out of the shower and saw the empty cot. I ran out to the nurses’ station screaming for my baby. Thank God, they radioed for security who stopped her just as she was heading for the exit. Brazen as ever, Gabrielle claimed she was taking the baby out for some fresh air while her sister took a shower. The hospital was happy to believe her despite my protests – she was family and she hadn’t actually left the premises. It would have been difficult to prove intent to steal the baby, they told me. What’s more, the breach of security on the maternity ward was embarrassing and the hospital preferred to hush it up. The attempted abduction wasn’t even logged as a security incident. In fact, they made me feel like I was a hysterical new mother, overwrought with postnatal hormones and sleepless nights. The in-house psychologist came over to see me and every time I mentioned the word, ‘abduction’ she told me I was overreacting and suffering from post-partum anxiety that was ‘distorting my view of reality’.’
Christina goes over to the sink and splashes water on her face. She looks at her reflection in the glass. ‘She’s my mirror-image.’ She shudders. ‘Identical but opposite. She’s evil.’ I guess she sees her twin looking back at her. She turns away.
‘As you can imagine, I never felt safe after that,’ continues Christina, matter of fact again. ‘As soon as I got home, I changed the locks, my phone numbers and my email address. I deleted my Facebook account and anything that gave me an online identity. I ditched the name Lara and started using the name Christina. I changed the spelling of my surname. I didn’t want to lose it altogether. I’ve always liked the name because of Jacqueline Kennedy – always admired her style. Anyway, I reverted to being a pre-digital individual – relying on paper and pen and exchanging emails and texts only when absolutely necessary. Within a few weeks, I had moved to a new apartment and handed in my notice at work. I tried to cut myself off from the family altogether, to break all contact with Gabrielle and to forge a new life under this new identity.’
She smiles ruefully.
‘Being based in New York made it easier. But I had to be constantly vigilant especially as I knew that Gabrielle’s design and marketing company had a photo studio in New York that she visited on a regular basis. There were two more scares when Katie was about eighteen months old. First, I found out that a woman pretending to be me had turned up to collect Katie at her day-care. Fortunately, Katie had been sick during the night and my nanny at the time had kept her home that day. Then a few months later the day-care manager called me at the office to give me a telling-off. Apparently, during an outing to Central Park I had been spotted standing behind a tree taking pictures with a long-lens camera “in contravention of nursery policy” which prohibited the taking of photographs of the children. Well, I was pleased to hear the day-care was so strict on security, but it gave me a scare all the same, and it made me look a fool.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you go to the police?’ I say. ‘These were serious incidents. The nursery could have backed you up.’
‘I had my reasons. Let’s just say I didn’t want the police digging around in my private affairs or raking through my past. Anyway, I didn’t think they’d take me seriously. Gabrielle’s my twin and Katie’s auntie after all.’
What is this dark secret in her past, I wonder. I’m tempted to ask but instead I say bitterly, ‘Perhaps if you had gone to the police two years ago back in New York, I wouldn’t be trapped with you right now in this God-damned floating prison.’
I sit up on the bed to look out of the porthole. A vast moon hangs above us glinting on the water and giving Christina a menacing look as shadows dapple through the cabin and across her face. This is beginning to resemble the set of a low-budget horror movie. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look strangely sinister too.
Though it’s the middle of the night the cabin is warm and stuffy. With the minibar stashed full of nothing but vodka, I thank God we’ve got the sink. It’s probably not drinking water but at least we won’t die of thirst. I put my mouth under the tap. The gushing water helps to clear my head and I’m struck by the thought that Christina must have known from day one that Damien was in on the abduction of Katie.
She doesn’t attempt to deny it.
‘When Damien didn’t turn up at the play area I had a bad feeling – even before I knew that Katie was gone. But when I found out about his gambling debts at the Black Jack which seemed to give him an alibi, I knew he couldn’t be acting alone. I decided not to let on that I suspected him. I thought if I could play my cards right there was a chance he would lead me to her. And I know Gabrielle will do anything to keep Katie away from me, so I didn’t want the police blundering in. That’s why I didn’t hand over Damien’s mobile. I wanted to find out whether he was acting for Gabrielle and I prayed that if he was I could intercept her texts and get to Katie first.
Now I’m bubbling with self-righteous anger.
‘You suspected Damien and yet you didn’t tell me? I can’t believe it! I put myself in danger with that brute and you didn’t try to stop me. He practically raped me!’
‘You can’t blame me,’ says Christina. ‘I wasn’t even awake when you went off that morning – you knocked me out with the sleeping pills remember!’
I can’t argue with that, but I also can’t let this go. Christina’s silence and duplicity has hampered the investigation and all my efforts to find Katie.
‘We’ve missed so many opportunities. I went to the villa. I thought he had kidnapped you. I had a whole conversation with Gabrielle thinking it was you. She slung a glass of red wine at my head.’
