WHEN DAN TRUSWELL learned from the activities coordinator soon after 2 p.m. that Wednesday afternoon that Julie Haniver was sitting catatonic in the hospital library, he took it as a routine shutdown by the slim, nervous, young woman, paged Hans and Carla, and left them to deal with it.

It was when Peter Rait knocked at his door less than two minutes later and said Dan had to come see Julie, talk to Julie, that Dan decided to check on her himself. Peter was one of Blackwater’s star “attractions,” an amiable, likeable schizophrenic who had an uncanny knack for reading his fellow inmates. When Peter showed worry, it was usually worth worrying about.

Dan locked his office and accompanied Peter around to the library in the Prior Wing.

“What does Phil say?” Dan asked his frowning companion, knowing how Peter and his schizoid friend, Phillip Crow, made a fascinating double-act.

Peter shrugged, which was more exasperating than it ought to have been. Phil hadn’t expressed an opinion this time. That meant Peter had reacted on his own, which was even more amazing. Then again, he’d shown Julie a lot of attention in the four months she’d been at Blackwater.

Dan trusted Peter’s insights enough to let him be there when they entered the library. Hans and Carla were already with Denise, the activities coordinator, but hadn’t yet approached the girl sitting by the corner window, looking out at the fine spring afternoon. When Dan indicated Peter, they nodded and stayed at the desk. They knew Peter was good at getting through to Julie.

Dan crossed the room, sat near the petite, olive-skinned young woman with the short black hair and very pretty elfin features. Peter stood to one side.

“Julie?” Dan said gently. “Can you hear me, Julie?”

The young woman showed no sign of having heard. She sat absolutely still, gazing out the window, her eyes unfocused, watching yet watching nothing.

“Ask her who she’s looking out for,” Peter said, with uncommon directness.

“Peter, let me handle this.”

But it was as if Peter hadn’t heard. “Ask her, Doctor Dan. Ask who she’s watching for!”

“Peter! That’s enough!”

His tone at least made Julie blink.

“Ask her about Jackie!” Peter said, his parting shot because Carla was there then to lead him away.

But it was Peter suggesting it, and it was Julie—this withdrawn, shy, young woman who’d turned up one day back in June and signed herself in, without any identity but her name, no next of kin she could give, no family, no memories (she claimed) to help them build a past, the backgrounds of heredity and environment that had produced her.

“Julie, are you waiting for someone?”

Still the eyes gazed out at the grounds, broke into the emptiness and infinities of reverie before ever reaching the sunny lawns and trees.

“Julie, who is Jackie?”

Julie blinked once, twice. The eyes grabbed, locked into focus. She turned to face him, gave a nervous, embarrassed smile.

“Are you okay now?” Dan asked.

She nodded, ventured another tentative smile, noticed Peter and the others over by the desk.

Normally Dan would’ve left it to Carla at this point, but Peter going solo over this kept him there.

“Julie, who is Jackie?”

Julie frowned, sighed and looked directly at him.

“Jackie’s my sister.”

“Really? You never said you had a sister.” Dan held back the rush of questions that were immediately there. There might be no sister at all, just an imaginary one, a convenient fiction. It hadn’t surfaced during the hypnotherapy sessions. Nor did he want to move over to the armchairs or to an interview room. The view out the library window was probably part of it. She’d been watching for this “sister” most likely.

“Tell me about Jackie.”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“Jackie wanted you here?” Dan truly expected her to have forgotten how she came to be at Blackwater, to say that this sister had been the one who’d committed her, part of a familiar-enough persecution and betrayal scenario. Julie’s answer surprised him only by its opposite tack, not its content.

“No. I came here to escape Jackie. I thought she wouldn’t be able to find me here.”

“Ah, I see,” Dan said, kindly. He’d heard this sequence of events many times too. Only the look of intense concern on Peter’s face when Dan glanced round at the others kept him with her. “And have you seen her out there, Julie?”

“She’s coming today. I thought it’d be last night but it will be today.”

“How do you know?”

“Jackie always leaves things.”

“Oh, like what? What sort of things?”

“Just things. Signs.”

“You’ve seen these signs? What are they?”

When Julie didn’t answer, Dan tried again. “But she wouldn’t come from out there, would she, Julie? She’d come in by the front gate.”

The young woman frowned, studied the grounds with renewed concentration. The emotion in her eyes could have been terror, panic, utter dread. (Phobos and Deimos, the twin moons of insanity—one of Peter’s lines.) Not for a moment did Dan see it as guile, the sort of cunning so many paranoid schizophrenics affected. This woman seemed truly terrified.

“Julie?” he said, both to keep her with him and to comfort her.

“She won’t give up. She’ll keep looking.”

“Yes, well, we’ll keep an eye out for her too.”

Dan almost fell off his chair when she turned and grabbed his arms.

“Don’t tell her I’m here!” She spat the words at him, eyes wide, face twisted by fear.

“You’re safe here, Julie,” Dan managed, and by then Carla was there, soothing her, urging her up, Hans assisting, leading her off to her room, leaving Denise by the desk and Peter desperately wanting to follow, to do something. He came over to Dan.

“She’s really scared of her sister,” Peter said, as if it hadn’t been obvious. “We have to protect her. Keep her hidden.”

“There may not be a sister,” Dan said, wondering as always why he bothered to tell Peter Rait these things.

“There is and there isn’t,” Peter said, frowning with what seemed to be both puzzlement and concern. “But Julie’s right. Jackie does leave things.”

This was where Peter Rait was his brilliant, entertainment-value best. It was just that Phillip Crow wasn’t with him, making it unprecedented, almost as disturbing in a way as Julie’s outburst.

“Oh, what sort of things?”

“Last week a piece of cloth tied to that pine over there.” He pointed out the window. “Last night she would’ve put something closer to let Julie know she’s coming.”

“What sort of thing?”

Peter shrugged. “Something closer. Maybe not visible from the library window, but sharing a connection, yeah. Can I go sit with her?”

“She’s resting now. You can see her later. Go wait for her in the Games Room.”

Peter nodded, then smiled as if grasping some secret strategy Dan had suggested. “Right. The play’s the thing, isn’t it?”

Dan said nothing. From long experience he knew enough just to watch him go.

What Dan did do when he reached his office again was go over Julie Haniver’s file, reacquainting himself with what little they had. She’d admitted herself on June 4, uncertain of her age but probably around 22 to 24, had been diagnosed as stressed and exhausted, subject to unspecified feelings of persecution, anxiety attacks, even catatonic withdrawal, real or feigned.

Though testing initially as a disorganised personality, she’d responded well to treatment and was usually calm and controlled. She could have been a case of nervous exhaustion following prolonged drug abuse, but her initial physical showed none of the attendant signs of that, no signs of harm at all apart from a nasty childhood or early adolescent scar above the hip on her right side. The distinctive double hand-sized patch of keloid ridges and welts may have been from an accident involving fire or acid, possibly was the result of extreme parental or sibling abuse. That might explain the disordered, dissociated behaviour—the anxiety of residual trauma. Someone named Jackie may have been responsible. Friend, relative, or carer, who could say?

But nothing else in the file. Just ID shots and dated close-ups of the wound for the usual information, legal and insurance reasons. If it hadn’t been for the scar and the memory loss (alleged, never proven), with its significant implications, Julie Haniver could have been discharged.

