The Big Ben mystery

by Fernando Trujillo

  Convinced that old Wilfred had lost the plot, Aidan began walking slowly to the door. Anything was possible in this house. Maybe there was no one on the other side of the door.

  "I wouldn't go out that door if I was you," Wilfred warned him. "They won't do anything if you don't turn violent. But they won't let you go either."

  "Do you mind telling me what you want," Aidan shouted. "I'm thinking of twisting your neck until your heavies let me leave."

  "That's one option. I wouldn't lose anything by doing that. I'd die better than by cancer. I've left myself defenceless in this room with you because I'm going to die anyway."

  "But what do you want me to do?" Aidan demanded, with a stab of desperation in his voice. It seemed he was locked up with an old madman who had mistaken him for a wizard with magical powers. "Do you seriously believe I can help you?"

  "No, not on your own," Wilfred answered bluntly. "But you can find the way. I didn't expect you to be so sceptical after having lived the way you have."

  This sentence reminded Aidan of something one of the heavies had said: I'm not a Black or White, as if he had understood what that meant. And given that Wilfred was talking in the same enigmatic way, the only thing that occurred to him was that the old man had heard about James White's miraculous escape from the fatal accident, and that James and Aidan himself were the carriers of some secret cure.

  "Give me something," Aidan said. "What is it about the way I've lived that makes you think I'm capable of beating terminal cancer?"

  "Your accident," Wilfred said.

  That wasn't exactly the answer Aidan was expecting. His muscles tensed involuntarily.

  "I don't want to be rude. But I know today is the anniversary of your wife's death. I've been investigating the matter."

  "Why?" Aidan asked him.

  "Because it plays an essential role in all of this," Wilfred clarified. "Think about it. You survived the accident with your spine broken in three places. You had internal bleeding and many more complications. You not only survived but you've made a complete recovery without any setbacks. Your health's perfect now and no one can adequately explain it. Do you think all of that's because you have some mysterious genetic make-up that has regenerated your body on its own?"

  Aidan was frozen by the old man's words. The sentences had rolled out in logical sequence. On listening to the story of his own amazing recovery, he felt dumb in not having arrived at the same conclusion. Nevertheless, it was absurd. He was a normal person, save for the fact that normal people don't recover from those horrific injuries. So what did that mean? Was this old dying man right? He quickly ran over his recovery after waking up from the coma in his mind.

  Just his regaining consciousness at all had amazed the doctors. They had explained to him that comas are unpredictable, but at the same time they were convinced that his would last months longer. Then, he had to confront the reality of not being able to walk. But after regaining the use of his arms, and months of exercise, he felt movement in his left foot for the first time and the doctors were forced to apologize when he began walking three months later.

  His recovery became the subject of much attention. Doctors from far and wide came to see him. And it was then that he had his first brush with society. Nobody could understand why he was still sad and depressed. According to everyone, he should have been happy to have the use of his legs again. But his wife was dead, nothing could change that, and he hadn't even gone to the funeral. He would have swapped his recovery for her still being alive.

  His first clash with the media came during a rehabilitation session. He exploded and told everyone to go to hell. The doctors begged him to let others study his case in the hope that they could learn from his experience. He agreed to give them blood samples, tissue samples and anything else they wanted during a week but after that he didn't oblige them again. And, as far as he knew, nothing was ever discovered about why he had recovered.

  It seemed incredible that what medicine hadn't been able to clarify for years had just been explained by Wilfred. There was no other explanation. Or was there? An idea entered his head. And he felt a stab of panic in the pit of his stomach.

  "The Blacks and Whites," he said, suddenly, "what do you know about them?"

  "What do you mean?" Wilfred asked.

  "They're identical, as if they're clones."

  "Yes, I see. I think you're starting to understand the reason for the worry I see on your face," Wilfred said, his face lighting up with surprise. "You can see your recovery wasn't just by chance."

  "I want to know the truth," Aidan shouted, losing control. The conclusion that he'd arrived at was frightening. He'd never thought he could feel fear this way. It was critical to verify whether he'd guessed right. "I… I believe that I know how I survived and recovered. I'm a clone of the real Aidan Zack. Somehow I was replicated with a new spine. Am I right?"

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 12

  "I sincerely believe we can discount the double personality without running any risk," Doctor Stark concluded, solemnly.

  Tilting his head slightly, he studied the obvious concern on the face of the man in front of him. The doctor was having a bad year. He'd lost three patients so far, and that already equalled last year's losses. His small psychiatry practice was having a hard time and that made him mad. It was clear that there were still as many problems out there as there had been before, but it seemed people were working their problems out some other way, or simply had found another psychiatrist. Either way, he took every interview seriously these days.

  "Are you sure, doctor?" the bundle of nerves in front of him asked. "I repeat, I'm not violent, even though I've killed several people."

  "Calm down, Allan," Stark said, with a reassuring wave of the hand. "I've treated cases of double personality before and the first thing that I notice is that the patient isn't usually conscious of having two personalities."

