Double Jackson Read online

  "Ah, no, not me, I had a frog in my throat." He held his hands in the air.

  "Hmm. David, why are you stirring?"

  "I'm so not. You said I had to go and wake them up." He sighed very dramatically. "It's hen pecked, I am."

  Jack rolled his eyes and Coll smirked.

  "Oh, we can tell that," Jack said. "And eating your babies?" He pointed at the remains of two fried eggs on Dave's plate. "Cluck, cluck. Or is that tut, tut?"

  David nodded. "Don't mind. Damned good they are, as well."

  "Shame on you. Hold on. Did you say cake, Tina? Lemon drizzle?"

  "What else? Gluten-free, of course. Now eat up and let's plot. Fizz will be over in half an hour."

  "Fizz? Why?" Jack looked at Coll, who shrugged. Jack's agent was lovely, but of the take-no-prisoners type of personality. You only needed to speak to her to know she and Tina came out of the same mold. You only needed to look at them to realize that was true in more than one way. They were twins.

  "Well, maybe to find out what the fuck is happening?" Tina rolled her eyes.

  "Language," Jack and Coll spoke at the same time.

  "Ha, I'll put a pound in the swear box with pleasure if it means this crap is sorted out and soon," Tina said. "Because someone has got it in for you, and unless we can find out who it is and stop them, you're up shit creek without a paddle. Read the articles and then tell me what you think. Show them, Dave."

  Dave pushed an assortment of papers across the table toward them.

  Chapter Three

  Jack pulled one of the papers next to his plate. Dave or Tina had helpfully folded it to the appropriate article. He snorted at the headlines. "For fuck's sake, this is tripe. 'He fondled my boobs and said how natural they felt.' Apart from the small matter that I'm gay, for god's sake, and happily married, they're as false as that statement. Anyone can tell that, even from such a shit-awful photo. What the fuck?"

  Coll stretched his arm out and squeezed Jack's. The tiny touch was needed. The heat of Coll's fingers both soothed and pulsed power into Jack. It was a gesture of love, support, and shouted 'mine'. Jack returned the gesture on Coll's leg. It was the easiest part of Coll's anatomy to reach.

  "Someone's lying through their pneumatic breasts, I reckon." Coll tapped the boobs in question on the unpleasant photo. "If you look at this photo, it almost looks like you. To the man, or woman in the street, it would look like you. Even if I know it wasn't you––unless Stu's beer knocked us all out and you nipped into wherever it says, I'd still know it wasn't you. But I bet not many people would. Not unless maybe you stood side by side. But even then, I'd look twice."

  "And then it'd be Jack's word against the wannabe-Jack, as to who was the real Jack." Dave said. "Something is wrong. Why would a lookalike behave in a way to make you appear a bad bloke? Because if your star is tarnished and falls, then they'll likely be out of a job."

  "True. So what's the point?"

  Dave shrugged. "That's what we need to find out. The police were called when wannabe-Jack started to get a bit too frisky, but he skipped before they got there. Then the women refused to press charges or anything, and no one owned up to making the call. One woman said, gay or not, you could feel her up anytime. All bloody strange."

  Jack bit back the angry retort he wanted to make, and sat on his hand so he didn't use it to smash anything. He pushed the newspaper away with his free hand and let the sheets drop onto the floor. "All it's good for. Garbage. And I have no idea who has it in for me. The list is endless I imagine, and changes on a regular basis, depending who wants what and didn't get it." He picked up a mug and swallowed a mouthful of cold coffee. "Eugh, this is cold."

  Tina took the cup from him and replaced it with another one, which had steam rising from the dark liquid it contained. "That's because it's mine. This is yours."

  "Ah, that explains it." He took a long gulp. "Nectar. Hey, I hear a bike. Must be Fizz."

  "Clear the table if you've finished eating and I'll let her in. And Jack?" Tina paused at the door.

  Jack raised one eyebrow in query.

  "Start thinking fast."

  That was all well and good, but what to think, would be helpful. He shook his head in bewilderment, and picked up the last slice of toast just before Coll reached for it.

  "Here, I'm being generous." He broke the slice in half and passed it to Coll, who ate it in three bites. "So how's your fast thinking?"

  Coll swallowed his toast and chuckled, but it wasn't a very mirthful noise. "Sluggish."

