by Alex Lake
She had laughed. It’s a bit early for a wedding, isn’t it?
Take it the right way, he said. It’s not a proposal. It’s a prediction. I can tell. I get the same feeling at work. We have some case come in and there are all kinds of competing opinions and contracts and noise and I look the guy in the eye and know he’s a crook. Which is the only important thing to know. And it’s the same with you. The only important thing is that I already know we’re getting married. The rest is merely details.
But I live in Maine. I’m at the beginning of a residency in a hospital in my hometown. And I’m only here until tomorrow.
Like I said, he replied, mere details. They can work themselves out.
And they did. The next day she decided to change her flight and stay on a while. They went to Stonehenge and Edinburgh and Durham and Hadrian’s Wall and then she really had to go home.
Once she was back in Maine, they had a long-distance relationship, a kind of relationship which she had always been convinced would never work, but in this case, it did: and it did because of Ben and his certainty. He called almost every day, visited once a month – he always came to her – and then, nine months after they met, he asked her to marry him.
Are you sure? she said, aware this was not the normal response.
Yes, he said. I’m always sure.
And it was this certainty that had led them to get married and for him to give up his legal career in London and move to Maine and have kids. It was a powerful force, his certainty, and she found it, in truth, a little frightening. It was fine when it was working in the same direction as her, but she had wondered, more than once, what would happen if it started to work in a different direction. One day he might decide their marriage was over, might analyze their situation and decide it was hopeless, and then his certainty would take him inexorably away from her.
But for now she was glad he had decided this Facebook account was nothing more than a joke. She only hoped it was true.
‘Have you talked to anyone else about this?’ he said. He had a thoughtful look on his face, as if something had occurred to him.
She shook her head.
‘No one at all? No one knows you found out about this?’
‘No one. Why are you asking? What are you getting at?’
‘The timing,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit – well, it’s a little bit odd, don’t you think?’
‘The timing of what?’
‘The friend request from the other Sarah Havenant. It’s odd it should come in now, on the same day you found out about the profile. I mean, it’s been up there a while. Why today? It’s quite a coincidence, if indeed it is a coincidence.’
Sarah’s stomach tightened. ‘You think it’s not a coincidence? Someone knows I found out, and that’s why they sent it?’
‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘But it helps, right? Figure out who could know you got the friend request and you know who sent it.’
‘No one knows,’ Sarah said. ‘How would anyone know?’
‘What about the person who told you there was another account in your name? What was her name?’
‘Rachel,’ she said. ‘Rachel Little.’
‘Maybe it was her. She’d know you’d found the account, since she told you about it.’
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It can’t be her. She’s not been in Barrow for years.’
Ben shrugged. ‘Ask her.’
‘Maybe I will. But first I need to speak to Jean.’
6
Jean lived on the next street. To walk on the road was about a half mile, but there was a path through the trees which connected their backyards. Sarah called on her way along it to let her friend know she was coming.
Thankfully, Jean was still up. Even though it was only half past nine, that was not a given: she was a single mom with two adopted kids, so early nights were the norm. Her former husband – father of the two kids she had adopted – had died three years ago in a hit-and-run car accident. They never found the driver; there was a stolen car, abandoned a few miles away with a dent in the hood, a web of cracks in the windshield, and an empty bottle of whiskey in the footwell. There was also a syringe on the passenger seat.
The car had been stolen from the Rite-Aid car park in Barrow; the cops had CCTV footage of it leaving the car park but they could not identify the driver, who was wearing a hooded top. They assumed it was a petty thief looking to make a few bucks for their next fix of heroin, which was the drug of choice in Maine for those who could not get their hands on prescription opiates.
She’d had a rough time of it, Jean, but she was one of those people who somehow managed to carry on. Even after Jack had died, she’d tried to focus on the positives. She’d said to Sarah that at least she had the kids – she couldn’t have any of her own – so they would be her family for the rest of her life.
They were lucky to have her as a mom, Sarah replied. As she was to have her as a friend.
Sarah opened the back door and walked into the kitchen.
‘Hi,’ Jean said. She was making sandwiches for her sons’ lunches. ‘What’s up?’
‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s been one of those days.’
Jean raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’
‘Did you hear about Rachel Little?’
‘Coming back to Barrow?’ Jean nodded. ‘She sent me a friend request.’
‘Me too,’ Sarah said. ‘Anything weird about yours?’
‘No,’ Jean said. ‘What do you mean, weird?’
‘Well, she asked me which was my true profile.’
Jean pursed her lips and frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’
Sarah passed her phone to Jean. ‘She meant this.’
Jean put the knife down and swiped her finger over the screen. She studied it for a few seconds.
‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘That’s my question. And ten minutes ago I got a friend request. From this fake account. So someone knew I’d just found out about it.’
‘Oh my God,’ Jean said. ‘Who would know? And who was at all the places the photos were taken?’
‘Nobody I can think of,’ Sarah said. ‘Other than me.’
‘Right. And it wasn’t you.’
