TWICE

by Susanna Kleeman

  I screamed: for help, for Chris, for stump Chris who was Sean.

  The woman screamed again.

  Silence, then the curtain parted. A fat woman in blue scrubs peered in at me then whooshed the curtain shut. Moments later it reopened: a thin man in green scrubs holding a bag of clear liquid. I screamed again but could do nothing. He hooked up the bag and attached it to one of my tubes.

  I woke up again in a small grey room, the helmet still on my head, more flowers. Black-and-white people in hospital scrubs peered down, told me not to try to move, that everything was OK. I was in a private room in Barrow General Hospital, they said. Could I confirm my name, date of birth, address? There three weeks with serious injuries, induced coma. Trauma to the head with blunt instrument followed by a nasty fall leading to concussion, aggravated by exposure, pneumonia, dehydration, exhaustion, malnutrition, infected cuts, suspected poisoning. They’d had to amputate the tip of my right little toe. I’d been living rough, eating plants it wasn’t good to eat, plus traces of sedatives and sleeping pills in my blood. All worsened by the psychological trauma: kidnapped by a maniac posing as my ex, forced to see the murdered bodies of my friends. I’d been in an induced coma for several weeks, temporary paralysis for my own good, was now in recovery. Prognosis was good but I had to lie still, take things very easy. I’d been victim of and witness to serious crimes, was now safe and on the road to full health. The police and lawyers would explain the rest of it, they’d be here soon, with my friends and colleagues. The next few days were vital for my recovery, the most important thing right now was complete rest and no moving my head while they assessed me. Thus the helmet and temporary paralysis. Cranio-spinal issues, tiny nerves. The slightest wrong move and I’d be mangled for life.

  My head ached, I felt sick and dizzy under the helmet. My arms and legs lay unmoving under the sheet, I wanted to see my docked toe. My tongue felt thick, coated.

  Flora, Poppy, Rhodri, the baby, I asked. They shook their heads. The police would explain, police matters. Yes, very sorry and terrible, all dead. Nothing more they could say, were authorised to say. I’d been drugged, confused. The police would explain. I had to now focus on getting better.

  And no, they couldn’t say where stump Chris was now, where the Chrises were, what had happened. The police would explain in due course. They were medical professionals, it wasn’t their business. Did I have friends and family they could be in touch with, who was my next of kin, anyone who could be here with me during my recovery once I was removed from isolation? There were cards from work and friends, people had been worried.

  No, I couldn’t go back to Vengeance Street and have another little look. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t read my medical records, I couldn’t read, not yet. People could read to me: the police, hospital volunteers, Victim Support, my lawyers in due course, they’d all be round later. I couldn’t do anything myself. I couldn’t get up, hold things, look at anything. Nothing that required brain focus. No moving at all, they couldn’t stress that enough. No internet or speaking to anyone on the phone, or seeing anyone, for the time being. No phones. No stress. The only thing I could do was lie there and watch TV, very quietly.

  The TV was up in the corner of the room. They switched it on.

  I watched TV. Perhaps it watched me. Either way I didn’t like it.

  26

  The story was I’d been kidnapped by a maniac posing as my ex and forced as his drugged hostage on a crazed spree up the west coast of Britain culminating in the murder of my friends and the Vengeance Street break-in. There, after ransacking the place for no reason and resisting arrest, he’d held me hostage and hit me on the head with something blunt and heavy—a poker?—causing me to fall backwards hitting the fireplace. Thus this extended hospital stay. He’d shaved my head and whole body but there was no evidence of sexual assault—they’d checked. Real Chris had ID-ed me remotely from California, a coma livestream. Friends and colleagues had been informed. The family were handling things, it was a sensitive case. I could look in the mirror in due course, I might be shocked by what I saw, they lifted up my leg to show me my smooth docked toe, the tip gone due to infection, barely noticeable, I could still move it. I was making great headway.

