The Gemini Effect, page 16
The door. Her jacket.
Her phone in the one pocket of that new dress was going off. She took it out, saw it was Adam, and quickly turned the thing off. There. There it was, the front door. Freedom.
Grabbing her jacket from the hook, she bowled outside and into the fresh air.
Then she began to run.
Night had fallen while she’d been inside.
Inside, being humiliated. Izzy had no idea what the fallout from all this would be. Wouldn’t find that out until she was at school again, unless she turned on her phone (not happening) and she had a feeling the headache she’d faked might last a few days now, turn into a real migraine.
She rubbed at her eyes, trying to see where she was going. Head for home. Her nan’s place anyway. But she couldn’t tell her about this. Couldn’t tell her or her mum, although she desperately wanted to. Needed to. Needed her.
What a shame you said the things you did.
All because you wanted to go to that stupid party! How’d that work out for you, eh?
Not all that well.
All those eyes, people watching. People judging, one way or another; but they wouldn’t know yet. Couldn’t. It would spread throughout the year like wildfire, though. Maybe even beyond that. Izzy choked back more sobs, stumbling on down the path. She’d have to be quiet when she got in, would probably be all cried out by then anyway. No more tears left.
Oh, who was she kidding? There would always be tears left, more to shed about this over the coming weeks. Yet another disappointment. She’d just have to push it all down tonight, hide it as best she could tomorrow – although migraines make you cry, don’t they?
All those eyes, all those people everywhere.
She was alone now, though. Alone and walking back, had slowed up after sprinting the first leg. She’d wanted to get away from Kevin’s dad’s place as quickly as possible, but soon ran out of steam. She’d never been the most athletic of girls, always the one hanging around at the periphery of netball games; never picked first. And walking, strolling, meant she could wallow in her misery with only the stars above for company.
She was alone now.
Wasn’t she?
Izzy’s head whipped sideways. She felt sure someone had been there. Just out of the corner of her eye, a flash of something moving. There were fields not far away, so it was probably an animal of some kind. A rabbit or something. You got used to that kind of thing out here in the countryside, far from the hustle and bustle of city life. A different kind of nightlife.
There was a light breeze, and she relished the feel of it on her face as she walked. But there was no doubt it was getting colder. Spring had only just sprung, and it was nowhere near summer yet. Then it would be warm all night long! Sweaty even, uncomfortable – hard to sleep. But the holidays did at least mean no school, and she wouldn’t have to face—
Another noise, off to her left, made her jump. It was the wind rattling the slats in a fence. “You’re just scaring yourself now,” she whispered. But she’d be lying if she said she wouldn’t be glad to get back, to get into her pyjamas and pull the covers over her. It would be the closest thing to climbing under a rock she’d get at the—
Izzy felt the first spot of it on her forehead. Then her cheeks, joining the tears, tickling her nose. Fucking hell, that was all she needed. More of it fell, water spattering her face as she looked up. She hadn’t even brought a handbag with her, not even a little clutch, let alone an umbrella. Wasn’t like Derek, obsessed with the weather and what it was going to do tomorrow – he’d been wondering if he should put the bins out the other day in case the wind took them – but maybe he had a point. If she’d been more aware of that, she’d have known it was going to rain.
Not just rain, but piss it down. Seconds later, it was pouring; washing her tears away. Izzy looked around for somewhere to shelter, but she’d be lucky out here. And the houses were few and far between, not that she’d be knocking on strangers’ doors in the middle of the night to let her in. A sure-fire way to get into trouble, in more ways than one: you never knew who was going to answer; but also it was a sure-fire way of things getting back to her nan, her mum. Izzy really didn’t want to explain all this to them, she didn’t have the energy.
Movement again. Not far away.
Izzy looked, saw shadows through the rain. Something, someone out there. She stopped, frozen to the spot, swallowed in what sounded to her like some kind of cartoon gulp.
People everywhere, staring.
No. Not people. One person.
That shadow moving now, she could see rain bouncing off it – him? Izzy tried to focus, but the rain was making it more difficult, causing her make-up to run. She was getting drenched, probably looked like a drowned rat. Why would anyone choose to be out here? Unless…
Unless they were following her.
Her mum had warned her about this kind of thing as well. Not to go anywhere on her own – certainly not the middle of nowhere! – because there were men who stalked girls like her. She’d had to deal with them when she was on the force; you always think it’s not going to happen to you and then—
The snapping of a twig or a branch.
The city. That’s where she needed to be right now, where there were streetlights, CCTV cameras. Not fields and cliffs and—
Phone! She should fish out her phone and turn it on again, might be lucky enough to get a signal out here; then again, might not. But at least she could turn on her torch. She dug into her pocket, rooting around.
That shape was heading towards her, the ‘someone’ who’d been watching her. Staring, judging. Izzy began to run. Again. Ran as fast as she could, but of course the rain was turning the path to mud. To slush. She skidded, almost going flying into a ditch, the phone flying out of her hand into the darkness. Didn’t have time to search for it, would never find it anyway and couldn’t just stay here wondering what to do.
