Isolation - a heart-stopping thriller, Shutter Island meets Memento

by Neil Randall

  “Oh, right,” she said, nodding slowly, “–that makes sense, then. ‘Cause when I arrived and asked where you were, they sort’a exchanged weird looks, they didn’t answer for ages, as if they weren’t gonna tell me.”

  I hesitated before saying, “Liz, I know this is a big ask, and I know you haven’t known me all that long, and I know there must be all kinds of conflicting things running through your head at the moment, but I’m certain I’m not the person they think I am, I’m certain I never did the things they claim I did. So, for now, it would mean a lot to me if you could just take me as you find me, or found me a week or so back, and not listen if they tell you all kinds of horror stories about me.”

  A single knock sounded against the door.

  “Mr Barrowman.” Bannister opened the door a crack. “The young ladies have just told me that it’s twenty minutes until lights out, so if you and Miss Green would like to come up to the communal sleeping quarters now, it would be much appreciated. That way, we can each be allocated a bed.”

  “All I’m saying,” said Cara, standing in the centre of a large room decked out with beds like a dormitory in a hostel, “is that I’m deeply uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in the same room as someone like him.” She jabbed a finger in my direction. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, Nigel, but we all know you of old, and we all know what you’re capable of.”

  I felt like arguing, telling them that they were mistaken, that they’d brainwashed themselves into believing something that simply wasn’t true, but Bannister interceded before I could.

  “Look, ladies, whatever your former feelings towards Mr Barrowman, we’re all in the same boat, and simply have to get on with things as best we can. What I suggest, therefore, is that Mr Barrowman and I share the large bed over there.” He pointed across the room. “Due to my military service, I’m a very light sleeper, so you have my personal guarantee that should Mr Barrowman attempt to get up in the night for any other reason than to use the bathroom, he’ll have to get past me first. Moreover, there’s a constable stationed just down the hallway.” He looked at each woman in turn. “Agreed?”

  This seemed to go some way to placating them. They nodded out their collective assent, whispered amongst themselves, and started to shuttle to and from the bathroom, before climbing into bed. As Bannister patted my shoulder, as if to reassure me, I looked across the room at Liz, perched on the edge of a camp-bed, head lowered, a distant, thoughtful expression on her face, and I felt, even though only a short period of time had passed, even further away from her than I had in the study earlier.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  At breakfast, it was clear that two distinct factions now existed within the house – them and us. Whether the other women had made a conscious decision to ostracise me, Liz and Bannister from the group was, of course, impossible to say. What was evident, though, was the horrible atmosphere, the tension. As we spooned cereals from bowls to mouths or took slurps of coffee or tea, no one attempted to make any kind of conversation, bar Cara asking Jane to pass her the sugar bowl. Thankfully, before the atmosphere became too poisonous, a chubby, middle-aged detective, a slightly unkempt man, despite wearing a perfectly presentable suit and tie, walked into the kitchen through the back door.

  “Morning. Hope you all slept well. For those who don’t know” – he looked at me, Liz and Bannister in turn – “I’m Detective Inspector Cattermole. It’s my job to make sure that you’ve all been properly briefed regarding the present situation and have everything that you need.”

  “Understood,” said Banister. “But have there been any new developments? When I left Ilford yesterday, I was told that the main suspect was, and I quote, ‘under surveillance’.”

  The confused looked that broke out over Cattermole’s face momentarily betrayed him.

  “Well, erm…yes and no,” he said, slowly, as if to buy himself some thinking time. “Unfortunately, no arrests have yet to be made, but the noose is definitely tightening, so to speak.”

  Under the table, Bannister nudged my knee, clearly to indicate how unconvincing he found Cattermole’s reply.

  “Now,” said the policeman, having quickly regained his composure, “as you’ve all been made aware, you are being kept here until such a time as we feel it safe for you to return to your homes. I know it’s frustrating, and I know how desperate you are to get back to your families, your places of work or study, your everyday lives, but I’m afraid it may be several more days before that’s possible.”

  Bannister couldn’t help but go on the offensive.

  “If that’s the case, Detective Inspector, then I really must voice a few concerns. Firstly, if our lives are in danger, if the killer intends to murder us all, then why are we being kept together, under one roof, instead of at different locations? Secondly, why is there so little security in place? And by that I mean, a single car with two officers guarding the property overnight.”

  “Appearances can be deceptive,” Cattermole said with far more confidence than before. “Let me assure you, teams of highly trained men are patrolling the surrounding woodland, day and night. All entry roads have been cordoned off. In addition, crack marksmen have rifles trained on the house at all times, front and back.”

  “But if such provisions have been put in place,” said Bannister, “it would suggest that you’re using us as bait to lure the killer in.”

  “No, no, not at all,” Cattermole replied. “Because of the remote location, how difficult the area is to access, we’ve used this property in many like situations, without any adverse incidents whatsoever.”

  Even though Bannister made a few more pointed remarks, questioning the wisdom of the whole operation, Cattermole parried them off with a series of quite reasonable if brusque, somewhat clichéd, stock answers.

