The Gemini Effect, page 20
She’d been feeling bad enough about it, but bumping into his brother Marcus at the hospital where they’d taken the body (before transferring to Rosy’s morgue) had made things a hundred times worse. As she’d done in the past, she mistook the twin for Vinny to begin with – part of her forgetting that he’d been killed. Wanting it not to be true. Only it was, and this was Vinny’s identical brother: Marcus Hole. The spitting image of his brother, yet more confident and forthright. The ‘dominant’ one of the pair, presumably.
“I’m too late again,” was what he’d said when she introduced herself as a friend of Vinny’s. “Same as I was with Dad. Too late.”
“There’s a lot of that going around,” had been Deborah’s reply.
“But you don’t understand. I… and this is going to sound really bizarre, but I heard him. I heard my brother. As plain as I’m hearing you now.”
“What? How do you mean, heard him?”
“It’s hard to explain, but I thought I heard his voice. Must have been around the same time he died.”
That connection again, you could never underestimate it. Where James had shown Jack those murders years ago, it appeared that Vinny had been communicating with his own twin in a different way. “And, if you don’t mind me asking, that is, what did he say?”
Marcus shook his head, but she wasn’t sure if it meant he minded or not. Then he answered: “‘It’s Him. It’s really Him. He’s here.’ I assume whoever killed him?”
Deborah just nodded. But she knew exactly what Vinny had been talking about, what he might be referring to. The person who killed him was the real Gemini. Not an acolyte but the real deal.
She’d passed on that information as well, obviously, though she wasn’t sure what good it would do now. Only that they were facing someone, something that was equally as dangerous as The Gemini had been almost a decade ago. Brought back from the dead, or reincarnated maybe? But Him, definitely Him.
So Glover had been feeling under pressure, and another visit from the Mayor hadn’t helped matters either. More shouting in a side room, then this time when she emerged, the Mayor had looked over at Deborah, walked over to her – sticking out her hand. “Mayor Tierney.”
“Deborah Harrison.”
“Yes, I know who you are,” the woman said, and for a moment Deborah thought she was going to start chewing her out, too. “I wish you were in charge around here,” the Mayor continued. “Instead of all these… outsiders.”
She didn’t know how to answer that one, so she gave a half-nod. Deborah knew what she meant, however; ever since the SCI got involved in all this, it had made things much more difficult than they’d needed to be. If she’d been SIO on this operation, maybe Geoffrey Whittaker might still be alive, or Vinny Hole. And then they’d have another resource at their fingertips.
As it was, the only resources Glover seemed remotely interested in were her children, which he stressed again not long after that meeting and in the same side-room – a place rapidly beginning to feel like ‘the argument room’ from that old Python sketch. “I need to do something, and quick. Especially now the cat’s out of the bag with the press. And the Mayor—”
“I thought the SCI didn’t answer to anyone,” Deborah said to him, hardly able to keep the snarky tone from her voice.
“We don’t,” Glover confirmed. “But she can make life difficult for me while I’m here. While I’m still here, that is. There’s talk of my being replaced.”
Deborah would be lying if she said she was sorry about that, and he could tell exactly what she was thinking without her having to say a word.
“You might not be so glad about who you get instead,” he told her.
“The devil you know?” she offered.
“Something like that, though I take exception to being called a devil. The real devil’s still out there, Miss Harrison. And we’re no closer to catching him than we were when you came on board. Less so now one of our best leads is dead.”
“Not to mention the man who gave us that lead,” she reminded him.
“Though if we’d known about this thing with your sons…”
“I didn’t even know if it was a thing,” she told him again, but then looked down. “I wasn’t sure that—”
“We need them here. Closer,” he stated. “It’s as simple as that.”
“What?”
“You heard me. If there’s even a chance they could tip us off about the next attack…”
“No way!” Not only did she not want to put her children in jeopardy, she didn’t like demands – especially where they concerned members of her family. First they lured her back to Norchester, now…
“They’ll be safer here than where they are, even with the Armitage people keeping an eye out. Oh, I heard about what happened the other night with your daughter; of course I did. They couldn’t find anyone who’d been following her, but…”
She was forced to concede he had a point about that, there were people out there who might wish her mum and Izzy harm, those Geminite gits – and they were still getting nothing from the priest – but this wasn’t the solution. “Then put them all somewhere safer. Somewhere a million miles from Armitage or Norchester.” She couldn’t see that going down well with either her mother or the kids, and she missed them something chronic, but if it meant minimising the risk to them, then wasn’t that worth it?
“The twins need to be here. With you, preferably.”
“At the hotel, you’re joking!”
“Maybe not there. We could arrange for a safe house in Norchester, or on the outskirts where—”
Deborah folded her arms. “No fucking way. Not happening, Glover.”
There was a knock on the door at that moment and they both welcomed the interruption. It was Rosy bringing the autopsy results from Vinny Hole’s PM. “Thought you might want them in person.” It was the same thing as before, though. Might as well have been Haley Archer’s results, as The Gemini had to get on with things quickly that time as well, because people were around. Of course in this instance it was police people on the scene, but it made no difference to the outcome. Death by that bloody twin-pronged fork again. Followed by rough cuts, detaching the knee. The new collection coming along nicely.
