The Double

by Ann Gosslin

  His phone beeped. Ursula. He took the call with a flicker of unease. She never rang during the rare times he was away, preferring he believe she could handle any situation on her own.

  ‘I’m on the train. Is everything all right?’ Her sharp intake of breath sounded loud in his ear.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of an issue.’ Her voice broke up as they passed through a tunnel, and he strained to decipher her words. ‘Nothing to panic about,’ she said, ‘but… I thought you should know that Ismail appears to have gone missing again. At first, I thought he was up to his old tricks, but when he didn’t show up for lunch, I had the attendants do a quick search of the grounds. I checked with Thierry to see if he might have taken Ismail down to the village in the funicular, but he said not. So he must be here somewhere.’

  Her voice was edged with panic, and Gessen willed himself to breathe.

  ‘We didn’t want to alarm the patients,’ she said, ‘but I did make a few discreet inquiries. He seemed perfectly fine during our session yesterday afternoon. But nobody’s seen him today since breakfast. Mr Sendak is in a state.’

  Gessen’s heart flipped. Once again, Ismail had given his private bodyguard the slip. How could this have happened? After that earlier scare, when they thought he’d gone missing, the security around Ismail had been sharply increased, with a rota of attendants keeping an eye on him round the clock.

  Perhaps the lad was just jerking his chain. Giving his bodyguard the slip again to show he was nobody’s fool. He must have suspected from the start that Sendak had been hired by his father to keep him on a short leash. A source of bitter resentment. Imprisoned on all sides, was how Ismail described it. Accusing Gessen of siding with his father in a ploy to keep him trapped in the mountains. Presumably for a great wad of cash – his father’s usual form of bait – when there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. He’d practically spit the words in Gessen’s face, during the first of these painful conversations. The desire to choose his own path in life, Ismail fumed, rather than take over the reins of his father’s hateful business, was not a mental illness.

  ‘I’ll be there in two hours. Ismail couldn’t have got very far, so try not to worry. And get Mr Sendak to help you. That’s what he’s paid for.’

  Gessen dropped the phone on the empty seat beside him, then picked it up again to call his head of Security. A former officer in the Swiss Army, Walter Keller was a model of discretion and calm. But after speaking with him, an attack of anxiety cramped Gessen’s gut and he bent double from the pain. Three years ago, following the escape of a patient with Susto syndrome, a woman in a constant state of terror from her disturbing condition, he’d made extensive changes to the clinic’s security protocol. The electronic wristbands, concealed CCTV cameras, and hidden sensors studding the perimeter provided round-the-clock surveillance, while maintaining an illusion, however minor, of the freedom to come and go.

  Tilda, the woman with Susto, had been a model patient for nearly six months, when she gave her minder the slip one afternoon and failed to return from the village. Though she’d acted up in minor ways before, it was nothing too serious. Little rebellions to assert her independence. Sending food back to the kitchen, claiming it tasted funny, or leaving her bed to wander the grounds after dark in a filmy nightdress, frightening the more fragile patients.

  But the situation with Ismail was different. Tilda, in spite of her shenanigans, knew she was ill and accepted that staying at the clinic was her best hope for recovery. A disordered mind would not do one’s bidding at the snap of a finger, like a well-trained collie. It took time to unravel the tangled knot of years. Time and patience.

  And in Ismail’s case, he was suffering from more than a spell of depression. Incandescent with fury, from the day he arrived, he’d been looking for ways to escape. To return to his studies and the girl waiting for him, though he’d never mentioned her specifically in their sessions together. Ismail might not realise it, but Gessen was on his side. In the course of Ismail’s therapy, he hoped to give the young man the tools needed to stand up to his father. Not as a rebellious son intent on vanquishing a monstrous patriarch, but as a man in his own right, with agency and autonomy. A delicate needle to thread. If only Ismail would be patient and give his treatment the time it deserved.

