She can’t bring herself to ask about his French. Not yet.

  ‘Flying visit last week,’ he says breezily. ‘Looks like we’re going ahead with the new office in Brest. I didn’t have to be there – should have sent someone in my place.’

  Rob’s often singing Brittany’s praises, says it has so many similarities with Cornwall, its big beaches, rugged cliffs and coves. Their languages, Breton and Cornish, are closely related – mor means sea in both, for example. There’s even a region of Brittany called Cornouaille, popular with artists because of its unique peninsular light. It sounds so similar. He’s promised to take her one day, when she’s fully recovered. She can paint en plein air and feast on crêpes rather than pasties.

  ‘I could have come with you,’ she says, coyly, hoping to disguise her line of questioning as petty jealousy. ‘Kept an eye on you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have enjoyed it,’ he says. ‘There and back in a day, wall-to-wall meetings. No time for play. We’ll go when there’s more time, I promise. Right now, things are kicking off in the London office with the IPO. Sometimes it feels like I’m in two places at once. What were you doing watching French TV anyway?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  Sometimes it feels like I’m in two places at once.

  Is he mocking her? Mocking her paranoia?

  ‘You should have called,’ he says, sounding distracted. She can tell when he’s started to do something else on the phone. Reading emails, checking his products’ rankings in the App Store.

  ‘It was late,’ she says, thinking back to the explicit sex she stumbled across. Should she ask him about that as well? It was shocking, so unlike Rob. God, she’s suddenly behaving like the jealous wife, questioning her husband’s business trips, porn habits.

  She stays silent, listening as Rob tells her that she can always call him, day or night. He’s worried she’s tired, pushing herself too hard. She closes her eyes, soothed by Rob’s voice. When she can’t see his face, life is so simple. Why can’t she just relax and appreciate that she’s a right lucky bugger, as Bex would say? She’s with a kind and caring man, her life has started anew.

  And then she thinks of the news again. She needs to ask him, challenge him. Find some daylight between the Rob she knows and loves – the man who is talking to her now – and the impostor who might have replaced him.

  ‘Rob?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She closes her eyes. ‘You were speaking in French on the TV. Good French.’

  ‘You heard that?’ he asks, casually. ‘Not bad, eh? They got me to do it in English and French. Had to practise for ages. You know what I’m like. Maybe you could be my translator next time, when you come with me to Brittany.’

  Kate doesn’t know what to think. She should be relieved but she isn’t.

  ‘That would be nice,’ she manages to say.

  ‘You OK?’ he asks.

  She’s not OK. Not OK at all. It’s a while before she speaks. ‘There’s something I need to ask you.’ She pauses again, struggling to get the words out. ‘Remember when you told me…’

  She can’t do this, can’t bring herself to ask him about his double. She hangs up.

  24

  Jake

  Jake walks on, crossing the field beside the railway line, the woman’s black bag of clothing slung over one shoulder like he’s Dick Whittington. He glances at Bex’s text again, hearing her Lancashire accent in the words. In the past, she’s always given him a hard time, thinks he spends all day ‘liggin’ about in bed. Now she’s offering him a place to stay. She must be with Kate. He’s sure of it. That’s where she was going yesterday when he met her on the station platform.

  He puts his phone away, looks up and sees a man ahead of him, up by the pedestrian railway crossing on the far side of the field. Except that he’s not crossing the tracks, he’s just standing there, listless, glancing one way and then the other.

  A knot tightens in Jake’s stomach. It looks like the man’s a rough sleeper: matted hair, torn trousers, a ripped jumper. Could be him in a few days if he doesn’t get a grip. Something’s not right, though. The sheep in the field beyond seem to glance up as one. The morning air is too still.

  Jake increases his pace, walking more quickly now, adjusting the bag on his shoulder as he looks around him. The atmosphere today seems purer, the greens of the trees more saturated. His mind is clearer too, senses heightened. Life feels more real after last night. Precious.