As Glover was reading, he kept glancing up and eventually he clicked his fingers. “Rosy!”
“What?” she asked, maybe thinking she’d done something wrong.
“No, no. Don’t worry. We were just talking about how we could bring Miss Harrison’s twins here safely, so—”
“No we weren’t,” Deborah broke in. “You were talking about that.”
“So they’d be nearby in the case of another attack,” Glover persisted.
“Okay…” Rosy strung out the last bit, not quite grasping what he was getting at. Deborah got there first.
“He’s talking about them staying with you.”
“Well, why not? Just till we sort all this out. You know the family, right? Do you have security at your place?”
“Erm, some, but—”
“Perfect. We could bolster that, obviously.” He put down the report and turned to Deborah, opening his palms wide as if to say, ‘that’s the best deal you’re going to get’. “At least they’d be with someone they know. And you could be with them anytime you wanted.”
“They don’t know Kiz. No offence, Rosy.”
“None taken, on her behalf. They don’t know her. I mean, she’d probably be delighted to get to know them. Would jump at the chance of having kids around. Only—”
“Then it’s settled,” said Glover.
“Whoa, whoa. Nothing’s settled,” Deborah maintained. “Far from it.”
“I’d rather do this the easy way than the hard way,” was the inspector’s answer.
“You have no idea what hard is, mate.”
“Hold on, hold on.” Rosy was stepping between them like some kind of referee in a boxing match – or wrestling. GLOW, wasn’t it? Deborah would bloody well show him GLOW if he wasn’t careful. “Look, what’s this about? Why are you bringing the kids here in the first place?”
That was right, she hadn’t told her friend yet. Hadn’t confided in her, just Clark. And now Glover. Shit. Deborah did her best to explain it without sounding like she’d been keeping something from Rosy, but the hurt on the woman’s face was plain.
“I see,” she said eventually.
“Rosy…” Deborah reached out to place a hand on her arm, but the woman moved back just far enough so it couldn’t land.
“Bottom line, this will help. Not just us, but other people. If we can identify where and when our boy might strike next…”
“We can get there just after he’s finished?” Deborah said bitterly. But she knew he was right, and she was rapidly losing ground. It was starting to look like she was keeping the one thing that might crack this whole thing wide open to herself, as if she was a selfish child with toys she didn’t want to share.
“If it’ll save lives,” Rosy said with a shrug of the shoulders, “then I don’t think any of us have a choice.” She looked pointedly at Deborah. “Do we?”
“The twins certainly don’t. They didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did Jack, but he helped anyway. Did all that he could to stop more deaths.”
Deborah felt like raising the point that he’d done it at the cost of his own life, but they’d be going round in circles. Rosy was right. “Okay,” she reluctantly agreed. “All right.”
Glover clapped his hands together like he’d just won a prize. “Splendid. We’ll make the arrangements then, and—”
She raised her hand. “Wait a second, there’s a condition.”
“Name it,” said Glover.
“You get off Clark’s back about what happened with Simpson. That was all my fault, he was only there because of me. Didn’t want to be there, as a matter of fact, so back off.”
Glover stared at her for a moment or two, holding her gaze. Then he nodded. “He’s a good copper. It would be a shame if a… misunderstanding was to leave a mark on his record. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” said Deborah.
Before they all started filing out again, Deborah feeling more than a little sick about the decision she’d just made – had no option but to make – Glover stopped her by placing a hand on her arm this time. She looked down and he removed it. “You’re doing the right thing,” he told her.
“Am I?” she replied. “I wonder.”
But there’d been no getting away from the fact, this might save lives.
No hiding from it either.
PART IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Getting away from it all.
That’s what they were doing. That’s all they were doing. It was what she’d said to her granddaughter, Isobel, what she was trying to tell herself – though it wasn’t really working. For one thing, they lived at the coast. Wasn’t that where people went to get away from everything, from the towns and cities, from the stresses of modern life? Bills, work, all of that. Rushing off to the seaside to reconnect, enjoy some much-needed peace.
They lived in a paradise already. The kind of place Wendy Harrison’s own mum and dad used to bring her to for day trips, fish ‘n’ chips and paddling in the ocean. It was all they’d been able to afford in those days, a cheap break. Wendy had always said that if she had the money she’d try and do better, which was why they took Deborah abroad to France, Spain, Italy, as well as some of the lovely places closer to home.
They’d even visited Armitage Bay a couple of times, all three of them. She had fond memories of buying Deborah candyfloss on the seafront, of her and her late dad going on the rides along the pier – including the huge Ferris Wheel they still had there. Nice memories.
She’d always hoped, but never dared dream, she’d end up somewhere like that when she retired. Not that she’d worked for a long time, not that the stresses of bills or employment had bothered Wendy for many decades. Her husband Stan had made sure of that, worked hard. So hard it had put him in an early grave, sadly.
