She sits there in silence, like a good patient. The device is cool on her scalp.
‘All seems fine,’ he says after a couple of minutes. He’s reading from his smartphone, which is linked to the headset via the app his team of ‘brogrammers’ in London has designed. ‘When’s your next check-up with Dr Varma?’
‘Monday.’
‘That’s good,’ Rob says. ‘He might be down here already.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He sometimes likes to make a weekend of his visits. Bring the family to the seaside.’
Kate smiles at the thought. Dr Ajay Varma, a neuropsychiatrist, often talks about his family, how well his two young daughters are doing at school, his parents back in south India. He’s been overseeing her recovery since she left hospital, looking out for any lasting post-traumatic effects of the accident – mood swings, anxiety, depression. It all seems a bit unnecessary, but Rob insists, arranging and paying for his visits. She doesn’t mind as he also happens to be a really nice guy.
‘I’ll give him a call,’ Rob says, ‘see if he can come over this afternoon.’
‘Are you sure?’ Dr Varma’s never mentioned to her that he stays down here. But then she’s never asked.
‘It’s important. You’re doing so well. We don’t want any setbacks.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do. And I love you.’
‘Rob?’ she says, eyes closed. She so wants to build on his new-found openness, get him to confide in her again, talk some more about his fear of doubles. Make things more equal between them.
‘Yes?’
She takes a deep breath. It suddenly all seems too much. Her funny turn feels like a step back and he’s in carer mode again, seeing her questions as intrusive and deflecting them.
It’ll wait. She gives him a defeated smile. ‘I love you too.’
5
Kate
‘It still doesn’t feel right,’ Rob says.
This time it’s him who’s drumming his fingers on the Tesla’s steering wheel. They are back in a car park, at Truro railway station. The evening flight from Newquay to London was full.
‘Honestly, I’m feeling so much better,’ Kate says, stroking Stretch on her lap.
After the results from the headset came through on his phone, she talked Rob into returning to London and said that she would drive him to the station. He was reluctant, suggesting he took a taxi, but he eventually came around to the idea, particularly as it turns out that Dr Varma is down for the weekend and has agreed to visit her this afternoon.
‘Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?’ he asks.
Despite his genuine concern, Kate can already sense Rob’s restlessness, his desire to be back on the train to London. ‘I’ll be fine. Dr Varma can look after me.’
‘Just remember to keep the house locked,’ he says.
She sighs, turning to gaze out the window. Sometimes she thinks he forgets they’re in Cornwall not London.
‘I was going to give Bex a call,’ she says. ‘See if she fancies coming down for a few days.’
Bex is her best friend, a bridge between her previous life and this one.
‘Good idea. We like Bex.’ He pauses, looking at her. ‘It’s all coming back, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ she asks, searching his face.
‘That brilliant brain of yours.’
‘Not if my painting’s anything to go by.’
‘What are you saying? You really captured Stretch today.’ He opens the car door. ‘Coming in?’
‘Mind if I stay here?’ she says, turning away. Something’s not right. Again.
‘Sure.’ He grabs his bag from the back seat and leans over to kiss her goodbye. She closes her eyes.
‘I’ll call you,’ he says. ‘Hope it goes well with Dr Varma.’
Kate fingers the beach glass around her neck as Rob walks across to the station building. Just before he enters, a woman she doesn’t recognise comes up to him and they hug, smiling, laughing. Long face, like a horse. Rob isn’t a natural social animal – his first instinct is always to swerve away – but Kate can see he’s making an effort, eyes blinking. Maybe this woman is another investor.
She watches the two of them chat and thinks how little she really knows about Rob’s London existence. It doesn’t bother her. He’d probably say the same about her life down here. The weeks are long without him and she’s made some good friends in the village. Who does he see in London? Or in Brittany, where he’s been going a lot in recent weeks? She’s not a jealous person, but she knows Bex thinks it’s odd that she’s never been to Rob’s flat in Shoreditch or his offices in Old Street.
‘Rob needs to know how much we love him,’ she says to Stretch, determined to shake off the unnerving thoughts that are starting to inveigle themselves in her head.
She grabs the dog under one arm, climbs out the car and strides over to where Rob is still chatting. He hasn’t seen her approach. And then he turns.
‘Kate! Everything OK?’ he asks.
She stands there, frozen to the spot, to the right of him. It’s that same tingling sensation again, a lurching nausea, only stronger this time – the disconcerting feeling that the man in front of her is both Rob and not Rob. Familiar but unfamiliar. Recognisable but a stranger. Not so much déjà vu as jamais vu.
She inhales deeply, tries to focus on the red bricks of the station wall, something solid, definite, steadying. Her vision starts to blur. Is she about to have another migraine? This feels different. Rob is definitely acting strangely, like someone she doesn’t know.
He’ll take over my life, me, you, the house, all that I’ve achieved, everything that’s precious to me.
Kate swallows. She should have had the conversation with Rob, got him to talk more about his fear of doppelgängers, open up about his vulnerabilities. She turns towards horse face, whose strong nose suddenly strikes her as beautiful. Is that why Rob is behaving like this?
‘I just…’ She hesitates, sneaks a look at the woman’s slender figure.
‘Give me a second,’ Rob says to the woman.
‘Sure.’ She glances nervously at Kate. ‘See you on the train.’
‘I just wanted to say goodbye properly,’ Kate manages to say. ‘We both do,’ she adds, nodding at Stretch in her arms.
‘You need to rest,’ Rob says, hugging Kate and Stretch. She mustn’t cry. ‘And talk to Dr Varma. I’ve got to go.’
She watches him walk into the station, wondering what’s happening to her.
6
Kate
‘Bex, I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if it wasn’t important.’
Kate’s still in the Tesla at the train station car park, on the phone to her best friend.
‘You think he’s having an affair or what?’ Bex asks.
‘Maybe,’ she says, turning to stroke Stretch, who is asleep on the passenger seat beside her.
‘So what exactly am I meant to be looking out for?’ Bex asks.