Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1)

by Malcolm Richards

  Another name surfaced in her mind. Jermaine. No. Jerome. Why was that name important?

  She said the name aloud and a soothing warmth momentarily emerged from her melancholy. It was quickly followed by frustration.

  None of this made any sense. Why move to the city just to kill herself? She could have done that back at the cottage. But she hadn’t. She had survived the death of her mother. Contrary to everyone else’s wishes, she had survived Phillip’s suicide.

  The guilt she felt about that day in her classroom had kept her afloat like an island she could swim to whenever she grew exhausted.

  And moving to London, starting over again—it was like finding another island to swim to. Perhaps these names—Harriet, Jerome, Alina—perhaps they were part of her new life, her chance to begin again. When she thought about it that way, trying to kill herself made no sense.

  If she was right, if she hadn’t attempted suicide, then it meant one of two things. Either there had been some terrible misunderstanding, or someone had orchestrated the whole event—and if that was true, what had she become involved in?

  Her efforts spent, she collapsed back onto the bed. Her knees, ankles and toes ached. Emily embraced the pain. Pain meant she could feel. Feeling meant that she was alive.

  Sooner or later (she hoped the former) her mind would recover the events of that night, and she would prove to Doctor Adams that he was wrong, and to everyone who had ever doubted her that she was strong—a survivor.

  Lying on the bed, staring out into the perfect blue sky, Emily felt a chill that pierced her core. It didn’t matter how nice and private St. Dymphna’s might be, she was trapped here against her will, and until her memories returned, she didn’t even know why that was.

  ***

  “She’s a television actress. The paparazzi photographed her snorting cocaine at an AIDS benefit. The one next to her, she’s the wife of some celebrity lawyer. She’s also an alcoholic.”

  Emily sat as Grace ran through the reasons for each patient’s residency at St. Dymphna’s. Her limbs ached from the morning’s physiotherapy session. She’d suffered no significant neurological damage and so unlike other coma patients recovering from brain injuries, she had no relearning to do. It was simply a case of regaining the muscle that had wasted away while she’d slept. Her physiotherapist, Keera, was confident she would be running around in no time.

  “What about that one?” Emily asked, nodding in the direction of the young woman crouched at the window.

  Grace shuffled her cards. “Everyone’s calling her Bird Girl. She came in a month ago. Doesn’t talk, except to her feathered friends in the garden. This isn’t the right place for her.”

  Emily watched Bird Girl as she tapped on the glass, attracting the attention of a sparrow. She was like a child awed by nature, the rest of the word ceasing to exist.

  “That one over there, she’s a jumper.” A middle-aged woman sat alone, a book held open in her hands. “Bridges, buildings ... she’s been talked down from them all. I couldn’t do that. I’d have to shut my eyes all the way down.”

  Emily looked from woman to woman. Time was floating away from her. From them all. The daily medication left her processing skills fuddled and slow, but she took the pills without complaint, without questioning what they were giving her. She had no idea of her rights while detained under the Mental Health Act, and no one in authority was volunteering the information. Refusing to comply, she feared, would only result in extending her incarceration. For now, she would remain the model patient.

  Nurse Stevens had informed Emily that a personalised programme of events was being tailored for her. In addition to her ongoing physical therapy, she would begin cognitive behavioural therapy sessions both in a group and individual setting, and there would be art and gardening classes she might like to attend. A range of alternative therapies was also available. Nurse Stevens recommended Shiatsu massage. Doctor Adams would meet with her again at the end of the week. In the meantime, Emily should make herself comfortable, explore the activities on offer, perhaps engage with the other patients.

  “I suppose you want to know why I’m here,” Grace said. “Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. And I tried to burn down my school.”

  Emily stared at her.

  “Don’t look so judgemental. I waited until it was empty.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “This time? A while.” Grace snapped the cards together. “Okay your turn. Why are you here?”