  "Mine too. Dave?"

  Dave looked up from the notebook he was scribbling in. "Huh?"

  "Your thinking, on this?" Jack asked with as much patience he could muster. "Why, who and what the fu…flippin’ heck's going on?" He changed the final words in his speech as Tina, and her double, came in.

  Dave's mobile buzzed and he pulled it put of his pocket, looked at the screen, and stood up.

  "Have to take this. Hello?" He walked out of the kitchen.

  Jack looked at the two women who stood side by side. He realized with a jolt that Fizz was Tina's near-double. Yes, they were identical twins, even if Fizz did dye her hair and live in biker leathers. However, when you knew them both, saw them together, and ignored one’s dyed, bright, postbox red hair and the other’s hair, so fair it looked silver you could spot the tiny differences.

  Would it be the same as him and his doppelganger? He hoped so.

  But if people saw me and him together who, apart from this lot, would know which me was the real me?

  ****

  Fizz slung a shoulder bag the size of a small wardrobe onto the table and pulled out a chair. "Even I was taken in for a sec. Then I thought, ohh, come on. He's not likely to have that much of a personality change. Apart from that, you and Coll are virtually joined at the hip. So, plan of action, peeps. Any ideas?"

  "Coffee?" Jack asked. "In my mind it seems a good place to start."

  "That, my love, goes without saying." Fizz McAllister tucked her long red hair up into a messy bun, and skewered it with what looked like a pencil. "Now, Jack, you first. What did you get up to last night? Apart from not groping fake boobs and squidgy asses."

  Jack bit his lip. The picture Fizz's words conjured up wasn't a pretty one. "Squidgy asses?"

  "According to the Daily Drivel." Fizz used the derogatory name for one of the worst 'name and shame' tabloids. "Or to be precise, their Sunday slush. You, as in wannabe-Jack, told her you liked nothing more than a 'squidgy ass to grab'."

  Coll made gagging noises. Jack didn't blame him. He felt nauseated himself.

  "I like a certain ass, be it squidgy or not, but others? Well, maybe if it's under tight dark denim and is attached to muscular thighs and I'm watching it in the cinema." Jack pulled Coll's chair across the tiled floor with a screech that set his teeth on edge. Nevertheless, he didn’t stop until it was close up to his own. Coll swiveled slightly and leaned against Jack before he put his arm around Jack's shoulder. Jack accepted the warmth and held on to the hand that rested just over his heart. He couldn't help the faint tremor that rippled through him. Coll tightened his hold for a moment.

  "Hey," Coll said softly. He pressed a soft kiss on Jack's cheek. "We'll find the bastard and sort him out. That? I fucking promise you. And yeah, here's my fine." He stuck his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a ten-pound note. "That should cover me for the next hour or so. Maybe." The movement stretched the denim over his cock and defined it in loving detail.

  Jack swallowed and cleared his throat. "Perhaps we need to suspend the fine box until this is all over?" he said. "Or I reckon several of us will be broke."

  Tina nodded. "Take your money back, Coll. It'll get put in the swear box soon enough as it is."

  Coll shook his head. "I'll leave it there on account."

  Jack wondered when he'd wake up. Surreal dreams were all well and good, but he'd much prefer a good hot, wet, ‘fuck me now’ scenario to this nail-biting, worrying what next, one.
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br />   "Pinch me, Coll," he said in an urgent voice. "Just once."

  "Sure." Coll pinched the fleshy back of Jack's hand. "That do?"

  Jack rubbed the skin where the sharp sting had hit. "Yeah. Okay, I accept I'm wide-awake and not in a nightmare. And I can say it sucks."

  Coll's breath was warm on the skin round Jack's ear. "No, I suck, you suck, but this doesn't. This is just shite." He raised his voice. "Last night I was with Jack, Stu, and Euan. We ate dinner, cooked by Euan and drank beer brewed by Stu. Which was bloody rank. I swear he uses potato peelings and the bottom of the budgie's cage to make it."

  “Parakeet," Jack said. "It's a parakeet. Bigger beak and even bigger poo."

  Coll sniggered. "Figures. Anyway. Dave took us there around seven, we called a taxi to come home the back of twelve, and that was us––until now. And before anyone asks if either one of us could have sneaked out at any time, the answer is no. Especially to tits and bums, a la Sasha. It's a good fifteen miles from their house and even further from here. We'd need to be Olympic champions to get there do whatever we had to do and get back––and with not much chance of secrecy. Olivio, Stu's dog, barks even if a sparrow flies past. It really wasn't Jack."