Should have stayed at the party, she said to herself. (Warm and… safe. Had she been safe?) But how could she? There was nothing for her there now, hadn’t ever been it turned out.
If only she’d listened to her mum. If only she hadn’t—
Footfalls. Is that what she could hear behind her now? Someone coming after her, someone chasing her? Maybe they’d been watching her since the farm, since Kevin’s dad’s.
Izzy scrambled to get herself upright and nearly ended up doing the splits. That would have been unfortunate, she thought to herself, because she wasn’t a gymnast either. Had never mastered that kind of thing like some of the other girls, throwing themselves around on the ropes and the parallel bars, rolling around on mats, while she watched at the edges of the gym again. Never picked first for teams. Always on the outside, looking in.
Always wanting to be wanted.
To be loved.
Whoever this is might love you in a way you really don’t want, she thought to herself and it spurred her on. Could sense someone behind her, risked a look over her shoulder but couldn’t see a thing.
Had been so focused on what was behind her, she didn’t face front again until it was too late. Until she’d run into someone. Someone whose arms wrapped around her tight. Suddenly there was light, noise.
And Izzy realised the person who had hold of her, the person who’d grabbed her – who was probably in cahoots with whoever was behind – wasn’t alone.
People, everywhere. Watching, staring.
Judging.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Into every life, a little rain…
And it had certainly done that: fallen. Especially recently, last night and this morning, turning into a storm, in fact. A storm that had been a long time coming, it seemed. Leaving that strange ozone smell in the air, reminding Deborah of the crime scene by the canal years ago, cyclist Haley Archer’s body being examined, the rain pitter-pattering on the roof of the tent.
There would be more crime scenes like those, like Felicity’s, like Geoffrey’s, unless they got to the bottom of all this. Unless she got to the bottom of it.
Wasn’t as if the authorities were helping much; if anything they were giving her more of the cold shoulder than they had before. Okay, she shouldn’t have lost it like that back in the interview room – shouldn’t have let that bastard Geminite (whose identity still hadn’t been confirmed) get to her. Made her old boss look like an amateur in the rage stakes, it had to be said. Fair enough they’d been forced to drag her off him, because she was ready to tear the fucker apart, but they’d treated her like the criminal, not him.
Had taken her off to the visitor’s room, where Glover eventually came and found her, with Rosy in tow. “Well, that wasn’t very clever, was it?” he said.
“I didn’t realise I was going in there to be clever,” she replied. “Just to get information, which you were having trouble doing.”
Glover folded his arms. “That’s what you did, is it? Get information? Looked like you were auditioning for GLOW to me. He could press charges, you know.”
Deborah scowled. “I’d like to see him try. As for information, I found out that he’s working with people on the inside.”
“Working with lots of people everywhere, if he’s to be believed,” Rosy chipped in.
“Seemed to think you knew something about it all, didn’t he,” Deborah continued, never once taking her eyes off Glover. “What exactly did he mean by that?”
Now the inspector threw his hands into the air. “How the hell should I know? The guy’s clearly a nut-job.”
“He’s a fanatic, there’s a difference. They’re focused, and although it doesn’t make much sense to us he definitely knows what he’s doing. And he – they – have a plan.”
“I think the best plan for now is for you to go back to the hotel and get some rest,” said Glover. “Don’t you think, Rosy?”
Her friend nodded. “That’s exactly what I told her when she left the hospital.”
“You mean stay out of the way?”
“I mean stop putting yourself in harm’s way, Miss Harrison. Running about pretending to be Batman and Robin with your librarian friend.”
“I wasn’t— And if it hadn’t been for Vinny, you wouldn’t have that guy in custody right now.”
Glover held up his hands now in a gesture of placation. “We’re very grateful for your help, truly we are. As we… as I have been all along. I’m very grateful for you even coming.”
Funny way of showing it, thought Deborah.
“But I’m beginning to think it was a bad idea. That I might have put you in great danger.”
You think?
“Please, just go and get some rest.”
There didn’t seem much point in arguing and she wasn’t sure she had the energy for it anyway, after the scuffle in the alley and coming down from the adrenaline of facing the Geminite. “Just do me a favour,” she said, saying it to both Glover and Rosy because then she knew it would probably get done. “When you put him back in his cell, have someone watch him. Make sure he doesn’t bite off his own tongue.” She wasn’t done with him yet, not by a long chalk.
So Rosy had run her back to The Imperial, made Deborah promise not to take any more of those pills or have a drink that night. “Tell you what, we’ll have some champagne when all this is over. Deal?” she said. “But you make me a promise, as well.”
“Name it,” said Rosy.
“You double-check that they’re keeping an eye on my family.”
“Of course, I’ll get Glover to—”
“Not Glover. You.”
“Still don’t trust him, eh?”
“I trust him even less now, Rosy! That guy just implicated him in all this, weren’t you listening?”
“That wasn’t what—”
“‘I don’t know what he’s talking about’,” said Deborah, lowering her voice to imitate Glover. “‘He’s a madman!’ Yeah, right.”
“You’re going to have to trust someone else at some point,” her friend told her. A mirror of what her SCI co-worker had said when he’d surprised her at Fagin’s Row.
