The Likeness

He snapped his fingers. “Here, I’ve got an idea. There’s a case meeting tomorrow evening. Why don’t you come along? That might help you decide whether you want in.”

And bingo, there it was: the hook in the middle of the lures, the real agenda behind all the chocolate biscuits and updates and concern for my emotional health. “Jesus, Frank,” I said. “Do you realize how obvious you are?”

Frank grinned, not the least bit shamefaced. “You can’t blame a guy for trying. Seriously, you should come. The floaters don’t start till Monday morning, so it’ll basically be just me and Sam, having a chat about what we’ve got. Aren’t you curious?”

Of course I was. All Frank’s info hadn’t told me the one thing I wanted to know: what this girl had been like. I leaned my head back on the futon and lit another smoke. “Do you seriously think we could pull this off?” I asked.

Frank considered this. He poured himself another glass of wine and waved the bottle at me; I shook my head. “Under normal circumstances,” he said at last, settling back into the sofa, “I’d say probably not. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and we’ve got a couple of things in our favor, besides the obvious. For one thing, to all intents and purposes, this girl only existed for three years. It’s not like you’d have to deal with a lifetime’s worth of history here. You don’t have to get by parents or siblings, you’re not going to run into some childhood friend, nobody’s going to ask you if you remember your first school dance. For another thing, during those three years, her life seems to have been pretty tightly circumscribed: she ran with one small crowd, studied in one small department, held down one job. You don’t need to get the hang of wide circles of family and friends and colleagues.”

“She was doing a PhD in English literature,” I pointed out. “I know zip about English literature, Frank. I got an A in my Leaving Cert, but that’s it. I don’t speak the jargon.”

Frank shrugged. “Neither did Lexie, as far as we know, and she managed to pull it off. If she can do it, so can you. Again, we’re in luck there: she could’ve been doing pharmacy, or engineering. And if you get sweet fuck-all done on her thesis, well, hey, what do they expect? Ironically enough, that stab wound’s going to come in useful: we can give you post-traumatic stress, amnesia, whatever we fancy.”

“Any boyfriend?” There is a limit to what I’m prepared to do for the job.

“No, so your virtue is safe. And the other thing working for us: you know those photos? Our girl had a video phone, and it looks like the five of them used it as the group camcorder. The image quality’s not brilliant, but she had a whacking great memory card and it’s packed with clips-her and her mates on nights out, on picnics, moving into their new gaff, doing it up, everything. So you’ve got a ready-made guide to her voice, her body language, mannerisms, the tone of the relationships-everything a girl could ask for. And you’re good, Cassie. You’re a damn fine undercover. Put it all together, and I’d say we’re in with a pretty good chance of pulling this off.”

He tipped up the glass to get the last drops and reached for his jacket. “Been fun catching up, babe. You have my mobile number. Let me know what you decide about tomorrow night.”

And he let himself out. It was only as the door shut behind him that I realized what I had slipped into asking: What about college, any boyfriend? as if I were checking the plan for holes; as if I were thinking about doing it.

***

Frank’s always had a knack for knowing exactly when to leave it. After he’d gone, I sat on the windowsill for a long time, staring out over the rooftops without seeing them. It was only when I got up for another glass of wine that I realized he had left something on my coffee table.

It was the photo of Lexie and her mates in front of Whitethorn House. I stood there, with the wine bottle in one hand and my glass in the other, and thought about turning it face down and leaving it there till Frank gave up and came back for it; thought, for a minute, about sticking it in an ashtray and burning it. Then I picked it up and brought it back to the windowsill with me.

She could have been any age. She had been passing for twenty-six, but I would have believed nineteen, or thirty. There wasn’t a mark on her face, not a line or a scar or a chicken-pox blemish. Whatever life had thrown at her before Lexie Madison fell into her lap, it had rolled over her and burned off like mist, left her untouched and pristine, sealed without a crack. I looked older than her: Operation Vestal gave me my first lines around my eyes, and shadows that don’t go away with a good night’s sleep. I could practically hear Frank: You lost a shitload of blood and you’ve been in a coma for days, the eye bags are perfect, don’t go using night cream.