  Good story, I told my visitors: the police, medics, shrinks, Victim Support. But what about police needles in the neck? I wanted to speak to and see my friends. I wanted to get out. I wanted a lawyer. I was a lawyer, I knew my rights.

  All in due course, they said. My health first. I was in a serious condition and wasn’t to be stressed, was currently a patient under strict doctor care, was in no state for lawyers. My medical insurance had insisted on this. That’s why I was in this private room receiving specialised care: my top notch medical insurance, part of my work package, supplemented by Chris who had insisted on top London specialists. Chris was deeply involved in my care, felt so responsible, wanted to talk, all in due course. For now I needed to lie perfectly straight and heal.

  Poor old clunked and drugged me, bound to remember things skewiff, disappearing homes. And, they said gently, Stockholm Syndrome, had I heard of it? Thralled by the kidnapper, it could happen. And was worse in this case: me thinking he was the real returned lost love I’d never got over.

  ‘I got over him,’ I said.

  He was fake and called Sean, the police said, was real Chris’s sick twin. Twin not clone. No secret world kings. No one related to Don Thabbet. Don Thabbet was real Chris’s boss, nothing more. I’d been fooled, Sean had made up a real tall story, I’d fallen for it—understandable given the circumstances. I shouldn’t blame myself or feel ashamed, these things happened. Rest would cure me. Lie down and look out of the windows at the red roofs of Barrow. Sean was ill, a lifetime condition, crazy from birth, multiple incidents. He’d confessed all, was now back in secure professional hands, would face the law in due course.

  Yes, real Chris had a dodgy twin, which real Chris had never known until his reunion with his birth mother’s family some years before after tracking them down, expensive Californian investigations he probably now wished he’d never bothered with. Real Chris and his statement to the police. No, it wasn’t possible to give me info about why the mother had let one twin go off and live with Alan and kept the mad one, private family info I wasn’t privy to. Real Chris yearned to be with me now here in Barrow in person, and would be—if it wasn’t for that pesky Icelandic volcano, had I seen the news? Yes, it was at it again, sharding the air, all transatlantic plane traffic quite impossible. For the moment, how inconvenient. Real Chris would be over on the next possible flight, fingers crossed.

  Meanwhile: white flowers. His people sent fresh baskets every day.

  The smell of the flowers made me want to vomit. I felt them sensing my hormones, snitching my moods to secret elites peering at me through smeared cameras baked into every surface. I felt mad and woozy and conned. I looked at the roofs of Barrow, I watched TV, I thought about Scritch, I couldn’t think about Flora, who was dead with her family, they said. No, they couldn’t say if Sean had been involved. I made them take the flowers away. The helmet, its hum, other clanking and machines, vibrations, a metallic tang in my mouth, screams from the corridor, the bags and the catheter. They gave me bed baths, creamed my sores.

  I lay pinned to the bed by the hot buzzing helmet gaining back movement in my arms and legs. I watched the weather forecast and saw the Irish Sea dragon and the eye of Man winking away. Victim Support showed me my cards from friends and colleagues, the ones from real Chris, it looked like his handwriting. They put me on loudspeaker to hear my friend Lara send her love and commiserations for one minute. She’d be up in due course.

  Victim Support read me a printed email from real Chris. How he wished he could be physically present with me in Barrow during this shocking time. The unfortunate volcano. So very sorry, so devastated about Flora and her family, so very worried, so very grateful I was in good hands, etc. How awful that it had to be this incident that brought us t
ogether after all these years. He’d never stopped thinking about me, loving me deeply, trying desperately to find me but failing, what with my name change, me being Nim Burdock now and not Nim Wynn. Always hoping things had turned out well, always honouring me and our time together. So much to say, so longing to say it in person. Drat that volcano. He couldn’t wait to see me after all this time. The shame of what he’d put me through back there in New York and Silicon Valley. He hoped I had it in my heart to forgive him. He’d been going through a lot in those days.

  The unique sound of this creep. How could I have for one moment fallen for Sean the fake? And yet this real Chris seemed to be suggesting it wasn’t him up there in my flat the first time.

