THE DEADLY DOPPELGANGER

Almost long enough to be a novella, this is my attempt at a crime story

THE DEADLY DOPPELGANGER

The water was cold, and, yes, it was wet. What else could it be? And Jeremy Carpenter was fighting against the ropes that held him and the weight of the boulders that were tied to them, chaffing him, threatened to kill him.

Someone wanted him dead and the last thing he wanted was to die. There were women in the world who would mourn him, even if they didn’t know he existed. Not yet, but they would, and come to admire him and his wonderful wedding tackle, it was why there were women on the planet..

So he gathered every ounce of strength that he had and tried to concentrate on survival. He focused his mind on his own beating heart, his love of the dawn and bacon and eggs for breakfast, and a sweet lady on his lap.

Jeremy had no idea why he’d been grabbed outside the old coaching inn where he’d enjoyed a few drinks with Charlotte Jones where he’d planned a delightful half hour with the charming young woman before they got to their respective homes, but grabbed he’d been, and those who had leapt through the dark at him while he was waiting for Charlotte to find her way out of the ladies conveniences and rejoin him so they could walk home like the lovers they weren’t yet but might be one day soon, with, he hoped, more than a slicr of luck. He’d have liked that, Charlotte was a stunner and he, sadly, was no oil painting but he went to every effort to encourage charm into his smile, and she seemed to find his company convivial if nothing else. As freeing water found its way past his lips he thought that from tiny acorns mighty oaks might grow.

Yet someone, no, two somebodies, had seen fit to grab him, sling him into the back of a van he didn’t recognise whilst kicking him as hard as they could where they knew it was bound to hurt, his precious crown jewels. Then, when it was quite clear to him that any chances he might have of becoming the father he’d always wanted to be, the van had accelerated away, leaving Charlotte standing by the Inn door looking round for the Jeremy who should have been waiting for her, but wasn’t.

Then, when he thought the van might be going to drive all the way to the distant ocean (though he had no idea why he thought that) it stopped and the two men who had caught him unawares and kicked half of the life out of him pulled up in a lay-by. He thought it must be a lay-by because of the crunching sound as the wheels gripped on to something loose.

It was when they had piled in on top of him and administered a few more hearty kicks that a rope, long and rough and definitely not intended to be anything but agonising where it was dragged against his skin, was bound round him until he could barely move a muscle. Before his eyes were bound and sticky tape crushed against his mouth, silencing him, not that he’d had the strength or bravery to make anything in the way of noise, he saw his tormentors. He caught a glimpse of the badges that one of them wore.

He hadn’t seen what they’d done next, but when he was grabbed by tough hands and heaved out of the van into the cold air and forced onto feet incapable of any independent activity, he was shoved roughly in the back and made to hobble along to a final destination where he was thrown into this icy water as if he was a bag of filth, and a rock or boulder, with its umbilical of rope scraping his skin, dropped with a splash alongside him. And it was there that, struggling, he tried to move, but couldn’t. He breathed with bursting lungs, and filled them with dirty pond water, and that’s where he was when the lights went out for him.

Oo0oo

It wasn’t long after dawn when Colin and Susan, on their way to school decided to skim flat stones across the village duck pond and see who could make the stones do the most hops. Fortunately, it was out of season for ducks so they’d be safe, though that didn’t cross either of the children’s minds because the competition was on.

Susan went first and was peeved when her stone skimmed three times and then hit something solid.

“That’s not fair!” she shouted.

“What is it?” asked Colin.

“I don’t know, but it’s decidedly unfair that it’s there,” sulked Susan, and as she stamped her feet to emphasise her discontent a wrinkled human hand rose a few inches above the surface of the water, and she screamed.

The pond, fortunately for the two children, wasn’t isolated in the countryside but was part of a village green surrounded by a motley selection of the sort of houses the middle classes choose to live in, and her continuous scream caused Mr and Mrs Piper to poke their noses over their fence to see what was going on.

It didn’t take them long to notice that the hand waving at them seemed to come from the depths of the pond and that there was no sign of life, no bubbles a diver might produce or no ripples that someone searching the bed of the pond for something might make. There was just the hand and it was clearly attached to an arm, and so Mr Piper telephoned the emergency services whilst Mrs Piper put the kettle on.

Meanwhile a tearful pair of children were given a bar of chocolate each and sent on their sobbing way to school.

“Just you hurry along, dears. I’ll let you know what it is when I find out,” Mrs Piper said comfortingly, “you’re at Barnflush Primary, aren’t you.

Colin and Susan had barely enough time to reach the other side of the green on their way to school when the first police car arrived, and Detective Inspector Janice Goodworthy climbed out and surveyed the scene.

“We’ll need divers,” she said when her Detective Sergeant Fran Biggleswade arrived, “I’m not risking paddling in that. It might be deeper than it looks.”

“It is, ma’am,” replied Fran, “It’s got a reputation, it has. They call it the bottomless lake.”

“We’ll see about that,” smiled the DI.

oo0oo

It was almost time for elevenses when Jeremy was finally pulled out of the water. Divers had located the weights, concrete blocks that were more than up to the task they had to perform, holding all but one of Jeremy’s arms in the autumnal depths.

The police doctor, Mr Robert (Bob) Sagebrush then had his turn and decided after a minimal inspection that the probable cause of death was drowning, which the DI had already worked out for herself.

“I see,” she said, and then, sarcastically, “You sure of that, doc?”

“I said probable,” nodded the doctor, “and I’ll have a lot more to tell you after the post mortem. After all, who can tell what mischief that a soaking like this fellow’s had might be hiding?”

“Any idea of time of death?” asked a hopeful DI.

“Some time in the last week,” grinned Dr Sagebrush. “See me around five and I’ll probably know a bit more.”

“And any indication who he is?” asked Fran, the DS.

The doctor smiled at her. “See the answer to the last question,” he said.

oo0oo

“I need to see a policeman,” said Charlotte Jones as she stood by the enquiries desk at the local police station. It wasn’t like her to make any kind of demand, but this time she felt motivated to ask questions. After all, even though she could hardly call Jeremy a boyfriend, not even a friend of any sort if she was honest to herself, he had marked an improvement on her own tendency to be isolated from others. So she marched to the police station and throwing caution to the winds, went in.

Sergeant Crabtree was on duty and he was dealing with something or other on the telephone. He glanced at her and nodded. “Just a minute”, waving his phone towards her, “this is important.”

“So is this,” muttered Charlotte, not quite sure that it was but annoyed there could be something more important than what she wanted to ask.

“I’ll leave you now, angel,” the sergeant said into the phone, “and I’ll remember to pick up a couple of pints of semi-skinned on the way home.”

“This is important,” Charlotte told him again, angry that a grocery order should take precedence over a missing person.

“And I’ll remember the cheese too, darling,” said the sergeant, still into his phone. “I must go. There’s an impatient bird wanting my attention.”

“I’m nobody’s bird!” snapped Charlotte, “this is a missing person and every second you waste might be the second when he dies!”

The sergeant put his phone down, scowling.

“Now what’s all this about, missie?” he asked. He’d had one hell of a night and wasn’t feeling like sortingsimple problems out for impatient young women.

Missie, thought Charlotte, what century is he from? And isn’t he supposed to be the first man a person turns to in times of trouble?

“A man’s gone missing,” she told him, “I waited for ages for him. Outside the Grapes and Bottle on the Brumpton Road. All I did was go to the loo for a wee and a touch up of my lippy, and when I went out he was gone. So this morning I tried to see him at his home address which he’d told me, and he wasn’t there. The bloke next door said he hadn’t seen him all morning, and he should have.”

“The Grapes and Bottle, you say, miss?” he grunted, making a note, “that’s no place for a young lady like yourself to be waiting for anyone now, is it?”

“We’d been inside and were going home, and I went to the loo,” she said, repeating the reason he was waiting for her.

“Maybe he’s got a wife or a girlfriend?” suggested the sergeant spitefully, “have you thought of that? Maybe you were a bit on the side and he wanted to make a quick getaway.”

“He’s not married and I’m his girlfriend if you must know,” snapped Charlotte, possibly promoting herself.

“That’s no attitude if you need help,” responded Sergeant Crabtree who had joined the force hoping to make an important difference almost forty years ago, and here he was, on the cusp of retiring and with an almost hysterical young woman who had fallen out with some fellow or other and was mouthing off at him.

“I’m sorry, but I’m worried shitless,” she said.

“And mind your language,” he advised, “now tell me about him if you’re reporting him as a missing person.” He reached for a pad. “Name?” he asked.