The more Dan considered it, the more she did seem like someone who might feign a mental disorder to be in a safe place. It certainly happened from time to time.

But the scar. Raw and brutal-looking. An acid burn? The result of a very clumsy, even amateur, medical procedure?

It was the photographs of the scar (and remembering Peter Rait’s concern) that made Dan go out onto the terrace and walk round the outside of the building to the library windows in the Prior Wing. There was nothing tied to the low bushes or the pilasters of the terrace balustrade, but just below the window near where Julie had been sitting, there was a small stack of stones—maybe ten in all, just piled atop one another and collapsed in against the wall.

Dan immediately thought of Peter, yet knew that he would never knowingly interfere with a fellow inmate’s treatment. There seemed to be only three explanations: it was coincidence—someone had just happened to leave a construct in that spot, or Peter had done it to confirm Jackie’s existence for this newfound friend who desperately needed to believe she did exist, or that Jackie was indeed out there.

Dan left the stones where they were and returned to his office. No sooner had he put Julie’s file away, then, like Fate on his heels, Angela phoned to say a Ms. Jackie Haniver was waiting in Reception to see him about her sister.

Though Dan would have preferred to collect his thoughts, take time to consider the rush of events, he felt a real curiosity, even a sense of urgency about the whole business. He told Angela to have one of the staff bring Ms. Haniver through at once. There were often days when Blackwater’s well-established routines came undone in spectacular, sometimes alarming, usually comical ways, but this time Dan felt an uncommon pressure, as if the “briars of unreason” (as Peter Rait and Phillip Crow put it) were indeed taking over the garden.

Less than ten minutes after discovering the pile of stones, he was sitting in his office across from what seemed to be Julie’s identical twin. The young woman wore a smart blue suit, was well groomed and carefully made up, and appeared very composed about the whole matter, radiating a charm and poise well beyond her years.

“You understand, Dr. Truswell, that I’ve been looking for Julie for quite some time. I can’t make her come back with me, I know, even were you to allow it, but naturally I do feel responsible for her care and safety.”

“And we’re naturally very glad to see you, Ms. Haniver. We’ve had so little to go on where Julie’s concerned.”

“Please. Call me Jackie. And it’s Perfini, not Haniver. That’s a name Julie’s been using. I used it at Reception because I knew it would identify me to you. I have certified copies of Julie’s birth documentation here. You can keep the photocopies.” Dan scanned them when she passed them over, passed back the originals. “‘Haniver’ was a family nom de guerre or nom de théâtre. Can I see my sister?”

“I’d like you to,” Dan said, making notes on the writing pad in front of him. “But not right away. We have to deal with your appearance in terms of Julie’s needs. She said she didn’t want you to know she was here, and seems highly agitated at the thought of you finding her. Letting you see her could well seem like a betrayal. Forgive how this sounds but Julie’s well-being must come first. You can help us prepare her for meeting you. Help us to get her to ask for you.”

“I have to take your word for all this, don’t I? That she’s agitated? That she doesn’t want to see me?”

“I’m afraid so. If you have doubts, there are legal procedures we can suggest. You can bring legal representation to our next meeting. Outside experts can verify admission and diagnostic protocols.”

Jackie Perfini smiled and raised a hand. “Unnecessary, Doctor. I accept what you’re telling me. I’m just surprised and hurt about this. Of course I accept your professional judgement. But what are the chances of her being released into my care? The legalities?”

“Again that will depend on her recovery. You’re probably aware that once someone is committed, or commits themselves as Julie has, they can only be discharged when a qualified person deems their condition satisfactory.”

“Julie must be that, surely. She’s dreamy and distracted and withdrawn, but hardly crazy. I’m surprised she’s so upset and amazed to think she might have committed herself just to be away from us.”

“Who is us, Jackie?”

“Our father died last year. I meant our sister, Jenny, and me.”

“Your mother?”

“Died soon after Julie and Jenny were born.”

“You and Julie look identical.”

Jackie smiled. “Dr Truswell, I think you’re interrogating me. In a moment you’ll be asking if I have a scar of my left side just above the hip.”

“Do you?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m eighteen months older than Julie and Jenny. We do look alike, I know, but Julie and Jenny were born conjoined. Congenitally united, as they say.”

“Jackie, Siamese twins not sharing vital organs or major skeletal features are usually separated as soon after birth as safely possible. That’s a nasty scar. A bad separation procedure.”

“Bad ‘procedure’! God, I love these terms! It was butchery! It’s a wonder they survived. Dr. Truswell, my family emigrated from Sicily. Lots of faith in the old ways. Lots of family honour. Lots of shame in having deformed children. Julie and Jenny were born there.”

“It wasn’t a hospital birth.”

“Correct. But it’s more complex, more tragic for them than that. Our father, the bastard, had more than a passing interest in teratology.”

“Teratology? Monsters?”

“Don’t look so amazed, Doctor. It’s more common than most of us think. Alonzo was fascinated with the old Wunderkammern—the ‘wonder cabinets’ and ‘cases of curiosities’ so famous and popular in the 16th and 17th centuries that became the private collections and eventually the public museums. He had a modest but growing collection of oddities, a museum of his own, a sort of travelling show.”

Dan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He left them joined.”

Jackie Perfini nodded. “A shameful and hideous thing, I know. He had them wet-nursed by an aunt, then took them to be part of his own Wunderkammer. A living exhibit. But then Alonzo Perfini was a selfish and domineering man. A persuasive and charming man when he needed to be. An atheist and occultist. A would-be mystic and entrepreneur. His heroes were Giovanni Batista Belzoni, Elias Ashmole, and the Dutchman, Dr. Frederic Ruysch. These twins had caused his wife to die, he liked to believe, though it wasn’t true. Maria was already very ill. Here he was with his great love of monsters, having become the father of two. Or one, depending on your viewpoint. It was destiny, something that suggested a mystical purpose. He was much taken with the notion of things being joined. The alchemical union of opposites.”

“Hardly opposites, Jackie.”

“Nevertheless, he left them joined to grow up like that.”

“Until when?”

“Till just after puberty. They were barely thirteen. They persuaded a second cousin who was an intern to perform the ‘procedure,’ as you call it.”

“Without your father’s consent?”

“Of course. He was furious.”

Dan was still trying to follow the reality that had brought Julie, Jenny, and Jackie to this point in their lives. “Where were you when this happened, Jackie?”

“I was with the show for a while as an infant, then Alonzo left me with some of Maria’s relatives in a village outside Palermo before he took his troupe north. Eventually they sent me to Australia and I was raised by aunts in Melbourne. I was told my father had gone off travelling, grieving for the loss of his wife and baby.”

“Baby?”

“No one knew it was twins then. The story was that it was a stillborn boy. Maria was so sick, probably even she did not know the truth. They even had a funeral—it was all a mockery. When the girls were old enough, he added them to his show, had documents falsified saying they shared vital organs and had to stay joined. Even the girls grew up believing it. I didn’t meet them until they came to Australia six years ago.”

“Where’s Jenny now?”

“Down in Sydney, safe and happy enough. Even more shy than Julie. But missing Julie terribly.”

“Can you bring her here?”

