The Missing Twin: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist
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Edie snickered. ‘Glad I’m useful every now and again.’ She clinked her glass against Laura’s. ‘I’ve got enough for us to get by on. My enormous earnings from my marvellous job, for a start, plus I’ve still got some savings.’
They both drank and put their glasses down simultaneously onto the high glass table. Edie could see her reflection, distorted and watery, in the sheen of the polished surface. She thought for a moment before asking the question, cautiously.
‘What about you? Have you spent all your modelling money?’
Laura was notoriously reticent about how she made her living and even more so about how she spent it. When they had finished university, they had both signed up with a minor modelling agency. At 5’9” (Laura) and 5’8” (Edie) neither was tall enough for catwalk work. Edie had got one job for a knitwear catalogue and then given up in disgust, finding it impossible to wear a pink fluffy tank top with a smile on her face.
Laura had done rather better, gaining work from various sources and going to America twice. Edie wasn’t entirely convinced that her earnings were exclusively gained from putting clothes on. She suspected that the reverse activity might be involved somewhere. But Laura divulged nothing and suddenly, without warning or explanation, had given it up and told Edie that she was fed up with being a clothes horse and that they were going travelling.
They’d had a great few months in Eastern Europe – Krakow and Warsaw, Prague and Budapest – and then Laura had met a handsome Slovenian man, much older than her, and gone off to the mountains in search of inner peace and really hot sex.
Edie wasn’t sure exactly what had transpired but had a feeling that the discovery that the man was married with children had had something to do with Laura’s sudden disenchantment with her Slovene lover. The rest of the story, the gory details, the retribution that she was sure her sister would have wreaked on such a traitor, she had yet to hear but she was going to enjoy it when she did.
‘I’ve got a bit of dosh left but it’s in the bank at home – I’ve had to cancel all my cards because of the robbery, so I can’t get hold of it at the moment.’ Laura grimaced dolefully. ‘Pants, isn’t it, being skint.’
Edie reached across the table and squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘I can keep us in vodka, no worries. Although,’ she made a sweeping gesture with her head across the crowded forecourt of the bar, ‘the real skill is in not buying our own drinks.’
Laura giggled and nodded. ‘Way to go, Ed.’ Laura was the only person who called Edie ‘Ed’. Edie liked it; it made her feel special and cemented the bond between her and her twin that no one could sever.
Edie continued scrutinising the clientele. She kicked Laura under the table. ‘Those guys over there – you see them? Russian, probably. Let’s see what we can squeeze out of them.’
Laura cast her eyes casually in the direction that Edie was indicating.
‘I’ll drink to that.’ She gave a low wolf-whistle as she appraised the two men, both of whom were dressed in white shirts and chino shorts as if they had just stepped out of a casual wear advert. One sported an ostentatious watch on his left wrist, which even from this distance Edie could tell was a Bvlgari. The other had a pair of mirror sunglasses pushed up onto his head. Both were clean-shaven, blue-eyed and handsome, though one was slim and slight and the other much chunkier – not overweight but solid and sturdy.
It didn’t take long to attract their attention.
***
The rest of the night had passed in a haze of flirting and alcohol and more flirting and more alcohol. Edie recalled going back to the men’s apartment where they had put music on loud and played strip poker, which led quickly to nudity since they were all wearing so little. The watch, she clearly recalled, had stayed firmly on Mr Bvlgari’s wrist although at some point Laura had grabbed the sunglasses and put them on, refusing to give them up for the rest of the evening.
Thinking back on it now, in the cold light of a new morning, tearing her memory apart to remember the details, Edie kept reaching a blank. Disjointed bits of dialogue, snapshots of her and Laura posing naked for pictures on the balcony, of the two of them in the bathroom taking turns to pee, collapsing into heaps of giggles whilst raiding the kitchen cupboards for food, dancing wildly to some Beyoncé number, kept appearing and disappearing in her mind, making no sense and giving no indication of timing or indeed veracity. One thing she knew for certain is that nothing – other than a bit of kissing and cuddling – had happened. It had all just been good, clean fun. Now that Edie had Vuk in her life, the casual flings and one-night stands that had peppered her existence previously no longer appealed. She craved a true partner, a companion, intimacy and love. She longed for Vuk to be the one and only. When – if – he ever reappeared from one of his damn sailing trips, trailing dreary tourists around hidden coves and picturesque harbours, she hoped she would find out for certain that he was of like mind.
