Lost in the Lake

by A J Waines

  Rosie didn’t look up, didn’t react.

  When our time was up, she shuffled towards the door, like a dog being sent out into the rain.

  ‘I’ll see you next week,’ I said softly.

  She didn’t answer as she slunk off down the stairs.

  Chapter 34

  Rosie

  I’ve been in the shower too long. When I look down my skin is red and inflamed; in my agitation I’ve rubbed it raw with a loofah.

  Only six more sessions. That’s nothing. The end is coming for certain this time, I can tell, and I’m anxious as hell. Sam’s going to put her foot down and that will be that. She’ll shut the door and I won’t be able to get back in again – at least, not while she’s there. I can’t let her do that to me. We’ve come too far.

  People have always let me down and I’m sick of it. Mum was the first to do it. When I turned six, she said there was going to be an open day at the factory where she worked and that she’d take me. She always smelled of soap when she came home from work and I longed to visit. She said they sometimes set aside misshapen soaps or broken boxes of talcum powder and if I was lucky, the manageress might let me have one. I was beside myself with excitement, marking off the days on my calendar. We were all set to go and then Mum said they’d changed the rules at the factory and I couldn’t go.

  Then she promised she’d take me to the Isle of Wight. It was the reason the bad thing happened. We were supposed to catch the ferry from Portsmouth Harbour for a trip over the water, just the two of us. It was a secret and I wasn’t to tell Dad, which wasn’t difficult, because I never told him anything. Mum helped me pack my suitcase. It looked, from all the pairs of pants and socks we put in, that we were going to be away for a long time, but it was school holidays, so it didn’t matter. We pushed our cases under the bed when they were full, so Dad wouldn’t see them.

  But on the day we were meant to go, Dad got to her with his air rifle before we were ready. He came back early from the pub and must have caught her putting her final clothes into the case. She’d had her hair done and was wearing her shiny blue shoes, all set to go. We were so close to running away together.

  They left me behind – both of them. From then on I learnt never to trust a promise. Mrs Tanner said she’d buy me a rabbit, Mrs Crabbe said I could get a bike. Auntie Margaret was going to buy me a better viola. None of them did what they said they would. I got all worked up and excited for nothing. Like fireworks in the rain, their words would plop down into the damp grass and fizzle out.

  Now Sam is trying to get rid of me. I thought we were getting on brilliantly…I can’t understand it.

  I can’t settle in my pokey, damp flat, so I head for the main road and hop on the first bus to Clapham Junction. It’s after six when I get there and everything is dark in her flat from outside. I know from her diary that she goes to a spin class after work sometimes. If I’m quick, I might just do it.

  Once I’m inside, I search for the ring binder again and find it under a book in her bedroom. Last time, I read just a bit of it and stopped when it made me angry. Now I want to read every word, check in case I’ve missed something important. There may not be many more chances if she stops our appointments and my notes get filed away.

  I want to know everything she feels about me.

  I turn to the first page and start at the beginning.

  Ah…this is better. It’s clear she feels my pain. She’s desperately sad about what’s happened to me. She says she has great sympathy and warmth for me.

  A stampede of goose pimples gallop across my whole body.

  After a few pages, however, her tone definitely changes. Her words turn sour shortly after I start coming for sessions at her flat. She starts banging on about me being ‘clingy’ and ‘pushy’. Where’s that coming from? What’s she talking about? I don’t get it.

  I want to throw the file against the wall, but I need to know more. Why did she change her mind about me?

  As I skim the next section, I’m surprised to come across the occasional comment about another patient. Someone Sam worked with months ago. There’s no name, but it was a young woman in a bad way by the sounds of it. Sam writes about doing the ‘wrong thing’ as her therapist, about being slated by this woman’s parents for whatever happened. About not wanting to make the same mistake with me…

  What did Sam do? Did she cross the line with a patient? Was she unprofessional?