“I tried to get her to come. She wouldn’t. No offence, Dr. Truswell, but she thought this place would be too much like the Perfini Chamber of Wonders and his travelling Wonder Show. She’s had enough of imprisonment and disordered minds and being regarded as a curiosity. Part of one.”

Dan understood her reservations. “Still, seeing her might help Julie’s recovery considerably.”

“My feelings exactly. But I’ve lived with this, Dr. Truswell. I know only too well how Jenny feels. Until Julie went missing back in June, we all had a relatively quiet life together.”

“A normal life, Jackie?”

“Normal enough. Jenny was seeing someone, a young man. I could give you his number next time I visit. Julie was starting to go out more.”

Dan made a few more points on his notepad. “It’s difficult to know what to do. Despite what you tell me, Julie was terrified at the prospect of your coming here.”

Jackie Perfini smiled. “And she would’ve told you I leave things, signs that I’m following her. She’s done that before. Left signs I mean.”

“She does it herself?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s something she did during their time in the show. At first it was just a book or a stone or a flower, but then she started making things out of folded paper, clay.”

“Like piling up stones or tying strips of cloth to trees.”

“That sort of thing, yes. But it’s just a game. She’ll still come into our rooms at home and leave things. It’s not serious, is it?”

“Of course not. But in her stressed condition she’s made it part of her perception of you, I’m afraid. She believes you’re the one doing it.”

Jackie frowned, then sighed and smiled. “Well, so long as she’s safe. That’s the main thing now. I respect her decision to come here, though I can hardly say I’m happy about it. I’d be grateful if you’d talk to Julie about all this. See if you can get her to come home. She’s had a hard life.”

“Jackie, how did you find her here?”

“I called hospitals, hostels, Lifeline, drop-in centres, places like that. Had the police looking for a while. You probably got a call here. Then Jenny suggested I try looking for her under the name ‘Haniver,’ an alias they used in the show.”

“I see. Well, I’d still like to meet Jenny. I think it’s very important.”

“Yes, well that’s up to Julie and Jenny, isn’t it?”

“I think it would probably be beneficial for both of them.”

“I agree. So you speak to Julie and I’ll speak to Jenny.”

“How can we reach you?”

“Best I call you. I’m still deciding where to stay in the area. I can’t be away from Jenny for too long.”

“Can you give me a number where I can at least call Jenny?”

“Later, Dr. Truswell. I’ll need to clear this with Jenny first.”

It was exasperating, even infuriating, though Dan was by no means a stranger to the byzantine nature of family affairs. Institutions like Blackwater attracted the end products of crisis and despair, with the added pressures of inheritance complications and human rights issues. Jackie Perfini was giving him as much and as little as he was giving her.

“Then please call soon. We need to settle things for Julie’s sake.”

“All our sakes, Doctor. But Julie’s and Jenny’s most of all, yes. They had and still have a special connection. Jenny doesn’t say much about it, but she’s deeply troubled when Julie is away.”

So how must she be feeling now? Dan wondered. Who’s minding her?

Dan shook the young woman’s hand when she stood and offered it, feeling more frustrated than he could remember. He wanted to ask more about her father’s travelling show, where it went, what occurred during those crucial years, wanted to ask about her own life. But now it was quid pro quo and the smartly dressed young woman was heading to the door.

As soon as Jackie left him at Reception, Dan had Hans note the make and color of her car, then placed an immediate call to Jay Wendt over in Everton.

“Jay? Dan Truswell. I need Wendt Investigations do me an urgent favor. There’ll be a—” Hans said a few words from the front door. “—white ’94 Laser coming down the highway towards town in about ten minutes. Victorian number plate. Young female driver. Blue suit, short black hair. I need a local destination for her.”

To Dan’s relief, Jay was able to oblige. He replaced the receiver and leant back in his chair, told himself it was the most he could do other than talk to Julie, try to get her side of Jackie’s story, find out more about Jenny from her. Later he’d phone Harry Badman down in Sydney, see if there was any background on the names Perfini or Haniver in the CIB database.

But now he had rounds to do, counselling to give, bits of his own fraying world to be brought to order. He was half an hour at it, busily trying his best to keep his thoughts off Julie’s catatonia and Jackie Perfini’s sudden appearance, the whole disturbing, strangely compelling sequence of events, when he was called to the phone.

“Dan, it’s Jay. I’m halfway down the Putty Road. Your subject has left the Hunter Valley altogether.”

“She didn’t stay local?”

“She’s heading for Sydney, I’d say. Flat out, too. You want me to stay on this?”

“Jay, I really need you to. This woman is the sister of a patient. We might need a destination in a hurry.”

“Then I’ll call a pal of mine in Windsor. Stephanie Ashburn. She can pick it up there and I’ll come back. She’s good, Dan. Don’t worry. If necessary, I’ll get someone from Parramatta to get out there as well. There’ll be other traffic but we might need to leapfrog the closer she gets to home.”

“Sounds like quite an operation.”

“Just like the big kids do. I’ll do a trace on the registration too and call when I’ve got something, okay?”

“Thanks, Jay.”

There was no way he could return to his rounds. At 3.50 he paged Carla and asked her to bring Julie Haniver to his office as soon as possible.

When the girl was ushered in and given an armchair opposite Dan’s by the French doors, she looked calm enough, though she never took her eyes off Dan for a moment, obviously expecting some fears to be confirmed.

Dan thanked her for coming and opened his notepad. He’d already decided to play it straight with her. When Carla had gone, he didn’t hesitate.

“Jackie was here, Julie.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Peter told me.”

Dammit. Peter Rait had far too much liberty, Dan decided, then retracted it. Peter had never been the enemy before, probably wasn’t now. Though he’d never acted on his own before either.

“She already knew you were here, Julie. We didn’t tell her.”

“Peter told me that too, Doctor Dan. It’s okay. I shouldn’t have used the name Haniver. It was an old show name.”

Thank God. Dan settled back. Julie seemed uncommonly composed and alert now, very focused indeed.

“She told me about Jenny. About the Perfini Wonder Show. About your father and his interests.”

Julie nodded slightly, as if expecting it. “He couldn’t help himself. Jenny keeps saying it. He couldn’t help the things he did.”

“Well, maybe so, Julie. But we need to know more about it. What can you tell us?” Now that Jackie’s been here, Dan didn’t need to add.

“We didn’t have to be joined. It was only cartilage and muscle. Alonzo knew some doctors interested in Wunderkammern. They faked X-rays of the Lugli twins from Padua. Alonzo showed the authorities false X-rays. Jenny and I never knew.”

“How did you find out?”

“It just became too much. What he did. We kept away from Italy, certainly from Sicily. Our first names were changed. We used the name Haniver. It’s an in-joke. But we found we had a cousin interning in Frankfurt when we were there. When Alonzo had food poisoning and was taken in for tests, Carlo came and got us from the carnival and took us to visit. We sometimes did go out with Papa and his friends. We could walk well enough to look like we were closely arm in arm. Carlo didn’t take us straight to Papa’s ward. He did some X-rays of us. We didn’t have to stay joined.”

“Did Carlo go to the authorities?”

“Not then. It was a family thing, you see. He got two friends to help. Alonzo was away. They did the operation in our wagon.”

“They what? That’s burn scarring you’ve got, Julie. Interns with access to X-ray equipment and hospital facilities would hardly use acid or resort to cauterising wounds with flame. Do you actually remember the operation?”

