The Last Thing She Remembers

by J. S. Monroe

  “Thank you,” she says. “I will.”

  The screen goes blank. Luke turns off the iPad, hoping she’s okay. She has told him her story, as she promised, first face-to-face in Berlin—they both had to stay on for a while to help the German police with their inquiries—and then online after she returned to India. He’s decided not to write it up for the newspapers. She said he could if he wanted, but his life has moved on. What matters is that she isn’t adopted, nor is her mother a Baha’i. And she is not Freya Schmidt, the woman on the missing persons list in Berlin.

  As for the events of ten years earlier, Maddie followed her mother back to India after the trauma of being raped by Tony and the disappearance of her best friend. She hasn’t exactly lived a monastic existence since, but she did choose to draw a line under her Western upbringing and realign herself with India and her mother’s family roots in the south of the country. It took ten years for her to start recalling what Tony did to her and Fleur in Berlin, prompted by one of his photos surfacing at her local monastery. What happened next has already been widely reported in the media, and more is expected to come out at Tony’s trial later in the year in Berlin, where Luke and Maddie will both be appearing for the prosecution.

  After putting a couple of pies in the oven, Luke walks down School Road to see Laura. She’s decided to stay on in the same house, despite its history.

  “We’ve just finished,” she says, opening the door in her yoga kit. “Come in. They’re having fresh elderflower juice in the garden.”

  Luke follows her through to the low-ceilinged sitting room. He can see Milo and two girls out the back. Definitely chirpsing.

  “Will you stay for a bit?” Laura asks, sitting down on a sofa.

  “I’m on my way to the pub actually,” Luke says. Detective Constable Strover is visiting the village for a bit of community policing. A drink, in other words. Her and Sean seem to have struck up quite a bond, and he’s been invited along to join them. “Maybe later?”

  “That would be nice.” Laura doesn’t like being in the house on her own, and he’s spent quite a few nights on the sofa she’s sitting on. Milo’s slept around here too a couple of times.

  He watches Laura get up and walk over to the mantelpiece.

  “Maddie’s sent me a letter,” she says, holding up an airmail envelope. “I haven’t read it yet but I will.”

  They’ve done a lot of talking in recent weeks, about Tony, his victims, Maddie. She realizes how brave Maddie was, but she’s still struggling to come to terms with the method she chose to entrap her husband. The sheer coldheartedness. The calculation.

  Luke hopes the two women will one day meet up. He sees it as his personal role to bring about a reconciliation between them. At least an understanding.

  Down at the Slaughtered Lamb, Luke finds Sean and Detective Constable Strover huddled in a corner. He’s still trying to get his head around their burgeoning relationship.

  “My boss should be here any minute,” Strover says, as Luke returns from the bar with a round of drinks.

  “DI Hart?” Luke asks.

  “On a date,” Strover says, making room for Luke to sit down. “With your GP.”

  “Villages, eh?” Sean says, taking the top off his pint of Guinness.

  “Before the boss arrives, I need to share something with you and Luke,” Strover says, her voice quiet and conspiratorial. Luke and Sean lean in, listening closely. “About Maddie Thurloe’s DNA.”

  “Sounds like you’re about to contravene her human rights,” Sean says.

  Luke feels genuinely uneasy about what might be coming, but he doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t told people in the village that he’s been talking to Maddie on FaceTime.

  “You didn’t hear this from me,” Strover says.

  “Honest to God, I swear we’ve never met,” Sean says.

  Strover might have to take him home soon. His latest screenplay was bought last week by a studio, and he’s been celebrating in the pub ever since.

  “It’s been in all the papers that she had an Irish father and an Indian mother,” Strover says. “What surprised forensics was evidence of Russian ancestry.”

  Sean nearly chokes on his pint. “What did I tell you?” he says, spilling his Guinness everywhere. “Knew it all along. One of Moscow’s finest, for sure.”

  Luke looks at Strover, who winks at him. He’ll tell Sean later, let him down gently.

