COPYCAT
Alex Lake

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Alex Lake 2017

Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photograph © Stephen Carroll/Trevillion Images

Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008199746

Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008199753

Version: 2019-08-29

Dedication

To Mum and Dad, who taught me the magic words: ‘Of course you can’.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Ten Years Earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Part Two

Ten Years Earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Part Three

Ten Years Earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

A Year Later

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Alex Lake

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Ten Years Earlier

The first time someone said that Karen was gone for good was during the week after she disappeared. People – mothers – didn’t just leave their kids without warning for days on end, unless there was something wrong. Very wrong. Depressed, maybe, after the birth of her second child. Or unhappy in her relationship. Her boyfriend was not a local, and he was a few years older than her. Who knew what went on behind the closed doors of their house?

Not Sarah Havenant, or any of her friends, although they were the last to see her. It was the day Sarah moved back to Barrow, Maine, after four years of college and then four more of medical school, ready to start her residency at the local hospital, and she and her friends had gotten together in a bar. Reconnect. Catch up on old times. Talk about what was to come.

Sarah, Jean, Franny, Luke. The old gang, at least the ones who were still around.

And Karen. Karen, mom of two boys, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. Karen, who was now missing.

Sarah didn’t remember Karen leaving the bar. It was sometime before 2 a.m., which was the time she had staggered into a cab with Franny and Luke. Alec – a guy they had bumped into – had offered to drive but, drunk as she was, Sarah had been sensible enough to turn his kind offer down.

Franny and Luke didn’t remember seeing her leave either, and neither did Jean, who had left early; she worked on an organic farm in the summers and had to get ready for the farmers’ market the following day.

But sometime in between Jean’s early departure and 2 a.m., Karen had left too.

Although, as it turned out, vanished was a better word.

The next day, Sarah had run into Karen’s boyfriend, and father of her two sons. She didn’t know him – they’d met briefly once or twice when she was back in town – and he’d asked if she knew where Karen was.

Sarah shook her head. Is Karen OK? she said.

She didn’t come home last night, he replied. I woke up around four with this guy – he was with his sons and he kissed the one-year-old on the top of the head – and she wasn’t there. I called her cell but there was no answer.

He’d called around. Tried the local hospital. But there was no trace of her.

At some point in the night, impossible though it seemed, she had disappeared.

And, with nearly a week gone, it looked like she wasn’t planning on coming back anytime soon.

1

Sarah Havenant glanced at her phone as she walked to Examining Room Three. She was expecting a message from Ben, her husband, telling her whether he could pick up their son, Miles – a mere seven years old but, all of a sudden, every bit the rebellious teenager, which was a surprising and unwelcome transformation – from the farm camp where he was spending a week of his summer vacation. If not it meant she would have to leave the Barrow Medical Center as soon as she finished work and head over there to get him, which would mean no stop at the gym on the way home and no workout.

And today, more than most days, she needed a workout, because she had just come from a patient who Sarah had told, sitting there in the examining room, that the results of the tests she had been for were not good; in fact, they were awful, and, given the particular form of cancer she had, it was probable her life expectancy would be measured in months and not years.

The patient – Amy, she was called – had left almost without a word. Her husband was with her; he had started asking questions, but Amy had stood up and shook her head and told him they could get more details later, but right now all she wanted to do was leave.

I want to go and see Isla, she’d said.

Isla, her nine-month-old daughter. A daughter who would, barring a miracle, shortly be motherless.

So she needed the gym. And then she would go home to Ben and Miles and five-year-old Faye and two-year-old Kim and a meal and then stories and bathtime and bed. And she would make sure to say a prayer of thanks – even though she was not religious in any way – for her family.

But there was no message from Ben. There was, however, a Facebook friend request, from a name she hadn’t thought of for a long time. A decade, at least.

Rachel Little.

Who was not really a friend. She’d been at Barrow High School with Sarah, but she’d not been part of Sarah’s circle. She’d not been part of anyone’s circle, really. She didn’t fit; high school was carefully stratified into tribes – jocks, cheer squad, chess club – and Rachel was into tarot readings and the occult and weird food fads. It probably wasn’t true, but Sarah remembered her eating and drinking nothing but home-made vegetable juices, which she enthused about to anybody who would listen.

Rachel had been tall and long-limbed, but not in a graceful way. In a not-quite-in-control of her hands and feet way, and her hands and feet were prominent, because she always wore pants and long-sleeved shirts – never dresses or skirts or tank tops or T-shirts – and they were always too short for those long, gangly limbs.

But still, she was nice enough, and it would be interesting to see what she was up to. That was one of the great things about Facebook. You could keep in touch with lots and lots of people in a non-committal way. Ben thought it was a waste of time – he’d deleted his account a few months back – but Sarah liked it. She liked people, and she was interested in their lives.

She paused at the door to Examining Room Three – inside was her last patient of the day, a hypochondriac man in his early forties who enjoyed splendid good health but was convinced he was dying – and opened the friend request.

Hi Sarah! It’s me, Rachel! Recently got on Facebook (a bit late but you know me – not exactly with it!) and thought I’d look you up. Hope you’re well. I’m in the process of moving back to Barrow so maybe we’ll catch up. One question – is this the right account for you or is it the other one (with your name and photo on)?

Sarah frowned and typed a response.

Rachel! Would love to catch up. At work or I’d write more. And I only have one account – this one!

She sent the reply, walked into Examining Room Three, and forgot all about it.

Ben, it turned out, was able to pick up Miles. His message – OK re: Miles – was typical of him. He treated email and text messages as vehicles to pass on the maximum of information with the minimum of words. He claimed it was because he was British and didn’t believe in idle chat, but Sarah thought it was really because he harbored some vague idea that the more words you wrote, the more the message could cost. Either way, Miles was taken care of, so she stopped at the gym on her way home and joined, a few minutes late, a spinning class. Afterwards, she walked outside with Abby, a marketing graduate in her mid-twenties who had played lacrosse in college and who took, it seemed to Sarah, a too obvious pleasure in out-spinning the late-thirties moms and retirees who made up much of the gym-going population of Barrow.

‘Ugh,’ Abby said. ‘So hard. My thighs were burning. She’s the best instructor.’

She was Tanya, a woman who was a few years older than Sarah but who had a body that, as a doctor, Sarah considered to be a marvel of medical science. She did the class with her charges but, when they were dissolving into puddles of their own sweat, she was untroubled. And, as she spun, she would shout out what to do next. The fact she was capable of rational thought was impressive; that she could speak was amazing; that she could shout was beyond belief. Although it was ridiculous – she was a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three with a husband with whom she still had an active (and not unadventurous) sex life – Sarah had, she realized, a bit of a crush on Tanya. Not – she didn’t think – in a sexual way, but in a I-want-to-be-this-person way. She was awestruck by Tanya, and found herself wanting to impress her with her spinning skills, a mission which was likely to result only in Tanya wondering why Sarah was so easily reduced to a red-faced and panting wreck.

‘She is phenomenal,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t know how she does it.’

‘Lots of hard work,’ Abby said, with the literal-mindedness of the young. ‘There’s no secret sauce that gets you in shape.’

‘I guess so,’ Sarah replied, wishing there was a secret sauce that got you in shape. She took her phone and car keys from her bag. ‘See you next time, hopefully.’

‘I’ll be here for Thursday’s class,’ Abby said. ‘See you then.’

Sarah nodded and opened her car door. She put the keys in and started the engine. As she waited for the air-conditioning to kick in she looked at her phone.

There was a new message from Rachel.

Great! I’ll let you know when I’m back in Barrow. And here’s the other account in your name! It’s definitely you!

There was a link. Sarah tapped it with her forefinger and it brought up a Facebook account.

She frowned. It was her name. Sarah Havenant.

She scanned the page. Married to Ben. Mother of three kids.

And the profile photo was of her. She was smiling and looking straight at the camera, standing by an ice rink they had skated at a lot last winter. She remembered that particular day: she was wearing the coat she’d bought at one of the outlet stores in Freeport. It was made from some new material – super lightweight but super warm – and she’d been struck by how much she wished they’d had things like this when they grew up; most of her childhood winters had been spent wrapped in so many layers it made movement practically impossible.

But it was all irrelevant. The question was, why the hell was there a Facebook account purporting to be her? And, more to the point, who had set it up?

She scrolled down.

And froze.

The most recent post was from that morning. It was a photo of Miles, Faye and Kim sitting on a beach towel eating peanut butter sandwiches, and it had a caption:

Turns out Kim likes sand sandwiches. Thanks to her older siblings for putting the sand in her sandwich and helping her discover this!

Sarah stared at the screen. This was not some random photo of her at an ice rink six months ago. This had happened yesterday.

They had been at the beach, and, at lunchtime Miles and Faye – it was more Faye, in truth – had told their youngest sibling the reason they were called sandwiches was because they had sand in them, and, desperate for attention, Kim had nodded agreement. Smiling, they had spread mayonnaise on bread, sprinkled it with a liberal dose of fresh, warm sand and handed it to her.

Mmm, Kim said, as they encouraged her to eat it. I love sandwiches.

But no one else knew about it. They had come home late in the afternoon, and, once the kids were in bed, Sarah had spent the rest of the evening getting ready for work.

Slowly, she began to scroll through the rest of the post.

2

She could not believe what she saw.

The next post was a photo of her and Ben on a date a few weeks earlier at a Japanese restaurant. They were sharing a sushi boat and a bottle of white wine; the photo had been taken from behind Ben and she was listening to him, her right hand resting on her glass. The caption read:

Date night with my wonderful husband. We need to do this more often!

It was, she realized, exactly the sort of banal post she would have written.

Except she hadn’t. Someone else had. And they had done more, many more.

A photo of her in a Greek wine bar in Portland with Toni and Anne, her two best college friends, on a night out in early spring. Caption: Girls night! Yay! A photo of her and Jean, a teaching assistant in the local kindergarten who Sarah had known all her life, after a 10k race they’d run in April. It had rained nonstop throughout, an old-fashioned downpour, and they were dripping wet, and grinning. Caption: Bit rainy but no problem. My delightful British husband said before we set off ‘Nothing to worry about. This is just drizzle back home.’ He then proceeded to pull out his golf umbrella, hand warmers and flask of hot tea.

Ben had said those very words, then waited at the finish line under his umbrella, sipping his drink.

Holy shit. What was this? What was this and who had done it?

It got worse.

A photo of Faye’s pre-school production of The Giant Turnip, Faye at the left of the stage dressed as a carrot.

A photo of the kids building a snowman on the town square.

A photo of Sarah sipping hot chocolate in the Little Cat Café, a sheaf of papers on the table in front of her. She’d been researching an article and had gone to the café to arrange her thoughts.

A photo, from February, of her new kitchen, installed over the winter months.

Caption: Finished! I love this!

A photo which had been taken inside her house.

The air-conditioning in the car was now fully up and running, cold air flowing from the vents and washing over her, but she barely noticed it. She had goose pimples up and down her arms and legs, but it was not the cold air raising them. It was not the cold air chilling her.

It was the photos. Of her, of Ben, of her house.

Of her kids.

Who was doing this? It had to be someone who was at all these places, someone who was at the beach yesterday and out on date nights with her and there when she was with her girlfriends and at Faye’s pre-school performances.

There was no one. Not even Ben.

And why? Was it some kind of a joke? Maybe all her friends were in on it – which would explain how they had so many photos – but why? What did they get from it? And why do it for six months without telling her? Why do it at all?

It made no sense.

Worse, she thought, a cruel trick by my friends is the best explanation I can hope for. I have no idea what the alternatives are, but I bet none of them are good.

She looked back down at her phone and scrolled through the photos. This was not her friends. A joke at her expense – perhaps a fake Facebook account in her name in which she made off-color jokes or revealing admissions about her sex life – was just about possible. Toni had been a bit of a prankster in college – calling for pizzas for other people’s houses, that kind of thing – and, although she had mostly grown out of it, she still retained part of her juvenile nature. She always would. It was in her blood. Her father and two elder brothers never stopped playing tricks on each other, Toni and her long-suffering mom. The first time Sarah had stayed at their house on Cape Cod, in the summer of their freshman year in college, Marty, Toni’s dad, had made boiled eggs for breakfast, serving them in dainty porcelain egg cups with neatly sliced toast glistening with butter besides them.