  The doctor leaned back in his comfortable armchair and smiled as if this explanation was enough to dismiss any doubt that Allan had about having a multiple personality disorder.

  "This… this means I'm a killer then," Allan stammered, rubbing his hands together nervously. The sweat on his forehead was dripping down his face as his body rocked back and forward on the chair.

  "None of that," the psychiatrist assured him, noting Allan's precarious state. "There are many options that we can consider. And this is what we are going to do."

  In good years he wouldn't have received anyone at ten o'clock at night. He would have politely requested them to come back in the morning and make an appointment for later that week. But these days things were different. And he'd told Allan to come around, even though he would normally have been smoking a pipe and thinking about the meaning of life at this hour.

  When Allan came through the door, Stark felt like he'd caught a barracuda, one that would keep him fed for the next few months. But after taking a closer look at him and listening to his first dozen sentences his hopes had plummeted. He just looked like any old normal person suffering from depression, nothing to get too excited about. But he soon found out that his second impression was wrong. What had he been doing doubting first impressions?

  There was no doubt that Allan was a mad as a hatter. He could see long sessions stretched out over months treating his mental disorder.

  "But I… I don't know. I promise you that some sort of… I don't know. Something… Something is possessing me."

  "You told me that sometimes you have an impulse to change homes. Isn't that right?" the psychiatrist paused. "And that you've always participated in these violent encounters dressed in an elegant suit that you don't remember having bought."

  Allan nodded as he listened to Stark recount the details. The psychiatrist had no idea what Allan was suffering from, but it was very original, whatever it was, and would require long treatment without any doubt.

  "But you say that you don't hear voices in your head. Or have any type of hallucination."
/>
  "I'm not sure," Allan hesitated. "I've seen things that are difficult to believe. But I don't know if they're hallucinations. They seem too real."

  "An example, please," Stark requested.

  "On one occasion, a tall woman shot several arrows at me. Fortunately, they missed. A year and a half before that, a bloke who looked exactly like me except for his hair colour and eyes attacked me with a lance."

  "And you killed him," Stark said. "You've already told me that part. Your attacker was wearing a black suit. And you one the same colour as your surname."

  "Yes, that's it," Allan said, excitedly, his hands trembling, his voice fading away. "It was in self-defence. He was going to kill me. I hadn't done anything. I've never hurt anyone my whole life. God forgive me. I stuck a lance into his chest and he died there and then and I began to live in his house–"

  "There, there. Everything's all right now," Stark comforted him, so that he wouldn't break down completely. He went to a small cabinet on the wall, took out a couple of tranquillizers and offered them to Allan with a glass of water. "We'll see how we can work this out together. Take these pills. They'll help you relax." He watched Allan swallow them. "Excellent. I've got a gap in my timetable tomorrow. Come and see me early and we'll start the therapy."

  "But what if I kill someone else?" the new patient asked, walking with the psychiatrist to the door.

  "Don't worry about that. The pills will help you sleep and tomorrow we'll start working on the problem. You've got to trust me."

  "Thanks, doctor. Until tomorrow," Allan stammered, as he stumbled out into the dark.

  "You don't have to thank me. Look after yourself," Stark called after him, thanking his good luck for having brought Allan White to him.

  # # #

  Wilfred Gord waited a few seconds before he reacted to Aidan's suggestion. He wasn't batting an eyelid, his hands weren't trembling. He was so still, in fact, that Aidan thought for an instant that he'd died there and then, in front of him, and that gave him a strange sensation. A short while before, when he'd come round and discovered his hands tied, he'd fancied the idea of killing the old invalid in his bed as payback for having him kidnapped. But now, after having talked with the old man, he wasn't just intrigued, he was desperate to hear everything that Wilfred knew about the Blacks and Whites and, more importantly, about him.

  "No, you're mistaken," Wilfred said finally. "You're nobody's clone. There's only one Aidan Zack, and that's you."

  Aidan Zack ignored his fear.

  "Are you sure? It would explain my recovery well enough."

  "It's a great flight of your imagination," Wilfred complimented him. "You must have a special type of intelligence to accept a conclusion like that. It could have served us very well, later on. But no, it's not the truth. Your name, for example, is Aidan. And none of the clones are anything like you."

  "Who are they? You know, don't you?"

  "Unfortunately not," Wilfred confessed. "I've carried out an investigation and although I haven't had much time, I've found out quite a lot."

  "Why are they fighting? And why are they using these strange weapons?"

  "I still haven't got those answers. I'm counting on your help to find that out. We know they're organized in two gangs and they're killing each other–"

  "No kidding," Aidan said, cutting in. "I'll bet one of those gangs is called White and the other Black. Am I right? If that's all you've found out it doesn't surprise me that you need me."

  "They use medieval weapons," Wilfred continued, unruffled, "and one of the most curious details in the whole affair is that none of them have any family."

  "William Black was married," Aidan corrected him.

  "Blood family, I mean. None of them had brothers or sisters. They're all orphans. They've got that in common, apart from the strange coincidence of their names."

  "No children?"