  A moment later, he drops the bag and breaks into a run. Because to his right, about half a mile away, an intercity train has appeared, curving around the bend to bear down on the crossing. And this time he’s not going to do nothing.

  ‘Stop!’ Jake calls out to the man. ‘Stop!’

  The man either can’t hear Jake or has chosen to ignore him. He’s moved through the metal kissing gate and is standing now on the stone ballast beside the tracks. Jake is ten yards away, running hard, lungs starved of air. The train is almost at the crossing. And then he’s at the gate and spinning through it and lunging at the man as he steps forward.

  The man swivels, his bloodshot eyes staring back at Jake, full of anger and fear. And maybe gratitude too.

  ‘Please,’ Jake says, breathless, gripping his arm.

  Ten years ago, at Southall station in London, Jake saw a woman in trouble at the end of a platform and did nothing. A minute later she stepped out in front of a passing train, a sight – a sound – that has haunted him ever since. Now Jake braces himself for the man to tug himself free, but he doesn’t resist. Instead they both flinch as the intercity train hurtles past, carriage after carriage, the scream of its horn fading in the turbulent air.

  25

  Kate

  Kate paces around the kitchen, watched by Stretch from his basket as she waits for the call to reconnect to Rob. She wishes Bex would wake up. She needs to talk to her, check that she’s doing the right thing by challenging Rob, but she can’t disturb Bex’s beauty sleep again.

  ‘What’s going on, tiny feet?’ she asks Stretch. ‘Promise me there’ll always be just the one of you.’

  She looks at him again, just to make sure, cocking her head to one side. And then there’s an electric click behind her. She spins around to see all four gas rings fired up on the hob, blue flames blazing brightly. For a second she stares in disbelief, before rushing over to turn off each of the knobs. Jesus. What if she’d left something on it? A tea towel? It’s the second time this has happened. The house, Rob’s pride and joy, runs on smart technology, but one day it’s going to burn itself down.

  Her phone rings: it’s Rob. She presses connect before she realises he’s facetiming her. Too late.

  ‘What happened?’ he says.

  The voice is loud and clear, but the picture is blurred. Thank God. A message on the screen says: ‘Poor connection’.

  ‘We got cut off,’ she lies.

  ‘Can you see me?’ he asks.

  ‘No. I can hear you, though,’ she says, trying to conceal her relief as she glances at the hob. Once again, a weak signal suits her just fine.

  ‘I’ve got to get our comms sorted down there,’ he says. ‘It’s embarrassing. Can you imagine if The Cornishman ever found out? “MD of Tech Empire Can’t Get Broadband In His Own Home”.’

  He sounds cheerful, still the Rob she knows.

  ‘You need to sort the gas hob too,’ she says, staring at her phone’s screen. His outline remains a frozen shadow. He could be anyone. ‘Lit itself again just now.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ he asks, a sudden concern in his voice.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. She can’t complain. It’s a dream kitchen, fitted with everything she could ever want. ‘It just scares me sometimes. Like it has a mind of its own.’ Last week the boiling-water tap came on while she was washing up and burnt her hand.

  All the domestic appliances can be controlled from Rob’s London flat. And she’s got used to them going wrong. Welcome to the Internet of Broken Things.

  ‘You need to tell me if it does it again,’ he says, still anxious.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be happening, that’s all,’ he says. ‘I’ll check the firewall.’

  ‘You think someone’s hacked the house?’

  It sounds so ridiculous, but he’s mentioned the possibility once before.

  ‘You were going to ask me something,’ he says, ignoring her question. ‘Before we got cut off.’

  She wants to ask him more about the house, but now’s not the time. It’s important they talk about what she saw on the TV. ‘There was a reason I couldn’t sleep last night,’ she begins.

  ‘Because you were missing me?’

  She knows he’s teasing her, but he doesn’t realise how right he is. She’s been missing the real Rob.

  ‘You remember you once told me about your doppelgänger?’ she continues.

  ‘We’ve been through this,’ he says casually. He’s doing something else again, sounds distracted.