Eat, he said. It’s my specialty.

Boiled eggs aren’t much of a specialty, Dad, Toni replied, still sleepy.

These I call Marty’s Boiled Eggs Surprise, he said. Dig in.

Sarah tapped the shell with her spoon. It cracked and she pulled it away. For a second she didn’t understand, then she looked up at Marty – he insisted she call him Marty and not Mr Gorchoff, which made her feel grown up and a bit uncomfortable at the same time – and told him the egg was empty. It was a hollow shell.

That’s the surprise! he said. Your egg’s not there.

He passed her a mug of coffee. She took a sip, and then another – it was a wonderful, heady brew – then glimpsed a sudden blaze of color among the brown, muddy coffee, which disappeared when she held the coffee mug upright.

She tilted it again, and there it was.

An egg yolk.

Mr Gor— Marty, she said. There’s an egg in there!

That’s the other part of the surprise, he said. But don’t worry! They’re organic!

She had spent the rest of the weekend in terror of the next little ‘surprise’, but mercifully she had been left alone. Toni, however, had grown up being constantly subjected to pranks which were a touch cruel and more than a touch irresponsible – so it was not impossible she would have set up a fake Facebook account in her friend’s name.

But not one with Sarah’s kids on it.

Like most of her mom friends, Sarah was a little tentative about putting photos of her children up on the Internet, whatever Facebook said about privacy, so she restricted access to her account to only her friends, and then she was careful about what she put up there.

But this account was public. These photos were there for all the world to see. And even Toni would not have gone this far in the service of some prank.

Which left who? Ben? He’d have access to the photos – he could get them from her phone – but she couldn’t imagine him doing it. He’d have to have set it up on his work computer and then made sure she never saw any of the notifications and emails that would come in. She often used his phone, and – she wasn’t proud of this, but it was true nonetheless – gave his emails and text messages a quick scan. They were reassuringly boring. Stuff from his colleagues about operating committee presentations and legal reviews and seeking board approval and texts from his friends about where to watch the game and whether they had a pass from the wife to go out.

No, if it was Ben, he would have had to employ a level of deception she did not think he had in him, not least because his utter cluelessness about how computers worked would have to be a long-standing deception requiring a level of acting talent she was pretty sure was beyond him.

Pretty sure. But you never really knew. You heard of stranger things in marriages.

She shook her head and dismissed the thought. There was no way this was Ben.

But then who? Who the fuck was doing this?

3

So, she has found it, finally. It has taken a while. It has been there for six months, a piece of bait, dangling in the water. But she has not sensed it until now. Not been aware of its presence. She is not the most observant of people – surprising, for a doctor – which works against her. It makes it easier to do a thing like this.

Obviously she does not Google herself. That is a mistake. It’s always a good idea to know what is out there, to have the best available information, to know what your enemy knows. But then, if you don’t even know you have an enemy, why would you bother?

She will be wondering who did it, who put these photos up there, and she will be asking herself why, but she will not figure it out. Her mind does not work in such a way. She sees no reason why anybody would do this to her. She doesn’t even know how they would do it, although the who and the how are closely related. Understand one, and she will understand the other.

But she will understand neither.

Not, at least, until it is too late.

Because this is only the beginning. This Facebook account is merely the hook that lodges in the mouth of the fish. The fish thinks the hook is its only problem, thinks that if it can only get rid of it, then all will be well again in its world.

But it is wrong. Because the hook is attached to a line which is attached to a rod which is held by a hand. And the hand is controlled by a mind, a mind which has been waiting and watching and plotting the best time and place and method to catch the fish.

And so the fish struggles to free itself, but all it manages to do is to embed the hook deeper. And as it continues to wriggle and fight it uses up its supplies of energy until it is too exhausted to continue, and then its struggles wane.

And the hand senses it, and begins to wind in the reel …

So far she has only felt the prick of the hook in her cheek. The rest – the struggles, the fight, her eventual destruction – is yet to come.

Fun. This will be fun. Fishing always is.

Revenge always is.

4

Sarah parked next to Ben’s car – a dark blue (night mineral blue, according to the salesman who had sold it to them when Miles was an infant) family sedan. America’s favorite: a Toyota Camry. Sensible, reliable, fuel-efficient, strong residuals. And needing to be replaced, soon.

A few weeks back, Ben had mentioned getting a convertible to replace it.

OK, but get one with five seats, she said.

They don’t make them with five seats, he replied. The roof has to fold into the body of the car so it reduces the space available for a back seat. It’s normally two at most.

She looked at him, her expression a mixture of amusement and incredulity. But we have three kids, Ben. What’s the plan? Make Miles ride his bike?

We have your car if we need to go somewhere all together, he replied. I only really drive this to work. And it’d be nice in the summer to have the top down.

But what if you do need to take all three? What if I’m away for the weekend and something happens?

I’d get a cab, he said. And you can always think of reasons why we would need two big cars. But most of the time we don’t.

Fine, she said. If that’s your priority.

It’s not a question of priorities, he replied. I’d simply like to have a convertible. But never mind. Perhaps it’s a stupid idea. Early onset midlife crisis.

And they left it there. She felt bad about having dented his dream; in truth, she wasn’t sure why she didn’t want him to get a convertible. It would have been nice for her to drive it, too. It was simply … well, it did reek of a midlife crisis. In some vague way she found it a threat, a sign he was making decisions based on his own needs and not the needs of the family. Anyway, she’d tell him to go ahead and get his convertible. She’d be happy for him. At least, she’d try to be.

That was for later. For now, she was glad his current car was there. It meant he was home.

Ben was sitting on the couch, Kim on his lap. He was reading the book of the moment, Hairy Scary Monster, which Kim demanded incessantly. Ben was a very patient dad – it was one of the things Sarah loved about him – but even he would balk at the seventh or eighth reading of the same kids’ book during the same bedtime.

‘You’re reading Hairy Scary Monster,’ Sarah said. ‘Imagine.’

‘Only the second reading today,’ Ben said. ‘So it still retains that fresh feeling common to all great literature.’

‘Daddy, read,’ Kim said. She fit the profile of a third child exactly: with two older siblings she had learned to fight for her fair share of whatever commodity was up for grabs – attention, cake, time on the trampoline. She was desperate to be in the gang, whatever the cost, which was what had led to the sand sandwich episode on the beach.

‘Hey,’ Sarah said. ‘Something pretty weird happened today.’

‘At the clinic?’

‘No. I got a friend request from someone I went to high school with. She’s moving back to Barrow.’

‘What’s weird about that? Plenty of people move here. I moved here from London.’ He grinned at her. ‘But then I had a good reason to.’

‘That’s not the weird part.’

‘Daddy,’ Kim said. ‘Read!’

‘One moment, petal,’ Ben said. ‘Mummy and I are talking. So what was the weird part?’

Kim grabbed her dad’s hand and put it on the book. ‘Read!’ she said. ‘Read Hairy Scary Monster.’

Ben rolled his eyes. ‘Can we talk about this later?’ he said. ‘I don’t think Kim is too keen on having her story interrupted.’

It was nearly nine o’clock by the time they got round to talking about it. As she was putting Miles to bed he started telling her about farm camp – they had washed a pig with a hose and he was wondering whether they could get a pig as a family pet. Sarah explained that pigs weren’t really pets, and they didn’t have time to take care of one, but Miles demurred: he would take care of it, he insisted. And not only would he look after it night and day, he would do lots of jobs to earn money to buy it fun toys.

Let’s start with a pet which is a bit less ambitious, Sarah told him. Like a goldfish.

Or hairless rats, Miles said. Anthony has hairless rats.

Sarah shook her head. She’d seen those hairless rats; she wasn’t squeamish – she was a doctor – but they were not the most beautiful members of the animal kingdom.

Goldfish, she said. And if you can take care of those, maybe a hamster.

And then a pig? Miles said.

Maybe then a pig, Sarah said, confident they would never make it to that point.

Downstairs, she poured two glasses of wine. Ben was on the couch, his laptop open on his knee. She handed him a drink.

‘Work?’ Sarah said.

‘Cleaning up email,’ Ben said. ‘No big deal.’

With Ben it was never a big deal. He was a lawyer and she knew he had some stressful cases, but he never brought it home.

There’s no point worrying about work, he’d say, adding his favorite quote: ‘worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it’s due’. You spend your time thinking about things that might never happen. It’s pointless. If it happens, figure it out. If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it.

And he didn’t. Which was one of the things Sarah – who did worry, who had always worried, to a fault – loved about him.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Miles wants a pig.’

‘Presumably his desire for a pig is not the weird thing you mentioned earlier? Because it seems exactly the sort of thing Miles would want.’

‘No. I’ll show you the weird thing.’ She picked up her phone and opened the fake Facebook account. She passed it to him. ‘Take a look.’

He scrolled down the screen. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘What’s weird about this? I know I don’t use it, but isn’t this what Facebook is for? Sharing photos? Telling people that you have alfalfa sprouts in your smoothie?’

‘It is. And I’m amazed you know what an alfalfa sprout is.’ She paused. ‘But this isn’t my account.’

Ben frowned. ‘What do you mean? The photos are of you. And the kids.’

‘I know. But I didn’t know it was there until today. Rachel, the friend who sent a friend request, asked me which account was mine. I hadn’t set eyes on it until then.’ She took the phone and switched to her account. ‘This is me. The real me.’

Ben looked at the screen for a few seconds, then put the phone on the couch next to him. ‘So who set it up?’ he said.

‘That’s exactly what I want to know,’ Sarah replied. ‘I have no idea.’

Ben stared at her. ‘This is weird,’ he said. ‘But let’s think about it logically. Who could have set it up?’

‘I don’t know. No one.’

‘It would need to be someone who was at those places. And there aren’t many photos. About eight, in total? So it wouldn’t be too difficult to do.’

‘But no one was at all those places.’

‘Maybe it was someone who has access to your phone,’ Ben said.

‘But I didn’t take all those photos. Like the one of me and you at the Japanese restaurant. It looks as though it was taken from somewhere inside. It wasn’t me who took it.’

‘So either it was someone who happened to be at all those places, but who would have had a good reason to be there so you wouldn’t have noticed anything out of place, or it’s someone who knew you would be there and went – surreptitiously – to take the photos.’ He raised his hands in mock fear. ‘Which would mean you have some kind of stalker.’

‘Ben!’ Sarah said. ‘Don’t joke about it! It’s not funny!’

‘Sarah,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you have a stalker.’

‘Maybe not. But no jokes.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘No jokes. But let’s see if we can narrow it down. Let’s start with the most recent photo. We’ll remember that best. Who was at the beach yesterday?’

‘Lots of people. It was a hot Sunday in summer in Maine. Everyone heads to the water.’

‘Let’s list them.’

‘Mel was there, with Anthony and James. I think I saw Bill, her husband, as well. Then there was Jean and her two kids. Lizzie and Toby were there with their girls. And I saw Miles’s kindergarten teacher. She was at the other end of the beach to us.’ Sarah shrugged. ‘There were lots of people.’

Ben puffed out his cheeks. ‘All I can think is, it’s some kind of a joke,’ he said. ‘Someone’s winding you up.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Sarah said. ‘But there’s still the question of who would do such a thing. Whoever it was would have to have been in all those places.’

‘Not necessarily. It could be a few of your friends. They could have shared photos with each other.’

‘I suppose,’ Sarah said. ‘But it seems a very elaborate trick.’

‘Well,’ Ben said. ‘I wouldn’t worry—’

Sarah’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen and held up her hand to silence him.

There was a notification. From Facebook.

She opened it, and blinked. She did not believe what she was seeing.

‘Holy shit,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘It’s a friend request.’ She looked at her husband. ‘From me. From Sarah Havenant. From the fake account.’

5

Friend Request: Sarah Havenant. Confirm / Delete.

Sarah knew it was nothing, just digital information rendered into text by some software, but that didn’t stop her from feeling very disoriented. It was odd to see your own name and photo asking you to be a friend.