“Charlotte Jones,” she said.

“Not your name, his. The missing person’s” he growled

“Oh. Jeremy. Jeremy Carpenter. In his thirties, thirty seven I think, of 12 Derry Down Close here in Swanspottle.”

“I’ll get this round to all the officers in the area,” yawned Sergeant Crabtree, “he’ll turn up, they always do.”

“And you’ll make sure that policemen go out actually looking for him?” asked Charlotte.

“Of course, precious,” grunted the sergeant, and when he noticed an expression of anger or something related to anger flaring up in her eyes, “I’m sorry, miss, I’ve been on all right nd bdefore then I waas doing some heavy lifting, and I can barely keep my eyes open…”

“All right,” she muttered. “And my number is…” and she scribbled her own mobile number together with her name on the sheet of paper the sergeant had torn from his pad.

“I know you’re Charlotte Jones, you told me,” he growled as she walked away.

oo0oo

Miss Pamela Goodboy, teacher in her fist year at Barnflush Primary School, was beginning to feel that she needed inspiration. It was getting towards the end of a day that had been, from her perspective, pure drudgery. To start with the Headmaster (one Brian Granger and on his way to retirement) had seen fit to question her methods and point out that there was such a thing as a national curriculum and it would be best for her children if she followed it, and when she had replied that she did just that he had pointed out that in his opinion some of the risqué limericks on her blackboard were far from the three r’s she was supposed to be teaching and if an inspector chanced to see them she’d be in deep trouble. Which she was because he had seen them and although he found them amusing he didn’t approve.

She had intended to round the day off with a witty little poem concerning a young fellow from Chile and she couldn’t without getting deeper into the mire, so instead she smiled at the cherubs (they weren’t really and it was proved when she caught Colin Bramley peeping up Susan’s Smith’s skirt when she was both looking at what he was doing and giggling because of it) and asked them if anything special had happened to them that day.

“Yes Miss,” said Susan, “we saw a dead body in the pond on the Green.

Now that was enough to make her see all sorts of colours in an angry rainbow, but in order to maintain a reputation for gentle patience even under pressure she smiled and said, “Really Susan. Was it a mouse or something like that? Maybe a bird that had flown into an electric pylon?”

“No miss,” replied Susan, “it was a man. Or at least I think it must have been but we only saw his arm, didn’t we Colin?”

“It was hairy like a man’s, and gruesome,” the boy said, giving full support to Susan’s account.

“I think it was that man who we’ve been told to keep away from,” put in Susan, “you know, the man who might say disgusting things to us and upset us.”

“Oh,” murmured Miss Goodboy, “and you’re absolutely sure that he was dead?”

“Of course, unless he can hold his breath for absolutely ages under water,” said Susan.

“And even longer,” confirmed Colin.

It was time for most of the rest of the class, who had either seen the grotesque hand or knew someone who had, to join in the debate.

“And I saw the police,” said a boy from the back of the class who had arrived a few minutes late, “a plain clothes copper, a lady,” he added, “all important and stuff.”

“Oh dear,” sighed the teacher, wishing she’d thought of some other topic to end the day with.

oo0oo

Sergeant Crabtree dragged on his coat because it was, he knew, cold outside, and when he was clear of the station he took out his phone and adopted a truly serious expression.

“Things are going wrong,” he said to the somebody at the other end of his conversation.

“I’ve heard,” came the reply, “but it’s nowt to do with us.”

“Says you! It’s the woman DCI on the case, and you know what she’s like.”

“It’s still nowt to do with us. Anyway, serves the b*****d right!”

“You’ve not heard, have you?”

“Heard what?

“We got the wrong b*****d!”

oo0oo

It had taken DCI Goodworthy almost no time at all to organise an almost adequate incident room in a vestibule to the local church hall where the case could be debated, turned upside down and eventually solved (hopefully), and she decided to go to the school where the children who had first spotted the deceased and find out if they’d noticed anything at all unusual other than a naked arm waving from the depths of the duck pond.

Barnflush Primary School was well named because it had been a barn conversion that must have been flushed out before it became a school, she thought when she waited outside the headmaster’s office where a secretary who gave out the impression of being three quarters senile suggested she wait. She must have got something right because moments later the head bellowed come in as if he was waiting to discipline a recalcitrant child, and feeling like she probably felt thirty years earlier on a naughty day Janice Goodworthy accompanied by Fran Biggleswade pushed her way into his office.

Brian Granger had seen most of what Headmasters might expect to see and was at that stage of is life when he was preparing himself mentally to do a bit of bird watching and even more of enjoying his garden. But that most of what Headmasters might expect to see didn’t include DCI Goodworthy and dead bodies in duck ponds.

“Mr Granger,” began the good DCI, It’s nothing really, but we know that two of your children spotted a corpse on their way to school this morning and I wonder if it would be possible for me to ask them a few questions before the end of the school day?”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” came his curt reply, “I can’t allow children to be interviewed by the police without the consent of their parents!”

“Oh dear,” murmured Janice Goodworthy, “is that because you’re afraid we might discover something you’d prefer to keep hidden? Maybe the odd regularity being flaunted? Something that might prove embarrassing to you if you’re hoping to retire with a spotless record?”

His eyes bulged when he stared at her.

“I have no idea what you mean!” he almost stammered.

“Wrll, in my experience most people who refuse the sort of request I just made do so because they’re hiding something,” she said, “and anyway, I wasn’t going to ask them much. But every little snippet of seemingly irrelevant information can hopefully lead to the apprehension of a killer, and the sooner we are made cognisant of it the better..”

“Oh, if that’s all you want…” he grinned, “well, it’s almost time for the bell signalling home time, so I’ll fetch the children you want. Susan and Colin, wasn’t it?”

Now how did you know that? thought Janice as he stood up and left his spartan office. When she’d been in trouble as a child the office of the headteacher had contained filing cabinets, piles of books on polished shelves, framed certificates on the walls, and a size twelve slipper which had been promised as a warmer for her bottom if she didn’t mind her p’s and q’s.

She vowed to mind any letters in the alphabet if her bottom was left cool.

Mr Granger returned with two attractive children, a boy and a girl, holding each others hands.

“Well, hello, and it’s good to see a boy happy to hold a girl’s hand!” she said, “I had a boyfriend when I was your age. Billy he was, and he sometimes held my hand, especially when I was in trouble and being threatened by my bully of a headmaster! The trouble with Billy was he always had sweat fingers!”

Mr Granger coughed and spluttered.

“Are we in trouble, miss?” asked Susan, squeezing Colin’s fingers which weren’t at all sweaty gently.

“Not at all! How silly of me to put that in your minds!” she replied, not telling them that a little pinch of fear might help them answer her questions a trifle more thoughtfully. “It’s just that I’ve been told you spotted Mr Carpenter’s hand when he waved at you from the depths of the duck pond?”

“Yes miss,” replied Colin glancing at Susan, “at least we saw a hand but we didn’t know its name, and that’s all we saw! It made Susan, or I mean both of us, scream out, and Mr and Mrs Piper who live in the nearest house heard and came to help us. Mr Piper gave us some chocolate.”

“And that’s all you saw? A hand?”

“And maybe a bit of his arm. Yes, miss, we saw a bit of his arm.”

“And did you see if he was wearing a watch or anything like that? A bracelet, maybe?”

“No, miss.”

“And anything else? Strangers lurking in the shadows? A strange van or large car nearby where it shouldn’t be?”

Both children shook their heads and the DCI was sure they had nothing else useful to tell, so she thanked them, and they returned to their classroom in time for the end-of-day bell to send them on their ways home.

“See, Mr Granger, it didn’t hurt, did it?” asked a smiling DCI Goodworthy.

He mumbled something inaudible and Janice thought he looked a little shamefaced.

“We’ll be off now,” she said, “by the way, nice office. Not at all threatening!”

oo0oo

Dr. Sagebrush looked up as both DCI and DS made their way into the sparkling place that they knew as the morgue.

“Well, Doctor, what have you got for us?” Janice asked.

“You’ll be pleased to know that your own diagnosis was almost spot on!” replied the pathologist, “the gentleman most certainly died of drowning. Not a pleasant way to go, did you see the colour of the water? But it was probably quite quick when you take in the host of bruises to his torso, especially to his genitals. Whoever kicked him like they must have done did him a favour of sorts. Drowning would have been the least of his discomforts and death will have taken away the pain. He’d been circumcised so he didn’t even have the protection of a little bit of extra skin.”

“Do you think it was a punishment?” she asked.