  ‘I know, but it’s been really troubling me. Has done ever since you mentioned it.’

  ‘Listen, it was just an old phobia, nothing more. Read too many gothic novels when I was a teenager.’

  ‘But does it still frighten you?’ she asks, more firmly now. ‘Meeting your doppelgänger again. Being found. Having your life taken over by a double.’

  ‘It seems to worry you more than me,’ he says, making light of her question. ‘I would never have mentioned it if I’d known that it would upset you like this. I was on my own when I had all those fears – a lonely geek, coding in my bedroom and playing too much Mortal Kombat. I’m not on my own now, Kate. Still a geek perhaps, but definitely not lonely – thanks to you.’

  ‘I’m just worried for you, that’s all,’ she says, trying not to become emotional.

  ‘You worry way too much, you know that,’ he says, pausing. ‘And I love you for it.’

  ‘I lost Stretch today,’ she says, thrown by his sudden expression of affection. ‘Found him in your office.’

  ‘My office?’

  ‘The door was open.’

  ‘I left in a rush yesterday,’ he says, ‘and I can’t seem to lock it remotely. More teething problems. There’s a lot of valuable stuff in there, computers mainly.’

  ‘That picture must be worth a bit too,’ she says. ‘The one behind your desk – Rossetti’s doppelgängers.’

  A brief pause. ‘How They Met Themselves?’

  ‘You never mentioned it before. Is it an original?’ She knows he collects art privately as well as holding his charity exhibitions in hospitals.

  ‘I bought it at auction years ago. Long before we met. As an investment. Rossetti did four versions. The other three are in public galleries.’

  It must have cost a fortune. ‘I want us to be honest, that’s all,’ she says, once again conscious of how little time they’ve actually known each other. Theirs was a whirlwind romance. If she hadn’t been strapped up in a hospital bed, she would have been swept off her feet. It had been a long time since she’d felt such a sudden, urgent attraction for someone. When he subsequently invited her to move to Cornwall, she didn’t hesitate. It seemed the right thing to do – for her and for him, his career. He talked of opening a regional office in the Truro tech cluster, becoming a part of Cornwall’s burgeoning digital landscape – ‘Kernowfornia’. It never quite happened. Instead, he became more interested in Brittany, Cornwall’s Celtic twin, apparently drawn by Brest’s own tech hub.

  ‘I’d just like you to tell me if… you know… you ever get worried that he might come back into your life again,’ she continues. ‘We’re meant to share these things.’

  She’s being disingenuous. Ever since he mentioned his fear of doppelgängers, she’s been worrying herself sick about it, and yet she’s never discussed her anxieties with him. ‘You said you met him once, a long time ago.’ She shivers, bracing herself. ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘No secrets. It was in Thailand. On a beach. I was twenty-one. Different time, different place.’ He pauses. ‘But thank you. For caring.’ She wants to ask him more but there’s a finality to his tone, as if he’s said all he’s prepared to say. ‘Have you told Bex about what happened yesterday?’ he asks, changing the subject. ‘When you were out swimming?’

  ‘She’s heard the whole embarrassing story.’ Kate flinches again at the memory of being rescued so publicly. And by the lifeboat.

  ‘She’s a good friend,’ he says.

  Her best friend; Bex’s northern nous a perfect counterweight to Kate’s southern skittishness.

  ‘Did she mention we bumped into each other at Paddington?’ he asks.

  ‘She did.’

  She starts to well up. Should she tell him about Jake and the boat? She leans in towards the phone, staring at the blurred profile on the screen, wishing she were with him now. Rob is back to how she knows him: kind, interested, open. A man who sends her snowdrifts of white flowers. She can cope like this.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she says.

  He’ll be upset when she tells him about Jake’s boat, offer to help. There’s never been any hostility between them, at least not on Rob’s side. It’s a mark of his kindness, his confidence in their relationship, what they’ve built together in five short months. And she likes to think Jake has been good about it too, in public at least, an acknowledgement that what they had was no longer enough.

  ‘What is it?’ he asks.

