The Third Twin - Ken Follett [47]
“Number four,” she said with a sob in her voice.
Steve turned and looked at the backdrop.
He was number four.
“No!” he shouted. “This can’t be right! It wasn’t me!”
The male voice said: “Number four, did you hear that?”
“Of course I heard it, but I didn’t do this!”
The other men in the lineup were already leaving the stage.
“For Christ’s sake!” Steve stared at the opaque screen, his arms spread wide in a pleading gesture. “How could you pick me out? I don’t even know what you look like!”
The male voice from the other side said: “Don’t say anything, ma’am, please. Thank you very much for your cooperation. This way out.”
“There’s something wrong here, can’t you understand?” Steve yelled.
The turnkey Spike appeared. “It’s all over, son, let’s go,” he said.
Steve stared at him. For a moment he was tempted to knock the little man’s teeth down his throat.
Spike saw the look in his eye and his expression hardened. “Let’s have no trouble, now. You got nowhere to run.” He took Steve’s arm in a grip that felt like a steel clamp. It was useless to protest.
Steve felt as if he had been bludgeoned from behind. This had come from nowhere. His shoulders slumped and he was seized by helpless fury. “How did this happen?” he said. “How did this happen?”
12
BERRINGTON SAID: “DADDY?”
Jeannie wanted to bite off her tongue. It was the dumbest thing she could have said: “When did you get out of jail, Daddy?” Only minutes ago Berrington had described the people in the city jail as the scum of the earth.
She felt mortified. It was bad enough her boss finding out that her father was a professional burglar. Having Berrington meet him was even worse. His face had been bruised by a fall and he had several days’ growth of beard. His clothes were dirty and he had a faint but disgusting smell. She felt so ashamed she could not look at Berrington.
There had been a time, many years ago, when she was not ashamed of him. Quite the reverse: he made other girls’ fathers seem boring and tiresome. He had been handsome and fun loving, and he would come home in a new suit, his pockets full of money. There would be movies and new dresses and icecream sundaes, and Mom would buy a pretty nightgown and go on a diet. But he always went away again, and around about the age of nine she found out why. Tammy Fontaine told her. She would never forget the conversation.
“Your jumper’s horrible,” Tammy had said.
“Your nose is horrible,” Jeannie had replied wittily, and the other girls broke up.
“Your mom buys you clothes that are really, like, gruesome.”
“Your mom’s fat.”
“Your daddy’s in jail.”
“He is not.”
“He is so.”
“He is not!”
“I heard my daddy tell my mommy. He was reading the newspaper. I see old Pete Ferrami’s back in jail again,’ he said.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Jeannie had chanted, but in her heart she had believed Tammy. It explained everything: the sudden wealth, the equally sudden disappearances, the long absences.
Jeannie never had another of those taunting schoolgirl conversations. Anyone could shut her up by mentioning her father. At the age of nine, it was like being crippled for life. Whenever something was lost at school, she felt they all looked accusingly at her. She never shook the guilty feeling. If another woman looked in her purse and said, “Darn, I thought I had a ten-dollar bill,” Jeannie would flush crimson. She became obsessively honest: she would walk a mile to return a cheap ballpoint, terrified that if she kept it the owner would say she was a thief like her father.
Now here he was, standing there in front of her boss, dirty and unshaven and probably broke. “This is Professor Berrington Jones,” she said. “Berry, meet my father, Pete Ferrami.”
Berrington was gracious. He shook Daddy’s hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Ferrami,” he said. “Your daughter is a very special woman.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Daddy said with a pleased grin.
“Well, Berry, now you know the family secret,” she said resignedly. “Daddy was sent to jail, for the third time, on the day I graduated summa cum laude from