‘OK, it’s an illness,’ Bex says. ‘A delusion.’
‘I’m not deluded, Bex,’ she snaps, walking on ahead, but a part of her wants to know more.
‘It only affects you when you see someone with your eyes,’ Bex adds, calling after her. ‘You don’t think they’re a double if you’re chatting on the phone.’
Kate stops in her tracks, turning to look at Bex. What did she just say? Kate thinks back to her conversations with Rob, how familiar and reassuring he sounds when she calls him on her mobile.
‘Really?’ she says.
Bex nods, smiling sympathetically. ‘It can be caused by lesions in the part of the brain that was damaged in your car crash.’
‘OK,’ Kate says, trying to take everything in. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s fine,’ Bex says, interrupting her. ‘Maybe you should talk to Dr Varma about it. When you see him next. It might be nothing.’
It doesn’t sound like nothing. A part of her feels better already. A specific syndrome, linked to her injuries, is more reassuring than thinking that she’s gone mad. It would explain the funny feelings she has every time she sees Rob, the normality of their phone conversations.
It still doesn’t explain the jets though. She can hear one now, far out at sea. Maybe she’s imagining that one too.
Five minutes later, Kate and Bex have broken away from the main group and are searching the high-tide line in silence, scattering seabirds in front of them as they go. Jake would know their names. Ruddy turnstones, he whispers in her head.
‘Where’s Stretch gone?’ Bex asks, looking up.
‘He’ll be around somewhere,’ Kate says.
She never worries about him straying or getting lost. The beach is dog friendly and people look out for each other’s animals. And then she sees him, fifty yards away, where the sand meets a cluster of rocks at the end of the beach. They don’t usually go that far. It’s always damp and empty and often in shade from the cliffs above. A flock of turnstones is pecking nervously at the sand. Behind them Stretch is sniffing at something on the high-tide line, a large bundle of seaweed, partially hidden. He starts to bark.
‘There he is,’ Bex says. ‘What’s he found?’
Kate doesn’t reply. Instead, she starts to walk over to Stretch, a heavy feeling in her stomach as she quickens her pace. Stretch doesn’t normally bark like this.
‘What is it, Kate?’ Bex calls behind her, fear growing in her voice. ‘What’s he barking at?’
She keeps walking, transfixed by the sight of what Stretch has found.
‘Come away from there, weenie toes,’ she says quietly, slowing to a standstill when she’s ten feet away. ‘There’s a good boy.’
She thinks she’s going to be sick.
‘Oh my God,’ Bex says, now beside her, hand over her mouth.
‘We’d better call the police,’ Kate manages to say.
44
Jake
Jake is back at Bex’s computer screen again. He’s left it long enough, can’t afford to miss the chance to message Kirby. Kirby will be wondering where Kate’s got to.
He logs into Kate’s account, moving fast. A quick check of the chat window reveals that Rob is offline. He opens up the message thread with Kirby, reminding himself that he’s posting as Kate.
Sorry, had to pop out. Anything really. Maybe a story from way back, when you were at school together? Travelling? Thailand?
Has he gone too quickly with the reference to Thailand? Maybe he should have started with something more general, but there’s no saying how long he’s got on here before Rob appears. Or even Bex. He glances at the list of Kate’s friends on the right of the screen, scrolling up and down and up again, watching for a green ‘online’ icon to appear next to Rob’s name.
Don’t go near what happened to Rob in Thailand.
He stares at the screen, blood draining from his face. There’s no going back now. He needs to remember exactly what Bex told him, how reticent Rob had been.
Why not? He briefly mentioned it to me once. How he met his double on a beach. He seemed upset. I want to help him – get him to talk more about it.
Kirby replies immediately.
Can I call you?
Jake starts to panic. Does Kirby have Kate’s mobile number?
Reception terrible here in Cornwall. Messaging best.
Again Jake wonders if he’s blown it. Kirby takes a long time – too long – to reply.
Not sure I should tell you…
Jake replies instantly, Kate’s words flowing out of him.
I love Rob. In just a few months, he’s turned my life around.
And you’ve made him so happy too. He loves you.
Jake can’t stomach much more of this. Another long pause.
Give me some time. There’s a lot to tell.
It’s ten minutes before Kirby returns. Ten minutes in which Jake’s eyes remain glued to the chat window. He scrolls up and down the list again, watching for the green ‘online’ icon to appear next to Rob’s name. For a moment he’s tempted to read some of the previous exchanges between Kate and Rob, but it would be too painful and that’s not what this is about. And then Kirby’s long reply drops in one go. It’s worth the wait.
We were in Thailand, having a beach party for Robert’s twenty-first birthday. He hasn’t touched drugs for years, as you know. Let’s just say we were young back then. It was late. The stars were shining. And everyone was beautiful – and intoxicated.
We all wanted a piece of Robert that night and were toasting his birthday and his incredible successes. His first two apps were already sure-fire winners – number ones in the App Store – and he was disrupting markets around the world and making his first million. Ludicrous for someone so young. He was drinking heavily and then popped something strange, we still don’t know what. Next thing I knew, he’d wandered off down the beach into the darkness.
When he returned, he looked troubled, like death to be honest. He said in a rather rambling speech that he felt he would have to change if he was ever going to make it properly. He joked that all the biggest names in tech, the people he really admired, had not played by the rules to achieve their successes. Failed to pay enough tax, ‘borrowed’ others’ ideas, misused personal data, treated staff badly. The usual stuff. All bullshit, of course, but that’s what he thought, and it bothered him. He was having a moment. Like we all did at that age. Quite an important one in his case. As you know, he’s a major force for good these days, doing all sorts of amazing medical stuff and charity work. So he was kind of conflicted about his achievements to date and how far he could really go in his future career, wrestling with this whole idea of whether you can succeed big time in business and still be a good person.
Afterwards, I asked him why he’d walked off like that. He fell quiet and said that he thought he’d seen an uninvited guest show up at the party earlier. This guy apparently looked familiar in some weird way and Robert wanted to find him. After searching everywhere he suddenly spotted him at the far end of the beach.
Jake sits up in his chair.
And when he caught up with him, Robert got the shock of his life. The man wasn’t just familiar, he looked identical to him. And I mean identical.