Look Behind You (3 page)

I spin around, fingers skimming more brick. I’m in a corridor or tunnel, but I still can’t see a thing.

OK, this is good. This is very good. Go. Run. Escape!

Left or right? Which way?

Who cares? Just go!

I hurry along the corridor, arms out in front of me, hoping to seek out another doorway somewhere.

Smack!
My hands hit the end of the corridor, which shoots me backwards, and I land awkwardly on my right leg. I stand up. I’m sore, but nothing’s broken.

There’s a doorway here, too. Not wood. It’s smooth. Metal. I search for a handle and find one. I lift it up and pull. It groans as it opens, like a wounded animal screeching.

And I’m through into another corridor. Steps going up.

Hazy light in the distance, a million miles away.

I’m running towards it, legs like rubber.

When I get to the end there’s another doorway. Metal again. I heave it open.

Darkness, but not complete. Stars shimmer between shapes of trees. I smell air. Not stale dampness but fresh air. Forest. Leaves. Owls screeching, out hunting for the night.

Then most things are a blur. Heart thumping. Legs pumping. Running, running, running. Puffs of breath. Blood surging in my head. Woods. Bushes. Slipping on a fallen, slimy log. Pain in my ankle. Up and running. Stumbling. A bat’s wings flapping nearby. Pulse hammering in my ears. Animals snuffling, scratching. Rabbits scattering. Branches scraping my face, my arms, pulling hair. Lungs burning. Twigs cracking under my heavy feet. An owl hooting. Muscles screaming. The moon high up.

Then a tarmac road.

I jerk to a stop and lean forward, resting my hands on my thighs, trying to breathe. My chest rises and falls with the exertion, exhaustion. I can’t afford to stop.

And I’m running again, along the side of the road. Headlights in the distance. Running towards them.

I wave my hands in the air wildly and move into the middle of the road. The lights get closer, slowing down.

I sink to the asphalt on my knees and slip into more blackness.

4

Voices filter into my unconsciousness. Echoes of voices.

No. Not voices. Beeping. Slow and steady. Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Pain everywhere.

For a moment, everything is blank. Then I remember the tomb. I’m still there.

My eyelids fly open and I gasp for air, sucking in more than I can breathe. I cough and splutter. The beeping accelerates.

A nurse appears in front of my eyes as my vision returns. ‘Nice to see you awake,’ she says, a pleased smile on her face.

‘What happened?’ I look down at my hands, bandaged with gauze.

‘We’re hoping you can tell us. A motorist found you collapsed in the road.’ She examines the machines monitoring me. ‘Your vitals are stable. You’ve been unconscious since they brought you in.’ After scribbling something in a folder of notes at the end of my bed, she stands at the side of me, looking down. ‘How are you feeling, pet?’

‘My head hurts. My throat. Hands.’ I notice a drip attached to a vein in the front of my elbow via a big needle taped down.

‘You’re mildly dehydrated, with some kind of bump to your head. You’ve had a CT scan and an MRI, but the doctors couldn’t find any damage to your brain, which is good.’

‘What…’ I lick my lips. Try to swallow past the lump in my throat. ‘What…date is it?’

‘It’s Thursday.’

‘No.’ My voice is a hoarse whisper. ‘What date?’

‘Ninth of May.’

Ninth of May? What? No, it can’t be.

‘Did you say the ninth of
May
?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

But if the last thing I remember is Liam’s birthday party on the twenty-third of March, I’ve lost about seven weeks of memory.

I lift a hand to the side of my head, touching the lump there. The pain brings nausea bubbling to the surface. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

The nurse grabs a cardboard kidney-shaped bowl from on top of a cabinet beside my bed, thrusting it under my face just before I vomit. After the final spasms wrack my body, she wipes my face with a wad of tissues, also from the cabinet.