  “Thank for your time,” he said. “If you have any further questions, if there’s anything worrying you, if you want to speak to a senior officer regarding the case, please ask the constable on duty, and he’ll contact somebody direct.”

  “You heard what the detective said.” Gloria looked, strangely enough, not at us three newcomers, but Cara and Wendy, perhaps indicating that they were the two women most opposed to interaction. “We’re here for the foreseeable future, so why don’t we go into the other room and talk things through? Why don’t we discuss everything we know about the case, about everything that’s happened? Who knows? We might stumble upon something important, something that’s been staring us in the face all along.”

  As we politely waited for the women to exit the room first, Bannister leaned close to me and whispered:

  “That Cattermole chappy didn’t exactly fill one with confidence, did he, Mr Barrowman? The more I think about this arrangement, the more I don’t like it. In my time, I’ve witnessed countless interrogations, and can tell when someone’s lying to me.”

  “Right.” Cara lit a cigarette, wafting smoke away from her face with her free hand. “Like Gloria said, from what we’ve just been told, it looks like we’re going to he holed up here for a long time, well, for the next few days, at the very least. So perhaps it would be best if we talked about everything that’s happened.” We all murmured in agreement. “And perhaps it would be best if Nigel spoke first. He was, after all, the point of contact, the person the killer singled out.”

  Nervously, I started to relay every incident, as I had to the police many times before. When I came to the part about the shape I’d randomly doodled on a piece of paper at work, the one Liz recognised as a horned owl, Wendy cried out, her legs buckled, she stumbled forward, and would’ve collapsed to the floor, had Bannister not leapt to his feet and caught her.

  “Wendy!” Cara rushed over and crouched beside her. “What is it?”

  But as we all crowded round, it was clear that Wendy wasn’t going to be able to answer, that she was in the throes of some kind of fit or seizure.

  “Let me through,” said Jane, the same doughty, purposeful young woman I remembered f
rom our counselling sessions. “I’m a fully qualified first-aider.”

  With quick, assured movements, she lowered Wendy down into what I presumed was the recovery position, to ensure that she wouldn’t choke or swallow her tongue, supporting her head with a cushion she requested Bannister pull from the armchair he’d so hastily vacated.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” Jane spoke soft, reassuring words while gently stroking Wendy’s hair and face. Then she turned and addressed us all, “Don’t worry. She’s going to be just fine. I think it was more of an extreme panic attack than anything else.”

  “Panic attack?” said Bannister. “Triggered off when Mr Barrowman mentioned the horned owl.” He got to his feet. “Did any of you know about the markings cut into the murder victims’ bodies? Did any of you know about the Native American fable about the horned owl?”

  All shook their heads.

  “That’s interesting,” he said. “But clearly it means something to Miss Lomas here. Yes.” He stared into space for a moment. “Why don’t we get her a glass or water, or a nice cup of tea, wait until she recovers, and see if we can find out why?”

  We all helped Wendy get comfortable, laying her out on the settee, back propped up by cushions, every now and then giving her a sip of water, until she was able to recognise her surroundings, nod her head, and answer simple questions. But as soon as Bannister mentioned the horned owl, her face drained of colour, she looked visibly disturbed, and took to mumbling again.

  “The owl, that – that was the signal,” she jabbered away, her eyes darting right and left, not so much staring at each one of us, but through us, as if we were invisible to her now.

  “Look,” said Cara. “This isn’t working. She’s clearly not up to answering any questions right now. Why don’t we let her get some rest?”

  Realising this was the sensible thing to do, Bannister and I helped her up the stairs to the communal bedroom, so she could lie down for an hour or two, in hope that that would assist in a full recovery.

  When we returned to the front room, the women were deep in discussion.

  “The only thing I can think of,” said Gloria, acknowledging us with a nod of the head, “when Wendy mumbled something about a signal, was the abortive hypnotherapy sessions we undertook at the beginning of our treatment.”

  “The what?” I said, shuffling forward a few paces, having no memory whatsoever of being put under hypnosis.

  “Don’t you remember?” Gloria asked. “At the very first session, Doctor Rabie took us, individually, one at a time, to that back room, what he called his office, but which was really just an old storeroom with a table and a few chairs in it, and tried to put us under hypnosis. But, as it was group therapy, he needed total compliance, and some of us were harder than others to put under hypnosis, to the point of outright defiance, so he decided to forgo that part of the treatment, said it would be self-defeating otherwise.”

  As time passes, people’s memories naturally become a little fuzzy, especially regarding the more minor, insubstantial details of life, but for me to have no recollection of something as unusual, not to mention controversial, as hypnotherapy, something which would undoubtedly have stuck in even the most sieve-like of minds, was impossible for me to accept.

  “Wait just a minute. We were never hypnotised. Our therapy consisted of what most modern therapists would now call organic, primal treatment. Once we’d got over the initial unease, once we were more comfortable, we were instructed to sit on the floor facing each other, and talk about our problems. Whenever something especially disturbing arose, Doctor Rabie would encourage us to shout, to scream into each others faces, until we’d neutralised the problem, defusing the mind bomb, as he called it. To suggest that we—”

  “No, no.” Cara wagged a finger in the air, “I really am going to have to stop you there, Nigel. At the first session, after we had to go through that excruciating procession of standing up, saying our names, and telling each other a little bit about ourselves, Doctor Rabie outlined the stages of our treatment, the first part of which would involve hypnotherapy, a new way to help us subconsciously confront our problems. Why would any of us make something like that up?”

