London

by Carina Axelsson

  Get going, Georgie, I thought. Jane had just given her the perfect lead-in. Fortunately, she took it.

  “The random person, as you put it, Jane, actually knows quite a bit about us and our family history…and…and…”

  Great, I thought, she’s faltering already.

  But Georgie took a breath and managed to continue. “And what they’ve told me rings true with what I remember about when Julian and my mother died.”

  “Georgie, darling,” Jane said, “you were so young when all that happened. What memories could you possibly have?”

  “Not many, I admit,” Georgie said quietly, “but I can’t deny the little I do remember anymore. We have to talk about my mother and brother—”

  “They’re mine too, you know,” Johnny said.

  “I know, I know, Johnny. My point is that I need to talk about them and it can’t wait—especially now that someone is threatening to go to the press with what they know.”

  “So what do they know?” Caro asked.

  “A lot, actually.”

  Caro rolled her eyes while Georgie pulled the originals of the two photos she’d sent Gavin and me from her bag. She laid them on the low table between the two sofas, and the others peered at them.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Johnny asked.

  “No. And you especially, Johnny, should take a close look at the photo of you and Julian.”

  “I already know that photo,” he said. “I’ve seen it my whole life.”

  “Yes, but have you ever noticed this?” she said as she held the photo up and pointed to a small spot on Johnny’s right hand.

  “What are you talking about, Georgie? What are you saying?” he said as he took the photo. “That spot? I can barely see it. And so what?”

  “Take your gloves off and I’ll show you.”

  “Georgie,” Jane said, “someone has clearly filled your head with nonsense. There are people, you know—specially trained people—who can help you resolve any issues you have with your past. In the meantime, I’m not sure telling your brother to take his gloves off is the place to start.”

  “Thank you, Jane, for your vote of confidence in my ability to think for myself—” Georgie stopped to collect herself. I watched as she struggled to regain her courage. After a moment she said again, “Take your gloves off, Johnny.”

  Caro looked at Jane, and Jane looked at Johnny. “Just do it, Johnny,” Caro said. “Humor her.”

  Johnny did.

  “Don’t you see, Johnny? You don’t have a mark on your right hand, do you? And yet in the photo you do!”

  “What are you talking about, Georgie?” Johnny was getting angry and exasperated.

  “In the photo—as a child—you had a red birthmark on your right hand. And now you don’t.”

  Johnny snatched the photo from the table and stared at it.

  “Johnny, calm down,” Caro said.

  “So what do you mean exactly?” Johnny yelled as he threw the photo back on the table, ignoring Caro. “What are you getting at?” I could see his fists clenching now.

  Georgie stood, shaking. She looked pale. “There were two twin brothers. Johnny was born with a mark on his right hand. But Julian wasn’t…”

  “And?” Johnny said in a low growl.

  “I’m trying to tell you that you are not Johnny—you are Julian. It’s the truth, and someone has been hiding it!” A loud sob escaped Georgie as she spoke. I watched as she picked up the photo. “This copy is our mother’s. I found it here, in her desk upstairs. She had it in an envelope in a secret compartment of her desk.” Georgie’s voice trembled. “And on the back of this photo it is clearly marked which twin is which—and in our mother’s own hand.”

  “This is absurd, Georgie,” Jane said as she stood up. “You really do need help—and I’m willing to find you the right doctor.”

  “And I can tell you that Johnny is Johnny,” Caro said. “I’m old enough to remember.” She was angry now and glared at Georgie as she continued. “Stop being so stupid, Georgie. You can’t possibly have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  But Georgie was adamant. “No, no. Someone’s been lying. Jane, you have a copy of this photo at your house, but you’ve always told us that it was Julian with the mark on his hand!”

  “And?”

  “And you were wrong!”