‘You’re OK, don’t worry. I’m going to page the doctor, and he’ll come and see you.’ She wheels a bedside table next to me and places a jug of water from the top of the cabinet on it, along with a glass that she fills. ‘You can have some water, but don’t drink too much at once. Slow sips, OK?’

I nod. ‘My husband. Does my husband know I’m here?’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t been able to tell anyone where you are. You had no ID when you were brought in, you see, so we didn’t know who you were.’ She takes a pen and pad from her top pocket. ‘Give me your name, address, and phone number, and I’ll get in touch with him.’

‘I’m Chloe Benson. My husband’s name is Liam.’ Instinctively, I reach my sore hands to my raspy throat as I tell her our address, home phone number, his mobile number.

She pats my shoulder so gently I can’t actually feel it. ‘I’ll contact him. And the doctor will be with you soon.’

‘I was kidnapped.’ My eyes water as the full realization of everything that’s happened sinks in.

Her mouth falls open. ‘Kidnapped?’

I can only nod, tears streaming down my face. Even to my ears, I know how it sounds. Crazy. Ridiculous. Who would want to kidnap a suburban wife and teacher?

‘Right. Well, I’d better add calling the police to my list then, too. Don’t worry; you’re safe now, pet.’ Her shoes squeak on the lino as she marches off out of the room, carrying the sick bowl with purposeful strides.

I pick up the plastic cup of water in my bandaged hand, wincing at the throbbing pain in my fingertips. I intend to take a few sips, but I can’t stop myself. I gulp the whole thing down in one then pour some more. A wave of nausea rises inside, but I swallow it down and sip the next cup slowly, looking around my private room off the main ward.

From my bed, I can see out to the nurses’ station. The nurse who just came in is on the phone, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. She frowns, looks up at me, and says something else into the phone, shaking her head. My gaze wanders past her, out into the rest of the ward. Someone wails in pain. Someone snores loudly. Chairs scrape against the floor. Footsteps echo.

I wipe my damp cheeks with the back of my hand and lean my head against the pillow, closing my eyes.

The next time I open them again, a man is standing at the end of my bed, reading my notes. He’s wearing a white coat over a suit. A doctor, then. He’s got wavy ginger hair and a smattering of freckles across his face. Another folder about four centimetres thick is tucked under his arm.

‘Who are you?’ I lift my head slightly from the pillow and feel dizzy. I rest it back again, eyelids fluttering as I try to keep them open.

‘Ah, glad to see you’re awake.’ He smiles, puts the notes he’s reading into a slot at the end of my bed, and sits down in the plastic chair next to me. He places the folder from under his arm onto his lap. ‘I’m Doctor Traynor. I’m a neurologist. And you are Chloe Benson, is that right?’

‘Yes. Did you get hold of my husband? The police?’

‘Yes. Apparently, your husband is in Scotland, but he’s making his way back now. The police are also on their way.’ He takes a slim-line torch from his top pocket and shines it into my eyes. The sudden brightness makes me blink and lean further back into the pillow. ‘It’s OK; I just want to examine you.’ He holds my eyelids open until he’s finished. Clicking off the torch, he says, ‘Good. Can you follow my finger with your eyes?’ He holds up his finger, moving up, down, side to side. ‘Yes, very good. Do you know what happened?’

‘I was kidnapped,’ I say in a shaky voice. ‘I woke up underground somewhere and managed to escape. Then I just kept running and running. I don’t know how I got there. I don’t—’ I break off to take a calming breath. ‘I don’t remember what happened.’

He frowns, nods, and looks at his folder. ‘Can you confirm your date of birth for me, please, Chloe?’

I tell him.

‘And your address?’

I tell him that, too.

‘Before you were…er…kidnapped, what’s the last thing you remember?’

‘A party. My husband’s birthday party.’

‘And when was that?’

‘The twenty-third of March.’

He narrows his eyes slightly. ‘You can’t remember anything since the twenty-third of March?’

That’s what I just said, isn’t it?
‘No,’ I say calmly, fighting the frustration.

