Replica

by Lexi Revellian

  Replica ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 28

  Bad night, worse day

  Tuesday night was the worst since my first on the icy London streets. I had to pretend I’d got a pain behind my eye in order to stay at Moorfields, as their nurses were rather alert. When finally the doctors checked me out and, surprise surprise, found nothing, they reassured me and told me to return if any other symptoms appeared. I spent most of my remaining money on a sandwich and hot chocolate, hung around for a bit, then feared security would notice me, and left.

  Huddled in various hidden corners round the City, hungry, cold and weary, I longed for my sleeping bag; I had to continually get up and move so as not to freeze. It had been foolish not to bring the bread with me, and the bottle of wine. Alcohol might have deadened my misery, and the night seemed never-ending. Around two in the morning, desperate, I decided to try to charm the bouncers outside a club into letting me in. I’d just gone over and smiled at them when a fight burst out of the door and they leaped to sort it out; I slunk away as police cars arrived, lights flashing.

  Two tramps sitting on a bench asked me where my boyfriend had got to (“Nice-looking girl like you ought to have a boyfriend,”) and gave me a swig out of their bottle of rum. We talked for a while; they told me if I came to the same spot Christmas morning they’d take me to a centre where free Christmas dinners for the homeless were served – turkey, Christmas pudding, mince pies, the lot. My chat with them was the highlight of my night, and the rum warmed me for a bit.

  At last the sky lightened; Jarek would be getting ready to go to work. I found a call box and rang him to find out if the man had gone.

  “I look just now, and he is not here. He go in the night some time. When are you return?”

  I thought. Tempting as it was to go back for a nap and some food, how could I be sure the man wasn’t outside watching for me? The longer I stayed away, the more likely he would have given up. “I’m working today. Can I ring you this evening before I come back?”

  “Yes, you ring any time after six, six thirty. I check and let you know. Tonight I put lock on your door. Then if man comes again, basically, he is not able to go in.”

  “Oh Jarek, that is kind.”

  “By the way, Leo, I have surprise for you.”

  “What?”

  “I find mattress on street, nice and clean, dry. If you like, you stay in my flat for now. Not as my girlfriend, just as friend.”

  I felt warmer, as though I’d had another shot of rum. Why hadn’t I stayed in his flat the night before? I’d have been safe if I had, and less like a zombie today. “Thank you so much. I’ll take you up on it. See you tonight.”

  I put the receiver back on its cradle feeling comforted, deciding to go to Shoreditch Library when it opened at nine and sit around.

  I fell deeply asleep in the library. Luckily, the security man woke me to tell me off in time for me to go to Jenny’s. I felt groggy, and light-headed with lack of sleep and food; my brain was working at half its usual speed. I had a wash before I left and raked my fingers through my hair, wondering what Jenny would say about its drastic colour change and what Freddie would think.

  Coffee and biscuits occupied my mind as I approached Jenny’s neighbourhood, to the exclusion of all else. Being off the main road, and residential, the pavements were lethally slippery with compacted slush, and the road’s surface no better. I picked my way carefully towards the corner of her street, and was nearly there when I heard a bang, a scraping noise and a clanging thump. I peered round the corner. A cyclist lay on the icy surface, his bike half over him, its wheels spinning; he’d slipped and fallen on to a low black car parked at the roadside, judging by the dent and long scratch down its side. I’d started to go towards him to see if he was all right, when the car door opened and its owner got out, looking pained.

  He was the man who’d grabbed me by the wrist when I tried to go home.

  For a moment I stopped breathing. It could not be a coincidence he was waiting outside Jenny’s. Luckily his whole attention was on the car; he ran his hand down the damaged paintwork before crouching by the cyclist and lifting the bike off him.

  I retreated before he turned in my direction, half-running along the treacherous pavement, back the way I had come. A woman looked askance at me and I realized I was swearing out loud. I shook with fury. That total bastard had found my makeshift home, I bet he’d somehow got hold of my letter too and got those men to chase me at the Barbican, and now he’d stopped me earning money working for Jenny.

