The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  Convention and upbringing bind Alma to all received expectations, dictating her every move, and making her miserable with the sudden knowledge that she does not have the courage to ask for anything. And even if by some miracle she remembered the name of the pub on the book of matches he showed her, the one he lived above, she would never be the first to call. Because you don’t, do you? Just in case the other person says no.

  So much for women’s lib, she thinks, glumly. For it’s not as simple as just being strong enough to be your true self. Viola has read all the right books and taken out a subscription to Spare Rib but it’s not adherence to the latest fashionable thinking that enables her to get what she wants, it’s the innate poise and self-confidence that come with money and class. Her sense of prerogative.

  ‘Thanks then, and see you later,’ Alma calls out to Brian as he steps into the shadows.

  The barman turns back towards her then winks. ‘Not unless I see you first.’

  9

  Camden, February 2016

  Mrs Duffy? I’m looking for your lodger – I wonder, is she in?

  The older woman took a step back into the house, bracing her arm against the half-open door. Her eyes narrowed. No.

  I don’t suppose you know how long…? Zeb hoped her smile looked reassuring.

  Half-turning her head back into the house as if out of fear of being overheard, Mrs Duffy frowned. I don’t suppose I do.

  Zeb took a tentative step forward. Clearly a different tack was needed. She got in touch after my dad died a few weeks ago. They are – were – old friends, you see. And I’ve come all the way from London, she offered, half-raising her arms with palms up-raised. Like a criminal eager to prove their innocence.

  Mrs Duffy’s face softened. I suppose you could wait inside, she offered. Come on in, then. Quickly, now – best not let all the warm air out. Have a seat in the lounge while I make some tea. She won’t be long.

  The corridor towards the kitchen was stone-flagged, shadowed and draughty. Though it was equally unwelcoming, Zeb stepped into the dimly-lit oak-furnished lounge and took a seat in the leather armchair standing beside a three-bar gas fire.

  Warming her hands, Zeb took in the room’s finer details. Its vague smell of heather. The ticking of an unseen clock close by, providing a welcome pulse. To her left stood a faded three-piece suite with lace-trimmed covers. On an old oak bureau stood a selection of bottles including Gordon’s gin and Croft sweet sherry. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the half-drunk bottle of Drambuie.

  Someone – Mrs Duffy, probably – had positioned some well-thumbed magazines on the footstool. Birdwatch. The Puzzler. Woman’s Realm. Lined along the windowsill above was a mismatched collection of Toby jugs. An asthma inhaler lies on a three-legged occasional table beside a pile of unpaid bills.

  We’re all out of milk. Standing in the open doorway, Mrs Duffy greeted Zeb’s glance with an anxious frown. You caught me just on my way to the shops, see. But if you don’t mind waiting… Davy? she barked in a raised voice intended to carry up the stairs. I’m just popping out to get some milk. Be on your best behaviour, now, we have a guest.

  Once the woman had gone, Zeb sank back into her seat. She fished in her bag for her mobile, to check for messages. With the old stone walls there was no network coverage so, instead, she pulled from her bag the envelope she received two days earlier, containing the silver chain with the charm in the shape of a tiny grand piano. Zeb scrutinised it once more for any meaning. But there was nothing. The postmark was blurred and there was no clue as to who sent it or why.

  She tipped the necklace into the palm of her hands and held it up to the light, as a low whistle announced the kettle boiling.

  Zeb stepped towards the mirror above the mantelpiece and stood for a moment, holding the chain against her throat to gauge the effect. She secured the clasp and let the charm drop softly against her skin. Should she turn off that kettle, she wondered, briefly, until with a volley of heavy footfalls on the stairs, a broad-shouldered figure thundered past the open door.

  As soon as the whistling stopped, she heard the brisk snap of a bolt being released then the click of claws clattering across a stone flagged floor.

  Zeb hovered uneasily in the sitting room doorway. Though the hall was in darkness, the distant kitchen at its end emitted a welcoming glow.

  Anything I can do? she called.