I’m so annoyed with her for not coming clean about her twin sister.
‘It must have been her who put Katie’s purse in your bag when you were at the spa. And it must have been her who came to your room and took away the documents when I was hiding in your bathroom pretending to be sick. And it must have been her who wrote on my mirror on the very first night. She’s been haunting the hotel, caught on the CCTV images, mistaken for you, coming and going just as she pleases. She took Katie off the beach in plain daylight – it’s all in that American woman’s witness statement. I was sure you don’t have a pair of Tiffany sunglasses! As your identical twin, it was so easy for her to take Katie away without anyone batting an eyelid. And now I understand why Katie went off with Gabrielle without staging a tantrum on the beach. In fact, Gabrielle wasn’t a stranger to her at all. Gabrielle has been stalking her for years – and not only stalking her, but spending time with her, getting to know her, acting out the part of
her mother. Poor Katie must have been so confused! No wonder Katie is always so anxious whenever you aren’t around – always asking “Where’s Mummy” again and again! All those long hours you spent working late at the office… there may have been many times Gabrielle went to the nursery without you finding out. Once Damien was your lover, there were more opportunities. You were so distracted. And then there were my days off when Damien offered to cover while you put in extra hours at work, and those Sunday afternoons when we went together to browse the second-hand bookshops in the Upper East Side, and that time you came to the Brooklyn Bowl hip hop festival. I bet Gabrielle was seeing Katie each time Damien was supposed to be babysitting!
My voice rises in anger and frustration.
‘I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me the truth until now?’
Christina takes a long drink from the cold tap, wipes her hand across her mouth and turns to face me.
‘Because Scarlett, I couldn’t trust anyone, not even you, especially not you. After Katie was taken, I feared you were in her pay too. If you must know, I thought you and Damien were acting together and working for Gabrielle. So when Costa interviewed me alone at the police station a few days after Katie’s disappearance, I told him I thought your story about having been drugged was made-up. I believed you and Damien had been grooming Katie for months. And I believed that in accordance with Gabrielle’s orders, you had staged the drowning scenario together while I was asleep in my room. Costa promised not to say anything to you about our conversations. Instead he decided to string you along and get you involved in the investigation, in the hope that you would give away some clue as to where Katie is hidden.’
Now I’m truly incensed. Here I am, a prisoner, literally risking life and limb for a woman who doesn’t even trust me and has actually named me as a suspect!
So that explains why Costa felt justified in using his aggressive interrogation techniques on me and yet keeping me by his side, so close and confiding. He was trying to break me and keep an eye on me all at once.
‘There’s no point getting upset,’ she says. ‘Don’t forget, you named me as a suspect. And I have no idea if Costa is playing it straight with me. For all I know, he’s been stringing me along too. I don’t trust the police. They’ve never helped me when I needed them in the past!’
30
Photograph Ten
20 August 2010: Lower Manhattan Maternity Hospital
Recognise this? Here she is! Rose – her image captured in the print of our last prenatal scan – named in loving memory of my first born, Juliet Rosalind Hamilton. I’ve seen so many. Little mermaids and mermen in their amniotic sacs.
‘And not waving but drowning’ – that’s the way it always turned out in the end.
With a photographer’s eye, I’ve learned to decipher them.
Now I’m skilled at detecting limbs and vital organs and the beating chambers of the heart.
Look carefully in amongst the shadows of the scan.
You’ll find things that are hidden from those who don’t know how to look.
Subtle shades of black-and-white and grey, reflecting variations in the density of substances through which the sound waves pass.
Solid tissues like bone appear white because the hard outer surface deflects the waves. Liquid-filled tissues like the uterus appear dark, a swirling sea absorbing waves of sound. Enhancement and attenuation, shadowing, contrast, clarity – the language of my trade – muted echoes of the structure of life itself.
Not the smallest detail escapes me. I seize on any imperfection with practised eyes – I’ve spent so many hours casting spells over submerged prints and negatives in a blacked-out cell, leaning over trays of pungent liquid, waiting for the alchemy to breathe life into the picture.
She is here, floating in the dark, inside your womb – ‘and not drowning but waving’ to transpose the verse.
She was your captive for a time…
But my creation… my Embryonic Love… and now at last she’s free…
She’s mine.
*
New York City was sweltering in the heat of summer. In Lara’s opinion, it was not the greatest day for a pregnant woman to be walking the length of the Brooklyn Bridge like a tourist but Gabrielle had insisted. She and James had flown over for a short visit to see how Lara was getting on with the pregnancy and most importantly, to see images of their developing baby at the next prenatal scan. It was Gabrielle’s third transatlantic trip since the start of the pregnancy – she was determined to keep a close eye on her surrogate for the sake of her baby.