  I went into a call box a safe distance away, and my numb fingers groped for the paper with Jenny’s number, managing to drop the contents of my pocket on the litter-strewn floor. My head bashed the payphone as I picked up bits of toilet tissue (for nose-blowing) and my few coins. I was rattled. When she answered I told her I was going down with flu and couldn’t come. Though disappointed, she was sympathetic, and anxious for Freddie not to get my germs. She said to ring her when I felt better.

  I left the booth and walked aimlessly down the road. A thought came to me. If that man was watching Jenny’s, then he wouldn’t be at the derelict block of flats, which meant I could go and get my sleeping bag and blanket – unfortunately not my food, which was locked in Jarek’s and he’d be at work. I did not worry that another watcher might be there. I was beginning to think that man had a personal vendetta against me, and worked alone for preference – else why did he keep turning up all over the place at odd hours of the day and night?

  Something was different about the block of flats. The ramshackle mesh barrier had been replaced by solid hoardings eight feet high; a man on a ladder hammered at the end panel. A new sign said the property would be sold at auction on the eighteenth of January. The gap I used to slip through had gone. In my head a small voice wailed no, this can’t be happening, it’s not fair. I walked round to the back, and saw a mammoth skip stacked with debris from the site; among the refuse and spoiled building materials were forlorn scraps of carpet, two mattresses and Jarek’s cream sofa. His stove stood on its own to one side. Dismay filled me. I went towards the staircase.

  “You can’t come in here, love,” said a man carrying an armful of timber.

  “But … my things are in there. Can I just go and get them?”

  He heaved the wood into the skip. “Think you’re too late, love. We’ve cleared down to the first floor.”

  “But my sleeping bag was new! And my blanket …”

  “Sorry. Tell you what, I’ll ask the others. They might have put them aside. One skip’s gone already.”

  “I had a camping stove, too, and food in a bag.”

  He disappeared while I tried not to cry. At my feet was one of Jarek’s carved chessmen, a knight, trodden into the slush; I picked it up, and wiped the dirt off on my sleeve. One leg was missing … I put it in my pocket. I had to ring him, as soon as I’d seen if any of my stuff was still here.

  Two more men came past, carrying broken plasterboard, giving me curious glances. After a few minutes the first man returned, my blanket under his arm. “This yours?” I nodded and he gave it to me. “Couldn’t see a sleeping bag, sorry, or anything else. It must have gone.”

  “My friend left a cat in one of the flats. Can I go and have a look for him?”

  “The boss wouldn’t like that. Health and Safety.”

  Desperation made me ask, “Have you got a mobile I can use?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, and got one out of his pocket. “All right then. Don’t be long.”

  I fished in my pocket, took everything out, found Jenny’s bit of paper, felt around, tried the other pocket though I knew it wasn’t there, hunted in the first pocket again … I’d lost Jarek’s number. I handed back the phone.

  A loud voice interrupted us. “Here, what’s going on?” A man in a long dark overcoat strode towards us, looking outraged. “You shouldn’t be on this site. It’s private property. I want you off it right now.”

  The m
an who’d helped me melted away into the building.

  “My things are still up there. I only want to fetch them, it wouldn’t take a minute. And there’s a cat …”

  Even as I spoke I knew I was wasting my breath. His face was that of a man who prides himself on never giving an inch. The arrogant tilt to his jaw allowed him to regard me through half-closed eyes. “No. Out. Now.”

  I turned to go.

  “And don’t come back.”

  The rest of the day dragged past like a bad dream. I’d lost track of time, and had to think hard to work out which day it was. It felt strangely unreal, as though I’d slipped into an alternative universe, while the other Beth continued serenely in what now seemed a charmed life of ease and comfort. And in this new universe I couldn’t cope; my efforts to survive had been successful only in the sense that I was still alive.

  I trailed back to the phone booth where I’d rung Jenny in case Jarek’s scrap of paper was there on the floor, but it wasn’t. Maybe it was in the call box I’d called him from this morning – wherever that was. I didn’t know where he worked.

