by C. J. Cooke
‘I did.’
‘Would you like to enlighten us as to why you lied about that the first time I asked you about the nature of your involvement with Miss Ayres?’
Say ‘no comment’.
‘I was afraid. I was afraid of anyone finding out about my involvement. And what that might mean for the future of my family.’
Was El afraid? Was that why she didn’t tell me about her past?
He glances up at the CCTV, turns an idea over in his mind. Whatever he’s deciding is crucial to my fate, I know it.
‘Well, I’m afraid that we don’t look too kindly on deception, Mr Shelley, and we certainly don’t like witnesses being approached by interested parties while they’re on bail.’
Humble nod.
‘I understand.’
He gives a long sigh. ‘Well, what we’re going to do now is take another witness statement from yourself containing full details of your involvement with Miss Ayres and your approach to her while she was on bail.’
He lets that sink into my noggin. I give another deep nod and let all my body language shout out that I’m sorry, I know I’m stupid, please don’t lock me up.
She would do anything to protect our children. Anything. Even if it meant leaving them behind.
Canavan leans back in his chair.
‘Following that, providing all’s in order, I’d like to give you some strong words of advice to ensure that we don’t have to put you in the dock. Understood?’
‘Fully understood. Thank you.’
He asks me about my relationship with Harriet, and I don’t hold back, though the CCTV in the corner of the room is beginning to burn a hole in the top of my head. I explain about the flirtation at work, about my increasing feelings of frustration at home and how much I began to enjoy Harriet’s company. And it’s only when I’m describing how she arrived at my home that evening, the picture of her at the door now vivid in my mind, that I realise how much Harriet reminds me of Eloïse. Not as she is now, but there is a resemblance, even beyond their physical likenesses. A resemblance in the nature of my relationship with Harriet, the energy that moved between us so freely and with such power – it is no excuse, I know that, but as I think back to my affair with Harriet, I am inclined to believe that I wasn’t attracted to her. I barely knew her. I was attracted to the familiarity I felt with her, the resonance of a relationship I’d lost.
I don’t explain any of this to Canavan. As my horror at being arrested begins to lessen into acceptance, I perceive with surprise that he’s not hanging his suspicions on me quite yet. It is, however, understandable that he’s mightily underwhelmed by my failure to disclose the full truth of the matter of Harriet. It hits me then that my brother – no stranger to the wrong side of the law – could face tougher consequences than I do as a result of my enforced reacquaintance with honesty.
‘What – or indeed who – led you to discover Harriet’s whereabouts?’ Canavan asks.
‘My brother.’ It hurts to say it.
‘His name?’
I cover my eyes with my hands.
‘Wesley Shelley.’
‘Address?’
I give it, pained by each syllable. I’m grassing on my own baby brother. How can I ever make this up to Wes? DS Canavan writes it down. I try to tell myself that informing me where Harriet was won’t land my brother in jail, but then I know as much about the law as I do about lost tribes.
I tell Canavan about my argument with Harriet, recalling what she said, what I said, how I felt afterwards. Hearing my own words out loud makes me realise how stupid I was to approach her like that, and how selfish. What did I think I was going to achieve? I’ve risked so much for so little.
Right as I think Canavan’s about to renege on his decision to let me off with a warning and instead charge me with some major offence, a hard knock sounds at the door.
‘Come,’ Canavan says brusquely, and the door opens. I turn to see DS Welsh.
‘Sorry to interrupt, guv, but Gerda Bachmann’s on the phone,’ she says. ‘Needs to speak to you. Sounds urgent.’
1 April 2015
Komméno Island, Greece
The sun is low in the sky. I am parched and woozy with hunger. My clothes have dried on the rocks, crisp and stiff, the boat moans beside me and the wind buries itself under the sails. I roll forward and will myself to wrap the sails around the masts in case they get torn. It takes tremendous effort, as though the sails are slabs of marble. When I put my clothes back on, my jeans slide down around my hips.
