London (26 page)

“But that's a lie, isn't it, Jane?” I said. “Furthermore, I believe you to be the person responsible for switching Julian for Johnny that day by the Thames, and I also think you know exactly what happened to Clarissa when she fell down the stairs, because you were there, weren't you? You pushed her!”

Georgie started to sob quite uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Johnny turned his rage on Jane. “What is she talking about? What happened to Mother?”

Caro turned white as a sheet, but she was watching Jane carefully.

Johnny studied the photo again. “It is my mother's writing,” he said, his teeth clenched.

“And don't you think she'd know which of her sons was which?” I asked.

He continued to look at the photo.

“This is preposterous,” Jane said. “Clarissa barely recognized herself on some days. Her imagination often ran away with her. You didn't know her, but she was a stupid, flighty, irresponsible wretch of a woman! God, how I hated her!” she screamed as she turned to Johnny. “Clarissa didn't deserve you!”

Watching Jane, I was glad to have as much backup in the house as I did—the woman was clearly unstable. I tried to remain as cool as possible. “That may be,” I said, as I took the medical records in hand, “but these have nothing to do with her imagination.” I turned to the four of them. “Let's start at the beginning…

“Once upon a time there were twin boys. Born to fashionable parents, they were also born into style. Their father was a well-known socialite and their mother a famous fashion model and muse. Both boys expressed strong and distinct interests in style from the moment they were old enough to hold a pencil.

“Tragically, the father died an early death, leaving the young mother, Clarissa Vane, alone with three young children to raise. Fortunately, however, Clarissa had a good friend in the talented and ambitious fit model named Jane Wimple.”

Caro suddenly got up and said she had to use the bathroom. I watched as she left the library, but I couldn't stop at this point—not now that I finally had their attention. I quickly glanced toward Sebastian's hiding place and watched as he slipped out to follow Caro as she crossed the hall.

“Jane, you formed a strong attachment to the Vane family. Soon you were running the household and acting as a surrogate mother to the three children.”

“Clarissa was never there,” Jane said.

“So I've heard,” I said.

“Who else was going to look after them? She wasn't fit to care for anyone other than herself. She was selfish and incapable of doing a thing on her own—let alone keeping her family in order. All she wanted to do was party and travel, model, and sit for artists. Clarissa was a terrible mother and a pathetic wretch.”

“So you stepped in. Fine… I'm only wondering at what point your strong attachment to the children—or more specifically to the quieter twin, Julian—became a pathological obsession? You became inordinately attached to Julian and began to feel like he was your own, didn't you?”

Jane opened her mouth to speak. Her eyes were wide and she didn't blink, and her voice had dropped in pitch. She spoke as if she were in a trance. “Clarissa ignored him too much. Julian was the more intense twin. He was talented but you needed to give him time before you would see it—and that was something Clarissa never had. At least not for Julian.”

I nodded and quietly said, “And then one day, when you and the children had gone to the Thames for a bit of treasure hunting, an accident happened, didn't it, Jane?”

Jane looked at me, her eyes still wide, but said nothing.

“You were with Georgie, watching from up on the footpath. The boys, meanwhile, were still out on the beach when the tide started to come in, and somehow, on this day, they'd wandered off further than usual and perhaps in separate directions. They didn't know how fast that water can rise, and distracted by Georgie, you didn't notice either until they were already stranded, in danger of being swept away completely by the current.

“You ran to help Julian first—he was your special favorite, after all. You pulled him out just in time. Maybe he was coughing, spitting up some water, but he was okay—or at least, he would be after some rest and a warm bath. But Johnny, he was not all right—not at all. The current had knocked him off his feet and carried him away, and by the time you caught up with him, he was no longer breathing. And when you pulled him onto the shore it was clear he was dead. Wasn't he, Jane? Johnny was dead?”

Jane was looking at me and starting to shake. Whether with rage or fear, I wasn't sure. Georgie and Johnny were silent.

“Johnny had died, but Julian was alive. And while I think you must have been in shock, a part of you was also thinking about Julian, the twin you saw as ‘yours.' You loved Julian, didn't you, Jane?”

