Merry Christmas Eve
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He didn’t get up until noon, after which he made a leisurely lunch for himself and then sat in the living room to watch television. He had just about reached that point of relaxation when something caught his eye out of the corner of his eye—an irregularity in the pattern of the carpet, as it happened.
It was too small and indistinct to make out what it really was. But there it was, unmistakable. He stared at it for some time with great attention and still could not figure it out; it looked like nothing else in the room save itself.
So he got up to go into the kitchen and look at his own reflection in the mirror on the back wall over the sink, just to make sure everything was okay back home. And then, as soon as he walked into the bathroom, he knew exactly what it was: a crack, an imperfection, running from the middle of his forehead down to his mouth like a tiny line cut into the flesh.
It wasn’t there before he woke up, and it wasn’t there now—except, he couldn’t be absolutely certain, in this bathroom, or maybe this very spot by the sink. The rest of the house was perfectly normal—or so he thought until he went to bed last night and dreamed.
He had never really believed in dreams. But there was that one… He tried to remember but could not; perhaps it had been nothing much, only a strange feeling like being watched or being pursued. Whatever it had been, it had not come to anything and he was perfectly happy. Until he saw that crack in the mirror today, that is.
Now he remembered everything in detail. The dream hadn’t lasted long—maybe twenty minutes altogether?—and seemed to have been about nothing in particular except, of course, the fact of dreaming itself. It took place in an ordinary bedroom with a single window looking out over a garden.
A little girl, about ten years old, was asleep on the bed. She wore a white nightgown; her hair was dark and thick. The light in the room came from an oil lamp hanging on the wall. There were no other signs of life in the bedroom; no toys or dolls or books, nothing in any way suggestive of play.
He did not know her name or where she lived, but somehow the dream seemed significant, even though the details were vague and hazy. He felt sure that the girl had been killed, but why and how remained obscure.
The whole thing might have taken place in a dream within a dream, although he didn’t see that that could explain much. The idea that someone—or something—might be watching him was terrifying, but he tried not to think of it; he concentrated instead on trying to remember.
The dream began with a sort of waking, a sense of being awake yet aware that something was wrong. His body felt heavy, almost weighted down. He could feel his eyelids moving as if they weighed a ton each, and he wanted desperately to open them and see what was happening. Yet he knew instinctively that opening his eyes would mean losing whatever was going on and not being able to wake up again…
Then the door opened, and a man appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp in one hand. As he crossed the threshold into the room he turned on the light switch. The light in the room was blinding and harsh. He looked down at his hands as if he didn’t know whether he had arms or legs anymore.
His clothes were dirty, and his face was covered with dust and cobwebs. He raised his head and looked around the room for a moment, then approached the bed and knelt down beside the sleeping child.
There was something unnatural about him—the way he moved, the way he held his head and neck—but at the same time something familiar about the way he looked. For the first time, he knew what he was seeing: he was looking at himself, only twenty years older than when he had seen himself yesterday afternoon.
He stood up, then bent forward over the edge of the bed and looked down into her eyes.
“Are you asleep?” he asked her. “Good!” Then he straightened up, turned to the right, and went outside into the garden.
For several seconds he could hear her crying softly, but then she stopped. He waited, listening intently for a little while longer, then slowly opened the door and stepped out into the night air.
As soon as he heard her cry again he hurried across the lawn and through the gate to the next garden. Once there he paused to listen, making sure that nobody was watching; after all, this was not the first time this kind of thing had happened.
But the sound of her crying faded quickly away and there was nothing to be seen or heard anywhere nearby. The moonlight was bright enough to reveal the outlines of trees and bushes and a few low shrubs, but none of these seemed likely to conceal a body—not even the one he’d seen earlier this morning.
In any case, he was too frightened to go farther; instead, he returned home and climbed back into bed. When he woke up, later on, the dream had gone. But now, lying here with his head on the pillow and staring up at the cracked mirror above his head, he remembered every single detail of it.
He had no idea where to look for what was left of her.
