Tedd and Todd's secret (18 page)

He stood up and stretched his legs, while the old man studied him in silence. Aidan had no idea who he was, but he remembered being brought here by force. Thinking that made him exercise his arms and legs more. He'd need to be in good condition to escape from here.

He walked around a room that had to be close to sixty square yards while a plan slowly hatched in his head. Two glass doors led to a garden, but they were barred. He did another circuit of the room and studied the only other door. He could make it in two strides and the old weirdo wouldn't be able to raise a finger to stop him. He knew, however, that the two heavies were on the other side, along with how many more he didn't know.

He stopped in front of an enormous painting hanging on one of the walls, rubbing his wrists.

"It's a Picasso," the old man advised him. "It cost me a fortune."

"I hope you enjoy it," Aidan said, sarcastically.

"I can see you're not a lover of art."

"On the contrary," Aidan replied, "this painting has stirred my interest. How many millions would you lose if I walked off with it now?"

"A lot. Do it if it will make you feel any better. I guess that's only fair after the way you were brought here. Besides, you'd be in a better mood to understand what we have to talk about."

Aidan turned towards the old man.

"Are you joking? How would it make me feel any better to destroy a painting like this just to ruffle the feathers of the filthy rich, when there's so much poverty out there?"

"Because it would clear up an important point," the old man advised him. "That money is less important than this conversation. And you and I have to speak about things that are much more transcendental."

"The first of which would have to be why I was dragged here in the first place?" Aidan said, approaching the bed. "I'm dangerously close to you, old man, and I don't know if I can stop myself ripping this saline solution off and sticking it in your mouth before you can scream for help."

"We'll clear things up right now," the old man promised. "However, it's complicated. I would like to apologize first. I would have preferred to have had this chat under different circumstances. But time didn't permit that. I'd like to introduce myself. My name's Wilfred Gord, and I'm a rich man…"

"…Dying from cancer," Aidan finished the sentence.

The detective knew something about Gord. He'd read about his business empire, a self-made millionaire, a normal person who'd made good. There were no scandals in his past and he had been unaccustomed to being interviewed by the media. His illness had been reported, however, when it became known a few months before. If Aidan had it right, Wilfred was now in the terminal stage of the illness. What could he possibly want with him under the circumstances?

"Exactly," Wilfred confirmed. "I'm pleased that you know me. Therefore, there's no need to finish my personal introduction. I've had you brought here because I need your help."

"Has the cancer affected your brain?" Aidan asked, his curiosity aroused. "You kidnap me, and now you ask for my help? It doesn't stack up, grandad. You must have rocks in your brain to want to be alone with me. Very well then, what do you want?"

"I hope you can help free me of this cancer. It'll finish me if I don't do something quick. What else could I possibly want in this situation?"

"Naturally. What was I thinking? Don't worry. I'm here to save you. I'll just go and wash my hands and then I'll be straight back and put the touch of the Medicine Man on your shoulders."

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.