  ‘He’s desperate to talk to you,’ the Victim Support lady said. ‘The doctors will make an exception in this case.’

  So we video-talked briefly, me and real Chris, him jerky from America, Victim Support holding a tablet screen up above me in my helmet, a specially modified device—she said—that wouldn’t interfere with my medical machines.

  ‘Nim,’ he said, freezing and pixellating but exactly as he had been in my flat, plump and whole, American lilt, running unstumped finger down his nose.

  ‘You were there,’ I said. ‘In my flat. You were the first one.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. So very devastated about Flora and your loss.’

  ‘Such a tragedy’, he said, in a follow-up email read to me by Victim Support after she ended the video call due to me getting stressed and upset. Sean was a genius in some ways, photographic memory. Pathologically jealous of Chris since their first meeting, the shock of that meeting for someone already so fragile. How finding he had a twin had sent Sean over the edge: meeting Chris who wasn’t damaged. From that moment on: an urge to warp everything Chris touched. An urge to pass himself off as Chris, how dreadful I’d been exposed to that pathological hatred. Flora and her family, words couldn’t express.

  They put things in my bag to calm me.

  I lay there in my helmet which was doing what?

  The four white sheets.

  What’s coded up inside you that they’ll do anything for.

  It was him the first time.

  I had to get out, I screamed. I needed to see to friends, colleagues, a lawyer, to talk to my own doctor, to Jassy, Flora’s mum. I was a lawyer, I knew what was due to me. I demanded my rights.

  More things in my bags.

  ‘Where are we?’ I whispered to African cleaners at night. ‘Barrow General,’ they said.

  I wanted to speak to Jassy. I wanted to speak to Tal. I wanted to speak to Sean, fake Chris, stump Chris, the plant-eater, the jealous loon. How was he? Where were they keeping him, could we speak? When I was better? Could I write? I knew it wasn’t standard but I had a few questions, might help me in my recovery.

  ‘Unlikely,’ the lawyer said, squirming in embarrassment for poor thralled me. The family were powerful, US-based. As the lawyer understood it, Sean was back in their care.

  The lawyer was young and from Barrow, arranged by my firm in London who felt it was good for me to have someone local, the lawyer explained. He got them to let me talk to friends and colleagues, phones on speaker, many commiserations, what crazed circumstances. I could have actual visitors in a while. Flora’s mum Jassy didn’t want to talk to me, was in a bad place, needed space, hoped I could respect that. I shouldn’t talk too much anyway, give away too many details to friends, the lawyer said. The story, currently, was being kept from the press.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ the lawyer said: when the story came out things would get juicy. Important people, multiple homicides. He wanted to know if I thought it remotely possible that Sean had killed Flora and her family, gassed them in the camper van while I wasn’t looking?

  I slept a lot.

  The things in the bag.

  The helmet on my head.

  They told me it was Christmas, festooned a wall with one strand of tinsel, showed me cards and gifts from friends and colleagues and real Chris, opened them for me: books and toiletries, for when I was better, cams for me to slather on. They worried about my mental state. I watched Christmas programmes on my TV.

  The police came and talked me through the whole caboodle: Scritchwood, Alan, Chris, Sean, disappearing homes, my dead phone. The family had had an inkling Sean might come for me, the police said: computer forensics had uncovered his long-term obsession with me, the chucked first love of his sworn enemy, a fellow victim he was determined to track down and pass himself off to. I shouldn’t be ashamed, he’d passed himself off to others many times before, had been researching me for years, remote stalking, building up info, deranged.

  ‘But he knew everything.’ Not just my online traces. ‘Sean’ had known everything real Chris had known, almost everything, intimate details. Real Chris must have briefed him, I said.

  Sean was a skilled hacker, had infected my machines and listened in to conversations from my cameras and microphones and speakers, knew every keystroke, the police said. I mustn’t blame myself for being fooled.

  ‘But he knew about our relationship, childhood.’ Things that predated any phone or computer. He’d known how to pinch, for fuck’s sake.