In her room, feeling sick and confused, Edie stared around her once more. There really was no one else there. But she herself was there, had woken up in her own room in her own bed and she would never, ever have deserted Laura. That was the code, the rules of the game – one in, both in, never get separated, no one left behind. She slipped her feet into her flip-flops, went to the door and opened it tentatively. The sun hit her full in the face, making her pupils contract painfully and causing the throbbing behind her eyes to intensify. She stepped to the front of the narrow veranda that ran the length of the building and off which each of the staff bedrooms opened. At the far end, by an oleander bush, she could see her scooter, parked haphazardly, leaning heavily to one side.
A dim recollection of leaving it there in the early hours before the dawn surfaced, sending misty tendrils of memory through her sleep-deprived, hungover brain. Had Laura ridden home with her, holding on behind and screeching in alarm when she took a corner too fast or seemed to be coming off the road and heading for the clear water of the bay? She must have done. Edie could not remember unlocking her door, getting undressed and into bed. But she was wearing her pyjamas now so she must have done. It would have been a squash in the single bed with Laura but they had done it before. Had Laura slept beside her last night? She must have done.
It was completely clear that Laura must have done all these things. But beyond that certainty lay nothing. There was absolutely no sign of her.
FOUR
Fatima
There was no home.
Her house and those immediately around it had taken a direct hit. The tree-lined street, once green and peaceful, alive with birdsong and the gentle rustle of branches in the breeze, was now filled with noises of an utterly different nature. The sounds of carnage; of pain and despair. A man was running along the street carrying a child, a boy of about six. The boy was screaming with pain, his left leg bent at an impossible angle and his left arm dangling, limp and lifeless, by his side. Tears were pouring down the man’s face so thickly that his vision must have been obscured and his frequent trips and stumbles testified to that. Fatima turned her head away, appalled by their suffering. There was nothing she could do to help.
She stared around her. Charred remains of tree trunks stabbed at the sky where the once majestic maples had provided shade. Colour had been obliterated and replaced by grey, interrupted only by spatters of blood, deep red blotches on the shattered concrete. And everywhere she looked she saw bodies strewn amongst piles of stone and plaster and roof tiles. Or not, in fact, bodies, only pieces of bodies, randomly distributed; an arm here, a blackened and filthy leg, ankle and foot there. A head lay face down in the arenaceous soil of what was once someone’s carefully tended garden; its hijab soaked with so much blood it was hard to tell what its original shade had been.
Fatima walked forward a few steps, incapable of lucid thought. She would have screamed herself, like the young boy, but she had no voice, could not make her vocal chords produce any sound. A couple, ghostly in their dust-coated clothing, were standing on a pile of rubble, frantically but futilely sifting through it, lifting pathetically small pieces of wreckage and throwing them aside, their shredded hands raw and bleeding, making no impact on the huge mound beneath their feet. Fatima knew them; they were her neighbours, a young man and woman with a new-born baby. She put her hand to her head, covering her eyes as she realised what they must be looking for, and staggered on, away from them and their tragedy.
She continued her stumbling progress, the twins beside her. Somewhere here should have been their house with its courtyard and lemon tree, its almond orchard and its years of family history.
The house was gone.
In its place was a body. Its clothes were ripped to rags by the force of the bomb blast but it looked surprisingly intact, no injury visible. It was a body so familiar that Fatima knew instantly who it was.
Fayed.
Her husband; her children’s father.