When she’d pictured herself in those later years, he would always be there. The ‘old farts on a beach’ thing. They’d chuckle at that one, imagine a future when they’d be sat on a bench watching the waves rolling in and out. Suddenly he hadn’t even been there in the present, snatched away from her.
Part of her had to wonder whether the worry about Deborah and that piece of work Phil Croft had contributed. Stan had never liked him from the get-go. “Just something about him,” he’d always say to Wendy, though she’d thought the man was pleasant enough. Which of course he was around them, around other people. It was behind closed doors she now knew that the trouble was brewing.
It made Wendy so sad to think of her little girl being abused like that. Never thought it possible, as strong and feisty as she was. But they do a number on you, men like that. Make you rely on them, erode your confidence. Use phrases like ‘if you loved me, you’d do what I want’. Separate you from friends and family. They’d had to wait till the relationship had hit rock bottom, of course. Till Deborah came to them, turned to them for help, which must have been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
But Stan had worried and worried in the meantime, probably imagining scenarios where he’d be visiting the morgue after Phil had done his worst. Bad enough Deborah was in a line of work that saw her facing danger on a daily basis, although Stan was actually quite proud of her for that. Standing up for what she believed in, doing what was right, helping people. Then Stan was gone, but he’d made sure his wife was well provided for.
Wendy was on her own, and so was Deborah. On her own, apart from Isobel, that was. A pregnant Deborah had needed Wendy now more than ever and she wasn’t about to let her daughter down. Wendy had been there for the birth, had helped out with Izzy when she was a baby. They’d ticked along as a kind of family unit in their own right, and for a while things had been okay, apart from all that moving around for Deborah’s job. Her daughter had managed to push down how lonely she was, and so had Wendy. They had more important things to worry about, like making sure Izzy felt secure. Making sure she felt loved – because she absolutely was.
Wendy couldn’t have loved her more if she’d been her own child. Was maybe a bit softer on her than Deborah, even, because she was her granddaughter. That was just what you did, wasn’t it, whether you were hands on or not. She recalled visits to her own gran when she was small, how she’d give her tubs of ice cream, sweets by the bucket load, regardless of how Wendy’s mum complained. “They’ll rot her teeth, she’ll get too used to them!” Her gran had taken no notice whatsoever, and for that Wendy was grateful. They made for comforting memories when she looked back.
Then Norchester had happened. If Stan hadn’t died when he did, that would have finished him off! His daughter on the trail of a serial killer, and a particularly brutal one at that. Wendy had continued to look after Izzy, naturally. Kept the worst of it all away from her, during the late nights and the obligatory snapping Deborah would do when she got home from work – understanding that it was hard to face death and misery on a daily basis and be dancing a jig when she got home to her family. At the same time, Wendy was always worried about what effect that would have on their relationship – Deborah’s and Izzy’s. Did that little girl think her mother was putting all this before her? And weren’t there times when Wendy worried her own daughter might be doing that, as well?
It was during this period she’d got involved with one of the suspects in the case. A certain Jack Foley. The irony of it all being that, from what she could gather, Wendy would have really liked this man. He was apparently kind, loved Deborah to bits, he was educated – a writer no less – and he was well off. Really well off. Not that money was the be all and end all, but you couldn’t get by without it, could you?
Unfortunately that case ended… well, it ended the way it did. Jack had been killed, had actually given his life to try and protect Deborah – which just made Wendy like him even more; what a pity they’d never met. And her daughter had been badly injured. The only positive being that they’d stopped that monster for good.
At least she’d thought that was the only plus side. Wendy could still recall the moment she’d told her about the twins, Jack’s little ‘going away present’. Felt ashamed now of thinking: here we go again, single mother time. Would need Wendy more than ever now! And at a time when she was looking forward maybe to slowing down, when Izzy was off doing her own thing and perhaps they could both do theirs: Deborah and her.
’Course, it never really worked out like that, anyway. Wendy was still heavily involved in her daughter’s life, just as they both would be with Izzy probably, moving forwards. People do stupid things when they’re young (when they’re older too). And the more time that passed, the more Izzy was starting to take after her mum.
But the twins, she couldn’t imagine life without them now. Felt mortified about the fact she’d even suggested getting rid of them! Hadn’t been able to imagine life without them since they were born (and she’d almost lost Deborah again on the operating table that time); since the connection had been formed between them and their mother, but also them and their grandmother. Now she’d do anything for them, absolutely anything – same as she would for Izzy.
Which was why she’d taken them at short notice when Deborah asked her to. When Deborah had seemed so desperate again. Telling her that ‘the powers that be’ wanted her to return to Norchester, to consult on some case or other. Wendy had been concerned again, because Deborah had left all that behind, the police work and that damned city. Stan would have been proud of the way she’d found her feet at the coast, built up another successful career – a much less terrifying one – and Wendy had to say she couldn’t be prouder herself. Whatever this was, surely they could find someone else to ask? She’d thought that, whilst also being proud again that they’d come to Deborah for her advice.
