Doppelganger (20 page)

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 dialled. 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.

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 looking 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.”

“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.”