Replica

by Lexi Revellian

  Beth stared at Nick. “You didn’t tell me any of that. You lied to me. You said you were there to protect me, and you weren’t, you were there to hunt her, knowing they’d kill her … Why did they take me to that laboratory?”

  If he didn’t tell her, Beth Two would. He said flatly, “Because we didn’t catch her. She stayed one jump ahead. If she’d got to you, you might have gone public and Sir Peter didn’t want that. He wanted McKinnis’s research to stay secret. In the end, he couldn’t afford the manpower to keep the two of you apart.”

  Beth Two elaborated on this. “So then Nick caught me, and offered to swap me for you. But Sir Peter double crossed him and kept both of us – if you ask me, Ben Pearson thought a control would be handy for his experiments – but Nick didn’t like the thought of you being experimented on, so he came and got us out of there.”

  Beth picked up on the first part of this, neglecting the rest. “He intended to swap you for me? Trade my life for yours? Nick … how could you?”

  “Told you she wouldn’t like it,” said Beth Two, spooning up the last of the porridge.

  “Can you just shut up for a minute? Beth, Sir Peter’s a ruthless sod, he’d have had no qualms getting rid of you. People would have thought she was you, gone mad. Think about it – you dead, her in a loony bin – I was trying to stop that happening. But I had to do my job, if I hadn’t done what I was told he’d have fired me.” Neither Beth appeared impressed by this line of argument, as if he could easily have popped out in his lunch break and found another job. “And after all, give me some credit, I got both of you out of there in the end.” He waited uneasily for her reaction.

  “Of course I’m grateful. I hated being locked up there. I was terrified, but so would she have been.”

  “Beth, I’m on your side. I came for you last night knowing I’ll lose my job and maybe go to prison under the Official Secrets Act. I’m not saying I got everything right, some things I’d do differently given the chance, but I did my best in the circumstances.”

  She shook her head. “But Nick, what you did was wrong. People working for the Nazis just did their jobs, rounding up innocent people into death camps. I’m sure they argued they did their best, too.”

  He was used to love in her eyes, not criticism. It wasn’t just she’d found him attractive – a lot of women did – he’d liked the way she looked at him; respectful, admiring, like he was some sort of hero. Their new, shiny relationship was tarnishing before his eyes. He’d been there before with other girlfriends, but for some reason he minded much more this time. Her disillusion cut like a knife. He blamed Beth Two. His voice went hard. “Spare me the bloody Nazis, I’ve already had them from your alter ego. Okay, fine, I’m a – what did she call me, a moral runt with no redeeming features, was it? A shit. I expect you’ll be calling me that next. Sorry you didn’t notice it before. Just remember, I may be a shit but yesterday I was the shit who got you out of that place, and her too.”

  Both Beths’ eyes moved in unison to look behind him. He turned, and saw Matt in the doorway.

  “Do carry on, don’t let me interrupt …” Matt’s quiet precise voice made Nick aware he’d been shouting. “I see you’ve started breakfast. I hope you slept well. Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas.”

  Replica ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 40

  Plans

  I glanced at the other Beth; her eyes were bright with tears and the corners of her mouth turned down. Finding out about Nick’s dark side had made her want to cry. I’d relished breaking the bad news to her in order to watch his discomfiture, and now I felt mean – I should have considered her feelings and I hadn’t. She might burst into tears in front of Matt … I watched her anxiously.

  She gave a resolute smile and said, “I’ve met you before, in Ikea … you thought I was her, but I didn’t know at the time.” She darted a look at Nick. “You knew.”

  He nodded, curtly. Matt said he was pleased to see her fully recovered, and got out some muesli. He opened the fridge, closed it, reached for the milk on the counter and paused, bottle midair. “It’s just extraordinary, seeing you two together. Like an extreme version of double vision. Eerie, to say the least. I can’t call both of you Beth. What do you suggest, have you got a nickname or a middle name?”

  Rob called me Bethie, which I’d never liked and wasn’t going to volunteer to be called. Or Bethany, for that matter. I was sure the other Beth was thinking the same. Nick said offhandedly, “Beth One and Beth Two. One and Two for short.”