  Uncomfortable in the confines of the wheelchair, Emily said, “You know why I’m here.”

  “No, I know what they told you. But you said what they told you is a mistake.”

  Emily stared at the girl, wondering if she could trust her. Before she could reply, Grace leant across the table and gripped Emily’s arms.

  “I saw them bring you in,” she whispered.

  “You did?”

  “Yes. It was still dark, before dawn. Sometimes, I palm the night meds—who wants to be under their control all the time? You can get away with it quite easily if you know how, and they don’t check unless it becomes obvious. It’s not the sixties anymore. You—”

  “What did you see?” Emily interrupted.

  Lines creased Grace’s forehead. “I like to go for walks. Sometimes that room feels like it’s crushing the life from me. There’s a skeleton crew at night, so you can take a walk if you’re careful, if you know how. They brought you in all strapped down to a gurney, hands and feet. They took you through there.” She nodded to the electronic doors on their left. “You didn’t come back out. Not until last week.”

  “Last week?” Emily stared in disbelief. Surely she’d been conscious for longer than that.

  Grace leaned in closer. “What did they do to you?”

  “I don’t know. Doctor Adams told me I was asleep.”

  “For three months?” Grace’s raised voice attracted the attention of a nurse, who sat at the far end of the room filling out paperwork. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m not sure what kind of hospital you think this is, but it’s not the kind where they keep coma patients. Something isn’t right. They’ve kept you hidden for a reason, just like Helen.”

  Memories were stirring inside Emily, trying to break free. “Tell me about Helen.”

  The nurse stationed at the end of the room stood up and began walking over. She smiled at the two of them as she passed by, heading towards Bird Girl. They watched as the nurse attempted to speak to her, and they winced as Bird Girl let out a distressed, ear-splitting scream.

  Grace leapt up from her seat. “Come on.”

  Spinning Emily around in the wheelchair, she pushed her out of the dayroom and along a corridor, rattling the handles of each door they passed.

  “It’s not safe to talk in there,” Grace said. “They listen in.”

  They turned a corner and Grace sped up. The next door she tried swung open and she wheeled Emily into a small bathroom.

  “I’ll tell you about Helen,” she said, leaning against the toilet cubicle. “Helen was my friend. She was the only one in here I could stand. She was Borderline too, so she got it. She understood how awful it makes you feel.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She vanished three weeks ago. They say she came to the end of her treatment. That she went home.”

  “You think they’re lying?” Emily watched the door.

  “Of course they’re lying! What did they do to your brain? The day before she disappeared, Helen told me she was thinking about killing herself. Her medication wasn’t working. She was a formal just like you and me. They don’t just let you go—there’s a whole step down procedure to follow.”

  “Maybe her family intervened. Maybe they had her removed.”

  “What family? Helen was in and out of foster homes since she was five years old. Nobody cared if she lived or died. Nobody but me.”

  An odd prickling sensation ran down the length of Emily’s neck.


  “Perhaps she ran away. Is that possible here? Where are we?”

  “Kent. In the middle of the Downs. And of course it’s possible. This isn’t Broadmoor.” The girl paused, her eyes growing dark. “Helen didn’t run away. Don’t you remember anything? Are you sure you didn’t see her?”

  “I’m sorry. Doctor Adams told me—”

  “Doctor Adams will tell you a lot of things. Most of which you mustn’t believe.”

  “Why not?”

  Grace looked towards the door. They heard the distant squeak of shoes on floor tiles.

  “Because he thinks he’s God. He and that other doctor, they—”

  Emily froze. “What other doctor?”

  Images began to form in her mind. A grand old building surrounded by trees. An elderly woman with a sleeping dog in her lap. Notebooks filled with newspaper clippings.

  “Most people come and go here,” Grace said. “They self-admit, throw money at the latest treatment, then a few weeks later feel like a brand new person. For a while at least. But formals like us, Emily ... we’re here because someone’s signed a piece of paper, stripping us of our freedom. Don’t you see? We belong to them now. They can do whatever they want with us. That’s what Helen didn’t understand. She didn’t play their game and now she’s gone.”

