the Third Twin (1996)

Jeannie’s spirits soared. I was right, and I found the bastard, and here’s the proof! She looked closer. The word SECURITY was printed on the front in white letters. She could not resist the temptation to do a triumphant war dance around Harvey Jones’s apartment.

“Found something, huh?”

“The creep was wearing that hat when he raped my friend. Let’s get out of here.”

They left the apartment, closing the door. Jeannie shook hands with Maldwyn. “I can’t thank you enough. This is really important.”

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“Go back to Baltimore and call the police,” she said.

Driving home on 1-95, she thought about Harvey Jones. Why did he go to Baltimore on Sundays? To see a girlfriend? Perhaps, but the likeliest explanation was that his parents lived there. A lot of students took their laundry home on weekends. He was probably in the city now, eating his mother’s pot roast or watching a football game on TV with his father. Would he assault another girl on his way home?

How many Jones families were there in Baltimore: a thousand? She knew one of them, of course: her former boss, Professor Berrington Jones—

Oh, my God. Jones.

She was so shocked she had to pull over on the interstate.

Harvey Jones could be Berrington’s son.

She suddenly remembered the little gesture Harvey had made, in the coffee shop in Philadelphia where she had met him. He had smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his index finger. It had bothered her at the time, because she knew she had seen it before. She could not recall who else did it, and she had thought vaguely that it must have been Steve or Dennis, for the clones did have identical gestures. But now she remembered. It was Berrington. Berrington smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his index finger. There was something about the action that irritated Jeannie, something annoyingly smug or perhaps vain. This was not a gesture that all the clones had in common, like closing the door with their heel when they came into a room. Harvey had learned it from his father, as an expression of self-satisfaction.

Harvey was probably at Berrington’s house right now.

55

PRESTON BARCK AND JIM PROUST ARRIVED AT BERRINGTON’S house around midday and sat in the den drinking beer. None of them had slept much, and they looked and felt wasted. Marianne, the housekeeper, was preparing Sunday lunch, and the fragrant smell of her cooking wafted in from the kitchen, but nothing could raise the spirits of the three partners.

“Jeannie has talked to Hank King, and to Per Ericson’s mother,” Berrington said despondently. “I wasn’t able to check any others, but she’ll track them all down before long.”

Jim said: “Let’s be realistic: exactly what can she do by this time tomorrow?”

Preston Barck was suicidal. “I’ll tell you what I’d do in her place,” he said. “I’d want to make a highly public demonstration of what I’d found, so if I could get hold of two or three of the boys I’d take them to New York and go on Good Morning America. Television loves twins.”

“God forbid,” Berrington said.

A car drew up outside. Jim looked out of the window and said: “Rusty old Datsun.”

Preston said: “I’m beginning to like Jim’s original idea. Make them all vanish.”

“I won’t have any killing!” Berrington shouted.

“Don’t yell, Berry,” Jim said with surprising mildness. ‘To tell you the truth, I guess I was bragging a bit when I talked about making people vanish. Maybe there was a time when I had the power to order people killed, but I really don’t anymore. I’ve asked some favors of old friends in the last few days; and although they’ve come through, I’ve realized there are limits.”

Berrington thought, Thank God for that.

“But I have another idea,” Jim said.

The other two stared at him.

“We approach each of the eight families discreetly. We confess that mistakes were made at the clinic in its early days. We say that no harm was done but we want to avoid sensational publicity. We offer them a million dollars each in compensation. We make it payable over ten years, and tell them the payments stop if they talk—to anyone: the press, Jeannie Ferrami, scientists, anyone.”

Berrington nodded slowly. “My God, it might just work. Who’s going to say no to a million dollars?”

Preston said: “Lorraine Logan. She wants to prove her son’s innocence.”

“That’s right. She wouldn’t do it for ten million.”

“Everyone has their price,” Jim said, regaining some of his characteristic bluster. “Anyway, there isn’t much she can do without the cooperation of one or two of the others.”