  I sit on the bed and think. What if Sam daren’t write down how she really feels about me, because it’s a professional document and other people might read it? Maybe her notes about a patient got her into trouble once before. Perhaps these records are a front to hide what she actually feels.

  A tingle runs up the back of my neck. What if she secretly hopes we can move on and become proper friends? Could that be why it feels like she’s trying to push me away? It would explain why she’s written this rubbish about me; it’s all about covering her back.

  I flick back a page to where she’s said something nice and stroke her words. Is this how you really feel, Sam? Do you want to bring our consultations to an end, all above board, so that you can change things between us? Start afresh as really great companions – or have I got it wrong? I’m not certain at all. Do you like me or not? Which one is it? Are you my enemy or my friend?

  I know which way I want it to be, but it makes me feel uptight and restless not knowing for sure, so I strip off, dropping my clothes in the hall and switch on the bath taps. I don’t need a soak, but I want to feel close to her, I want to be where she’s been, personal and private places. I slide into the steamy water and allow it to wrap around me; I use her soap, her nail brush, her flannel.

  Just as I’m getting out, patting myself down with one of Sam’s fluffy purple towels, my mobile rings. It’s DS Eric Fischer calling from Cumbria. I’m practically on first name terms with him now.

  ‘We’ve found another body,’ he says.

  I sink down onto the bathmat and hold my breath. Max or Richard, Max or Richard – which one? I want it to be Max.

  ‘We found Max Raeger this morning,’ he says. ‘Under the packhorse bridge at the northern most point of the lake.’ He doesn’t wait for me to say anything. I let out the breath I’ve been holding. ‘We’ll let you know if there’s anything more to report after the post-mortem.’

  I’m barely listening. This means I didn’t see Max on Oxford Street, after all. It means there’s only Richard left. Is he behind it all, or is his corpse going to surface any day now, too? I shudder and pull Sam’s towel tight around my shoulders.

  It seems callous to ask about my viola so I give it a miss. I’m sure the DS would have mentioned it if there was any news. Once the call ends, another idea comes into my head, and it won’t leave me alone. I hurriedly get changed and check round to make sure the flat looks tidy.

  I lock up and go straight to the nearest library on Lavender Hill. I book half an hour on a public computer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Bridges have names, don’t they? I’ve been flummoxed by that tiny snatch of conversation I overheard at the Hinds’: It’s worth a fortune and under the bridge. I’m not quite sure how they mentioned my name, but I definitely heard it. Perhaps there is a bridge, not far from where the party was held, that literally has my name on it!

  I find a site with a map of the Ullswater area and zoom in. Cote Farm Bridge, Waternook Bridge, Ravenscragg Bridge – there are so many of them. It’s like trying to find a contact lens in a pile of broken glass.

  I try the other way around and find the search box. I punch in ‘Rosie Bridge’ – nothing. Then ‘Rosemary Bridge’ – nothing. There is a ‘Rose Bridge’, but it’s near Lake Windemere, much further south. I try ‘Chandler Bridge’, using my surname, and stagger backwards.

  It comes up.

  It’s just south of Ullswater. My heart is racing at double speed. Then I shake my head. Did any of us go anywhere near there on foot, or in the van? It doesn’t ring any
bells when I think back to either visit to the Lakes, and it’s at least a mile from our B&B and the Hinds’ estate. But it is a bridge, with a connection to my name near Ullswater and it could be the bridge the caller was talking about. In any case, it’s all I’ve got.

  I know what I have to do next – and I know it’s not going to go down well.

  Chapter 35

  Sam

  It was late and I didn’t hear the letter box click over the rumble of the washing machine. I wiped the suds off my hands and stood over the envelope on the mat. My name was typed on the front. Inside, there was a note printed in small letters:

  To set your mind at rest, Conrad Noble wasn’t the father. Ask Miranda where he was three and a half months before she lost the baby. He was filming, in Norway. It was the miscarriage that brought them together – it hasn’t been going on long.

