She takes a deep breath, telling herself that Rob’s in London, that she’s worrying unnecessarily. It’s no good.
‘Rob,’ she says. ‘I need to ask you something else.’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Fire away.’
‘About Mark,’ she begins, her voice shaking.
‘How was he?’
‘He’s good.’
Rob doesn’t know him as well as she does, but he’s bought a number of pictures from his gallery in recent months.
‘Actually, he thinks he saw you in a Tesla.’
‘When?’
She detects a faint tightening of his voice, a hint of alarm. Bex tenses too, shaking her head as if this is all so unnecessary.
‘A couple of hours ago,’ she says.
‘That would be pushing it,’ he says, seemingly untroubled by the allegation. She needs to see his face so she can read his reaction better, but she daren’t look into his eyes. ‘Even for a Tesla. I’m three hundred miles away. And the car’s with you anyway. Isn’t it? I presume you’ve checked it hasn’t been stolen?’
She’s about to reply, ask him if he’s bought another car, when a military jet passes over the house, so low and loud that Bex ducks involuntarily. Kate’s got used to the noise. There’s been a lot of RAF activity in the area recently. And then a second one flies over.
Kate can’t help herself: she looks up at Rob’s face on the big screen. He is staring back at them, a fear in his eyes that she’s never seen before, as if he knows he’s about to be found out. It’s not him. She lunges forward and is about to shut the laptop when she and Bex both hear it again. One jet, followed by the roar of another. Except that this time the sound is coming from the Bose speakers all around them.
Kate stares at Bex in disbelief. ‘He’s in Cornwall.’
40
Jake
Jake sits down in front of Bex’s computer again, keen to discover more about Capgras syndrome. He’s just been back over to the canal, retrieving a few more sodden items that have floated to the surface. It was a depressing scene. People were friendly, but that just made it worse.
It seems that Capgras is brought on by physical or cognitive changes in the brain. Kate definitely had a lesion in her fusiform gyrus – Jake remembers discussing it with her doctors soon after the accident – but why would Capgras only manifest itself now, six months later? A psychological trigger, perhaps, such as Rob’s alarming talk of doppelgängers. It’s the sort of thing that might mess with Kate’s head at a time when she’s still fragile and possibly suffering from feelings of disconnectedness – another common precursor to Capgras. Bex is certainly worried about her.
Jake remembers what she said about Rob meeting his doppelgänger in Thailand when he was twenty-one, how he lives in fear of their paths crossing again. What happened at that first meeting? And why doesn’t Rob want to talk to Kate about it? He calls up Facebook and logs in – to Kate’s account. It feels wrong, but he tells himself he’s doing it for her benefit. As he suspected, she hasn’t changed her email or password. Nor has she posted recently. Kate always did have a love–hate relationship with Facebook. She is clearly in a hate phase. A quick scan of her friends – he was unfriended soon after she left hospital – and he finds Rob.
The articles he’s read all mentioned Rob’s young age – twenty-nine – and how he’s achieved so much before he’s even thirty. He checks Rob’s date of birth. Rob turns thirty in ten days’ time. A relatively big birthday. Jake will be thirty-five later this year, an anniversary he plans to ignore. Kate is bound to cook up something nice for Rob. She was always springing birthday surprises on Jake – in the early days, anyway. For his own thirtieth, she took him away to Paris, where thirty friends met him on the steps of Sacré- Coeur in Montmartre. She also tended to leave things late, planning them at the last minute.
Jake scans through Rob’s profile. He doesn’t seem to have many friends on Facebook and there are hardly any posts. It looks more like a token presence, a gesture. He probably prefers Instagram and some trendy messaging app of his own to communicate with his techmates.
It doesn’t take Jake long to find exactly what he’s looking for: an old Facebook friend, someone who has known Rob for a long time. Kirby looks the part. American born, he used to work for him in the early days – around the time when Rob visited Thailand. It’s worth a try. He must know Rob well and might be able to shed some light on what happened. According to his profile, he likes to travel and even mentions South-East Asia. Jake opens up the messages tab, enters his name and creates a new message. Kate’s never been in touch with him before, which makes things easier. He just hopes they haven’t met in real life yet. Taking a gamble, he begins to type:
Hey, Kate here, I’m pulling together a few ideas for a surprise birthday party for Rob. It’s his big 3-0 coming up soon! Please don’t say anything to him. Any good stories to tell? Funny anecdotes from his past?! Kx
Jake sits back, reading the message. Has he over-cooked Kate’s enthusiasm? He knows this is bad, that Kate will hate him for it, but he hits the return key and sends.
41
Silas
‘You crossed a line,’ Silas says as they drive out of the village and head towards the A30.
‘Sorry,’ Strover says. ‘I just took the number plate. We don’t have to run a check on it.’
He lets her stew in silence as he nurses the car down a narrow road. He loves Cornwall’s lanes, particularly when they’re in full bloom like this, wildflowers tumbling over high drystone walls. They weren’t so much fun when he was towing a caravan, five-year-old Conor yelling in the back, Mel beside him, stressing over an old road atlas.
‘We spent a year working together,’ Strover says, breaking the silence. ‘I like Kate.’
‘We all do. That doesn’t mean we start checking her new toyboy’s number plates just because he might be having an affair.’
In truth, he’s less bothered than he sounds. He just needs to put a marker down, remind her who’s in charge.
‘That’s not why she asked,’ Strover says.
Silas glances across at her, surprised. Has he missed something? Female intuition again. ‘So why did she?’
‘She’s asked us to do two things for her,’ Strover says. ‘Search for a facial match with Rob. And check that he wasn’t driving around Cornwall when he was meant to be in London. It’s not just Rob who’s worried about doppelgängers. Kate is too.’
‘And?’
‘I just think we should check it out, that’s all. Given everything that’s happened to her in the past twenty-four hours.’
Silas’s phone starts to ring on the car intercom.
‘Talk of the devil,’ he says, glancing at the display screen. It’s the Control Room at Devon and Cornwall Police.
‘Any news?’ he asks.
Maybe he could put in for a transfer down here, while he’s still got some miles on the clock.
‘Your Beamer’s been found.’ It’s the same officer he spoke to earlier, when he rang through to the Control Room with the car’s details. ‘A couple of miles up the coast, in a car park behind Nare Head.’