Doppelganger

by Geoffrey West

  “So did I. That’s what made it all so hard to comprehend. Forgive me, Ann. It was just that I didn’t tell another soul.”

  “I can’t help it if you think so little of me, Jack. But I’m disappointed. Bitterly disappointed.”

  We sat in silence, while I realised how much I’d hurt her. But it was done now, there was no way of un-saying my words.

  “What I’ve never understood,” I began on another tack, “is why Sean Boyd is so desperate to stop the book. It doesn’t make sense. It never has made sense. Sean Boyd wants me dead in order to stop the book coming out. Surely he realises that it’s already written, that Truecrime are bringing it out anyway, whether I’m alive or dead. That’s what I could never understand.”

  “I’ve just worked it out. That must have been part of the deal that my dear husband offered them. He has access to all my papers here, and he’s got a key to my office. Once you were dead, all he had to do was destroy the manuscript, and all your notes that I’ve got, plus the electronic copies, then we’d have to face the fact that you hadn’t written enough to publish. Not only did the book have to be aborted, you had to die, otherwise you could have gone to another publisher with the same material. The manuscript you delivered would have been shredded, the electronic file deleted from all our computers. Once you’d been dealt with, presumably Boyd’s men were going to destroy all your records too.”

  “I still don’t understand.” I shook my head to try to clear my thoughts, unable to take it all in. “I’ve been working on Hero or Villain? for months now. I’ve dug around every secret of Sean Boyd’s that I can find. And there’s nothing in it that I could imagine he would even take exception to.”

  “He doesn’t know that. And he won’t believe it. You see there was something he did...” Ann paused, having lifted her head to stare out of the French window at the end of the room as she plucked at her lower lip and frowned.

  “You can’t stop there.”

  She sighed. “I can. I should. May God forgive me, Jack, it was something... Something unspeakably awful. Something no one ever talks about, hardly anyone even knows about in fact, luckily. And those that did know about it are all dead.”

  “Apart from you.”

  She nodded. “And he doesn’t know that I know – if he did I’d be dead too.”

  “Go on.”

  She sighed deeply, then made her decision. “His brother Dave has, or rather had, a daughter, Amanda. She died in 2002. She was twelve years old. She was pregnant, three months gone, but too scared to tell anyone. She took a handful of her mother’s pills when she was on her own in the house, contraceptive pills, that she thought in her ignorance might induce a miscarriage. But that didn’t happen. She died on her own, and ironically it wasn’t even the drugs that killed her except incidentally. They induced some kind of fit, and she choked on her own vomit. Her mother came home and found her collapsed on the bedroom carpet.”

  “Surely there was an investigation?”

  “The child had taken pills and the fit they caused was what killed her. Those were the facts. The reason she’d taken them wasn’t of legal relevance. The post mortem showed up her condition, but as I understand it, there was no reason to officially record her pregnancy, there was no point in prolonging the family’s suffering. The damage was done. And nobody actually knew why she’d taken the pills, apart from one or two people.”

  “No note?”

  “None that police ever found – of course the mother might have destroyed it.”

  “So where does Sean Boyd fit in?”

  “Where do you think?”

  There was a long pause. I closed my eyes in disbelief. “Twelve years old? His own niece?”

  “Yes, his own pretty little niece. According to Lenny Scott, the man you interviewed just before he died, Sean had been interfering with his brother’s child for some time and it was him who’d made her pregnant – God knows why he’d allowed such a thing to happen. Lenny came up with some story about a vasectomy he’d had that he didn’t realise hadn’t been successful – chiefly because he never put the matter to the test with his wife. So of course Sean never knew about her pregnancy until it was all over. The poor little kid was terrified, and she was scared to tell anyone. At the time, Sean’s brother Dave was in prison. Although the brothers are supposed to operate separately, as rivals to some extent, the Boyd clan stick together when it matters, and Sean was looking after Dave’s family.”

  “In more ways than one.”

  Ann nodded.

