Alex Lake - Copycat

‘You could have asked other people.’

Toni laughed. ‘Look, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Let’s put this one to bed, once and for all. I had nothing to do with this, OK? And in any case, my pranks were funny—’

‘I wouldn’t say funny, exactly,’ Sarah interrupted.

‘Well, at least harmless. And this is neither. This is creepy. Very fucking creepy.’

This was not what Sarah had been hoping to hear. She had been hoping – although, looking back, it was probably a vain hope – Toni would say, Yeah, it was me or don’t worry, it’s a thing millennials do to tease people , but instead, she was agreeing.

‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m worried.’

‘Have you called the cops?’

‘You think I need to?’

‘I don’t know. It can’t hurt. And you could tell Facebook. Contact somebody there and ask them to take the profile down.’

‘Would they do that?’

‘Probably not. They’d cite freedom of speech or whatever to justify their unwillingness to lose a user, but you might as well ask the question.’

‘OK,’ Sarah said. ‘Thanks for the suggestions.’

‘No worries. And keep me posted, OK?’

Sarah ended the call. Ben appeared in the doorway to their bedroom.

‘How was Toni?’ he said.

‘Good. The divorce is nearly done.’

‘What did she think about Fake Sarah?’

‘She suggested I contact Facebook and ask them to remove it, and also call the cops.’

Ben wagged his head from side to side. ‘I’m not sure what the cops will do,’ he said. ‘There’s not really a crime for them to investigate. But you could try.’

‘I will,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll do it in the morning. I need to go to bed. I barely slept last night.’

She didn’t sleep much better that night. She got out of bed early and decided to start with Facebook. The police could wait; there was no point calling them at this time anyway as they would hardly rush over because of some Facebook account, and besides, she didn’t particularly want them showing up at her house at 7 a.m. She preferred to be dressed and showered before a face-to-face meeting with a police officer.

She logged on to her account and looked for some contact details. Under ‘More’ there was an option for ‘Help and Support’; she clicked and a link appeared for reporting abusive content. She was about to follow it, but she stopped herself.

Was it really abusive content? She wasn’t sure it was. It was weird and unsettling, but it wasn’t abusive, or obscene. It was merely photos. She needed to think about how she was going to approach this.

She decided to take a look at the fake account so she could tell Facebook exactly what was going on. She could gather her thoughts, and at the same time see if anything new had been posted.

She clicked the link.

It wasn’t there.

She searched Facebook for Sarah Havenant.

There was her account, and there was another Sarah Havenant, but she was a teenager from Ohio.

The profile had been deleted, so now there was nothing to show the cops or to write to Facebook about.

She felt a momentary surge of relief, but it was quickly replaced with a nagging unease. Maybe, just maybe, this was the end of whatever had been going on.

And maybe it wasn’t.

She will look, today, at the account. Maybe she will wake up and decide not to, decide she is going to ignore it, but eventually she will want, need to look, like a drunk who wakes up with all the best intentions – I will not drink today, I will not – but then as the day goes on and all the old feelings and insecurities come back, the glass of beer or wine or vodka starts to look more and more appealing.

And then you’re drinking it, and you hate yourself, but at least you scratched the itch.

When she gives in, though, the account will not be there. It is unlikely – but possible – Facebook would take her seriously and help her trace it, although they would find it hard to locate the owner even if they did. So it is better to close off that avenue before it becomes a problem.

And the account itself is not important. It’s merely the hook.

And the fish is hooked now.

Well and truly hooked.

In the evening Sarah googled herself again; in the morning she repeated the exercise. She was there – her MD page, some records from 10k and half-marathon races she had run, a photo of her and Jean at a charity dinner that had made it into the Portland newspapers – but there was nothing from her doppelgänger.

The other Sarah Havenant was nowhere to be seen.

She wondered whether it was an error of some kind in Facebook itself, a bug in the code that created shadow profiles then shut them down when it realized they were there. It was unlikely, but so were the alternatives.

Either way, it was gone.

‘So,’ Sarah said. ‘What are you going to call it?’

‘Is it ours?’ Miles asked.

‘Sure,’ Sarah said. ‘All yours.’

‘And we can call it what we want?’ he said.

‘As long as it isn’t rude, then yes.’

She, Ben, Miles, Faye and Kim contemplated the new goldfish. It swam contentedly around its new home.

‘I’m calling it Faye,’ Miles said.

‘You can’t call it after your sister,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s a fish.’

‘I want it to be called after me,’ Faye said. ‘Faye the fish.’

‘It’ll be confusing,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s think of another name.’

‘You said it’s our fish,’ Miles replied. ‘And Faye’s not rude, so if we want to call it Faye, we can.’

‘He has a point,’ Ben said. ‘It is what you promised.’

‘But then we’ll have two Fayes,’ Sarah said. ‘And I don’t want to.’ What she was thinking about was the day – which was inevitable – when the fish died. She didn’t want the words Faye is dead spoken in the house, even about a pet fish.

‘But it’s ours!’ Faye said. ‘Mommy, we’re calling it Faye. And you can’t stop us.’ She turned to the tank. ‘Hello, Faye,’ she said. ‘That’s my name too.’

‘There you go,’ Ben said. ‘Faye the Fish it is.’

Rachel Little, it turned out, was coming back to Barrow later in the week. She sent Sarah a message to let her know, and to ask whether she wanted to meet up over the weekend.

Sarah didn’t, particularly, but it was hard to say no, so she suggested a coffee on Saturday morning at the Little Cat Café.

I’ll have my youngest with me , she said. Hope it’s OK .

Kim ? Rachel replied. Fine. Would love to meet her .

Sarah was jarred by the fact this stranger – because Rachel was a stranger, after all these years – knew her kids’ names, and she almost cancelled, but she reminded herself that, had it not been for the fake profile, she wouldn’t have noticed that someone knew what her children were called. The information was out there for anyone to see, after all.

A lot of information was out there for anyone to see.

We’ll be there , she replied. And welcome back .

‘Sarah?’

The voice came from behind her and she turned to face the speaker. At first she did not recognize Rachel. The last time she’d seen her – twenty years ago – she’d been tall and gangly and wild-haired and badly dressed, but now she was totally different. She was wearing a pair of flat-fronted linen pants and a sleeveless olive blouse, her hair – tinged with auburn – was long and luxuriant, and her skin glowed with a West Coast tan.

But those were outward changes; what Sarah noticed most was how much more at ease Rachel was. As a teenager she’d seemed a bit lost, a bit unsure of her place in the world. Now it was obvious she had grown into herself; all the awkwardness was gone, replaced by a calm elegance.