Look Behind You (9 page)

‘No. Are they missing?’

‘I don’t know. I need to check at home. Liam said he’d cancel my bank cards and get the locks changed.’

‘That’s a good precaution. We advised him to change the locks yesterday, just in case,’ Flynn says. ‘We checked your bank accounts. The last time you used your debit card was to withdraw three hundred pounds on the fourth of May.’

‘Oh. That doesn’t ring any bells. I wish I could tell you more, but I just don’t… I can’t…’ I stand still, taking big gulps of air.

Summers and Flynn wait for me.

I look Summers dead in the eye. ‘I’m not making this up. Despite what Liam may have said to you, and what apparently happened to me before, I’m not lying.’

‘I didn’t say you were.’ Summers gives me a tight-lipped smile.

‘Have you spoken to Sara? Maybe I told her something. Maybe I was going to go somewhere and she knows about it.’

‘Sara, your best friend, who’s in India?’ Flynn says.

‘Yes. She was flying out there the day before Liam’s party.’

‘Liam didn’t have a number for her.’ Flynn pulls out the notebook from his pocket. ‘Do you know it, by any chance?’

‘Yes.’ I rattle off her mobile number from memory. He scribbles it down and underlines it several times.

When we get back to the car, the hot sun is moving over the horizon. It looks like summer has well and truly arrived early for once. I slide into the back seat as Summers and Flynn get in the front. Summers take his mobile out of his pocket. ‘Right, what’s Sara’s number?’ he asks Flynn.

Flynn shows him his notepad then flicks a few pages backwards and points to something I can’t see. Summers nods, punches in some numbers, and listens to the phone. I can hear the dialling tone ringing loudly. It rings and rings then cuts off.

‘Sometimes when she’s travelling, you can’t get hold of her for days or even weeks. She goes off on all these weird and adventurous trips in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no phone signal or Internet access.’

‘We’ll keep trying her,’ he says. ‘I spoke to Dr Traynor about your condition when you were brought into hospital. He says you were dehydrated but not severely so. It’s possible you didn’t drink for a day or two, which is the only thing we have to go on regarding a possible timeline.’

Two days? Was I underground for two whole days?

‘We’ve done some checks on your home phone number, but there were no calls made to or from your house within that time frame that might give us some leads. We got your mobile number from Liam and checked that, too.’ His forehead creases.

‘Did I call anyone?’

‘There were several calls to and from the number you just gave us. Sara’s number. We were waiting for the phone provider to give us information as to whose number this was, but now you’ve just confirmed it for us.’

At least I’d done something helpful.

‘On the twenty-ninth of April, you called Sara’s number and spoke for over an hour. There was also a missed call from her to you on the sixth of May but nothing after that.’

Maybe I had told Sara a vital clue. If I’d phoned her, maybe she could tell me how I came to be in that place. A spark of hope lights up inside.

‘You received a call on your mobile phone on the twenty-ninth of April from the college as well.’

‘Maybe it was Theresa, asking how I was doing and when I’d be back to work.’

‘She didn’t mention it.’

It could’ve been Jordan who called from work, then.

‘There’s something else.’ Summers nods to Flynn, who starts the engine. ‘Liam said he called your mobile when he got to Scotland to let you know he’d arrived, but there’s no record of that call anywhere.’

The breath evaporates from my lungs. Why would he lie to the police? ‘Did you ask him about it when you spoke to him this morning?’

‘Yes. He said he didn’t want to mention it last night in front of us because of your fragile state, but—’

‘Fragile state?’ I splutter. ‘Anyone would be fragile who’d been through what I went through.’

‘Those were his words, not mine,’ he carries on calmly.

I fight to keep my breathing in check. In. Out.
Keep calm. Do not flip out and give them any excuse to believe you’re crazy.

‘He told us that before he left to go to Scotland, you and he had an argument. You weren’t speaking to him, so he decided it would be best not to call you. He said he wanted to give you time to calm down while he was away.’

‘An argument?’ I stare at him wide-eyed. ‘What was it about?’

Summers clears his throat. ‘Er…plates.’

‘Excuse me?’ I shake my head slightly, wondering if I’d heard him right.

‘Liam said he brought you breakfast in bed before he left, and you accused him of using the wrong plate.’

I open my mouth. Close it. It doesn’t make any sense. I wouldn’t care what plate he put my breakfast on. It’s something Liam would care about, not me. I scroll back through the memories I do know, searching for something that might explain what Liam said.

I can see it clearly. It’s just after we got married. Everything was perfect. I was in our kitchen, humming to myself, dishing up a Thai curry for Liam, one of his favourite dishes that I’d been slaving over for hours. And then he started shouting at me, annoyed because the sauce spilt over the lip of the plate when he picked it up. It slopped down the front of his best work trousers, causing a stain that even the dry cleaner couldn’t get out. Incensed with anger, he threw the plate across the room at the wall before storming out and heading for the pub. It took me ages to clean up the mess, and when he returned three hours later, he was full of apologies, smelling of alcohol and carrying a bunch of wilted flowers he’d bought at the all-night garage down the road.

I made sure I never gave him that plate again, but it didn’t take long before he found something else to get angry about.

‘He said you threw the plate at him and told him to get out.’ Summers’ voice brings me back to the present.

‘I wouldn’t argue about a plate,’ I say with a forced steadiness. That’s just not me. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like having a bad atmosphere in the house. I’m not a violent person. ‘And I would never throw something at him.’

I wouldn’t. And if I didn’t, that meant Liam was lying. If I did, it meant…what? That I was acting out of character? Having some kind of break down or episode again? Hallucinating?

Oh, God.

Despite the stiflingly hot car, I shiver and wrap my arms around me.