  I drifted through the City, scavenging for food because I was starving. I stole a clementine from a display outside a convenience store – icy, delicious, and gone too quickly – and kept the peel in my pocket to nibble on, the sharp zest a distraction from my hunger. I went into McDonald’s, and picked up some cartons of half-finished food off the tables – no one said anything, their staff aren’t paid enough to give a damn. At Old Street I tried approaching people and asking if they could spare me some change. I got the price of a Mars bar and a hot tea before station staff told me to leave.

  Security threw me out of Shoreditch Library (“The library is for reading, not for sleeping,”) so I went to St Leonard’s Hospital and dozed in various waiting rooms. I had no more money for food, and hadn’t the energy to work out how to get any. At some stage, I don’t know when, I lost my blanket; it was evening before I realized. I looked all over, but couldn’t find it. Then I remembered I’d meant to go to the flats to meet Jarek when he came home from work at six, and it was gone half past already. I ran most of the way, but the place was sealed up and he wasn’t there. I’d missed him. This was the last straw, the final stroke of bad luck in a dreadful day. I had nothing left.

  Anger rushed in to fill the void. I was furious with the dark-haired spec op relentlessly pursuing me – what a horrible man he was, pity his poor girlfriend – with the Prof, Rob, Chloe, the boss at the flats, every unsympathetic security guard, and most of all with Sir Peter Ellis who had decided that I was a non-person with no rights.

  I’d spent my whole life being a good girl, doing what others expected, fitting in, and look where it had got me. When my father remarried, I’d pretended not to mind, pretended I liked Alison. I didn’t like her. She came between me and Dad. She’d constantly made me feel guilty about not doing well at school, about letting down my father; and my failure to love her had also made me feel in the wrong. For the first time I allowed myself the daring thought that she was not good enough for Dad, and had certainly been a poor substitute for Mum. This novel idea smouldered inside me, a twisting sooty flame igniting other areas of my past.

  When it suited Rob to have me in London, he’d suggested I give up my degree course and follow him here, and I had; waiting around, hoping he’d ask me to marry him. I’d been insane. And you couldn’t even say the other Beth was doing okay, though she’d still got a life; not when Rob had so little respect for her – me, whatever – that he was shagging another woman.

  The flames licked higher, scorching and consuming; I burned with indignation. From now on I would put myself first and see whether that worked any better. I was not going to let anyone push me around ever again.

  If I had nothing left, I had nothing to lose. I would find Sir Peter Ellis and force him to realize he couldn’t treat me like a non-person, that I mattered. I would go to his home and talk to him in front of his family, tell him what I’d been through and compel him to understand. If I couldn’t reach the other Beth, that left him as the only person who could put things right.

  Giving the security man by the door a defiant glare, I stalked into the library and went to the reference section. Who’s Who, 2010 edition. I heaved the hefty scarlet tome off the shelf and opened it. A couple of pages of Ellis’s … here was the right entry.

  ‘ELLIS, Sir Peter Michael, b 2nd Jan. 1956; m 1982 Annabel Mary Lennox; one s one d … ’ I ran my eye down the list of jobs he’d done to the end of his entry. ‘Recreations: cricket, golf, music, painting esp. watercolours … ’

  The security man materialized beside me. Before he could say anything, I raised the book. “I’m reading, okay?” He backed off.

  ‘Address: 32 The Boltons, London SW10 9TD. Clubs: Athenaeum, Brooks’s, Cavalry and Guards.’

  It was seven fifteen by the library clock, so he would be back from work. I closed the book with a bang, shoved it back on its shelf and set off for South Kensington.

  The Boltons are home to the super-rich, the pavements lined with Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes. The houses are lavish and immaculate; I passed three with builders busy making sure they stayed that way. Sir Peter Ellis’s house loomed white in the street lights, one of an imposing terrace opposite a residents’ garden. I pushed open a wrought iron gate between two pillars, went up the steps and rang the brass bell. A Christmas wreath adorned the big black door. My heart beat fast, but with anger, not fear. I was going to get this thing sorted out once and for all. The door opened, and a small Filipino woman smiled enquiringly at me.

