I texted him late last night and, like the hero that he is, he texted back that he’d drop everything and come first thing. I need someone to talk to, some perspective, just for a day. He can’t stay the night, as Rachel’s working tonight and can’t watch Chloe, but at least I’ll have a few hours’ company.
I drive through a fresh winter wonderland, the radio playing in my car the only sound in the muffled white. After everything bad that happened to me here it’s still impossibly beautiful, this place.
Thankfully, it turns out they do salt the roads, even this far out of town, but as I turn off onto the rural station lane I see the council budget obviously doesn’t stretch this far. When I reach the station entrance Joe’s waiting, ankle-deep in snow, beaming from ear to ear, the only one on the platform. He pulls me into a hug as soon as he jumps into the car. He holds me tight for a long time, my left leg jamming hard against the hand brake, but I don’t pull away, I need his love.
“There you are,” he says.
“Here I am,” I agree, head buried in his jacket, safe for a second.
I suggest we head back to Cuckoo Lodge and have some hot chocolate before we head out for a cold walk along the beach. Joe’s already wrapped up warm in a Barbour and wellies but I need to grab some boots.
Joe keeps the conversation ticking over on the short drive, diplomatically sensing I’m not quite ready to talk about anything more serious just yet. He tells me Mum’s fine with me being here, whatever I need to do for myself I should do, she says. He tells me about his little Chloe and her new obsession with his briefcase. I’m glad of the distraction. I need to clear my head and reset my bearings before I can talk to someone else about what’s happening here. I knew I needed Joe.
I sense him tense slightly when we pass a sign for Burnham Market, at least twenty miles from Holt and our old house. No one else but me would notice, but the story he’s telling me about Chloe gets a little louder, a little funnier.
He hasn’t been back here either since it happened. I’ve forced him back. He’s here for me. I glance across at his face as he talks, and I wonder how he stayed so well adjusted, so sane. So lovely. With his job and his wife and his gorgeous baby girl. I’m not jealous, I’m amazed, and incredibly grateful to have someone like him in my life.
As I pull down the drive leading up to Cuckoo Lodge, Joe gives a low whistle of appreciation. I feel an odd sense of pride. The house is beautiful, especially in the snow, and because Joe’s an architect, its beauty isn’t wasted on him.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” he murmurs. “This is where they put you? This is part of the Holkham estate, right?”
“I don’t know, is it? It’s definitely Victorian.”
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”
I laugh and he leans forward to study the chimneys, the cornicing, through the windshield.
“You like?” I tease.
* * *
—
I make us our hot chocolates and we carry them out into the back garden with some blankets so we can enjoy the winter sun on our faces.
And almost immediately Joe broaches the subject we’ve both been evading. “So, shouldn’t you be at work? Isn’t that what they’re paying you for?” He smiles and sips his chocolate.
“I thought you were supposed to be encouraging me to work less!” I say with a surprised laugh, but inside I feel a sharp pang of guilt. My patient is still ill, I could be doing something, but instead of working I am here. I know I can’t work seven days a week, but time off always make me uneasy. “There’s not really much I can do at this stage, Joe. My patient’s talking now, but his memory is limited. And yesterday was pretty intense. I told him to take it easy today. I’ve got a big day planned tomorrow and he needs to rest. I’m going to take him on a trip, visit some places that might trigger some memories. He must have got to that beach somehow; we’ll try the roads nearby, local stations, anywhere he might have been just prior to being found. He’s making me a list today of anywhere he can think of that might help. But aside from that there’s really nothing I can do. And I’m on call, if anything comes up. I can be there in thirty minutes.”
“Em, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asks when I’ve finished. He’s no longer smiling. “Or have you just invited me down here for my sparkling conversation?”
“Oh God, Joe! Okay, here it is. It’s so—well, it’s beyond weird,” I blurt out. “The patient, he knows who I am. My patient.”
“Isn’t that a good sign?” He hasn’t grasped what I just said. He’s grinning.
“No. No, it’s not, Joe. He knows my real name.” I feel a selfish relief when I see his smile freeze. Because now I know it’s not just me going through this anymore. Misery loves company. “He called me Marni. He knows what happened. He knows all about Dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. Yesterday morning he just started talking, out of the blue. He said he needed to talk to me and when he did he said he was sorry, Joe. About what he did, to us, to everyone. He said he was sorry I burnt my fingers.” I let that fact hang in the air between us.
Joe grimaces and empties his drink into the snow. After a moment he asks, “Who does he think he is? Dad?” He’s deadly serious now.
“I think so, yes.”
“Christ! And you do too, don’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Joe, of course I don’t. He’s about twenty years younger and he looks nothing like him. I just, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. What the fuck is going on here?” I want to weep.
“Do you recognize him at all?”
“No.”
“He’s not one of Dad’s old work friends or something?”
“Too young.”
“You think he’s still alive, don’t you?” The bluntness of it shocks me. I pause too long. “He’s gone, Emma, remember? You saw, we all saw. We buried him. He is not somewhere out there. This isn’t him, it isn’t someone he’s sent. I don’t know what this is but it’s not that.” I break from his gaze and stare out at the sparkling forest. “It’s some kind of misunderstanding. Or it’s a trick, Em.”
