Home > The Other You(9)

The Other You(9)
Author: J.S. Monroe

‘Bigger than we thought, isn’t it?’ she says to Stretch, switching on the main light. ‘Much bigger.’

She walks around the workstation, running her finger across the smooth black marble. There’s a computer screen on the desk, flanked by soundstick speakers, but it’s the black-and-white picture propped up against the wall that catches her attention, even though it’s partially hidden by some card and wrapping.

She lifts it up, blows off the dust and studies it more closely, her head spinning. It looks pre-Raphaelite and has been done in pen and ink and brush. The inscription in the corner says ‘DGR’ – Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A couple dressed in medieval clothes are walking through woodland. They appear to have stumbled across their doubles, identical in every respect: same physical features, medieval clothing, matching feathers in their caps. The woman has fainted and her terrified man has drawn a sword to confront his double, staring into the whites of his eyes. The only thing that distinguishes them is that the couple on the left has been framed with an ethereal glowing light, to denote that they’re the doppelgängers.

If only it were that easy.

She perches on the edge of the office chair and stares intently at the picture, her heart racing as she looks for clues: how to tell when your boyfriend’s been replaced by a double.

She stays like that for a long time, holding the picture in front of her as she tries to recall some of the tricks and techniques from her old police job. Gait, facial features, tells – she knew about them all once. Her boss even sent her on a behavioural analysis course. She reminds herself that she was pretty good at recognising people, one of the best. She was never wrong.

So what is it with Rob that’s different?

She replays the details of her recent funny turns as dispassionately as she can. Something about him has definitely changed. It’s hard to describe, but it’s almost as if he’s impersonating himself, over-emphasising the little tics, the blinking eyes, the hand through his hair. Physically he looks identical, but there’s something about him – is it his blue eyes, what they’re hiding? – that doesn’t sit right with her.

She props the picture back against the wall, walks over to a row of bookshelves and glances at some of the titles. Most are to do with business investment. Some are about coding, others are about health, neurotechnology and bio-engineering. There are several books about consciousness, exploring the twilight zone between life and death, another about locked-in syndrome. And on the bottom shelf a row of paperbacks. She bends down and pulls one out. It’s an old, well-thumbed book by Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Double. She reads the blurb on the back, returns it to the shelf and pulls out another faded paperback: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. Written in 1824, it’s about a Gothic double.

She doesn’t know what to think about all this doppelgänger stuff. Rob is clearly more obsessed with it than she realised. So obsessed that he keeps it under lock and key.

That doesn’t mean he’s been replaced by one. Of course he hasn’t. Bex was right to call her out on that. A double would have to look identical, imitate Rob’s mannerisms, perfect the way he talks. He would have to learn everything about Rob’s history, about her…

She pushes the thought away. She’s just being silly again. She also feels – unreasonably, perhaps – a little misled about the storeroom that isn’t. It’s a full-blown office, full of Rob’s things. Maybe he does work in here, when she’s asleep, which is often.

She calls Stretch and closes the door after him. Rob must have forgotten to lock it in their rush to get to the train station earlier. And then she goes back in to take the copy of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. She’ll have plenty of time to read and return it. But before she’s reached the desk, her phone rings. It’s Bex.

 

 

10

 

Kate


‘I feel like an undercover cop on a stakeout,’ Bex says, whispering. ‘Is this what you used to do in your old job?’

‘Where are you?’ Kate asks, trying to put a lead on Stretch, who is desperate for his walk.

‘Pret a Manger, Paddington station. Rob’s train is about to arrive on platform one.’

‘Are you actually going to meet him?’ Kate asks, closing the front door behind her. She can’t be bothered to follow Rob’s instructions and triple-lock it. And she hasn’t set the alarm in weeks. This is rural Cornwall, not Shoreditch. She heads on down to the lush green field below the house, Stretch pulling on his lead, and cuts across to the coast path that runs along the bottom of their land, marked by a herringbone slate wall.

‘I’ll say hello if… if something doesn’t seem right…’ Bex’s words tail off. ‘I’m tucked away in a corner,’ she continues. ‘Got a clear view of people walking past. I’ll chat to him if he sees me.’

Kate tries to picture her in the window of Pret. ‘Thanks, Bex.’

Bex explains that she’ll do some galleries after intercepting Rob and then come on down to Truro this evening.

She’s really going the distance – and for what? Kate holds onto the memory of that unfamiliar look in Rob’s eye, the overwhelming sense of disconnect that she felt.

‘I had nothing planned this weekend anyway,’ Bex adds. ‘Just the usual gang in the Slaughtered Lamb tonight. It’s not been the same since you left.’

Kate used to go to their local a lot with Jake, found herself drinking more and more. She tells herself she doesn’t miss him, the claustrophobic life they shared, particularly on days like today. The salt-fresh air, blue sky, the sea laid out like sheet glass below her. She’d been going out with Jake for years, since they met at university. Perhaps it was the combination of their jobs – a portrait artist and an author – that did for them in the end, living and working in each other’s pockets on a tiny narrowboat. Or the fact that they couldn’t seem to have children. Their careers never quite took off either, which didn’t help. It was why she took the police job in the end. One of them had to earn some money.

‘Hold up, here comes his train now,’ Bex says.

‘He’ll be at the front,’ she says. ‘First class.’

‘Of course he bloody will.’

They both stay silent for a few seconds. Kate can picture the crowds of people flooding onto the platform, some back from their holidays, others in town to shop. She used to spend a lot of time watching crowds, guessing what they did as she looked for the match. Too much time.

‘Can you see him?’ she asks. Why is she so nervous?

‘Not yet.’

‘You remember what he looks like?’

‘Relax, Kate. I’m on it.’

‘Sorry, I’m just—’

‘I know you are.’ Bex pauses. ‘No sign of him yet.’

Maybe Rob’s tricky investor isn’t in London and he got off the train at Reading. Bex’s silence seems to last forever. The coast path’s high hedgerows are humming with bees. Above her, seagulls soar in the rising air currents. And then she hears another noise, one that she’s heard a few times in recent weeks. She scans the clear sky and spots a drone out in the bay, heading towards her.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)
» The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash #4)