In the distance, a welcome visitor: the white rectangle of a cruise ship. It’s about halfway between the island and Crete and seems to have dropped anchor, maybe for an hour, possibly for the night. I stand and stare out at it for a long time, trying to gauge how long it would take to sail to it.
There’s no telling what the current is like out there, or how I might manage to sail, given that I’m so weak. On the spur of the moment I reach into one of the stowage compartments of the boat and pull out a flare, but as I do I find another life jacket, visibly unused, folded neatly behind the pack. Sariah’s face flashes in my mind. I could bring her with me, if she’s willing. I set the jacket down and fumble with the toggle on the flare until it fizzes high into the air with a huge bang and a burst of powdery red light.
What are you doing? I ask myself aloud. The cruise ship is hardly going to turn course and head towards the island because of one flare. In any case, the pier is designed only for small speedboats, and the rocks around the island make it much too dangerous for any large vessel to come close. My only option is to try and sail out to it before it lifts anchor and takes off.
The climb back up to the farmhouse is unimaginably hard, and to make matters worse it begins to rain, thick dollops of water bouncing off the ground. I tilt my head back and catch mouthfuls of it before turning to continue. Several times I fall over, slipping in the mud, and by the time I reach the top of the hill I am coated head to toe in mud. I stand for a moment, panting and arching my head back again and again to drink.
Bizarrely, as I reach the incline of the hill and face the spot where the farmhouse should be, it isn’t there. Instead, a red-brick semi-detached house sits a hundred yards away, surrounded by a tidy garden with rose bushes and a yellow hedge. I stop and wipe the rain from my face, squinting hard at the house.
This is my house, I know it is. My house. The white car in the driveway is mine.
The rain hammers down, forceful and angry. I have no answers for what I’m seeing.
In the next instant, the house is gone, replaced by the farmhouse. I think back to the boy I dreamt about. Max. My son.
I know he is my son, and like a steady trickle my feelings for him course through my body. The memory of carrying him. Giving birth to him. Holding him for the first time. The feeling of protectiveness towards him, of carrying him out of the hospital and being overwhelmed by how many dangers surrounded him. Unseen dangers, things I wasn’t physically capable of defending him against.
Rivers of rainwater funnel down the hill, slippering my feet with mud and stones. I drop down on all fours, grabbing on to tree roots and bushes to haul myself up. My bare feet are gashed and bruised from the stony pathway, but as soon as I reach the farmhouse the pain dissipates – I’m buzzing with adrenalin, all my senses charged in case George appears. There’s no smoke from the chimney. A good sign. Still, I wait a moment at the kitchen door, listening for voices. I’m dripping wet and shaking with cold by the time I gather the courage to push the door open and step inside.
The kitchen is in darkness. No one around, no notebooks anywhere. I see the life vest on the worktop and snatch it up, tucking it under my arm before jogging up the stairs to the bathroom.
Locking the bathroom door behind me, I pull off my wet clothes and turn the tap on to rinse off the mud.
No water comes out.
I find a towel and scrub vigorously – my face, shins, then my hair. The effort warms me up, but I’m f
ilthy, smeared in dirt. I try the tap again, turning and turning, but to no avail. Just then, a clap of thunder shakes the room. A glance through the small window outside shows clouds the colour of charcoal brewing over the ocean.
A storm is closing in.
2 April 2015
Potter’s Lane, Twickenham
Lochlan: We married on a Tuesday. We flew to Crete, paid a man to take us to the island that Magnus owned and got married on a hill overlooking the Aegean. We had few guests: El’s best friend Lucia and her partner Vincent as our witnesses, my brother Hamish as my best man, and the priest who married us.
El was wearing a yellow dress with daisies in her hair. I wore a white shirt and trousers. We were both barefoot. It was so simple and beautiful. Afterwards, we went to the hotel close to the dock and had a beautiful lunch. We stayed a few days more on the island before returning to England to do it all over again, quite smug in the knowledge that we’d already had the real ceremony, exactly the way we wanted it.
I know it’s easy to say now that I’m in this position, but I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I’d been a better husband. A better father. I wish I’d said ‘no’ more often to my boss and ‘yes’ much more often to my family.