“I couldn’t possibly say, ma’am. I can rarely get into the minds of those who provide me with cadavers to play with, but if it wasn’t I hate to think what might have been on the minds of the fellows with heavy boots..”

“Have you run a tox test?”

“And the contents of his stomach didn’t reveal much. Just a drop of alcohol. Red wine, I think, but not enough to make him in any way incapacitated. And if it’s of any interest to you, he was in pretty good physical shape before the attack on him, which occurred shortly before his death. Of drowning.”

The DCI nodded, and turned to her detective sergeant. “Can you think of anything else?” she asked.

“What about sex? Was he sexually active?” Fran asked.

“He was a healthy man and before his crown jewels were destroyed by a violent onslaught I’d say he probably was. Do you want to take a peep, see what sort of joys you might have been missing?”

Janice shook her head, grinned at him and with Fran just behind her, walked out of the mortuary.

oo0oo

Charlotte Jones had suffered a truly horrible day. The man she’d been with last night wasn’t her idea of special, but she had been with him. He’d bought her a drink, red wine, and they’d talked about not very much. They were going to walk home together, and maybe have a little kiss before they parted company, then she going to her flat alone and he going round the corner where he’d said he lived.

The thing was, she wondered if it had been her fault. It she hadn’t gone to the toilet (and all she’d really wanted to do was check her lipstick) maybe he wouldn’t have been attacked and ended up in the duck pond in Swanspottle.

She’d been identified as the woman he’d been with because CCTV showed her standing outside the wretched pub (not her favourite, but convenient to both of them) and the craggy old policeman she’d seen that morning when she’d gone to ask if he was a missing person had actually remembered what she looked like because he said he might have spotted her out of the corner of his eye, and because he had her address she had been contacted and questioned by a female officer.

Detective Constable Stella Plaice had been awarded the job of interviewing her. Stella was a straight forward young woman who, as they say, called a spade a spade rather than an agricultural implement. But she had a way with people who were troubled, and Charlotte was certainly that, though Stella thought she had no real reason to shoulder the blame herself.

But Stella had put her foot in it by Charlotte’s standards with her first question after identification had been confirmed.

“Are you having sex with him?”

“What sort of woman do you take me for?” she had replied, “I hardly know the man! He just came up to talk to me and I felt that I needed company.”

“But you were walking home with him,” pointed out Stella.

“No, I was going to my home, not to his, which happened to involve us walking in the same direction,” she had retorted.

“And were you expecting to sleep with him that night?”

“No way! He’s not my sort and I got the impression he might be a bit forward, so no, I wouldn’t even have thought of sleeping with him. So put that it your pipe and smoke it! I don’t go for sleeping with any man who buys me a glass of wine, you know.”

And that had been that. All the DC had been bothered with was sex and all that Charlotte was bothered with was emphasising her disinterest in the man who was now dead.

But, she asked herself, was he dead for any unfathomable reason to do with her?

oo0oo

Roger Peel had a wretched time since he’d been released from Brumpton Jail where he’d spent eight months contemplating his future.

As far as he was concerned he’d been stitched up. Somehow it had been assumed that he was guilty of indecently assaulting a woman in her thirties and he’d been told that he had even exposed himself to her despite the indisputable fact (in his mind) that he’d never even met her who let alone touched her. After all, he didn’t do things like that, did he? But however often he insisted on his innocence the police found someone else to suggest he wasn’t. And so he’d actually been charged, gone to court where a life he couldn’t begin to understand was described to the jury and he was sentenced to twelve months in Brumpton Prison Then, after remission had served eight horrible months. That had been pretty bad, but life on the outside became a great deal worse.

People, men and women he thought were total strangers, started avoiding him even though before his imprisonment they would have had no reason to do anything but avoid him because they didn’t know him. And worse, they told their children to steer clear of him, and they did it in a way that was audible to him. He had become a pariah. He was the sort of person he himself despised.

Then he had gone to the pub, the Grapes and Bottle where he had enjoyed a pint of best bitter, though it wasn’t the sort of pub he’d have chosen to go to in order to spend a pleasant evening. And it was there where he had sat entirely on his own with other drinkers ensuring two things.

They ensured that he knew that they thought they knew who he was and secondly they ensured his discomfort meant he only had the one drink before going home.

It wasn’t until he arrived back at his digs and spent an uncomfortable night asleep in his room at the top of a terraced house which was certainly not the sort of place he would choose for himself, but he’d had no say in where he lived, a probation officer had found it for him, that he heard that he’d been murdered.

No name had been given when he’d watched the item in the news on his minute television set, but the photograph accompanying it was of him. He was sure of it.

And apparently he’d been kicked to death and dumped in a duck pond.

The thought almost comforted him, especially when it crossed his mind he couldn’t remember it.

oo0oo

Charlotte shuddered when she tried to think what it must have been like for Jeremy to die the way he had. True, she had barely known him even though she was quite sure she’d seen him here and there every since she’d moved from the City to the more rural district of Brumpton and its entourage of pretty and rural villages. Once or twice she was quite sure she’d seen him twice in different seats on the same bus, but it was madness, she knew it was, and she had shrugged it off.

It was not a couple of days since he had died and in order to take her mind off it she decided to have a stall at a boot sale, not that she had a boot to sell things out of. But she did have a huge bag and her chosen hobby was small and beautiful objects. She couldn’t help collecting them, be they made of wood or metal or porcelain, and every so often she felt the need to make space for others and sold off some of her collection that were less appealing to her.

It took her out of the house, she told herself.

The truth was she’d never been much of a mixer. At school, and now she was twenty five that was a decade ago, she’d always been an outsider and found it easier to hide in the pages of a book than socialise with others. It had been a brave and unusual step when she had agreed to go to let Jeremy join her in the her pub, and look how that had ended.

If only she hadn’t thought it necessary to apply that extra layer of lipstick! But she had, and when she came outside Jeremy had gone.

The boot sale was a bus ride away from home and it was held every Saturday. She’d been there before, had even sold unwanted things on a stall before, and enjoyed it. And she’d made quite a bit of extra pocket money! So she went there again, on the Saturday following the death of the only man she’d been out with for ages.

She laid her goods out on a blanket because a table of any description was too difficult to cart around on public transport, but the lack of a table didn’t put customers off when she started selling. One woman even picked up a pretty figurine that was in perfect condition and offered her ten times what she would have asked for it without checking the price, and she gladly accepted the money.

And then the world as far as she was concerned fell to pieces.

“How much is this?” asked a man, and he had Jeremy’s voice. Then, when she looked up he also had Jeremy’s face, Jeremy’s smile and even the colour of Jeremy’s eyes.

“Jeremy?” she whispered, “aren’t you dead?” And she collapsed, slowly, onto the well-trodden turf and closed her eyes in order to shut everything out of her sight

oo0oo

“I could well do without this,” grumbled Simon Greer, a paramedic who hated having to go to the aid of unknown people with unknown problems. His partner scowled at him and shook her head.

“I don’t now why you do this job,” muttered Annie Rasterik, “you’re always grumbling about it. What is it? Are you scared of splintered bones or flooding blood?”

“Of course not! But I like to know what I’m doing and where I’m going,” complained Simon, “a few brtoken bones or burst veins don’t trouble me at all if I know what I’m to expect when I get to where I’m going.”

“You’re daft,” grinned Annie, “look: here we are, a boot sale in a lovely green field.”

”Yeah, Yeah,” he mumbled, and someone, a tall gentleman with a badge beckoned them in. He was Foxton Gerard and the boot sale was his own domain, and he liked things to go smoothly. And the last thing he wanted to do was the paperwork if someone got injured on his watch.

“Where is she?” asked Annie. She was the one who did all the talking whilst Simon did the driving. Not that she couldn’t drive, because she could, and most people reckoned she was the better driver of the two.

The tall gentleman replied that there was a woman who’d fainted even though it was far from being fainting weather. “Anyway,” he said, “we thought she ought to be looked at. Young lasses of her age don’t normally faint for no good reason.”

“It’s always best to be certain,” Annie reassured him, “many a funeral can be delayed by taking speedy action.”

“I don’t think we’re talking about funerals,” Foxton Gerard said, and he led them to a shed-like hut with its door open and a young woman sitting on a chair with her head bowed.

The patient was pale and seemed to be studying several blades of grass on the turf in front of her.

Then she looked up, slowly and Annie could see that there were tears in her eyes.

“What is it, ducky?” she asked.

The patient remained silent for a few seconds that to her, seemed ages, then she replied.