Sarah paused. ‘Ben thought it might be Rachel. She knew I’d seen the account, because she alerted me to it.’
‘I guess,’ Jean said. ‘But I don’t know how it could be her. How would she have got the photos? She’d need to have been around Barrow for the last six months, which rules her out. She’s been on the West Coast.’
They looked at Rachel’s profile to check; she had been working as a psychologist in San Diego, specializing in grief counseling and post-traumatic stress disorder. It made sense; there was a large military presence down there. That was all there was, though: her profile was only a few weeks old.
‘She’s new to Facebook,’ Sarah said. ‘So it could all be bullshit she put on her profile, when all along she’s been much closer to home.’
‘Maybe,’ Jean said. She looked doubtful. ‘But it seems a bit of a stretch. And you still have the question of why she would be doing this. You guys got along OK in high school, right?’
‘More or less. She was pretty quiet. I didn’t have much to do with her.’ Sarah paused. ‘Although there was one time we were kind of at odds, over that guy Jeremy.’
Jean nodded slowly. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Sort of. But it was no big deal, right?’
Jeremy had showed up in their sophomore year of high school. He’d come from somewhere in California and he was a new and exotic addition to their lives. He surfed – at least he said he did – talked with authentic West Coast slang about all the grunge clubs in Seattle he’d been to, and wore clothes that Sarah and most of her friends had only seen on MTV.
A week or so into the school year he had asked Sarah out for coffee. She went along; he was funny and charming, but underneath all the clothes and surface cool she realized he was terribly immature. She doubted t
he truth of most of his stories, and so, after a few more dates, she told him she was no longer interested.
Before she did so, there had been an odd encounter with Rachel. After school one day Rachel had grabbed her elbow and steered her into a classroom. She looked exhausted and on edge, and she asked Sarah what was going on with Jeremy.
Nothing much, Sarah replied. He’s nice but there’s no spark.
Rachel had tears in her eyes when she spoke. Then leave him for me, she said. Leave him for someone who cares.
Before Sarah could reply the door opened and one of the teachers – an English teacher called Mrs Coffin – came in, and Rachel scuttled away.
As far as Sarah knew, she and Jeremy never got together, and in any case, six months later Jeremy was gone, his dad’s job transferred back to the West Coast. Until now, Sarah had never thought of him again.
But all that was nothing to do with this. It was years ago, and it had been irrelevant even back then.
‘I think it’s all a coincidence,’ Sarah said.
‘So whoever’s behind this just happened to send it today?’ Jean replied. ‘Bit weird.’
‘I hope so,’ Sarah said. ‘Because the alternative is someone’s watching me.’
She poured a glass of wine; Jean didn’t drink a great deal but she had half a bottle someone had left after a cook-out at the weekend. She stared at the red liquid, looking at her distorted reflection. It was ridiculous. Either this was some kind of elaborate joke or Rachel Little was doing it or there was some fucking stalker out there, but whatever it was, it was crazy.
And it had been going on for six months. For six months someone had been on Facebook, pretending to be her. The more she thought about it, the more scared she became.
‘Who’s she friends with?’ Jean said. ‘The fake Sarah? Who’s been looking at her posts?’
‘I checked,’ Sarah said. ‘A bunch of random people; no one we know. You know how Facebook is.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘Which means this is purely for me.’
Jean smiled, but they had been close friends long enough for Sarah to recognize it as a smile she was forcing on to her lips.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Soon we’ll be looking back at this as some weird shit that happened in the past.’
‘I hope so,’ Sarah said. ‘I really hope so.’
7
This is all part of the plan. She is confused, naturally. She starts to question things. People. Friends. Events. She wonders what happened. She wonders whether there is a link between the friend request from her fake self to her real self and the fact it came on the same day she discovered her fake self. She considers there must be. But what? And why? And who? She cannot work this out, so she will think it might be a coincidence. And this thought will be nice and comforting and so gradually she will let this thought become her explanation.
A coincidence. Yes, it is a coincidence. The alternative – a stalker, watching her, hidden in the shadows – is too awful to contemplate, so a coincidence it is.
But she is wrong. She has been watched for a long time. Watched until she found the Facebook account.
Finally. For now, after all the planning and waiting and watching, it truly starts. It has been a long time in the weaving, this tangled web. And now she has taken one thread of it, and she will start to pull.
She will pull and it will unravel in ways she cannot imagine. For there are many threads. And as she thinks she is making progress, as she thinks she is figuring this all out, she will discover the truth.
In untangling the web, she has merely become trapped in it.
Stuck fast.
A fish in a net. And the more she struggles, the tighter it will grip her.
Until there is no way out.
8
Sarah lay in bed, eyes open. She had got back from Jean’s house at eleven and had struggled to fall asleep. Now, after not much more than four hours of fitful sleep, she was awake.
Wide awake. Too much wine had given her a headache and, although the ibuprofen she had taken had dulled the pain, it was not much use in calming the other problem with her head, namely the questions rolling around and around in a futile search for answers. She wanted to know who was behind this, and why.