I’m Sarah Havenant, she thought. Not you. Not you, whoever you are.

‘Can I see?’ Ben held out his hand for the phone. He stared at the screen. ‘This is weird,’ he said. ‘Really weird. It’s got to be some kind of a joke. There’s no other explanation.’

There was a confidence in his tone which Sarah found reassuring. Ben was quick to analyze a situation – a legal case, a friendship, a problem with the kids’ behavior – and quick to understand what was important, which gave him a sense of clarity in the stages before the facts came in. It was how they had got married. They met in a club in London when Sarah was at a work conference there, and they’d kissed. Nothing more had happened that night, but they’d arranged to get together before she left. It turned out ‘before she left’ meant the next night, and the next, and the next. The last night she was there he told her they were going to get married.

She had laughed. It’s a bit early for a wedding, isn’t it?

Take it the right way, he said. It’s not a proposal. It’s a prediction. I can tell. I get the same feeling at work. We have some case come in and there are all kinds of competing opinions and contracts and noise and I look the guy in the eye and know he’s a crook. Which is the only important thing to know. And it’s the same with you. The only important thing is that I already know we’re getting married. The rest is merely details.

But I live in Maine. I’m at the beginning of a residency in a hospital in my hometown. And I’m only here until tomorrow.

Like I said, he replied, mere details. They can work themselves out.

And they did. The next day she decided to change her flight and stay on a while. They went to Stonehenge and Edinburgh and Durham and Hadrian’s Wall and then she really had to go home.

Once she was back in Maine, they had a long-distance relationship, a kind of relationship which she had always been convinced would never work, but in this case, it did: and it did because of Ben and his certainty. He called almost every day, visited once a month – he always came to her – and then, nine months after they met, he asked her to marry him.

Are you sure? she said, aware this was not the normal response.

Yes, he said. I’m always sure.

And it was this certainty that had led them to get married and for him to give up his legal career in London and move to Maine and have kids. It was a powerful force, his certainty, and she found it, in truth, a little frightening. It was fine when it was working in the same direction as her, but she had wondered, more than once, what would happen if it started to work in a different direction. One day he might decide their marriage was over, might analyze their situation and decide it was hopeless, and then his certainty would take him inexorably away from her.

But for now she was glad he had decided this Facebook account was nothing more than a joke. She only hoped it was true.

‘Have you talked to anyone else about this?’ he said. He had a thoughtful look on his face, as if something had occurred to him.

She shook her head.

‘No one at all? No one knows you found out about this?’

‘No one. Why are you asking? What are you getting at?’

‘The timing,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit – well, it’s a little bit odd, don’t you think?’

‘The timing of what?’

‘The friend request from the other Sarah Havenant. It’s odd it should come in now, on the same day you found out about the profile. I mean, it’s been up there a while. Why today? It’s quite a coincidence, if indeed it is a coincidence.’

Sarah’s stomach tightened. ‘You think it’s not a coincidence? Someone knows I found out, and that’s why they sent it?’

‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘But it helps, right? Figure out who could know you got the friend request and you know who sent it.’

‘No one knows,’ Sarah said. ‘How would anyone know?’

‘What about the person who told you there was another account in your name? What was her name?’

‘Rachel,’ she said. ‘Rachel Little.’

‘Maybe it was her. She’d know you’d found the account, since she told you about it.’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It can’t be her. She’s not been in Barrow for years.’

Ben shrugged. ‘Ask her.’

‘Maybe I will. But first I need to speak to Jean.’

6

Jean lived on the next street. To walk on the road was about a half mile, but there was a path through the trees which connected their backyards. Sarah called on her way along it to let her friend know she was coming.

Thankfully, Jean was still up. Even though it was only half past nine, that was not a given: she was a single mom with two adopted kids, so early nights were the norm. Her former husband – father of the two kids she had adopted – had died three years ago in a hit-and-run car accident. They never found the driver; there was a stolen car, abandoned a few miles away with a dent in the hood, a web of cracks in the windshield, and an empty bottle of whiskey in the footwell. There was also a syringe on the passenger seat.

The car had been stolen from the Rite-Aid car park in Barrow; the cops had CCTV footage of it leaving the car park but they could not identify the driver, who was wearing a hooded top. They assumed it was a petty thief looking to make a few bucks for their next fix of heroin, which was the drug of choice in Maine for those who could not get their hands on prescription opiates.

She’d had a rough time of it, Jean, but she was one of those people who somehow managed to carry on. Even after Jack had died, she’d tried to focus on the positives. She’d said to Sarah that at least she had the kids – she couldn’t have any of her own – so they would be her family for the rest of her life.

They were lucky to have her as a mom, Sarah replied. As she was to have her as a friend.

Sarah opened the back door and walked into the kitchen.

‘Hi,’ Jean said. She was making sandwiches for her sons’ lunches. ‘What’s up?’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s been one of those days.’

Jean raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

‘Did you hear about Rachel Little?’

‘Coming back to Barrow?’ Jean nodded. ‘She sent me a friend request.’

‘Me too,’ Sarah said. ‘Anything weird about yours?’

‘No,’ Jean said. ‘What do you mean, weird?’

‘Well, she asked me which was my true profile.’

Jean pursed her lips and frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’

Sarah passed her phone to Jean. ‘She meant this.’

Jean put the knife down and swiped her finger over the screen. She studied it for a few seconds.

‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘That’s my question. And ten minutes ago I got a friend request. From this fake account. So someone knew I’d just found out about it.’

‘Oh my God,’ Jean said. ‘Who would know? And who was at all the places the photos were taken?’

‘Nobody I can think of,’ Sarah said. ‘Other than me.’

‘Right. And it wasn’t you.’

Sarah paused. ‘Ben thought it might be Rachel. She knew I’d seen the account, because she alerted me to it.’

‘I guess,’ Jean said. ‘But I don’t know how it could be her. How would she have got the photos? She’d need to have been around Barrow for the last six months, which rules her out. She’s been on the West Coast.’

They looked at Rachel’s profile to check; she had been working as a psychologist in San Diego, specializing in grief counseling and post-traumatic stress disorder. It made sense; there was a large military presence down there. That was all there was, though: her profile was only a few weeks old.

‘She’s new to Facebook,’ Sarah said. ‘So it could all be bullshit she put on her profile, when all along she’s been much closer to home.’

‘Maybe,’ Jean said. She looked doubtful. ‘But it seems a bit of a stretch. And you still have the question of why she would be doing this. You guys got along OK in high school, right?’

‘More or less. She was pretty quiet. I didn’t have much to do with her.’ Sarah paused. ‘Although there was one time we were kind of at odds, over that guy Jeremy.’

Jean nodded slowly. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Sort of. But it was no big deal, right?’

Jeremy had showed up in their sophomore year of high school. He’d come from somewhere in California and he was a new and exotic addition to their lives. He surfed – at least he said he did – talked with authentic West Coast slang about all the grunge clubs in Seattle he’d been to, and wore clothes that Sarah and most of her friends had only seen on MTV.

A week or so into the school year he had asked Sarah out for coffee. She went along; he was funny and charming, but underneath all the clothes and surface cool she realized he was terribly immature. She doubted the truth of most of his stories, and so, after a few more dates, she told him she was no longer interested.

Before she did so, there had been an odd encounter with Rachel. After school one day Rachel had grabbed her elbow and steered her into a classroom. She looked exhausted and on edge, and she asked Sarah what was going on with Jeremy.

Nothing much, Sarah replied. He’s nice but there’s no spark.

Rachel had tears in her eyes when she spoke. Then leave him for me, she said. Leave him for someone who cares.

Before Sarah could reply the door opened and one of the teachers – an English teacher called Mrs Coffin – came in, and Rachel scuttled away.

As far as Sarah knew, she and Jeremy never got together, and in any case, six months later Jeremy was gone, his dad’s job transferred back to the West Coast. Until now, Sarah had never thought of him again.

But all that was nothing to do with this. It was years ago, and it had been irrelevant even back then.

‘I think it’s all a coincidence,’ Sarah said.

‘So whoever’s behind this just happened to send it today?’ Jean replied. ‘Bit weird.’

‘I hope so,’ Sarah said. ‘Because the alternative is someone’s watching me.’

She poured a glass of wine; Jean didn’t drink a great deal but she had half a bottle someone had left after a cook-out at the weekend. She stared at the red liquid, looking at her distorted reflection. It was ridiculous. Either this was some kind of elaborate joke or Rachel Little was doing it or there was some fucking stalker out there, but whatever it was, it was crazy.

And it had been going on for six months. For six months someone had been on Facebook, pretending to be her. The more she thought about it, the more scared she became.

‘Who’s she friends with?’ Jean said. ‘The fake Sarah? Who’s been looking at her posts?’

‘I checked,’ Sarah said. ‘A bunch of random people; no one we know. You know how Facebook is.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘Which means this is purely for me.’

Jean smiled, but they had been close friends long enough for Sarah to recognize it as a smile she was forcing on to her lips.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Soon we’ll be looking back at this as some weird shit that happened in the past.’

‘I hope so,’ Sarah said. ‘I really hope so.’

7

This is all part of the plan. She is confused, naturally. She starts to question things. People. Friends. Events. She wonders what happened. She wonders whether there is a link between the friend request from her fake self to her real self and the fact it came on the same day she discovered her fake self. She considers there must be. But what? And why? And who? She cannot work this out, so she will think it might be a coincidence. And this thought will be nice and comforting and so gradually she will let this thought become her explanation.

A coincidence. Yes, it is a coincidence. The alternative – a stalker, watching her, hidden in the shadows – is too awful to contemplate, so a coincidence it is.

But she is wrong. She has been watched for a long time. Watched until she found the Facebook account.

Finally. For now, after all the planning and waiting and watching, it truly starts. It has been a long time in the weaving, this tangled web. And now she has taken one thread of it, and she will start to pull.

She will pull and it will unravel in ways she cannot imagine. For there are many threads. And as she thinks she is making progress, as she thinks she is figuring this all out, she will discover the truth.

In untangling the web, she has merely become trapped in it.

Stuck fast.

A fish in a net. And the more she struggles, the tighter it will grip her.

Until there is no way out.

8

Sarah lay in bed, eyes open. She had got back from Jean’s house at eleven and had struggled to fall asleep. Now, after not much more than four hours of fitful sleep, she was awake.

Wide awake. Too much wine had given her a headache and, although the ibuprofen she had taken had dulled the pain, it was not much use in calming the other problem with her head, namely the questions rolling around and around in a futile search for answers. She wanted to know who was behind this, and why.

And she wanted to know if it was dangerous. Because it certainly felt like it could be. Whoever had done this had been at her daughter’s pre-school. In a restaurant with her and Ben.

They had been in her house.

She felt her chest tighten and she inhaled deeply, held her breath, then slowly exhaled.

Not this, she thought. Please, not this.

It had been a few years since her last anxiety attack, since the last time her mind had run away with itself and sent her fight-or-flight reflex haywire, leaving her short of breath, dizzy, heart racing and gripped by a powerful nausea. It had felt like she was having a heart attack, or, on occasion even worse: she’d felt like she was dying.

And, at times, she’d caught herself thinking maybe she would be better off dead. The panic could start at any time. In the car, in the supermarket, at work. She lived in a debilitating fear, and she wasn’t sure she could go on.

She had always been anxious, but what made the panic attacks even harder to bear was that they had started in earnest when Miles was born, and so she associated them with him. This in turn made her feel guilty, which triggered the panic.

Ben had been very worried – this in itself was a big deal, which made her even more anxious – and had spoken to some of the other doctors about possible solutions. In the end, Sarah had seen a colleague who had given her some coping strategies – deep breaths, positive thinking, exercise, and, initially, medication. She had, mercifully, managed to avoid them since.

But the threat of their return had been in the background; they were gone, but there was always the lurking thought: only for now.

And, right on cue, here they were. Hands shaking, heart skipping out of control, she sat up, her head against the cool wall. Next to her, Ben snored gently.

There was no point trying to go to sleep. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and went downstairs.

She was watching the local news when the door to the living room opened. It was Ben, hair tousled, in his boxer shorts.