“I saw Jeremy,” she whispered, “and Jeremy’s dead…”

It was just as well she couldn’t see the expression the way Simon shook his head and rolled his eyes as he muttered mad as a hatter

Because she wasn’t.

oo0oo

Roger Peel was confused rather than being the broken man he’d been before the woman had called him Jeremy because he knew very little since his release from prison, but what he was sure of was his name wasn’t Jeremy and he was almost sure that he wasn’t dead, though some times he wished he was. But he chided himself with the knowledge that he’d done nothing wrong, that the accusations, that he’d almost raped a woman and even exposed himself in front of her, were as false as any accusations could be. H’d spent the last eight months telling himself that and here he was at a boot sale where he thought nobody would recognise him, and this woman had called him Jeremy and fainted right there in front of him.

What would the coppers make of that, then? Would he be locked up again because a woman fainted for no good reason? Ir was all right being mistaken for somebody else, it happens all the time, but a woman, young and pretty, fainting?

And leaving her small stall of knick-knacks behind, and her bag?

If nothing else he could collect them up for her. Yes, that would prove he was an okay sort of guy, surely, and not in any way planning to whip his willy out and dangle it in front of her.

So he did just that. Foxton, the tall bloke with the badge, noticed him and he told him what he was doing.

“I’ll make sure she gets them,” he said.

“You know her then?” asked Foxton.

“Not really, but she’s still over there with those paramedics and if I’m quick I’ll get her stuff to her before they take her to hospital.

“Better get a move on then,” grunted Foxton, “look, there’s someone else there and if I’m not confused it’s a pretty young police officer!”

Roger groaned. “Not more coppers,” he said.

“Don’t you worry. They’ll be glad you’re helping a woman in distress,” Foxton Gerard assured him, and wandered off.

oo0oo

DC Stella Plaice clicked her teeth in annoyance. She was just about to call at the cafe in Swanspottle where they served doughnuts you could die for, and enjoy a belated elevenses with maybe two of them, when she noted the paramedic’s ambulance car parked at the entrance to the boot sale field, and decided it might save time if she poked her nose in, just in case. Anyway, she found something strangely human and even green about boot sales

When she parked up, just behind the paramedics car it was to see a young women being gently escorted to it.

“Can I help?” she asked Annie, who she recognise from the book club they both belonged to.

“It’s okay,” replied Annie, and she indicated her almost comatose patient who was struggling to put one foot gingerly in front of the other. “She saw someone she thought was dead and it upset her,” she explained.

“That would shock anyone,” agreed Stella, “and there are times I just wish I could see my dad again so that I could give him a piece of my mind without the risk of a piece of his fist in reply!”

Stella had hated her father, who was an acclaimed bully. Most people knew well to steer clear of Bob Plaice after closing time when he was staggering back home from the pub. He was the sort of man who had ideas and, however crazy they might seem to others, they were part of his reality, proven because he’d thought of them, and woe betide anyone who didn’t like them. There had been the time when he’d sworn a spaceship had landed on the green near the pond, and he’d actually put a man he had never met before in hospital because he pointed out that it was a kiddies roundabout.

That had been the man Stella hated, and for good reason, the bruises he’d given her.

Then she peered more closely at the patient.

“Don’t I know you?” she asked, “it’s Charlotte, isn’t it? Charlotte Jones?”

The woman turned and tried to smile but didn’t quite manage it., so nodded instead.

“It was Jeremy,” she said, “he can’t be dead like you said because it was him. I swear it was. I’d know those eyes anywhere.”

It was then that Roger arrived with her bag and passed them to one of the paramedics, Simon Greer who was getting to be fed up with what he saw as nothing but a hysterical woman who didn’t need medical treatment at all.

“This is what’s left of her stuff,” he said, “make sure she knows it’s there, will you?”

The paramedic nodded grumpily and took the bag. “One way of getting a free lift home,” he grunted.

Meanwhile, DC Stella Plaice stared at Charlotte.

“His eyes?” she said, “you know him well enough to know his eyes?”

Charlotte shivered. “I don’t really know him at all,” she explained, “I only had one drink with him the other night and when we were ready to walk home together he disappeared.”

“And got himself murdered,” muttered Simon, the paramedic, “I was called out to that but what can a man with my skills do to help a drowned corpse? But I read the details in the papers and your picture was there.”

“Do you feel up to explaining to my boss about the man you just saw, the one who frightened you?” asked the DC.

“Might he still be alive?” whispered Charlotte.

“Not a chance this side of Hell,” grunted Simon, “I saw him, duckie. He was deader than any dodo you ever heard of.”

“Then what…” stammered Charlotte, and then she caught a glimpse of the man who had brought the remnants of her stall for her.

She screamed. She had to. “That’s him,” she pointed, “just there, look, that’s Jeremy.

“Bats,” whispered Simon to himself.

Charlotte heard hi, and started sobbing to herself and nodding her head back and forth as if she really had seen a dead man walking.

“Come on,” said Annie, “let’s get you checked over at A & E, and when you’re done and dusted you’ll still get home for lunch!”

“I’ll see what my boss says,” put in Stella, “she might think it’s something and on the other hand she might think it’s nothing.”

oo0oo

Roger couldn’t get to his rotten attic room fast enough.

That women, the one who had called him Jeremy and got his name all wrong, must have seen something about him. Maybe, he started to wonder, maybe I am a notorious womaniser. Maybe I do things with my subconscious that my conscious mind doesn’t even want to think about, but I do it anyway?

Then he took his imagination one step further.

Maybe I really am dead, and maybe that woman’s quite right. Maybe my real name is Jeremy and maybe I was murdered for my sins. I wish I could remember them, those sins, so that I could erase them… but they’re already erased, aren’t they? Maybe that woman knows me better than I know myself. What did they call her? Charlotte. That’ll be it. I can’t even remember anyone with that name. I once knew a Susan, but that’s not Charlotte, is it?

Maybe the world would be a better place if I’d never been born. Women would be safe from my nasty ways, my rotten attention to them that I know nothing about. And after all, what has my life achieved? I’m thirty-five years old and a bloody virgin! In my memory I’ve never been brave enough to go near any woman let alone a pretty young thing like that Charlotte. But what if my memory’s been forced to forget the real me and most of my life has been deleted?

Can that happen? And if it can and if that’s what’s happened, what on Earth use am I? To anyone, to myself, to the planet? I might as well be dead! And that, Roger Peel, is what I’m going to be! I’m safe enough from discovery in this ugly garret and if I were to die now, today, it might be a week before anyone finds me!

It was with that conclusion in his mind that he went to a rickety drawer where he kept his boxers and fiddled under them until his fingers found what he was searching for.

A small plastic bottle. Medication, it had been, from when he was diagnosed with blood pressure, but after a while he’d stopped taking the capsules because they made him feel weary and wobbly. He’d decided, without consultation to any doctor, that he’d be better off without them. It wasn’t blood pressure than was wrong with him but a deleted set of memories, memories in which he’d whipped the pants off women and done what he had no memory of doing. Of course he had no memory of any of it. It had been deleted.

Why hadn’t he worked it out before? Well, he’d see to it once and for all…

He swallowed half a dozen of those capsules when there was a knock on his bedroom door and his landlady put her head in without invitation.

“There’s a policewoman here to see you,” she said, “so see to it sharp and I pray you haven’t been up to your old tricks or you’ll be out! Out, I tell you, and sleeping in the gutter!

His heart seemed to skip a beat. Was that the medicine, working already?

And what had he done for the cops to be here already? He hadn’t done anything, surely? There’s been no time for him to have done whatever dirty thing they were going to accuse him of, had there, and the memory of it rubbed out. He’d know if he had, wouldn’t he? Is that why they sent a police woman, to tempt him to forgotten sins?

He pushed the reminder of his medication into his mouth and went to see what she wanted.

oo0oo

“It’s not Charlotte Jones at fault, I’m sure of it,” Stella tried to explain to her DCI in the tiny space they called an incident room.

“Why not her?” asked Janice Goodworthy, frowning, “it’s not known for people to get a fixation on somebody they’d least except to. Sometimes we call it hate and other time we call it love and even sometimes we call it something in between the two.”

“It’s not that sort of thing,” explained Stella, “it’s just that she’s seen a bloke she had a drink with, and he isn’t dead like we told her he was, but alive and kicking. He even collected her oddments at the boot sale for her, and put them in a bag. Forensics have got them and found a fingerprint match.”

“They have? That was quick thinking, Stella.”

