They agreed that Kate would come to Anna’s flat the following week, Kate’s first venture beyond the confines of Kielder for months. Anna insisted on paying the travel expenses and for a night in a local hotel.
“OK, Kate – looking forward to meeting you next week!” concluded Anna.
It sounded like this might actually happen, Kate thought as she put down the phone. She might actually live in London again, and get back to her old self! She had images of curling up on a stylish sofa in ‘her’ London flat, reading through an exciting new novel to proofread it before heading off to her acting class (or maybe to the theatre). True, Kate would have to appraise Anna carefully when they met to make sure she could actually trust her to take care of the house for three months, but on the basis of the call it seemed genuine enough. Even if she decided not to go for it, she still got a free night in a London hotel – there seemed to be nothing to lose.
It wasn’t until she was on the train to London that Kate realised that she hadn’t given Anna her name during the phone call the previous week. Anna clearly knew who she was – she had been talking about Kate’s husband on the call, and the social networking page. She thought she remembered Anna addressing her by name at the end of the call.
Kate puzzled over this. How had Anna known who she was when she hadn’t given her name? She went back over the call in her head again, frowning to herself. Then her brow cleared. It must have been her saying that she was living up in Northumberland. In the first few days when she went up there she remembered posting an entry on her site while her dad was asleep. Anna must have linked that as an identifying feature – if she had been targeting particular people she must have been familiar with their distinguishing characteristics. Slightly odd that Anna would have seen that profile entry as it was many months ago, but she was a PhD student after all – readily available web records must present no challenge to her. There was nothing sinister about it.
Reassured, Kate let her mind fill with excitement as the train hurtled towards London, and her possible new adventure.
Chapter 3
-Anna-
Kate had taken the bait. Anna knew she would. Anyone would, personally selected in that way. People were arrogant, flattered that someone should want to take over their life. Kate was no different from all the rest. Anna had banked on that, and been proved right. Kate had sounded keen on the phone. And so she should. How could anyone wanting to escape their life resist the opportunity Anna offered? London, freelance working, time to explore life. Anna’s life. Too tantalising not to bite. Now Anna just had to reel her in.
She looked at her watch. Kate would be here soon. About time. It had taken long enough to set this up. Now she just wanted to get on with the experiment. Odd to call it an experiment, though, when she knew the outcome. She had done more planning, research and deep thinking than the average student and she knew that meant it would be perfect, once it started. Still, she would have to be diligent. Everything had to be ready, neat, hidden. Latent. Nothing to scare off the potential participant. Another quick look round the flat wouldn’t hurt, make sure everything was in place. Living room was fine, bathroom looked fine. Hang on, no, not fine. What was that candle doing on the floor? And that crayon? She kicked them across the corridor into the spare room with all the other detritus and shut the door to prevent a fresh escape. They could stay there for now, until they were needed.
Bedroom must be fine – mustn’t it? A quick glance over the bed, the floor, the dressing table. She took a sharp intake of breath. That photo should not be there. Far too compromising. There were some things strangers shouldn’t see. Not that Kate was really a stranger – Anna had done her research well. She picked up the picture and studied it. The photo was captured in her mind, but she still liked to reminisce over the physical object. Stroking it, Anna smiled. It could come on the exchange with her.
The door buzzer rang. It must be Kate! She mustn’t keep her waiting. She must be the perfect host. Anna took a deep breath, then ran to the intercom. It wasn’t until her hand was on the door latch that she realised she was still holding the photo. She felt dizzy at such a grave mistake so narrowly avoided. If she’d gone to greet Kate with a photo like that, it could spoil everything, put Kate right off. This was too important to ruin with a gaffe on that scale – this was Anna’s route to the future she had planned out. The future she deserved. Or at least would deserve if she didn’t make stupid mistakes before she had even got the set-up in place, she chided herself. Anna rushed back into the bedroom and tossed the photo quickly behind the dressing table. She would retrieve it later. Now she had to concentrate on Kate. Anna greeted her over the intercom and made her way downstairs to let her in. She would finally meet Kate face-to-face.
Anna wasn’t worried about that, although her subconscious had tried to claim otherwise. It bored her with dreams about falling. Rebelliously, night after night. In the dreams, there was a door opening into blackness and Anna would try to close it but would fail and fall headfirst into emptiness. Every so often, in a stratum of nothingness, there would be the glimmer of a movement, the possibility of a person, and a wonderfully beautiful face would spin out at her, an Amazonian goddess, all powerful thighs and long flowing hair. Anna would try to grab hold of her as she fell but the goddess wouldn’t save her; the vision was an illusion, a delusion, and Anna’s plummet continued down, down, down, past more spectres, more ghosts, who would not help stop her relentless descent. The contents of her flat were falling down the abyss too, somehow ricocheting off surfaces she couldn’t find, splintering and fragmenting as they did so. They shattered, the disintegrated pieces catching her up and embedding their shards in her skin, making her bleed. She looked back up from whence she came, and saw there was a shadowy male figure standing in the doorway, hurling the objects down onto her. She couldn’t make out who he was, but she could guess. He wasn’t welcome, but if he had to be anywhere her subconscious was the best place for him. Anna wasn’t going to have any truck with her subconscious, after all. She could and would keep it entirely separate from the rest of her. She would not allow it to give her doubts, particularly if the best it could do was to give her dreams about falling. Everyone had those – it was clearly just going through the motions, making a feeble attempt at getting her to reconsider. Granted, the dreams were pretty intense and Anna sometimes woke up shivering in anguish and feeling as nauseous as if she had spent the whole night falling down a tunnel. Her own fresh take on morning sickness. But she had a goal, and she was going after it. The nightmares were for night-time. They could remain there. Her subconscious could occupy itself in its nightly play-times however it wanted to. The conscious was Anna’s realm, and she was in control of it, of the situation, of everything.
True, meeting face to face would be a challenge. On the phone, people couldn’t see your face, read your expression, couldn’t judge you (or see you judging them). But Anna had prepared herself. She was confident she could control her emotions. She would be polite, positive, charming. She was curious now to see who she had brought to her doorstep, see what they were really like, drink them in, weigh them up, compare herself to them. Downstairs would be Kate. Anna would need to assess if she would be able to pass herself off as Kate, if she wanted to. That would be fun, it would work, Anna would enjoy it. She resolved to relish the moment when the door opened.
Besides, if it got difficult, she could just zone out, think about the future. She liked thinking about that. She had not slept last night for the excitement. It wasn’t that she had tried and failed. Anna didn’t do failure. Not in reality. She just didn’t go to bed. She wanted to sit up and think about the exchange, plan exactly what she was going to say, how to do the hard sell. And once the deal was done, what it would mean. What she would be about to achieve, and how good the result would be. A secure future, the life that she wanted. She could daydream indefinitely. No, not daydreams. Conscious plans. That she worked hard to achieve. And which Kate might be about to help her out with.
An extra dab of concealer had been necessary under the eyes this morning – Anna didn’t want people to think her life was tiring – but it did the trick. She was Anna again: calm, composed, poised. No evidence of her unrest remained, save that