‘You’re up early,’ he said.

‘You too,’ she replied. ‘You should go back to bed.’

‘I can’t sleep when I know you’re down here.’ He sat beside her and took a swig from her coffee, then began to massage her shoulders. ‘You OK?’

‘I guess. But this Facebook thing has freaked me out. I can’t stop thinking about it. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. You know, like I used to.’

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Not good.’

The pressure from his fingers intensified. It felt wonderful, and she leaned against him. His left hand slid forward, over her shoulder and on to her breast.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I thought this was a back rub?’

‘I never said so,’ he replied. ‘And I think you need to take your mind off all this Facebook nonsense.’

‘A back rub would do the trick,’ Sarah said. She leaned back and kissed him. ‘But maybe something else would be good, too.’

The sex distracted her, but as she sat and ate breakfast with Miles, Faye and Kim – Ben had gone to work – the questions came back: Who was it? Why? And with them, the anxiety. It was awful; she had an all-pervading sensation of impending doom which occupied most of her attention. For everything else, she was going through the motions, almost mechanically. She felt disengaged from her kids, her home, everything.

Work helped, a little. When she was with the patients, she was focused on them, but whenever she looked at her phone she got a kind of low-grade jolt of worry, a shot of fear that there would be a message, another friend request, or some new, unwelcome contact from the other Sarah Havenant.

But there was nothing.

At eleven forty-five she saw her last patient before lunch.

She looked at the schedule: Derek Davies. His last visit to her office had been less than a month ago; he had been complaining of back pain, but she had been unable to find anything wrong. She opened the door to the examining room and walked in.

‘Mr Davies,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ She logged on to the computer and brought up his notes. It was the fourth time he’d been in the last few months, each time with a different complaint, and each time she had found nothing to be concerned about. ‘Is it your back again?’

He shook his head. He was in his mid-fifties, and drifting toward obesity. He was wearing a crumpled shirt with grease stains on the collar. ‘It’s my leg,’ he said. ‘I get a pain all down it.’ He pressed the side of his left buttock. ‘It starts there.’

Sarah nodded. ‘How long’s it been bothering you?’

‘Two weeks. It’s very painful. I called for an appointment but there weren’t any.’

‘Really? Normally we can fit someone in at shorter notice.’

‘I wanted to see you. And you had no availability.’ He smiled at her, his teeth a little yellow. ‘You’re very popular, it seems!’

‘Well, that’s nice to hear,’ Sarah said. ‘But all the doctors here are equally as capable as me. You should see one of them if there’s a hurry.’

‘I like to see you. I don’t like change.’

‘So,’ Sarah said. ‘The pain. Is it worse at certain times of the day? Or during certain activities?’

‘When I’m driving,’ he said. ‘Or sitting for long periods.’

‘Do you sit for long periods?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Do you work, Mr Davies?’

‘Derek,’ he said. ‘Call me Derek. And I used to work. I was a finance clerk, but I lost my job at Christmas.’ He shook his head. ‘Can you believe it? They fired me at Christmas. I’ve not been able to find a new job since. No one wants someone my age, not these days. They want kids.’

It was, she thought, an explanation for his numerous visits to the doctor’s office. He had too much time on his hands and needed something to do. She glanced at his hand; no wedding ring. Perhaps he also needed company.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It sounds like sciatic pain. The sciatic nerve runs down your leg and it can become irritated if the muscles in your hip and leg get too stiff. I’m going to suggest some physical therapy. The PT will give you some stretches, which should help. Do you get much exercise, Mr D— Derek?’

He shook his head.

‘Do you have hobbies?’

‘Computer stuff, mainly. I like some of the games. You know Minecraft?’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ Sarah said, even though she hadn’t. ‘But I’m not familiar with it.’

‘You build worlds,’ Mr Davies said. ‘Which you control.’

‘Sounds fascinating. Do you spend a lot of time playing it?’

‘You don’t really play it. It’s about the world you create. You’re like a puppet master.’

Sarah had an image of him staring at his computer in the dark, his face illuminated by the glow from the screen as he built and managed his imaginary world.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘You might want to limit the time you spend sitting down. Maybe take a walk every day for thirty minutes, or even two walks.’

He frowned. ‘Is that all?’ he said. ‘You don’t want to take a look?’

‘I’m not sure what I would see,’ she replied, and smiled. ‘The receptionist will make your PT appointment.’

At lunchtime she drove to the pet store. The man behind the counter led her to a large tank filled with hundreds of goldfish.

‘Fifty cents apiece,’ he said. ‘You’ll need a tank and some food, as well as a bottle of the anti-chlorine stuff. Tap water has chlorine in it; it needs to be neutralized or it’ll kill the fish. We can drink the stuff but a fish can’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Go figure.’

In total it was nearly twenty dollars. A fifty-cent fish with a nineteen-dollar tank. The man laughed when she pointed it out.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but if the fish dies, it’s only another half-dollar to replace it.’

‘And they all look the same,’ Sarah said. ‘So the kids will never know it’s a new one.’

The man gave her a strange smile. ‘You’d think so,’ he said. ‘But it turns out kids always know. In my experience they pay attention to the details much more than we do. They can tell the difference between one fish and another pretty darn good. Best to come clean, tell ’em the fish died, and let ’em pick another.’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘Either way, it’s still only fifty cents.’

‘That, ma’am, is the truth,’ the man said. ‘Now enjoy your fish.’

On the way out, the man had told her to fill the tank, then put the fish – keeping it in the plastic bag full of water he had put it in – in the tank, so the water in the bag and the water in the tank could come to the same temperature. Then, after a few hours, she could pour the fish into its new home.

She didn’t want to do this at work, so she stopped at home and followed his instructions. On the way out, she waved to the fish. It already felt like one of the family. The kids were going to love it.

That evening, as she was leaving work, she got a notification on her phone informing her she had been tagged in a post. She tapped on the link.

It was in a post from Sarah Havenant. The Fake Sarah. No photo this time; just her name, as part of a new post.

A post which read:

Got my goldfish! She’s a beauty!

Sarah stopped at the front door of the medical center. Her head spun and she felt close to passing out. She sat on one of the benches by the door. Before smoking was entirely banned on the premises it was where smokers had sat, and it still had faint traces of the acrid smell of cigarettes.

June, one of the nurses, tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Are you OK, Dr Havenant?’

Sarah nodded. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I didn’t have lunch. Low blood sugar.’

The nurse walked into the medical center. When she came out she was holding one of the lollipops they gave to kids.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Have this.’

Sarah sat in the car. She was cold, her mind blank.

There was no doubt now. Whoever this was, they were doing it to get her attention.

They were fucking with her. They were deliberately trying to mess with her head.

And it was working.

Worse, they knew she had been to the pet store. They had been there and seen her walk out with a goldfish in a bag.

Whoever was doing this was watching her.

Hands shaking, legs weak, she started the car. She had to get home, and she had to get there immediately.

9

Ben’s car was in the driveway when she pulled up. She could hear the kids playing in the backyard.

She went into the house and walked through to the kitchen. Ben was closing the oven door.

‘Baked potatoes,’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘I’ll make some burgers on the grill.’

‘I didn’t know we were having burgers,’ Sarah said.

‘I needed to distract the kids,’ Ben replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We had a bit of a nasty surprise when we got home.’

Sarah’s mouth went dry. She felt the blood rush from her face. What now? What had Fake Sarah done now?

‘What kind of surprise?’ she said, her voice little more than a croak.

‘Are you OK?’ Ben said.

She wasn’t, but she nodded. ‘What surprise?’

‘There was a dead fish floating in a bag,’ he said. ‘At first they were excited when they saw it, then they started to ask why it wasn’t swimming. They figured it out pretty quickly. Faye had a bit of a meltdown. Hence the burgers. I promised bacon and avocado on top as well.’

Sarah relaxed, a little. ‘A dead fish is all?’ she said. ‘I thought – I thought it might be worse.’

‘Worse?’ Ben said. ‘Why were you expecting worse?’

The skin around Sarah’s eyes tightened and she felt her mouth begin to tremble. ‘It – it happened again,’ she said. ‘A post. About the goldfish.’

‘On the fake Facebook account?’

She nodded. ‘They posted about the fish I bought at lunchtime.’

Ben straightened. ‘They did? How did they know?’

‘I don’t know. They must – they must have been following me.’

‘Shit,’ Ben said. ‘If this is someone’s idea of a joke, then it’s not funny.’

‘It’s not a joke, Ben. None of my friends would do this.’

‘Then who?’ he said. ‘Who would have been following you?’

‘I have no idea.’

She called Toni when the kids were in bed.

‘Hey,’ Toni said. ‘How are you?’

‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘Well, kind of. But I’ll get to that in a bit. How are you holding up?’

Toni had separated from her husband, Joe, six months earlier and was in the process of getting divorced. They’d met when she was thirty-two and she had married him despite her – and her friends’ – misgivings. He was tall, good-looking, well-dressed and had a whiff of the snake-oil salesman about him. It was his shoes which had put Sarah off: every time she saw him he was wearing a new pair, and they were always meticulously shined or brushed or cleaned. Ben had good shoes, solid English brogues from Church’s or Loake, but they had a reassuringly scuffed appearance. From time to time he polished them, but only when necessary. He didn’t want to polish them; he had better things to be doing. But Joe must have spent hours on his shoes and clothes and hair. It was, as far as Sarah was concerned, a bit suspicious. It couldn’t all be for Toni’s benefit.

And it turned out it wasn’t. Joe was having a series of affairs with women who worked in his office. One, Toni might have forgiven. Six or seven was too much.

‘The divorce comes through in a fortnight,’ Toni said. ‘Can’t wait.’

‘It’ll be good to get it over with. You been busy?’

‘Oh yeah. My life is a laugh a minute. All I need is to get all the hot twenty-six-year-old firemen to leave me alone so I have time to write my novel and then I’ll be OK. But enough about my amazing life. How are you?’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘There has been some weird stuff going on.’

‘Don’t tell me Ben is having an affair. I couldn’t take it. Not Ben. He’s too boring.’

‘He’s not boring!’ Sarah paused. ‘OK, well maybe. But no. It’s not an affair. It’s – there’s a Facebook account. In my name. It’s easier if I send it to you. Let me know when you have it.’

She messaged a link to Toni.

‘Here it is,’ Toni said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’ There was a pause. ‘OK, got it on my screen now. There you are, posting stuff. What’s the big deal?’

‘The big deal is, it wasn’t me who posted it. Any of it.’

‘What do you mean? These are your photos. There’s one of us in Portland with Anne.’

‘I didn’t post them,’ Sarah said. ‘That isn’t my account. It’s someone else’s, someone who has been posting photos of me, under my name. And there’s one from inside the house.’

There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘You didn’t do this?’ Toni said. ‘This is crazy.’

‘It isn’t’ – Sarah hesitated, but she had to ask – ‘it’s not you, is it?’

‘What? Why would it be me?’

‘You do have a track record of pranking people, Toni.’

‘Yeah, but firstly that was when we were in college. And secondly, even I would never come up with a prank like this, let alone be able to do it. I mean, where would I get the photos?’

‘You could have asked other people.’

Toni laughed. ‘Look, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Let’s put this one to bed, once and for all. I had nothing to do with this, OK? And in any case, my pranks were funny—’

‘I wouldn’t say funny, exactly,’ Sarah interrupted.

‘Well, at least harmless. And this is neither. This is creepy. Very fucking creepy.’

This was not what Sarah had been hoping to hear. She had been hoping – although, looking back, it was probably a vain hope – Toni would say, Yeah, it was me or don’t worry, it’s a thing millennials do to tease people, but instead, she was agreeing.

‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m worried.’

‘Have you called the cops?’

‘You think I need to?’

‘I don’t know. It can’t hurt. And you could tell Facebook. Contact somebody there and ask them to take the profile down.’

‘Would they do that?’

‘Probably not. They’d cite freedom of speech or whatever to justify their unwillingness to lose a user, but you might as well ask the question.’

‘OK,’ Sarah said. ‘Thanks for the suggestions.’

‘No worries. And keep me posted, OK?’

Sarah ended the call. Ben appeared in the doorway to their bedroom.