“I loved Julian—yes. And was that so wrong of me? He was like the child I never had. It was Clarissa's fault anyway. She always neglected him. She gave more—so much more—of her attention to Johnny. She thought he was the clever one, the one who was more like her, you see. Clarissa believed he was the one who had a real future.” Suddenly Jane got up and started to pace the room.

“Not Julian though. No, never, never Julian. And yet Julian was so special. He had talent—real talent!” Jane turned to look at “Johnny” now and continued to speak to herself as if the rest of us were no longer in the room. I had the feeling she was reliving the past, watching it unwind before her eyes as we spoke. “But I knew, I knew you were destined for great things. And look how right I was! I knew—and Clarissa, as usual, did not. She was never right about anything!”

“So as you stood beside the Thames that day, with Johnny dead and Julian alive, you thought about what Johnny's accidental death could mean to Julian—more attention from his mother, more nurturing of his talent. But you also thought of what Johnny's death would mean to you, didn't you? You were frightened you'd lose your job, weren't you?” Axelle asked.

“I knew that Clarissa would fire me on the spot if I said her beloved Johnny had died, while if Johnny was the one who lived, there was a chance she'd let me stay. She was cruel that way. Everyone thought Clarissa was so nice”—Jane stopped as her glance, rotten yet cunning, swept over us—“but she wasn't always nice, and certainly not when it came to Julian.”

“And you couldn't bear to be parted from him, could you, Jane?”

She shook her head and looked at him. “No, I couldn't bear to be parted from Julian. He was mine.” Jane softened her voice, speaking to “Johnny” directly now. “Already at that age you trusted me more than you did your own mother. When we were on the beach that day, before the police came, I told you a story. Do you remember? I told you that from that moment on, you would be known as Johnny, and that all your dreams would come true—just like in a fairy tale. Do you remember? And you didn't question me. Oh, you were such a clever child! It was as if you understood everything I wanted for you!”

“So you switched the boys, didn't you? You said that Julian had died and Johnny was alive?”

Jane's eyes seemed lit from within as if by red-hot embers. “Yes!” she spat out. “Yes, I switched them! And I have been vindicated! If I hadn't switched the boys' identities, Clarissa would never have let me nurture Julian's talent as I did. It would have been lost to the world!”

I began to wonder where Caro was. Surely she should have been back by now. But I pushed the thought away and continued.

“You took a gamble on the birthmark, didn't you? You figured that with Clarissa being gone so often—”

“She was neglectful, often drunk and sometimes worse! There were days she could barely remember who she was.”

Still no sign of Caro. And what about Sebastian? Where was he?

I turned my focus back to Jane. “Yes, you figured you could fool her, didn't you? And it worked for a while—until she decided to clean up her act.”

“She was stupid and cruel,” Jane continued.

Caro, I thought, as I continued to listen to Jane, had gone in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe she was still in the bathroom there but somehow I doubted it…so where else could she be? Had she gone out through the side door? And if she had, wouldn't Sebastian have stopped her? Did she have the keys? I had a bad feeling about it.

“I never understood why everyone loved Clarissa,” Jane went on. “She could do no wrong. But people didn't know her like I did. They didn't see her hurtful, neglectful side, and I was right. She never noticed the mark was missing, you know. I was careful to put gloves on Julian, and if need be, I drew a small mark on his hand with a bit of makeup. With my training as a model, I was good with an eye pencil and concealer. Clarissa never noticed!”

“But what about the birthmark on the real Johnny?” I asked. “Didn't anyone find it odd that dead little ‘Julian' suddenly had a birthmark on his hand? Or did you cover your tracks there too, Jane?”

“Oh yes! I had such a brilliant idea! It was quite simple really—I took care of it when no one was watching with a sharp piece of glass I found on the shore. I scratched his hands as if he'd scraped them while he was drowning, just enough to hide the birthmark. And, again, that stupid woman never realized!”

“But once Clarissa was clean she discovered what you'd done, didn't she? Is that why she began to feel scared? She probably confronted you, didn't she, Jane? Maybe even told you to leave? Or threatened to call the police?”

