by Seb Kirby
She handed me the tablet and pointed to an icon that was labeled Tom’s Stories. I tapped the link and was sent to a folder in the cloud that opened to show a hundred or more articles, presented in date order.
She snuggled up to me. “It’s all there. Every article you’ve published since we met. You should read them. If you’re ready for this, it may help.”
I wanted to know. “Yes, I’m ready.”
She left while I sat and read.
It was complex, this backstory to my life. At first, I found the names and organizations mentioned were a blur. I couldn’t believe I’d ever written any of this. But I decided to approach this just like I’d taken on board everything else I’d heard from Janet. It didn’t feel like it was me but it must be me and I needed to learn it and believe it was true.
I decided not to let myself be overwhelmed by the detail. I needed to extract a broad picture from the jumble of names, people, places, organizations, acronyms and dates. I needed to understand the outline, at least for now.
The early stories were based around small time crime. The kind of stories a young journalist gets handed. As time ran on, the crimes I was reporting became more serious until just about every one concerned murder. Then, just a few months back, there had been a change, a move to cover financial crime. Behind all that lay securities fraud. The kind of scams in which investors lose millions. I was now part of a special team at The Herald, led by Evan Hamilton, set up to investigate financial malpractice. I had been given an archive of the background that Hamilton had developed on the investigation and Janet had included this along with my own earlier stories.
In all the wealth of detail on the new investigation, one name stood out. Tyrone Montague, CEO at OAM Securities. I tried to understand why I had the strongest sense that I needed to be interested in this man but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find an explanation of why I felt this way.
I knew then that there were more than a few people out there who were very angry with us, with me, about what we’d done to them.
Yet somehow I knew that what had been published so far was just the tip of the iceberg. The real culprits were still out there, evading scrutiny.
I closed the file and put the tablet aside. I knew I would have to return. I needed to discover as much as I could about these people, what they did, who they’d cheated.
CHAPTER 21
That night, the visions returned.
I’m looking on as Rebecca dies, as I squeeze the life out of her.
I can’t look away.
The tattoo on my left forearm is visible again. I’m trying to make it go away, to prove to myself that what Josh Healey says can’t be true – that I’ve invented the tattoo to protect myself, to prove to myself that it couldn’t be me carrying out this cold blooded murder. But try as I might, the tattoo will not go away. It’s real, as real as everything else I’m seeing.
And there’s something else.
The hands around poor Rebecca’s neck. I’m seeing the fingers of the right hand.
Short index finger, long ring finger.
This is important. But I don’t know why.
I see her die.
The vision ended.
I looked at my hands.
My index finger and my ring finger were the same length. Somehow I knew that, just like eye or hair color, these differences in finger length were characteristics that separated people from others. And the one doing the killing could not be me.
I knew what Josh Healey would say. I was inventing this to prove to myself that it was not me doing these terrible things. Just as I was inventing the tattoo.
But I no longer believed him.
This was evidence.
Evidence that it was not me.
It was someone else.
Someone I was beginning to know more about.
I needed to discover who this was. Who had been doing these killings.
And I knew then that finding this man was the only way I would recover my past.
CHAPTER 22
When the police arrived it came more as a relief than as a shock.
Perhaps, after all, my phone call was understood for what it was.
He introduced himself as Detective Inspector Stephen Ives. DI Ives.
He was young, angry looking, not the type you’d send on a goodwill mission.
He told me that the short, uniformed woman officer with him was Detective Sergeant June Lesley. DS Lesley.
There were no informalities. He came straight to the point. “You phoned in as a result of the Cathy Newsome appeal?”
I nodded. “Yes. She’s been found?”
He shook his head. “It’s still a missing persons enquiry.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You gave us some other names.” He looked at his notes. “Rebecca, Margot, Felicity. Said they’d been killed along with Cathy Newsome.”
“That’s what I wanted to say. I didn’t think I was getting through to the officer taking the call.”
“We almost passed it over. It wasn’t until DS Lesley investigated the report made about your call that we became interested.” He paused and looked once more at his notebook. “Tell me, Mr. Markland, do any of these names mean anything to you?”
He read them out.
Rebecca French.
Margot West
Felicity Jenkins.
Rebecca, Margot, Felicity. The names of the other girls I’d seen being killed.
I thought hard. I was sure I’ve never heard their surnames before.
I gave him an honest reply. “I don’t know those names.”
“But, Mr. Markland, aren’t those the same first names you told us about in the phone call?”
I agreed. “Yes, but I don’t recognize their second names.”
Janet was by my side and had remained silent up to now. “As I told you, Inspector, my husband has been through trauma. Amnesia. He’s no longer certain about events in his past. You promised me you would show understanding.”