  “Georgie,” Jane said softly as she walked toward her. But Johnny also took a step toward Georgie, blocking Jane. He looked threatening, his face angry, his body poised as if for a fight. I could see fear rising in Georgie, and I knew that if I didn’t step in soon, my chance—and Georgie’s and Gavin’s—to put the facts straight would be lost.

  “I know what I’m saying sounds crazy, Johnny—but you are Julian!” Georgie said.

  “Shut up!” Johnny yelled at her. He was nearly frothing at the mouth. Then he spun toward Jane. “Do you know anything about this, Jane?” he asked.

  “Nothing. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Johnny,” Jane said. I couldn’t tell if it was the light, but Jane was beginning to look feverish. Her eyes appeared slightly glassy, and perspiration was breaking out on her brow. “Like I told you, she needs a doctor.”

  Georgie was sobbing now, nervous and scared. She seemed to have gone as far as she could on her own. With a quick signal to Halley to stay put, I stepped out from behind the curtain. “I’m afraid to tell you that Georgie knows exactly what she’s saying,” I said.

  “What are you doing here?” Johnny asked with a short laugh of disbelief. “This is getting more melodramatic by the moment. Who invited you? Or are you the mystery person who has threatened to go to the police?”

  I ignored his questions and looked at his right hand. There was no mark there. I quickly picked up the photo off the table.

  Johnny pulled out his phone, but before he was able to place a call, I quickly said, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  “Really?” Jane said. “Go ahead, Johnny. Call the police. She should be locked up for trespassing.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jane grip her cane more firmly.

  “I wouldn’t, Johnny,” I said as I moved behind the desk, putting myself out of Jane’s reach, “because I think you’ll all be interested to hear what I’ve got to tell you about Julian and Clarissa. But if you’d prefer me to tell the police first, then by all means, call them.”

  “You didn’t even know Clarissa, you nosy brat. How could you possibly have anything of interest to tell us?” Caro asked. “Is this why you were trying to talk to me the other day about your bizarre interest in my sister?”

  Ignoring Caro, I picked up the photo of Johnny and Julian and handed it to Johnny. “Look at it, Johnny,” I said. “And flip it over. Look at your mother’s writing and if that doesn’t convince you, maybe this will…” I nodded to Georgie. She walked to her handbag and pulled out a large, white envelope that had yellowed with age. She pulled out a folder and handed it to Johnny.

  “Those are medical records. Your mother had been so worried about your identity that she’d gotten hold of these. You’ll find that the twin with the birthmark on his hand—the twin who drowned—was indeed Johnny. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Julian.”

  “This is preposterous,” Jane said. “And if you insist on pursuing this lie then I—we—will have to stop you.”

  “Jane, how much of this is true?” Johnny said as he perused his old medical files.

  “None of it.”

  “But that’s a lie, isn’t it, Jane?” I said. “Furthermore, I believe you to be the person responsible for switching Julian for Johnny that day by the Thames, and I also think you know exactly what happened to Clarissa when she fell down the stairs, because you were there, weren’t you? You pushed her!”

  Georgie started to sob quite uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Johnny turned his rage on Jane. “Wha
t is she talking about? What happened to Mother?”

  Caro turned white as a sheet, but she was watching Jane carefully.

  Johnny studied the photo again. “It is my mother’s writing,” he said, his teeth clenched.

  “And don’t you think she’d know which of her sons was which?” I asked.

  He continued to look at the photo.

  “This is preposterous,” Jane said. “Clarissa barely recognized herself on some days. Her imagination often ran away with her. You didn’t know her, but she was a stupid, flighty, irresponsible wretch of a woman! God, how I hated her!” she screamed as she turned to Johnny. “Clarissa didn’t deserve you!”

  Watching Jane, I was glad to have as much backup in the house as I did—the woman was clearly unstable. I tried to remain as cool as possible. “That may be,” I said, as I took the medical records in hand, “but these have nothing to do with her imagination.” I turned to the four of them. “Let’s start at the beginning…

  “Once upon a time there were twin boys. Born to fashionable parents, they were also born into style. Their father was a well-known socialite and their mother a famous fashion model and muse. Both boys expressed strong and distinct interests in style from the moment they were old enough to hold a pencil.