  But perhaps I’d been recorded talking about it, to friends? Therapist’s notes? Nothing written on anyone’s machine or spoken near a device was safe from Sean’s arts, they said. Connected boilers, digital watches. Even when things seemed switched off, for someone with those skills.

  Or perhaps real Chris had told Sean big details when in California at their first meetings, before knowing how crazy Sean was, when he first found Sean and tried to bond? Or perhaps Sean had hacked real Chris’s machines? Perhaps real Chris had written it all down somewhere, our history, and Sean had broken in? And Sean could of course hack all Chris’s face ID, fingerprint recognition. Apart from that stump. But maybe he’d done it before the stump occurred. And maybe pinching wasn’t dreamed up by Alan, was some Daoist thing like the Chinese map.

  Or perhaps it was Tal. He knew most of those details, right?

  How was Tal? I had questions for Tal. I demanded to speak to him.

  Tal was fine, the police said. Safely sectioned, normal prattling. I could visit him when I got better. His hospital had confirmed that someone signing themselves as Chris Kopp had indeed visited Tal on the evening of my kidnap, I might be interested to learn. And it could be confirmed that Alan was dead.

  And not my dad.

  But why had real Chris come to see me first that night in my flat, wanting the book?

  Real Chris hadn’t, the police said. It had been Sean twice, stuck-on fingers and make-up. Sean had confessed.

  No, I couldn’t read Sean’s confession, yet. In due course. And no, nothing was anything to do with the secret powers behind the internet. When I mentioned that kind of thing people looked down.

  Who did I think were the secret powers behind the internet? Why did I think they’d be interested in me? Sean had built me a cathedral of doubt and I’d stepped right into it. Was I lonely? the therapist said. Who did I see in person, regularly, apart from work colleagues? Who were my actual friends, boyfriends? I’d had a strange childhood and history, by all accounts. Was that why I hadn’t gone to the police when I could after Sean kidnapped me? Cos it had actually been nice, to be with someone? Cos I was still in love with real Chris and obsessed, to the exclusion of normal relationships? Could we explore that? I’d brooded over real Chris a lot over the years, hadn’t I? Lots of online forums? Had I ever thought of digital detoxes, taking a break somewhere, working less hard, taking up a new hobby, stepping back from the virtual and commercial world? Crafts could be good for you. Yoga and mindfulness. There were people she could recommend. Perhaps it was worth examining why I’d been so susceptible, why I wanted to think important people were interested in me, that my childhood contained important secrets, that I was special in some way? Conspiracy thinking felt good, she understood that: made powerless
people feel connected, discovering their own world instead of what was handed to you. But that feeling could be exploited by the unscrupulous, she explained. Lots of fake news these days, you had to check your sources. And it denied people agency, to think there were vast conspiracies. Had I been in therapy before? How had that worked out for me? Current events entitled me to four free follow-up sessions once I was released and back in London, she felt I might benefit from more. Sometimes events like this could have positive outcomes, remote as that might seem now, serve as ‘wake-up’ calls. Did I ever think of writing it all down? Sometimes that could help, when I was ready, when the helmet came off.

  Which would be?

  Soon.

  On the TV news: yet another terrible quake in the South Pacific. The goofy dragon on the weather. The eye of Man, sending people to space.

  Friends and colleagues called and heard me out on loudspeaker. My friend Lara drove up from London and they let me see her for twenty minutes, sworn not to excite me.

  ‘He told me things,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure he said plenty,’ she said. ‘But what’s the alternative? Ancient conspiracy, massive police collusion with secret techno elites. Controlling the weather? No wonder you want the internet.’

  I wanted it but no one would let me have it. ‘No mobiles or computers,’ staff said with real compassion: it interfered with my helmet and other specialist equipment. Apart from that exception in real Chris’s case. Plus I needed to give myself space to heal and rest, tone down my enthusiasms. The helmet would be off soon enough, I could gorge then.