Think, Axelle, think! Where else could Caro have gone?

Jane nodded. “But she was so silly. It took her ages to work out what had happened, and by then it was too late! Julian had become Johnny, and I wasn't going to let anything get in between us—certainly not Clarissa. I'd taken care of her family for too long. I'd set things right and Julian had already begun to blossom now that he didn't have to constantly compete with his brother for attention. And then, suddenly, just because Clarissa went to a fancy clinic she wanted her family back and me gone? Ha! No way! Not after I'd taken care of those children for so long!”

I reminded myself that this was a large, old house. There was a strong chance there'd be a service staircase near the kitchen. Had Caro gone up those stairs? And had Sebastian followed her? Or had he lost her?

And what about Ellie and Agnieszka? They were both stationed upstairs somewhere. I'd told them to keep their eyes and ears focused on the main stairwell…but what if Caro had gone up a back staircase? Could she have snuck up on them unnoticed?

“And so you threatened her, didn't you? Maybe you even threatened her life.”

Were Ellie and Agnieszka still in position? Or had something happened to them? I didn't hear anything… Was their silence good or bad news?

“I did, yes. Because she had gone too far. She had threatened me! Threatened to fire me for negligence! Ha, the irony of it! Fire me for negligence—after she'd neglected her own children and I'd taken care of everything!”

“So you decided to get rid of Clarissa…”

At this moment we all heard a muffled shout followed by a loud thud upstairs. Johnny and Georgie ran to the hall, but I stayed and watched Jane. I couldn't risk taking my eyes off her.

“Who's there?” Johnny yelled before disappearing up the stairs. Then I heard Georgie scream and saw her fall to the floor.

In that same moment Jane sprang up and tried to run. Without thinking I ran after her and grabbed at her jacket, bringing her down. But she was stronger than she looked, and she threw me off. I fell backward and hit my head on the low table, landing with a thud. Pain seared through my skull. I was dizzy, but I forced myself to sit up. As I tried to see through the pain, I could just make out Jane as she picked up Johnny's medical files and the photos Georgie had brought. She took them to the fireplace, drew a lighter from her pocket, and held the flame to the papers until they caught.

I tried to steady my breathing for a few seconds, and then, grabbing hold of the low table, I pulled myself up.

Satisfied that the files were burning, Jane now walked to the desk and picked something up before turning back to me. The sharp, crazed glint in her eye and her small, cruel smile didn't exactly reassure me. And then I noticed what she was holding in her hand. It looked like a heavy ball of some sort. She raised her arm high over her head, and I watched as it caught the light. That's when I realized it wasn't a ball—it was a glass paperweight.

I dropped to the ground and rolled out of her way just as her arm came down, smashing the paperweight into the corner of the low table. Glass scattered around me in a rain of tiny splinters as Jane screamed in anger. In that second, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of white fly over me. A loud growl was followed by another of Jane's screams. When I rolled back toward the sofa and pulled myself up, I saw Halley, her paws off the ground and her teeth clenched firmly to Jane's sleeve.

Suddenly Sebastian came running into the library and threw himself on top of Jane, although Halley was doing a good job of holding her still. I sprang to Sebastian's side, helping him as he twisted Jane's arms behind her back. A few seconds later the library and hall were flooded with light as Mr. Rivera entered the house with the police.

It turned out that Georgie had fainted in the stairwell. (She'd seen Ellie in her black ninja outfit—face mask included.) She needed to lie down once she'd woken, so rather than take everyone to the station right away, the police questioned us all at the house.

They started by hearing the account of my movements for the entire week, beginning with Tallulah's visit about Gavin. Sebastian and Ellie were questioned too, after which Ellie busied herself with enthralling half the policemen in the house with a display of her martial arts moves.

From where Halley and I quietly sat in the hall afterward, I was able to hear the Vanes being questioned. There would be more cross-examinations in the coming days, of course, but thanks to Jane's fresh confession, the police were eager to immediately press forward with their most pertinent questions. I concentrated on hearing all that I could, and the full picture became apparent.