  “Tragically, the father died an early death, leaving the young mother, Clarissa Vane, alone with three young children to raise. Fortunately, however, Clarissa had a good friend in the talented and ambitious fit model named Jane Wimple.”

  Caro suddenly got up and said she had to use the bathroom. I watched as she left the library, but I couldn’t stop at this point—not now that I finally had their attention. I quickly glanced toward Sebastian’s hiding place and watched as he slipped out to follow Caro as she crossed the hall.

  “Jane, you formed a strong attachment to the Vane family. Soon you were running the household and acting as a surrogate mother to the three children.”

  “Clarissa was never there,” Jane said.

  “So I’ve heard,” I said.

  “Who else was going to look after them? She wasn’t fit to care for anyone other than herself. She was selfish and incapable of doing a thing on her own—let alone keeping her family in order. All she wanted to do was party and travel, model, and sit for artists. Clarissa was a terrible mother and a pathetic wretch.”

  “So you stepped in. Fine… I’m only wondering at what point your strong attachment to the children—or more specifically to the quieter twin, Julian—became a pathological obsession? You became inordinately attached to Julian and began to feel like he was your own, didn’t you?”

  Jane opened her mouth to speak. Her eyes were wide and she didn’t blink, and her voice had dropped in pitch. She spoke as if she were in a trance. “Clarissa ignored him too much. Julian was the more intense twin. He was talented but you needed to give him time before you would see it—and that was something Clarissa never had. At least not for Julian.”

  I nodded and quietly said, “And then one day, when you and the children had gone to the Thames for a bit of treasure hunting, an accident happened, didn’t it, Jane?”

  Jane looked at me, her eyes still wide, but said nothing.

  “You were with Georgie, watching from up on the footpath. The boys, meanwhile, were still out on the beach when the tide started to come in, and somehow, on this day, they’d wandered off further than usual and perhaps in separate directions. They didn’t know how fast that water can rise, and distracted by Georgie, you didn’t notice either until they were already stranded, in danger of being swept away completely by the current.

  “You ran to help Julian first—he was your special favorite, after all. You pulled him out just in time. Maybe he was coughing, spitting up some water, but he was okay—or at least, he would be after some rest and a warm bath. But Johnny, he was not all right—not at all. The current had knocked him off his feet and carried him away, and by the time you caught up with him, he was no longer breathing. And when you pulled him onto the shore it was clear he was dead. Wasn’t he, Jane? Johnny was dead?”

  Jane was looking at me and starting to shake. Whether with rage or fear, I wasn’t sure. Georgie and Johnny were silent.

  “Johnny had died, but Julian was alive. And while I think you must have been in shock, a part of you was also thinking about Julian, the twin you saw as ‘yours.’ You loved Julian, didn’t you, Jane?”

  “I loved Julian—yes. And was that so wrong of me? He was like the child I never had. It was Clarissa’s fault anyway. She always neglected him. She gave more—so much more—of her attention to Johnny. She thought he was the clever one, the one who was more like her, you see. Clarissa believed he was the one who had a real future.” Suddenly Jane got up and started to pace the room.

  “Not Julian though. No, never, never Julian. And yet Julian was so special. He had talent—real talent!” Jane turned to look at “Johnny” now and continued to speak to herself as if the rest of us were no longer in the room. I had the feeling she was reliving the past, watching it unwind before her eyes as we spoke. “But I knew, I knew you were destined for great things. And look how right I was! I knew—and Clarissa, as usual, did not. She was never right about anything!”

  “So as you stood beside the Thames that day, with Johnny dead and Julian alive, you thought about what Johnny’s accidental death could mean to Julian—more attention from his mother, more nurturing of his talent. But you also thought of what Johnny’s death would mean to you, didn’t you? You were frightened you’d lose your job, weren’t you?” Axelle asked.