***
It was raining again, just the same rain as last night, which meant that it was impossible to take the car. After breakfast, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked thoughtfully at his watch. The hands were pointing at eight-thirty—a quarter past nine in the morning—but he could already feel the pressure building up inside him, like the rising wind before a storm.
His mouth was dry and sticky, and his heart was beating fast. His fingers felt clumsy and thick when he picked up the phone and dialed Peter’s number.
“Hello,” said Peter’s voice when the phone rang.
“Is he still alive?” asked Simon.
Silence.
“Peter? Is he?”
There was no reply. Simon closed his eyes tightly and swallowed hard.
“I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “Oh, God.”
The sound of someone breathing heavily echoed in the receiver. It sounded as though Peter was standing behind him. Simon turned round quickly, hoping to find him standing there. Nothing seemed to have changed at all—except for the fact that Peter wasn’t there anymore.
The room seemed much darker. He could hear footsteps approaching him from behind, and he instinctively reached out toward the light switch. A man was standing there in the shadows: tall and thin, wearing a black suit. He was holding a long, sharp knife in his hand.
“What do you want with me?” asked Simon.
The man didn’t answer at once. Instead, he walked closer until he was only a few feet away from where Simon lay on the bed.
“You’ve been asking for me, haven’t you?” he said. “You wanted to meet me—so I came.”
Simon looked back at him with wide, terrified eyes, unable to speak.
“I’m here for you,” said the man. “That’s why I killed my wife.”
Simon tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. He couldn’t breathe properly, and his chest was pounding so hard that it hurt. He felt dizzy, confused as if someone was trying to pull his head off.
“Don’t struggle,” said the man in the black suit. “I’m going to make this quick and painless. You can tell your friends that I’m really sorry about everything. Just try to remember me as a decent fellow who loved his family and did everything possible to protect them—that should help you forget about me.”
A wave of intense nausea washed over him. He felt weak and faint and suddenly realized that he was going to throw up.
“Please,” he said, choking slightly. “I didn’t mean to… Please…”
“Stop begging, Simon,” the man replied calmly. “There’s nothing you can say or do that will change anything.”
He pulled the knife from its sheath and held it out toward Simon’s throat.
“Now, Simon,” he continued. “We’re going to play a game.”
Simon stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, not knowing whether to be afraid or not.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” said the man in the black suit, “and you’re going to answer them honestly. Are we clear on that?”
Simon nodded slowly.
“Good,” said the man. “So let’s begin. Do you know what my name is?”
Simon shook his head.
“My name is Michael Caine,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” said Simon.
“And how old am I?”
“Thirty-eight,” replied Simon. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m thirty-nine,” answered Michael Caine. “I told you to answer honestly.”
“What are you doing?” asked Simon desperately. “Why did you kill her?”
Michael Caine smiled.
“I’m a businessman,” he said. “Doing business these days isn’t easy. People like us don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to protecting our property—not without attracting the attention of the authorities, anyway.”
Simon looked at him suspiciously.
“But why would anyone think you’d kill someone?” he asked. “You seem like a nice enough guy.”
Michael Caine laughed.
“I suppose I’m an ordinary guy,” he agreed. “In fact, I guess I probably look a bit like everyone else in this town—maybe even a little dull.”
Simon frowned.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded angrily. “I never said you were dull!”
The smile disappeared from Michael Caine’s face, and for a moment he appeared almost serious. Then his expression returned to normal and he turned away from Simon, walking slowly across the bedroom floor.
“Let me put it to you this way,” he explained. “It’s a lot easier to kill a stranger than a friend.”
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway interrupted him, and Simon heard a door slam downstairs. He looked at Michael Caine again and watched as he opened a drawer in the bedside cabinet and took out a handgun.
Simon’s stomach lurched as Michael Caine raised it up against his own forehead and pulled the trigger. At the same time, a voice came through the receiver, and Simon realized that it was Peter’s.
“Hello?” said Peter’s voice. “This is Simon. Is everything all right?”
***
Peter sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at his father. The body was still warm. A small pool of blood had formed underneath his head, spreading slowly toward the foot of the bed. It was strange to see someone lying there with no sign of life—especially a man who’d been alive only minutes before.
