It’s a nice idea.
She nods and I head through the doorway into the connecting bedroom, leaving her to look around. I know it won’t be long until she notices, so I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait. My hands quiver as I look at them. So much rides on what happens next. I look up at the bedroom wall in front of me. Research. Months of work. Months of planning. News clippings, plans, logistics to get Emma here, alone, now. Not that I can remember doing most of it. A small article has fallen to the floor, a clipping about an Afro-Caribbean nurse attacked in a park. I stand and pin it back up next to the photo of Rhoda on the board. Alongside it, old articles on Marni Beaufort. The Charles Beaufort inquiry. Sixteen-year-old Marni in paparazzi pictures, her fingers bandaged on her left hand.
In the beginning, I’d only been looking into Dr. Emma Lewis—it’s her I need—but Dr. Lewis’s history only went back so far. But I had resources, I dug deeper, I’ve gotten good at that over the years. And in Dr. Lewis’s past I found Marni Beaufort. With her burnt fingers and her dead dad.
I scan the wall, my wall, so many faces, faces from the hospital, snippets of their lives, little memories stored deep inside my mind. The first time I saw this wall, after the phone brought me here three days ago, I studied it and things started to come together. I realized how I knew half of what I knew. My research, clues I’d left myself. The extent of what I might have done wakening inside me.
I listen to her out there, the soft shuffle of her feet, the plumph of her turning over Lillian’s old books. I relish these last few moments. It won’t take long until she sees the photographs of Stephen on the wall, Stephen and his mother Lillian. Photographs of them gardening, of her visiting him in London, of his smiling face, similar to mine but different. Very different really. But I chose someone believable, it seems. I think I always do. Someone whose passport photo is close enough to me to be plausible. And no one really looks like their passport photo anyway, do they? We all lose a few pounds, we change our hair, we get older.
The room next door has gone silent, she’s stopped moving out there. It must be happening. I go over to the doorway and watch her. Her back to me, as she peers at the photographs pinned to the wall, her hand gently resting on one in particular, a faded color photo. Though her back is turned I feel it happen, I feel the realization slowly take her, sinking into every bone in her body, I feel the air in the house around us thicken. I feel her fear as she realizes that the person in the house with her isn’t who she thinks it is.
She must feel my eyes on her because she straightens, slowly, and turns, trying so hard to keep calm, to stay in control, to not let the huge waves of panic sweeping through her engulf and drown her. She’s already seen what I can do. She saw yesterday in the hospital. She knows there’s no use running.
I give her my most reassuring smile. What else can I do? After all, I like her. I want her to feel safe. All of this is for her.
She holds my gaze. Her expression a careful mask. She’s calculating her options. I would be too.
I step into the room slowly. I don’t want to spook her. She starts to speak but the words catch, she clears her throat and tries again. “You’re not Stephen.”
“No.”
She blinks. “Who are you?”
I think for a second how best to answer.
“I don’t know,” I say, because that’s the truth. If I knew, I wouldn’t be here; I wouldn’t need her.
She takes a moment to absorb this, then nods. “And what happened to the real Stephen?”
I wonder for a moment if I should lie, if I should keep the terrible truth from her longer. But then I realize she can’t help me if I keep lying. “I’m not entirely sure yet,” I say, very carefully, “but I’m pretty certain I killed him.” I drop the British accent now too, letting myself slip back into my American vowel sounds. Her eyes flare, blazing at me from across the room. She swallows. She’s terrified. I can’t blame her. So was I when I remembered some of the things I’ve done.
“I need your help, Emma. Do you think you can help me?” I say it tenderly, I want her to know she is safe with me, she is protected.
Her eyes flash to the door and back to me.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Emma, I promise. I just need your help. I just need you to listen to me, please. I need you to tell me how to fix this. How to fix my mind. Can we just talk?”
She moistens her bottom lip, eyes alive as she studies me intently. She seems to reach a conclusion and her demeanor changes ever so slightly. She seems to settle back into the room. Then nods her head decisively. “Okay. Okay, let’s do this. We can do this. Let’s talk.” She looks around the room, her eyes alighting on the two armchairs that face out to the sea beyond. She gestures over to them. “Shall we?”
43
ZARA AND CHRIS
DAY 13—TIME OUT
Zara’s hair is scraped up tight into a messy bun, loose strands framing her face, as she tries to keep her voice even. “I know it was my idea, Chris, but I want you to come back. Okay?” Chris is perched on the edge of their bed, his eyes fixed on the thick pile carpet they chose together six months ago. “I was angry, Chris. Come on, you’re no angel, you lied to me. You didn’t tell me you knew her, who she was. I just find a text and I’m supposed to understand why you want to go for a secret drink with another woman? We don’t keep secrets.”
Chris stays quiet, he hasn’t told her what happened the night before last either. The kiss. That long, warm kiss fourteen years in the making. He can’t tell Zara how he lights up when he sees Emma, how she lets him look after her, how she makes him feel needed. And how Zara doesn’t. How he needs Zara more than she needs him and no matter how long they’ve been together he still feels closer to Emma.