She sank to her knees and vomited, retching so violently it felt as if her stomach would burst apart. The girls were becoming hysterical, screaming and sobbing and Fatima didn’t stop them, couldn’t stop them. Violently, she pushed them away to prevent them from seeing what she had seen. But, terrified as they were, they wouldn’t go, instead clinging desperately onto her, burrowing into her back as she crouched down, hiding their faces in the folds of her scarf. Their weight took her by surprise and she lost her balance, falling forward and instinctively putting out her hands to save herself only to find herself pressing down on Fayed’s stomach. The disgust of making contact with his dead flesh made her throw up again and again, her throat raw and burning, her mouth filled with the foul taste of bile.
Despite the warmth of the day and the heat from the fires that burnt amidst the remains, his body was already cold. Soon rigor mortis would set in and then, if the corpse were not buried, the flies would come, followed by the maggots. Fatima forced herself up and lurched away from what had once been her husband. The girls, clinging to her clothing, dragged behind her. They had seen the body, for certain, but Fatima didn’t know if they had recognised their papa. Please God that they hadn’t. They were screaming, and Fatima wanted to join them, wanted to howl at the dust-shrouded sky, wanted to make it all go away and not be true. But a mother’s instinct to protect her young kicked in. She must get away. She wrenched the twins after her, speeding up to a hobbling, stumbling, wreckage-impeded attempt at a run. With no idea where she was going or how she would get there, she knew only that she must flee, must escape these killing fields and arrive somewhere that still had a pretence of normality. Run. All she had to do was run.
Running, barely feasible for an adult, was almost impossible for a child. Marwa’s tiny legs could not navigate the treacherous terrain and she fell, banging her knee on the sharp protruding edge of a bent and contorted piece of metal that sliced into her flesh with the ease of a knife. There was a long pause before the first bellowing screech exploded out of her, far too loud for such small lungs, a yell laden with fear and pain and uncontainable panic. Fatima had no words with which to console her, nothing to say that would make it any better, no will in her body to tend to her daughter’s injury, the seeping gash in her baby-soft skin. Marwa howled and sobbed without cease, on and on, whilst Maryam whimpered and Fatima’s tears erupted from her eyes and poured unstoppably down her cheeks. She hauled herself and her children onwards.
A single gunshot rang out, close by, coming from behind one of the half-standing buildings of what had, until so very recently, been a peaceful and affluent middle-class street. Wiping snot from her nose with a filthy hand, Fatima’s legs froze, paralysed by terror. Her gaze darted from side to side. The sniper fire had prompted forth shadowy figures from other nooks and crannies, creeping, scuttling creatures, the undead, fleeing like prey escaping an unseen enemy.
What have they done to us, Fatima’s soul cried out. What have we become?
‘Run,’ a voice, dust-coarsened and gravelly, urged. ‘Run, now.’
Swept up in his wake, driven by the urgency in his voice, Fatima grabbed up Marwa and placed her on her hip, took Maryam’s hand in a vice-like grip and ran. She did not falter when the second shot came and her companion stopped in his tracks and languidly, as if in slow-motion, fell to the ground.
She just ran, on and on, through the dirt and destruction, between the mountainous heaps of boulders and rubble, iron and steel, traversing every obstacle, as if it were possible to ever truly get away.
Edie
Ripping off her pyjamas, Edie pulled on her bikini, then tied a sarong around her waist. She needed to think clearly, banish the fug that was clouding her mind. Grabbing a towel from the pile of stuff on the floor, she left the room, quelling the need to be sick; her temples pounding afresh from the sudden activity. She marched through the olive grove, where people were stirring, coming out of their cabanas in search of breakfast or, for those with children, heading for the beach even at this early hour. She should be at work already, collecting the cleaning equipment from the store and starting to scrub however many effing cabins Vlad had assigned to her. Sod that.
Veering off the path, she took a short cut that skirted through the trees and close to one of the plunge pools. A man stood there, casting a long shadow over the water, his net extended, capturing the silver-grey leaves that had fallen in the night. Zayn. Why couldn’t it be Vuk? The trips he ran constantly denied them the time together that Edie yearned for. She waggled her fingers towards Zayn in a half-hearted wave. He made as if to say something but stopped as he noticed that her pace did not falter. His gaze followed her as she passed, fixated, Edie was sure, on her breasts that were only just contained by her tiny bikini top. She sighed to herself. Poor Zayn. She turned and gave him another, more enthusiastic wave. She didn’t want to be cruel, but he simply couldn’t hold a candle to Vuk.