  Strover has gone out of her way since the events in Berlin to help Luke in his quest to find his daughter. She didn’t say as much, but there’s a suggestion that Freya Schmidt is no longer technically a missing person in Germany, and has simply chosen not to be in contact with her parents. The police in Berlin have been similarly cooperative, grateful for the help they received from Wiltshire Police in the capture of a serial killer. When Strover explained that she had an important message from someone for Freya Schmidt, and could the German authorities please pass it on, no strings attached, they were more than happy to oblige. Luke is hopeful that she might one day choose to reply, and get in touch with him. He is yet to establish if she is adopted but at least she is called Freya.

  “Here’s the boss,” Strover says. Luke looks up to see Detective Inspector Hart at the door. He’s alone.

  “Everyone all right for drinks?” Hart asks, coming over to their table, glancing at Luke. He looks slimmer than Luke remembers. It’s not exactly friendship between them, but there’s a mutual respect now. Hart had called him in for a chat at Gablecross on his return, thanked him personally for what he did.

  The German police finally took Swindon CID’s concerns seriously when Hart had relayed the address of Tony’s studio to them, sent by Luke. It promptly flagged up an old alert. A neighbor had reported suspicious behavior at the address over the years—strange noises, the sound of a struggle, a car returning there late at night—but it was never investigated. Turns out Tony would carry the bodies through to the garage and then drive them over to the Müggelsee Lake. Only three victims have been recovered to date—Fleur’s has yet to be found—but it’s more than enough for the case against Tony, who is expected to be imprisoned for life.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” Sean asks, tactless as ever.

  “Dr. Patterson’s working late,” Hart says, catching Strover’s eye.

  “Let me get you a pint,” Luke says, before things get any more awkward. “What you having?”

  “I’ll come up with you,” Hart says.

  Luke and Hart stand at the bar, unlikely drinking companions.

  “Sorry about Sean,” Luke offers.

  “I’ve heard worse.” He pauses. “Not the first time I’ve been stood up either.”

  “You look well,” Luke says.

  “Vegan diet. Quit the fags. I’ve just read your witness statement, wanted to thank you. For what you wrote about the shooting on the canal.”

  “It’s what I saw.”

  “I wish others had been so honest.” He takes his pint and drinks deeply from it. “The heat’s been taken off us, as you can imagine. Not every day Swindon CID catches an international serial killer.”

  “Not since the Swindon Strangler,” Luke says, glancing across the bar at Sean and Strover. Normally so demure, there’s a bit of sparkle in her eyes tonight.

  “That was the Major Crime Investigation Team—don’t get me started on inter-force collaborations,” Hart says. “Know anything about the eleventh Panchen Lama?”

  “A bit.”

  “Missing since he was six.” Hart pulls out a wanted poster and hands it to Luke. He studies the face of a young Tibetan boy.

  “It was a promise Maddie made to the monks at her monastery,” Hart says. “Before she left. To spread the word about him in the West. Make a great story. You might even get to meet the Dalai Lama.”

  “Thanks.”

  Luke
takes the sheet of paper, reads it and puts it away. Maddie has already told him all about the eleventh Panchen Lama, made him promise he’ll write about him. He’s planning to head out to that part of the world in the summer with Milo, call in on an old flame in Ludhiana before heading up to Ladakh. Maybe he’ll invite Laura along too, if she’s up to it.

  “The German doctors are saying Tony Masters could be too ill to appear in court,” Hart says. “A surgical chisel to the head wasn’t great for his Alzheimer’s.”

  “I did what I could to save him.”

  Luke thinks back to how he had tried to staunch the flow of blood from Tony’s wound, how Maddie has told him since that she wished he had died.

  “Others might not have bothered,” Hart says. “How’s his wife doing? Laura?”

  “Pretty good in the circumstances. Dr. Patterson is proving an amazing friend and GP. Others in the village are helping her too.” He pauses. “Maddie’s just written her a long letter. I think it will help.”

  “Collateral damage—that’s how Maddie explained it to us in her interviews.”

  “She feels terrible,” Luke says.

  “I’m sure she does.” Hart takes another sip of his pint and glances around the pub. “Just so you know, our German colleagues called me tonight,” he continues. “They’ve found another body in Müggelsee Lake.”

