Just Before I Died

by S. K. Tremayne

  ‘Think about it, Tessa. The hag stones, and the song about death, the patterns of the birds. The blood, the hair, Hobajobs? Doesn’t it make you wonder?’

  ‘Wonder what, exactly?’

  Kath was flushing, as if she was embarrassed. ‘Tessa, have you ever believed in witchcraft?’

  For a second, Tessa Kinnersley said absolutely nothing. A ship’s horn broke the quiet. It sounded like a big ferry, heading for the Royal William Yards.

  At last, Tessa said, ‘Not entirely sure I quite got that, Kath.’

  Kath raised her voice. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean, you know, do you believe in old women flying around on broomsticks, all that. What I mean is: do you believe witchcraft could work in some way? A hex? Some kind of hypnosis? So that evil or madness takes over?’ Kath shook her head, and went on, ‘Because I also get this sense my suicide bid, this whole frightening confusion, it’s got something to do with my mum. And perhaps that’s why I imagined I saw her. Because she was into all that stuff. It was one of her things for a while, witchcraft, wicca. She bought those creepy antiques from her travels. Inuit dolls, African spells. We had that stone Celtic head, that was the only one worth anything, but whatever happened to her old books on demonology, those grimoire things? Some of them were sixteenth century. We didn’t inherit those.’ Kath looked up, her expression deeply pained. ‘Sorry, Tessa. I know I sound totally mad, and rambling, but that’s the point: sometimes that is how I feel, like I’ve been enchanted. Bewitched. I feel so tired yet I get these dreams, like something is draining my energy away. The past is holding me, still got me in its grip, something to do with my mother.’ Kath’s tone was fierce. ‘It sounds insane, and yet, if that is what’s happened, some kind of hex or whatever, that would explain it all, that would explain why I drove into Burrator. Right?’ Her eyes met Tessa’s. ‘Because there is no other explanation, apart from Adam, but what motivation does he have? What motivation would I have?’ She gazed at Tessa, unblinking.

  ‘Which means maybe I’ve been hexed and hypnotized. Something compelled me to do it. Something like witchcraft. But real. And it’s still working on me. Either that or I am crazy. Or both. Oh God.’

  Tessa rose and stepped forward to put a hand on Kath’s shoulder. As if she could anchor her to the ground, to reality, with a single grasp. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Wait. You really don’t need magic to explain any of this. There is a rational explanation. For all of it.’

  ‘There is?’

  Tessa forced a smile she didn’t feel. ‘Firstly, Kath, you need to know hallucinations are not unknown in cases of brain trauma, even mild trauma, like yours.’

  Kath tilted her head, mistrustfully. ‘They’re not?’

  ‘No. They’re quite common. It’s not especially alarming. Remember, you hit your head on the steering wheel quite badly, you were lucky the coma didn’t last longer.’

  ‘You’re not just saying this?’

  ‘No!’ Tessa sat down, again, and gestured, to emphasize. ‘No, not at all. Hallucinations happen. That explains Hobajob’s. It, also, possibly, explains your seeing Adam at Burrator. It definitely explains the sighting of your mother. You’re not bewitched: you have mild brain trauma.’

  Tessa knew she was winging this, embroidering genuine theory with wishful thinking, and hiding a great surge of denial, but all that mattered right now was that she calmed Kath down.

  ‘It’s like the grieving process, Kath. It’s common to see ghosts of the deceased soon after a death, it’s so common it’s probably normal. So, look at it that way. You nearly died. Therefore you are, in a way, grieving for yourself, and you also have some deep guilt added on top, because we don’t yet know why you drove into the water. Put all that together, and it’s not surprising you are so mentally shaken. But you will get better. You will heal. Trust me. It’s not magic. It’s science.’

  Kath gazed at Tessa, a sceptical expression darkening her face. But the threatened tears had abated.

  Tessa seized the moment. ‘Also it’s quite possible your brain is actively trying to tell you something. The memories of that night, that week, are still there somewhere in your subconscious, trying to emerge. It’s possible meditation would help, something like that, yoga, mindfulness. There are techniques, I’ll do some research. We’ll do all this together.’