  “I have no idea. Like I have no idea why you harbour such antipathy towards me, why you see me as someone I’m so obviously not.”

  What had started out as a sensible discussion, an attempt to exchange useful information regarding the murders, denigrated into a full-blown argument, with Cara and Gloria in particular insisting that we were all, at some stage, put under hypnosis.

  “This is getting us nowhere.” Cara clicked her tongue. “Why don’t we take a break, go for a walk in the garden, get some air? Then, after lunch, maybe Wendy will feel up to talking to us.”

  Still riled, still arguing with them in my head, conjuring belated yet compelling counterarguments, I was surprised to feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear Jane’s whispered voice.

  “Nigel.” She drew me back into the room as the others passed through to the kitchen. “Can I have a quick word?”

  “Of course,” I said, looking on as she pushed the door to. “What is it?”

  She handed me a slim wallet file.

  “Here, take this. Inside are the surviving parts of my journal, the one I was writing at the time of our treatment with Doctor Rabie. I’d like you to read it. I’d like to know what you make of it. Because I – I don’t think the other girls have treated you very fairly.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “That I don’t remember you in the same way they do. To the best of my memory – and believe me, there’s not a day goes by when I don’t question myself, and what really happened back then – until Cara received that letter, the one she showed you last night, you were all the things you claimed to be: quiet, shy, withdrawn, the most distant and disturbed member of the group, someone who rarely if ever contributed, someone who verged upon tears if ever asked to stand up and speak.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something last night?”

  “Because nobody liked you, Nigel. Because you did make us feel incredibly uncomfortable, just not in the way the girls’ said. But because you were so vulnerable, on edge, like you might do something silly, hurt yourself, maybe take your own life, like a mirror image of the very worst, most desperate versions of ourselves imaginable. And we didn’t want to see that every week. It was too close to home.”

  An awkward, prickly silence.

  “But, please,” she said, touching my hand, the one holding the file, “read what’s inside. To be honest, I have no recollection of writing any of it, but, seen through another set of eyes, it might make some kind of sense.”

  Chapter Thirty

  To describe what I found inside Jane’s file is a difficult task. The neat, handwritten, perfectly legible sheets of paper didn’t really constitute a linear journal or diary, more a stream of consciousness, fractured reminisces, notes, reflections, but things which nevertheless felt vaguely familiar to me. In the opening pages, for example, she had written what is probably best described as a rudimentary self-critique, examining her condition in relation to an everyday situation, trying to work out why she had reacted in a certain way, when offering to wash up following a family meal. It was something Jane often did, so she relayed, just to help out, to play the role of a normal seventeen-year-old girl. But, in trying to assist, her mother and father cleared some of the plates from the table and brought them through to the kitchen, placing them on the work surface near the sink. This annoyed Jane, because the kitchen was quite small and cramped, and she knew it would be quicker and easier if her parents simply let her clear the plates and wash them herself. In her head, therefore, that inexplicable rage, the likes of which anyone who’s suffered from mental problems, who’s struggled to operate in normal everyday situations, is so sadly familiar with, began to rise.

  As if wanting to exacerbate things, to make herself angrier, even more unreasonable, Jane started to notice all kinds of ‘vexi
ng concomitants’. Firstly, that her mother’s used cutlery had slid into the middle of the plate, and was now marooned in a pool of thick leftover gravy, which meant that when Jane picked them up to wash them (she had a strict routine: cutlery first, then plates, then pots and pans), she’d get residual gravy stains on her fingers, she’d have to literally wade through someone’s dirty plate – and such thoughtlessness seemed completely unacceptable, almost akin to a deliberate insult.

  As this festered, her father reached over her at the sink, to fill a glass with water (he was Type 2 diabetic and had to take several pills directly after each meal). But the way in which he did this, brusquely, without so much as saying excuse me, like his daughter was no more than a skivvy, or worse, invisible, infuriated Jane all over again. To the extent that she had to turn away, take a breath, squeeze her eyes shut, count to ten – all the flimsy fail-safes counsellors had drummed into her whenever she felt she was about to lose control. Then her mother belched loudly, laughed, and excused herself. And it seemed to Jane, flustered by the crush of bodies, the way in which her parents were still crowding around her, when all she wanted to do was the ‘fucking washing up’, that her mother belched at exactly the same time each day, following each meal, and this sense of things repeating themselves, of being trapped, where each day was exactly the same as the one that had preceded it, sent her over the edge. Screaming, telling her parents to ‘fuck off, will you, get away from me’, she picked up a plate and smashed it on the floor. In the chaotic, confused moments that followed, she tried to apologise, sweep up the broken plate, to explain why she’d lost control, that if they’d only let her get on with the washing up in peace, then none of this would have happened. But, of course, that was impossible now. In reacting in the way she did, she had no recourse to reasonable explanation – she was the bad guy, the nutcase who couldn’t control her temper.