How fierce love becomes when it is threatened.
I’d expected Canavan to throw me in the cells after our interview, but he jumped to attention when Welsh mentioned Gerda’s phone call and I’ve been wary of asking what it’s about.
After two hours’ waiting, a woman walks briskly through the front entrance and introduces herself to the custody officer behind the desk. She’s slim, mid-thirties. She’s wearing navy Fly London sandals that mismatch her grey trousers and white shirt. No coat, strands of dark hair falling out of a hair grip. As though she’s come here in haste.
‘I’m Tara Goff,’ I hear her tell the officer behind the desk. ‘I’m here to see Detective Sergeant Canavan?’
A moment later Gerda walks through the door. I stand up and say her name, and she swings around, astonished to see me.
‘Who told you?’ she says, and I have no idea what she’s talking about. ‘The letters,’ she adds as though to explain, but right then DS Welsh approaches. She shakes hands with Gerda, then the woman.
‘If you’d like to follow me, please.’
Gerda whispers to me as we walk along the corridor but I hardly hear a word she says. Canavan and Welsh are talking and glancing at me as we make for another interview room on the right. Inside we take our places around a table, and I’m relieved when Canavan doesn’t join us.
‘This is Dr Tara Goff,’ Welsh says, gesturing towards the woman who came in before Gerda. ‘Dr Goff, this is Eloïse’s husband, Lochlan, and her grandmother, Gerda.’
‘How do you do,’ she says, reaching to shake our hands in turn. Then, more soberly, ‘My sympathies to both of you at this incredibly difficult time.’
Gerda explains in short, tense sentencs that she went to Eloïse’s offices in London and found letters that indicated contact between El and Dr Goff. She was able to call Dr Goff, who agreed to come and talk to us immediately. I’m still clueless as to what any of this means.
Welsh pours four cups of water from a jug brought in by a uniformed officer. I am rigid, analysing every movement and gesture, weighing up the silence. There is nothing about this meeting that indicates Eloïse has been located. Dr Goff’s presence indicates a problem, and I feel sick.
‘Is it all right if I record this conversation?’ Welsh asks Dr Goff, who nods and sips at her glass of water. Gerda and I share a nervous look. Welsh turns to a machine by the wall and hits a button.
‘Now, then,’ she says, settling back into her chair. ‘First of all, thank you very much for coming to speak with us, Dr Goff …’
‘Tara,’ Dr Goff interjects. ‘I ask all my patients to use my first name.’
Welsh smiles. ‘Tara. Could you begin by telling us where you work, what it is you do, and so on.’
Tara nods and sets down the cup of water, emptied. ‘I hold a senior position in clinical psychology at SLaM, which is the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. I am also Deputy Director of the British Dissociative Identity Disorder Research Network and a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.’ A long pause, in which I try to work out how this relates to my wife. Tara glances across at Gerda and Welsh.
‘I ought to say that normally patient confidentiality would not be breached unless you had already gained my client’s permission to do so for her own (or others’) protection. I’d like that to be minuted, please.’
Welsh hesitates. ‘We’ll keep a record of it.’
Tara looks appeased. ‘Good. Because I’ve had to consult with my peers very quickly about whether or not I’m able to divulge anything at all about my patient in her absence.’ I’m still processing the words ‘my patient’, when she continues, her voice lowered:
‘Given that Eloïse has gone missing, and that there are young children involved, the situation is a little more … nuanced. So I’d like to ask Lochlan to formally give permission on Eloïse’s behalf, given that he’s listed as her next of kin.’
Everyone turns to me.
‘I … give permission,’ I say, and everyone’s shoulders lower.
Welsh confirms that this is recorded. She glances at Gerda and says, ‘Mrs Bachmann said that you had had consultations with Eloïse in relation to mental health issues?’
Tara nods, and I do a double take. I flick a glance at Gerda, who – oddly – seems compliant.
