The Missing Twin: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist

NINE

Fatima

The pudgy fingers of the man in the gold shop repulsed Fatima as he picked at her bracelets, her necklace, her wedding and engagement rings.

‘They’re not much, are they?’ he stated disparagingly, his grubby glasses fallen to the end of his nose and dandruff from his greasy hair coating his shoulders.

You disgust me, Fatima wanted to say. You are a horrible little man who feeds on the plight of others.

She kept her mouth tightly closed. The odium she felt was not really for him; it was for the perpetrators of this conflict that allowed some to profit whilst most were reduced to utter ignominy. Watching the dealer distastefully poke her earrings she wondered how her happy, settled, ordered life had come to this. And then gave a contemptuous inner laugh at the idea that she had it worse than anyone else, at the audacity of even thinking that she didn’t deserve what had been meted out to her. Millions of lives had been slashed to pieces, tens of thousands slain, a multitude left with scars that would never heal. And she was sad about selling her trinkets. She despised herself for the pettiness of her thoughts.

And yet her heart lurched in her chest when the dealer held a magnifying glass against the stones in the necklace that she always wore. The chain was pure gold and the pendant an interlocking figure of eight shape with two emeralds surrounded by tiny diamonds and seed pearls. Fayed had given it to her when the twins were born, an emerald for each of them to match their mother’s green eyes, he had said. It had been in his family for years and Fatima had always admired it but never thought to own it herself, assuming that Noor, who possessed the status conferred by seniority, would get the pick of the most valuable pieces.

‘This one – this is nice,’ the man said, laying it carefully back onto the table.

Fatima gave an almost imperceptible nod of agreement. Remain implacable. Give nothing away. This had been her advice to herself as she set off for the shop.

‘Take whatever you can get,’ Ehsan had urged her, his brow growing taut and his eyes wide, obviously fearing that she would bungle it somehow and get ripped off, end up selling everything for a song.

Fatima had nodded whilst secretly concocting her own game plan. She was not going to panic and give the jewellery away. She was nobody’s pushover. She’d been telling herself that since the day at the bank and she was beginning to believe it – or at least to make a good enough pretence. There had been bad decisions in the past, though. If only they’d sold the house and left at the beginning, when it all started, Fatima railed at herself now. Then she’d have cash in her pocket and could keep the jewellery for later, for the rainy day that would undoubtedly come all too soon. But no one had known, then, how bad it was going to get, how long it would all go on for. No one could possibly have predicted such a complete breakdown of society, such carnage, such an exodus. Now Fatima had only her few pieces of jewellery to fall back on and thank goodness Fayed’s accountancy business had been lucrative, once, and that he had been generous and rich enough to bestow gold and silver and precious stones upon her, and that she’d been wearing so many of them on the day the bombs fell. She was going to need every single pound she could glean from them today. There was nothing that mattered now except getting Marwa and Maryam out of here.

The gold dealer offered a price. It was derisory.

‘I don’t have time for this.’ Fatima scooped up all the jewels, delicate chains dripping between her fingers, the stones of her engagement ring digging into the palm of her hand, and left. She said nothing more, just turned her back and walked away.

The man called her bluff, shrugging and busying himself with some paperwork. She almost lost her nerve and returned to the counter but just managed to hold on long enough for him to have to summon her.

‘Wait,’ he called out, ‘let me take another look.’

She was at the door already and she paused, hovering on the threshold, making him wait for her to turn back.

His second offer was better, but still nowhere near enough. Fatima scowled scornfully and refused, but this time remained where she was standing. The dealer did some more poking and prodding and examining and scrutinising. Fatima put forward an amount that she would find acceptable. He laughed in her face. She almost capitulated, anything to get away from the humiliation he was joyously meting out to her.

Inside her head, a voice was crying out to her, this is all you have! Nothing else, just this. Don’t mess it up, you foolish woman. She stood firm.