“I think the best plan for now is for you to go back to the hotel and get some rest. Don’t you think, Rosy?”
“You mean stay out of the way?”
She had no intentions of doing that at all, and there were people she trusted. Clark. Rosy, who regardless of everything was one of her oldest friends. One of the few that had stuck around, anyway. She trusted her at least to check on the security of her kids, her mum, which she agreed to do.
They of course had no idea about all this, how much danger they could potentially be in. The Geminite’s words had really shaken Deborah.
“There are other ways to hurt people… We are everywhere.”
Not an out and out threat, but implied. Enough to rattle her, to have her messaging her mum that evening to check everything was all right. ‘We’re fine,’ had been the response. ‘Apart from Izzy having a bad headache. She’s taken herself off to bed.’
Deborah had nodded. Fine, yes. That was fine. Better than what had been going on in Norchester, anyway. Then an email had come in, distracting her. From Vinny Hole. She wasn’t in the least bit surprised that he had her private email; probably had her mobile number as well.
He was apologising once again, saying that he hadn’t meant to frighten her. And that he hoped this made up for it a little bit. Oh, and to not share because he hadn’t exactly obtained it by legal means. Friend of a friend of a friend, and all that. He sounded more like his father than ever then, even by email.
Deborah had hesitated, wondering what on earth it could be. But her curiosity had got the better of her and she’d clicked the private link he’d sent that would be accessible for the next day. Only to find…
Pages from the diary of Maxwell Craine! She remembered now Vinny mentioning that, saying something about having read the extracts, asking her if she wanted to as well. ‘Fascinating’, she believed was the word he’d used. When she started to pore through the scanned pages, sitting back on the bed in her room, she couldn’t agree more.
Parts had been burned away by fire damage from what happened in the underground cells, but there was enough to build up a picture of young Maxwell and what made him what he was. Someone who felt alone – mostly because he’d been robbed of his ‘other half’, his twin – and been placed with a family who, although they could provide the creature (interesting choice of words when talking about the future Gemini) comforts in life, couldn’t fill that void. It detailed the way his mother had never really warmed to him – something that had resulted in him murdering her, and covering it up – how he’d discovered that he could ‘sense’ the presence of other twins, even if they didn’t know it themselves, and his experimentations into how he might channel their lifeforce so that it wouldn’t be ‘wasted’. When Rosy had called him a unique individual, something no-one had seen before, she hadn’t been joking. He considered himself to be some sort of mutant, the kind that do appear in nature. But whether his killings were actually making him stronger, or it was just all in his mind – psychosomatic, believing it to be true – was anyone’s guess. She supposed that’s what the SCI scientists had been trying to find out with his remains. Interestingly, he thought himself to be some sort of superhero, that this was his origin story. That eventually he’d be the one to fix the world’s problems. To fix everything.
It also showed just how much abuse Anton had endured, to the point where Maxwell had even ordered him to go and play on a main road and he’d obeyed, only to be pulled back out of the traffic by a neighbour just in time. That man had been totally under his control, mesmerised by his older ‘brother’. If she hadn’t understood it fully before, this totally explained why Anton had done the things he’d done in Norchester. How much influence his sibling had on him, and might have on others.
Of course, Maxwell had no idea about the cult that had worshipped him for centuries. Who had engineered this whole thing, apparently. Had they been watching him even then? They must have been. Tracking him as his murderous tendencies emerged, as he tore through twin after twin, stabbing them with a weapon based on his musician father’s tuning fork. Figuring himself to be a detective of sorts, as well. Enough of one to evade the police when it came right down to it. Until, finally, his collection of twin body parts which he thought amplified his connection to the people he’d killed, was almost complete.
The diary ended where he’d just discovered that he had a brother, and was about to contact him. Ended as ‘The Gemini’ was rising.
“You only delayed His plans… He will rise again.”
Deborah had mailed Vinny back, thanking him. Giving him the broad strokes of the interview with the Geminite priest, telling him what she thought was going on: that they were trying to resurrect their ‘god’ somehow.
She hadn’t slept much. The rain kept her awake (into every life, but not this much…) the thunder and lightning, plus a general feeling that something bad was happening to someone close, not to mention the fact that entries from the diary were swirling around in her brain, all mingling, merging into one.
I had that weird dream again last night, the one I’ve been having ever since I can remember…
I’m standing, gazing into a mirror. But the reflection isn’t really me, at least not the me I am right now. More like the me I want to be. My reflection is… more confident-looking, doesn’t wear glasses (I’ve had them since I was seven); I’m standing prouder, taller, instead of slumping…
I’ve felt restless ever since. Like there’s something I should be doing. I need to do.
I overheard them last night. Mother and Father... “You can tell just by looking in his eyes,” Mother said, voice lower but still full of hatred. “He’s different… That… that stranger upstairs masquerading as our boy.”
Both the dreams and ‘Mother’ were right. I’m not a nobody, and I am different (though I didn’t have anything inside me, not back when she said those words). Pieces of the puzzle are starting to slot together…