  “Lenny never told me anything about it when I was researching the book.”

  “Of course he didn’t. Don’t you remember, Jack? He died before you managed to arrange the interview.”

  “Yes of course, I forgot.”

  “But the thing is, Sean doesn’t know if you talked to Lennie before he died, he doesn’t know that you don’t know about his secret. Or else he’s afraid you’ll go investigating the rumours that were around at the time, and inadvertently raise some demons. He cannot allow any kind of hint of this affair to come out. If his brother ever suspected anything...”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Lenny told me all about it when we were considering commissioning the book. Full of it, was Lenny, thought he was the cat’s whiskers, boasting about the ‘secret’ he was going to tell – even I don’t know how he knew, or even if it was true. However, as you know, Lenny met with an accident. Sean obviously decided that he didn’t want to take any chances. A couple of other people who were close to Dave’s family at that time met with mysterious accidents too. If it hadn’t been true, Sean wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

  “And does Boyd know you know his secret?”

  “Of course not. If he did, I’d be dead as well. Boyd simply doesn’t want to take any chances. Just wants the whole thing forgotten, and everyone who knows about it eliminated permanently. When the daughter died, there were all kinds of rumours flying about, that’s the point, and he’s obviously afraid of anyone at all resurrecting those rumours, any one of which just might trigger off the truth in someone’s mind. A few days before it happened, Amanda had told her mother that someone had been forcing her to have sex with him, but she wouldn’t say who it was. Dave heard the rumours while he was in prison. Sean went to visit him, sharing his fury and outrage, promising to mete out revenge. Later he told Dave that he’d discovered that Albert Douglas had been the guilty man, that Albert was the reason she’d killed herself. A few days later poor old Albert plunged off the top of a multi-storey car park, allegedly his suicide. That was the end of it as far as Dave was concerned.”

  There were footsteps outside and suddenly the door swept open. Harry Yates stood there, eyes bloodshot, his jacket open, tie askew and shirt pulled out of his trousers, a wild accusatory look in his eyes as he stared first at me, then at Ann.

  In his glance of shock and fear when he recognised me, I knew that Ann had been telling me the truth.

  Harry strode across to the window and looked out into the back garden, then turned back to glare at me.

  “Ann has affairs, did you know that?” he said to me as I got to my feet. “You’re not the only one she sleeps with. I started bugging her phone calls when I first suspected why she wanted to divorce me. I was determined to know what was going on in her life. Why shouldn’t I know? Am I supposed to roll over and act the cock-sucking cuckold, let her go with all these young virile men, so she can compare their performance with mine?”

  “You bastard,” Ann said. “Do you realise what you’ve done?”

  “Tried to rid the world of the man who was making a patsy out of me. Makes perfect sense. I gathered from your intimate phone conversations with Jack here that Sean Michael Boyd was out to get him, and that you had arranged his hideaway.” He turned to me. “The first time, I caught her talking to you, you were describing exactly where you were in Canterbury. I never found the address in Wales until recently, that’s why I didn’t tip him off
sooner.”

  “I still don’t understand why you did it,” Ann said.

  “Because I still love you,” Harry replied. “And I can’t stand to think of you being with him. When I found out he had a dangerous enemy, it all seemed to make sense.” He turned back to me. “I wanted to kill you, Lockwood. But if someone else was prepared to do it, that was the next best thing and it was a lot less risky.”

  “How did you get in touch with Sean Boyd?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a close friend who’s in the police.” Harry gave a smug smile. “He knew how to get a message to the big man. Oh, and Boyd offered me some money for the information too, and it certainly came in handy. You could almost say that everyone was a winner.” He looked at his watch.

  Then I realised what must have happened. Harry had obviously come in, heard Ann and me talking and gone out to phone Boyd to tell him where I was. I stood up and made my way to the door.