  It’s a’right, because I’ve instructions written out. His voice was breathy, and higher in tone than the size of him would otherwise suggest; childlike. You’ve gotta choose, though. Loose tea or bagged?

  * * *

  Zeb wakes in an instant. Disoriented, her eyes scan the room just to make sure, registering the stacked plastic boxes of Brio, Lego, and all things Action Man. Afternoon daylight poking through the gully between the hastily-drawn curtains. She glances at the bedside clock. It’s almost one.

  I am at home – in Matty’s room in Camden, she tells herself.

  I. Am. Safe.

  Even so, she is shaking. The recurring scene is unnerving. She is sure now that it must have happened, and some time in the last two weeks. Yet she still cannot recall the events that led her there or, indeed, what happened next.

  Zeb pulls on her clothes and pads to the kitchen to make herself a strong black coffee. As she waits for the water to boil, she stares once more at the calendar pinned to the wall. If Jean picked her up on Monday 7th, did she visit Mrs Duffy some time during the weekend before? She wonders how long she was in Scotland. Rubbing her eyes, hard, she tries to remember where else she might have gone; how long she might have stayed.

  On a copy of the previous weekend’s Observer there are some sheets of scrap paper. She takes a pen from the pot on the windowsill and begins to list the past fortnight in reverse, day by day. Starting at the top, Thursday, she writes TODAY – At home. Then, on the day before – Discharged/Arrived home. Then on Monday – Picked up by Jean.

  Zeb glances back towards the calendar. The only entries marked on the previous week are Pay Credit Card and a dental appointment on the morning of Wednesday 3rd. She runs the tip of her tongue across the front of her teeth. If she kept that appointment, that left four days unaccounted for. She stares for a moment at the sheet she’s marked up, then draws a circle to highlight Thursday 4th to Sunday 6th.

  How would you travel to Scotland? she asks herself. Would you go by train, or would you fly?

  Idly turning over the piece of paper, Zeb sees on its reverse a list of train times she must have printed from a website. It’s part of the Euston to Fort William timetable, and one train on the Wednesday evening has been marked with a handwritten star. Her mood lightens. So she took the overnight sleeper.

  Zeb turns back to her notes and fills this in. But as hard as she tries, even after two mugs of coffee, she can’t fill in any more gaps. Again, her head is aching. Too much caffeine on an empty stomach, perhaps. She pours herself a bowl of cereal, but without fresh milk can barely eat it dry. She starts to write herself a shopping list. This will be why Dr Prentiss advised against her leaving hospital so soon, she knows as, soothed by practicalities, her head starts to clear and the fear begins to ebb.

  Best not to rush it, he said. And once back home take it easy. Recent memories are a bit like naughty errant children – they will come back, just give them time.

  Exhaling slowly, she thinks of something else Dr Prentiss told her. How a combination of shock and physical trauma will often result in short- to mid-term memory loss. Think of it like a bookcase, he said, with our oldest, longest laid down memories on the bottom shelf rising towards our latest, freshest memories on the top shelf. Your memory books on the top shelf have toppled over. The good news is, they’re not lost – you just need to straighten them up. Try to relax and distract yourself and it will soon come back.

  Opening the cupboard to return the cornflakes, Zeb stares at the half-drunk bottles of alcohol, then carefully lines them up on the kitchen counter. Methodically, she tips t
he remnants of each down the sink, along with what’s left of the vodka from Matty’s room, then fills an empty carrier bag with bottles to put out later for recycling. Beneath the sink stands an empty pickle jar which she opens. The vinegar smell stirs another memory.

  * * *

  Leaning against the kitchen door jamb of that house in Scotland, she’d watched him.

  A baby-faced figure, barefooted in tracksuit bottoms, with an old T-shirt beneath a padded, multi-pocketed fisherman’s vest. Between dampened lips, only just visible, the kitten tip of his tongue. As he measured out the correct quantity of loose leaf Earl Grey his concentration was total.

  But then, feeling awkward, she began to scan the debris across the kitchen worktop. To the right, plastic cable binders were piled in a neat pyramid next to a glass bottle of what looked like water. Beside this was wadded gauze, a roll of duct tape and an outsized glass syringe. Just tiny details, yet they made the scene feel… wrong.

