Doppelganger (3 page)

“Ask the police Press Office.”

“She was escaping from the
bastard and ran out in front of your car?”

“The police didn’t tell me
anything.”

“But that’s your informed
opinion?”

“That’s my totally
uninformed
opinion.”

Stuart’s meaty fist grabbed my
shoulder as I tried to push him out of the way. “But they held you overnight,
did they not?”

“No comment.”

He shook his head sadly, hand
still resting on my arm. “Why did they hold you?”

“The police released me without
charge, and the woman’s recovering in hospital.”

“And the police reckon she was a
Bible Killer victim?”

“As I said, Stu, ask their Press
Office.”

“I like it.
Bestselling true
crime author involved in the kind of life-and-death drama he normally only
writes about. Psychologist, Dr Jack Lockwood saved the life of the Bible
Killer’s latest victim
.”

Later, as I accelerated up the
road, I thought back to the years I’d known Stuart: his bluff remarks, tedious
jokes, and crass insensitivity. He was different to me in almost every way.

I often wondered why he was my
best friend.

*
* * *

You’ll find my small 17th-century
house, which was once the gatehouse of a large, now-demolished estate, at the
end of an unmade road. I live alone, and there’s a part-built extension at the
back that I’ve never got around to finishing. I parked in the front drive and
walked through to my kitchen breakfast room which has a view out across the
Glossop Valley below.

I had a snack and went to bed to
make up for my sleepless night. When I woke up it was evening. Had the woman
I’d hit with my car really been the latest intended victim of the Bible Killer?
She’d clearly been attacked, beaten about the head, perhaps half strangled, and
when she’d run in front of my car it had seemed as if she’d been running for
her life. And she’d mentioned someone pursuing her.

So far, if indeed she was a Bible
Killer victim, she was the only one of his victims to survive, and it would be
a massive breakthrough if she could supply any clues as to his identity. By
‘his’, I of course meant his or her identity: serial killers can be females
too, though it’s normally considered a male crime. The girl I’d knocked down
with my car had said: Don’t let him get me but could I be sure she’d said
‘him’? Everything about that night was so confused it could equally have been
her.

I thought back to the research
I’d done on the Yorkshire Ripper. Only a couple of Peter Sutcliffe’s victims
had survived, one of them had been attacked from behind and hadn’t seen the
man, the other had given a fairly good description; but, because the police
hadn’t linked her attack with the Ripper, no one had followed it up. After
being beaten on the head with a hammer, one of the women had suffered from
depression ever since. I’d even uncovered a theory that Sutcliffe himself had
been involved in a road accident and sustained personality-changing head
injuries as, curiously, had the mass murderer Fred West, who’d allegedly
acquired such an injury resulting from a motorcycle accident.

I could only hope that last
night’s victim’s injuries weren’t going to affect her in any permanent way.
Stuart had told me her name: Caroline Lawrence.

It was 6 o’clock in the evening,
probably around the time that hospital visiting was allowed. The police had
told me she was in St Aiden’s Hospital, so I drove back along the A2 to
Canterbury, arriving at St Aiden’s reception desk half an hour later.

“She’s in Edith Grendel Ward,”
said the receptionist, dismissing me as she turned to the next person in the
queue. “Sixth floor.”

As I rode up in the lift I
reflected that it was unlikely the ward sister would let me see the injured
woman, but if I explained my involvement, there was a chance she might at least
be able tell me how Caroline was recovering.

I walked out onto the corridor,
turning left for the doors above which it said ‘Edith Grendel Ward’. I
obediently washed my hands with the alcohol cleaner at the wall machine, then
pressed the button to open the ward doors and stepped through. At the end of
the line of beds I could see a policewoman was sitting beside one of them.

No one stopped me approaching the
officer, and when I came closer she looked up enquiringly. I explained who I
was and why I was there. After phoning her sergeant and confirming my identity
she told me, unofficially, that the woman was out of danger, and would probably
be able to talk soon. Her job was to wait and report on anything she might say
when she first woke up. I thanked her and left, feeling relieved that things
had apparently worked out so well.