  “Not so fast, mate!” He slammed his fist into my chest and ran to the door, turning the key in the lock and pocketing it. Before I realised what was happening, he’d opened a drawer in the sideboard and taken out a long sharp butcher’s knife that he held in front of his chest, waving it about. “We all sit tight until Boyd arrives, then I turn you over to him.”

  Ann began to cry. I calculated my best course of action.

  “Shouldn’t have long to wait,” Harry muttered, staring at me. “By the way, mate, if you try to make a dash, I won’t hesitate to use this.”

  We waited in silence for a few minutes.

  “You do know what happens to people that Sean Boyd’s finished with?” I said.

  “He forgets about them, I should think.”

  “No, he deals with them. He never leaves a loose end. You’ll be involved in my murder, and he won’t know but what you’ll be arrested one day, and grass on him. He’ll close your mouth permanently once he’s used you.”

  “Shut up, Lockwood.”

  “Am I worrying you?”

  “I said shut up!” He moved closer, slicing the air with his knife, the lights from the chandelier reflected as a sparkle from its gleaming blade.

  He froze when he heard the noise of a car pulling up outside and doors opening and slamming. Footsteps outside, then a crash on the door knocker.

  “Answer the door, Ann,” he ordered, still watching me.

  “No.”

  “I told you to answer the door!”

  “Answer the fucking door yourself, you bastard!”

  He turned towards her. I used the seconds his gaze left mine to close the gap between us. Grabbed his knife-wielding hand by the wrist and pushed it upwards. Squeezing as tightly as I could. In the hallway I could hear loud crashing sounds: Boyd’s men were obviously smashing the door with a sledge hammer.

  I whacked his wrist against the mantelpiece, and, with a shriek, he dropped the knife. I got a right hook into his face. Felt the sharp agony in my hand on impact. Then the crunch of his nose, and wallowed in the gratifying spurt of blood. He kicked me in the groin, just as we heard the door to the room being attacked. Staggering backwards, I sprawled. Long enough for him to pick up the knife again and run towards me, aiming it at my stomach.

  The razor-sharp blade came within an inch of me, then stopped. For a moment I didn’t realise what was happening. Until I saw that Ann was crouched down behind him.

  For a moment he staggered. Then he stumbled and fell forwards, another butcher’s knife, presumably from the same set that he’d selected from himself, was embedded in his back. Blood was already streaming across the blade and handle. He held his hands out for a few seconds, as if he was pleading for something. Then fell forwards on his face, his blood pulsing out in a steady stream, soaking into the maroon carpet.

  The crashes against the door were getting louder, and I heard the splintering timber. Ahead were French windows and the back garden. I raced towards them and opened one, pulling Ann by the hand.

  Racing to the bottom of the lawn, there was a vegetable patch, then a fence. I helped her over it, into the narrow alleyway. Through a gap in the fence I stole a glance back towards the house, to see three men piling out of Ann’s back door into the garden.

  We ran up the alley to the main road, then along, past the houses. Behind us we could hear our pursuers’ footsteps, racing along. We’d reached a large Victorian building that looked like part of a hospital or a school, and I vaulted over the wall, helping Ann to do the same.

  “Who are you?” said a bemused character in some kind of company uniform. “This is private property.”

  “Can you call the police?” Ann asked.

  * * * *

  I was at the police station in Hampstead for several hours, answering questions, and Ann was taken away somewhere separately. Since I was planning to tell the truth, and I assumed she would do the same, our stories were going to match. I could only hope that her lawyer could persuade them that she’d attacked her husband in self defence.

  There was extremely good news later on. It appeared that the first police on the scene had detected signs of life in Harry, and the following paramedics had managed to save his life. Now, after a long operation, it looked as if he was going to recover from Ann’s stab wound: she wasn’t facing a charge of murder. When they let me go, I got a taxi to where my car was parked and drove home. I’d phoned the hospital, and it transpired that Lucy was still in a coma, but there was a slight improvement.