“Everything seems fine to me,” said Peter softly, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Are you sure he’s dead?”
His father nodded and closed his eyes briefly, smiling slightly.
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
“Then… then I’ll call the police and—”
Peter’s father put his hand up to stop him.
“No,” he said firmly. “You won’t tell the police. They might ask too many difficult questions.”
He stood up and walked across the room, taking hold of a cord hanging from the light fixture above the head of the bed. He unplugged it, then walked over to the window, opened it up, and stepped outside onto the fire escape. Peter could hear him moving quickly along the metal staircase until he reached the ground level below.
“Dad?” he called out after him but got no reply. “What do you mean they might ask ‘difficult questions?” he added angrily. “You killed my mother—you shot her! She’s dead, Dad!”
He ran forward and jumped off the fire escape himself, landing heavily on the cold concrete sidewalk. There was nobody around. Nobody seemed to be in any particular hurry. Peter felt a sudden rush of panic.
“Dad!” he yelled, running up the stairs behind him. “Where are you?”
He pushed open the front door and stepped inside, slamming the heavy wooden bolt home again behind him. He moved quickly down the hall and into the kitchen, then glanced quickly over his shoulder. No one was following him.
But still—he couldn’t help feeling like somebody was watching him from somewhere else. He started walking swiftly toward the living room, where he caught sight of his father’s gun lying on the carpet. Peter picked it up and stared at it for a long moment, then hurried back upstairs and into the bathroom.
He pulled the bathtub plug out and dropped the gun inside. Then he grabbed a bucket from under the sink, filled it with water, and threw the water over the side of the bath, soaking his father’s gun as well as the rest of the house.
He went downstairs to get some towels, then ran back upstairs to dry the gun with them. Finally, he wrapped the whole thing in a towel and tied it in place with string, then carried it into the living room where he set it on top of his father’s computer monitor.
“There,” he said quietly to himself. “That should keep anyone from finding it.”
Then he hurried through the front door and out of the building into the snow-covered street. As soon as he was safely outside, Peter started walking, heading away from the neighborhood in the direction of the city center.
He had no idea what time it was or how late night buses usually ran in this area. He’d have to catch one and hope for the best. He didn’t know exactly where his mother lived, but he knew it was on the other side of town. That would give him enough time to think things through.
After a few minutes, he spotted a bus turning a corner not far ahead. He started jogging across the street, and as he did so, his mobile phone began to ring. Peter stopped dead and listened to the sounds of music coming from the telephone’s speaker.
“Hello?” he said tentatively. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
There was silence at first, but then suddenly a woman’s voice spoke, speaking very quickly and without hesitation.
“Is it true what they’re saying about your wife?” she asked him.
Peter looked around wildly as he tried to work out who the woman on the other end of the line was. She sounded familiar somehow, but he just couldn’t place her where he had heard her before.
“Who are you?” he finally managed to say, his voice shaking with rage.
“Why does everyone want to know about my personal life?” snapped the woman angrily. “Don’t you have anything better to do than gossip and spread lies?”
Peter’s mind was working rapidly now. This was all becoming horribly clear—and frighteningly real. The woman on the line was talking to him because he was Simon, just like she had always wanted.
“You bitch!” shouted Peter. “You’ve been spying on me all this time and now you think you can blackmail me for money?”
“You’re not Simon!” cried the woman. “Simon is dead! He died three days ago!”
Peter took a step forward and raised his fists, then stopped suddenly when he remembered that the woman wasn’t really a woman at all. He let his arms fall limply to his sides.
“What are you?” he asked quietly, staring directly into the dark mirror of the phone.
The woman laughed harshly. “I’m your mother!”
Peter froze in mid-stride. It was all too much to take in all at once, so instead, he simply sank down onto the curb and sat down. His knees felt weak. He put his hands in his hair and pulled hard at a couple of strands until he could see clearly again through the mess in his eyes.
He wiped away the tears that were streaming down his face with both hands, then stared straight ahead for a long time.