  A well-wisher.

  No signature. No stamp. I dropped the note on the window ledge by the door, suddenly wary about touching it. Someone must be leaving the communal front door unlocked so all and sundry can get inside. I snatched my keys from the ledge, let myself out and locked the door behind me, before scampering down to the front door to check. Strange – it was locked.

  I came back upstairs on high alert, my scalp prickling, listening for the slightest noise, peering into every shadow. I picked up the note again. Who had sent it? Someone who not only knew my sister, but also my concerns about the situation. Miranda’s friend, Stella? Or Kora, or Sponge from the Project? And was it true?

  I picked up the phone.

  ‘Where were you when Miranda got pregnant?’

  ‘Sam? Is that you?’

  ‘Can you please answer the question. Were you filming in Norway?’

  ‘Mirrie told you…’ he said, sounding disappointed.

  ‘You weren’t the father, Con. Why didn’t you just come out and say it?’

  There was a crackle and an awkward silence. ‘To get back at you, I suppose.’ He sniffed. ‘Probably a bit childish. Sorry.’

  I had half expected this would be his reasoning. It was entirely in line with his character. I was cheesed off, however, that Miranda had gone along with it.

  ‘What else have you done to punish me, Con? Is it you making silent phone calls?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ringing from call-boxes or hiding your number?’

  ‘Hey – hang on – no! That’s not me.’

  He sounded so convincing, but I had to remind myself that Con was a talented actor. Maybe he’d been rehearsing this particular script, knowing we’d have this conversation one day.

  I hadn’t a shred of proof. It was pointless pursuing it any further. ‘I’m sorry…’ he said and put down the phone.

  I scrunched up the note and threw it in the bin. Whoever had delivered it, they could damn well go and interfere somewhere else.

  A new thought occurred to me. Was someone picking through bits and pieces in my wheelie bin? Or tracking my emails, somehow? Listening into my phone calls? I was starting to feel not just watched, but hunted.

  Fuck off! I screamed and ran into my bedroom. I dived onto the bed and buried myself under the duvet.

  Rosie was subdued when she came for her next session.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ she said.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘They found Max in the lake.’

  ‘Oh. That’s awful.’

  ‘It’s not just that he’s dead,’ she went on. ‘I’ve got this horrible feeling I might have done something bad. When we were all under water. Why can’t I remember more after we went down? I keep thinking the others must have thought about the back window too. Tried to get out the same way I did. Perhaps we clashed. Maybe I kicked them away – hurt someone, to save myself. I don’t know. I can’t remember!’

  She’d been scratching at a patch of skin on the back of her hand and made it bleed. ‘It’s as if my mind is locked from the inside.’

  She sat back, sucked at her torn wound, retreated into herself. Several minutes clicked by before she emerged from her internal space and spoke again.

  ‘It really looks like I’m the only one left, doesn’t it? Stephanie, first, then Max…I’m sure it’s going to be Richard next and – I don’t know – I feel like it’s wrong that I’m still here.’

  Stay calm. I’d been expecting this; it’s a normal response and I didn’t want to overreact.

  ‘You’re not alone in feeling like this, Rosie – many survivors believe they don’t deserve to be here or feel they might even have contributed to the tragedy.’

  ‘Why should I be the one who survived?’

  ‘Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be an explanation,’ I said, knowing it sounded trite as soon as the words came out. ‘As humans we want to explain everything, see how it all fits together, but it doesn’t always—?’

  ‘I want to know,’ she snapped, closing me down.

  She sat forward watching my face for a reaction. ‘Can we go back? Revisit it?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ I got up, ready to prepare the chaise longue for the memory work.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean go back. For real. Go back, together – you and me – to the Lake District, to find out the truth.’

  I stood looking down at her and didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I have to go there in person,’ she persisted, her voice gathering speed. ‘It will all come back to me if I go back. I know it will. I need to find out if I did something terrible to the others. I need to find out if any of it was my fault, don’t you see?’