Pursing her lips tightly together, squaring her shoulders, Fatima steadfastly gave the dealer another sum, her absolute minimum. It was not much less than the previous number. Negotiations like these could take hours or minutes. It all depended on how much the seller wanted to sell and the buyer wanted to buy. However much she affected nonchalance, the dealer knew that a woman only sold her jewellery, her wedding ring, if she had to. She only had so much power to influence the outcome.

Eventually, they agreed on a price. It was far lower than the value of the items, but considerably higher than Fatima had expected to get.

‘Thank you,’ said Fatima, and actually meant it.

‘No, thank you, madam,’ said the gold dealer, suddenly jovial now the deal was done. ‘It was a pleasure doing business with you.’

‘Likewise,’ nodded Fatima, and did not mean it.

She stashed the money in the waistband pocket, nodded a perfunctory farewell and left. It was small, but it was a victory. It was proof that she could cope, that she would continue to cope. She would do it for her children because not doing so was not an option, and for Fayed, for his memory. As she walked back to Safa’s house, her thoughts strayed to how life used to be when they were all so happy together and had everything to look forward to. The twins were healthy and bright, they were comfortably off and, most importantly of all, she and Fayed were in love.

Fatima remembered how he had brought the emerald necklace to her one evening as she sat in the girls’ nursery in the courtyard house, singing them to sleep with the songs she had learnt from her mother that had been passed down through the generations. He had hung it around her neck, gently fastening the clasp and then leading her to the mirror to show her how it complemented her dark skin and sparkling eyes. In that moment, Fatima’s world had been complete. The rumbling protests and skirmishes in the big cities far away had been expected to pass over quickly; order would quickly be restored and life would go on as before.

How naive that complacency seemed now. Fayed was dead and the country dying. Life itself could no longer be taken for granted. Fatima quickened her pace as the sky darkened. She had a feeling there would be a raid that night. She must get back to the twins before the bombs began to fall.

Edie

‘So you will forget your idea about the police?’ Vuk’s voice was low, full of concern. ‘Remember that you need to think about your status here. You do not have a work permit, for example.’

He squeezed her hand conspiratorially. ‘It is not advisable to draw attention to yourself or the resort. Vlad would be most unhappy.’

Edie was speechless for a moment. No one had mentioned permits or any kind of legal nicety when she had pitched up and asked for a job. Typical of Vlad to use threats to keep people down. Suddenly, the tension that had been building exploded out of her.

‘Fuck Vlad,’ she shouted.

She got up, knocking her chair over in the process; it was one of the plastic ones, light and unstable. Exactly how she felt at that precise moment.

‘And fuck this whole stupid place.’ Without stopping to pick up the fallen chair, she marched off in the direction of her room. But her flouncing protest soon ran out of steam and she was already regretting her tantrum before she got even halfway through the olive grove and long before she reached her door. Once inside her room she flung herself onto her bed, clenching her fists tight and drumming them onto the pillow, tears of frustration pouring down her cheeks.

Edie needed Vuk right now, really needed him. She couldn’t go to sleep after their argument. What had her mother always said to her? Never let the sun go down on a quarrel. Not that it had been so much a quarrel as a disagreement – her disagreeing with Vuk, him implacable as always. But still, Laura’s presence, her support, could never be relied upon, whereas in Vuk Edie had seen the possibility of building the permanent, fulfilling, mutually beneficial relationship she so yearned for.

Slowly, she sat up and shuffled along her bed until she was facing the mirror she’d propped up on a shelf on the wall. She would have to go and see him, apologise, make up with him. Sniffing loudly, she rubbed her finger over the smudges of mascara on her cheeks whilst deciding what to do. Her make-up was strewn across the room and she gathered up the elements she needed – powder, mascara, some nude lip gloss that accentuated her pale rosebud mouth. She set to work on tidying herself up.