  “Fleur’s?”

  “They think so. They’re running tests now. You might want to warn Maddie. Just in case. Prepare her.”

  Luke has told Hart that he’s in touch with Maddie in India. At least it will give her some closure.

  “What I’m still struggling to get my head around is the sheer audacity of her plan,” Hart continues. “Coming here to this village, playing the vulnerable woman in the home of a serial killer, knowing it was the only way to lure Tony back to Berlin. The only way she’d find out what really happened to Fleur.” He raises his pint glass toward Luke, as if toasting the absent Maddie, and fixes him in the eye. “That takes balls of steel.”

  CHAPTER 109

  I’m out of breath by the time I reach the top of the steps, but the view is worth it. Below me, the Kumaradhara River plunges two hundred feet into a gorge, the cascading waters throwing up a fine mist that drifts across the tropical forest. Indian rose chestnut, white damar, mango, fragrant ashok—Mum taught me the names of all the trees when she brought me up here ten years ago, soon after I had returned from Berlin. They’re alive with birds too—racket-tailed drongos and Malabar grey hornbills. I was damaged then, a silent, bewildered daughter, unable to understand what had happened to me, to Fleur.

  Today I feel stronger, more at peace with the beauty of this place. The roar of the water was like a wounded animal when I last heard it. This time it sounds reassuring, empowering. I look up at the fertile, rolling hills of the Western Ghats in the distance and wonder why I would choose to live anywhere else.

  It’s been just over a month since I confronted Tony in Berlin. Mum’s pleased to have me home again, and I’m finding the routine of teaching in the school a great help. Children can be remarkably accepting, indifferent to the violent currents that wash through adults’ lives. I spoke to Luke on FaceTime yesterday—he’s become a good friend and I hope it’s mutual. It would lessen the damage I have caused to Laura if they are able to move forward in life together, but let’s see. There is no rush. First Luke wants to find his daughter—I nearly managed yesterday, but I still can’t bring myself to tell him. Perhaps because a part of me still hopes I’m wrong.

  After a few more minutes, I walk back down the long steps, passing breathless sightseers who are on their way up. The Mallalli Falls is not an easy place to reach. I came by bus from Kushalnagar, and then had to share a Jeep ride and walk the last two kilometers. The beginning of the monsoon has made the roads treacherous. It’s also swollen the river magnificently, and I’m determined to get closer to it.

  Near the bottom of the path I turn off the tourist trail and head toward the thunderous waters. The air is almost opaque with river spray, and my clothes are drenched. But it doesn’t matter. Many people come here when it’s not the rainy season to submerse themselves in the Kumaradhara. Farther downstream, the river forms a sangam, or confluence, with another river, and the waters are considered to be holy.

  I tread carefully on the big boulders, which are wet and slippery and covered in algae, but I’m soon close enough to the river for what I need to do. Someone high above me, a forest department official perhaps, calls down, warning of the danger. I’m more worried about the leeches.

  I look around and take off my small rucksack, careful to keep my balance on the rock. On my way here, our Jeep passed a row of shops selling souvenirs. I asked at one of them if they knew where I could find a lotus—the state flower of Karnataka—and he took me to a pond behind a nearby Hindu temple, where I was able to pick one—in return for baksheesh, of course. I take the purple lotus out of the box I had brought to protect it, and hold the flower out in front of me. Symbol of purity and beauty. Of Fleur.

  I was devastated when the police failed to retrieve her body from the lake. They will find it soon and, if I’m right, there will be no need for me to tell Luke. Either way, the matter will be settled. He has convinced himself that a woman called Freya Schmidt is his daughter. I hope to God he is right.

  My own suspicions started to gain a sickening momentum a few days ago, when I was up at the monastery. The recent events in Berlin seem to have unlocked more of the past and I’m working with the monks to retrieve further memories of what happened ten years ago. They are mostly vague, unformed recollections, but I am sure now that it was Fleur’s idea to get the lotus tattoo that night, the night Tony took us back to his studio. The flower was a sign of our love for each other, but she said something else that subsequently got buried by Tony’s benzodiazepines: the lotus was for her mum. I know that she’d run off to Berlin to rebel against her parents, but she clearly still loved them.