“So now we have some idea about who’s who. Her drowned Jeremy Carpenter identified by Charlotte today is really Roger Peel, and he’s been out of Brumpton nick for ten says or so after being sentenced to a year for sexual assault!”

“Is he now?”

“And there’s more. Take a look at this photo of Mr Peel.” and Stella held out a photograph from their records.

Janice glanced at it and then stared at it.

“This face is sort of familiar,” she said.

“And isn’t it!” grinned Stella triumphantly. “Compare it with this one, boss.”

“I’m not boss or ma’am, I’m Janice, or Jan to my friends” the DCI reminded her, taking a second image from her DC. Then, “Goodness gracious me! I see what you mean!”

She stared at the two photographs for a good minute before asking, “has there been some sort of mix up with the paperwork, Stella?”

“I don’t think so ma’ … I mean Janice,” she said quietly, “I think it’s a case of two men with features that are so similar than one can be mistaken for the other. They’re what they call doppelgangers and it is rare, but not impossible when you think of the limited number of features and their variations on a human face.”

“Stella, go and pick up this Mr Peel and let’s see what he’s got to say about it,” murmured her DCI, “this might be one bloody big break-through! Because if one looks identical to the other then all sorts of mischief might have been in the air.”

“Yes, ma’… I mean Janice,” grinned Stella, and she made her way out of the incident room, jangling her car keys.

oo0oo

Guy Mainwaring was worried. As a Detective Inspector he’d been proud of his achievements. He wasn’t one of those who thought it’s best to get a conviction at any cost. Oh no, he hated the idea that a single soul might be incarcerated if they were innocent, so he went to great pains to make sure that never happened. But for the past year it had crossed his mind that maybe he could have looked a bit harder at the Peel case. It wasn’t that he particularly liked Roger Peel because he didn’t. He rather thought the man, who worked stamping books at the borough library, was one book short of a shelf full himself. Two women had sworn it was him who had assaulted them both on separate occasions in the least pleasant of ways and had then waved his engorged male member at them as if it was a magic wand.

You don’t do that to women, do you? It’s not pleasant and even more, it’s illegal. And if someone’s caught doing it then they really ought to be punished!

But Peel had argued his innocence and even produced an alibi for one of the offences. He wasn’t, he claimed, waving his wand at Jennifer Crosby. He was, he insisted, having a drink with Evelyn Mortface, and when Mainwaring went to check the alibi it was to find she had been on holiday in Scotland, and produced train tickets and checkout receipts to prove it. Roger Peel had been nowhere near her. He’d lied, and in the silliest way because he hadn’t even warned her he was going to use her as an alibi. Maybe he’d forgotten.

Peel had got the day wrong, and that might well be his undoing. All the evidence about his activities pointed to his guilt and even though some of it might be circumstantial, it would certainly convince a decent jury.

But he still wasn’t happy about charging the man, and then seeing him almost broken as he was sentenced to twelve months that the judge said might have been longer and that he should count himself as lucky, made him hope he’d not made one ugly mistake..

And now DCI Janice Goodworthy was bringing it all back.

He liked Janice and knew in his heart that she was a good detective but why she had got her teeth into this one was beyond him. Anyway, he forwarded everything pertaining to the case to the good DCI together with an assurance that they’d got the right man and men like him deserved to be drowned in duck ponds or even suffer worse torments than that.

“What made you so confident you’d got the right man, Guy?” asked the DCI.

“Positive identification by two of his victims together with a false alibi, and there’s no telling how many might have come forward if they’d had the mind to,” replied the DI, “but in my experience there’s always a chance that some women welcomed his advances and took pleasure in examining his equipment.”

“There’s always the chance,” she replied dryly, “they say.”

“That sort of lass wouldn’t be the sort to complain then, would they,” Guy said dryly. And he had sent off the documents the DCI asked for and sat back and worried.

Because Roger Peel had never put his hands up to the offences and had even wept when it was suggested that he’d subjected two very nice young women to views of his manhood and they had even described it to him. The pervert had even been circumcised, though he kept quiet about that in court.

“I would never do that in a million years,” Peel had said, and if it wasn’t for the evidence of not one but two victims he might have believed him. But, he assured himself, the victims were victims and Peel must be a far from convincing liar.

oo0oo

“We might have a rare case,” DCI said at the meeting at the end of the day, before her team went back to their homesteads and warm fires. It was, after all, a cold autumn that was giving way to winter in the way the cold autumns can. “What do you know by the word doppelganger, Sergeant,” she said addressing Sergeant Fran Biggleswade.

“Not much,” admitted Fran, “isn’t it in a game on a computer? Or something like that?”

“Not exactly,” smiled Janice Goodworthy, “it’s a proper word in the real world and it means, Constable?” and she looked directly at Stella Plaice, giving her a chance to shine.

“Two people who are so identical it’s almost impossible to tell them apart,” replied the DI, “it’s rare, but not impossible.”

“And we have a drowned man who dries himself off and goes to boot sales,” said Janice, “and today one half of the twosome we’ve all been getting tired of ended up in hospital having his stomach pumped because he’s fed up being confused with the other half.”

There was a rustle as the door opened. In walked the desk sergeant as quietly as his heavy tread would let him.

“You wanted to see me, ma’am?” he asked.

“Ah, sergeant Crabtree,” said the DCI, “a moment of your time if you don’t mind. Tell us all about the man accused of indecently assaulting your niece.”

“The b*****d Peel,” replied the sergeant, “my niece, ma’am, was doing what good nieces do and minding her own business in the Grapes and Bottle, and the slob Peel sat next to her and, you understand, ma’am, I don’t like repeating this, but he touched her up when nobody was looking…”

“Not at all nice,” agreed the DCI. “and was that all?”

“Not all ma’am. He offered to walk her home, not that she wanted him to, and half way, where there’s no street lights, he undid his flies and, well, you can imagine the rest.”

“There’s no need to upset yourself, Sergeant. The thing is, are you sure it was Peel?”

“I most certainly am, ma’am. My niece identified him, and she’s got good eyesight.”

“This man?” And she showed him a picture of a man.

“That’s him, ma’am, to a dot!”

“What about this man, sergeant?” and she held up another picture.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s him all right. No mistake at all.”

“Which one, then, Sergeant? The first picture or the second picture?”

“Both, ma’am, they’re both the same bloke.”

Janice smiled grimly. “But if I were to put pressure on you, would you be able to choose the one who indecently assaulted your niece and the one who didn’t? Because, sergeant, one of the men in these photographs has never touched up a young woman in his life, and is now in hospital being brought round after trying to take his own life because being blamed for such a despicable thing has sent him to a place he doesn’t want to be!”

The sergeant looked confused. Was the DCI tricking him by showing him two photos of the same man? Did she know something about a dark secret he wanted to keep hidden?

“Sergeant Crabtree, take your time,” continued the DCI

“They’re both him,” Crabtree tried to assure her, “I know they are! I’d know that face anywhere!” I wept when our Jenny told me all about it, and I don’t weep often.”

oo0oo

Annie Rasterik and Stella Plaice were with half a dozen others, all ladies, at the village book club. The title thay were concentrating most of their attention on was the first part of The Lord of the Rings.

“That was some woman,” Annie told Stella, “to think she went bananas like that because she thought someone on the boot field was dead!”

“It’s a lot more complex than that,” replied Stella seriously. “It seems that the bloke she thought was dead turned out to be the spitting image of a bloke who was very much actually dead.. Doppelgangers.

“Really? So she wasn't three sheets to the wind but really thought she’d seen a dead man walking? That would spook me if it happened!”

“My boss is taking it seriously because the man we saw at the boot sale had been sentenced to prison and had done time when it might not have been him at all, but the actual dead man, his look-alike. I know it’s confusing, Annie, because I’m confused.”

“It’s lousy if your lot made a mistake when it came it identifying someone and locking the wrong someone up! Think if something of the sort happened to you.”

“I know. I’ve thought about that. At least it wasn’t our team that handled it.”

“Still, he did go to jail when he didn’t do it.”

“Don’t I know that for certain. Come on, let’s get on with our book or we’ll look like dummies when we have to come up with bright ideas about it. What do you make of Frodo Baggins? And Sam?”

oo0oo

“Listen up, team,” called DCI Janice Goodworthy, “We’ve got a break!” She held a document in the air, and then another.”

“More photographs?” asked her Detective Sergeant Fran Bigglewade.