  There was a scuffling sound from just outside the back door followed by a low, warning growl. Which is when, as she turned towards the unseen creature’s location, the collection of screw-topped preserving jars lined up along the window ledge came into view. In each, a dull indeterminate mass was visible suspended in some kind of viscous liquid. Pickled vegetables, she assumed, before recognising in the nearest the pearl eyes and snub nose of a tiny squirrel.

  She stumbled back from the doorway. The man-child looked up. As their eyes locked, his face no longer seemed soft and boyish.

  May I use your bathroom?

  She tried to sound offhand, even though, in that instant, she felt acutely conscious of the ring of light in which they stood. Of the pulsing darkness closing in. The oppressive heat of the wood burning stove. The dog’s squall.

  Slipping his hand into the hip pocket of his gilet, he pulled free a large Stanley knife and as he delicately positioned it on the worktop, his lips twisted into a cunning smile. In a blink Zeb was in the bathroom, crouched on an old Victorian toilet seat, fumbling urgently with the catch of an ancient window as soon as she’d bolted the door.

  To open that sash was all she wanted, all she’d ever wanted. As if her entire life had been spent working up to that moment. And as the memory of it sharpens, her eyes fill with tears. Her mouth fills with a rank, foul taste; the smack of fear.

  * * *

  ‘Yes?’

  Zeb is blind-sided by Richard’s father’s clipped, staccato delivery, when he answers her phone call a short while later. She is in the sitting room, cross-legged on the floor beside her fourth mug of black coffee.

  Skittering across the room, she comes to focus on what’s left of a bottle of gin standing on the book shelf behind the TV and feels the stirring of conflicting emotions: longing, regret. Silently she curses. Why does the old sod, a retired naval officer who’s not averse to a mid-morning tipple, always make her feel like a naughty child?

  ‘Hugh? It’s Zeb,’ she enunciates, praying the man won’t notice her voice is slightly slurred. Can he tell?

  A furtive glance towards the kitchen doorway at the clock above the cooker confirms it’s just gone one. Not that early, really, she thinks, lamenting her decision not to call later once her head was clear; dismissing her idea that maybe a short, sharp mouthful of gin might help. The sun would be well over the yardarm, if it weren’t so cloudy.

  If the pair of them were at sea. Which they are not.

  She clears her throat. ‘May I speak to Richard, please?’

  ‘What? No, of course not.’

  The harshness of his retort is unexpected. For though neither of Richard’s parents had ever warmed to her and had only come to tolerate her after the arrival of their beloved first grandchild, they were polite. At first she’d put the distance down to the time it had taken for Richard and her to marry. But latterly she’d come to realise nothing would ever be enough to win their approval. She isn’t good enough for their precious son, that’s all. Worse, that it wouldn’t last had always been a foregone conclusion – for them, at least.

  Since she and Matty moved out of Richard’s place the previous summer his parents had been more than accommodating, of course. Positively eager, in fact, to provide childcare with next to no notice when something came up. Zeb knows she should be grateful for this yet, instead, feels anything but. Not just because of how their unconcealed hunger for their grandson grates but how, despite the split, she’s come to be more dependent on them, not less.

  It’s about the support network Richard can draw on, too. Aside from Hugh and Jennifer, his two sisters and an older cousin still live in and around the Holland Park family home where he grew up. Yet who does she have? The only child of a single parent, and now… not even that.

  Zeb’s eyes burn. Dammit, she thinks. If only I could just hang up.

  ‘I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘Richard is still in Spain, Elizabeth. With Matthew.’

  Of course, they are staying at his colleague Anthony’s place in Valderrama, Zeb remembers, banishing her tears with her hand. She first went there with Richard soon after they got together at work. His work – as the temp she was, in theory, only passing through. Can it really be ten years ago? Though she’d been there a few times after she had Matty. The apartment is in a purpose-built block close to the golf course. A pretty dull set up, really, though Matty adores the water park.

