Doppelganger

by Geoffrey West

  “And then, one day, about a year after I’d been released and was doing well on the woodwork course, I knew I was sick of this great blank in my life that I couldn’t tell anyone about. I longed to have a childhood, an ordinary childhood, teenage school years, a mum and dad and a family life. Something I hadn’t had from the age of nine to eighteen, and prior to nine, I couldn’t possibly talk about my life to anyone I met because I was so ashamed. When I was twenty I hit on the idea of finding a way to have readymade schooldays and an early life. I discovered that there were ten Lucy Greens who’d been born on my ‘birthday’, which my official papers stated was the actual day I was born. All but two of the Lucy Greens I found were still around, large as life, but of the remaining two, one had got married and moved to Scotland, the other had emigrated to Australia. I chose the Lucy who’d gone to Australia, because she was out of the picture. I found out everything I could about her, where she went to school, the fact she was an only child and her parents were both dead. I went to stay in the village where she’d lived and memorised everything about it. As I said, she was an only child, her parents were dead, and she was halfway across the world, so I knew no one was going to confront me. The only danger was if I ever met someone who’d known the real Lucy Green, and providing I kept away from the village that wasn’t likely to happen.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, remembering that day in the Hertfordshire village where Lucy said she had been born. “The house where Lucy was born–”

  “I found the address from her birth certificate. I waited and watched for years until it came up for sale, then I pretended I wanted to buy it and arranged a viewing.”

  “But when we went to Lucy’s school. You spoke to one of your old teachers.”

  “And if you only knew how scared I was. It was a lucky break. Miss Chandler obviously had no idea who I was, so when I ‘reminded’ her she was polite enough to pretend. You’ll never know what I went through on that day. I was absolutely terrified.”

  “And all for nothing.”

  She sighed, and shook her head. “But at last you know everything, Jack. I swear, from now on, no more secrets. So you see there were never any forged documents, no murders, no grand scheme of stealing a living person’s identity, except in the loosest sense. I just hijacked Lucy Green’s early years, that’s all I did. And no one was the wiser. It got to the point when I almost believed I was Lucy Green from Hertfordshire. Susan believed me. “

  “Susan convinced me completely.”

  “Why couldn’t you just have loved me, unquestioningly?”

  “Like Susan did?”

  “Yes, like Susan.”

  “Because I’m not a fool.”

  “Jack, please, I beg you, give me another chance! There’s more, much more I want to tell you, but I don’t really know where to start. I tried to trace Robert Althouse after I left the hospital. It was hopeless for a long time, but I was determined to tackle him about what had happened, if nothing else to try to find out how he could have lived with such a secret for so long. I managed to find out where he was living. So that’s when I–”

  “Shut up Lucy! I don’t care.” I wanted to stand up and scream, to run away from her and never come back. “I’ve had enough.”

  There was silence, followed by the low grumble from something in another room. Evidently the generator was starting up. The lights flickered a couple of times, then went out. The noise stopped.

  Beside me I was aware that she was shivering, shivering so much that her teeth were chattering. She probably still had a temperature.

  “Look at me, Jack,” she said quietly, and I was aware of her imploring eyes on me.

  “Look at me!”

  “I can’t bear to look at you,” I muttered quietly. “If you’d told me the truth yourself, maybe things would be different. But I can’t believe anything you tell me anymore. You’re a murderer. You’re deranged. You tell me I’m a fool for seeing the best in people. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I am the biggest fool alive. But you’ve made a fool of me once too often. This is where it ends.”

  Her words were barely a whisper. “So what are you saying?”

  “I can’t go on. This is the end for us. I never want to see you again. I can’t switch off my feelings for you just like that, I still love you of course I do, God help me, that’s something deep inside that I can’t get rid of. But my love has turned to something wicked, something perverted, something that I loathe myself for feeling. Everything’s skewed and twisted and a mockery of what’s natural. I feel as if you’ve twisted my mind into somersaults. I feel as if I wish I was dead. I wish to God I’d never met you.”

