Stephen Leather: Take Two

One of the runners popped her head around the door. ‘They need Miss Castle on set, right now,’ she said.

‘You’ve been summoned,’ said Day. ‘I’ll see you at lunch. They’ve got Chicken Kiev on the menu, always one of my favorites.’

‘Thanks, Paul,’ said Jenny.

‘For what?’

‘For everything.’ She blew him a kiss as she headed out after the runner.

Richards was woken from a dreamless sleep by the sound of his mobile ringing. He rolled over and grabbed for it. It was Halpin. ‘Yeah, what do you want?’ growled Richards.

‘I’m outside, boss. Okay to come up?’

Richards groaned and squinted at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning. ‘Yeah, okay. Give me two minutes and I’ll buzz you up.’ Richards rolled out of bed and padded over to his bathroom to pee and drink from the tap. He grabbed a white toweling bathrobe and went over to his entry phone. It buzzed and he pressed the button allowing Halpin in before going into the kitchen to switch on the kettle.

Halpin stepped out of the lift holding two cups of Costa coffee. He gave one to Richards. ‘We’ve got a problem, boss,’ he said.

‘I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.’

Halpin dropped down onto a sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table. Richards glared at him and Halpin swung his feet off. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

‘You’d be a bit more careful if you knew how much that table cost,’ said Richards. ‘It’s imported from Italy and cost more than your bloody car. Now what’s so important you get to wake me up from my beauty sleep?’

‘They ain’t twins,’ said Halpin.

‘Mate, I’ve seen photographs of Carolyn and Jenny when they were kids. A whole album of them. When they were born, when they went to school, with their parents.’

Halpin frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

‘What do you mean, am I sure? I’m not soft in the head.’

‘I didn’t mean that, boss. But there were no twins called Carolyn and Jenny born on that date you gave. Or on the day either side. My guy says we can start checking every day for a year either side but that’s going to take time.’

‘How many bloody twins are there? There can’t be that many.’

‘My guy says there are about two thousand kids a day born in the UK, give or take,’ said Halpin. About three percent are twins. So that’s about sixty twins a day. My guy checked on that day and there were no twins called Jenny and Carolyn.’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it. ‘There were sixteen pairs of female twins. Two of those pairs were in Northern Ireland. Three were in Scotland. There was a Jennifer, born in Edinburgh, but no Carolyn.’ He gave the piece of paper to Halpin. ‘And my guy checked a week either side, just to be on the safe side. No Jenny and Carolyn.’

Richards studied the names on the piece of paper. ‘This doesn’t make any sense, does it?’

‘Unless Jenny used the wrong birth date to get her passport and driving licence in Australia. And I can’t see that happening because, at some point, she would surely have had to show a birth certificate.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. She was married to an Australian. Maybe she lied on her marriage certificate.’ He looked up at Halpin. ‘What about checking up on her in Australia? If nothing else you should be able to check the address that was on the driving licence?’

‘I’m ahead of you, boss. I’ve already asked my guy here to get in touch with someone Down Under. He just got back to me with the info.’ He took a deep breath as if trying to steady himself. ‘Here’s the thing, boss. That address you got, her place in Brisbane, Jenny Hall’s never lived there.’

‘You sure?’

‘My guy says there’s a Vietnamese family at that address and they’ve been there for the last six years. He had someone go around and knock on the door and they’ve never heard of her.’

‘Shit,’ said Richards. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

‘It gets worse,’ said Halpin. ‘There’s no record of any Australian called Hall marrying a Jenny, not in the last twenty years anyway.’

Richards closed his eyes and cursed under his breath.

‘Sorry, boss.’

‘What are you apologising for?’ hissed Richards.

Halpin shrugged but said nothing.

‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Richards. ‘Who the hell is she?’

‘There’s only one person she can be,’ said Halpin. ‘It’s Carolyn Castle.’

‘Pretending to be her twin sister?’

‘There’s no other explanation,’ said Halpin. I know it sounds crazy but that’s the only thing it can be. Jenny Hall doesn’t exist, not in Australia and not here. There are no twins called Carolyn and Jenny. There’s just Carolyn. And she’s fucking with you.’

‘Why?’ said Richards. Halpin didn’t reply but he stared at Richards as he sipped his coffee. ‘I’ve been checking up on that friend of hers, that Terry, the one that’s always sniffing around her,’ Halpin said eventually.

‘Terry Carter? He’s gay.’

‘Gay or straight isn’t the point, boss. He’s what they call a prop-master.’

‘So?’

‘So part of his job is making props. Props like documents and passport and ID cards, anything they might use on the TV show.’

Richards nodded thoughtfully. ‘You think he faked the passport?’

‘I think he can fake anything. He’s got this props business based in Kilburn. He lives there, too. Look boss, maybe this Terry guy is helping her pretend to be Jenny.’

‘Why would she do that? Why pretend to be a non-existent sister?’

‘I don’t know, boss. But I’ve got an address for him and I want to give his place the going over.’

‘Looking for what?’

‘I don’t know, boss. I’ve just got a feeling about him. If Jenny isn’t Jenny, if she actually is Carolyn, then he’d know, right? He’s close to her. And if he hasn’t said anything, then maybe it’s because he’s helping her.’

Richards nodded slowly. ‘You might be right.’

‘Thought I’d go around this afternoon. He works all day so the place should be empty.’

‘How does that help us?’

‘We need to know who she’s spoken to,’ said Halpin. ‘She hasn’t gone to the cops obviously or they’d have pulled us in. But she might have told this Terry. And he might be helping her.’

‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ said Richards.

‘We’ll get it sorted,’ said Halpin. ‘But we’re going to have move quickly.’

Richards nodded. ‘You’re right.’

‘Today. Now.’

Richards nodded again. ‘Okay.’

‘You need to get the boat ready, boss.’

Richards closed his eyes and sighed. ‘I know,’ he said. He opened his eyes. ‘Sod it. I’m coming with you.’

‘You sure, boss?’

‘I’m sure.’

They drove to Kilburn in the Porsche. Richards parked around the corner from Terry Carter’s house after they’d driven by twice giving the place the once over. It had once been an industrial building; it was two stories high with small windows and a flat roof. There was parking for six cars in front and for another dozen at the back where a metal fire escape zig-zagged to the upper floor.

‘There’s an alarm,’ said Richards.

‘Yeah. They use the place to store props for movies and that. The insurance people probably insist on it. I’ll call Bunny.’

Andy ‘Bunny’ Warren was an old friend of Halpin’s. As a teenager, he’d been a prolific housebreaker but in his twenties he’d moved into home security and now had a thriving business installing alarms and safes. He wasn’t a poacher turned gamekeeper though; Warren wasn’t above doing a bit of housebreaking now and again, partly for the money but mainly because he just wanted to keep his hand in.