“Say something, Chris,” she prompts, her voice quiet, hopeful.
Chris looks up at her, at his stuff littering the floor of their bedroom, at the honeymoon suitcase open next to him on the bed. “Honey, if I had told you who she was, you would have just written about it. Wouldn’t you?” He says it almost tenderly because he reasons, who’s he to judge, he promised to love Zara forever and he barely made a year.
“That’s not fair, Chris. I might not be an angel, but don’t pretend that’s the reason you didn’t tell me you’d invited her for a drink. Because you were worried I’d write a story about Charles Beaufort. I’m not an idiot. You asked her out for a drink because you wanted to spend time with her. You missed her, right? You liked her, back then, didn’t you? Did you guys go out? Did you sleep together back then?”
Chris looks at Zara’s un-made-up face—her cheeks are wet, her eyes red, but she’s still so beautiful—and he feels a deep ache of guilt. Marni and he didn’t go out. He never asked her, he’d been too afraid he’d ruin their relationship, their closeness, that he’d scare her away. So, no, they never slept together. And when Marni left, after her father’s death and everything that followed, he thought about her a lot. He wrote her a letter but hadn’t known where to send it; he’d asked the school to pass it on but they couldn’t. So he’d gotten on with his life, he’d gone to university and fallen in love with the closest girl he could find that reminded him of Marni. Thick brown hair, golden freckles, an infectious laugh. This was before he came back to Brancaster and got together with Zara. Perhaps it had been the way Marni left, the gap she left behind in his life, but he thought about her a lot. Less and less over the years, but every now and then so strong. He didn’t think he’d see her again. He wouldn’t have made a promise if he’d known she’d come back.
Chris knows he could tell Zara all of that, but why would he hurt her more? What good would it do to explain the reasons? And Zara shouldn’t have done what she did. “You’re making this about me, Zee. What you did to her was bad. Really bad. It’s like you don’t think the things you do affect people. You broke into her house. You’re so lucky that she hasn’t pursued t
his. Her hands and feet were bleeding, you know. And what you did, about her identity, that was just cruel, really cruel. It put her in direct—”
Chris’s iPhone blares to life on the dresser, on the other side of the room, its jaunty tune painfully at odds with the tone of their conversation. Chris makes a move toward it.
Zara’s eyes flare. “Don’t you dare answer that, Chris. Not right now.”
Chris squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a loud sigh. He sits back down on the bed as they wait, wordlessly, for the call to ring out.
After the silence settles, Zara collects her thoughts. “I was angry, Chris. I have apologized. I have said I’m sorry. There’s no way I could have known what would happen yesterday, you know that. Lichfield was hardly my fault. I couldn’t know someone would try to hurt her. You can’t blame me for that—”
The phone bursts to life again, insistently.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Zara whips around, picking it up without checking the number. “WHAT!” A voice on the other end, muffled, and Zara’s hand flies up to her forehead. “Sorry! Oh God, sorry. Yes, yes, he is. Who is this? Okay, one second.” She holds out the phone to Chris. “It’s a nurse from the hospital.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say her name.”
* * *
—
Seconds later Chris bursts from the bedroom and bounds down the stairs, taking two at a time. “And have you called anyone else?” he asks.
Chris frowns at Rhoda’s reply, then asks, “Why would she say that?” At the base of the stairs he shrugs on his uniform jacket and rattles his pocket for car keys as he listens to the answer. “Okay! Okay, listen, it doesn’t matter, I’m on my way. No, you go back to the hospital if you’re on duty, she said just me, right?”
Zara appears at the top of the staircase. Where are you going? she mouths, her expression racked with guilt. Chris looks up at her and raises a hand—they’ll pick up this conversation later.
His attention is drawn back to the phone. “No, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m on my way to Holkham now,” he says, turning away from his wife. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
44
DR. EMMA LEWIS
DAY 13—TALK THERAPY
We sink down into the two chairs, opposite each other, and I steal a fleeting look to the front door—it’s too far, and besides, even if I managed to make it out onto the road, I know he would catch me. I’d feel the weight of him crashing into me from behind and that would be it. No, best not to run.
I rest back into my chair, aware of the bulk of my mobile phone and pager in the depths of my coat pocket. The phone is right there, on silent—I could slip a hand down and get it. But then what? Pull it out and dial? Or just blindly tap at it in my pocket? I vaguely know there’s a combination of buttons you’re supposed to press to make a secret emergency call, but I have absolutely no idea which ones. Why did I never find that out? I could try my luck anyway but I’d only risk tipping the balance of this situation if he catches my hand moving. I’d only be shortening any precious time I have left. I know I can’t outrun him, so I need to outthink him. I need time. I need to work out who he is and what he wants with me.
I watch him settle; he winces slightly as he leans his shoulder back into the chair, this man who isn’t Matthew and isn’t Stephen. I ask myself what I actually know about him. I know he knows things about me he couldn’t know. He knew my name was Marni as soon as he saw me. And I know he’s killed, he’s told me as much himself.
In spite of everything that’s happened I still can’t help but wonder if this does lead back to that night fourteen years ago.