‘Eloïse’s records show that she was referred to our clinic by her GP in February 2005, which is ten years ago,’ Tara says, ‘and that she saw a consultant on and off for about six months after that. Now, I don’t have any notes on a diagnosis, but what I do know is that she was prescribed a substantial dose of Flupentixol, which is an antipsychotic.’
‘El was prescribed antipsychotics?’ I cut in.
‘Ten years ago?’ Gerda exclaims, our voices overlapping.
Tara continues carefully. ‘Eloïse stopped taking her medication due to side effects, and frankly I think she was scared by the insinuation that she was psychotic.’
I ask Tara to repeat this, and when she does and the meaning of it still hasn’t reached me, she shifts to a softer tone:
‘Your wife was referred to my department again about four years ago, Mr Shelley. After the birth of her first child.’
‘Max,’ I say, wracking my brain for a memory of the referral. El was seeing a counsellor, I knew that much. I had imagined a sympathetic midwife, not a clinical psychologist and antipsychotics.
‘The notes indicated that she was doing well,’ Tara continues. ‘The sessions only lasted for a couple of weeks before she was discharged.’ A moment of relief. ‘But last August she made contact with our team again and was referred to me.’
‘Eloïse was pregnant last August,’ I say.
‘Yes, I believe that’s why she contacted us,’ Tara says. ‘Eloïse said that she didn’t want to go on the drugs again. She had started to have very frightening flashbacks. And she felt anxious about having another baby.’
‘That’s not true,’ Gerda says, though with less bite than usual. ‘Eloïse was joyous when she found out she was expecting again.’
‘Can you tell us about your sessions with Eloïse?’ Welsh interrupts.
Tara shifts in her seat as though trying to recall their meetings, or perhaps trying to filter whatever seems most relevant.
‘We spoke a great deal about her previous treatment. She had some difficulty talking about her childhood and I suggested she join a small writer’s group set up by one of our clinicians who was exploring poetry therapy.’
The writer’s group! I start to babble about Niamh, how she mentioned a writer’s group, and when Tara asks what Niamh said, I can only recall that she said El seemed different.
‘Well, that’s to be expected,’ she said.
‘Can you ela
borate on this writer’s group?’ Welsh asks.
‘We had a small group of about four or five patients who were interested in using creative writing as a way to construct memories into narratives,’ Tara explains. ‘We’ve found it to be a useful way to enable patients to re-engage with identity …’
‘And did this affect Mrs Shelley adversely?’ Welsh asks.
Tara considers this. ‘I didn’t see any signs of adverse effect. She began to tell me about the voices she’d been hearing over the years.’
‘Voices?’ I say, aware that I sound apoplectic. But I don’t care. They are describing someone else, not the woman I married.
‘She said she was frightened when Max was born because the voices grew stronger, telling her she was a bad mother, telling her that she would harm him. That she posed a danger to him.’
I just can’t believe it. She was hearing voices. I think back to the babycam footage of El talking to thin air. Was that it? She was seeing things?
‘Do you know why Eloïse was hearing voices?’ Gerda asks quietly.
Tara hesitates. ‘I think the abuse played a significant part.’
Welsh turns her eyes to mine, and my first reaction is to say I know nothing about any abuse. But then everything Magnus told me echoes in my mind.
‘I didn’t know,’ I say, surprised by how hurt I suddenly feel that El never told me. ‘I’ve only learned about it from El’s grandfather.’
‘It’s my understanding that Eloïse was taken by her mother from Geneva to live in London when she was four years old,’ Tara says.
‘That’s right,’ Gerda says faintly. ‘Jude was still a child herself when Eloïse was born. We never found out who the father was.’ She gives a long sigh, stares at her lap. ‘We thought about putting the baby up for adoption, but Jude said no. We brought her back to Geneva. She and Eloïse both lived with us. Magnus and I loved having another baby around, despite the circumstances. It feels like only yesterday. But then, everything changed.’
‘How did everything change?’ Welsh asks gently.
Gerda looks like she’s been backhanded. When she speaks, it’s as though the words contain thorns. ‘Jude found a boyfriend, an older man. He persuaded them to leave Switzerland.’