‘Do you know what date it is today?’

‘The nurse told me it’s the ninth of May. Which means I’ve lost seven weeks of my life somewhere. Have I got brain damage? Is that why I can’t remember?’ I touch the lump above my ear.

‘When you were brought in unconscious, we carried out some scans. Apart from the bump to your head and a few abrasions on your wrists and hands and face, we couldn’t find anything significantly wrong with you, which is good. There’s no brain injury or damage. You are a little dehydrated, but the drip will sort that out now, and there should be no lasting effects. But…’ His smile erodes as he studies me for a moment before tapping the file in his lap. ‘These are your medical notes.’

I frown, confused. ‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember being hospitalized in April?’

‘What? No? I just told you. I remember my husband’s party, and then…’ I stop, wondering what the hell he’s talking about. ‘Did I have an operation or something?’

‘No.’ He flicks open the folder and reads to me. ‘You suffered a miscarriage on March the twenty-fourth. You were apparently very depressed afterwards, and your GP prescribed Zolafaxine. It’s an antidepressant.’

His words trigger a memory to hit me with the force of a wrecking ball. Of course! It’s what I was trying to remember when I was held captive. The important thing I was going to tell Liam about after his party. I was pregnant. I don’t know how I could’ve possibly forgotten that.

I tune him out as my hands instinctively touch my stomach. An empty stomach, devoid of any life that was in there. I gasp. Tears sting my eyes. But I have no time to reflect on what I’ve lost, because he carries on talking and I have to concentrate on what he’s saying. This is important.

‘…a bad reaction to the antidepressants, apparently. It can happen occasionally.’

‘What do you mean a bad reaction? What kind of reaction?’

‘You were suffering from psychosis-like side effects.’

My blood turns to ice in my veins. ‘Wh…what does
that
mean?’

‘You were having hallucinations. You were confused, agitated, and paranoid. Your husband and the hospital thought it best for you to be admitted to hospital for your own safety until the drugs wore off.’

‘My own safety?’ I shriek, not believing what I’m hearing.

He looks up sharply. ‘Yes. You were sectioned under the Mental Health Act and admitted to the psychiatric ward.’

I shake my head, and the movement sends throbbing pain through my brain.

‘You don’t remember any of this?’

‘No!’ I struggle to keep calm.

‘When you were released from hospital and sent home, the effects of the drugs had completely worn off. You were functioning normally, although you were still a little sad. We were certain there would be no lasting side effects from the drugs but were not prepared to prescribe any more for obvious reasons. Even if a different antidepressant were prescribed, you’re probably more susceptible to another reaction from it.’

‘Why can’t I remember that?’

He closes the folder and looks me in the eye. ‘I’m not sure. You could have experienced another delayed side effect stemming from the Zolafaxine, or you could be suffering from amnesia brought on by the bump you have.’ He points towards my head. ‘Either way, it’s very worrying.’

Worrying would be an understatement in my book. ‘What happened after?’

‘After?’

‘When I was released from the hospital. When I was better. What happened then?’

He skims through more notes. ‘You had a follow up appointment with your primary care psychiatrist, Dr Drew, the week after. Everything seemed to be going well. He made a note that you were still grieving after the miscarriage, but he didn’t believe you were depressed. He signed you off work for a further three weeks. You declined a weekly session with him and said you were able to cope with life. He was happy that the psychotic episode was sparked off purely by the drugs and you had no underlying mental illness.’

‘What did I do when I was hallucinating?’

‘Your husband found you at home on his return from work. He said you were in the garden, scratching and digging the path with your fingers. You were hallucinating that a man was chasing you, trying to kill you. You were digging to try and get away from whoever you thought was after you.’

All the blood drains from my face. My skin turns clammy with sweat. He’s just described someone who isn’t me. Hallucination? Paranoia? Maybe I’m really hallucinating now. This is just some bizarre and incredible nightmare.