  Kath nodded, this time with tentative hope. ‘OK, I’ll try. I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. Try and stay logical. The puzzle will only make sense when you have more pieces. Possibly you got a call from Dan in London that day, and you’ve forgotten. It’s likely Adam feels guilty simply because he wasn’t there for you, that night. And maybe – probably – everything else is coincidence, influenced by your very difficult situation.’ Another forced, reassuring smile. ‘So. Be calm, look after Lyla, and we can meet again if you like, very soon.’

  ‘OK. Yes.’ Kath looked at her watch, acting perfectly normally now, as if she hadn’t confessed to Tessa that she was labouring under a dark magic spell. ‘Thank you so much. I needed this, Tessa. Even if I do sound like a bloody lunatic. But I’d better be going.’ Kath offered a weak smile.

  ‘They’ve got me on half days, but I can’t push it, they’re being so kind. Everyone is being so kind. It hurts, it makes me feel so ashamed. The least I can do is return the favour.’

  As they both stood up, Kath gave Tessa a firm hug, and said, ‘I’m sorry – what I said about Dan being involved. Emma wasn’t entirely sure anyway.’ A pause. ‘So you’re probably right. It could all be in my head, couldn’t it, and I need time to heal?’

  ‘Yes! That’s the spirit,’ said Tessa, and immediately regretted saying it: she was trying to hide her own panicky feelings with cliché. But Kath didn’t notice the cliché. She gave Tessa a second, warmer hug. And then she was gone.

  Tessa sat in her chair, thinking hard.

  She really could explain most of this. The absurd idea of witchcraft, the hallucinations of ghosts. Lyla’s resentment and fear of her father.

  That was all neurologically and psychologically explicable, if sad, and disturbing.

  But Tessa could not explain one other thing.

  She could not explain the actions of her own husband.

  Wednesday lunchtime

  Clicking on her last favoured website, Tessa scanned her laptop screen urgently. She’d already visited five sites and looked in half a dozen books, plucked from her shelves. All said essentially the same as this site:

  Confabulation, disorientation, delusions and hallucinations are more pronounced after severe brain injury, but are not unknown after mild to moderate brain trauma …

  Loneliness and social isolation can also be contributing factors, and should be ameliorated …

  If these symptoms persist or worsen after three months the trauma patient must be re-assessed, and potential complicating factors considered …

  Many of Kath’s problems, as Tessa had supposed, were therefore explicable, even predictable. Especially being stuck up there at Huckerby. But the symptoms might also be ominous. Signs of a deeper malaise, or a hidden neurological issue. Perhaps Kath might need another MRI. Perhaps, instead, a psychosis was developing?

  Tessa fervently hoped not. The Redways would never survive if Kath had a proper breakdown; and what would that do to poor little Lyla? And her worsening symptoms of ASD? The new phobias and fears? Pensive, troubled, Tessa tipped back in her swivel chair, as the unavoidable doubts returned.

  That word Kath had used: alibi.

  It was a word Tessa had used herself. Of her own husband. The other day, in her thoughts. Just as she was falling asleep, after they’d had sex that night. Alibi.

  At the time she’d actively gone along with the self-deception: she had tried to forget it, but now she couldn’t. Not after what Emma Spalding had said to Kath.

  Alibi.

  Did Dan really have an alibi for that day he was meant to have driven down from London in his colleague’s car, as fast as he could, to see his sist
er in hospital?

  She needed the truth. But how to source it?

  Asking Dan was clearly pointless if he was lying. Yet she couldn’t ring that colleague and check because if it were a ruse, a fib, a BIG FAT LIE, Dan would have prepped the guy. And by calling the man Tessa would make herself the guilty party, snooping, undermining their marriage. Dan would get angry. Especially if he might be telling the truth after all. Which was entirely possible.

  Was there some way of corroborating his story, without arousing suspicion?

  Tessa looked at her screen, at the medical website. Pictures of stethoscopes, doctors, ambulances.

  The hospital. Derriford Hospital, Plymouth.

