‘No idea,’ Jake says, surprised. Odd that they didn’t mention it when they took his statement. ‘I was with them both last night. On the canal. They came out to investigate the fire.’
‘Maybe that’s why they’re down here. I didn’t have time to find out before they asked me to leave.’
‘They don’t think it was Kate?’
‘Of course they bloody don’t. Kate? She loved that boat.’
‘Did she? I think she hated it by the end.’
They must be going to talk to her about the CCTV footage, see if she remembers anything about that night. She won’t like a visit from the police. Doesn’t want anything to do with her past life. With him.
‘Is everything OK? With Kate?’ he asks. ‘You sound—’
‘Everything’s fine.’
She pauses. He knows something’s wrong. It might explain why she’s being so nice to him all of a sudden. And he’s happy to wait, resist filling the silence until she tells him.
‘Did she ever talk to you about doubles?’ Bex asks eventually.
‘Doubles? Not that I remember. Except when I was ordering too many at the bar.’
Jake has a weakness for Talisker, an expensive habit that didn’t help their finances.
‘I’m serious, Jake. She’s become fixated with the whole idea down here. Thinks that Rob might be…’
‘Might be what?’ Jake has no idea where Bex is going with this.
‘She thinks Rob might have been replaced by a doppelgänger,’ Bex continues. ‘Apparently he spoke to her about it once, said he has this fear of meeting his double, that the double would take over his life. And what’s really freaking her out, she says, is that he did actually meet someone who looked just like him, when he was younger, on a beach in Thailand. It’s meant to be bad luck if you meet your doppelgänger once. Meet them twice and you’re toast. She’s been unable to get the idea out of her head ever since.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Kate,’ Jake says.
‘I know. And last night she saw this footage on French TV, an interview with Rob about his new tech office in Brittany or something. She woke me at one thirty in the morning to watch it, convinced that it wasn’t Rob. It was all very weird. Apparently Rob doesn’t speak a word of French – Kate’s been trying to teach him – but this guy was talking fluently. And then we found a French book in Rob’s office. I told her he’s just a quick learner but she’s really worried by it, thinks she’s going mad.’
Jake pauses for a moment, trying to take in what Bex has just said about Kate. ‘Ever see Invasion of the Body Snatchers?’ he asks. ‘Nineteen fifties sci-fi horror movie about alien clones?’
He and Kate used to watch a lot of movies on the boat together, particularly in the early days, on long winter nights. But he watched that one on his own. She wasn’t into horror.
‘God, years ago, I think,’ Bex says. ‘Donald Sutherland screaming at the end?’
‘That’s the seventies remake. It’s the original one I was thinking about. Kevin McCarthy as the doctor who sees a number of patients apparently suffering from Capgras syndrome. In fact it turns out they’re “pod people” – extraterrestrial doubles with no emotion.’
‘What’s Capgras syndrome?’
‘That’s what made me think of the film. It’s a very real delusion, apparently. Nothing sci-fi about it at all. I read about it after watching the film. You’re convinced that the person closest to you – your partner, say, or family member – has been replaced by a double.’
Silence. And then Bex speaks, her voice quiet. ‘Do you think that’s what’s going on with Kate?’
‘Could be – I’m no expert. But it sounds a lot more likely than Rob being replaced by a French-speaking doppelgänger.’
32
Kate
Kate scans the beach with the pair of binoculars borrowed from the National Coastwatch lookout hut behind her, aware that her hands are trembling. The hut sits on the end of a rocky promontory, with good views of the beaches back towards the village and the other way towards Nare Head. She often drops by for a chat here on her walks. A Union Jack flutters above it whenever someone’s on duty.
‘This is exactly what I came down to Cornwall to leave behind,’ she says, moving her focus systematically from one person to the next: sunbathers, dads playing French cricket with their children, friends throwing a Frisbee in the surf. Above them, by the footpath, a long lunch queue snakes its way towards the Secret Shack, her favourite café. Best seafood chowder in Cornwall.
She still hasn’t got over the shock of the photo of the barman that Silas and Strover showed her. Afterwards, they told her they thought he’d spiked her drink at the pub too. She’s sure it’s the same man that she saw at the café before she went for a swim. When there’s a match, it’s just obvious. A spot. He’s also in the background of her photo of Rob, which means that he’s been watching her for a while – and that it wasn’t cramp that nearly caused her to drown.
‘I can’t promise I’ll recognise him,’ she adds.
Hart is aware that the accident left her without her old powers of recognition. What he doesn’t know is that Dr Varma now thinks her ability to remember faces is returning. She just wishes her ability to paint them would come back too.
‘Take your time,’ Strover says behind her.
She’s obviously still feeling guilty about the flowers. So she should. It’s a while since they’ve seen her and they used deception to enter her house. Why did she open the door when all she could see on the security camera was a bunch of carnations? She should have known. Rob only ever sends lilies. A part of her wanted to slam the door in their faces, but there’s an undeniable bond between them, forged over months of working too hard together, that Kate suspects will never be broken. They lived in each other’s pockets when the unit was running, learnt to rely on each other.
‘I can’t see him,’ she says, lowering the binoculars. ‘You need to tell me if I’m right to be feeling this scared.’
She’s told them what happened after she drank her coffee in the harbour café yesterday. And neither of them believes it was cramp either.
‘There’s no conclusive proof that your drink was spiked at the pub, or your coffee yesterday at the café,’ Hart says, taking the binoculars from her and focusing on birds diving far out at sea. ‘But it’s looking that way. You must be careful. Don’t do anything impulsive.’
He gives her a look. She knows he’s referring to her unauthorised trips to the Bluebell. She should have told him earlier, but she’d crossed a line by going there. It was symptomatic of her state of mind at the time. She was tired to the core from work and devastated that night after seeing Jake with another woman. She also didn’t think she’d be recognised by anyone, but it seems the barman knew exactly who she was – and tried to kill her.
And now he’s down here.
‘Gannets,’ Hart says, binoculars still raised.
Strover rolls her eyes at Kate. Kate got to know her too, admired her technical knowhow, the way she stood up for herself in what was a very male environment. Hart also stood up for Strover, often fighting her corner, which is why Kate likes him. He just got carried away with the work, their successes. They all did.