  Fizz nodded. "I knew that anyway. We all did."

  "Dave didn't," Jack said. The bitterness in his voice surprised him. He hadn't realized how much Dave's lack of trust hurt him.

  "Dave did," Dave said in an even tone as he walked back into the kitchen. "But Dave was told to be official-like at first, so I was. And now I'm not. Someone is trying to fuck you over."

  Chapter Four

  Coll watched a myriad of emotions chase over his lover's face. Anger, worry, disbelief and relief all vied to be uppermost.

  Tina put a plate of cookies on the table and a large pot of coffee.

  “Tuck in…we'll need the sugar hit, I reckon. Now, Jack, make a list."

  "Eh?" Jack sounded puzzled. "What sort of a list?"

  "Who else was up for the part of Miller, for a start. Whoever you might have upset when you got the part, or won your BAFTA. Anyone you've turned down for anything, that sort of stuff," Fizz said before Tina had time to answer. "Any time someone said they saw you somewhere and you knew you weren't. Same applies to you, Coll."

  Coll blinked. "I haven't beaten anyone to a part, not that I know of. Not even to a job. I seem to be drawn to the ones no one else wants." He taught in a school with one of the worst reputations in the country. "Well, not since I was seven and I got to be an ugly sister in the school pantomime and Allan Carter didn't. He had to be a toadstool instead. He never forgave me. But I know for a fact he's in the Australian Navy now and nowhere near here. Anyway, he got to be Jack in the next panto, and I was a bean on the beanstalk, so we reckoned we were even."

  Jack roared with laughter, and Fizz rolled her eyes.

  "Smartass. You know fine well what I mean. Hurt Jack, and it hurts you. Have you had threats from parents for upsetting their darlings, or some pillar of society you highlighted in the paper for littering, or not paying their TV license?"

  Coll wracked his brain. "Not that I know of." His skin crawled, like the time he'd fallen into some bracken and the fronds had felt like spiders and snakes slithering over him. "I'm pretty low-key."

  "It's more likely to be directed at Jack, if you get my meaning," Dave said. "Just try not to go anywhere unless someone can vouch for you, and agree you were where you say you were. Not causing mayhem elsewhere. That applies to both of you. We can't be too careful."

  "Blimey, Dave." Jack’s tone was full of admiration. "How can you say that tongue twister without getting mixed up?”

  "Years of practice," Dave said. "I'm serious, Jack. It's not a matter for the police yet, but I can see it becoming one."

  Fizz looked up from her laptop. "I've got a list of the other actors who were considered, or alleged to be considered for the role of Miller." She pushed the machine across the table toward Jack and Coll. "No one strikes me as someone who wants to do you mischief."

  "None of them looks like Jack either." Coll pointed out the obvious as they looked at the names and pictures of several other actors. "Which means someone's got to have hired a lookalike and put him up to whatever it is. Mind you, that bloke O'Hara is a bit of all … Ouch." He winced theatrically, and rolled his eyes. "Oohh, too cruel." The over the top acting made the others smile, and Coll rubbed his shoulder where Jack had mock-punched him.

  "I know that," Fizz said somewhat impatiently. "Leave the theatricals to your husband. He's not a lot better, but I get a cut of his pay."

  Jack sniggered. "Oh, a direct hit to the heart. I'm cut to the quick, hurt, wounded…"

  "Hamming. And Coll? Behave. Right, I don't mean, ‘Oh, O'Hara … he's not bad’. I'm talking about the lookalike. But if it is someone you've thwarted, Jack, it's as good a place as any to start."

  "I know." All of a sudden Jack was very subdued. "But shit, I've been in the profession for almost twenty years. I reckon the list of people I've pissed off is as long as an unraveled loo roll, and full of as much shit as…”

  "Jackson Carrick, watch it." Tina waggled her finger at him. He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes.

  Coll wanted to cuddle him, a bit like his own mum used to do to him, and tell him not to worry, it would all come out in the wash. But he couldn't. Not only because he couldn't predict the future, but also because he had a nasty itch between the shoulder blades that told him it wasn't that simple.