Then slowly, he stood up and turned away from the bus stop. He walked for another minute or two until he came to a small park near a large department store. He sat down on a bench and stared out at the busy traffic on the streets beyond the park. There was something strange and familiar about all this, but he couldn’t quite figure out why.
It was only as he reached into his pocket to find a tissue that he realized what was missing. He checked the pockets of his jacket again and felt his stomach tighten with fear as he realized it was gone forever. A horrible sinking sensation started to rise in his chest. Peter felt sick and dizzy. Then he stood up and hurried out of the park and back into the busy city streets.
***
The first thing Peter did was call his own mother. When she answered he told her to come immediately to his house and bring the police with her. Then he called an ambulance as well.
He waited impatiently for them to arrive, but eventually, even that seemed like a good excuse to postpone telling her what was going on. Eventually, though, someone knocked on his front door. Peter opened it and saw that the uniformed police officer standing there was the same man who had taken his statement after Simon’s death.
“Mrs. White,” said the policeman, looking up at Peter. “I need you to come down to the station with me right now.”
Peter looked at the man curiously. “Are you serious?” he said. “You’re arresting me?”
The police officer gave him a wry smile. “Your son is dead,” he told Peter bluntly. “And you’ve just admitted yourself to a hospital. I’m afraid we’re not exactly going to be able to give you any choice about it.”
Peter didn’t believe him. “You’re lying!” he shouted angrily.
The policeman shook his head. “No,” he said, looking grimly serious for the first time. “We’re not. Your son is dead, Mrs. White. You need to go with us and answer some questions.”
“But Simon is alive,” protested Peter, trying desperately to hold back his tears. “You can see if he’s still breathing for yourself!”
The policeman gave Peter a sympathetic look. “Mrs. White,” he said softly. “Your son died three days ago. He’s been dead ever since.”
***
When they arrived at the police station Peter was taken into one of the interrogation rooms and made to sit down at a table while a uniformed officer began to read out a list of Simon’s belongings.
“This belongs to Simon White,” announced the officer as he carefully laid each item out on the table next to him, including the black jacket that Simon always wore over his suit. Next to that, however, the police officer placed a small leather purse and a silver-rimmed compact mirror.
“This wallet belonged to Simon White,” continued the officer. “And these keys belong to Simon White.”
“What?” cried Peter incredulously. “Simon doesn’t use a wallet! He uses a money clip!”
The officer sighed patiently as he continued reading off the list, placing several small bottles of perfume, a few pairs of sunglasses, a small box of mints, a bottle of cologne, a set of car keys, a packet of gum, and a pack of cigarettes by each object.
“What do you mean?” demanded Peter, feeling very uncomfortable sitting there with all these unfamiliar items on the table in front of him. None of them seemed to make sense. “There must be more to this than meets the eye!”
The police officer nodded sympathetically. “Of course, there is, Mr. White,” he replied. “That’s why we have to ask you some very important questions. We’d really rather not have to arrest you if you don’t mind.”
Peter frowned. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.
The police officer smiled reassuringly. “We’re trying to help you,” he said. “If you tell us the truth, we’ll get to the bottom of this in no time at all and things will be back to normal again. We promise.”
“You mean you don’t know anything either?” asked Peter, beginning to feel angry and frustrated. “Is it possible that this is just a terrible mistake? What could possibly have happened?”
The policeman shook his head sadly. “It’s not a mistake,” he told Peter. “And I’m afraid we have our suspicions about how your son died. If you cooperate with us, though, we might be able to get everything sorted out pretty quickly.”
Peter swallowed hard, trying to hide the shock that had spread through his body like fire from head to toe. “How can you be sure?” he whispered shakily.
The police officer looked at him seriously for a moment before he began speaking. “Your son was found with his throat cut,” he said simply. “His clothes were soaked with blood, and his wrists and ankles had been tied together with wire.”
Peter felt himself starting to shake, but he held back his tears until he heard the police officer’s next words.
“We took him to a local hospital,” continued the police officer, “but unfortunately he’d lost too much blood, so we had to take him to St. Mungos instead. That’s where they discovered he wasn’t actually your son at all.”