Just as the lift doors were
almost closed I saw someone’s face appear in the gap. I levered them open, to
reveal a woman, her arms full of manila files.

“Phew, thanks!” she said with a
friendly smile, stepping forward. “I want to get these back to Records before
they close – as it is I probably won’t make it.” She was wearing a dark blue
top and trousers, yet it didn’t match the uniforms of the nurses I’d seen so
far. The name badge fixed to her tunic said ‘Lucy Green’.

“My pleasure.”

And for some crazy reason I just
couldn’t help staring at her.

Why?

For a fraction of a second I felt
something like a bolt of electricity pass through my brain. Something, I didn’t
know what, was incredibly, almost scarily, familiar about her face. The
someone
walking over my grave moment
passed, but it unnerved me. There was a cleft
in her chin that I knew so well. That crease below her mouth, and also a
certain look in her eyes were from a face I’d already seen, but where from I
had absolutely no idea. I was shaken, but somehow excited at the same time. The
crazy sensation lasted a few seconds as I stared at her.

She was studying me too.

“Excuse me asking,” she said,
“but are you Jack Lockwood? The psychologist who writes books about crime?”

“Yes.” Relief flooded through me.
“I know your face too, but I just can’t remember where we met.”

“I’ve never met you, as far as I
know.” She regarded me seriously while the lift rattled in protest as it
started its downward journey. I was barely aware of the movement, I was still
lost in the strange sensation of staring at this woman who was having such a
bizarre effect on me.

Lucy Green rearranged her grip on
the pile of folders, clutching them closer to her chest, causing the topmost
ones to slide forward and totter precariously. “I saw you on one of those late
night literary discussion programmes on BBC2 TV last year. I even read a bit of
one of your books.”

“Which one?”

She frowned, trying to remember.
“Can’t remember the title. Something about serial killers, I think. I just
looked at the opening chapter out of curiosity. It was certainly compulsive
reading, but way too grisly for my taste.”

“Crime’s not your thing?”

She shook her head. “Don’t mind a
bit of detective fiction, but not true crime. Scares me, I suppose. I always
want a happy ending, where the killer gets caught and the heroine escapes his
clutches. Life’s not always like that, is it? I don’t like facing that kind of
reality.” She gave a bitter smile but there was a wariness about it, as if she
was on the edge of saying something and then thought better of it.

And there it was again, that
flutter of recognition
.

My new friend appeared to be in
her thirties, and her eyes were large and dark, her movements vivacious without
being over-the-top. She was attractive rather than beautiful, with neat, blonde,
tastefully-styled hair, a mouth that stretched into grimaces a little too much
and eyebrows that almost met in the middle of her forehead; those eyebrows did
their best to ameliorate the web of frown lines in her forehead that came and
vanished at a moment’s notice.

The weird feeling that I’d met
her before wouldn’t go away. I racked my brains. But the memory was as elusive
and enigmatic as a lost dream.

The shuddering lift had almost
rattled down to the ground floor. “Wait a minute,” she said slowly, her eyes
narrowing. “Jack Lockwood the True Crime writer. Already in the lift when the
only ward above us is Edith Grendel. Please tell me it’s a coincidence that we
just
happen
to have a patient there who’s been the victim of an attack?
The Bible Killer’s latest?”

“I came to see how she was.”

“Priceless!” she stepped
backwards, glaring at me. “Couldn’t you have had the decency to wait until the
killer’s been caught before you push in and ask questions?”

“Look I’m not–”

“Don’t you think that poor girl’s
had a bad enough experience already, without a self-seeking opportunist like
you upsetting her?”

“Listen–”

“I’m sorry, but this is
so
wrong
. They surely didn’t let you talk to her?”

“She can’t talk to anyone.”

“Good! My God, I thought
journalists were the lowest of the low, but you make the gutter press seem like
saints! Did you know that girl nearly died?”

The lift had already stopped and the
doors were open.

“Have you any idea–”

As I brushed past her I
accidentally knocked her arm, so that she dropped some of the files onto the
floor, and, in scrambling to retrieve them, dropped the rest, so that their
contents were spread across the lift floor in a tidal wave of paper. I stepped
over her kneeling figure as she scrabbled around trying to gather things
together.

