the Third Twin (1996)

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the Third Twin (1996) Page 11

by Ken Follett


  The man took the cap off a ballpoint pen and began to fill out the form.

  When it was done he pointed to a spot on the ground and said: “Stand right there.”

  Steve stood in front of the camera. Spike pressed a button and there was a flash.

  ‘Turn sideways.”

  There was another flash.

  Next Spike took out a square card printed in pink ink and headed

  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,

  UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

  WASHINGTON, DC 20537

  Spike inked Steve’s fingers and thumbs on a pad then pressed them to squares on the card marked 1.R.THUMB, 2.R.INDEX, and so on. Steve noticed that Spike, though a small man, had big hands with prominent veins. As he did so, Spike said conversationally: “We have a new Central Booking Facility over at the city jail on Greenmount Avenue, and they have a computer that takes your prints without ink. It’s like a big photocopy machine: you just press your hands on the glass. But down here we’re still using the dirty old system.”

  Steve realized he was beginning to feel ashamed, even though he had not committed a crime. It was partly the grim surroundings, but mainly the feeling of powerlessness. Ever since the cops burst out of the patrol car outside Jeannie’s house, he had been moved around like a piece of meat, with no control over himself. It brought a man’s self-esteem down fast.

  When his fingerprints were done he was allowed to wash his hands.

  “Permit me to show you to your suite,” Spike said jovially.

  He led Steve down the corridor with cells to the left and right. Each cell was roughly square. On the side that gave on to the corridor there was no wall, just bars, so that every square inch of the cell was clearly visible from outside. Through the bars Steve could see that each cell had a metal bunk fixed to the wall and a stainless-steel toilet and washbasin. The walls and bunks were painted orange brown and covered with graffiti. The toilets had no lids. In three or four of the cells a man lay listlessly on the bunk, but most of them were empty. “Monday’s a quiet day here at the Lafayette Street Holiday Inn,” Spike joked.

  Steve could not have laughed to save his life.

  Spike stopped in front of an empty cell. Steve stared inside as the cop unlocked the door. There was no privacy. Steve realized that if he needed to use the toilet he would have to do it in full view of anyone, man or woman, who happened to be walking along the corridor. Somehow that was more humiliating than anything else.

  Spike opened a gate in the bars and ushered Steve inside. The gate crashed shut and Spike locked it.

  Steve sat on the bunk. “Jesus Christ almighty, what a place,” he said.

  “You get used to it,” Spike said cheerfully, and he went away.

  A minute later he came back carrying a Styrofoam package. “I got a dinner left,” he said. “Fried chicken. You want some?”

  Steve looked at the package, then at the open toilet, and shook his head. “Thanks all the same,” he said. “I guess I’m not hungry.”

  10

  BERRINGTON ORDERED CHAMPAGNE.

  Jeannie would have liked a good slug of Stolichnaya on the rocks, after the kind of day she had had, but drinking hard liquor was no way to impress an employer, and she decided to keep her desire to herself.

  Champagne meant romance. On previous occasions when they had met socially he had been charming rather than amorous. Was he now going to make a pass at her? It made her uneasy. She had never met a man who could take rejection with good grace. And this man was her boss.

  She did not tell him about Steve, either. She was on the point of doing so several times during their dinner, but something held her back. If, against all her expectations, Steve did turn out to be a criminal, her theory would start to look shaky. But she did not like to anticipate bad news. Before it was proved she would not foster doubts. And she felt sure it would all turn out to be an appalling mistake.

  She had talked to Lisa. “They’ve arrested Brad Pitt!” she had said. Lisa was horrified to think that the man had spent the entire day at Nut House, her place of work, and that Jeannie had been on the point of taking him into her home. Jeannie had explained that she was sure Steve was not really the perpetrator. Later she realized she probably should not have made the call: it might be construed as interfering with a witness. Not that it would make any real difference. Lisa would look at a row of young white men, and either she would see the man who raped her or she would not. It was not the kind of thing she would make a mistake about.

  Jeannie had also spoken to her mother. Patty had been there today, with her three sons, and Mom talked animatedly about how the boys had raced around the corridors of the home. Mercifully, she seemed to have forgotten that it was only yesterday she had moved into Bella Vista. She talked as if she had lived there for years and reproached Jeannie for not visiting more often. After the conversation Jeannie felt a little better about her mother.

  “How was the sea bass?” Berrington said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Delicious. Very delicate.”

  He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger. For some reason the gesture struck her as self-congratulatory. “Now I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to answer honestly.” He smiled, so that she would not take him too seriously.

  “Okay.”

  “Do you like dessert?”

  “Yes. Do you take me for the kind of woman who would pretend about a thing like that?”

  He shook his head. “I guess there’s not much you do pretend about.”

  “Not enough, probably. I have been called tactless.”

  “Your worst failing?”

  “I could probably do better if I thought about it. What’s your worst failing?”

  Berrington answered without hesitation. “Falling in love.”

  “That’s a failing?”

  “It is if you do it too often.”

  “Or with more than one person at a time, I guess.”

  “Maybe I should write to Lorraine Logan and ask her advice.”