  The footsteps were getting closer.

  “Do you know someone called Alina?” Emily asked.

  Grace shook her head.

  “What about where they kept me?”

  “You can’t get through those doors without a key card. They did something to you, Emily. They got inside your brain. Manipulated the way it works.”

  “Come on, Grace. Isn’t that a little science fiction?

  Grace thumped the side of the cubicle. “The Egyptian Book of the Dead contains rituals of torture, hypnotism and drug use as methods of enslavement. In the thirteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church used the Inquisition to strengthen their hold on Europe through persecution. The Nazis had Project Monarch. The CIA had Project MKUltra. London had the Tavistock Institute. It’s not science fiction, Emily! People in power will always try to control the masses. And we suck it up. We open the newspapers and we read the headlines and we believe everything we’re told because we’ve been trained to. Because we’re under their control! And it’s happening right here in this hospital!”

  Out in the corridor, the footsteps came to a halt.

  “Believe what you like, but I’m telling you—they’ve done something to you. Just like they did to Helen.”

  The door swung open. Nurse Stevens stood looking from patient to patient, suspicion creeping over her features.

  “Emily, are you all right?” she asked.

  “Oh of course, obviously it’s me who’s up to no good!” Grace huffed.

  Nurse Stevens folded her arms.

  “Well, Doctor Adams was expecting you five minutes ago, Grace. You go ahead now, and I’ll take care of Emily.”

  “Fine.”

  Grace shot Emily a sideways glance, then with her head down, stomped out of the bathroom.

  “I’d be careful of how much you believe where Grace is concerned,” Nurse Stevens said, as she wheeled Emily towards the dayroom. “The actual truth and what Grace convinces herself to be true are very often two different things. She’s gotten more than a few patients riled up with her stories. And most of the time that’s all they are—just stories.”

  They were back in the dayroom. There were more women in here now. Bird Girl was still at the window.

  “Can I go to my room? I’m tired from physio.”

  Nurse Stevens shrugged. “You won’t make friends by hiding away.”

  Back in her room, Emily sat on the bed. Outside, charcoal clouds rolled over the sky. Think, she told herself. Think.

  The first specks of rain hit the window. Clouds tore open and the rest came cascading down in heavy sheets. She replayed her conversation with Grace. What the girl was suggesting—mind control, experimentation— it was preposterous. Wasn’t it?

  She shut her eyes, recalling the images that had flashed through her mind. The grand building surrounded by trees, the old woman, the notebooks. They were all connected. But how? Suddenly, it was like slotting together pieces of a puzzle. Suddenly, she knew how they were connected. Alina. And as soon as she made that connection, memories came spilling forth. Alina was a nurse, working at that big old house, where people lay dying inside. Emily had visited there. She remembered roaming through its rooms, being shown around by Nurse ... Nurse Bates. And Emily hadn’t been alone. She’d been accompanied by someone. Who? The name struck like a lightning bolt. Jerome. Her mind spinning out of control, Emily lay back on the bed. Outside, thunder rolled across the black sky.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  March turned into April. Emily drifted through each day, adhering to her scheduled program. She found group therapy sessions deeply uncomfortable. She had no wish to share her innermost turmoil with a group of strangers, or to partake in exercises that left the teacher inside her feeling like a child. These other women were so different to her. Nearly all suffered with various forms of addiction. Most came from wealthy families and had self-admitted or had been coerced into self-admission, either out of concern or to eliminate the risk of further public embarrassment. Emily was the only patient in her group who had no choice about being here.

  “It’s early days,” Tasia, the group therapist, told Emily in a voice as syrupy as molasses. “The good thing is you keep showing up.”