Zayn had been the first person she’d got to know when she arrived on the site, basically because he’d hung around her like a moth around a flame. They’d had a fleeting dalliance but he’d got too keen and she’d had to cool the whole thing down, which was lucky as the next thing that had happened was that Vuk had shown up, back from a sailing trip and Edie had fallen for him, hook, line and sinker. He was more suitable in every way, apart from anything else because he was only a few years older than Edie, whereas Zayn was about thirty-five, Edie reckoned. Way too ancient to be taken seriously.
There was something intriguing about him, though. He was pale-skinned, paler than the local people, with heavy-lidded, dark eyes that were soft and forgiving. He wasn’t from here, he came from somewhere else; he’d told Edie a bit about himself but she hadn’t really been listening and now it slipped her mind, but she knew the place he was from he could never go back to for all sorts of complicated reasons from blood feuds to civil war. He had numerous ideological opinions that he liked to air, despite the fact that Edie had made it quite clear that she didn’t do international politics; in fact didn’t do politics at all. She left causes to Laura, who was always marching or fasting or writing letters for something.
Edie reached the tree-shaded concrete path that skirted the beach and headed for her favourite swimming spot. Come to think of it, she pondered as she meandered along, doing her best to avoid a pair of butterflies involved in an elaborate mating ritual, Zayn and Laura would probably get on like a house on fire and he could be a useful diversion, steering Laura well away from Vuk. She happily skipped a few paces off the back of this thought, threw off her sarong and, balancing on a protruding rock that just had room for her size 5 feet, dived into the cool, clear water. Laura might fancy Zayn, she always had a soft spot for the underdog, and she liked older men, viz the Slovenian guy – and if she did, that would kill two birds with one stone; provide a girlfriend for Zayn, who clearly really wanted one, and also ensure Laura would not be making eyes at Vuk. A marvellous solution, though Edie said it herself. Sorted – or it would be if Laura were here.
It was just so typical of Laura to disappear at precisely the moment that Edie had everything worked out and under control. She was, quite simply, the most unpredictable person on the planet. Once they’d left school and home and supposedly become independent adults, Laura had developed a habit of sauntering in and out of Edie’s life – although Edie couldn’t help but admit that it was a tad unusual that on this occasion, Laura had said absolutely nothing at all about her plans. She would probably materialise in a few hours and come over all affronted if Edie pulled her up on her unexplained desertion.
Coursing through the water, Edie concentrated on her breathing and then dived down, deeper and deeper. The underwater world was blue and green and grey, fish flitting between clumps of seaweed and submerged rocks, the occasional bright glint of some sunken litter the only discordant note. She relaxed her body, shut off her mind. She had spent some time with free-divers in Greece and tried to learn their techniques. Although she’d only managed to hold her breath for just over three and a half minutes so far, she was constantly working on it. Swimming was her passion – she’d been in a squad in her school days, won tournaments and medals. At one point it had been thought that she might compete nationally, perhaps even internationally. But then she’d become a teenager, discovered boys, got ill … and those ideas had faded away into the distance. She was still a better swimmer than Laura, though. That was one thing – the only thing – she’d always been best at, and what better place to show off her prowess than here at this idyllic seaside resort?
Now all she had to do was sodding find Laura.
FIVE
Fatima
Distant relatives in a nearby town that had so far avoided attack took them in. Fatima and the children, together with Ehsan, Fatima’s dead husband’s younger brother and his son Youssef, who had been at a football match when the bombs hit the house and so survived. Ehsan’s wife Noor had died of breast cancer eighteen months ago, about the same time Fatima’s own parents had been killed in a car accident, and he and Youssef had lived with Fatima and Fayed from then on, along with Fayed and Ehsan’s parents. Death had seemed to surround them for a few awful months, but they had got through it, she and Fayed, because of the strength of their love. Missing her parents and Noor, who she had been close to, had diminished over time. Now death was back with a vengeance, claiming Fayed and so many others.