  But now he was missing. Gessen cursed himself under his breath for leaving the clinic twice in the space of two weeks. All in a futile search to dig up Vidor’s past. A disastrous mistake to let his personal feelings interfere with professional judgement. Now it was time to pay the piper. He was a bloody fool for chasing after some imagined mystery that lived in his head. What was the chance that the boy he’d known in Paris had anything to do with Vidor at all? In his ceaseless quest to heal the unease over his own feelings of guilt and exile, he was all too easily drawn into the shadowy corners of others like him. Misfits and loners, hobbled by a dark history.

  * * *

  Ursula met him at the funicular, her face nearly hidden under the hood of her parka. As they walked towards the clinic’s gates, his shoulders hunched against the biting wind, he could sense her growing panic.

  ‘Ismail was fine during our session yesterday,’ she said. ‘He was telling me about his first days in England, and how entranced he’d been by the college and the green fields of Oxfordshire. He spent a good ten minutes talking about those green fields, and how he’d taught himself to ride a bicycle, so he could cycle in the lanes.’ She stopped to catch her breath. ‘It was while cycling on a towpath along the Thames, his first spring at Oxford, that he realised he could never take over the mantel he’d been groomed for since birth. And that his destiny was to spend the rest of his days in England. At that moment, he told me, all thoughts of Cairo, and whatever pleasures it might once have held, vanished like smoke.’

  ‘So, you think he’s run away?’

  In an attempt to map all the possibilities, Gessen’s mind galloped ahead as the two of them trudged towards the gates. He was winded by the walk, his leg muscles trembling, as if in the short space of time since Ursula’s call, he’d aged twenty years.

  ‘Run away?’ She blinked twice. ‘He must have. But if that was his plan, he won’t get very far. Not without any money.’

  ‘Unless he got a message out,’ Gessen countered. ‘And someone’s waiting for him in the village.’

  Ursula gnawed on the end of her thumb. ‘We looked there, and Thierry said he hadn’t taken anyone down the mountain today in the funicular.’

  They passed through the clinic’s gate and Gessen paused, trying to quell the buzz of anxiety under his skin. ‘He could have hiked down the mountain. It wouldn’t be easy, but he’s young and fit.’ He glanced around. No one was about, though it was a fine day, clear and cold, with a hard metallic sun. ‘Where is everyone?’

  A worry line appeared between Ursula’s eyes. ‘In their rooms, I suppose, or the wellness pavilion? I didn’t want to alarm anyone, so I thought it best if the patients went about their usual routines.’

  Gessen pictured the staff, at the behest of his security team, poking about the shrubbery as if looking for a lost cat. They rounded a corner by the yew hedge and nearly bumped into Libby.

  ‘Oh, hello.’ Her voice rang out. ‘You haven’t seen Ismail, have you? We were supposed to meet in the fitness centre. He wanted to show me a routine that would strengthen my bad knee.’

  Gessen’s smile snapped into place. ‘Dr Lindstrom just told me he’s not feeling well and is spending the day in his room.’

  She stared at him. ‘That’s funny. He seemed fine this morning.’

  ‘You saw him this morning?’

  ‘At breakfast.’ Her gaze shifted between the two of them. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘A minor stomach bug. I have no doubt he’ll be back on his feet by tomorrow.’ Gessen took hold of Ursula’s elbow and steered her towards his office where they could speak privately and devise a plan. He turned back to see Libby staring after them. She was a smart girl. T
hey couldn’t keep Ismail’s absence from the patients for much longer. By the time they reached the main building, clouds had moved in. Soon it would be dark.

  He shut the door to his office and studied the view from the window. Four sparrows pecked at the frozen ground. Odd to see them at this time of year. But no signs of a slender, dark-haired man skulking in the shadows. Where was he? The temperature was dropping fast. Clouds were mustering in the high peaks and snow was predicted by nightfall.

  ‘If we don’t find him in the next hour,’ he said, turning to face Ursula, ‘we’ll have to alert the authorities.’

  26

  Four o’clock arrived, with still no sign of Ismail. Gessen’s dread rose as the minutes ticked away. They couldn’t wait any longer. It would soon be dark, and the absence of a signal from Ismail’s wrist monitor was a bad sign. Either he was too far away and out of range, or he’d fallen into one of the many crevasses that ringed the valley. That Ismail was lying bruised and bloodied at the bottom of a ravine didn’t bear thinking about.