  ‘Look…I don’t think—’

  ‘Besides, I think I know which bridge the person on the phone was talking about…the one with the fortune underneath it. We could solve the whole mystery, all in one…’

  Rosie had a broad grin on her face, pummelling her fists into her thighs. She’d gone from distraught to exuberant in about twenty seconds.

  ‘That’s not possible, Rosie. Our sessions take place here. Remember our discussion about the auction house?’

  I had to get her to see I was providing psycho-therapy, nothing more.

  ‘Blinking rules, again.’ She spat the words out.

  ‘I know, but they’re there for a reason.’

  ‘Why do I have to be punished for your decisions?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, forcing myself to sound less irked than I felt. She was like a bug hooking onto me, constantly trying to bury into my skin. ‘Psychologists have guidelines and—’

  She threw her eyes upwards. ‘Yeah, yeah – so you keep saying.’ Her bottom lip jutted out and a crestfallen expression took over her face. She hesitated and I sensed her weighing her next words very carefully.

  ‘I haven’t been feeling good…’ she said. ‘Lately, I’ve had…dark thoughts about myself.’

  My vision started blurring at the edges. I gulped down a bubble of bile. ‘You’ve been thinking about hurting yourself?’

  She nodded, examining her fingernails.

  Don’t panic – she’s not Joanne, it’s not the same.

  I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘We need to talk about this,’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘I need to go back,’ she said defiantly, looking up, her eyes drilling into mine.

  She was boxing me into a corner.

  She glanced at my phone lying on the coffee table. ‘Tell me again why you record our sessions,’ she said, drawing herself upright. Since that first time, I’d recorded every one of them.

  ‘So I don’t miss anything,’ I said, ‘so I can check we’re on track with our objectives.’

  ‘Who do you play it to?’

  ‘Only my supervisor. You would never meet that person. All psychologists have to be accountable to someone in a higher position…you know that.’

  ‘And is it also so the authorities can tell if you do something wrong?’

  I stalled for a second. ‘Yes, that too – if it ever came to it.’

  ‘I thought so
,’ she said knowingly.

  She gave me an odd stare, twisting her mouth into a half-smile as if we were playing a game. She cleared her throat. ‘I need to go back. If we don’t go back to the place where it all happened…if we don’t make this last-ditch attempt to find the truth, I don’t know what I might do to myself…’

  Was Rosie consciously blackmailing me? Or was this the voice of that seven-year-old desperate to be heard?

  Revisiting the trauma location was an entirely bona fide form of therapy: Exposure Therapy. I’d used it with a number of patients. It might give Rosie the very best chance of recovering those last threads of memory that were floating near the surface. It might even give her all the answers she needed, so I could bring our sessions to a close with a clear conscience.

  The problem was that Rosie undoubtedly exhibited traits of a histrionic personality disorder. She came on too strong, constantly seeking approval, she showed limited empathy, found it hard to tolerate frustration and was like a jack-in-a-box, always jumping from one emotional state to another. It didn’t mean she was dangerous, as such, but it did mean I had to be highly vigilant in setting tight and clear boundaries with her.

  Going away together? How would she interpret that?! Could it do more harm than good?

  On the other hand, what if I turned her down? Was I really going to take the chance after what had happened with Joanne?

  As long as I made everything crystal clear and Rosie was in no doubt about the limitations, might it just be worth a try?

  ‘If it was possible, and I’m not saying it is, yet, we’d then have to bring our sessions to a close.’

  ‘Oh…’ Her mouth hung open waiting for more.

  ‘Even if your memory didn’t return fully and you were still left with loose ends.’

  ‘Ok-ay,’ she murmured, her eyes narrowing, full of mistrust.

  ‘You understand what I’m saying? We carry out the therapy at the crime scene by the book and afterwards, no matter what happens, the sessions come to an end between us.’