“No,” sobbed Peter, burying his face in his hands. “My baby…”
“Mr. White,” interrupted the policeman sternly. “Your son isn’t your son.”
Peter stared blankly at him in horror. “He couldn’t be,” he gasped. “That’s impossible!”
The police officer shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s true,” he said gently. “But don’t worry; we’ll find whoever did this and put him behind bars forever.”
Peter felt as if his whole world was crashing down around him. His knees started to buckle underneath him and he began to tremble violently. A cold sweat covered his entire body and his heart began beating wildly in his chest. The only thing he knew was that the police officer was wrong—absolutely hopelessly wrong.
Simon was his son, and he would never betray his mother and brother like that! He loved them too much! He wouldn’t even let them think that he didn’t care about them any more! He wanted to protect them forever, just as he had promised to do when they were babies…
Peter fell forward onto the table, knocking over the pile of possessions with his arms stretched out helplessly in front of him.
“Don’t say that!” cried Peter, his voice quivering with rage and panic as the police officer moved quickly to steady him. “Please! Don’t say that!”
“Calm yourself, Mr. White,” begged the policeman, taking hold of Peter’s arm to prevent him from falling off the table completely. “You’ve got to calm down now or we’ll have to sedate you.”
“Sedate me?” shouted Peter. “What are you saying?”
The policeman smiled reassuringly. “We can’t afford to let you go into shock,” he explained calmly. “Not if we want to solve this crime and make sure nobody else gets hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” muttered Peter hoarsely, forcing himself to sit up straight and staring at the table intently. “I can’t explain what happened. It’s like I blacked out for a second and then woke up here. But Simon’s still my son.”
“Are you sure?” asked the police officer, raising an eyebrow and glancing at the items on the table.
Peter shook his head fiercely. “Yes, I am!” he insisted. “I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
“But you must admit that it does seem a little strange that you have such an identical twin son,” suggested the policeman, smiling slightly. “It’s quite common to confuse the two, after all, isn’t it? Especially when their faces look so similar. After a while, it’s easy to imagine that they’re one person.”
Peter felt himself getting angrier by the minute, and he tried to force his anger down inside him, where he didn’t have to see it. How dare they accuse him like this?
“You can check his fingerprints if you like,” he snapped, glaring at the policemen accusingly. “They can prove that he’s really my son.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed the policeman regretfully, shaking his head. “It’s no good, Mr. White,” he replied. “There’s already a fingerprint scanner in the hospital. We checked it twice already.”
“So how can you prove that Simon really is my son?” demanded Peter desperately, unable to control his rising fury.
“Unfortunately there’s no way of proving it,” sighed the policeman. “We’ll need another parent who knows both boys to come and identify the bodies first. And then we can start making a list of everyone who could have done this.”
The police officer stood up and began collecting the scattered items of clothing and belongings, putting them carefully back into the box and covering it over again with the plastic bag. Then he placed everything on top of the coffee table in front of Peter, looking at him expectantly.
Peter glanced at the clothes lying before him and then looked down at his own dirty jeans and T-shirt which he was wearing, not even bothering to pull it over his head. He looked at the other man in the same way, but the policeman shook his head sadly.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to use any of these. Not after what happened.”
Peter stared at him for a few seconds as if he were talking to someone who was crazy. Then, without warning, he sprang from the chair and ran out of the room. As he reached the door he turned and threw himself bodily against the wooden frame, slamming it shut. The policemen heard a loud click as the bolt slid home and then deep silence descended upon the house.
“We’d better call an ambulance, hadn’t we?” said one of the men standing by the door nervously. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and hit the button to switch it on.
“No,” replied the policeman sharply. “He needs time to cool down.”
The two policemen exchanged worried glances. This wasn’t like Peter at all, and they were both afraid that he might try to harm himself, perhaps even hurt somebody else in the process. They were just glad that they had managed to get him out of the building before he became violent.
“I know he’s angry,” whispered one of them softly. “And I’m sure he blames himself for what’s happened, but there’s nothing we can do unless he comes back and allows us to talk to him.”
“I agree,” replied the other man grimly. “Let’s hope he calms down and comes back later.”
The End