‘How was Toni?’ he said.

‘Good. The divorce is nearly done.’

‘What did she think about Fake Sarah?’

‘She suggested I contact Facebook and ask them to remove it, and also call the cops.’

Ben wagged his head from side to side. ‘I’m not sure what the cops will do,’ he said. ‘There’s not really a crime for them to investigate. But you could try.’

‘I will,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll do it in the morning. I need to go to bed. I barely slept last night.’

She didn’t sleep much better that night. She got out of bed early and decided to start with Facebook. The police could wait; there was no point calling them at this time anyway as they would hardly rush over because of some Facebook account, and besides, she didn’t particularly want them showing up at her house at 7 a.m. She preferred to be dressed and showered before a face-to-face meeting with a police officer.

She logged on to her account and looked for some contact details. Under ‘More’ there was an option for ‘Help and Support’; she clicked and a link appeared for reporting abusive content. She was about to follow it, but she stopped herself.

Was it really abusive content? She wasn’t sure it was. It was weird and unsettling, but it wasn’t abusive, or obscene. It was merely photos. She needed to think about how she was going to approach this.

She decided to take a look at the fake account so she could tell Facebook exactly what was going on. She could gather her thoughts, and at the same time see if anything new had been posted.

She clicked the link.

It wasn’t there.

She searched Facebook for Sarah Havenant.

There was her account, and there was another Sarah Havenant, but she was a teenager from Ohio.

The profile had been deleted, so now there was nothing to show the cops or to write to Facebook about.

She felt a momentary surge of relief, but it was quickly replaced with a nagging unease. Maybe, just maybe, this was the end of whatever had been going on.

And maybe it wasn’t.

10

She will look, today, at the account. Maybe she will wake up and decide not to, decide she is going to ignore it, but eventually she will want, need to look, like a drunk who wakes up with all the best intentions – I will not drink today, I will not – but then as the day goes on and all the old feelings and insecurities come back, the glass of beer or wine or vodka starts to look more and more appealing.

And then you’re drinking it, and you hate yourself, but at least you scratched the itch.

When she gives in, though, the account will not be there. It is unlikely – but possible – Facebook would take her seriously and help her trace it, although they would find it hard to locate the owner even if they did. So it is better to close off that avenue before it becomes a problem.

And the account itself is not important. It’s merely the hook.

And the fish is hooked now.

Well and truly hooked.

11

In the evening Sarah googled herself again; in the morning she repeated the exercise. She was there – her MD page, some records from 10k and half-marathon races she had run, a photo of her and Jean at a charity dinner that had made it into the Portland newspapers – but there was nothing from her doppelgänger.

The other Sarah Havenant was nowhere to be seen.

She wondered whether it was an error of some kind in Facebook itself, a bug in the code that created shadow profiles then shut them down when it realized they were there. It was unlikely, but so were the alternatives.

Either way, it was gone.

‘So,’ Sarah said. ‘What are you going to call it?’

‘Is it ours?’ Miles asked.

‘Sure,’ Sarah said. ‘All yours.’

‘And we can call it what we want?’ he said.

‘As long as it isn’t rude, then yes.’

She, Ben, Miles, Faye and Kim contemplated the new goldfish. It swam contentedly around its new home.

‘I’m calling it Faye,’ Miles said.

‘You can’t call it after your sister,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s a fish.’

‘I want it to be called after me,’ Faye said. ‘Faye the fish.’

‘It’ll be confusing,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s think of another name.’

‘You said it’s our fish,’ Miles replied. ‘And Faye’s not rude, so if we want to call it Faye, we can.’

‘He has a point,’ Ben said. ‘It is what you promised.’

‘But then we’ll have two Fayes,’ Sarah said. ‘And I don’t want to.’ What she was thinking about was the day – which was inevitable – when the fish died. She didn’t want the words Faye is dead spoken in the house, even about a pet fish.

‘But it’s ours!’ Faye said. ‘Mommy, we’re calling it Faye. And you can’t stop us.’ She turned to the tank. ‘Hello, Faye,’ she said. ‘That’s my name too.’

‘There you go,’ Ben said. ‘Faye the Fish it is.’

Rachel Little, it turned out, was coming back to Barrow later in the week. She sent Sarah a message to let her know, and to ask whether she wanted to meet up over the weekend.

Sarah didn’t, particularly, but it was hard to say no, so she suggested a coffee on Saturday morning at the Little Cat Café.

I’ll have my youngest with me, she said. Hope it’s OK.

Kim? Rachel replied. Fine. Would love to meet her.

Sarah was jarred by the fact this stranger – because Rachel was a stranger, after all these years – knew her kids’ names, and she almost cancelled, but she reminded herself that, had it not been for the fake profile, she wouldn’t have noticed that someone knew what her children were called. The information was out there for anyone to see, after all.

A lot of information was out there for anyone to see.

We’ll be there, she replied. And welcome back.

‘Sarah?’

The voice came from behind her and she turned to face the speaker. At first she did not recognize Rachel. The last time she’d seen her – twenty years ago – she’d been tall and gangly and wild-haired and badly dressed, but now she was totally different. She was wearing a pair of flat-fronted linen pants and a sleeveless olive blouse, her hair – tinged with auburn – was long and luxuriant, and her skin glowed with a West Coast tan.

But those were outward changes; what Sarah noticed most was how much more at ease Rachel was. As a teenager she’d seemed a bit lost, a bit unsure of her place in the world. Now it was obvious she had grown into herself; all the awkwardness was gone, replaced by a calm elegance.

‘Rachel,’ she said. ‘How are you? It’s great to see you.’

‘I’m well. Glad to be back in Barrow.’ Her voice was different too. Fuller, more mature. Less reedy than Sarah remembered. ‘You?’

‘Despite college and medical school, sometimes I feel like I never left! But I like it here.’ Sarah gestured at Kim, who was playing with some wooden trains at a toy table in the corner of the café. ‘It’s a great place to raise kids.’

Rachel’s smile faded for a second; she brushed her stomach with her hand. It was a gesture pregnant women often made, and Sarah wondered whether she was going to tell her she was expecting, but Rachel simply nodded agreement. ‘Where will you be living?’ Sarah said.

‘Gold Street. I rented an apartment there. I’m looking for a place to buy, eventually.’

‘A lot of houses don’t make it on to the market,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s a lot of private sales. Barrow’s become quite a popular place for people to live. Lots of families move back here – good schools, low crime. And there’s the college.’

Barrow was home to Hardy College, a small, liberal arts college which had invested heavily in the town.

‘I know. I spoke to the realtor and she was bemoaning the fact,’ Rachel said. She smiled. ‘But something will come up. It always does. There’s no point worrying.’

‘You sound like my husband, Ben. He always says worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it’s due.’

‘I like it. Where does it come from?’

‘I think it’s from one of the James Bond books. Not exactly Gandhi.’

Rachel laughed. ‘Well, it’s true all the same. Even James Bond has life advice for us.’

‘Anyway,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll ask around about any houses coming up for sale.’

‘Would you?’ Rachel said. She sounded genuinely touched. ‘That’s so generous. Thank you.’

Kim toddled toward them. ‘Mommy,’ she said. ‘Can I have some water?’

‘Of course.’ Sarah handed her a plastic cup. ‘This is Mommy’s friend, Rachel.’

‘Hi,’ Kim said, her voice muffled by the liquid.

Rachel leaned forward, her hands on her knees. ‘Hello,’ she said, her voice low and soft. She was smiling, and taking time with her movements. ‘Are you Kim?’

Kim nodded, a matching smile on her face.

‘I’m Rachel.’ She held out her hand, palm upward, and Kim placed her hand in it. Rachel gave it a gentle shake. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’

Kim gave a little giggle, then buried her face in Sarah’s hip.

‘I think she likes you,’ Sarah said. ‘She’s come over all bashful. It’s not like her at all. She’s normally all up in people’s faces. It’s the fate of the third child. They have to fight for everything.’

‘I know,’ Rachel said. ‘I was one myself.’

‘Were you?’ Sarah didn’t recall her having siblings, but then she didn’t know much about her home life at all.

‘Yes. The others were older, though. I had two brothers. Brian and Vinnie. Brian was six years older and Vinnie eight.’

‘I don’t remember them.’

‘They weren’t around much. Vinnie went into the army and Brian didn’t really … he kind of kept himself to himself.’

‘So what are you planning to do?’ Sarah said. ‘You’re a therapist, right?’

Rachel nodded. ‘I’m going to do the same here. I’ve not got anything in place yet, but I will.’

‘I might be able to help there, too,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m a doctor. Family medicine, mainly. Let me know when you’re ready and I can put you in touch with some people who might be worth talking to.’

Rachel shook her head, as though disbelieving. ‘You’re so kind,’ she said. ‘So welcoming.’

Sarah felt a little discomfort at her gratitude. ‘It’s a small town,’ she said. ‘Everyone wants to help.’

‘I guess so,’ Rachel said. ‘I guess I’d forgotten Barrow was like that. Makes my decision to come back all the better, I suppose.’

12

Sunday was forecast to be hot, up in the high eighties and humid with it. It turned out to be even hotter, and in town it felt worse: claustrophobic and suffocating. Along with the rest of the population of Barrow, Sarah and Ben headed to the beach.

It was a thirty-minute drive up the Phippsburg peninsula and by this point in the summer they had the trip down, as Ben would say in one of his incomprehensible British expressions, to a tee. Shovels, kids’ wetsuits, beach chairs, umbrella: all their beach stuff was put in the car in June and remained there until September. The only thing they had to add was dry towels, a cooler full of snacks and drinks and the kids themselves. Which was good, because on a day like this the beach filled up. Anyone who arrived there after around 10 a.m. would be facing a full car park and a return trip to the heat of town.

They pulled up alongside Jean’s battered minivan, the sandy gravel crunching under the tires.

‘I don’t know how she does it,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, wrangling our kids is hard enough with the two of us. She’s alone. It’s amazing, frankly.’

‘She’s super-organized,’ Sarah said. ‘She has to be. The laundry alone – it’s frightening. She showed me her system for getting it done: each kid has a basket which they put their dirty clothes into. They fold up any that can be worn again and put them away. Immediately after bedtime she puts a load in the washing machine, then puts them on the drying rack before she goes to bed.’

‘There’s the difference,’ Ben said. ‘Her kids don’t throw everything all over the place. She has some discipline. I wish I knew her secret.’

‘I don’t think there’s a secret,’ Sarah said. ‘She’s always busy. Washing clothes or making lunches for the next day or preparing her schoolwork.’

‘It’s impressive.’

‘It’s funny. In high school she was a hot mess. Not that we said “hot mess” back then.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, you know. She didn’t have her shit together.’

That was a bit of an understatement. In their senior year Sarah had a car – a Toyota Corolla – and used to pick up Jean, as well as two other friends, Katie and Emily, on her way to school. Jean was never ready, and, when she did appear, she had invariably forgotten her purse or books or homework, so they’d have to go back for whatever was missing, and then it would be a mad scramble to get to school before the tardy bell made official their lateness. And lateness wasn’t all; she studied for the wrong exams, showed up at the wrong time or not at all for her summer jobs, and lost her purse or bag or ID almost every time they went out.

Her parents didn’t help. They were very strict and very private; whereas Sarah and Katie and Emily’s parents used to chat to the girls or drive them places, Jean’s never did. Often they refused to let her join her friends after school or on the weekends – on one occasion, Jean more or less disappeared for three weeks – but when they asked Jean why she’d been grounded, she shrugged and said her parents thought she was letting them down with her poor performance and she needed to focus more. Jean claimed it didn’t bother her, but Sarah could tell she was putting a brave face on what must have been a deep hurt.

And then she had met Jack. He already had kids; Jean could not have her own – which was another tragic story she managed to cope with – and she always said it was a blessing she met Jack and got a husband and family all at the same time. She didn’t say it, but Sarah was pretty sure she wanted a family so she could put right some of the wrongs of her own childhood.

And Sarah suspected there were plenty more of those than Jean had shared.