There seemed a dreamlike quality between them now, almost as if her words were being recited from some false memory. “No. Jenny told me about it. I’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

“Jenny wouldn’t lie to you.” He had to be so careful.

“Never. Jenny is my dearest friend. She’s in my song. I’m in hers.”

“Your song? I don’t follow.”

There was much more animation in Julie’s features now. She was smiling again. “When we were young, it was our private game. We’d sing it.”

“Please sing it now, Julie. Would you?”

Julie smiled and did so, in a light clear voice.

“When will Jenny come to play? When will Jenny come to stay? Jenny’s never somewhere else, Jenny’s here with me, myself.”

“Thank you, Julie. I take it as an honor.”

“Jenny would sing ‘Julie’; I’d sing ‘Jenny’. We thought we’d have one another forever. We didn’t know we could be apart. We never expected it.”

“You miss that, don’t you, Julie?

“Sometimes desperately, Doctor Dan. It was all there was. You made it your world every conscious moment. Washing. Going to the toilet. Even pretending to be alone by turning away from each other. Playing at separation. But I grew to hate it too. Because of Alonzo. What he did. And once Carlo showed us we were probably separable. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t a necessity any longer. More like an oversight.”

“So why don’t you remember?”

“I was ill or something. Highly strung, they said. With bad headaches. I had to be sedated a lot. I remember that.”

Dan leant back in his chair, made himself lean back, stay calm. He could no longer be sure what was truth or fiction. Perhaps he did need Peter Rait’s view on this.

“Julie, after the operation, what happened to Carlo?”

“Carlo? I’ve put so much out of my mind, Doctor Dan, I don’t know. Carlo just disappeared. Alonzo was furious. Humiliated. He tried to convince us the separation had been riskier than Carlo said, that he never wanted to take the chance, even claimed that he’d been misled by unscrupulous members of his Wunderkammern group.”

“Julie, what do you mean Carlo disappeared?”

“We never saw him again. I never did. Perhaps he ran away. Alonzo said what Carlo had done had shamed him, made him a laughingstock before his peers.”

The story was changing again. “His peers, not his family. Who were they again?”

“Others who owned Wunderkammern and traded exhibits with him. We never went back to Palermo. Alonzo finally sold off his collection and brought us to Australia.”

“Did he do that in a hurry?”

“Not for three years. But then it all happened so quickly.”

“What name did you use in Melbourne?”

“The show name. Haniver. He didn’t want to use Perfini. He preferred the Flemish name, said it advertised his field of interests better.”

“Oh? How so?”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps others interested in wonder-cabinets would recognise the name.”

“Right. Julie, you seem to be recalling quite a bit now. Can you give me your address and phone number in Sydney?”

“Didn’t Jackie?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She was protecting Jenny.”

“But you trust me. Can you give me your home address or phone number?”

“Doctor Dan, please understand. I need to protect Jenny too.”

Which possibly explained the lies. Dan studied the earnest face, lacking only makeup to be identical to Jackie’s. Something was dramatically different now. If not for Jackie’s visit to lend an element of credibility to the whole thing, Dan wouldn’t have believed any of it. He still couldn’t help but feel it was some kind of hoax, or at least that layers of deception were at work, being employed to conceal what little truth there was. It was almost as if Julie had done a quick change, had managed a conspiracy so she could play both parts. Yet more than ever he had to accept the prevailing situation, not fight it, not force it.

“Julie, you believe we’re genuinely trying to help you? That we want you and Jenny to be safe?”

“Of course I do.”

“You and Jackie both want to protect Jenny. Jackie says that she’s with Jenny down in Sydney, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you didn’t want Jackie to find you.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you explain that? Knowing Jackie is living with Jenny, knowing that Jenny misses you terribly, why would you run away from them?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Please try, Julie. Why did you run away from Jenny?”

“I ran away from Jackie!”

“Why? Why would you do that? Why would you do that to Jenny as well?”

“I just don’t know.”

“Do you want to know?”

“What?”

“Would you like me to help you find out why you’re here?”

There were only frowns now, bewilderment and uncertainty crimping her forehead, her confusion drawing out into its inevitable edge of panic. He could see it pulling at her eyes.

“H-How?”

“You remember our hypnotherapy sessions, Julie. Now Jackie’s found you, I’d like to use hypnosis again. See what we can learn.”

What is true, Dan told himself.

“Hypnotise me? Now?”

“That’s right. We did it before, remember? It might help a lot.”

“You’ll find out where Jenny is.”

“Not if I promise not to ask you that, Julie. Do you trust me about that?”

Before she could answer, the phone rang. Dan excused himself, crossed to his desk, and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Is that Dan Truswell?” a woman’s voice asked.

“It is.”

“Dr. Truswell, I’m Stephanie Ashburn, a friend of Jay Wendt’s. I’ve followed the subject to a Dalloway Road address in Horsley Park. That’s outside Blacktown, near Fairfield. It’s semi-rural. Lots of open fields and market gardens.”

“I think I know it, Stephanie. Go on.”

“I’ve just arrived. That’s 72 Dalloway Road.”

“Describe the location, please.”

“Large-enough property, maybe three hectares. Just an ordinary fibro cottage, a few big trees.”

“Any sheds or garages?”

“There’s a very large corrugated iron shed set away to the right of the house. It’s seen better days but it’s sturdy enough. I’d say about thirty metres by fifteen, about four metres high.”

“Where did the car pull up?”

“Outside the shed.”

“Not the house?”

“Right. No lights visible, but the shed has no windows on the two sides I can see. No signs of activity. What should I do?”

“You’re not too obvious?”

“I’m quite a ways from the place.”

“Okay. Stephanie, phone Jay and tell him where you are. I’d appreciate it if you could stay there till one of us calls.”

“Let me give you my number here.”

Dan wrote it down and hung up. Then, as he turned from the desk, he saw a small paper object sitting among his files. It was an origami figure of—what else?—two humans joined at back or front. But dropped there by which sister: Julie or Jackie? He couldn’t know. When had either had the chance? Jackie as she left? Julie as she came in?

Without touching it, he turned back to the armchairs by the long windows, now golden with late afternoon light.

“The hypnosis, Julie. What do you say?”

She looked up at him, wide-eyed, clearly troubled by the prospect. “Can Peter be here?”

Dan didn’t flinch, didn’t blink or hesitate. “If you want. I know he’d like to be.”

Julie nodded. Dan returned to his desk, paged Carla, and asked her to send Peter round to his office. By the time he arrived, Dan had his recorder set up and a chair positioned slightly to the back of Julie’s so their guest would be out of direct sight. Peter took it with a smile and a nod, for all the world like a colleague here to observe an interesting procedure. Dan couldn’t help smiling back, then set the recorder going and began.

“Peter, Julie and I decided we’d try some more hypnotherapy and thought you’d like to join us. You’ll observe the usual courtesies, I know.”

Peter nodded. “As silent as the Moon,” he said. “Not a bird, nor the mewings of the baby stoat.”

Baby stoat? Was he quoting? Dan could never be sure. But Peter settled back quietly, his eyes fixed attentively on Julie for a moment, then closed in his usual contemplative manner.

Dan positioned himself, began the relaxation recital. Julie visibly settled in her chair, actually seemed glad to give in to Dan’s suggestions. Within a few minutes she had lapsed into the trance.