“Not this time, Fran,” smiled Janice, “this time we’ve got substance, not doppelgangers! It’s DNA. Here, and haven’t we always been told that DNA can’t lie?,” she wafted one of the sheets in the air, “This is the DNA from the investigation into the assaults on women that send Mr Peel to prison, and here,” she waved the second sheet, “is the DNA we took from the gentleman who did his best to swallow too many pills and is still fighting for his life, and my friends, they’re two very different men.”

Fran frowned. “And that means exactly?” she asked, understanding herself but wanting even the least contributor in the team to understand the implications.

“It means that there can be no doubt about it, Inspector Mainwaring sent the wrong man to jail, and it’s no wonder Mr Peel decided that death would be a preferable option to a lifetime in the shadows, dodging just about everyone in case they’re going to point a finger or worse at him.”

“I wouldn’t like to be him,” sighed Fran. “It just shows we’ve got to be fastidious when it comes to prosecuting those we see as criminals or they become the victims if we get it wrong.”

“As,” muttered Janice, “in this case. And with sex crimes it’s a great deal worse.”

“Then DI Guy should have been more careful,” frowned Fran.

The DCI shook her head. “Let’s not start on the blame trail,” she said, “he thought he had the right man without needing to check the DNA evidence, and it seems he didn’t look at it or he would have found one hell of a discrepancy. His attitude probably was if you don’t need to do something because you’re already spot on, then don’t do it. To him Mr Peel was as guilty as sin and that was all there was to it, and Mr Peel gets banged up. And looking at it one way we might have done exactly the same.”

“And where does that put Mr Duckpond Carpenter?” asked DC Stella Plaice.

“He was the right offender, but he was never looked at,” sighed Janice. “He wasn’t suspected for a moment, he wasn’t even known about. Our offender didn’t have a name until he was identified by the two women he was alleged to have touched up and pointed his willy at, and when they swore it was Peel there was no need for further investigation no matter how fervently the poor man protested his innocence..”

“But how did Peel get to be even suspected in the first place?” asked Fran.

Janice shrugged. “I guess it was the old story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time a bit like he was at the boot fair when Charlotte fainted. And the wrong place at the wrong time was where Mr Carpenter was when a couple of thugs decided to send him swimming in the pond.”

“And that was murder even though he was the one who should have been banged up,” sighed Stella.

“Which is a crime that needs solving,” agreed Janice. “And that, team, is our job. No matter that the man was a pervert, he’s dead and that something that he shouldn’t be.”

oo0oo

Sergeant Crabtree knew two things.

Firstly, he’d given evidence, albeit second hand evidence, and the jury had been asked by the judge to disregard it, against Roger Peel, and it seems he’d got it wrong. But how could two men in their thirties look exactly the same as each other, down to a spot or some blemish on their foreheads?

The photographs the DCI had shown him must have been of the same man. The man he’d seen chatting up the lass in the Grapes and Bottle that night he and Sammy something or other had decided to do something about the man because here he was, out and free as the air, only eight months after doing what he had to his Jennifer.

He’d always treated Jennifer, his Brother’s daughter, as someone special because, let’s face it, she was. As a baby she’d cooed at him, as a toddler she’d giggled at him, as a schoolgirl she’d teased him and as an adult she’d just been perfect. And to think that man, that apology for a man, had shown her his… it hurt like nothing had ever hurt him before, and he’d had some pain, years back, when he’d played rugby at school and got kicked and sat on.

He’d been in the Grapes with Michael. He was a good chap, was Michael Strickland. They’d lived parallel lives, had he and Michael, even from their scary introduction to the big wide world of education at infants school. They’d moved through the system, played in the same rugby team even after leaving school altogether, then he had become a copper and Michael had done a few manual jobs before settling down at Barnflush Primary school as its caretaker.

It was while sitting and supping one two many pints in the Grapes that he’d seen a prwtty lass, and wasn’t it that pervert talking to her? It was!

“See that b*****d over there?” he had said, indicating the man he’d spotted.

“Yeah,” nodded Michael, “another round? It’s my turn.”

“Might have had too many already, but yes, one more won’t kill c**k Robin.”

He had grinned to himself at what he saw as his own wit, and Michael had fetched two pints of foaming bitter. Delicious.

“What about that bloke?” asked Michael after taking one long draught of his pint.

“He’s the scum who touched our Jennifer up, and went to jail for it.”

“That bloke with the young girl over there? The b*****d!” grunted Michael, already half way doen whayt was probably his fifth pint.

“I wanna get him,” growled George Crabtree, also on his fifth pint. “I wanna show him that he’s not ‘uman ‘cause ‘umans don’ do what he did.”

“You’re right there, chum! He needs sorting!”

And it was there, with at least one too many pints inside them, that they had decided to take Michael’s van, the one he used at school to cart heavy stuff about in because he had a problem with his heart and had to be careful, didn’t want to retire just yet, enjoyed his work and there was that teacher, what was her name, Miss Goodboy, Pamela she let him call her, he could look at her for ever. She was a cheeky madam all right, and she knew it!

And the plan, if plan it was, had evolved. Quickly, while their victim was still sipping his wine like a nancy boy, after all didn’t real men drink beer like him and his mate Mikey? Wine nwas for the girls, surely, or poofs.

And the pervy man was dead. In the duck pond after they’d given him one hell of a good kicking, smashed his balls to mush, really sorted the b*****d out like he ought to have been sorted out.

And apparently they’d got the wrong man.

“Keep shush and it’ll go away,” Michael had mumbled as they made their separate ways home.

But Sergeant Crabtree couldn’t keep shush and he explained to a lamp-post on the corner of Ambergate Terrace, the road where he lived, that he’d never meant to kill anyone, but there’s no accounting for sod’s law.

And he went on to mumble about the fact that he was due to retire at the end of the month and when they found out he’d get no pension, and he didn’t want to live in penury for the rest of his days. But they’d got the wrong man, and he was a copper.

oo0oo

“I was caught short last night, Janice,” whispered Stella.

“That’s the last thing I was expecting you to say on a bright morning like this!” smiled her boss, DCI Janice Goodworthy.

“It’s not just fellas who need to take a leak when they’re nowhere near a toilet,” explained Stella, “anyway I was near the corner of Ambergate Terrace with my knickers round my ankles in a dead dark corner, and me almost sitting on the stingers that sprout wildly behind a spiky bush, when along comes the desk sergeant from reception, you know, Sergeant Crabtree.”

“He’s got a reputation! I trust you pulled your kecks up on the double!” grinned Janice.

“I did, but I heard him talking.”

“Who to?”

“A lamp post. He was spilling his heart out to a lamp-post. I heard it all. How his innocent niece had been molested by the bloke who went to jail for it, but that wasn’t good enough because he was out and free just months after ruining his niece’s life and needed to be punished properly, and he and a bloke called Mikey had done what the law couldn’t and sorted him good and proper, only to find when they’d done what they planned to do that they’d got the wrong man!”

“Poor sod.”

“Anyway, he finished by saying that they never meant to kill anyone! Then he staggered off. He must have had one hell of a skinfull to mistake a lamp-post for someone with ears!”

“You say he confessed to murder?” asked Janice, “to a lamp-post?

“And I think he was weeping. Anyway, I made sure that my undies were safely up and skedaddled in case he came back, because if he killed one person he might not think twice about killing another!”

“Surely not the good Sergeant,” sighed the DCI, “and isn’t he retiring soon?”

“At the end of the month, I think,” agreed Stella.

“Then let’s call on him. Find out if he was in dreamland when you saw him. After all, a lamp-post can hardly be confused with a sentient being with ears that work, and most certainly can’t give evidence in a court of law!”

oo0oo

“Excuse me, Miss,” said Susan in a frightened voice, “but I’ve seen another one.”

“Another what?” asked Miss Goodboy, “you really must learn to be clearer, Susan.”

“She means another body, Miss,” Colin explained, “in the duckpond. But this time it’s moving so it ain’t dead.”

“Isn’t, not ain’t, Colin, and what do you mean, moving?” asked the teacher, suddenly alerted to a possible subject for the creative writing she had planned for later in the day.

“And shouting, Miss. It’s shouting. Do you think it’s the devil?” asked Susan.

“Or it might be an angel from Heaven, one that tripped over the stairs outside the golden gate and tumbled straight down into the duck-pond.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Miss Goodboy, deciding there and then that her religious instruction lessons needed a rethink if bright girls like Susan took them as literally as she apparently had.

She might have gone on to rethinking quite a few other lessons, but her train of thought was interested by the blue flashing lights and sirens that had put in a very obvious appearance on the road outside.

“Goodness me,” she murmured, and curiosity got the better of her. “Now listen, children, I’m just going to take a peep outside to see what’s going on, so be good and well behaved and keep quiet. Then if it’s anything interesting I’ll tell you.”