*
* * *

When I got home I found it hard
to sleep. Lucy Green’s accusation of my being a self-seeking opportunist had
upset me more than I realised. It wasn’t what she said, so much as the distaste
in her eyes as she looked at me. In fact it was much more than that, it was
something I couldn’t explain, a bizarre affinity I’d felt for her from the
moment I’d set eyes on her face. An affinity that she obviously didn’t share,
and the knowledge upset me deeply.

Lucy Green.
Lucy
. Again
and again I concentrated on her face, but try as I might I couldn’t remember
her features in detail. I remembered soulful dark eyes, dark hair, a turned-up
nose. More than anything, for a reason I couldn’t explain, I longed to see her
again.

All my life I’d heard those
stories of seeing someone across a crowded room, an instant recognition, true
love at first sight, and I’d dismissed it as nonsense. It had never happened to
me before, not with the various girlfriends I’ve had, or even with my ex wife.
The feeling was like a tidal wave, and all the more disquieting because I
couldn’t rationalise it. I simply longed to see her again, and the longing was
delicious, exciting, yet somehow toe-curlingly terrifying.

Then my thoughts ran back to the
fact that earlier in the evening I’d had more email threats and phone messages
from Sean Boyd. The biography I was writing about Boyd, a well known London
‘face’ in criminal circles, was causing me serious problems.
Hero or
Villain?
honestly seemed to me to be a fairly non-controversial summary of
the man’s childhood and career so far. Even if I was to have been stupid enough
to allege his guilt in specific criminal activities, he ought surely to realise
that Truecrime Publications would never print anything he could sue us for. In
fact, it was going to be a fairly innocuous book, because of the wretched legal
restrictions, something that would almost paint him in a Robin Hood light, so
why on earth was he was so determined to prevent publication?

It was easy to get my agent’s
contact details from my website, but not my personal numbers. Yet, somehow,
Boyd had got hold of my private mobile number and personal email, and was
constantly sending threatening texts and emails, warning me off writing the
book. I’d discussed things with the police, who’d admitted there was nothing
they could do about it. “Until,” the officer had cheerfully said, “they
actually attack you.”

There was no alternative but to
carry on and try to forget about it. And, of course, keep my wits about me.

*
* * *

I woke up in the early hours,
sweating with terror. It was the nightmare I hadn’t had for years now, that I’d
hoped had gone forever. The one that always left me trembling for the several
still-terrifying moments after I sprang awake.

It’s always daytime. The sun is
shining in a beautiful clear blue sky. Suddenly someone much taller than me
stops and looks down, blocking out the sunlight. I look up at them but I can’t
clearly see their face, just a dark shadow where it should be. And then I feel
pressure on my neck. The blind panic that follows is the worst part. The time
when I can’t breathe, when I’m fighting for breath and everything begins to go
dark...

I hadn’t had that dream since
long before my experience with Van Meer, the man who’d tortured and nearly
killed me, or my terrifying stay in St Michael’s. I had no idea where it came
from, could barely remember when I’d first had it. All I could remember was the
flavour of the fear. And I hated it.

As I lay there, my heartbeat
gradually easing back to normality, I tried to think back to how long ago it
was since I’d had that wretched dream. I couldn’t remember, but it had first
happened in my early childhood, and come back periodically ever since, usually
once every few years. Obviously the shock of finding poor Caroline on top of
everything that had happened in the past few days had had an adverse effect on
my subconscious, giving rise to that terrible, terrible dream that I’d hoped
was buried once and for all. The funny thing about the dream is that, as a rule
I’ve always found that with even the worst nightmare, there’s always one tiny
corner of my mind that stays apart, allowing me to know, deep down, that it
isn’t really happening, that it is only a dream. But with this particular night
adventure I could never do that. Every time, it’s as real as if I’m wide awake,
and doubly terrifying. I’m
powerless
, I’m
dying
, and there’s
nothing in the world I can do to fight back.