  Jeannie laughed, but she did not want the conversation to get onto Steven. “Who’s your favorite painter?” she said.

  “See if you can guess.”

  Berrington was a superpatriot, so he must be sentimental, she figured. “Norman Rockwell?”

  “Certainly not!” He seemed genuinely horrified. “A vulgar illustrator! No, if I could afford to collect paintings I’d buy American Impressionists. John Henry Twachtman’s winter landscapes. I’d love to own The White Bridge. What about you?”

  “Now you have to guess.”

  He thought for a moment. “Joan Miró.”

  “Why?”

  “I imagine you like bold splashes of color.” She nodded. “Perceptive. But not quite right. Miró’s too messy. I prefer Mondrian.”

  “Ah, yes, of course. The straight lines.”

  “Exactly. You’re good at this.”

  He shrugged, and she realized he had probably played guessing games with many women.

  She dipped a spoon into her mango sorbet. This was definitely not a business dinner. Soon she would have to make a firm decision about what her relationship with Berrington was going to be.

  She had not kissed a man for a year and a half. Since Will Temple walked out on her she had not even been on a date until today. She was not carrying a torch for Will: she no longer loved him. But she was wary.

  However, she was going crazy living the life of a nun. She missed having someone hairy in bed with her; she missed the masculine smells—bicycle oil and sweaty football shirts and whiskey—and most of all she missed the sex. When radical feminists said the penis was the enemy, Jeannie wanted to reply, “Speak for yourself, sister.”

  She glanced up at Berrington, delicately eating caramelized apples. She liked the guy, despite his nasty politics. He was smart—her men had to be intelligent—and he had winning ways. She respected him for his scientific work. He was slim and fit looking, he
was probably a very experienced and skillful lover, and he had nice blue eyes.

  All the same, he was too old. She liked mature men, but not that mature.

  How could she reject him without ruining her career? The best course might be to pretend to interpret his attention as kindly and paternal. That way she might avoid spurning him outright.

  She took a sip of champagne. The waiter kept refilling her glass and she was not sure how much she had drunk, but she was glad she did not have to drive.

  They ordered coffee. Jeannie asked for a double espresso to sober her up. When Berrington had paid the bill, they took the elevator to the parking garage and got in his silver Lincoln Town Car.

  Berrington drove along the harbor side and got onto the Jones Falls Expressway. “There’s the city jail,” he said, pointing to a fortresslike building that occupied a city block. “The scum of the earth are in there.”

  Steve might be in there, Jeannie thought.

  How had she even contemplated sleeping with Berrington? She did not feel the least warmth of affection for him. She felt ashamed that she had even toyed with the idea. As he pulled up to the curb outside her house, she said firmly: “Well, Berry, thank you for a charming evening.” Would he shake hands, she wondered, or try to kiss her? If he tried to kiss her, she would offer her cheek.

  But he did neither. “My phone at home is out of order, and I need to make one call before I go to bed,” he said. “May I use your phone?”

  She could hardly say, “Hell, no, stop by a pay phone.” It looked as if she were going to have to deal with a determined pass. “Of course,” she said, suppressing a sigh. “Come on up.” She wondered if she could avoid offering him coffee.

  She jumped out of the car and led the way across the row stoop. The front door gave onto a tiny lobby with two more doors. One led to the ground-floor apartment, occupied by Mr. Oliver, a retired stevedore. The other, Jeannie’s door, opened onto the staircase that led up to her second-floor apartment.

  She frowned, puzzled. Her door was open.

  She went inside and led the way up the stairs. A light was on up there. That was curious: she had left before dark.

  The staircase led directly into her living room. She stepped inside and screamed.

  He was standing at her refrigerator with a bottle of vodka in his hand. He was scruffy and unshaven, and he seemed a little drunk.

  Behind her, Berrington said: “What’s going on?”

  “You need better security in here, Jeannie,” the intruder said. “I picked your locks in about ten seconds.”

  Berrington said: “Who the hell is he?”

  Jeannie said in a shocked voice: “When did you get out of jail, Daddy?”

  11

  THE LINEUP ROOM WAS ON THE SAME FLOOR AS THE CELLS.

  In the anteroom were six other men of about Steve’s age and build. He guessed they were cops. They did not speak to him and avoided his gaze. They were treating him like a criminal. He wanted to say, “Hey, guys, I’m on your side, I’m not a rapist, I’m innocent.”

  They all had to take off their wristwatches and jewelry and put on white paper coveralls over their clothes. While they were getting ready, a young man in a suit came in and said: “Which of you is the suspect, please?”

  “That’s me,” Steve said.

  “I’m Lew Tanner, the public defender,” the man said. “I’m here to make sure the lineup is run correctly. Do you have any questions?”

  “How long will it take me to get out of here afterward?” Steve said.

  “Assuming you’re not picked out of the lineup, a couple of hours.”

  “Two hours!” Steve said indignantly. “Do I have to go back in that fucking cell?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I’ll ask them to handle your discharge as fast as possible,” Lew said. “Anything else?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Okay.” He went out.