  I said, “I don’t want to be called Two!” at the same time she said, “I don’t want to be called One!” We turned to look at each other, and away. This was getting ridiculous.

  Nick helped himself to muesli, and both men sat down to eat at the counter opposite us. Matt’s freshly shaved morning face contrasted with Nick’s stubbled jaw and shadowed eyes; his interested gaze switched from one of us to the other as if watching a tennis match between players he liked. Nick was outwardly composed now, his expression the one I remembered from the drive to hand me over, darting occasional glances under dark lashes at the other Beth. She didn’t look at him. She and I reached simultaneously towards the fruit bowl. Because she took an apple, I chose a banana. I could have an apple later.

  No one said anything for a bit. We were all rather subdued except for Matt, who volunteered a few cheery remarks without getting much of a response. Finally he said, “So what’s the plan?”

  I got in first, just. “We need to get media publicity, appear on television, then we’ll be safe. It’s a big story, they’re bound to want it.”

  Nick said, “BBC news would cover it. After all they had your father on last week when Beth went missing.” That the other Beth was officially missing came as a surprise to Matt and me as well as her. Matt didn’t watch much television, and nor had I when I stayed with him. We got Nick to tell us about it. Poor Dad would be worried sick about me – her, whatever. I wondered if he was still in London. If he was, he’d most likely be staying at my flat. I wished I could ring him to put his mind at rest. Nick pushed his empty bowl away. “I think it was just the one bulletin. Sir Peter exerted his influence. But they’d hardly refuse a story like this. Did you bring a laptop?”

  Matt fetched it. Nick looked up Wikileaks, though Matt wasn’t keen on them. He thought they were too controversial and we might be damned by association.

  Nick said, “What does that matter? They’d be very interested, they protect their sources, would get the information out, plus they have a drop box with military-grade encryption protection. Ah, hold on.” He read out, “NOTE: At the moment WikiLeaks is not accepting new submissions due to re-engineering improvements to the site to make it both more secure and more user-friendly. Forget that, then.”

  Matt was in favour of approaching Amnesty International, or a broadsheet newspaper. None of us was sure how to do this, though, particularly on Christmas Day. He said, “Presumably they’ll have some lowly person answering the phone in case a story breaks …”

  “What about—” Both of us spoke at once, then gestured the other to continue. We said together, “Max Clifford.”

  “But he deals with celebrity scandal, not government exposés. Kiss and tell stuff,” Matt said. “All a bit sensational.”

  “The story is controversial and sensational – get over it,” Nick said.

  “He’d probably want photos of the two Beths in low-cut dresses. With the headline, Two Much Of A Good Thing? Or Look At This Pair.”

  Nick said, “Double Trouble For MI5.”

  Matt countered, “Double, Double, They’re In Trouble.”

  “Flight Of The Frankenstein Twin.”

  “Hey! I resent that!”

  “Duped And Duplicated.”

  “Fleeing Double.”

  “You two are in the wrong jobs,” said the other Beth. “What about, We’re Me?”

  Darn, I was going to say that. “Just A Sec – Or Two,” I volunteered, a split second before
she did.

  “MI5 Two For One Offer.”

  “Send In The Clones.”

  “Duplicate And Annihilate.” Me and her again. I had to learn not to come out with the first thing that came into my head. As long as she didn’t start doing that too …

  “Double Crossed By MI5.”

  The atmosphere was noticeably more friendly after this bout of flippancy. Even Nick looked less forbidding. I said, “The thing about Max Clifford is he’s got the contacts, he’d jump at it, and we’re not in a position to be picky. Does it matter if it’s a bit cheesy and all over the tabloids if the story gets out in the open fast? That’s what we want, isn’t it?”