She may have told Katie more. Katie and Jean had been friends since they were born – their moms met on the maternity ward – and they had a special bond. Like lots of groups of friends, the friendships weren’t equal; for them, it had been more like two groups of two. Jean and Katie, Sarah and Emily.

Sarah missed Emily. She had moved to the Pacific Northwest – Oregon, somewhere – and they kept in touch via Skype, but it wasn’t the same. As for Katie, no one knew where she was. She’d gone traveling in her early twenties, and they’d lost contact with her.

So, even though they had not been the closest of the friends in their group, Sarah and Jean were the only ones left, and Sarah was glad to have her in her life. Her college friends were great – in some ways she preferred them – and they had shared some wonderful times, but there was a special quality to her friendship with Jean. It went back so far, and they knew each other so well. With her college friends, she had taken care to present her best self. She was almost an adult when she met them, and she knew who she was and who she wanted to be. She had a self-image, and she wanted to make sure others shared it. Jean and Katie and Emily, on the other hand, had seen her at her worst: screaming at her mom, stealing another girl’s boyfriend, and on one occasion – Sarah still felt guilty about this – bullying a girl she didn’t like until the girl’s parents called the school. Jean was more like a sibling than a friend. However close she got to other people, they would never know her like Jean did.

‘Well,’ Ben said. ‘With those kids, she has to have her shit together now. No choice.’ He opened the car door. ‘Let’s get on the beach.’

13

Jean was sitting on a beach towel, deep in conversation with another woman. It took Sarah a moment to recognize who it was.

Rachel.

A few yards in front of them, Jean’s two kids – Daniel, thirteen, and Paul, ten – were digging a hole in the sand. Miles, Faye and Kim sprinted over to them and added their labor to the hole-digging project.

‘Hi,’ Sarah said. ‘Mind if we join you?’

‘Of course not,’ Jean said. ‘We were hoping you’d show up. Ben, have you met Rachel?’

Ben shook his head. ‘No, but I’ve heard a lot about you.’ He held out his hand for her to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘You too,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s a pleasure. And what a beautiful day.’

‘Look at them,’ Ben said, nodding at the children. ‘It’s amazing. I can’t get them to help me with anything in the garden – weeding, raking leaves, picking up twigs or acorns from the lawn – but they’re happy to spend hours on the beach digging a pointless hole.’

Jean laughed. ‘They’re hoping to build a wall of sand in front of it so they can defend it from the waves.’

‘They’ll be waiting a while. The tide’s going out,’ Ben said. He unfolded two beach chairs and passed one to Sarah. ‘Can I offer anyone a seat? I’m happy to sit on the sand.’

‘I’m fine,’ Jean said. ‘But thank you for asking.’ She looked at Sarah. ‘The perfect English gentleman.’

‘We’re brought up that way,’ Ben said. ‘Manners beaten into us at every turn by cold, unfeeling matriarchs.’

There was truth in his joking. He didn’t see his parents often, and when he did they had a very formal relationship. Sarah sensed that he and his father, Roger, were – in a reserved, English way – pretty close, but he and his mom – Diana – were distant. He didn’t often talk about his childhood, and his mom rarely figured in the stories. When she did, her appearances were limited to the fringes – She dropped me off at boarding school or She didn’t approve of me and Dad going fishing; she thought it was a waste of time or Pubs were for drunks and commoners, so on the few occasions we went out for dinner at one it was just me, Dad and my brother, Sam. Diana didn’t seem part of his life; it was as though he didn’t particularly know her. Which was in part because Diana Havenant was almost unknowable. She didn’t say a great deal – the longest one-on-one conversation Sarah had ever had with her probably ran to no more than three minutes of polite small talk – and it was invariably critical or damning with faint praise. Barrow, she had said, on her one trip to visit them in Maine, was very nice. Sarah had been surprised to hear such unqualified praise, but then she had added:

… for those who like that kind of thing.

Sarah, who normally resisted the temptation to argue with her mother-in-law, had risen to the bait. She felt she had to: Barrow was her hometown, the place she was raising her family. If Diana thought there was a problem with it, them, it was, in her mind, a direct comment on her parenting.

What do you mean, ‘that kind of thing’? she’d said, struggling to keep her tone light. Next to her, Ben stiffened.

It’s hardly London, is it? Diana replied.

No, Sarah said. But I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Lots of places aren’t London. Paris, for example, isn’t London. Neither is Buenos Aires.

Quite, Diana replied. What was it Johnson said? When a man is tired of London he is tired of life?

Was he a Londoner, by any chance? Sarah asked.

I think he was pointing out how London offers such broad horizons. Which is a good thing. Other places – by which she clearly meant Barrow – are a little less stimulating for young minds.

It was clear she felt her son had made a mistake in leaving the cultured shores of the UK for the barbarian wastes of Maine. She probably felt he had made a mistake in marrying Sarah, too. For years Sarah had worried that at some point Diana would convince Ben to move them all back to the UK – or Ben and the kids, at any rate. She doubted Diana would have been bothered if he left his wife behind – but Ben had reassured her his mother would never attempt such a thing, and if she did, it wouldn’t work.

Over time, Sarah had come to believe him, but the lurking fear that Diana might one day try to win her son back never fully left her.

Sarah sat down beside him, her feet sinking into the hot sand. She took a deep breath, reveling in the briny tang of the ocean.

‘I’m not sure those matriarchs did such a good job with you,’ she said. ‘My perfect English gentleman who wants to buy a convertible which only half the family can fit into.’

‘Four-fifths of the family,’ Ben said. ‘I was planning on getting a four-seater. I suppose I could get a two-seater, which would only be two-fifths of the family. But not half.’

‘Sounds fun,’ Jean said. ‘I can see you, top down, wind rushing through your hair— ’

‘More over my scalp,’ Ben said, rubbing his thinning hair. ‘But I get what you mean.’

‘You’ll have to take me for a spin,’ Jean said. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a convertible.’

‘Thanks, Jean,’ Sarah said. ‘I was hoping you might discourage him!’

‘Oh,’ Jean said. ‘Seemed like a good idea to me.’

Miles detached himself from the group of hole-diggers and walked over.

‘Do we have any snacks?’ he said.

Sarah put on an expression of shocked disbelief, although it was only partly put on. Her kids’ capacity for asking for food was a constant source of amazement for her. ‘We’ve hardly been here five minutes,’ she said. ‘You had breakfast an hour ago.’

‘I know,’ Miles said. ‘But I’m hungry.’

‘You can’t be,’ Sarah said. ‘Go and dig a hole. Work up an appetite.’

‘I already have an appetite.’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s too early for lunch.’

‘Just a snack.’

‘No, Miles.’

His face hardened and she saw he was not going to back down. Well, neither was she. He didn’t need to eat again.

‘Mom,’ Miles said. ‘You can’t starve me.’

‘I’m not starving you.’

‘I want some food!’

Ben stood up. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the rock pools. You have a quick snack before we go and then when we get back we can have some lunch. Off you go and see if anyone else wants to come.’

Miles paused, then nodded. He ran over to the rest of the kids.

‘Ben,’ Sarah said. ‘I told him no. And now you’re giving him a snack.’

‘I haven’t given him anything,’ Ben replied. ‘Not yet. And he’ll forget. He needed diverting, that’s all. He eats when he’s bored.’

Ben was good at avoiding conflict; he had the ability to sidestep it. Perhaps he had learned it during a life with Diana.

It turned out all five kids wanted to go.

‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s get moving.’

‘What about my snack?’ Miles asked.

‘I’ll bring it with me. Everyone get water shoes on.’

‘Are you OK taking them all?’ Jean said. ‘That’s a lot of kids.’

‘I think so,’ Ben said. ‘Hopefully I won’t lose any.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Rachel said. ‘Keep you company. I love rock pools.’ She stood up. She was wearing a dark red bikini, and she had not put on any weight since high school. She pulled on a T-shirt. ‘OK, kids. Let’s go.’

Ben looked at Sarah. ‘Want to come?’

‘Or sit here for an hour in the sun with Jean and have no kids to worry about?’ Sarah furrowed her brow, pretending to think hard. ‘Maybe I’ll stay.’

She watched as the kids sprinted along the beach, Ben and Rachel walking behind them. When they were about thirty yards away Rachel turned to Ben, nodding with laughter, which carried on the breeze to Sarah. It was a full, you’re-a-really-funny-guy laugh; whatever Ben had said had really amused Rachel, or at least, Rachel wanted him to think it had. Some dry, sardonic comment about the convertible, maybe. She’d ask Ben when he got back.

Jean had noticed too. ‘Must have said something funny,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Not like Ben.’

‘He’s amusing enough, in his goofy way.’ She reached into her cooler and took out a can of seltzer water. ‘Want one?’

Sarah was about to say yes, when she heard someone call her name. She looked up, and a couple were walking toward them. The woman waved to her.

‘Who is it?’ Jean said.

‘Becky and Sean,’ Sarah replied. ‘You remember them?’

Jean shook her head. ‘Not sure I do.’

‘They were at our house last Christmas. At the party we had. Sean had not long moved here.’

Jean nodded. ‘I remember now. Didn’t you set them up with each other?’

She had. Sean – a doctor at their practice – was new in town and she had invited him to the party so he could meet some people. Specifically, she wanted him to meet Becky, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

She introduced them, and they had hit it off, so much so that no one had seen much of them since.

They walked over. Sean was tall and lean, his stomach flat.

‘Hi, Sarah,’ he said. He held out a hand to Jean. ‘I’m Sean. We may have met?’

Jean shook his hand. ‘I think so. At Sarah’s house, maybe.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Sean said. ‘At Christmas, right?’

‘Yes,’ Jean said. ‘Nice to see you again.’

‘You too,’ he said, then turned to Becky. ‘Shall we tell them?’

‘Tell us what?’ Sarah said.

Becky put her hand around Sean’s waist. ‘We have some news.’

Sarah glanced at her hand; there was no engagement ring. Her gaze flickered to Becky’s stomach.

‘What kind of news?’ she said.

‘We’re pregnant,’ she said. ‘It’s early days yet, and we’re not telling too many people, but since you’re the reason we met, we thought we’d let you know.’

Sarah laughed. ‘Wonderful news!’ she said. She glanced at Jean. ‘And don’t worry. We’ll keep it to ourselves. I’m so glad for you both! When’s the baby due?’

‘February,’ Sean said. ‘We can’t wait. And thank you for your matchmaking. It’s the best thing that ever happened to us.’

Sarah looked at Jean, and grinned. ‘My pleasure,’ she said.

As Becky and Sean walked away, Jean handed Sarah a can of seltzer water.

‘God,’ she said. ‘I find it so annoying.’

‘What?’ Sarah said. ‘That they’re having a baby?’

‘No, of course not. It’s when people say “we’re pregnant”. It’s the woman who’s pregnant. There’s no “we” about it.’

‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘I think we can forgive them. And I have to say, I take a bit of extra pleasure since it was the result of my matchmaking efforts. They seem really in love.’

‘They do,’ Jean said. ‘And by the way – next time you have an eligible bachelor show up, send him my way, would you?’

‘Sure,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re next on my list.’

‘Thanks,’ Jean said. ‘Hey, I meant to ask. Did anything come of the Facebook thing?’

Sarah felt the warm glow fade from the day.

‘No. The account was shut down. But not before one more post.’

‘Oh? What about?’

‘I went to buy a goldfish at lunchtime. Sometime in the afternoon there was a post about it.’

Jean shook her head. ‘How would they know?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m not even sure who would know. Someone would have had to follow me.’

‘Who?’

‘A patient, maybe?’ Sarah said. ‘Someone who I’d seen?’

‘Which is half the town,’ Jean replied.

‘There was one guy who I saw yesterday. He was a bit weird with me. He’d waited for two weeks to get an appointment, and there was nothing really wrong with him.’

‘You think he followed you?’ Jean looked doubtful.

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. But he was my last patient before I got the fish, and it’s not the first time he’s been in. It’s like the fourth appointment he’s made since Christmas.’

‘Odd,’ Jean said. ‘What I can’t figure out is who could be doing it.’

‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘That’s the mystery.’

Rachel raised an eyebrow. ‘One person who it could be – and I’m not saying it is or even that I think it would ever be – is Ben.’