“It’s not a trick, Joe.” If there’s one thing I know for certain it’s that my patient isn’t lying. “He really can’t remember. He wouldn’t be able to fake the scans I put him through yesterday.”
“Then he must have picked these ideas up somewhere else, right? Overheard things? Someone might be putting him up to it.”
“That’s what I thought. But that still means someone at the hospital knows. That they knew I was coming even before I got there. Which is weird, Joe. My patient said my name the first time we met.”
“But you said he only started talking yesterday!”
“Officially yes. I didn’t mention it to anyone at the time, but he said my name on my first day. I heard him. He whispered it.”
“He what?” Joe frowns. “Whispered it? Are you sure?”
“He mumbled it. It wasn’t threatening or anything.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you say anything?” He stares at me, incredulous.
I look away, down at the hot chocolate in my hand. My fingers are freezing. “You know why, Joe. And…because I thought maybe…maybe I’d imagined it.”
“Bloody hell, Em! You really shouldn’t be back here, should you?”
“I know, Joe, I know. Please, just help me out. I need you to help me out here.”
“Okay. Okay. So.” He shakes his head with disbelief and refocuses on the facts. “Someone at that hospital knew you were coming here before you arrived, because your patient was there days before you even agreed to treat him. And this someone knew that Emma Lewis was Marni Beaufort? How would they know that, Emma? The police are the only people who know we changed our names. And that was years ago. It’s protected information. How could
anyone find out?”
I think of Chris. Chris the policeman, with his database and his searches. Shit.
I can’t tell Joe about Chris. “But that’s not all of it. I—oh God, this is going to sound so insane—but I think he might be dangerous.”
“What, who? Your patient?”
“Yeah, I’m not supposed to talk about him, I signed an NDA, but the government seems to think he could possibly have some kind of a military background. They won’t tell me. It’s classified.”
Joe slams his empty mug down hard onto the snow-covered table. “What the hell is going on up here? You shouldn’t be being asked to do things like this. It’s—you don’t have training in that—”
Suddenly my pager buzzes to life in my pocket.
The hospital.
I throw a look to Joe as I fish it out and check the display. “Shit. One second. I need to call them.”
He eyeballs me as I rise and head deeper into the garden.
“Hi, it’s Dr. Lewis,” I answer. “Oh, okay, really? I see…I see. Um, okay, well, is there someone in particular I should be speaking to? Right, okay, right, and can I speak to DC Barker now?” I lock eyes with Joe as I say this new name; his eyebrows rise.
“Okay,” I continue into the receiver. “Wait! No! No, sorry…No. I do not give my consent to that, at all. No. I’d have to discuss…Well. I understand that, of course. Right, well, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Right. Thank you for letting me know.” I hang up and turn to Joe.
“The Metropolitan Police are at the hospital, they’ve taken over from the local police force. Apparently, now they think he’s some boy that went missing—abducted—in the early nineties. The police have got a social worker with them and they’re trying to get access to the ward right now. Apparently, they want to question him about it before he meets the parents.”
“Jesus Christ,” Joe exclaims. “First they think he’s a soldier and now he’s some missing kid?”
“God knows what evidence they think they have, Joe, but he is not ready for this kind of shit. Even the most basic questioning is triggering panic attacks. If they wade in, with no proper medical training, and start questioning him about being held in captivity for almost thirty years—God knows what kind of trauma that’ll cause. Especially if they’re right about it!”
I dash into the house and grab my car keys, Joe following after, incredulous. “Stop, Em! Just stop! Stop what you’re doing!” he barks, bringing me instantly to a standstill. Joe never raises his voice. “Em, listen to me. This situation is insane.” I read the concern on his face. “You should not be putting yourself through this, there’s no need for it, let someone else do this job. You shouldn’t have come back here. I know we talked it through before you agreed, but I didn’t realize it would be like this—with the police and press and what’s been going on with this particular patient—plus, I thought you were in a better place yourself, Em. I thought—no, you made me think—you would be able to handle all of this, coming back here.”
“I can handle it, Joe,” I protest fiercely, but I know I’m lying. Because Joe wouldn’t be here if I could handle it, would he? Shit.
“Em, we can just go home, you know. Right now. You can just call the hospital and tell whoever you tell that you’re resigning. The world won’t collapse. We can just go. I mean, the Met showing up unannounced sounds like a pretty good reason to step back anyway, doesn’t it?”
I feel my resolve falter—he’s right, there’s something so incredibly off about all of this—but then I remember Matthew’s words that first night. How could he know those things unless he’d been there that night, or known someone who was? I need to know who he is. I think of his trust in me yesterday as he struggled for breath. I push the feeling away.
“No. I said I’d do it, Joe. I told my patient that I’d help him. I promised him that everything would be okay.”
Joe’s tone softens. “That’s not your call, Emma. You don’t get to control whether everything is okay or not. You’re not omnipotent. You can only do your best. This, all of this, is too much. For someone so intelligent you can be so stupid! Let someone else handle it. This guy—whoever he turns out to be—is not your responsibility.”