  Nick had gone back to the computer. “There’s Panorama. Contact us: If there is a story you would like Panorama to investigate then you can e-mail or write to us … blah, blah, blah … if we think the information you have sent us would make a good story but is not suitable for Panorama, with your permission, we will forward it to a more relevant part of the BBC. What about sending them a carefully-worded email, not giving too much away, just enough to whet their appetite? We can create a new email account. There might be someone there to forward anything really juicy to a reporter on standby. If they don’t get back to us before we’ve found another way, we haven’t lost anything.”

  Matt and I agreed, with the proviso that no email would go off until all four of us had approved it. Matt said each of us should have a veto on all decisions; the other Beth and I thought this an excellent idea. Nick rolled his eyes before agreeing. I didn’t trust him not to go off on his own bat, but our interests were aligned; publicity was his only hope of avoiding reprisals from MI5.

  The keyboard clicked as he set up a Hotmail account. “Right, the account is uncovercoverup@hotmail.co.uk. Nice secure password, &9v#*}=%.”

  “Will you remember that?”

  “Yes. Okay. Ready to roll.” Nick began to type, and stopped. “How do we prove we’re not hoaxing them with twins? DNA tests?”

  Matt shook his head. “Identical twins share the same DNA. But they have different fingerprints because those form independently in the uterus. The Beths will be the only two people in the world with indistinguishable fingerprints.”

  What we came up with between the four of us, with much debate, was the following (Nick put in the asterisks to defeat MI5 filters detecting keywords).

  Secret gov*rnment rese*rch into r*plicas controlled by the original for use in w*rfare has accidentally r*plicated a human being. The original and d*plicate are available for interview, and their story can be authenticated by the fact that they have id*ntical f*ngerprints. We have full details and are prepared to be filmed and go public. One of us is a doctor who can give an expert opinion if desired, another is a member of the S*curity S*rvice.

  The four of us would require the utmost s*curity and protection until the broadcast, which we would like to happen ASAP.

  We reckoned that should make them eager to meet us.

  Replica ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 41

  Surveillance

  The Beths went upstairs after breakfast to have a bath. Nick followed a few minutes later, hoping to get Beth on her own in their room. On the landing he heard laughter from down the corridor and moved nearer to listen. Bathwater ran in the background; voices came through the closed door. Beth Two relayed highlights of her life on the run. Disconcertingly, he could not tell which Beth was speaking except from what was said. They seemed to be getting on very well together; but then, they had a lot in common. Including the boyfriend …

  “How long d’you think it’s been going on?”

  “It was just the once … or that’s what he told me, anyway. I believe him – I don’t think he’d lie about it.”

  The last speaker was Beth. Probably.

  “Ah … you could be right. I was so furious with Chloe, I assumed the worst. I thought all our friends knew … Do you want to have your bath here, so we can talk?” Damn.

  “All right. We were crazy to stay with him so long. Chloe’s welcome to him – not that she’ll have him, of course, she just likes him dancing attendance on her. Why did we put up with it? He’s not the only man in London.”

  Any minute now his own name would crop up. Waiting with his ear to the jamb, he became aware Matt had arrived silently at the top of the stairs and was observing him, eyebrows raised. Nick straightened. Matt walked past murmuring, “Quite honestly, I’d have expected more sophisticated surveillance methods from MI5.”

  Nick gave up and went and had a shower.

  Washed, dressed and downstairs again, he found uncovercoverup@hotmail.co.uk had received its first email not emanating from the Hotmail team. Panorama had replied in the person of Mick Fletcher, asking for more details. Nick grinned and drafted a cautious reply; emails zapped back and forth, and by the time Matt and the Beths joined him, he’d set up a meeting at BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane for three thirty that afternoon. Not many stories would lure a reporter and cameraman into work on Christmas Day, but what he’d hinted at had made Fletcher positively eager to rush out after his turkey and all the trimmings.

  Matt approved, Beth said nothing, and Beth Two wasn’t impressed. “You did it without us?”

  “You weren’t here, Two, you were upstairs nattering with Beth. And it’s what we wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t call me Two! That’s not the point. We agreed to act together.” Beth stood back a little, looking from one to the other, keeping out of the argument. “This is okay, but next time you do stuff without asking us, you may get it wrong, and that’s not fair. You’re just worried about going to prison, I’m risking my life. Her as well.”