“Julie, tell me about the Perfini Wonder Show.”

“Wonder-cabinet,” Julie murmured, plumbing the years.

“Yes, the Perfini wonder-cabinet. The Wunderkammer. Tell me about it.”

“We travelled through Europe,” Julie said. “Papa took us through so many different countries. Not the big cities all that often and not all the towns. He knew where to go. The special fairs. The right estates.”

“I’m sure. When did he first start showing you and Jenny?”

Julie didn’t hesitate. Jenny was such a powerful reality for her. “When we were five. We were the special exhibit. He saved us till last.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“We loved it. We loved the attention then.”

“Then? Not later?”

“Later it was different.”

“How much later?”

“When we had turned ten. It was different then.”

“How was it different?”

Julie frowned and didn’t answer. Her left cheek spasmed—a nervous tic. Behind her right shoulder, Peter Rait’s eyes opened wide as if in some shared sympathetic alarm, then closed again. He was trying to behave.

“Julie,” Dan repeated gently, “how was it different?”

Julie was resisting, was even shaking her head a little. There was conflict, something she didn’t want to face. Dan was about to put a new question when Peter broke trust and, eyes still closed, asked a question of his own.

“All the best wonder shows have a secret room, Julie. A special room. What happened in the secret room?”

Dan was silently furious but said nothing. Like Jenny, Peter was a powerful force in Julie’s life. She had wanted him there.

Tears were rolling down Julie’s cheeks when she answered. “It was where Papa took us.”

Dan stayed silent. Let Peter ask it.

“To do what? What happened there, Julie?”

“He showed us undressed. He let them touch us.” Despair had tightened her throat. The words were pinched, broken with sobbing now.

“He molested you? Both of you?”

Dan found they were his questions, coarsely, heavy-handedly, almost cruelly put, as direct as Peter always was, though here he was, without Phillip, coherent and focused and helping without Phillip Crow! The briars of unreason were blooming indeed.

Julie blinked away more tears, nodded.

Dan might not have persisted. Peter did.

“But it was your father! How could it happen?”

“We resisted. They held us down. Sometimes they tied our hands. Put rags in our mouths. We had no choice.”

Dan intervened. “What about your visit to the hospital? Carlo doing the X-rays? What about your separation?”

“Carlo didn’t do the separation. Carlo became a fine pair of wings. We did some of it ourselves, Jenny and me.”

“What?” Dan said and, unsure of what he had heard, went back. “Carlo became what?”

But Julie was locked onto Peter’s earlier question. “Papa said it was what many collectors did. Became teratophiles. There were codes, passwords, that let them into the secret rooms all over Europe. They all had them—the travelling shows and respectable homes. There were special fairs. There still are. It isn’t new. The practice has been going on for centuries.”

Dan composed himself. “But Carlo tried to help.”

“He tried. But Papa caught him. Made him into a fine pair of wings.”

There it was again, but Dan didn’t bring it up then. “So how were you separated? If Carlo didn’t do it?”

“One of Papa’s guests in Frankfurt was a surgeon. Papa let him visit us alone. He felt very guilty after he had been with us. He took pity on us, told Jenny and me it was just a lot of muscle joining us. No arteries, nothing vital. There’d be blood, he said, quite a lot, but he told us what he’d have to do, said he’d bring the necessary instruments and drugs.”

Despite the bizarre experiences of Dan’s own life, it all sounded like so much fabrication again, a tall tale growing larger and more improbable by the minute: first Carlo, now this Frankfurt surgeon, Carlo becoming a nice pair of wings.

But then, like a spectre at the feast, or more a mind-reader in a high-class nightclub act, Peter was there.

“Julie, this is very important. Doctor Dan and I are finding this hard to accept. You must help us. Your Papa let this surgeon bring a bag of things into the secret room?”

“A lot of them brought bags and cases. Teratophiles are like paraphiles everywhere. Some brought masks and hoods, special costumes and things to use on us. Their cameras. Papa trusted and liked this man. Xavier Pangborn was as great an admirer of Frederik Ruysch as Papa was. Only when the pain became too much and we were crying out, did Papa break in. He and Dr. Pangborn had a terrible fight.” Julie winced at the memory. Her cheek spasmed. “Jenny was in so much pain. She passed out. I had to finish the job before I passed out too.”

Finish the job!

Dan made himself stay calm, focused. Things did happen violently, strangely, in life; people were capable of the most extraordinary things, acts of courage and strength, incredible perversion too, a mix of the courageous and the outrageous that did make it seem that orthodoxy and consensus were always somewhere else in human affairs.

“What happened to Xavier Pangborn?” Dan asked, warning Peter with a look.

“We awoke in a house with Dr. Pangborn and women we didn’t know tending to us. Alonzo was downstairs, furious, so very angry, but also very afraid that Pangborn would tell the authorities and so was trying to be civil. The same shame and guilt that had made Pangborn help us had also led him to destroy all incriminating papers and exhibits of his own. Now he was a pillar of belated virtue. He said he’d have contacts keep an eye on us. Alonzo would never be sure who he meant and so actually made the best of the situation. He eventually sold off his own collection and brought us down to Australia.”

“So you were reunited with Jackie.”

Julie frowned. “It was more like meeting her for the first time really. Jenny and I were too young to remember her with the show.”

“She became very taken with Jenny. Why is that, Julie?”

“Jenny has always been shy and fragile. The trauma of what those men did, the results of the separation—she took it all so much harder than I did. One of us had to cope. One of us had to be stronger.”

“But Jackie came looking for you, too, Julie. Jackie cares enough for you to have searched for you.”

Julie’s mouth was a grim line. Her frown crushed her brow with the intensity of suffering, not merely concentration.

They should stop soon. But there was still so much to learn and Julie was so responsive, so lucid like this. He’d never have expected it. Dan decided to avoid further mention of Jackie; that was the harming stressor here.

“How did Alonzo earn his living in Melbourne, Julie?”

The frown went away; her mouth softened. “He had contacts there—keepers of Wunderkammern like himself. One of them gave him a job as assistant curator in a local museum.”

“With a secret room no doubt.” Dan couldn’t help himself.

Julie took it as a question. “I suppose. It was a large public museum. There are always parts the public doesn’t see.”

That the brotherhood of cabinet keepers kept secret, Dan decided.

“How did he treat you?”

“Well from then on. We were with family. He found his interests elsewhere. And Xavier Pangborn came to see us.”

“Pangborn did?”

“He was in Australia lecturing at ANU and Monash. One evening he stopped by. That was before he went missing.”

“Went missing?” It was going wild again.

“It was a terrible thing. His wife was with him. There was a big search. It was in all the papers.”

Did Alonzo kill him? Dan wanted to ask, but somehow knew Julie would have no idea. If her story were true, this terrible, elaborate, improbable tale, she had every reason to want to put it out of mind. He was probably going too far now. But Jackie had disturbed him; the case of this mysterious young woman sitting before him had opened out, blossomed amazingly. There were too many facts but not enough certainties.

It didn’t stop Peter.

“Julie, what did you mean Alonzo made Carlo into a nice pair of wings?”

“Peter!”

“She isn’t under, Doctor Dan. She’s pretending to be in a trance!”

Dan was affronted, amazed yet convinced all at once. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but of course she was pretending; it had let her deal with experiences too difficult to face otherwise. But the illusion had to be preserved. He had to try and save it.