  And I now believe Fleur’s mum was a Baha’i.

  I roll up my sleeve and look at the flower, just to be sure. For the umpteenth time I count the petals. Nine. When I first got back from Berlin, ten years ago, my own mother saw the tattoo on my wrist and asked about the “extra” petal. In Buddhism, she said, the purple lotus usually has eight, symbolising the eightfold path to enlightenment. I thought nothing more of it until recently, when Luke told me that the woman who adopted his daughter was a Baha’i. Nine is important for Baha’is – the number of perfection. It’s why their temple in Delhi, shaped like a lotus, has nine sides.

  I know I should talk to Luke, be brave and share my fears with him. Everything that he has told me about his own daughter, the one he’s looking for, makes me think he’ll never find her now. It would certainly explain why I liked Luke from the start, when we met in the village surgery. There was an unusual connection. A familiarity. I will tell him soon.

  I turn to look at the mighty waterfall above me, arms outstretched, and think of Fleur, of all the happy times we spent together, the laughter, the dancing, the long walks along the River Spree, drinking pilsner on the Island of Youth. I let the myriad droplets of water pass through my soaked salwar kameez, cleansing my soul of the evil Tony did to us in Berlin, washing away my tears. And then I throw the lotus high into the deafening roar and watch it fall into the white waters below, twisting and turning on its lonely way to the Arabian Sea and beyond.

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my superlative agent, Will Francis, and everyone at the London office of Janklow & Nebsit, particularly Kirsty Gordon, Rebecca Folland and Ellis Hazlegrove. Thanks, too, to Kirby Kim and Brenna English-Loeb in the New York office.

  I am indebted to the team at my UK publishers, Head of Zeus, particularly Laura Palmer, my excellent editor; Lauren Atherton; Maddy O’Shea; and Chrissy Ryan, Blake Brooks and Suzanne Sangster. Thanks, too, to L
ucy Ridout for the copyediting and Evan Yeong. At Park Row Books in America, I’d like to thank Liz Stein, Laura Brown and Erika Imranyi. Thanks, too, to Toby Ashworth, my Cornish publisher, for his unstinting encouragement and inside knowledge of hotel fire alarms.

  A lot of people have helped with the subject of amnesia—forgive me if I have forgotten anyone... Many thanks to Dr. Angela Paddon, whose medical advice and expertise have been invaluable. Needless to say, her own village surgery is far more friendly, professional and efficient than the fictitious one depicted here. Thanks, too, to Dr. Andy Beale and Mary Soellner.

  Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology at Exeter University, gave a series of inspiring lectures on BBC Radio 3 entitled The Strangeness of Memory. Books that were helpful include Jules Montague’s insightful Lost and Found: Memory, Identity and Who We Become When We’re No Longer Ourselves, and The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory by Dr Julia Shaw.

  Detective Superintendent Jeremy Carter of Wiltshire Police and Inspector Chris Ward of Thames Valley Police have been very generous with their knowledge and time. Thanks, too, to Daniel Webb, news editor of Wiltshire999s.co.uk, and Clive Chamberlain (@MrCliveC), former village bobby and Police Magazine columnist.

  Julian Hendy and his Hundred Families charity website (hundredfamilies.org) provided comprehensive and disturbing information about the number of mental health homicides in the UK—around one hundred each year.

  Jane Rasch, manager of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery UK Trust (tashi-lhunpo.org.uk), introduced me to the teachings of Machig Labdrön, an eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist, and helped with other Yellow Hat queries, too.

  Professor Andrew Reynolds of the UCL Institute of Archaeology and Robbie Trevelyan answered all my earthy questions—apologies that the dig didn’t make the cut.

  Richard Castle shone an expert light on the airline industry and Jake Farman and Nick Holgate taught me the difference between classic and vintage cars. J.P. Sheerin’s editorial feedback is always excellent, ditto his screenplays. Thanks, too, to Joanna Bridgeworth and the Abingdon writers for their encouragement. And the late Len Heath, a much-missed friend, writer and inspiration.