  She sat there for a long time, then nodded to herself. And stood up and walked out of the room, taking the torch with her.

  After she’d gone, I sat there for ages, then stood up and found another torch I remembered as being in one of the kitchen drawers. I walked out into the hallway, past the staircase, and out of the front door.

  At last the rain had eased off to a light drizzle. There was a strong wind, whipping up the lake below me, and a fresh sea-air-like smell in the breeze. I sat down on the top step submerging my feet in the river and began to cry, and went on crying for a long time, the wind drying the tears on my cheeks as I got soaked through once again. After a long time I returned to the kitchen and found the bottle of whisky I’d stored in a cupboard and drank the first glass, hardly realising what I was doing.

  * * * *

  I woke up to blazing sunlight filling the breakfast room and kitchen. It was so bright that I had to blink because it hurt my eyes. Outside the sky was a brilliant blue colour without a cloud in sight. The lake of water was still everywhere but, unless I was imagining it, it seemed marginally shallower than last night, as if it was beginning to drain away. The level of water seemed to be only partially submerging the Discovery’s tyres. Sleeping sitting in the chair, sprawled on the table, had left me with aches and pains and a throbbing headache. Not helped by the whisky hangover – the bottle that had been practically full last night was empty.

  Impossible, horrible memories of yesterday flooded back, a deluge of pain that twisted like a sharp stabbing knife in my heart. After all the whys and wherefores, my detective work, my searching and questioning, and finally discovering that Lucy actually was Megan Foster, and finally, too late, she’d actually admitted it, along with an unconvincing story about her innocence. Another more sinister thought occurred to me: Caroline had recognised Lucy, convinced she’d seen her on the night she’d been attacked. The Bible Killer hadn’t struck for a fortnight now, the same period when Lucy had been running the shop in York – apart of course from the most recent victim, when Lucy claimed to have been in bed with flu in York. Had she really been in York, or did she return to Canterbury? What did it all mean?

  Was it possible that Lucy, or Megan as I had to think of her now, had discovered a pleasure in killing people as a child, and had gone on doing it ever since? Was such a thing possible? Or even likely?

  My head ached so much I could hardly move it.

  And I discovered that much as I wanted to stop loving her, I found I just couldn’t. No matter what she’d done, I still loved her. But a future with her was impossible, for how could I ever know if she was telling me the truth? Supposing there were other dark secrets in her past that I couldn’t bear to face? Other unsolved murders in other towns where she’d lived?

  I went upstairs to our bedroom and, taking a deep breath, opened the door.

  Lucy was asleep on the bed, still fully clothed.

  On the bedside table was an upended glass, with water having spilt across the surface. And beside it was an empty pill bottle with its lid off.

  Oh no. Not this. Pray God, not this.

  I picked up the bottle. Alodorm, Lucy’s sleeping tablets. I remembered that the bottle had been nearly full, and now I could see only four or five of the pills remained.

  Racing downstairs, I picked up the phone and diall
ed. It was still dead. And there was still no mobile signal at all in the Valley, hadn’t been since the start of the flood. Without much hope I remembered a conversation I’d once had with a BT engineer, who’d told me that broadband often worked when a telephone line was dead – he’d said you only needed one wire for broadband connection, whereas a phone link needed two.

  I switched on the laptop, and, sure enough, I was connected. I typed Alodorm overdose into Google, and found a medical advice website, describing the drug as a benzodiazepine, and advising anyone suspected of taking an overdose to go to a hospital urgently. Useless.

  I ran upstairs again. Lucy was fast asleep, snoring gently. I dragged her up, so she was leaning against the headboard, and slapped her face to wake her. Her eyes opened momentarily, then she was gone again. Her breathing was ragged, laboured. When her eyes opened a second time they stayed open for only a moment. I had an email connection, but I had no idea who to email with instructions to phone for an ambulance, besides, an ambulance would never make it up the Bryn-y-Gare pass, especially with the floods.