“Peter, listen very carefully. Trust my professional judgement here. I know for a fact Julie is under, and she’s going to answer your question right now to prove it. Julie, please answer Peter’s question.”

Dan again leant forward slightly, urging the young woman with his body language to continue with the vital pretence.

And the words came in the same calm tone she had been using at the outset.

“Alonzo made monsters in the old way. Many keepers of Wunderkammern did. You know, fitting bat wings to the bodies of lizards, then carefully drying them to give dragons. Adding a human foetus’s arms to the body of a skate. Sticking horns onto monkey skulls. The first platypus taken to Europe was regarded as such a fake. They tried to pull the beak off. Carlo was killed and dried, flayed and ‘leathered.’ His skin was used for wings.”

Wilder and wilder, Dan thought. This can’t go on. Julie improvising; Peter playing the role of a conspirator in some charade. Though Jackie had been real. She had been.

“Ask her about her surname,” Peter prompted, leaning forward as well, playing his part, though he looked more concerned than ever. “Haniver.”

“Haniver?” Dan echoed, but the phone rang. He crossed to his desk, grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“Dan, it’s Jay. Stephanie’s not answering her mobile. She was going to do a lost motorist routine. Knocking at the door, asking for directions, so she may have switched it off.”

Dan kept him voice low and matter-of-fact. “Is there a problem?”

“Not necessarily. But it wasn’t our arrangement. Whenever there’s risk, what we call a ‘nasty,’ we leave our mobiles on.”

“What about your back-up from Parramatta?”

“Dan, there was enough traffic going into Horsley Park for Stephanie not to stand out. I called Rick and let him go. Oh, and incidentally, the Laser is registered to a Laura Barraclough in Melbourne and hasn’t been reported stolen. I’d say it’s on loan.”

“Okay. Jay, I’m probably overreacting badly but there’s an edge to this I don’t like at all. If Stephanie’s run up against Jackie she may be in trouble.”

“But Jackie isn’t the patient.”

“Correct. Like I said, she’s a patient’s sister and seems pretty unstable. Let me know the moment Stephanie calls in.”

“Done. What do we do in the meantime?”

“You’ve got the number in Dalloway Road?”

“Yes.”

“Call in favors, Jay. See if you can get a local squad car round there.”

“You really do suspect foul play?”

“They won’t find anything,” Julie said from her chair by the windows.

“Hold it a moment, Jay,” Dan said, turning to face her. “What do you mean?”

Julie’s face was like a golden mask in the last of the sunlight. “The house at 72 is a trap. It’s what’s called a ‘false door’ in Egyptology, what the teratophile cabinet owners call a blind to throw off undesirables. But it’s a trap house. Jackie will have taken Stephanie to meet Alonzo and Xavier.”

“But they’re dead!”

“Yes. But she knows it’ll bring me back.”

More and more the briars were coiling up.

“Julie, you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to explain clearly what’s going on!”

“Jackie’s changed the rules. She’s always been concerned with connection, bringing things together, but now she's harming Jenny.”

That was Alonzo with the connection thing, not Jackie! Julie was changing her story again.

“We’re going to bring the police in on this,” Dan said. “Listen, Jay—”

But Julie’s words brought him up short. “You’ll never find the house if you do.”

“What?”

“If you or your friend there call the police, Doctor Dan, I swear I’ll go catatonic and you’ll get nothing. Jackie will never call again. Jenny will die. Stephanie may already be dead.”

“What then?”

“You get this Jay friend of yours to drive us down to Sydney. I’ll take you to the house. Then you can call your police friends.”

“I can’t do that, Julie.”

“But you know you will anyway. I’ve got to save Jenny, Doctor Dan. It has to be this way. I know Jackie.”

Stephanie never called in; her phone remained switched off. The Fairfield police found her car outside 72, found the house deserted, its lights operated by timers, found the shed locked but empty inside when they forced the lock.

This came to them in Jay’s Nissan Patrol as they plunged down the Putty Road, Jay driving, Julie next to him, Dan in the back waiting for Harry Badman to return his calls.

Neither Dan nor Jay was surprised when, at 6.20, they turned into Walgrove Road and headed for Horsley Park. Of course the trap house and the real one would be close enough for convenience.

“Tell us about Alonzo and Xavier Pangborn, Julie,” Dan said. “How they can be involved.”

“You’ll see.”

Dan refused to give up. “I think I might be a better friend to Jenny than you are right now.”

Julie turned in her seat to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re doing this because you want to help Jenny.”

“Yes! Save Jenny!” Still she faced him, half-turned, eyes glittering in the dim interior.

“Why am I doing it?”

“Because you want to know what’s going on. Because of his friend.” She indicated Jay. “Stephanie.”

“More than that. You know it’s more than that.”

“What then?”

“You want to help Jenny. But I want to help Jenny and Julie. Because Jenny needs to have Julie safe too, doesn’t she? It can’t be all right unless you’re both safe.”

“Yes.” It was a ghostly, feeling-charged affirmation, said with a new and different emotion. She believed him, was accepting what he said. Perhaps he was earning the truth from her.

“Tell me how Alonzo and Xavier are involved!”

And Julie told them as they did 110 ks along Walgrove Road.

“Both men were interested in joining opposites, in bringing things together, the old alchemical quest. Alonzo left us joined. Xavier used us because we were. The prize of Xavier’s collection, probably genuine, were two joined bodies.”

“Congenitally joined?”

“Oh no, Doctor Dan. An ancient Roman punishment was to tie the condemned to a corpse, back to back, face to face, then leave you. If you weren’t lucky enough to die from shock, your body was poisoned by the rotting cadaver. Necrosis took over. Xavier had acquired the preserved remains of such a wretch left like this in a cell in ancient Syria long ago. Preserved by desert heat and aridity. The bodies were unearthed in the 1700s, reached Amsterdam in the 1830s, finally made it into Xavier’s collection just before we were born. The same year.”

Dan thought he understood. “Xavier acquired the double corpses. Alonzo then fathered conjoined daughters not long after. He couldn’t resist. He left you like that as a gesture, a living symbol of Xavier’s exhibit.”

“Yes.” It was breathed rather than said. “That was partly the reason. He also enjoyed the notion for itself.”

“Then the separation—”

“Was motivated by genuine compassion from Xavier, we believe, by outrage at something they’d done as competitive, obsessive, heartless, younger men, not just to spite a rival.”

“Then—” And again Dan understood. “When Xavier went missing—”

“Yes. Alonzo avenged himself in the appropriate way. Xavier ended his days in a cellar face to face with a corpse.”

“How do you know this?”

“Jackie told me.”

“Jackie! How does she know?”

“She became Alonzo’s favorite when he came to Australia. He needed to gloat. He showed her what he’d done.”

“Showed her! My God!” They turned off Walgrove Road onto Horsley Drive, then Julie directed them right into Walworth and along the crests of the low hills, the road winding its way past isolated houses with cheerily lit windows, past long intervening outlooks and swales where the land rolled away in darkened vistas, marked only by occasional, far-off, twinkling points of light, touches of civilization and sanity.

Enough touches. For other things were out there as well. The residues of madness and obsession.

“Lots of room out here, Doctor Dan,” Julie said, as if answering him. “Lots of houses and sheds few people ever get to see inside of.”

