Читать книгу Copycat: The unputdownable new thriller from the bestselling author of After Anna - Alex Lake, Alex Lake - Страница 12

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.’