  Gathering Lucy, who’d relapsed into unconsciousness again, up in my arms, I carried her downstairs and out to the Discovery. I had to get her to hospital, and there was only one way to do it.

  The water was about six inches deep as I plunged out, still carrying Lucy, and made it to the Discovery. I opened the passenger door and pushed her inside, shut it, and ran round to the driver’s side. I tried the ignition, and after an agonizing few seconds, the engine fired up and I revved hard, aiming to dispel any water in the exhaust. In the mirror, exhaust fumes clouded upwards as a huge smoke cloud. I slipped backwards, causing a tidal wave either side, and the engine coughed and died. I started again, cursing under my breath, and it caught, and I accelerated fast to make it up the mountain road.

  Water surged in our wake, churning up above the windows, and at one point we dipped down alarmingly and water seeped into the foot well, but I drove fast, determined to keep us going, hoping against hope I was still on the road. Fifty yards from the start of the Bryn-y-Gare pass I accelerated fast, taking as much of a run at it as I could.

  After the first few yards of the steep hill, water was no longer cascading up the vehicle’s flanks, then we were clear of the lake. As usual, the almost sheer climb slowed the engine to a crawl, but, halfway up we were gaining revs and we reached the top and made it down the other side and eventually reached a main road.

  I followed the signpost to Brecon, for that had to be the largest town in the area. When I was on the outskirts, I passed a parked police car and stopped, asking for their help. They escorted us at top speed to the hospital, and finally I delivered Lucy into the care of a nurse in Accident and Emergency, and I talked to the accompanying doctor, giving him the almost empty Alodorm bottle, and telling him how long since I thought she’d taken the overdose. I was left alone to talk to the admin staff, and I answered their questions on autopilot.

  Several hours later the doctor came to find me, and, with a serious face, said that Lucy was now stable, they’d administered various drugs, but there was no way of knowing how long she’d had the pills she’d taken in her system, and how much of the drug she’d already absorbed. They were doing everything possible to save her. They’d have more idea of the outcome by the end of the day. Could I see her? They took me to the ICU, where she looked tiny and frail, like a museum exhibit, connected to machines and drips and tubes.

  * * * *

  The best thing to do, I considered, was to go back to Llantrissant Manor and pack up my belongings, and book into a hotel in Brecon. It would make sense to be staying near Lucy, and despite everything, I was hoping against hope that she’d be all right. Whatever she was, whatever she’d done, I had to help her. And right now she had no one else. After she recovered, if she recovered, I’d think again about what to do. There was plenty of time for that later.

  It was still bright blazing sunshine as I crested the top of the Bryn-y-Gare Pass and looked down into the valley towards Llantrissant Manor. The floodwater had mostly gone, and I could see land again. As I got closer, to my surprise I saw four cars parked in the front drive. I pulled into the lay-by near the top of the hill and parked, opening the glove box and taking out the field glasses I keep there. I focused on the mansion’s front, and saw some men walking around. I nearly dropped the glasses in shock.

  They were carrying weapons – assault rifles by the look of it. The door had been taken off its hinges, and some other men were emerging from inside. They, too, were armed. They walked like soldiers. Men on a deadly mission, cheated of their quarry.

  I closed my eyes and tried to think. My erstwhile killers, clearly sent by Sean Boyd, had obviously arrived during the morning, while I’d been away, taking Lucy to hospital. If we’d been there right now we’d have been dead. These men were obviously professional hit men, employed by Sean Boyd to do what he’d promised. Yet it made no sense. The whole point of being here was to hide from my assassin. The whole point of it.

  Racking my brains. Had I told anyone the address? No one. Not a soul.

  Then, with a sickening clarity, it began to dawn on me. I wondered why it had taken so long to sink in.