Lots of opportunities for secret lives, Dan thought. “What will Jackie do, Julie?”

“I don’t know, Doctor Dan. But I think she wants to harm me and Jenny.”

“She said she cared for Jenny. For you too.”

“Sometimes she does. But she scared me. I had to leave.”

You left Jenny! Dan couldn’t accept that. “Julie, was Jenny already dead when you ran away?”

And is Jackie waiting to, Xavier-like, join the two of you back together? Face to face? To reunite you at last?

“Not when I left. But Jackie loves Jenny. She wouldn’t harm her.”

“She might to get at you. People do it all the time. Harm what they love.”

“Not Jenny!” Julie said as if desperately needing to believe it. “Turn here!”

There was a street sign Dan didn’t have time to read or even ask about because, almost immediately, Julie was telling Jay to pull over in front of a large open field. No, not a field—a drab fibro house sat at the end of a driveway, a single light showing dimly from what seemed to be the living room. To the right of the house was a large corrugated iron shed, just like the one Stephanie had described for the place on Dalloway Road, about thirty metres by fifteen, four metres or so high, with no visible windows and none of the double doors you’d expect for housing large vehicles in such a structure.

“There.” Julie pointed, indicating the shed and the solitary door they could see on its northwestern corner.

Jay reached for his car-phone.

“Don’t!” Julie said, in a voice that actually startled Dan, so different it was to anything he’d ever heard from her. “Please! She will harm Jenny! And Stephanie! She probably doesn’t know we’re here yet!”

Jay switched off the engine. “Lives are at risk, Julie.”

“They certainly will be if we don’t follow her system.”

“System?” Jay asked before Dan could.

“That’s a Wunderkammer there,” Julie answered. “She will have prepared it for us.”

Again Jay reached for the phone. “Someone has to know. No one’s going in there.”

Dan gripped his shoulder. “Jay, it probably does have to be this way. What’s the layout, Julie?”

“She will have changed it. It’s the House of Iitoi most likely. From the Hopi legend. The maze pattern you see all over the Southwestern USA. The Arizonan labyrinth with Death at the centre. Your journey through the maze to Death at the centre is the journey through life.”

“Julie!” Dan said, still gripping Jay’s shoulder, knowing how carefully this had to be played. “Tell us what to expect.”

“There’s usually an entry corridor going round the perimeter, leading inwards. There’ll be photographs, exhibits to arouse interest, vanitas mundi tableaux.”

“Vanitas what?” Jay asked.

“Displays,” Dan said. “Vitrines containing exhibits. Go on, Julie.”

“Definitely a maze.”

“With traps? Shortcuts? You’ve been in there. You’ve seen it.”

“I can’t say. She will have changed it, Doctor Dan. But she wants me in there with Jenny. She won’t risk harming me.”

“Give us the address here, Julie,” Dan said. “As we go in, Jay phones the police. No one goes anywhere till that’s done.”

“But as we go in,” Julie said. “I have to be in there. Promise. Both of you.”

Dan did at once. Jay hesitated, furious, then grudgingly did so, as if such oaths could hold true just by being given. There was danger here, and madness, though fortunately Jay, like Dan, recognised an essential process at work, saw that any show of force could not guarantee the safety of lives within. But a trail of crumbs had to be left for the cavalry, even if it was to be after the event. Everything on Jackie’s terms, if they decided to go in.

“Lot 6, Jellicoe Road,” Julie told them, opening her door and getting out, with Dan right behind her, determined to stay close.

Jay did too, slipping his gun into the inside pocket of his wind-jacket, his mobile in his left hand. “I want to check the address,” he said, and rushed off into the night. They could hear his footsteps along the road.

“He’ll call the police,” Julie said, taking Dan’s arm and leading him up the driveway, angling towards the shed. “We need to continue without him.”

“We can’t do that, Julie. His friend is in there. He deserves to be here too.”

“Don’t you see, Doctor Dan? If we make this difficult for Jackie, she’ll make it difficult for us. He can follow. Please.”

Dan tried to think it through, calculate what was to be lost or gained.

But the door was suddenly there and it opened easily when Julie turned the handle and, almost before he knew it, they were in the long 1.2-metrewide passageway that stretched out before them, roofed and walled with sheet iron, wooden-floored, lit by single frosted bulbs every seven metres or so. The building’s outer wall had been corrugated iron, but its interior was faced with sheet iron, suggesting a double wall, probably with insulating batts in between. On the inner wall of the passage were framed photographs—first, of the original eponymous twins, Chang and Eng, and of other famous conjoined siblings, then of a whole series of renowned “freaks” and hoaxes. Hanging from the roof beams, casting eerie shadows and set turning in the warm close air by Dan and Julie entering the corridor, were the shrivelled remains of false monsters. Dan saw a winged serpent-like thing the red of old blood, then a grimacing homunculus—no doubt a late-development foetus, its wizened features and oversized hands probably added by some experienced teratologist. Other dim shapes swung and spiralled further down the passageway.

From even further off, deeper within the structure, came music, the faintest strains of Prokofiev, if Dan wasn’t mistaken, which lent a disturbing, too discordantly civilised edge to the whole thing, but also gave a sense of direction and destination, some kind of centre to all this.

Julie went on ahead, leaving Dan to follow. They had to complete the circuit, it seemed, follow the passage the length of the shed’s long southern side, turn left along its eastern end. There were more sheet metal walls, naked bulbs, photos in dusty frames, shrivelled shapes turning overhead, then another turn left down the long northern side.

Now the photos were different. Now the pictures were of Julie and Jenny, their story told in graphic, pathetic detail: showing them first as infants, cute and normal-looking in matching outfits, then as happy little girls in identical smiling poses, then as prepubescent youngsters suddenly displayed naked and joined by their short “bridge” of flesh, just the two of them alone initially, staring wide-eyed in confusion and alarm, then attended by as many as seven figures in dark business suits, though more often one or two and always male it seemed, all but the girls masked, appropriately, with dominoes or grotesque animal and demon masks, lacquered and snouted as if denizens from a Venetian Carnivale. Sometimes the girls were shackled; other times they simply huddled together, hiding their nude or half-dressed state.

Then it changed again. Dan saw images even more blatantly sexual, and more and more often, one of the twins was shown with her hands fastened behind her and her mouth taped, while the other received the attentions of some visitor or other with what seemed increasing abandon.

“Julie,” Dan said, whispered in the close air, his first words in that terrible place. “You’re the one restrained, aren’t you?”

Julie nodded, not turning, sobbing. “She enjoyed it! The bitch actually enjoyed it, can you believe that? I was always raped, but she liked it!”

“Jenny did? But you said Jenny and you.”

“Not Jenny!” she cried, sobbing bitterly now, still pressing ahead, still not looking round. “Not Jenny!”

“That’s Jackie?” Dan’s gaze flicked from image to image and knew it was. “But Jackie spoke of Jenny too.”

He didn’t need to go on, certainly didn’t need to speak what Julie so painfully knew. It was what Peter Rait had said about there being a sister. There is and there isn’t.

There was no Jenny.

They’d both lost a sister, had both changed too much to be what they once were for each other, yet both had vivid, profoundly affecting memories of a loved one who was another part of them, was the perfect friend and sibling.