  "No. They're sterile. We've analysed the small amount of medical information available, and some of them have tried to have children in every way possible and got nowhere. Only one of them had a child, which surprised us, but when we analysed the DNA, we found that his wife had been cheating on him and got pregnant by a lover."

  Aidan thought it through.

  "That's weird. Trying to have children and not knowing they're sterile."

  "They are. Believe me. But if that isn't enough, there's something to top it. Their lives are invented."

  "What?"

  "It's all false. I've spent a fortune on this investigation, not only of them, but of anyone connected to them. The results are staggering. Nobody has seen any one of them before five years ago. Their friends, wives, husbands, lovers, have all surfaced since then."

  "You mean there's not a trace of them before then? Their studies, for example. And if they were orphans there'd be a heap of information about that. Adoption certificates, adoptive parents, etc. What have you found out about their bank accounts, financial transactions? There's always something."

  "Nothing. Absolutely, zero. Nothing going back more than five years. If you talk to them, naturally they mention their childhood, their teenage years, as if everything was totally normal. But if you check it out, you come to realize that it's a whole lot of crap. My theory is that the memories are implanted. They really believe that they've lived those lives."

  Aidan was getting more confused. He should have been getting somewhere with all of this, but to the contrary, he was going backwards. Even with the new facts, the possibility of a logical explanation seemed further away than ever.

  But he felt a lot better about himself knowing that he really was Aidan Zack, and unlike this circus of clones, had a verifiable past and parents who loved him. He felt a sudden impulse to be with them now. He hadn't seen them for more than a year.

  "Let's look for an explanation closer to reality, otherwise I'll go mad," he despaired. "Perhaps, they lived those lives and someone's deleted the records. It'd be easier to do that than implant false memories. As far as I know that's still not possible."

  "It's obvious that we have to question what is and what isn't possible," Wilfred suggested, "with the facts as they stand."

  "Tell me something. Do you know how many different models there are?" Aidan asked. "I've identified three, although I haven't seen replicas of one of them, a bloke who disappeared down a street after I crashed into someone else while I was chasing him."

  "There are four men and a woman. They've all been copied, although their numbers differ. The most typical model is William Black. James White is like him. There are at least ten of these blokes running around. Or to put it better, there were ten."

  "What about the bodybuilder?" Aidan enquired.

  "There's four. You've already seen Earl White at the mortuary. Helen Black killed him after fleeing her wedding ceremony. There's only one more of that model left, Earl Black. Jack Black and Jack White were killed a few years back. You can get more on that down at the police station if you don't believe me."

  It had been a while since Aidan had doubted what Wilfred said. It was possible that he could be mistaken, but it didn't come down to lies. He believed what he was saying. And maybe it was because of that, that Aidan felt everything seemed so absurd, so unreal.

  Thinking about Earl Black was like taking a leap into the great unknown. He excited Aidan's curiosity more than most.

  "Have you discovered anything to do with teletransportation?" Aidan asked, as if the question was normal.

  "I beg your pardon? Did I hear you correctly?" Wilfred said, leaning forward as if to hear better. "No, nothing. But I'm intrigued. What made you bring that up?"

  Aidan told him about Earl Black's sudden appearance in the ladies' toilet after failing to stop a penalty kick in a football game the other side of town. He told him about witnesses in both locations and then watched Wilfred go through the details like Fletcher had that morning, working his way back to nothing.

  "It's very complicated, I'm afraid," Aidan complained. "It doesn't
make sense."

  "We've got to keep at it and not give up," Wilfred said defiantly. "It doesn't stack up as the sort of thing you could work out in a couple of hours of idle chat."

  "You seem to be taking this all in your stride, Wilfred. Personally, it's driving me crazy. If I was any one of these clones, I'd keep my name to myself. I wouldn't just live a normal life, waiting for one of these bastards to cut my head off. The same goes the other way round. I can find them too easily."

  "I've already thought the same thing," Wilfred admitted. "One theory I've got is that they act the way they do for one of two reasons. The fact is they don't know they're part of any gang."

  "What? That's crazy. If someone's trying to kill me with a sword or shoot an arrow into my heart he has to know why he's doing it. And I'd have to know too."

  Wilfred went on.

  "I don't believe that they know that they've got a double out there, wearing another colour, running around killing people. It's like their past lives, they think they're normal. They simply don't know. That's why they want to have children. The whole deal changes when they run into one of the others and the penny drops."

  "I must admit that explains why they are so careless, though it sounds a little incredible," Aidan said in a low voice. He was trying to assimilate all the information he had just received. He felt desperate about being unable to make conclusions on a logical basis. "You have overwhelmed me with mystery. I just need to know a couple of details more. Why did you get involved in all this? How did you get to know about me, and about the Blacks and the Whites?"

  "My father told me," was the dry answer.

  "Your father is alive?" Aidan asked. He would never have thought it could be possible, considering Wilfred's age.

  "Alive and in a top form. He is twenty years old."

  "It was silly of me to ask," Aidan complained, suppressing an impulse to make Wilfred repeat his last words. "Why don't we ask him what is the secret of his miraculous top form?"