  “I want to see Sir Peter Ellis.”

  “Sir Peter is not here.”

  “Can I come in and wait?”

  She shook her head. In a singsong voice she said, “No, sorry, that is not possible. He is out.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Sorry, cannot say.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me he might not be at home. My brain wasn’t working too well without food or sleep. The woman smiled politely once more and shut the door in my face. Incandescent with thwarted fury, so it almost seemed electricity might spark out of my finger tips, I went down the steps and through the gate. I began to walk away, not knowing what else to do. I passed a silver Jaguar XJ, gleaming, pristine, with a personalized number plate, PME 1. Sir Peter’s car. A few doors along, builders were dismantling scaffolding, stacking the poles neatly on the pavement. I helped myself to a five foot length. It was heavy, but liftable, swingable.

  I came back, gripped the icy steel with both hands and swung its weight against the side of Sir Peter’s car.

  The crash as the windows shattered was both appalling and satisfying. The car’s alarm began to wail, its lights flashed on and off. The kerb and paving glittered with broken glass. I moved to the front of the car, and smashed the pole through the windscreen, the impact nearly jerking it out of my hands. I grasped it more firmly, then swung at the bonnet, making a dent; it didn’t spring up as expected, so I smashed the headlights instead and they went dark. I stepped into the road, to reach the Jaguar’s far side. The builders had stopped to watch, scaffolding on their shoulders, jaws dropped. I was warmer than I’d been all day. Methodically, I shattered the side windows, and bashed both doors. Jaguars are robustly constructed, and the damage was not as spectacular as I’d have liked; but good enough. People’s heads appeared at windows; some stood at their open front doors, gaping, including the Filipino woman. No one did anything.

  Round to the boot. The rear windscreen exploded into fragments on to the expensive upholstery … I glanced up, and saw a family approaching. With a jolt, I recognized Sir Peter, so that well-groomed woman he was talking to in the sheepskin coat with the Hermès handbag must be his wife. The children walked ahead, each holding a big brightly-wrapped present. They noticed me first, and stared round-eyed. Then Sir Peter’s wife looked, put her hand on his arm, and he followed her shocked gaze. They stopped dead. I stepped towards him.


  “Sir Peter, I want to talk to you. Now.”

  He turned his back on me, and hustled his wife and children through the gate and up the steps to the open door.

  “I said I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!” I ran after him, lugging the pole. He got them inside, went in too and slammed the door as my foot reached the top step. I thought of ramming the imposing panels, ripping off the holly wreath, smashing the ground floor windows … Suddenly I’d had enough. I drew a deep, shuddering breath. I felt too empty for tears, sick at heart, desolate. Walking away, I dropped the scaffolding pole back in the pile it came from, and headed for the main road. No one tried to stop me.

  As I crossed Gloucester Road a few minutes later, three police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming, raced past me in the direction of The Boltons.

  Replica ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 29

  Damage

  Fucking cyclist. Two hours after the idiot had bashed into the side of his car, Nick was still brooding. How stupid was it to ride a two-wheeled vehicle on a road like a skating rink? Nick’s Audi TT Coupé 1.8 was not new, but he liked everything about it, and now there was a sodding great dent and scratch down the driver’s door and he’d have to sort out the insurance claim and take it to be fixed and put up with an inferior courtesy car. No garage was going to take the job on before the new year.

  He slumped, discouraged, in the leather seat; he’d been sitting outside Jenny Parker’s house for five hours now. The replica had once more proved elusive. A pattern was emerging; he located a haunt of hers, waited there, and she somehow knew about the stake-out and didn’t turn up, or turned up then got away. Nick wanted to go home, have a hot bath and go to bed. Maybe that’s what he should do, and try again in the evening; think of something else. He certainly wasn’t doing any good here. Yawning, he turned the key, started the engine and pulled out from the kerb.