He turned towards her. “And I’ll keep my promise, Mrs. Markland. But, please bear with me for a few more minutes.”
He pulled a transparent envelope from his inside pocket and removed a half dozen photographs. “Do you recognize anyone here?”
I stared at the photographs, one by one.
There was no doubt. Three of the images were heads and shoulders pictures of Rebecca, Margot and Felicity.
I separated them from the pack and handed them to DI Ives. “These ones. I don’t know about the others.”
He spread the images of the three girls on the table before me. “These are the ones you recognize? You’re sure of that?”
I nodded. “What about the other photos?”
He looked angry that I hadn’t yet answered his question. “They’re stock photos of young women about the same age.”
I understood why he’d done this. If I was one of the many damaged people who offered false information in cases like this, I might have picked out all six. Or picked out one by chance. But to have picked out just those three?
He asked again. “The three girls. You’re sure you’ve seen them before?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“What names do you know them as?”
I pointed to each picture in turn. “That’s Rebecca. That’s Margot. And that’s Felicity.”
“And you know them from where?”
“I tried to tell you in the phone call.”
“So, tell us again.”
“I’ve seen them. In visions. In my mind’s eye. Being killed.”
“Tell me why that is?”
“I don’t know. That’s the truth. That’s all I know. I see them. They die.”
“How do they die?”
“Strangulation.”
“Where did this happen?”
“I don’t know. It’s a dark and lonely place. A room filled with books. Somewhere near a train line. I can hear the sound of trains somewhere
close, but that’s all I know.”
Janet could see I was distressed. “You need to hold off, Inspector.”
He turned towards her once more. “What if I was to tell you that all three young women are missing. That their families are as distraught as Cathy Newsome’s family, wondering what’s happened to their daughters? Would you want me to tread any more carefully, Mrs. Markland?”
Janet started to cry. “You need to explain, Inspector. Just what this line of questioning is implying.”
He gestured towards me. “Look, Mrs. Markland, what do you expect. Your husband phones us in response to one girl’s disappearance and gives the names of three others. When we check missing persons, we find matches to all three names. When shown photos of the girls, he recognizes them. He could have recognized Cathy Newsome’s picture from what’s been shown on television so we didn’t show him that. All four women are missing. Your husband has some explaining to do.”
Janet came to my defense. “We need to talk, Inspector. But first, don’t you think you have a duty to let my husband know if you’ve made any progress in finding out what happened to him? Someone’s getting away with attempted murder.”
Ives faced off against her. “That’s not my case, Mrs. Markland.”
“We’ve heard nothing. Nothing in weeks.”
“I’m sure one of my colleagues will get back to you when they have something. But if Mr. Markland can’t help them and no other witnesses come forward, what are they expected to do?”
“And that’s all?”
“I’ll check it out. Get back to you.” He paused. “But I want you to be in no doubt that my priority is to find Cathy Newsome. And those other young women. You must understand that.”
DI Ives and DS Lesley talked with Janet for longer than I would have expected.
They were in the kitchen, out of my hearing, but they could only have been talking about me.
When they were finished and Janet had shown them out, she came back into the room.
I wanted to know. “What did he want?”
She sat beside me. “He wanted to know about you. Where you work, what kind of person you are, what happened in the accident. I told him I’d have to be the one to tell him what I knew about all that because, since the incident, you can’t remember.”
“And you told him what?”
“That you’re a kind, wonderful person. That you’re lucky to be alive after being beaten and nearly drowned. That they’d left you for dead.”
“He didn’t say they were anywhere further with investigating who did that to me?”
She shook her head. “No. Like he said before, he told me he wasn’t aware of the case until now. But he’d look into it, liaise with whichever colleague of his was in charge and come back and let us know.”
“I’m not expecting any breakthroughs. They’ve not been showing much commitment to finding who was responsible.”
She gave me a reassuring smile. “The important thing now is that you shouldn’t fret about it. Give all your strength to your recovery.”
I knew she was right. Yet I made a vow to myself right then that when I was stronger, when I could remember again, I would find who’d done this to me.
I tried to move on. “What else did Ives want to know?”
“He asked about your memory. I told him you were being treated by Josh Healey. He said he’d call him.”
“And?”
“He wanted to know as much detail as I could give him about your work at the newspaper. I think he plans to interview Evan Hamilton and some of the others.”
“Gathering background on me?”
“Yes, and understanding how you got know about those women.”
CHAPTER 23
DI Ives and DS Lesley returned next day.
Ives told me that apart from Cathy Newsome, the other cases hadn’t received wide publicity but each had been reported locally.