The heat still had not dissipated as she picked her way back though the olive trees, their silvery leaves shimmering in the moonlight. The paths were lit at ground level and by overhead lanterns, but she always deviated from them, preferring to take the most direct course possible, and she had already established an off-piste route to Vuk’s cabin. As she drew near, she could see Vuk sitting on a lounger, his legs stretched out in front of him, his bare feet crossed one over the other. It was impossible to tell if he was asleep or awake, except for the twitch of his fingers as he tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. Silently, Edie slid through the darkness and onto the terrace. She paused, sheltered by the huge fig tree that grew there. It was heavy with fruit, small and green, that clustered pugnaciously on every part of every branch like knuckles on a clenched fist. Hidden from view, she watched Vuk, his brown limbs at ease, his eyes shut, his breathing slow and relaxed.

‘Edie.’

She jumped and her heart beat wildly. She had thought he couldn’t see her, wouldn’t know that she was there.

‘Why don’t you come over?’ His deep voice set her pulse racing.

Stepping out of the shadows, she padded across the rough stone slabs, designed to prevent water from making them slippery. She had heard that in the winter the rain here was torrential, sheeting off the mountains and cascading downwards towards the sea, forming seasonal waterfalls that thundered during their brief revival and then fell silent when summer came again.

Arriving at his lounger, Edie stopped and took a deep breath.

‘I’m sorry I shouted at you.’ The blurted apology was hard to make, but necessary. ‘It’s just because I’m worried about Laura. I mean, I wasn’t worried until Zayn put doubt into my mind and I probably don’t need to be worried, but somehow I am.’ She paused. ‘Just a bit,’ she added, lamely.

Vuk flicked his cigarette butt into the flowering oleander bushes that sprawled beside his cabin walls.

‘You like a beer? Go inside and fetch one from the fridge.’

Edie took the invitation to be Vuk’s way of saying ‘It’s OK, no problem, all forgotten.’ She made her way silently inside and into the kitchen. The senior members of staff who lived on site, namely Vuk and Vlad and Ivana, the admin manager, had cabins of their own. Although not as luxurious as the guest cabanas, they were still comfortable and Edie saw how they could be made really nice with the right touch – some rugs to absorb the echoes, pops of colour to break-up the monotony of the white walls and floors. An enormous bowl containing nothing but fifty lemons or limes sitting on a counter-top, like in the interior magazines or the home sections of the Sunday supplements.

Vuk’s cabin, though, had nothing homely about it. Containing only the bare minimum – bedclothes, a few mugs and a kettle in the kitchen, his toothbrush in the bathroom – the cabin could have belonged to anyone. It was utterly impersonal. She resisted the temptation to go into the bedroom and check it for signs of female visitors other than herself.

She came back with the beers, handed Vuk a bottle and kept one for herself.

‘Sit.’ Vuk indicated to his left hand side. As there was no chair there, Edie knelt down, resting on her upturned heels.

‘Are you still cross with me?’ Vuk was often so unreadable, so inscrutable that Edie could not tell what he was thinking.

‘Of course not.’

Vuk drank and put the bottle on the ground. Reaching out his left hand, he caught hold of the back of Edie’s head, his fingers tangling in her hair causing tiny stabs of pain in her scalp.

‘I’ll make some enquiries around and see if I can find anything out about your sister. You should stop fretting. Leave it to me.’

Adoration flooded through Edie. Vuk would not let her down.

His right hand was on his shorts zip, undoing it, opening the waistband wide. Whatever he wanted, she would give to him, in return for being her knight in shining armour. He wrenched her head roughly forward, grinding her face into his groin, and then releasing the pressure to allow her mouth to find his penis beneath the soft fabric of his underpants. Her lips felt him swell and harden, and she began to tease him, bringing him to full size. He pulled himself free and guided her mouth onto him. Controlling the rhythm, his fingers even more tightly wound in her hair, he made her take all of him in her mouth, arching his back to her until he came, emitting a groan that seemed to originate from somewhere deep within him, and then relaxing back into stillness.