Lara’s appointment at the hospital was in the late afternoon which gave them time to walk to Brooklyn for lunch and then back for her four o’clock slot. Gabrielle had secured a photo assignment for a travel magazine featuring iconic walking tours in New York and needed to take photographs of the bridge, so it was a good way of combining business with pleasure.
‘What’s more, it’s a healthy excursion for the surrogate-to-be,’ she told Lara. ‘You need to stay active.’
They set off from the Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge, joining the pedestrian walkway and making their way towards the Manhattan Tower. Lara was already flagging by the time they reached it.
‘I was planning a pause here anyway,’ said Gabrielle. She turned to James.
‘It’s a special day for us after all – seeing our baby together for the first time. I want to mark it.’
She opened her rucksack and pulled out a large stainless-steel padlock. Then she took James’ hand and led him over to the bridge railings.
‘Are you planning to lock me to the bridge?’ said James ‘Make me your prisoner!’ he joked in mock submission.
‘Hmm… tempting,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Look it’s a tradition here.’ She pointed at the collection of ‘love-locks’ hanging from the metalwork of the railings. ‘Here, you do it,’ she said, handing him the lock.
He took it from her, hooked it onto the metal wires, and clicked the lock shut. Then he held out the key to her in his open palm.
‘I love you,’ he said.
She took the key, kissed him softly on the lips, then kissed the key and flung it away as far as she could. It spun through the air, a glinting dart, before disappearing into the water below.
Lara watched with a pained look on her face.
‘If you two have finished with your ridiculous pantomime, could we get going? I’m burning up.’
They walked on as far as the Brooklyn side of the bridge. Lara led the way while James and Gabrielle meandered hand-in-hand behind her, pausing at intervals for Gabrielle to take photographs.
Eventually they made it to the other side and wandered on to Grimaldi’s where, to Lara’s relief, they soon got a table.
‘This is the best pizzeria in Brooklyn,’ she said. ‘You haven’t lived till you’ve eaten pizza at Grimaldi’s!’
Lara complained all the way back across the bridge. She was hot and bothered and bloated. Her back ached and her legs were heavy.
‘I told you we should have taken a taxi to the hospital,’ she said. ‘This can’t be good for your precious baby. You’re going to give me a miscarriage at this rate.’
Gabrielle silenced her with a withering glare but when they reached the Manhattan end of the walkway, James hailed a yellow cab. Lara rode the few blocks to the hospital in a sullen, sweaty silence while James made occasional banal comments as they made slow progress along the fuming, gridlocked avenue. It was a relief to escape from the heat of the streets into the gleaming chill of the air-conditioned clinic. Soon, Lara was lying on a bed, her rounded stomach smothered with gel as a technician rolled a probe over her skin to reveal constantly shifting black-and-white ultrasound images on the monitor. Lara turned her face away from the screen but Gabrielle was transfixed. James just stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat and repeating, ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this one,’ until Lara told him to shut up.
‘Don’t you want to keep a
copy?’ said Gabrielle, as the technician handed over three copies of images from the scan at the end of the session.
‘No, you keep them all,’ said Lara
So Gabrielle kept them all, to tuck into her purse or stick up on her fridge, to show to any stranger who happened to sit next to her on the train or walk into her kitchen. But no, she would do none of those things. Her passion was too intense to share. She handed two of the copies to James for safekeeping and the third she tucked away inside the cup of her bra, next to the skin of her left breast. Her heart ached for that baby.
As they left the hospital, James held open the door for Lara. For a second their eyes locked and in that instant Lara knew that James had guessed the truth. The baby was hers – conceived in Venice, their love child. She – not Gabrielle – was the biological mother.
In the weeks following their Venetian ‘honeymoon’ Lara had found out that Venice (and the hormones she had been taking to improve the chances of a successful implantation for the surrogacy) had worked their charms and that she was pregnant through natural conception with James’ baby. But she said nothing to him or Gabrielle. She feared that Gabrielle would put pressure on her to abort the baby if she discovered the truth of the affair. Instead she resolved to make absolutely sure that there was no way that Gabrielle could force her to honour the memorandum of understanding she had signed up to for a gestational surrogacy. It didn’t seem like such a great crime at the time – she was still planning to be her surrogate. She was still committed to give her the right to become the legal mother after the birth. This ‘gift’ of her baby would save their marriage.
She had said nothing to either Gabrielle or James about the failure of the embryo transfer procedure that she had undergone in New York. Let them remain in blissful ignorance. Let them believe they were both genetic parents of this longed-for child. If she could keep it a secret, no one need ever know. After all, she reasoned, as identical twins, she and Gabrielle shared almost identical DNA. It would be virtually impossible through genetic testing to prove which one of them was the biological mother. And although Lara considered herself morally (but as the birth mother, not legally) bound to hand over the baby at birth, by doing it her way, she would at least have the secret satisfaction of having ‘made a baby’ with James and passed on her genetic inheritance to the next generation.
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