There was a long pause.

‘I don’t think so, Jeannie,’ Sarah said. ‘I mean, it’s possible. But Ben?’

‘I agree. I’m only saying he would have known, and had access to the photos.’

‘I know. But why?’

‘I don’t know. But stranger things have happened. You remember my husband, right? None of us saw that coming.’

‘True. But I don’t think so. And the account’s gone now. It was probably some mistake.’

‘I hope so,’ Jean said. ‘I really hope so.’

14

A beach day. Soaking up the rays with the family. Those three beautiful children. Her sturdy British husband with his pale skin and emerging pot-belly and baffled expression.

She loves them. They are the most important thing in the world to her. Nothing unusual. For most people all around the world, it’s true.

Not for everyone, though. She will find out about that later.

But for now she is happy. The weird thing with Facebook has gone away. It is still a worry, of course it is, but at least it has stopped. It’s like a rainstorm you drive through: once it’s behind you, it’s still there, but in the rearview mirror. It is receding. A shadow. No longer a problem.

But it can come back. The weather can change. The wind can switch direction. So you better not take your eye off of it for too long.

But people do. It is what she will do. It is natural. The strange thing happens, the surface of the pond is disturbed, but then the ripples vanish, and the water settles and all trace of them is gone.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But whatever caused them is still there, under the black water. Maybe a long way away, deep and safe.

Or maybe just below the surface …

So she is enjoying her beach day with her loving family. The family at the center of her life. The family she does it all for.

The family she barely deserves.

The family she will lose.

15

Sarah was finishing a quick coffee in the break room at work when her phone rang. It was Anne, her college friend. She was due to see a patient in a few minutes, but she picked up the phone.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How are you? I have an appointment coming up, so I can’t talk for too long.’

‘I’m good,’ Anne said. ‘Enjoying summer. It’s been lovely up here.’

‘Up here’ was Burlington, Vermont, where Anne was a high-school science teacher. She was married to her college boyfriend, Don; they’d had kids early. Melanie, who was ten, and Parker, who was eight.

‘I wish I had your holidays,’ Sarah said. ‘It must be amazing.’

‘Mel’s at her first sleep-away camp this week, and Parker’s always with his buddies, biking round the neighborhood. Don’s working, so I have a lot of alone time.’

‘God, stop. You’re making me jealous.’

‘It is nice,’ Anne said. ‘But I do miss the days when summer was me and the kids hanging out by the lake or in the backyard. It feels like they’re growing up too fast. In eight years we’ll be dropping Mel off at college. I’m already traumatized by the mere thought of it.’

‘I know. It goes so fast.’

‘Anyway, I was chatting to Toni yesterday. She paid us a visit.’

Sarah couldn’t help the small twinge of resentment that flared at the news Toni and Anne had got together without her; without even informing her. She wouldn’t have been able to go, but it would have been nice to have the option. It was stupid, she knew, but it did feel as though she had been left out.

‘Oh,’ Sarah said. ‘I spoke to her the other day.’

‘She mentioned it. She told me about the weird Facebook thing. Is everything OK?’

‘Yeah,’ Sarah said. ‘I think so. The account has gone now.’

‘Right,’ Anne said. ‘I was wondering where it was. I had a look, and I couldn’t find it.’

‘I think it may have been some kind of Facebook error,’ Sarah said. ‘They have access to so much of your data, who knows what can happen? I was going to send them a note to ask, although I’ll probably never get around to it.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I have to go, but it was great to talk to you. I’ll call you one evening?’

‘OK. And let’s get together this summer. It’s been too long.’

‘Way too long,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll find a date.’

She cut the connection and put her phone in her bag. As she did it buzzed. It was a text message from Carla, a friend with a son and daughter who Sarah had used to hang out with often. She didn’t see her as much since Miles and Ricky, her son, had started kindergarten; they were in different school systems so their orbits drifted apart. Still, they liked to get the kids together sometimes and arranged periodic play dates.

Hi, it read. Are you running late?

Sarah frowned. She hadn’t planned to meet Carla today. She had to see her patient, but she texted back, quickly.

For what?

The answer arrived seconds later.

The play date. I’m at your house with Ricky. No one’s here.

Sarah felt a slow churn in her stomach. The taste of the coffee soured in her mouth. She hadn’t spoken to or emailed or texted Carla in a week.

Which meant this was not a simple mix-up. It couldn’t be.

Did we plan a play date? I’m at work. Miles is at camp.

The dots signifying a reply was coming scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

Really? We emailed about it last night. You said to come at ten.

She hadn’t sent any emails the night before. She’d come back from the beach, fed the kids then curled up in front of a movie once they were in bed. And even if she had emailed Carla, she wouldn’t have arranged a play date, for the simple reason she was at work and the kids were either at camp or in day care.

She checked her phone. Nothing to Carla in the sent email folder. Which meant, unless Carla was making it up, someone else had emailed her.

Someone claiming to be Sarah.

She felt faint, dizzy. It was an effort to focus. Hands shaking, she typed a reply.

Sorry. I think I have an idea what happened. Can I see you at noon? I’ll be free for lunch then.

Sure, Carla replied. Call me.

Sarah shook her head. That wouldn’t do.

Can I see you? Sorry to be a pain, but you’ll understand.

Carla’s reply hinted at a little irritation.

I have a gym class starting soon. But I could meet around 12.20?

Sarah accepted. It would be a short lunch, but she needed to see her friend.

In the end Carla showed up at the Little Cat Café at twelve thirty. She was wearing yoga pants and a finishers’ T-shirt from the 2014 Lobsterman Triathlon. She looked – post-exercise – in a good mood.

Sarah waved at her and pointed to the cup of coffee – a skinny cappuccino – she had ordered as a peace offering. There was also a blueberry smoothie on the table.

‘Where’s Ricky?’ Sarah said. ‘I got him a smoothie. Help him get over the missed play date.’

‘He went to Logan’s house,’ Carla said. ‘Sandy’ – Logan’s mom – ‘had mentioned Logan was free, so I gave her a call.’

‘Sorry about earlier,’ Sarah said. ‘But it’s not what you think.’ She leaned forward. ‘Is there any way I could see the messages you got from me?’

Carla frowned, puzzled by the request. ‘Why? You sent them.’

‘I don’t think I did. Can I see them?’

‘Are you OK, Sarah?’

Sarah nodded. ‘Fine. But let me see and I’ll explain.’

Carla tapped her code on to the screen and scrolled through the messages. She handed the phone to Sarah.

There they were. Three messages, in a thread titled Play date?, all from Sarah Havenant. Sarah opened one and looked at the email address.

It was her name, but it wasn’t her account. It was Gmail, and Sarah used Outlook.

‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘This is a fake email account.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean someone set this up and is impersonating me. My email address is Outlook, not Gmail. It’s easy to establish an account and set the name to show as whatever you want. So all you see is the name Sarah Havenant, and unless you bother to look at the address you wouldn’t know it wasn’t from me.’

Carla shook her head. ‘So you’re saying someone set up an email account in your name so they could fake a play date? So they could piss me off? They must have known you’d find out.’

‘I don’t think they minded getting caught,’ Sarah said. She was feeling very calm, almost like she was observing herself. It was a form of shock, she realized, her body’s way of stopping her going into a full-on panic. ‘I think getting caught was the point. This is not the first time this has happened.’

‘Are you kidding? What’s been going on?’

‘There was a Facebook account,’ Sarah murmured. ‘I thought it had gone away.’

‘What kind of Facebook account? What’s wrong with a Facebook account?’

‘It was a fake one,’ Sarah said. ‘In my name. With photos of me and Ben and the kids and the house. Recent ones.’ She looked at Carla, blinking. ‘Someone’s fucking with me, Carla. I don’t know why, and I’m scared.’ She pushed her coffee across the table. ‘Very scared.’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Carla said. ‘Just a joke or …’ she paused, at a loss for words, then finished, limply. ‘Or something.’

Sarah didn’t reply. She looked around the Little Cat Café. There were couples, young women with laptops, college-age boys with books and iPads. Was it one of them? Was it someone who was here, now, in the café?

‘Hey,’ Carla said. ‘I need the bathroom. I’ll be right back.’

Sarah watched her walk across the room. It was as though she couldn’t wait to get away from her, as though she thought Sarah was contaminated, dangerous, spoiled goods. Well, when she got back, Sarah would tell her she had to be back in the office, release her from her obligations.

A few minutes later the bathroom door opened and Carla came out. Her face – summer-tanned when she went in – was chalk white.

She walked over, her phone in her hand.

‘Did you …’ she said. ‘Did you send this while I was in the bathroom?’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘I didn’t send anything. What is it?’

She handed her phone to Sarah.

There was another message in the thread. Another message from Sarah Havenant.

Where were you? Miles was disappointed you didn’t show up.

‘He’s at camp,’ Sarah said. For some reason – perhaps, she thought, to maintain her grip on reality – it was important to her to state the facts. ‘Miles is at camp.’

‘This is fucking weird,’ Carla said, her voice loud enough that a few other customers glanced at her. She lowered her tone and stared at Sarah. ‘Very fucking weird.’ She looked at Sarah. ‘Should I reply?’

‘No,’ Sarah said, quickly. ‘No. There’s nothing to reply to.’ She hesitated. ‘This isn’t a message to you, Carla. It’s a message for me. It’s a message to let me know this isn’t over, after all.’

‘Should I delete it?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No. Would you forward it to me? Thanks. I have to go. I need to call Ben.’

16

The worst thing about this was that it was everywhere, and it was nonstop.

When she was twelve, Sarah had drawn the attention – for some reason she still did not understand – of a girl, Donna, in the year above her at Junior High. Donna had made her life a misery; she was much more physically developed than the rest of her class and everyone, boys included, was terrified of her, so when she cornered Sarah at break time and explained to her why she was a worthless piece of shit and a slut – Slutty Sarah, she called her, a name which Sarah did not even fully understand – then punched and kicked her, no one did anything to stop her.

Although even if they’d wanted to they couldn’t have: the arrival of Donna was like a shark showing up among a bunch of swimmers – everyone’s first thought was to hope it wasn’t going to choose them as its prey, then, once it hadn’t, their main concern was to get out of the water.

So Sarah did the only thing she could. She watched out for Donna and, if she saw her – at school or out in the neighborhood – she fled. It was simple: when the threat showed up, she did her best to get away. Eventually, Donna forgot about her and life went back to normal.

Ironically, Donna was still part of her life. Her former tormentor was now a patient of hers who had chronic GI problems, but despite the fact Sarah was now thirty-eight and a mother of three and a successful physician, she still felt a tiny flutter of panic – run, it said, run – when she opened the door to the examining room and saw Donna sitting there.

This, though, was different. The threat from Donna was easy to identify: no Donna, no threat. But this – it could come from anywhere. An email, a Facebook message, a phone call: she was constantly waiting for a message from someone claiming to be her. Claiming to be Sarah Havenant.

Worse, she had no idea who it was, or what they wanted. Was it simply a latter-day Donna, getting kicks from causing other people pain? Or was it more sinister? She didn’t know, didn’t have any way of knowing, and she felt unmoored by the constant churning of her thoughts.

She stopped at Jean’s house on her way back from work. In the kitchen, Jean and the kids were making dinner. Daniel was washing carrots and passing them to her so she could chop them. Paul was tidying up.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Sarah said. ‘My kids would be causing chaos. Yours are so helpful.’

‘Great parenting,’ Jean said, and shrugged. ‘Or I just got lucky.’

‘Well, if you have any tips, please pass them on.’ Sarah caught her friend’s eye. ‘Got a minute?’

‘Sure.’ Jean put the knife down and walked into the living room. ‘What’s up?’

Sarah pursed her lips. ‘It happened again.’

‘The Facebook thing?’

Sarah nodded. ‘But not Facebook this time. An email. To Carla, arranging a play date. Carla showed up at my house but – of course – there was no one there. So she texted me.’

‘Holy shit,’ Jean said.

‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t know what to do. When it was just the Facebook thing it seemed’ – she paused – ‘it seemed like it might be harmless. Some online, virtual stuff. But this is more serious. It’s real. And it’s here. It’s my friends, showing up at my house.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s so personal.’