And she wanted to know if it was dangerous. Because it certainly felt like it could be. Whoever had done this had been at her daughter’s pre-school. In a restaurant with her and Ben.
They had been in her house.
She felt her chest tighten and she inhaled deeply, held her breath, then slowly exhaled.
Not this, she thought. Please, not this.
It had been a few years since her last anxiety attack, since the last time her mind had run away with itself and sent her fight-or-flight reflex haywire, leaving her short of breath, dizzy, heart racing and gripped by a powerful nausea. It had felt like she was having a heart attack, or, on occasion even worse: she’d felt like she was dying.
And, at times, she’d caught herself thinking maybe she would be better off dead. The panic could start at any time. In the car, in the supermarket, at work. She lived in a debilitating fear, and she wasn’t sure she could go on.
She had always been anxious, but what made the panic attacks even harder to bear was that they had started in earnest when Miles was born, and so she associated them with him. This in turn made her feel guilty, which triggered the panic.
Ben had been very worried – this in itself was a big deal, which made her even more anxious – and had spoken to some of the other doctors about possible solutions. In the end, Sarah had seen a colleague who had given her some coping strategies – deep breaths, positive thinking, exercise, and, initially, medication. She had, mercifully, managed to avoid them since.
But the threat of their return had been in the background; they were gone, but there was always the lurking thought: only for now.
And, right on cue, here they were. Hands shaking, heart skipping out of control, she sat up, her head against the cool wall. Next to her, Ben snored gently.
There was no point trying to go to sleep. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and went downstairs.
She was watching the local news when the door to the living room opened. It was Ben, hair tousled, in his boxer shorts.
‘You’re up early,’ he said.
‘You too,’ she replied. ‘You should go back to bed.’
‘I can’t sleep when I know you’re down here.’ He sat beside her and took a swig from her coffee, then began to massage her shoulders. ‘You OK?’
‘I guess. But this Facebook thing has freaked me out. I can’t stop thinking about it. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. You know, like I used to.’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Not good.’
The pressure from his fingers intensified. It felt wonderful, and she leaned against him. His left hand slid forward, over her shoulder and on to her breast.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I thought this was a back rub?’
‘I never said so,’ he replied. ‘And I think you need to take your mind off all this Facebook nonsense.’
‘A back rub would do the trick,’ Sarah said. She leaned back and kissed him. ‘But maybe something else would be good, too.’
The sex distracted her, but as she sat and ate breakfast with Miles, Faye and Kim – Ben had gone to work – the questions came back: Who was it? Why? And with them, the anxiety. It was awful; she had an all-pervading sensation of impending doom which occupied most of her attention. For everything else, she was going through the motions, almost mechanically. She felt disengaged from her kids, her home, everything.
Work helped, a little. When she was with the patients, she was focused on them, but whenever she looked at her phone she got a kind of low-grade jolt of worry, a shot of fear that there would be a message, another friend request, or some new, unwelcome contact from the other Sarah Havenant.
But there was nothing.
At eleven forty-five she saw her last patient before lunch.
She looked at the schedule: Derek Davies. His last visit to her office had been less than a month ago; he had been complaining of back pain, but she had been unable to find anything wrong. She opened the door to the examining room and walked in.
‘Mr Davies,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ She logged on to the computer and brought up his notes. It was the fourth time he’d been in the last few months, each time with a different complaint, and each time she had found nothing to be concerned about. ‘Is it your back again?’
He shook his head. He was in his mid-fifties, and drifting toward obesity. He was wearing a crumpled shirt with grease stains on the collar. ‘It’s my leg,’ he said. ‘I get a pain all down it.’ He pressed the side of his left buttock. ‘It starts there.’
Sarah nodded. ‘How long’s it been bothering you?’
‘Two weeks. It’s very painful. I called for an appointment but there weren’t any.’
‘Really? Normally we can fit someone in at shorter notice.’
‘I wanted to see you. And you had no availability.’ He smiled at her, his teeth a little yellow. ‘You’re very popular, it seems!’
‘Well, that’s nice to hear,’ Sarah said. ‘But all the doctors here are equally as capable as me. You should see one of them if there’s a hurry.’
‘I like to see you. I don’t like change.’
‘So,’ Sarah said. ‘The pain. Is it worse at certain times of the day? Or during certain activities?’
‘When I’m driving,’ he said. ‘Or sitting for long periods.’
‘Do you sit for long periods?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Do you work, Mr Davies?’
‘Derek,’ he said. ‘Call me Derek. And I used to work. I was a finance clerk, but I lost my job at Christmas.’ He shook his head. ‘Can you believe it? They fired me at Christmas. I’ve not been able to find a new job since. No one wants someone my age, not these days. They want kids.’
It was, she thought, an explanation for his numerous visits to the doctor’s office. He had too much time on his hands and needed something to do. She glanced at his hand; no wedding ring. Perhaps he also needed company.