  When Gessen first acquired the property, it was apparent from the surveyor’s report that the grounds contained several potentially hazardous areas. But long before he enrolled his first patient, every precaution was taken to prevent a serious mishap. In his twelve years of running the clinic, not a single patient had been injured – with the exception of the odd bump or bruise. But an excellent safety record didn’t mean that Ismail wasn’t lying wounded – or dead – at the bottom of a drop-off.

  From the privacy of his office, he telephoned the local police, who informed him they would coordinate the search with Mountain Rescue. As Gessen hung up the phone, a pain stabbed his gut. Time was of the essence. Darkness was moving in and the temperature falling. With the ever-deepening layers of snow in the mountains, if they didn’t find him soon, Ismail would die of exposure. Gessen sank into the chair. How did he slip away? It was nearly impossible for someone on the staff not to know where a patient was at any given moment of the day or night.

  Nearly. That nebulous word held such immense room for error that his hands shook. To the casual observer, the pastoral setting and open spaces of the clinic grounds belied the fact that it was a virtual prison. A carefully designed set-up that monitored his patients’ every move, while giving the impression of boundless freedom.

  He pulled on his coat and headed to the chalet that housed his security team. They’d already viewed the tapes from the cameras and found nothing of concern, but he wanted to see the footage himself. Icy pellets of snow fell from the sky, and a chilly mist shrouded the valley. It would be snowing hard in the mountains.

  Walter Keller, his head of Security, greeted Gessen with a grim look. In the operations room, they scanned the sixteen screens with views of the property. There were no cameras in the patients’ rooms, but every other square millimetre of the grounds was covered.

  Gessen leaned close to the console and studied the footage. Left to right, up and down, starting from the moment he’d left for Paris. There was Ismail leaving the main building after breakfast and heading towards his chalet, dressed in a dark jacket but minus the red knitted cap that all patients were obliged to wear outdoors. A minor rebellion that may have proved fatal. Fifty minutes later, he showed up in the northeast corner of the Zen garden, where he sat on a bench and stared into the distance.

  ‘Wait, what was that?’ Gessen pointed to camera number nine, and the entrance to the path into a copse of pines on the northern boundary. The recording appeared to judder for a moment and then reset.

  ‘Oh, that.’ Keller consulted the logbook on his desk. ‘There was a brief malfunction in that camera for about forty seconds. But it came right back online.’

  Forty seconds? Plenty of time for a man to disappear. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘No idea. None of the other cameras were affected. It could have been a power surge, or moisture in the casing. Marco went out there to have a look, but didn’t find any evidence of tampering.’

  Gessen sank into a chair. How convenient that one of the cameras malfunctioned on the very day a patient slipped his tether. Coincidence? Or had someone interfered with the system? He closed his eyes as another pain cramped his gut. The day before Ismail was admitted, the entire staff had received a special briefing. Everyone knew that, security-wise, he was a sensitive case, and they’d been advised to take every precaution.

  How was he going to tell Mr Mahmoud, a powerful and imperious man, accustomed to top-notch, impeccable service, that he’d lost his son? After the many assurances he’d given him that the clinic – even in the absence of razor wire – was as secure as any high-risk facility. Mr Mahmoud had specifically chosen Les Hirondelles. Not just for Gessen’s excellent psychiatric pedigree, but due to his absolute faith in Swiss ingenuity and technology. The man had entrusted him with his son’s life, and Gessen had let him down in the worst possible way.

  As he turned away from the bank of screens, a familiar childhood terror flooded his limbs. The frantic drive through the night, as he lay hidden under a blanket in the back seat. Boarding a ship with his mother under the cover of darkness, where she held tight to his wrist as the harbour receded on the horizon. No explanation given for why they were leaving his father and older sisters behind.