  Individuals sessions with Doctor Adams were once a week. He poked and prodded at her mind and made adjustments to her medications. Her recollections of her life before the city were intact. It was her time after moving into The Holmeswood that was splintered. The memories that had returned to her were beginning to make some sort of sense, but they came in slow drips. And what she could recall she kept secret from Doctor Adams, from Grace, from everyone else. It was safer that way, until she could fully remember.

  Physiotherapy continued. At first, it was as if her limbs had been made of marshmallow. Keera worked her hard every day. Now Emily relied less on the wheelchair and instead made use of a walker. Having regained strength in her hands, she could also forego the humiliation of having someone feed her, or worse, have someone assist her when she needed the bathroom.

  Today was Thursday. Emily sat in the art room with a handful of the other women, paints and paper in front of her. Grace sat to her right, filling her page with dancing flames. Angela the art therapist drifted through the room, smiling as she peered over shoulders.

  Emily stared at the blank paper on the table. It was strange, all those years of teaching and now here she was, sat on the other side of the classroom. With that thought, Phillip came, and a dull, dragging weight in her heart. Distracting herself, she examined the poster prints that were tacked along the walls—Monet’s Water Lilies and the Japanese Bridge, van Gough’s Starry Night, Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. There were prints she had never seen before. Her eyes roamed over each one, taking in their colours, their shapes and lines. She gasped.

  The portrait of a woman was pinned above the sink. She was sat in profile, hands clasped in her lap, auburn hair tied back in a strange, elaborate cone. Her expression was pensive and only the whites of her eyes showed. But what had disturbed Emily was the woman’s elongated, birdlike neck.

  “Amedeo Clemente Modigliani.”

  Doctor Adams stood beside her, his gaze lingering over the portrait.

  “He was an Italian painter. Like van Gogh he suffered the tragedy of posthumous credibility. But of course, the real tragedy lies with the lovely lady you see right there—Jeanne Hébuterne—a beautiful young art student who fell in love with Modigliani. His work was the subject of great controversy. His exhibition of nudes created a great deal of outrage at the time and was shut down by the police on its opening day.

  “Horrified that she should be fraternising with such a sinful heathen, Hébuterne’s dev
out Catholic family promptly ostracized her. But what did she care? She was young and in love. The two lived together in unmarried bliss. Soon after Jeanne gave birth to their daughter, Modigliani vowed to marry her—much to the chagrin of her family. However, the marriage was not to be. Modigliani, who had battled tuberculosis since the age of sixteen, became gravely ill. He died at the age of thirty-five. Hébuterne was eight months pregnant with their second child. The day after the funeral, she returned to her parents’ home, where, inconsolable, she leapt from a fifth-floor window, killing herself and their unborn child. It’s terribly romantic, don’t you think? Sacrificing oneself in the name of love.”

  Emily was transfixed. The woman’s strange, elongated neck, her pondering expression—the painting had an undeniably similar style to the one she had found of Alina.

  “It’s not romantic,” Grace said, who had been listening to Doctor Adams’ tale. “It’s reductive. And a waste.”

  Doctor Adams laughed. “Our young Grace, forever the cynic.”

  Emily stared down at the blank paper in front of her, conjuring up the image of Alina’s portrait. She was missing something ... something to do with a name.

  “Doctor Adams, how nice to see you!” Angela made her way towards them. “The girls have been coming up with some truly wonderful art this morning, you should take a look around.”

  The therapist noticed Emily’s blank paper.

  “Having trouble getting started?” she asked. “You don’t need to be Frida Kahlo if that’s what you’re worried about. Just pick up a brush, take a deep breath, let it out, and see what happens.”

  Angela and Doctor Adams watched as Emily picked up the brush and dipped it into a pot of red paint. Her hand hovered over the page. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the image in her mind, and then she moved the brush up and down in long strokes. When she was finished, she looked at the two large letters she had painted on the paper: A.C.

  Angela raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. What does that mean to you?”