10

‘I thought I was going to die down there.’ I wonder briefly who would care if I had. Sara would. I’m not so sure about Liam. My students might be a little sad, but they would get over it. I didn’t want to think about Jordan. It was too complicated. ‘All I could think about was doing anything to get out of there. To escape.’

‘It must’ve been a horrific experience for you,’ Dr Drew says, nodding at me in his calm, professional manner.

‘But we couldn’t find the place.’ I tell him what happened with the police that morning. ‘Nothing looked the same in the daylight. And…’ I can just about summon up the energy to give him a defeated shrug. ‘It wasn’t like I was paying attention when I was running. I was just running for my life.’

‘It’s frustrating that you didn’t recognize anything.’

‘It was. The police said Sara and I called each other before I disappeared. They tried to phone her but couldn’t get hold of her.’ I fidget with my fingers, tight in their gauze, glancing around his office in the hospital. One wall houses a bookshelf stacked full with psychology books. The opposite wall holds various certificates in frames. Behind Dr Drew, the window looks out onto the hospital grounds. The sun’s still shining, the sky squeezing out the last of the bright light.

Dr Drew picks up the phone on his desk, scattering a few sheets of paper. ‘Do you want to try her again?’

‘Can I?’

‘Be my guest.’ He places it in front of me.

I press the numbers in, the motion sending a pain shooting up my finger. It rings and rings then cuts off. ‘No answer.’ I replace the receiver. ‘I haven’t spent much time with her lately. Just snatched cups of coffee for half an hour here or there when she’s back in the UK, but if anyone is able to shed some light on what I was doing before I was taken, I’m sure it will be her.’ I press my fingertips to my temples, ignoring the thumping pain filtering through my head. ‘I just wish I could remember! If the memories are still in there somewhere, can’t you just hypnotize me or something?’

‘I’m afraid not. The use of hypnosis for dissociative disorders is considered controversial due to the risk of creating false memories.’

‘False memories?’ I blink rapidly.

‘Although some sufferers of dissociative amnesia appear to spontaneously recover their memories, the brain can also create false memories, which the patient strongly believes but which don’t actually reflect an accurate or real event from their past. Outside influences can affect or alter patient’s memories for many reasons. For example, repetitious opinions by an authority figure, or information passed down through generations of certain cultures. Individuals with a heightened desire to please, to conform, or get better, can also be easily influenced in those circumstances.’

‘So if I do remember something, how will I know if it’s true or false, then?’

‘We have to be mindful of False Memory Syndrome. In my experience, it can become a serious problem if the patient strongly avoids confrontation with any evidence that might challenge the memory they believe to be true. Therefore, we must try to determine all the facts and seek evidence or corroboration from other people.’ He scratches his head. ‘We’re all capable of creating false memories, not just people who suffer from amnesia. Sometimes, we don’t remember an actual event but remember our thoughts or feelings associated with what happened instead. Or we recall it how we would have
liked
the event to take place. It’s easy to reshape the details or lose them over the years.’

‘Lie to yourself, you mean?’

‘Not exactly. Although we’re all capable of that, too. What I’m saying is that some of our memories are true, some are a mixture of fact and fantasy, and some are usually false.’

I glance out the window, unease sitting uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach.

‘I’ve liaised with Dr Traynor, and he’s happy to release you tomorrow since you have nothing much wrong with you physically. How do you feel about that?’

‘Yesterday I just wanted to go home, but today…’ I bite my lip, eyes watering. ‘Today I think maybe I’m safer here, surrounded by people all the time.’

‘I’m sure the police are doing everything they can to find out what happened. As much as I’d like to keep you here for your own peace of mind, unfortunately the hospital is bursting at the seams. But being at home may trigger off a memory that will give you more information. And I’d like to keep up a weekly appointment with you, if that’s OK.’

‘OK.’

‘My secretary will set up an appointment for you before you’re discharged. And you can call me anytime.’ He hands me his card. ‘My mobile number is there, too.’

‘Thank you.’ I take it and immediately bend the corners with my thumb. ‘I’m not going mad, am I?’ I lean forward, desperate for reassurance. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t release me if I were, would you?’

‘I don’t think you’re going mad, dear. You’re recovering from a traumatic event. Whether the Silepine itself caused the amnesia or the fact that the hallucinations it gave you were so distressful you’ve blocked them out, I still can’t say for certain.’

I open my mouth to object, but there’s no point. No one believes me. Maybe they’re all right and I really did hallucinate the whole thing. ‘So these memories I have of being held captive are definitely false?’

‘The very definition of hallucination is experiencing something which does not exist.’

‘But we all have a breaking point, don’t we? What if I flipped? What if the grief and the incident with the antidepressants all took its toll, and
that
was my breaking point? If I started doing things that were out of character, wouldn’t that be a sign I was going mad or having some kind of break down?’

‘You’re talking about the argument with Liam? Throwing the plate?’

I bite my thumbnail, afraid of his answer but at the same time desperate to hear it. ‘Yes, and taking the sleeping tablets when I’d been advised not to take any more medication. Why would I do that?’

‘I don’t know. I can only make the assumption that you were having trouble sleeping and ignored medical advice.’

I feel the world teetering before my eyes, and I’m struggling to hold on tight before it completely tips me off. ‘But that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s an assumption. You see, I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what the truth is.’

11

Liam parks his black BMW 4x4 in our driveway and turns off the engine. I sit and stare at our house through the window. It’s a three-bed detached in a quiet tree-lined cul-de-sac, newly built when Liam bought it five years ago, before he met me. It’s never really felt like home, more like a show house you’re not allowed to get messy because a potential buyer might walk in at any second. I prefer homes with character—period features, lots of wood, splashes of warm colour. Liam likes stark, white, crisp, and modern.