“No, Joe, he is. He actually is because that is my job. I wish I could leave it to someone else but no one else here has my expertise. I’m the only person here, medically, who can help him.” I’m saying it but I don’t know if it’s true. I’m sure there are other doctors Peter could call. Maybe Richard Groves could take over remotely. Perhaps it might be better, for Matthew, for me, if I did step aside, given his strange connection to me. I take in Joe’s exasperated face. “All right,” I say, finally. “I’ll stop. I’ll just do the rest of today, okay? Then I’ll stop. I’ll tell them I need to hand over.”
Joe holds my gaze. “Promise? You’ll sort this Met thing out and then you’ll let them know you’re done? You’ll resign from this case?”
“Yes,” I say, fingering the car keys in my hand. If Matthew is the missing Benjamin Taylor, then all my questions about how he knows me are redundant anyway, aren’t they? The sooner I find out if he’s Benjamin, the sooner I’ll know this is all in my head. “But right now, I really need to go in, Joe.”
He sighs, then nods. “I’ll come to the hospital with you and get the train back home from King’s Lynn. You can call me later, let me know how it goes.”
I turn back to him. “Wait, Joe, I don’t think you should come.” He looks confused, so I explain. “The press found out Matthew was talking yesterday, they’re all over the hospital. I don’t want you to have to go through that. It’s like before.”
The color drains from his cheeks and he swallows before rallying. “Well, they better watch out, hadn’t they, ’cause I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly learned a few tricks since then.” He gives a winning smile just as my phone explodes into life again.
29
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 10—TINKER, TAYLOR,
SOLDIER, SPY
Media tents line the back of the car park like festival booths. There are television trucks, presenters getting makeup touch-ups while they scan scripts, production runners dashing back and forth. Someone’s even set up a food truck to feed them all. And I thought it was bad when I left last night after the news broke that Matthew was talking. It seems I’m the last to hear about the Met’s involvement in the case. I feel Joe shift in the car seat next to me. Oh God, I shouldn’t have brought him here. Why did I let him come?
They recognize my car as soon as I pull up to the staff bay, and start shouting and running toward the car—they know I’m Mr. Nobody’s doctor. And they know that if I’m back at the hospital, then something is definitely happening. I look to Joe. He nods and pops his car door. Thankfully, I catch sight of the security chief, Trevor, ahead of the throng rushing toward us. When he gets close enough he eyes Joe quickly before launching into an update.
“The Met just gave a press statement out front. The parents are on their way, apparently.” He curses. “These lot are all here to see the Taylors.”
I catch Joe’s eye. Jesus.
A barrage of questions rolls toward me. “Dr. Lewis, can you confirm that Matthew is the missing Taylor child?”
“Benjamin Taylor disappeared in September of 1992. Do you have any knowledge of his whereabouts over the twenty-seven years he’s been missing?”
“Have you spoken with the parents yet, Dr. Lewis?” I become aware that a camera crew is now filming us as we walk, the cameraman walking backward in front of us as our strange parade rushes on.
“Is the patient making a speedy recovery, Dr. Lewis?”
“Does he have any memory yet of the trauma he’s been through?”
“Was he held against his will for the duration?”
“Can we expect to see Benjamin out of hospital soon
, Doctor?”
Trevor fends them off, holding the crowd back as we head inside. As we break through into the lobby I gasp in a breath and three security guards block the way of the press after us. The doors slide shut, muffling their shouted questions. I try to keep my expression neutral, even though every pore wants to scream Leave us alone. I’m keenly aware that we’re still on camera. Joe’s expression is unreadable, except for his eyes. In them I see that haunted look I remember so well. We’ve been through walks like this before, Joe and I. And they don’t get easier.
As I leave Joe with Trevor to head back to the train station via the back entrance, he hugs me, tight. “Call me after you’ve done it,” he whispers.
* * *
—
Matthew is waiting for me on the ward.
He’s standing with his back to me, staring out the window at the crisp winter blue of the open sky, not a cloud in sight. “They told me I might be called Benjamin. I don’t feel like a Benjamin.” He speaks with a lightness that almost breaks my heart.
“I’m sorry this is all happening to you, Matthew. I don’t really understand yet on what basis they’re making this connection.”
He turns to face me. “Do you think they could be right? Is this who I am? Benjamin Taylor?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting down on his bed to work through it properly for the first time. “Let’s look at the facts.” Joe managed to find an old news story from the nineties on his phone on the drive here. “Here’s what the authorities know….Twelve-year-old Benjamin Taylor left his house in Tottenham on the twenty-seventh of September, 1992, to walk to school—but he never made it there. At the time, there was a national search for him; they did a reconstruction of his last movements and they questioned a number of suspects. But Benjamin was never seen again.” I’m careful now. “His parents didn’t stop looking, though. They were very vocal during the campaign and they’ve kept up Benjamin’s website all this time. Ben’s father has been checking the missing persons database every week since. That’s how they saw your photo.”
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