The class hummed a little and then fell silent under her gaze, and she stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

“What do you think it is?” whispered Colin.

“More bodies,” hissed Susan, “I’ll bet the duck-pond’s full of them! All screaming and drowning!”

“Dead bodies can’t scream,” Colin told her.

“The last one we saw was,” Susan sounded almost scornful as she reminded Colin what they’d just witnessed on their way to school. They had been so frightened by it that they’d run all the way to school from the green and had hurtled into the classroom where half the class was sitting quietly whilst the rest slowly trickled in.

“I’m scared,” admitted Colin, “what if they’re all zombies like in Death in Paradise the other night on the telly?”

“But that’s not real,” said Susan scornfully, and added “because if it was dad says he’d be married to Florence and not my mum!”

Miss Goodboy returned to the class, her face serious and might even have looked a trifle pale.

“It’s Mr Strickland, the caretaker,” she told them quietly, “and the good news is he’s not dead, but he is very wet indeed. Apparently he fell into the pond, which is deeper than you might think, so take that as a warning, children, if you’re playing near it”

oo0oo

Michael Strickland lay on a hospital bed and the world seemed to zoom in and out of focus as he tried to work out where he was and how on Earth he got there.

And why. That was the hard part. He’d known what he was doing, sweeping Miss Goodboy’s classroom floor, ah, Pamela, sweet young woman that you are, I’ll make your floor so clean you could eat your dinner off it…

Then the rather doddery Mr Granger, headmaster this past thirty years, had come into the room and glared at him.

“There’s a phone call, Michael,” he had said in the tone of voice that suggested that he did not approve of private phone calls on the school phone, and he followed it up by hissing “when you should be working!”

“Sorry, Mr Granger,” he had muttered and asked himself why he should be sorry because he hadn’t made the call to somebody, it was incoming from an unknown somebody and that person had probably got either the wrong number or the wrong Strickland.

But he made his way to the office anyway.

“Is that you, Michael?” asked the phone. The voice was easily recognised as George, Sergeant George Crabtree who only ever phoned him on his mobile and who rarely if ever disturbed him at work.

“Speaking,” he said, aware of the headmaster’s eyes on him, urging him to get rid of whoever was on the phone and get back to work.

“You know what we said?” asked George.

“Er… yes,” he replied.

“From the tone of your voice I take it you’re not alone and that busybody boss of yours has his eyes on you,” said George, “Well, the truth of the matter is I can’’t live with what we did to that poor fellow we took for a pervert and I’m putting an end to it. When Audrey finds out it’ll be curtains for my marriage anyway, and I’ll be put out to water without any pension, I wouldn’t be surprised, before being locked away for the rest of my natural, and I couldn’t take that. So it’s goodbye, old friend, and we’ll meet in the hereafter.”

George Crabtree hung up.

And here he was in what had to be a hospital bed.

He fought against waves of forgetfulness until he grasped hold of something almost tangible.

That was it. He’d finished the wonderful Pamela’s room, polishing the floor until it shone, and then equipped himself with as many heavy metal objects from the p.e. store where there were weights for weightlifting, and them made his slow and almost reluctant way to the pond, which was just round the corner, where he and George had done for the pervert who had assaulted the wonderful Jennifer and stolen her innocence from her.

He reminded himself just how fond he was of Jennifer, but he’d behaved himself, not given the lovely young woman any reason to think ill of him. In his head he’s transferred his feelings for Jennifer onto an image of Pamela standing by the blackboard in her classroom, her short skirt which enraged the fool of a headmaster like a beacon to his brain.

The tiny skirt fluttering in a breeze that was entirely in his head he held the bag of weights in both hands and waded into the water. It was up to his knees and then up to his waist and then up to his waist and then… it wasn’t known as the bottomless pond for no reason.

And as the somewhat dirty water found its way into his mouth and up his nose he chickened out, let go of the heavy bag which didn’t seem anywhere near as heavy in the water, and rose to the surface, thrashing about and waving and generally hoping someone would notice him.

Eventually they must have, but by then he was on his way out of this world where the thoughts of murdering an innocent pervert had dominated his mind until all he had been able to think of was ending it all.

Which at the time he thought he must have succeeded and here, in the chasm of death, he looked around for George...

oo0oo

DCI Janice Goodworthy accompanied by DC Stella Plaice stood outside the front door belonging to where Sergeant Crabtree lived, and waited. Janice had rung the bell, had heard it echoing through the house via what was apparently a flimsy front door, and then knocked on its wooden panel with a firm hand.

Eventally it was opened by the thin and worried figure of Mrs Crabtree, wringing her hands as if something was troubling her.

“I think he’s poorly,” she said, “I’ve never known him like this before, but he won’t wake up. I’ve tried, I have, and even sung his fabourite lullaby to him, but the silly sod’s fast on even though he should be getting ready for his shift at work soon.”

“Show us the way, Mrs Crabtree,” suggested Stella seeing that the DCI seemed too troubled ny the news to be quite sure what to do for best.

The two officers followed the troubled woman up the stairs and into a double bedroom in which a king-sized bed took centre stage.

On the bed lay the man they knew so well because they saw him most days, Sergeant Crabtree, and it was clear straight away that no matter how hard his wife pummelled him, he would never wake up. Stella checked him for signs of life, and there were none, and loosely in one hand was a handwritten note.

I did it. I pushed the double of the man who interfered with my Jennifer into the pond. I can’t live with it, and I’m sorry, Angel.

“He’s gone,” murmured Janice, handing the note to the shaking woman who suddenly found herself to be a widow. She read the brief note, then howled with more than tears, more than sorrow.

“That’s what he called me,” she said, “Angel, though he knows as I’m no angel. The silly sod! And the man he’s on about didn’t do more than Jennifer wanted. She was a devil, was Jennifer, though George always saw the best in her.”

“You mean, when she reported the incident to the police she wasn’t telling the truth?” asked Janice.

“No, not that. She was truthful all right, but made more of it than it was, if you see what I mean.”

Janice decided this was no time to pursue that chain of thought and ushered the sergeant’s wife down stairs.”Stella, put the kettle on and Mrs Crabtree can have a nice cup of tea,” she said.

“Tea?” almost squawked the woman, “I can’t stand the stuff. I’ll have a nice Oxo cube if you don’t mind, though you’ll still need a kettle of hot water to make it.”

While the kettle was being half-filled Janice phoned for an ambulance and the police pathologist, Doctor Sagebrush

“We’ll get this sorted, Mavis,” she said to Mrs Crabtree, “it is all right if I call you Mavis, isn’t it?”

“Call me what you like, dearie,” nodded the woman, “though my name ain’t Mavis, it’s Audrey.”

Janice looked shocked. “I’m so sorry, Audrey. I had you down as Mavis and I’ve no idea why,”

Saved by the bell, thought Janice as an ambulance pulled up outside, and Simon Greer in the company of his colleague Annie Rastoric knocked the door.

Annie smiled at Stella. “Nice day for it, Stella” she said, obliquely.

“It’s a sergeant from the station. Doctor Sagebrush is coming seeing as it’s an unexpected death.”

“And you’re making tea, I see,” Simon said as the kettle started boiling, “milk and two sugars for me.”

oo0oo

“Well, this is a corker,” beamed Doctor Sagebrush when the DCI made her way into the cramped mortuary where he stood, like a latter day saint, over the body of Sergeant George Crabtree who was lying on his slab with a small towel draped delicately over his genitals in order to preserve his modesty from the eyes of senior officers who happened to be female.

“Why is it a corker?” asked Janice Goodworthy, ”It looks very much like a corpse to me, rather than any kind of corker.”

“From what you said I was expecting to find a chemical factory inside his belly, but there’s nothing of the sort. Not even more than a suggestion of booze, nowhere enough to stop his heart but enough to make him see double.”

“So he was drunk?” asked Janice. “What makes that into a corker?

“And he’s dead and you did say there was a suicide note, I think?”

“That’s right?”

“Well, all I can say he must have had a wonderful talent with his second sight, because he didn’t do anything as far as I can tell, and you know that I can tell most things, to bring on an untimely end.”

“You mean, the tox screen came out negative?”

Doctor Sagebrush nodded. “As far as I can tell, and I can tell most things, he’d not ingested one molecule that would cause him discomfort let alone death, though he probably had a bit if indigestion on account of the chips he’d not chewed properly. So I had to delve a bit deeper…”

“And?”

