Only the Cat Knows

I awoke in excruciating pain, unable to tell where it began or ended. Every bone was broken, every ligament torn, every internal organ wrenched out of place. Everything — everything — smashed beyond repair. The thin envelope of skin was pierced in a hundred places, the blood pulsing out to seep into the cold damp ground.

Bitch!
The venomous hatred in the explosive whisper seared my eardrums, bringing more pain. Who hated me that much?

I forced my eyes open and for a brief hallucinatory moment I saw a wall of earth, felt a trickle of icy water beneath me, was aware of the ivy-clad tower of an ancient building looming into the dark sky above me …

No … not me.

The vision began to fade. I closed my eyes and opened them again. I was lying in bed in a Melbourne hotel at the end of a hugely successful Australian tour. I was safe, warm, comfortable.

The pain was retreating into just a memory of pain, the last residue of an exceptionally vivid nightmare.

Or was it?

Panic was surging in to replace the earlier sensations. Panic — and a dark foreboding.

It was a strange thing being a twin, sometimes we each seemed one-half of a whole. Blood of my blood, bone of my bone, the tie was stronger in a way than mere direct lineage, than even the parent-child relationship.

It meant that there was always someone there, a mind
that meshed with your own. Someone to laugh with, share secrets with, always there, with reactions identical to your own. It meant you were never alone, in the way other people were.

It was a privileged life that carried with it a secret dread: by the very nature of life, of mortality, it could not go on for ever. Some day one or the other of us would have to pay.

No! It had just been a nightmare. It was something I ate. It wasn’t true.

I tried to keep fighting as the swirling vortex carried me down into sleep — or unconsciousness — but, deep down, I knew.

Something terrible had just happened to Nessa.

At least she was still alive. If only just.

I stared down at the supine motionless form, cocooned in bandages, sustained by tubes and wires. I couldn’t see her breathing, but the flickering line on the display panel of one of the battery of machines at her bedside appeared to be monitoring her respiration.

She was getting the best medical attention that money could buy. Her employer could do no less. He’d better not.

I took a step closer, but did not need the warning gesture from the young doctor to restrain me. I wasn’t going to touch her. I was afraid to. She looked so fragile — a shattered doll that had been jigsawed back into a semblance of its former shape, but which might disintegrate beyond restoration if breathed on too heavily.

‘Hi there, Nessa.’ I settled for vocal contact instead, in the voice we so nearly shared. ‘Your other half is here. It’s going to be all right now.’

The doctor glanced at me quickly and then glanced away again. He didn’t contradict me, but his expression was not optimistic.

‘You’re going to be all right now.’ I spoke with more firmness than I felt. My knees were turning to jelly, something twisted in the pit of my stomach. She was so pale … so still.

‘What happened?’ I asked. The garbled message that had reached me had told me little. Only that she needed
me. I had abandoned my plans for a leisurely sea voyage back to England and caught the first jet instead.

‘She fell from a considerable height, I understand. I’m told she was in the habit of wandering along the battlements when she couldn’t sleep at night. She must have missed her footing.’

‘Whoever told you that was … mistaken. She was afraid of heights. She’d never have done that.’ It was one of the few points where we diverged. Heights didn’t bother me. But she had been afraid with good reason, it seemed now. Had that fear been a presentiment of what lay in her future?

‘Well…’ His face shadowed, he pointed out the irrefutable. ‘It happened. She’s lucky the patrol dogs found her in the dry moat beneath the battlements. Otherwise, she might have lain there all night. That would have …’ He let the thought trail off. I could finish the sentence for myself.

‘At least she has a fighting chance now.’ I wasn’t going to give up and I knew that she wouldn’t.

‘We’ll do our best.’ Against my will, I identified the expression that flitted across his face: it was pity.

‘She’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘She’s a fighter.’ And so am I. I wanted to know how this could have happened to her.

‘Er …’ He cast a worried glance at the information registering on the various screens. ‘It might be better if we left her to rest now.’ He led the way outside.

‘She’s going to be all right,’ I insisted. ‘There are two of us fighting now.’

‘You know …’ He assessed me carefully. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m never what anyone expected. But enough of me. Nessa is the important one here. What else is being done for her? Are there any specialists we can call in? Does she need a blood transfusion? We match, of course.’

‘Everything possible is being done. Mr Oversall has seen to that. It’s a question of time now.’

‘And does Mr Oversall know that? I rang his office for information as soon as I got to London. They didn’t give me the impression that Nessa’s condition was serious at all. They made it sound as though they expected her back at work in a couple of days.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Our Mr Oversall is notoriously optimistic. He’s had to be — or he wouldn’t be where he is today.’

One of the richest men in the world. Notorious, indeed, for investing in schemes wiser men shunned, like backing dubious freedom fighters in areas of upheaval, or buying up mineworkings popularly supposed to be exhausted which subsequently turned out to have hidden resources unsuspected by the owners who had sold them to him. A lucky man — or one with impeccable sources of information.

‘People tend to tell Mr Oversall what he wants to hear.’ He was apologetic. ‘I’m the junior doctor in this practice. I couldn’t contradict what the senior partner said.’

The man who pays the piper is the man who calls the tune
. And Mr Oversall paid well. But what would he say if the tune became discordant, the music jangled … the patient died?

I wasn’t going to let myself think that but, just for a moment, I faltered.

‘I won’t deny I’m not entirely happy,’ he went on. ‘I … I’ve met Nessa … several times. I … I liked her. I’d formed the opinion that she was a calm and sensible person — unlike most of Mr Oversall’s …’

‘Harem.’ I supplied the word he had baulked at. It had been used often enough in the tabloids. The more discreet broadsheets usually opted for ‘Amazon Army’ to describe the plethora of nubile females surrounding the billionaire.

‘I wasn’t suggesting your sister —’

‘I should hope not! Nessa was — is — a proper employee. Mr Oversall’s Personal Assistant. She has no connection with the … the ladies … who make up his entourage.’

‘Exactly!’ He nodded vehemently. ‘Nessa is different … special …’

‘Exactly!’ I nodded in turn, beginning to wonder about his relationship with my twin. Interested? Smitten? Or …? ‘I think I’d like to have a few words with your senior partner,’ I said.

‘Unfortunately, that’s not possible.’ He was on the defensive again. ‘I mean, Dr Ranjit is out on a call. I don’t know when he’ll be back.’

‘I can wait.’

‘I doubt it. He’s on his way to Saudi Arabia. There’s been some sort of outbreak at one of the installations. They’re hoping to avoid an epidemic’

‘I take it the installation belongs to Mr Oversall.’ It wasn’t a question.