  And then the signal improves and she’s looking at a clear picture on her phone. Rob’s staring directly at the camera, smiling in a way that she hasn’t seen before, top lip curling a fraction into what looks like a taunt. Almost a snarl. Is she imagining it? The tingling feeling returns, her scalp prickling as the room begins to spin.

  ‘Rob?’ she asks. His smile seems to adjust, flatten out, as if he’s suddenly remembered he’s on camera. It’s the Rob she knows again, but the damage is done. She grabs the phone and smacks it face down on the kitchen table, like she’s trapping a wasp in a jar. She leaves it there for a few seconds, breathing fast and hard.

  26

  Jake

  ‘Thanks,’ the man says. ‘Back there—’

  ‘No problem,’ Jake says, interrupting him. He is still buzzing, in a shaken-up sort of way. It’s not every day he saves someone’s life. And within twelve hours of almost losing his own. After leading the man away from the railway track, Jake suggested they go for a walk together and he didn’t protest.

  They are now seated on a bench in the woods on the far side of the railway, looking down through a line in the trees at Hotspur House, a country pile on the distant horizon. It’s an old vista, a legacy of when this whole area of woods and parkland was landscaped by Capability Brown. All around them are stacks of timber, ready to be taken away and logged.

  ‘Were you really going to go through with it?’ Jake asks. Although the immediate danger has passed, he still wants to keep the man engaged.

  ‘Of course,’ the man says, almost indignantly. They sit in silence. ‘Maybe,’ he adds quietly.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ Jake asks.

  He is happy to wait for an answer. He can never bring back the woman who died on Southall station, but it feels like he’s finally made amends of sorts. Kate would be proud of him. And the woods look so beautiful today. They used to come up here together in the spring, have picnics amongst the bluebells.

  ‘I never asked you your name,’ he says, a seed of an idea beginning to form in his mind. The man doesn’t answer.

  ‘Do you drink?’ he continues. No reply. ‘I’m Jake, by the way.’

  He resists offering his hand. Too formal for a pair of washed-up bums on a bench. It was Jake’s idea to come up here, far from the railway line, from his boat. He smelt alcohol on the man when they walked through the trees, where the ground was recently a carpet of blue.

  Bluebells.

  ‘I drink too much,’ he continues, filling the silence. ‘Can’t resist a pint in a nice country pub. Never been into drugs, though. I mean, we used to have the odd spliff on the boat, in the early days, but it always gave me such a headache. Food’s my drug. Love to cook. When I can find the right ingredients. I like to forage. You can get some great chanterelles up here. Wild garlic too.’

  Maybe he’s got this wrong. The man remains taciturn, not rising to Jake’s elaborately laid bait.

  ‘You into drugs?’ He glances at the man’s sallow skin, his sunken eyes. The village has its alcoholics, a few people who sit outside the pub each day, waiting for it to open, but nobody who looks like this. Hollowed out, as if rotting from the inside.

  The man leans forward, head lowered, hands clasped so tightly together that Jake can see the white of his knuckles. He senses he’s getting warmer, but there’s still no response. So he decides to come straight out with it, ask him if he’s got caught up in a county lines operation. It might explain his sudden presence in the village.

  ‘Gone cunch?’ Jake says quietly.

  The man looks up at him, surprised by the question, maybe the language too, and lowers his head again. Jake remains silent, watching him, willing on the faintest of responses. You can tell me, pal. I’ve just saved your bloody life. After what seems an age, the man nods.

  Jake takes a sharp in-breath. Already he can feel his sympathy for this man melting away like deer in the forest, but he needs to sideline his own feelings. Stay focused. He might prove useful, know something about the man who spiked Kate’s drink in the pub. Drug networks operate in a small world – at least they did when he used to report on them.

  ‘No choice,’ the man eventually says, staring at the ground.

  Bollocks. In Jake’s experience, there’s always a choice. The man’s too old to be a mule, but Jake knows the way county lines operate, how they use people of his age – early twenties, at a guess – to recruit teenage dealers.