“He had a massive heart attack, and that’s what turned him from the man his was to the man he is.” He indicated the body on the slab.

“I see.” Janice’s brow was furrowed as she thought of the implications of that piece of news. “Could it have been caused by any sort of mental pressure?” she asked.

“You mean, might he have worried himself to a heart attack? I don’t know. The jury’s out on the effects of worry on a healthy heart but I’d say could be, now that I’ve seen the absence of any other agent. But the man’s healthy enough, a little overweight but that went with his job I suppose, but otherwise I’d expect him to soldier on for another, what, twenty or so years, before feeling old and grumpy.”

“Oh dear. Poor fellow,” muttered the DCI, and she went back to her office before making her way to the incident room in the church hall.

oo0oo

DC Guy Mainwaring put his nose into the Incident room before Janice left to visit.

“I heard you’d had a break-through,” he said, uncomfortably.

“Ah, Guy, good to see you,” smiled Janice, “and yet, we have. It seems that our earlier suspicions were right, but I don’t want you to take this as criticism I know how you’ve always double and even triple checked to make sure you’ve got the right man.”

Guy nodded. He guessed what was coming.

“What you didn’t take into account was the fact that the man who went around shoving his privates under the noses of women who didn’t want to look at them had a doppelganger.”

“A what?”

“A double. A look-alike, only more so.”

“Go on, tell me what a twit I’ve been, ma’am.”

“I’m not ma’am to you, Guy, I’m Janice. Let me see. Tell me how you first got your claws into Mr Peel?”

“A couple of the complainants recognised him on the streets and followed him until they discovered where he lived. I told them it was a foolish thing to do because they didn’t know if he was dangerous, but they’d already done it so I left it at that. Both women were quite sure of their facts. He was the man who had done unrepeatable things in their presence. There was no chance of fingerprint evidence, of course, though in a weak fanciful moment I did think of it, but they’d both had baths or showers since he’d touched them…”

“But he flashed his tackle at them both?”

“That was what upset them both.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t take pictures of those offensive body parts.”

“Why? We don’t do personal things like that!”

“It might have helped. The two men we’re talking about, Mr Peel and Mr Carpenter might have differed in that region…”

“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am.”

“Janice. But you see, examination of the body of the late Mr Carpenter by the good Doctor Sagebrush revealed that the poor man had been circumcised. Now I rather suspect that if we were to ask Mr Peel about the possibility that he’s had that kind of surgery you’d find that he hasn’t.”

“You know that for sure?”

Janice grinned at him. “Stella, my DC, knows a few people, and one of them is a paramedic. Apparently they read books together in a book club. Anyway, that paramedic asked a nurse, one of the angels who attend to matters of hygiene, and she was told that Mr Peel is intact in that region. So they may have been doppelgangers from nature, but human interference gave them a clear difference if they took their pants off to be examined.”

“Oh. I see. But you’re not saying I could have discovered that are you?”

“Of course not! But we know now, not that it helps much. But the bloke who was drowned in the duck-pond was the man you should have charged with acts of indecency, and that man in hospital after all-but taking his own life was totally innocent.”

“Then why did he do it? Swallow pills and so on?”

“My dear Guy, he’d been driven to it. He just couldn’t live with the knowledge that people thought he was that evil. But I’ll sort him out and put him on the right track if I can.”

“I’d like to explain to her…”

“Best if you don’t Guy. I’ll do it for you. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to hospital now to do just that.”

oo0oo

Janice never felt comfortable visiting the local hospital. It was where her father had died several years ago and her last sight of him had been truly painful when she bore in mind the active and funny man he had been. She took Fran with her largely because she was aware that she might fall into the trap of self-piy, which would do no favours to a man who her service had accused of the unthinkable.

Roger Peel was in a side ward on his own and, when he looked at them, gave the impression of a man who wanted to be dead but wasn’t, and might well have another go when he returned home.

“I’m Detective Chief Inspector Goodworthy, Mr Peel. It’s good to see you looking…”

“Better than expected.” Fran finished the sentence for her.

“Now what am I supposed to have done?” asked the patient, his voice the epitome of misery.

“Nothing,” Janice assured him.

“Then why have they sent the top brass to torment me?” he asked.

“We’ve come to explain some of the facts of your case to you,” began Janice.

“As if I didn’t know them! I’ve been called all sorts of things over the past few months.” He was clearly wary of anything the officers might say, so Janice decided to jump in at the deep end.

“I believe you might be eligible for a considerable amount of compensation,” she said.

“You what? Are you having me on?”

“No, Mr Peel, I’m not,” she said, “what do you understand by the word doppelganger?”

“I dunno. Someone in a computer game?” he asked.

“You’re the second person who thought that,” smiled Janice, glancing at Fran, “but no. A doppelganger is a person who to all intents and purposes is physically identical to another person. And by identical I mean eerily so. And you have a doppelganger. A Mr Jeremy Carpenter whose hobby was flashing his privates to pretty young women, so I’d have been safe if he saw me!”

“And me,” added Fran.

“I don’t understand..” stammered Roger Peel, “you mean… someone else really did it, a man who can be confused with me?”

“More than confused, Mr Peel. To the human eye you were Mr Carpenter... I can use his name because, unlike you, he’s dead now. You’ll find this spooky. He upset some young ladies who had relatives who wanted to sort him out. At the time they thought it was you they wanted to … sort out. But they made a mistake and took Mr Carpenter instead. I’m afraid they killed him in a rather unpleasant way, which you might think is what he deserved.”

“They thought he was me?”

“Look, Roger, I can call you Roger, can’t I?”

“If you must.”

“Well, Roger, let me show you two photographs. One is you and the other is Jeremy Carpenter, and tell me how long it takes for you to recognise yourself.”

She handed the pictures to him, and he looked at them, ine after the other.

“This is me,” he said after a few moments, “it’ my shirt. My best one.”

“Exactly,” smiled Janice, “but if it wasn’t for the shirt…”

“I suppose there is a likeness,” he muttered.

“It’s such a likeness that it messed your life up, and the officer who holds himself responsible…”

“Mainwaring!”

“Yes, DI Mainwaring, he’s cut up about what he sees as a dreadful mistake that he’s made. And he prides himself for the way he attends to the tiniest of details. But this time, well, the only detail he ignored was the DNA evidence in that the man who went to prison, and we’re all sorry about that, was not the man who was drowned in a duck-pond. But even that wasn’t available to him until after you were released.”

“So I’m not a pervert?”

“Not unless you’ve got some dark secret we don’t know about,” grinned Janice.

“I tell you what,” smiled Fran, “when you’re better, and the doctor says you might be okay to go home later today, how about me taking you for a drink?”

“Why?” he asked.

That flustered Fran, then “Why? Because you’re a man, I haven’t got one at the moment, and you look thirsty!”

“If you’re sure…” he stammered.

“Come on, Fran, let’s leave him in peace and see when you can pick the poor man up,” urged Janice.

They bade him goodbye, Fran blew him a kiss and he just heard, as they moved out of earshot Fran say “I think I’ve pulled, boss!”

oo0oo

“Well, that just about winds everything up,” Janice announced to the team in the incident room, “We’ll get this place all cleared out but there’s one little part of the story we might choose to keep under our hats. Jeremy Carpenter was killed, true, and by one of us, but that officer is no longer with us. He died from shame when he discovered what he’s done, and it might do more good than harm if we name Sergeant Crabtree as one of the two men who dropped him into the pond. As for his assistant, we might spend the rest of time looking and not find him and, truth to tell, the end result is whoever is responsible has helped removed one pervert from the face of the Earth.”

“But we must investigate,” put in Stella, “it’s why we’re here.”

“Of course we must. But we must also remember that Sergeant Crabtree had a niece who suffered at the hands of the evil Jeremy Carpenter. Now, Fran, have you anything to add?”

“I’ve got a new fella,” grinned Fran, “and I’ve big hopes! I’ll give you all details later, but until I do I need to have a shower and apply a bit of lippy, ‘cause I’m going out tonight and afterwards, if I’m lucky, I might take him home with me!”

The meeting broke up.

On the way out Janice pulled Fran to one side.

“Be careful,” she warned her, “he’s damaged goods and it might take him some time to settle back into a normal routine.”

“I do know,” smiled Fran, “and it might help him if I adopt him as a lodger for a while and see what emerges from that. After all, his b***h of a landlady chucked him out into the street!”

“Well, be careful.”

“Of course I will.”

Stella came up to her. “If you find a doppelganger of him, put a word in for me” she said, and giggled,

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 06.10.22

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