Julie didn’t see her in Jackie. Jackie couldn’t find her in Julie.

They’d lost each other, couldn’t be it for one another, had become too different, too definitely separate, yet out of trauma, betrayal, terrible loss, had invented the one point at which they could connect. Preserving something of the lost intimacy, some kind of way back.

As a schoolboy in Reardon, Dan remembered that his kindergarten teacher had made a Wendy House at the back of the classroom, named no doubt after Peter Pan and Wendy—a house where the children played at being grown-ups. This was a Jenny House, everything in it a shrine to what Julie and Jackie had made between them. But playing at grown-ups. What chance had they?

Dan saw how it was. Hurrying along after Julie, rushing past those frightful images, he understood the terrible dilemma. Jackie wanted to unite with her version of Jenny—which only Julie could provide. Of course she’d wanted her back. Julie wanted to unite with her version of Jenny as well, but not with Jackie! That paradox, that crisis of opposites, had made Julie flee; the opposite pendulum swing had brought her back again into the same irreconcilable crisis.

There was only one way the sisters could ever be joined that would let them both join with Jenny. Peter had probably known more about it in his incredible way, had wanted Dan to ask about their pseudonym. Haniver. Now there wasn’t time. Now there was only the terrible danger.

“Julie, we go back!” he cried, grabbing at her arm, but she pulled away. Dan hurried forward, went to grab at her again, but then the lights went out and a tremendous snaring weight fell on him from above. He could hear a far-off pounding as he sank to the floor.

Perhaps he lost consciousness for a few moments, Dan couldn’t be sure. He found himself trying to put the world back together, found himself fighting with the weight oppressing him when the lights came on again, showed he was wrestling with a coil of heavy rope triggered to drop from above. The driving beat he could hear was probably Jay pounding at the locked entry door (for Jackie would have locked it behind them).

Dan finally freed himself from the tangle and stood. There was no sign of Julie, of course, nothing ahead but the passage, the stuffy dimness and turning constructs, more pictures on the walls.

There were traps. There were shortcuts and secret panels. Julie had been snatched away.

The pounding stopped. The Prokofiev was back and other sounds, far-off scuffling, thumps against the iron, muffled cries.

Dan pounded the walls a moment, crying their names, then rushed along the corridor, his footsteps ringing on the wooden floor, his hands slapping the iron. He had to get to the centre, to wherever Jackie had Julie. And Stephanie, if she were even still alive.

There was a crash and the building shuddered. Dan ignored it, continued running, bringing wind to the dead air.

Again, the building shook to an impact, a shuddering crash, this time followed by a wrenching sound.

It was Jay! Jay was ramming his four-wheel drive into the building, trying to force a way in. And again the structure shook. Beams creaked. Pictures fell and iron sheets were sprung on their uprights.

Dan wrenched one sheet away, actually pried it free and brought it clattering down, then stepped into an inner part of the corridor. One stage closer.

Again Jay rammed the building. Beams groaned, dust settled, more metal sheeting warped out from the timber. Tearing his fingers, Dan wrenched another section of wall free, revealed another inner coil of the maze. There couldn’t be many more. He ran on, slewing into the walls when Jay rammed the structure a fifth time, making headway surely.

Then Dan could hear voices raised in anger, accusation, women’s voices shouting, made out actual words.

“Jenny doesn’t love you!”

“Jenny doesn’t love you!”

He stopped to listen.

“Do it! Go on! I dare you!”

“Not with you! With her!”

He ran, plunging round the circuit, trying to get into wherever it was. And again the building resounded to a blow, this time followed by a shuddering crash as more outer structural supports gave way.

Dan rounded the next corner, crashed into a locked door and went spinning back, stunned by the impact.

“Julie!” he cried. “Jackie, let me in!”

Again Jay rammed the building. It was solidly made, but never meant for this sort of battering. Something had to be giving.

“He’ll do it!” a voice beyond the door cried, Julie or Jackie Dan couldn’t tell. “He will!”

And dazed, bloodied, pushing against the door, Dan thought they meant Jay.

When the door gave way and Dan toppled into the large central room, he saw in a glance a host of disparate things: the old-style record player, the specimen tables and cases of exhibits, the clustering of shapes dangling from the roof beams, saw the girls lying naked and joined in the shallow pit in the middle of the floor, yes, glued together front to front with the tubes of instant glue lying near them, Julie’s hands tied behind her back, saw too what he had set in motion by pushing back the door, the big tub of acid even now tipping onto them.

He’ll do it!

The screams and threshing about were hideous and mercifully short, and there was drumming, a relentless drumming that wasn’t the blood rushing through Dan’s heart and temples, that was suddenly Jay bursting into the room, eyes wide, gun drawn.

They stood in the dreadful quiet, in a near-silence of sizzling and dripping that faded even as they watched, faded to the lowest, faintest mewing of despair.

“Where’s Steph?” Jay said.

“Listen!” Dan told him.

“Where is she?”

“Listen, dammit!”

And they heard it again, a dismal far-off wail, a dull thumping.

“Where’s that coming from?” Jay demanded.

“There’s always a secret room,” Dan said, remembering what Peter had said to Julie. “Try over there, but stay clear of the pit. That’s acid.”

They circled the central depression where the bodies lay contorted and, yes, virtually indistinguishable now, went to one of the dimly lit corners. The mewing was louder, the dull thumping more distinct.

They discovered a catch near the ceiling, another sunk into the wooden floor, and fumbled at them, Dan with bloody fingers, Jay clumsy with desperation, but finally pulled back the panel to reveal a room lit by its single bulb.

Stephanie was on the floor, naked, gagged, strapped between the dried corpses of Alonzo and Xavier, their shrivelled heads and faces jammed against hers, their groins pressing close, front and back. Though clearly exhausted, she was jerking the hideous construct as best she could, eyes wide with sheer terror and a hysteria very close to madness.

Jackie had used false street signs, so it took the police and ambulances a while to find them at Lot 3 Dinsmoor Road, took hours of Dan and Jay answering questions at the local police station, explaining just what it was that had occurred and why.

Thankfully Harry Badman phoned in at last and vouched for them, added his verifications to those already provided by Blackwater, but it wasn’t until 2 a.m. that Dan and Jay reached Everton again. Knowing how some things needed to be anchored in the mundane as soon as possible, Dan had Barbara, Mark, and Carla “debrief” them for almost another hour before sending Jay off home.

The next morning, Dan wasn’t at all surprised to find Peter Rait sitting at the corner window in the library where he’d found Julie—could it be?— less than twenty-four hours before.

“I should’ve asked you about the name,” Dan said. “Haniver.”

Peter nodded and smiled. “You should have, yes. Though it couldn’t have ended any other way.”

“Tell me about it now.”

“There used to be quite a thriving market in monsters. Many were made in Antwerp, a Flemish seaport on the Scheldt the French called Anvers. A ‘Jenny Haniver’ was the name they gave to such merchandise.”

“These false monsters?”

“Yes, Doctor Dan. False dreams in a way. Imitations of wonder some needed to believe in so much. The sisters knew what they were making.”

“They died for it, Peter.”

“Yes, but it’s closure, isn’t it? They had already lost one another, were getting further and further apart.”

“Their Wunderkammer was a deathtrap.”

“Ah, but then, Doctor Dan, that’s like the world itself. The best of them always are.”