  * * * *

  Before Lucy had been taken to hospital, I’d had the presence of mind to take the keys out of her handbag before chucking it into the car, in case the hospital needed to know if she was on any other medication, or needed any other details that it might contain. At the time I just did it instinctively, but now I was glad I’d done so. I’d left the handbag with the hospital, to return to her, but since I had the keys I decided to go to her flat in Canterbury, intending to fetch any belongings she might want. It now struck me as a good idea to take a good look at her home, in the hope I might be able to find some insight into her secret life.

  Now back in Canterbury, I found that Lucy’s road was just as I’d remembered it: the same cars parked there, the bookshop window full of the latest bestsellers, the adverts for the church bring-and-buy sale. The narrow red door tucked in beside Mad about the Book’s plate glass window. One of the Yale keys opened up the door to the narrow staircase then, once I’d climbed them, I unlocked the three separate fastenings to her flat entrance and let myself inside.

  Her sanctum looked much the same. The faint smell of her perfume, overlaid with the incense she’d been so fond of.

  After half an hour I’d found what I was looking for in her study. In the large bottom right-hand drawer of her desk was a file, stuffed full of old newspaper cuttings. I laid them out on the desk.

  Nottingham killer strikes again, was the headline, detailing the killing of a young girl, that apparently was linked to other, more recent killings in the town, the date being 1996. Another yellowing newspaper cutting referred to a murder, one of several of murders of women in Huddersfield. There was no apparent link that I could think of unless, as I dreaded, the most horrendous one possible: that Lucy had murdered people in various towns she’d lived in, and had preserved the publicity surrounding her actions.

  That’s when I heard someone come through the door behind me.

  Chapter 14

  THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

  I made it into the front room in seconds, ready to attack. But the thin, sober-suited fortyish man with the rimless glasses and the receding hairline looked about as threatening as a guinea pig. His fists were not raised, he wasn’t pointing a weapon. In fact he was backing away as I charged towards him.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “Forgive me!” He held his hands up in appeasement. “Since the door was open I saw no harm in coming inside.” He blinked behind the spectacle lenses, and gave a tentative smile.

  “Are you a friend of Lucy’s?”
/>   He nodded. “In a manner of speaking. We understand that she’s in hospital.”

  “Who’s we?”

  He coughed awkwardly. “I really can’t say.”

  Suddenly things fell into place. Douglas’s note, in which he’d explained that released prisoners, such as Lucy, were forever monitored by someone attached to one of the government departments, presumably the Home Office, or the Probation Service, in addition to being brought to the attention of a high ranking officer in the county police force where they were living. The hospital presumably had contacted the local police to find out if there were any next of kin to be informed about Lucy’s suicide attempt, and a report of the incident must have been passed to someone higher up.

  “And you are Mr Lockwood?” he asked.

  “How do you know my name?”

  Again, he shook his head self deprecatingly. “Again, I fear, I can’t tell you that.”

  Then I realised, of course, why he knew my name. Lucy would have been obliged to tell him she had a boyfriend, just as she’d have been obliged to tell him everything significant about her life. That was all part of the deal hammered out on her release. After she’d given my name I’d have been watched, photographs taken, my background checked out perhaps. This Home Office, or Probation Service, man would know exactly what I looked like.

  “Mr Lockwood.” He looked worried, frowning in concern and fiddling with the frames of his glasses that he now held in his hand. “This is embarrassing for both of us. If you’re concerned about my presence here in any way, please feel free to call a number I can give you. The police will be able to reassure you that I mean no harm.”

  I nodded. “I know that Lucy’s real name is Megan Foster.”

  He adjusted his head slightly, tilting the forehead forwards in an affirmative gesture. “I didn’t tell you that. But if Lucy has seen fit to illuminate you about certain aspects of her life, then, frankly it certainly makes things much simpler for both of us. I came here today because we needed to make sure that Lucy’s flat was secure, that no one was going to break in to try and steal something here which might have compromised her identity. You’ve no idea of the depths that journalists will stoop to. On the other hand, given your profession, perhaps you have.”