  “She’s right, you know,” said Matt. “We have to work as a team.”

  “Fine then, I won’t do it again. Happy now? We’ll need to leave by three.”

  Nick pushed away the laptop and went to the living room to find himself a book – the latest Lee Child – and took it up to the bedroom. Sprawled on the bed, reading, he was still aware of movement and voices in the rest of the house. He hoped Beth would come upstairs so they could make it up, but she didn’t. The next time he saw her was when hunger and sounds of food preparation drove him down to the kitchen, and Matt and Two were there as well, chatting away to her like old friends. He felt an outsider. Once the filming at the BBC was over and they could relax, he’d get her on her own for the evening, take her out to dinner somewhere nice. He’d apologize comprehensively, ask if they could start all over again, behave better in future. Try to be more like Ollie. She was worth it.

  Beth Two had noticed the silver Toyota Land Cruiser in the back streets north of Clapham Common; she’d told herself it was not following them, and waited for it to turn off. As the Audi sped down an empty Albert Bridge Road lined with parked vehicles, the car still loomed in the rear window. Panic seized her, and she had been about to make a self-deprecating comment about her fears hoping Nick would rubbish them when he spoke.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Beth in the front seat and Matt twisted to look. The Toyota was closer than before. The bare trees of Battersea Park ran along their right, red brick mansions to the left; no side roads, and traffic lights ahead. Beth said, “Can we lose them?” and the question hung in the air, unanswered. Nick accelerated through the lights as amber turned to red, and so did the Toyota.

  “Shit.”

  The car was tailgating the Audi now, and Beth Two tried to make out who was in it. Suddenly Nick stamped on the brake flinging her forward. A police jeep had slewed out from the side of the road ahead to block their way. The Toyota stopped close behind. Several men got out of each vehicle, and stood there leaning against them.

  Beth said, “I know those men, from the safe house and outside my flat …”

  “Yup,” said Nick. “Half the team’s here. Great.”

  He sat, impassive; Matt and Beth followed his lead and didn’t stir. Beth Two’s impulse was to leap out and run, but fro
m her position in the back of a coupe that was not an option – neither, realistically, had she any hope of outrunning those men. A tall figure in a long black coat emerged from a third car beyond the police jeep across the road, walked in their direction and bent to the driver’s window. Nick lowered it.

  Sir Peter Ellis.

  Replica ~ Lexi Revellian

  CHAPTER 42

  Negotiations

  Sir Peter surveyed the four of us, unsmiling. None of us felt like smiling either. Close to, I noticed the sharply-graven lines from nose to mouth and the grey in his hair, the contrast with his immaculate clothes making these signs of age more obvious. The last time I’d seen him, I’d been smashing up his Jaguar with a scaffolding pole; when I’d told the other Beth about it this morning, she’d been shocked but impressed.

  “I’d like a quiet word with you, Nick. And the two Miss Chandlers.”

  Matt said, “I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms. You have no right to waylay us like this. I shall report the matter to the authorities at the earliest opportunity.”

  “Dr. Reeve, you seem to have got yourself involved, so you’d better come too. We’ll go in the park.”

  Nick said, “Why not talk here?”

  “Not in the middle of the road. We can go to the office if you prefer.”

  “This’ll do.” Nick got out of the Audi, and so did the rest of us. One of the men came up and took Nick’s car keys and phone, then patted us down and removed Matt’s as well, ignoring his protests. Their colleagues were moving the other cars to the kerb.

  We crossed the pavement and went through Albert Gate into the wintry park, where dog owners were escaping domestic Christmas tensions or their lonely flats under a lowering sky. A needling, bitter wind blew, and I was glad of my stolen padded jacket; I put the hood up and saw the other Beth do the same, tucking her hair in. We both kept close to Nick, in some atavistic way trusting in his proven ability to beat people up. Matt stayed on my other side; I think he felt responsible for me. His expression was one of disbelief that this could be happening in a civilized country.