‘It does seem to be,’ Jean said. ‘Which is why I think you should call the cops. Talk to them. They might know what to do.’ She tapped her fingers on the cutting board. ‘I’d ask them if they think there’s any threat. And if there is, you might want to think about the kids.’

The kids. Her kids. The idea that this might affect them was unbearable. Sarah’s heart rate increased and she felt dizzy. Her vision blurred, and she leaned against the wall. She took a deep breath, then another, then another.

‘Are you OK?’ Jean said.

‘I need to calm down,’ Sarah said. ‘I haven’t had a panic attack for a couple of years, but all this worry is bringing them back. I nearly had one the other day.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘God, this is the last thing I need.’

‘I’m not surprised you’re having them again,’ Jean said. ‘I would be. But you should definitely talk to the cops. It’ll make you feel better.’

Ian Molyneux – Lieutenant in Barrow PD and high-school friend of Sarah’s – arrived shortly after 8 p.m.

Sarah opened the door and led him into the living room. She pointed to an armchair.

‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘Good to see you. Beer?’

‘Since I’m off-duty,’ Ian said. ‘Why not?’

Ben came into the room. ‘I’ll get them,’ he said. ‘IPA OK, Ian?’

‘Perfect.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You mentioned there was a problem you wanted to talk about?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of unusual. I was wondering whether you would have any advice.’

‘I might,’ Ian said. ‘Try me.’

Sarah outlined what had happened, from the Facebook posts to the fake emails to Carla. As she was finishing, Ben came in with three bottles of IPA.

‘Thanks,’ Ian said, taking a swig from the bottle, then setting it down on the table in front of him. ‘It is pretty unusual,’ he said. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever come across anything quite like it.’ He paused. ‘The closest thing would be a stalker, or an online troll abusing you. We can deal with both of those – it’s not necessarily easy, but there are things we can do. Court orders restricting someone from coming within five hundred feet of you, that kind of thing. If someone’s abusing you online, you can report it to the Internet company, or block them. And mostly cyber abuse turns out to be some keyboard warrior working out his or her frustration at their shitty lives. They’re happy to abuse people behind the safety of their screen, but if they met their target face to face they’d run a mile, although from time to time it can be more serious.’ He paused for another sip. ‘The problem is that this is different. We don’t know who’s doing it.’

‘Right,’ Ben replied. ‘The only name we have is Sarah Havenant, which isn’t really much help. It could be anyone doing this, which makes it hard to deal with.’

Ian looked at Sarah. ‘Do you have any ideas who it might be? Think who would want to do it. And then who would be able to do it.’

‘I tried,’ Sarah said. ‘But I can’t think of who would want to do this. And then there’s the practicality. No one was at all of the places in the photos. At least, I don’t think there was anyone.’

Ben sat forward. ‘One question we should ask is cui bono? Who benefits? Who profits? When there’s not an obvious motive for an action, figuring out who benefits from it might reveal who’s behind it.’

Sarah thought for a few moments. Who did benefit? No one was getting richer. No one was getting anything, other than her, who was getting freaked out. So the question was, who would want to freak her out?

And she couldn’t think of anybody.

‘Has anything changed recently?’ Ian said. ‘At work? New colleagues?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Apart from the return of Rachel Little, nothing’s new.’

Ian frowned. ‘Rachel Little from high school?’

‘The same. She was out west, and now she’s back. In fact, it was her who told me about the Facebook profile.’

‘Hmm,’ Ian said. ‘Interesting.’

‘You think it could be her?’ Ben said. ‘She seemed harmless enough when I met her.’

‘She was a bit of an oddball, back in the day,’ Ian said.

‘She’s changed,’ Sarah said. ‘Grown up. Like all of us.’

‘It could be her,’ Ian said. ‘It’s not obvious why she would suddenly be doing this, twenty years after we last saw her, but it is a coincidence that she happens to return right when this is going on.’ He shrugged. ‘Coincidences happen, though.’

‘Is there anything you can do?’

‘I can look her up,’ Ian replied. ‘See if there’s anything unusual. I’ll let you know, if there is.’

‘And what should we be doing?’ Ben said. ‘Anything specific?’

‘Be vigilant,’ Ian said. ‘Sarah – if you go somewhere alone, make sure Ben or someone else knows so they can check you got there. Lock your doors and windows at night.’

‘And the kids?’ Sarah said. It was hard to believe she was having to question whether the safety of their children was in any way compromised. ‘Miles and Faye are in camp. Kim’s at day care.’

‘You could mention this to the camp leader and ask them to keep an eye on the kids. Likewise at day care. But they should have security practices around supervision and pickup.’

‘You don’t think we should pull them out?’ Ben said.

‘You could,’ Ian replied. ‘That’s a matter for you.’

‘But then what?’ Sarah said. ‘They’re stuck in the house all day while their buddies are out doing stuff. And we have to work. We’d need a small army of babysitters.’

‘Who are probably less qualified than the professionals to take care of them,’ Ian said. ‘If there was a threat to your kids, I don’t think they’d be particularly safe in the care of a bored teenager.’

‘Then we leave them in,’ Ben said. ‘For now. And you’ll look into Rachel, correct?’

‘Correct,’ Ian said, and got to his feet. ‘Thanks for the beer. I’ll inform the station. If you call for some reason, they’ll know there’s been something going on. And good luck.’

When Ian had left, Ben sat next to Sarah on the couch. He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. She pressed her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes. She loved Ben in a way which she had not understood was possible until she had met him; she’d had a boyfriend in high school and then a couple in college who she had thought she was in love with – and maybe she was, in a way – but she had felt apart from them, in some important sense. She had liked them, admired them, had great, passionate sex with them, but she had always known she could live without them.

With Ben it was different. It wasn’t that he was better than them, necessarily – no doubt they were loving, responsible fathers and husbands themselves – but she and Ben fitted. They’d met and clicked, right away. They worked. They were happier together than apart: it was, in many ways, as simple as that.

And the feeling had never gone away. There was a strange paradox at the heart of it: she felt totally comfortable with him, trusted he loved her whatever she did, yet at the same time she still wanted to impress him, still wanted to show him she was a strong and intelligent and beautiful woman who merited his ongoing love and attention. She didn’t resent the feeling, because she didn’t think she had to do it. He made it clear he loved her whatever – even when she was an exhausted new mom screaming at him because she was scared and tired and lost and he was there so he was the one she was going to take it out on, or when she’d had a bad day and her nasty side – and she did have a nasty side – was on full display – she never felt his love for her was at risk, because she knew he felt the same way she did: they were lucky they had found each other, and when you got lucky you made sure you didn’t waste it.

And right now she needed the man she loved more than ever.

‘We’ll work this out,’ Ben said. He was unsmiling. ‘And when we do, whoever did this will regret it.’

It was unusual for him to be angry; normally he was more sanguine. When they were younger – it didn’t happen so often now – and other guys chatted her up at bars, or weddings, or parties, he didn’t get mad, didn’t threaten them or glare at them. He left her to deal with it, and, if she mentioned it, he smiled and said other guys could talk to her all they wanted. He was the one going home with her. He was the one who’d be having breakfast with her. He was the one who bought her the sexy underwear she was wearing and who would be taking it off in the not too distant future. At most – if he felt she was uncomfortable – he would wander over, and introduce himself. Shake the guy’s hand, then apologize for interrupting, and tell her the mother-of-the-bride wanted to talk to her, or he wanted to introduce her to a work colleague who was about to leave, or say their taxi had arrived and it was time to go. She loved his confidence, his assumption that his position was not threatened by these half-drunk sleazeballs on the prowl at parties.

She’d asked him once, after a glass of wine too many, What if it wasn’t a sleazeball, but some handsome, charming guy? Would you be threatened then?

He’d laughed. I’d be fine. If you were interested in handsome, charming men you wouldn’t be with me. But you are with me. So I assume you’re interested in guys who are like me. And I’m the person who’s most like me that I know. So – logically – you’re never going to find someone more like me than me, which means I have nothing to worry about.

She shifted closer to him on the couch.

‘How will we find them?’ she said. ‘I have nowhere to start.’

‘I was thinking about that. It has to be someone you know. I mean, in theory it could be a complete stranger, but I don’t see how. And if it is someone you know then maybe we can work it out. Or narrow it down.’

‘Right,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose. But I’ve been trying, and getting nowhere.’

‘What if you missed someone? What about an ex-boyfriend? One of them might hold a grudge.’

‘But why now?’

‘Who knows? Maybe they got divorced. Or developed a drug problem. Or decided to fuck with you. What about the guy you dated in college? He was a bit intense, as I recall.’

‘Matt?’

‘I think so. The one who tried to sabotage our wedding.’

She’d forgotten about him. She smiled, although it hadn’t been funny at the time. She’d dated a guy from Cape Cod, Matt Landay, for a semester in her sophomore year of college. He was not really her type – a jock with rich parents and a frat boy attitude to match – but there had been some chemistry between them, and in the spirit of youthful experimentation, she had started a relationship with him. He was only the second man she had slept with, and they had a lot of sex, but by the time the semester ended she was bored of him. She didn’t bother breaking it off; she just went home for the summer and, in the days before cell phones and text messages, forgot about him.

He didn’t forget about her, though. A week into the vacation he showed up in Barrow, in his parents’ convertible BMW, and knocked on her door.

She was surprised, and not pleased, when she opened it to see him standing there in his khaki shorts, linen shirt and Oakley sunglasses.

It took her two days – and a fictitious weekend away with her friends, which she told him she wanted to cancel but couldn’t – to get rid of him. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and they only had sex once, in silence.

She thought he would get the message, but the next week he called and informed her he was thinking of coming back. She asked him not to; he insisted.

You’re my girl, he said. I want to see you.

She wanted to say I’m not anybody’s girl, but instead she told him she was enjoying time alone and planned to go on doing so.

For how long? he said, a note of desperation in his voice.

I dunno. All summer, maybe.

He was silent. No, he said, finally. No way.

Matt, she said. It’s up to me.

No, he said. You’re my girl. You are.

So this time she said it: I’m nobody’s girl, and I don’t want you to come to my house.

He started to plead, but she hung up.

Two days later she was coming back from the beach with Jean. They pulled into her street and there was a red BMW convertible in her driveway. Leaning on the hood, his back to them, was Matt.

She told Jean to keep driving. When she got home in the evening he was gone. Her mom gave her a wry smile.

Be careful, she said. These young men can get carried away.

He didn’t show up again. He didn’t even call, and back in college, he avoided her. It was about a month later that Toni suggested they go out for a coffee.

I think you need to talk to Matt, she said.

No thanks, Sarah replied. I’ve been enjoying not talking to him.

Well, you might have to. Toni paused. He’s been saying – well, he’s been telling people the reason you guys broke up is because you’re crazy. He’s saying you stalked him during the summer and you cried if he tried to do anything without you. He’s also spreading a rumor you’re a nymphomaniac, although he’s claiming it could be because he’s so good in bed.

So Sarah did talk to him. She explained that whatever respect she’d had for him was gone forever. And she asked him to tell everyone that his explanation for their break-up was lies.

He refused, and it was the last time she had any contact with him.

Until the week before her wedding, when an email arrived. Matt had learned she was about to get married and, as a result, would be lost to him forever. He had always loved her, he claimed, so, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage their relationship, he was letting her know he loved her.

I only spread those rumors when we broke up because I was hurt, he added, in his email, as though his being hurt justified anything. I’ll always love you, Sarah, and if you want to change your mind I’ll be waiting.

She didn’t want to. She let him know this – and not too gently – and suggested he not contact her again. At the time she had been a bit shaken up – she had no idea he still held such an intensely burning candle for her, and she couldn’t believe he thought his plan might work – but looking back, it was quite amusing.

Unless the candle had not gone out, and he was impersonating her on Facebook and email.

‘You think it might be him?’ Sarah said.

‘You’d know. From what you told me, he was a bit on the possessive side.’

Sarah nodded. ‘OK, I’ll ask around. See if anyone knows what he’s up to these days.’

‘Good,’ Ben said. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

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