Judging by his demeanor, I don’t think he wants to kill me. He’s had the opportunity to hurt me already and he hasn’t—in fact, he’s saved me. A faint glint of hope sparks inside me.
I let my gaze connect unthreateningly with his. I’ve worked with dangerous people throughout my medical career; the trick is to realize that they are the most vulnerable. They need the most care.
“What is it that you remember?” I ask gently, after some time passes.
He looks away, out the French doors, toward the sea. “Just pieces, really. Only fragments.”
I weigh his words, unwilling to be fooled again—there is a chance he’s lying. But given the fMRI results only days ago, he should still be only dealing in fragments, as he says.
“Tell me about these fragments,” I prompt. “Is the memory of the forest one of them?”
He glares back at me, caught off guard. “Yes,” he returns, “the forest is one of them.”
Slowly his gaze softens and drops from me. “There was a girl,” he continues. “In the forest. I was younger, I don’t know when this was, what year or where. The memories are only images, sounds, feelings.” He pauses, clearly working through the memory as he speaks. “They come in flashes, moments. A young girl with dark hair. The sound of her chasing me, breathing. I feel in the memory that I loved her. I cared for her. I can’t remember her name or…She’s running after me. She was so…she wanted to help me. She was so good. An image of her face close to mine…she cried when I—I don’t remember why I did it—these horrible thoughts—” He breaks off, his eyes glistening in the light from the French doors.
I study this stranger’s face, a face I thought I knew, a face I’d come to love in my own way. This man has Matthew’s features but someone else’s voice, and the things he’s saying Matthew would never say.
He swipes away the wetness beneath his eyes with the sleeve of his good arm and looks back at me, searching for a reaction, a judgment, on his partial confession. But I’m used to hearing confessions. I’m used to being a receptacle for awful things, it’s part of my job. I keep my face an impartial blank, no reproach, only my willingness to hear more.
“I remember it happening, Emma. I remember my hands around her neck. Her eyes, the life fading, her pupils releasing, impossibly wide, black, endless.” He breaks off momentarily, lost in the memory, before snapping back to me. “I remember it happening but I don’t remember me doing it. Does that make sense? I mean, I wouldn’t do that, a thing like that. You have to believe me. I couldn’t do a thing like that…it makes no sense. These memories I have—they aren’t me—I can’t have done those things.”
His voice sounds reedy and lost. He has no connection to these events, no personal identification with these actions. And for one insane microsecond the idea that, perhaps, these awful memories truly aren’t Matthew’s at all flashes through my mind. The idea that somehow he could be part of the military, that these memories could somehow be someone else’s, that he could be part of some kind of program. A neuroscience experiment, a study in memory manipulation, and somehow, Groves could be part of all this.
Stop it, Em.
My thoughts stutter to a halt, because, of course, that is not possible. Medically, none of that is possible. I so want there to be another explanation to this story, I so want this man to be good, that I’m seriously considering the existence of artificial memory implantation in test subjects. I’d actually rather consider science fiction than believe my patient is a bad person. That’s how strong an effect Matthew has on people, consciously or not. That’s how much I want him to just be Matthew. An innocent man wronged.
But I know the human brain—what it can and can’t do—and memories can’t be implanted. Facts can be suggested to subjects, as in the shopping mall experiment, and memories can be embellished or reframed, but they can’t be completely fabricated. Not in the way that would be necessary to explain the things Matthew is telling me. Whole life histories can’t be manufactured, not by the military, not by anyone. Neuroscience just doesn’t work like that; only wishful thinking does. Matthew killed those people, plain and simple.
I try to focus, to distance my understanding of Matthew from the person now sitting in front of me.
“Do you think, Matthew, there’s a chance that you might have been involved with the military?”
His eyebrows rise at my use of the name Matthew. I realize I haven’t said it out loud since the beach. But what else can I call him? He’s definitely not Stephen and I have nothing else to go on.
He shakes his head “No, I wasn’t in the army but I might have, um—” He rubs a hand over his tired eyes. “Okay. I think it’s…Please don’t get scared, Emma, but I think one of the people I’ve…been at some point was a soldier. I think I took a soldier’s identity.” He pauses, eyeing me warily. “I pick people near my age, my build, people who look similar. I think maybe the military people who showed up yesterday thought I was that missing soldier. He will have disappeared. I might have been him for a while.”
Matthew took another man’s identity. He killed a soldier. He killed Stephen. He picks people and then becomes them, he literally and figuratively takes their lives. Images from nature flash through my mind: cuckoos, chameleons, hermit crabs. Existential adaptive behavior.
In a sense, I suppose, I am safe—Matthew can’t become me. But then again, that might not stop him from killing me.
How did the military not pick up on any of this in their interview yesterday? But then, perhaps they did, maybe they had their suspicions but needed more time. How didn’t I? It occurs to me that this may be the very reason Matthew has chosen now to show himself to me, before things start to slip, before we run out of time together. I can only hope Dr. Samuels picked up on something yesterday, sensed that something was wrong. And someone must have noticed I am missing today. I remember Peter’s missed calls and I pray he raises the alarm.
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