“I’ve been to see Evan Hamilton, your editor at the newspaper and asked to see the newswires. You won’t be surprised to know that details of the disappearance of all four women are there on their system. With photos. That’s what national newspapers do. Collect local news of all kinds and types. But nothing’s been done to draw them to attention within the newspaper. It would be fair to say that any details held about them are just part of the mass of information they collect.”
“But you’re suggesting I must have caught sight of them there?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to put that thought in your mind, Mr. Markland. All I’m saying is that if you had sufficient reason you could have sought out information on the girls there. But that wouldn’t explain why you would want to do such a thing, given that Evan Hamilton tells me you’re working in his team on financial wrongdoing in the City.”
“You’re still treating them as disappearances?”
He took a deep breath. “Mr. Markland. You need to know this. You’re the only one making a connection between those girls at this point. As far as the rest of the world is concerned they’re missing persons, plain and simple.”
I could tell from his manner that this was something more than a courtesy call.
“So, why are you here, Inspector?”
He looked towards Lesley who opened the folder of notes she was carrying. “DS Lesley has been looking into what’s known about the events that led to your hospitalization. There are a some things we need to ask you about.”
Lesley took over the conversation. “How long have you been using, sir?”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her. “Using?”
“Narcotics. Heroin. Opiates. Your hospital blood tests show levels so high they were probably associated with prolonged use.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Time to come clean, sir. Tell us what went wrong. You don’t get supplies like that without getting mixed up with the wrong type of people. Did a deal go wrong? Is that why you ended up in the North Dock?”
I was shocked. “Is that why you’re here? To accuse me of bringing all this on myself?”
She looked me straight in the eye. “So, if that’s not the case, Mr. Markland, how do you explain the blood tests?”
“I can’t. You have to believe me when I say that I’ve never used narcotics.”
I looked up at Janet who’d been beside me throughout and knew I should have told her what I knew about the hospital blood tests. Then none of this would have come as a shock to her.
Janet looked distressed yet she was quick to come to my defense. “We don’t accept any of this innuendo. My husband is the victim here. He would never have done anything to bring this on himself.”
Ives interrupted. “That’s as may be, Mrs. Markland. You both need to know that DS Lesley and myself are now fully aware of the details of the events that led up to your husband’s hospitalization. You can be sure that we’ll be drawing our own conclusions about what we’ve found.”
When Ives and Lesley had left, I discussed what had been said with Janet.
“I should have told you about the blood tests.”
She held my hand. “Must be some kind of mistake. The hospital must have tested the wrong sample, one from some kind of addict. You know I’d never believe that of you.”
I turned my thoughts back to the missing girls. “Ives thinks I might have heard about the women at work, seen photos of them. That could be why I was able to pick them out when he showed me the photographs.”
She tried to sound comforting. “Isn’t that reasonable?”
“You mean more reasonable than if I saw what happened to them?”
“He’s not assuming anything has happened.”
“He doesn’t believe they’ve been killed?”
She shook her head. “He says there’s no evidence for that. They’re missing. The more time that passes before they’re found, the more likely it is that Ives will suspect foul play. But people disappear all the time, and often by choice. They turn up months or even years later saying t
hey’ve made a new life.”
“So, like Healey, he still thinks I could be inventing the whole thing, projecting what I already know onto what I see when those girls are being killed. But tell me this, Jan, if that’s so, why can’t I recall having seen all those details of those missing girls, the details I’m supposed to have picked up at work?”
She gave me an appreciative look. “I really don’t know, dear. There’s a lot you still don’t recall.”
I sat back in the chair.
What had I got to do to make anyone believe that the only memories I could call my own were real?
These women had been killed and I’d seen how it had happened.
There was a murderer out there who had killed four times and might be getting ready to kill again. I needed to do more to help their families find peace.
CHAPTER 24
That night, as we were getting ready for bed, I noticed the small, framed photograph of myself and Janet that was on the wall near the bathroom. We’re smiling, looking at the camera. Behind us is a vast expanse of red rock space.
I shouted out to Janet. “We were there. At the Grand Canyon.”
She came out of the bathroom and sat on the corner of the bed, beaming at the thought that I could begin to recall our time there together. “We took a day trip from the hotel in Scottsdale, a small bus with a driver and a half dozen other tourists. He took us out through Sonoma, stopped half way in a lay-by he knew off the main highway where you bought me this.”
She pointed to the beaded necklace round her neck. Colored stones, fashioned with skill and understanding of the world they came from, beautiful. A Native American necklace.
Janet took it off and handed it to me.
I held the necklace, felt it real in my hands. “They were Indians, selling wonderful objects. Nothing like the commercial stuff they try to palm you off with in the so called reservation stores.”
“I wanted to buy one of their pots.”
“But we couldn’t see how we’d get it back over here without breaking it.”