  As Zeb struggles to remember what day it is and when exactly her son should be back, Hugh exhales loudly – as if paving the way for some portentous announcement.

  ‘The three of them—’ he declares, pointedly. ‘—are back late tomorrow evening. Matthew will be back with you in two days’ time, as agreed.’

  So he’s out there with Helene. Zeb tightens her grip on the phone. Hugh has mentioned it on purpose, she senses. But she will not take the bait. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, feebly. ‘I thought it was today.’

  ‘Well you’re mistaken. You could try the mobile, if it’s an emergency.’ Richard’s mobile. Of course. Only he recently got a new one and she doesn’t know the number without checking on her own phone which was in the bag she lost in Scotland. The bag her father got her. ‘No, no, it doesn’t matter. I can wait.’

  Hastily returning the phone to its cradle, Zeb sinks back into the sofa.

  She and Richard have informally agreed joint custody. Yet Matty and she have spent a growing amount of time apart in recent months because of her work commitments. All she’s trying to do is earn a living, though her job is not the only reason her son spends more time with his father, of course. Though hungry for detail of recent events, she’d rather banish from her mind altogether the thought of something from a few months before, something which she has no trouble remembering at all: her ex’s concerns about her drinking. It had got embarrassingly out of hand since autumn, when he and Helene announced their engagement. And then again, more recently, when Dad died.

  Forcing her breathing to slow, Zeb modulates her outward breath to fully empty her lungs then waits before gradually inhaling. Does this make me a bad mother – unreliable, incapable? No, it does not. And I will remind Richard of this, she pledges, just as soon as they return.

  She waits for the pulse of outrage to subside. She knows she mustn’t allow him to make her feel like this. How Richard behaves is his own business. But how I deal with this is down to me. She stares at the gin, weighing up the pros and then the cons. But she’s got the next eighteen hours to get through. The world really does feel so overwhelming right now. Meanwhile she feels, well, just all hulled out.

  Zeb crosses the room and reaches for the bottle.

  * * *

  Zeb fumbles for the strip of painkillers she keeps in her bedside drawer. It is well past four now, and she has fallen asleep once more in Matty’s room.

  Groggily, she makes her way to the bathroom where, next to an open packet of Nurofen on the windowsill, she is brought to a halt by a half-empty bottle of aftershave. The make Dad uses. Her heart trips as she wonders
, briefly, when he left it here. Until she remembers: she was the one who’d brought it back. From the cottage in Woodleigh, the small Wiltshire village where he lives. Lived. The day she visited for the first time after his death.

  Zeb picks up the aftershave and unscrews the cap. As she breathes in the familiar smell of fresh-dug earth and mountain pine, the intimacy of it makes her chest tighten.

  So it is real, she thinks as she screws the cap back on the bottle. He is gone. Dead. The starkest of words with more than enough weight to upend her world. Trying to be practical, she swallows the tablets with a handful of water. But her ability to erase Dad’s dying from her mind, albeit temporarily, is unnerving. The mind can play tricks sometimes, she reasons. Close down for self-protection by shutting things out. A subconscious defence mechanism. Even so, being unable to remember Dad’s death seems like the ultimate betrayal.

  Slumping down onto the side of the bath, Zeb buries her head in her hands as she remembers the policewoman who came to the flat.

  The first thing she’d done was invite her to take a seat – as clear a sign as any that bad news was to come. Dad was found too late by a neighbour who’d been invited to lunch, she’d been told. Lying on his side on the floor in the office upstairs. Though the front door was found ajar, there was no evidence of any break-in. Nothing obvious missing. No signs of any struggle – no cuts, or bruises. Just enough evidence to suggest an acute myocardial infarction – not a term she’d encountered before, but one she’ll now struggle to forget. A by-product, most likely, the post mortem suggested, of undiagnosed high blood pressure.

  Orphaned: that was how Zeb felt when she first heard the news, and now feels all over again. Which is perfectly understandable, the bereavement counsellor told her. Because ever since she can remember, Dad has been – was – there for her. Always and without fail. Just him. For she’d had no mum – at least, not one she’d been old enough to remember.