  A turnkey ushered the seven men through a door onto a stage. There was a backdrop, with a graduated scale that showed their height, and positions numbered one to ten. A powerful light shone on them, and a screen divided the stage from the rest of the room. The men could not see through the screen, but they could hear what was going on beyond it.

  For a while there was nothing but footsteps and occasional low voices, all male. Then Steve heard the unmistakable sound of a woman’s steps. After a moment a man’s voice spoke, sounding as if he were reading from a card or repeating something by rote.

  “Standing before you are seven people. They will be known to you by number only. If any of these individuals have done anything to you, or in your presence, I want you to call out their number, and number only. If you would like any of them to speak, say any form of specific words, we will have them say those words. If you would like to have them turn around or face sideways, then they will do that as a group. Do you recognize any one of them who has done anything to you or in your presence?”

  There was a silence. Steve’s nerves were wound up tight as guitar strings, even though he was sure she would not pick him out.

  A low female voice said: “He had a hat on.”

  She sounded like an educated middle-class woman of about his own age, Steve thought.

  The male voice said: “We have hats. Would you like them all to put on a hat?”

  “It was more of a cap. A baseball cap.”

  Steve heard anxiety and tension in her voice but also determination. There was no hint of falseness. She sounded like the kind of woman who would tell the truth, even when distressed. He felt a little better.

  “Dave, see if we have seven baseball caps in that closet.”

  There was a pause of several minutes. Steve ground his teeth in impatience. A voice muttered: “Jeez, I didn’t know we had all this stuff … eyeglasses, mustaches—”

  “No chitchat, please, Dave,” the first man said. “This is a formal legal proceeding.”

  Eventually a detective came onto the stage from the side and handed a baseball cap to each man in the lineup. They all put them on and the detective left.

  From the other side of the screen came the sound of a woman crying.

  The male voice repeated the form of words used earlier. “Do you recognize any one of them who has done anything to you or in your presence? If so call out their number, and number only.”

  “Number four,” she said with a sob in her voice.

  Steve turned and looked at the backdrop.

  He was number four.

  “No!” he shouted. “This can’t be right! It wasn’t me!”

  The male voice said: “Number four, did you hear that?”

  “Of course I heard it, but I didn’t do this!”

  The other men in the lineup were already leaving the stage.

  “For Christ’s sake!” Steve stared at the opaque screen, his arms spread wide in a pleading gesture. “How could you pick me out? I don’t even know what you look like!”

  The male voice from the other side said: “Don’t say anything, ma’am, please. Thank you very much for your cooperation. This way out.”

  “There’s something wrong here, can’t you understand?” Steve yelled.

  The turnkey Spike appeared. “It’s all over, son, let’s go,” he said.

  Steve stared at him. For a moment he was tempted to knock the little man’s teeth down his throat.

  Spike saw the look in his eye and his expression hardened. “Let’s have no trouble, now. You got nowhere to run.” He took Steve’s arm in a grip that felt like a steel clamp. It was useless to protest.

  Steve felt as if he had been bludgeoned from behind. This had come from nowhere. His shoulders slumped and he was seized by helpless fury. “How did this happen?” he said. “How did this happen?”

  12

  BERRINGTON SAID: “DADDY?”

  Jeannie wanted to bite off her tongue. It was the dumbest thing she could have said: “When did you get out of
jail, Daddy?” Only minutes ago Berrington had described the people in the city jail as the scum of the earth.

  She felt mortified. It was bad enough her boss finding out that her father was a professional burglar. Having Berrington meet him was even worse. His face had been bruised by a fall and he had several days’ growth of beard. His clothes were dirty and he had a faint but disgusting smell. She felt so ashamed she could not look at Berrington.

  There had been a time, many years ago, when she was not ashamed of him. Quite the reverse: he made other girls’ fathers seem boring and tiresome. He had been handsome and fun loving, and he would come home in a new suit, his pockets full of money. There would be movies and new dresses and icecream sundaes, and Mom would buy a pretty nightgown and go on a diet. But he always went away again, and around about the age of nine she found out why. Tammy Fontaine told her. She would never forget the conversation.

  “Your jumper’s horrible,” Tammy had said.

  “Your nose is horrible,” Jeannie had replied wittily, and the other girls broke up.

  “Your mom buys you clothes that are really, like, gruesome.”

  “Your mom’s fat.”

  “Your daddy’s in jail.”

  “He is not.”

  “He is so.”

  “He is not!”

  “I heard my daddy tell my mommy. He was reading the newspaper. I see old Pete Ferrami’s back in jail again,’ he said.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Jeannie had chanted, but in her heart she had believed Tammy. It explained everything: the sudden wealth, the equally sudden disappearances, the long absences.

  Jeannie never had another of those taunting schoolgirl conversations. Anyone could shut her up by mentioning her father. At the age of nine, it was like being crippled for life. Whenever something was lost at school, she felt they all looked accusingly at her. She never shook the guilty feeling. If another woman looked in her purse and said, “Darn, I thought I had a ten-dollar bill,” Jeannie would flush crimson. She became obsessively honest: she would walk a mile to return a cheap ballpoint, terrified that if she kept it the owner would say she was a thief like her father.

 

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