  “I knew that Clarissa would fire me on the spot if I said her beloved Johnny had died, while if Johnny was the one who lived, there was a chance she’d let me stay. She was cruel that way. Everyone thought Clarissa was so nice”—Jane stopped as her glance, rotten yet cunning, swept over us—“but she wasn’t always nice, and certainly not when it came to Julian.”

  “And you couldn’t bear to be parted from him, could you, Jane?”

  She shook her head and looked at him. “No, I couldn’t bear to be parted from Julian. He was mine.” Jane softened her voice, speaking to “Johnny” directly now. “Already at that age you trusted me more than you did your own mother. When we were on the beach that day, before the police came, I told you a story. Do you remember? I told you that from that moment on, you would be known as Johnny, and that all your dreams would come true—just like in a fairy tale. Do you remember? And you didn’t question me. Oh, you were such a clever child! It was as if you understood everything I wanted for you!”

  “So you switched the boys, didn’t you? You said that Julian had died and Johnny was alive?”

  Jane’s eyes seemed lit from within as if by red-hot embers. “Yes!” she spat out. “Yes, I switched them! And I have been vindicated! If I hadn’t switched the boys’ identities, Clarissa would never have let me nurture Julian’s talent as I did. It would have been lost to the world!”

  I began to wonder where Caro was. Surely she should have been back by now. But I pushed the thought away and continued.

  “You took a gamble on the birthmark, didn’t you? You figured that with Clarissa being gone so often—”

  “She was neglectful, often drunk and sometimes worse! There were days she could barely remember who she was.”

  Still no sign of Caro. And what about Sebastian? Where was he?

  I turned my focus back to Jane. “Yes, you figured you could fool her, didn’t you? And it worked for a while—until she decided to clean up her act.”

  “She was stupid and cruel,” Jane continued.

  Caro, I thought, as I continued to listen to Jane, had gone in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe she was still in the bathroom there but somehow I doubted it…so where else could she be? Had she gone out through the side door? And if she had, wouldn’t Sebastian have stopped her? Did she have the keys? I had a bad feeling about
it.

  “I never understood why everyone loved Clarissa,” Jane went on. “She could do no wrong. But people didn’t know her like I did. They didn’t see her hurtful, neglectful side, and I was right. She never noticed the mark was missing, you know. I was careful to put gloves on Julian, and if need be, I drew a small mark on his hand with a bit of makeup. With my training as a model, I was good with an eye pencil and concealer. Clarissa never noticed!”

  “But what about the birthmark on the real Johnny?” I asked. “Didn’t anyone find it odd that dead little ‘Julian’ suddenly had a birthmark on his hand? Or did you cover your tracks there too, Jane?”

  “Oh yes! I had such a brilliant idea! It was quite simple really—I took care of it when no one was watching with a sharp piece of glass I found on the shore. I scratched his hands as if he’d scraped them while he was drowning, just enough to hide the birthmark. And, again, that stupid woman never realized!”

  “But once Clarissa was clean she discovered what you’d done, didn’t she? Is that why she began to feel scared? She probably confronted you, didn’t she, Jane? Maybe even told you to leave? Or threatened to call the police?”

  Think, Axelle, think! Where else could Caro have gone?

  Jane nodded. “But she was so silly. It took her ages to work out what had happened, and by then it was too late! Julian had become Johnny, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in between us—certainly not Clarissa. I’d taken care of her family for too long. I’d set things right and Julian had already begun to blossom now that he didn’t have to constantly compete with his brother for attention. And then, suddenly, just because Clarissa went to a fancy clinic she wanted her family back and me gone? Ha! No way! Not after I’d taken care of those children for so long!”

  I reminded myself that this was a large, old house. There was a strong chance there’d be a service staircase near the kitchen. Had Caro gone up those stairs? And had Sebastian followed her? Or had he lost her?