  Each time there’d been an attempt on my life there’d been only one person who’d known where I was. I thought back to the gunman in Canterbury town centre, after my evening out with Stuart. Then the time I’d returned to my house on the outskirts of the city and found a reception committee.

  Each and every time there’d been an attempt on my life there was only one person who knew where I was immediately before I was attacked. Only one person could have told them my whereabouts. And, sure enough, they had obviously passed on the message every single time.

  Chapter 13

  TRAITOR’S END

  I’d made it to London by six o’clock in the evening. Hampstead was chock-full of traffic at that time, with Haverstock Hill a seemingly endless ascent into the leafy London suburb. I’d phoned the hospital half an hour before and Lucy was still asleep – in fact she’d fallen into a coma, but they assured me that there was every chance she’d come out of it. Yes, she was slightly worse than earlier in the day, but that often happened: the first twenty four hours were always the worst, they told me reassuringly. She was stable.

  Bardley Grove was a road I’d never gone to before and the Satnav commanded me to turn right at the next junction. There were large detached houses, and number 13 had roses in the front garden and a lilac front door. From force of habit, when entering somewhere I might need to make a quick exit from, I parked several streets away from the house and approached it on foot.

  No one answered my knock for a long time.

  Finally Ann Yates opened the door.

  Ann looked taken aback. But she didn’t look shocked.

  “Jack?” She looked mystified. “I thought you were in Wales.”

  “No. You thought I was dead.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “There was only one person I told where I was going, who knew the actual address. Just like I told you when I was in Canterbury’s town centre the other night, and then when I was driving back to my house. Each of those times Sean Boyd’s men came to kill me, and this morning they’d have succeeded if I’d been there.”

  “You’d better come in.”

  I’d been so certain. Yet now, none of it was making sense. I’d expected Ann to bluster, to deny it, to feign surprise and argue – even to slam the door in my face, allowing her the chance to phone Sean Boyd and summon his assistance. Yet in that moment when she opened the door to me there was no outright shock in her expression. The only surprise that registered on her face was that of curiosity at my unexpected arrival. Unless she was a brilliant actor, it would have been hard to fake those reactions. She knew that I was aware that she had betrayed me.

  So why wasn’t she scared?

  She walked through into a room on the right. It was richly decorated, sumptuous look
ing wallpaper, deep-pile maroon carpet, and a crystal chandelier, whose petals of glass shimmered with a million reflections. In one corner of the grand area there was a glass cabinet filled with expensive looking china figurines, and in the other a grand piano dominated the space. Ann sat on the red-velvet covered sofa and I took the chair opposite.

  “My God.” She closed her eyes. “You’re saying that Sean Boyd’s men almost ambushed you this morning, and also the other night, in Canterbury?”

  “You know that.”

  “No I don’t. But, God, if you think it’s me who’s been contacting him you’re wrong. Oh no, I think I’ve just worked it out. Christ, how can I have been so stupid?”

  I put my head in my hands. “I trusted you Ann. I trusted you with my life. And you betrayed me to Sean.”

  “No. No, I swear to you Jack I did not.”

  “So how do you explain it?”

  “It was Harry. It must have been Harry, my husband. You see I’ve only just found out he’s been bugging my phones for weeks now, spying on me, because he’s so insanely jealous. He hates you, he must have gathered from our conversations that you were hiding from Sean Boyd. He must have contacted him on his own initiative – told him where you were hiding. That’s the only possible explanation.”

  Yes, she was right. If it wasn’t Ann, then it was the only explanation.

  I heaved a sigh. “Yes, Ann, that makes sense. You would hardly have welcomed me into your house like this if you had a hot line to my potential killers.”

  “Nor would I have engineered your hidey-hole in Wales. I’m so sorry Jack.” Her face was taut, controlled, as if she was on the edge of tears. “I’m more sorry than I can say that you think that I’d be capable of doing something like that. I thought we were friends.”