Fatima had not imagined that they would be subsumed by such loss again and had not contemplated having to pull through once more. At times, her grief was like being in an earthquake, nothing secure, nothing to hold on to; everything shaking and rocking out of control. She longed for her husband and soulmate and knew the longing would never end. But she had two children to care for and had no choice but to do so. In this terrible war, which had seemed to come out of nowhere and to grow and grow until it engulfed them all, like being sucked inside the rapacious mouth of a giant monster, the only way to survive was to concentrate solely on the here and now, on how to get through each day and night and make it to the next sunrise.
Fatima knew she should be thankful that she was not entirely alone, that she still had her brother-in-law Ehsan. But she had always felt a little uneasy around him. He seemed to be constantly looking at her, observing and appraising her, following her with his eyes, noticing parts of her body that he should not. She’d never mentioned it to Fayed; he had a terrible temper that, when provoked, made him irrational and unpredictable and she didn’t want to bring his wrath down on either herself or Ehsan, because she had no reason to cast aspersions against him. All she had were feelings and feelings were not enough to accuse anyone of anything.
Ehsan was a weak man, though, she knew that for sure. A few months ago Fayed had beaten Youssef for bringing a magazine into the house. It contained pictures of scantily-dressed women, as far as Fatima had gathered, although she hadn’t seen it herself and couldn’t imagine where a thirteen-year-old could have procured such a thing. Ehsan hadn’t joined in the beating but he hadn’t stopped it either. That just made him even more unappealing in Fatima’s eyes – Youssef was his son and he should have taken the lead in disciplining him, not cowered in a corner whilst Fayed thrashed the boy.
Despite this, there was one undeniable fact to contend with. She was a widow now, a woman with neither father, husband, brother nor son to take care of her and protect her. That was not a good position to be in at the best of times, and these were the worst of times. Ehsan, whatever his failings, was a necessary evil. She would just have to put up with him, as with everything else that had befallen them. In thinking this, tears flooded her eyes and the grief clenched at her heart once more. Her anguish and misery were more than she could bear; she could not live without Fayed who had always led and guided and protected. She wanted to shout out at his ghost, release her fury that he had not, as he had suggested he would, gone to the office that afternoon but instead had stayed at home and been pulverised by the falling bombs. Why had he betrayed her like this?
But then the tears fell with renewed intensity, as if desperate for release, as she railed with herself for her disloyalty and evil thoughts. Fayed had not meant to die. He had not wanted to leave them. And now that he had, she must somehow and some way, find the inner resources to keep going.
A test of her resolve came from the rightful demands of Safa, the matriarch of the family with whom they had found shelter.
‘We need food – bread and rice, and lots of other things that are nearly finished,’ Safa declared bluntly to Fatima, a few days after they had arrived. She and Marwa were sitting in an armchair. Fatima was trying to read the little girl a story but she kept losing her place on the page, her thoughts drifting away, her voice falling silent. She swallowed hard and fiddled with Marwa’s hair to cover her embarrassment. She should have thought of the need to contribute without having to be asked. Of course the family couldn’t afford to keep them; everyone was struggling enough as it was.
The shock of losing everything had temporarily eclipsed all else from her mind and then the trauma of arranging a funeral for Fayed, once she had managed to get his body recovered, had also taken its toll. It had all been overwhelming and she hadn’t been thinking straight but now that must change. Money must be procured to give to Safa, Fatima understood, immediately the demand had been made. She had not left Safa’s house since they had arrived there so she had had no opportunity to get cash. She had told herself that she was not going out because there was no reason to and she was tired but she knew that really she was scared. Scared to leave the house and not know if it would still be there when she returned. So she and the girls had stayed at home, if you could call it that, but now she had to pull herself together and pull her weight.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Safa. ‘I’ll go to the bank and withdraw some money.’ As she spoke, it occurred to her what Safa probably really wanted. ‘And – I can do the shopping on my way back. Tell me what I should get.’