  "Let's look at this logically," Tina said. She put the lemon drizzle cake onto the table and slid onto the padded bench next to her sister. "Why now? I mean something must have happened to make someone want to discredit you now, all of a sudden."

  Jack shrugged. "No idea. I've got another series to go, just signed for it, but that's about it. As far as I know the cast is the same, no changes, and no one wanted to leave. What about you, Coll?"

  Coll sighed. He hated to see Jack look so worried. The creases on his forehead emphasized the dimness of Jack's usually bright eyes and alert expression. He ignored everyone else in the room, and planted a kiss on Jack's cheek. It was a measure of Jack's state of mind that he didn't swivel round to move the kiss from cheek to mouth, like he usually did. Coll felt the fine tremors that ran through his lover. His usually confident ‘kick ass first, ask questions later’ partner was feeling the strain. Coll would have done anything to dispel the tension, and take some of it himself if he could. But he had no idea how.

  "Coll." Fizz spoke sharply and broke through the sexual haze that had started to surround Coll. He couldn't touch Jack and not get those tingles of arousal it evoked.

  "Eh? Oh, er." He gave Jack one last tiny kiss, and pulled back. "Oh." He remembered Jack's question. "I honestly can't think of anybody since I met Jack that he's pissed off to such a degree they'd want to pull a stunt like this. Or me, for that matter. Unless…nah." He shook his head. "Ignore me."

  "Go on." Jack ran his hand over Coll's cheek and traced his lips with one long finger. "Spit it out. I can see the cogs of a university education turning."

  Coll shook his head. His lover had such a way with words. "You flatter me, hon. This is the journalist bit, not the teacher bit. I just wondered if in fact whoever is the lookalike is behind it all."

  "Why?" Tina leaned across the table, and patted Jack's hand. "I mean, I know our boy here used to be a bit of a rebel, and wild, but he's settled down and become domesticated now. Why try to make it look as if he's regressed?"

  "Hey, I'm not cow or a dog," Jack said. "You make me sound as if I went from roaming the hills to a field or a kennel."

  Coll sniggered. "Well, in one way," he said and held his hands up in apology. "Sorry, but I couldn't resist. I just wondered that if someone had made a living out of being Jack's double and their work was drying up…Well, you know what I mean."

  "Hmm, that's a good point." Fizz typed something on her laptop. "Off the top of my head? Raymond Town…he got too fat, but last I heard he
was making way more money as a voiceover for adverts—not your voice, Jack—than he ever did as a lookalike. Edgar Lyon, he's still happily appearing as you when needed…but everyone knows he's a lookalike. Ben Cates, he's down under and stays there. Anyone else?"

  "Not that I can think of." Jack stood up and went to the ever-present coffeepot. "Anyone?"

  "Not for me, thanks. I'm off to start enquiries." Fizz closed her laptop. "I have a few agents I can ask to see if anyone has any ideas. The trouble is, people want to think it's you. You're too goody-goody these days, and there’s no tabloid fodder in you."

  "True enough, but not even for the tabloids am I going to change. Hell, I love Coll…can't they accept that?"

  "They could, but readers like scandal. So if it's not there, why not make it up. After all, they can always print a retraction."

  "Yeah, in a one-inch column buried on page forty-eight in the adverts for incontinence pads and stair lifts," Jack said, bitterly. He knew that from painful, past experience. "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt."

  Coll waved his cup before Jack and Fizz got into a slanging match complete with the oft-repeated it's all part of the price of fame comments that caused Jack to contribute to the swear box. "I will have that coffee, please. Need to get the brain moving after Stu's sludge."

  Fizz sent him a swift, grateful look, as she got up from the table. "I'm off. I'll ring you when I get any news, Jack. Meanwhile, let me know where you are and who with, and what you're doing."

  Jack looked at Coll, ran his forefinger between his circled thumb and forefinger of the other, winked and burst out laughing. Fizz blushed the color of the red t-shirt she wore. No one else could wear a shirt that clashed so gloriously with her hair and get away with it.

  "Bastard, you know fine well what I mean."

  "I do. Sorry, honey. Take care." Jack kissed her cheek in a friendly gesture. "And thank you."

  "I hope you say that later." She sketched a wave and left them. A few minutes later they heard the revving of a powerful motorbike, and then the noise of the engine receded.