  Not long after settling in a tiny village in Switzerland, and his mother failed to return from a trip to the local market, he’d been told to consider their host family as his own. He’d struggled for years to accept his new name, and to pay heed to the warning to tell no one about his mother or his previous life. In this atmosphere of secrecy and lies, he learned to say nothing about where he’d come from, and to shrink himself down to a wisp of smoke. No past, no future. In his panic over Ismail, Gessen’s younger, frightened self, newly resurgent, urged him to run into the forest and hide.

  But he couldn’t do that now. He was no longer little Anton, cowering in the dark, but a grown man whom others trusted with their lives. He rubbed his temples, trying to steel himself for what was to come. But first, he needed to do the one thing he dreaded most. Contact Mr Mahmoud and let him know his son was missing.

  * * *

  Darkness had fallen, with still no news. The police and Mountain Rescue had searched in an ever-widening radius across the mountain, but with mist and falling snow, visibility was poor all afternoon. Gessen could only hope the boy was on a train speeding towards the UK, alive and well, and not lying dead in the snow. When he’d telephoned Ismail’s father earlier in the day, his heart heavy with dread, the man’s personal assistant informed him he was on a plane to Cairo. She would relay the urgency of Gessen’s message as soon as he touched down.

  He forced himself to eat a few bites of his dinner, brought to him on a tray, though it had cooled now, with the fat congealed into grease. He stared into the fire. According to Keller’s report, everyone was where they were supposed to be at the time Ismail went missing. But something niggled. Vidor. Might there have been an altercation? Vidor had attacked one man without provocation, why not another? Staff notes pointed to an ongoing tension between the two. Vidor complained, more than once, that Ismail sometimes knocked on the wall between their bedrooms at night, waking him from a deep sleep. When questioned, Ismail had vigorously denied doing anything so childish.

  He straightened up and rang his Security head. ‘Any word yet?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Keller paused. ‘You’ll be the first to know when we hear something.’

  Gessen glanced at the clock. Just after nine. It was going to be a long night, with sleep impossible. ‘I need to see the Security log for one of the patients,’ he said. ‘Vidor K. Everything in the last forty-eight hours.’ He dropped the phone and rubbed his eyes. Though Keller assured him that at the time Ismail vanished, everyone was accounted for, the log might provide the answer to a disturbing question. When Ismail went missing, where was Vidor?

  27

  The team from Mountain Rescue passed over the terrain for a second time, sp
reading out across the vast grounds of the clinic and into the surrounding valley. With their bright orange vests and helmet lamps flashing across the mountains, it was impossible to keep the search a secret. The patients were asking questions, and with Ismail pointedly absent from dinner, the staff couldn’t feign ignorance for much longer. If he wasn’t found by morning, Gessen would have to convene a meeting to give them the news. Nothing incited panic quicker than patients wondering amongst themselves if a terrible fate had befallen one of the group.

  He entered the sculpture garden, wreathed in mist, and started when one of the statues moved. Frayed nerves and exhaustion were getting to him. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. Standing by the fountain, arms folded across his chest, Vidor gazed across the dark valley, where points of light flashed like panicked fireflies.

  ‘There seems to be some excitement,’ he said, his eyes fixed on a point in the distance.

  ‘A search party.’ Gessen stumbled on a loose stone. ‘Someone from the village has gone missing. An older gentleman, apparently.’ Even to his own ears, the lie sounded false. If he wasn’t careful, he would start to babble. Should he ask Vidor if he’d seen Ismail since breakfast? But that would give the game away, and there was no sense in alarming anyone until they knew more.

  ‘Does it happen often, people getting lost?’ Vidor’s voice seemed to echo in the dark.

  ‘Not often.’ Gessen hesitated. ‘But the terrain in the mountains can be quite treacherous. Most of the walking trails are marked, but it’d be easy to lose your footing. Especially when the weather’s bad. Or visibility is low.’ As his voice faded, the silence felt like a weight. This year, already, nearly thirty people had died in the nearby mountains. Mostly hikers who’d wandered off the marked paths and plunged to their deaths, or skiers lost in the avalanches last spring.