  She knew the number by heart, she’d called it so many times the days after Kath’s suicide attempt. She had it stored in her phone. Abbey Ward. Acute Medical Unit.

  For a moment, Tessa paused, and held the phone motionless in her hand. Like she was weighing her marriage in the balance.

  Another warship was sailing the waters outside. Ready to defend the nation. Grey and implacable.

  Tessa dialled the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, is that Abbey Ward?’

  Tessa could hear the busy sounds of the hospital, a slightly distracted nurse.

  ‘Yes, who is this?’

  ‘It’s Dr Kinnersley. Dr Tessa Kinnersley. I used to work with Exeter General Health, in psychology. I’m a professor at Plymouth University.’ The doctor bit was actually a doctorate. Tessa was shamelessly and mendaciously pulling rank, but she didn’t care. ‘I need to speak to Nurse Sally Davis, if that’s possible?’

  ‘Dr Tessa Kinnersley, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Um, I think Sally was taking a break actually – oh, no, there she is, let me get her, wait a sec?’ The voice disappeared.

  Tessa waited, a pencil in her hand. Tapping on her desk. Tap tap tap.

  ‘Hello, this is Sally Davis?’

  ‘Hi, Sally, this is Dr Kinnersley, Dr Tessa Kinnersley. Psychology at—’

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ Sally’s voice was softened by a lyrical Welsh accent, warm and eager, ‘I remember you! Of course I do. Gosh yes, Kath Redway wasn’t it, the accident at Burrator? Is she doing OK? I remember her poor daughter, that beautiful little girl. How is she now? How is the family?’

  ‘Kath’s doing fine. But she’s still struggling with some memory loss. Piecing it all together. It takes time with brain trauma, as I’m sure you know, time and care.’

  Sally Davis murmured her sympathies, and asked, ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m calling. Kath can’t remember the very early hours of her recovery, and we think it would help if we knew exactly what happened, if we could pin it all down.’ Tessa blushed as she told these lies, gazing at her framed doctorate on the wall. ‘That is to say: we’d like a timeline, like who came in to see her first, that kind of thing.’

  ‘But that’s easy!’ Sally answered brightly. ‘I was on shift! She was my patient, I’ve got the notes right here.’

  Tessa tapped her pencil again, faster. Accompanying her heartbeat.

  What was she about to discover?

  Sally came back on the line. ‘Yep, here it is. Took us a while to identify her, but as soon as we did, we started making calls. We called her husband of course, but couldn’t get through, and then—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I guess, looking at this number, ahhh, we called you? You’re in Salcombe, right? But again, um, we got no answer.’

  ‘Yes. The kids and I were away,’ Tessa wished she had more coffee, her mouth was so dry. ‘I’d taken them to see my folks, ah, their grandparents on my side, Shropshire. For New Year.’

  ‘OK, yep, yes, as you say – so then we tracked down her brother Dan, um, your husband, on his mobile?’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About eleven thirty a.m.’

  11.30 a.m.

  Eleven thirty.

  Tessa drummed the pencil, ever harder, and faster. Tap tap tap, tap tap tap. She had an almost irresistible temptation to snap the pencil in two and throw it in pieces at the fucking wall.

  11.30 a.m.

  ‘OK,’ Tessa said, as calmly as she could. ‘Eleven thirty. And what exact time did he come in? He must have been her first visitor?’

  ‘Yes, about noon, about half an hour after we rang him. He said he was nearby.’

  Tessa repeated, with theatrical calm, ‘Nearby?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember him telling us he was staying on Dartmoor, at that hotel near Princetown. Er, Two Bridges I think it’s called.’ Sally paused, and went on, ‘Does any of this help?’

  Tessa was no longer tapping the pencil. Two Bridges? This was too much. The sense of something dark and bad, yet formless, was now palpable. Something very wrong was coming into view. Tessa set the pencil down. And she asked, ‘Sally, has anyone ever asked you this before?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About that phone call, with Kath’s brother, Dan?’

  ‘Erm,’ Sally hesitated. ‘No, come to think of it, I don’t believe they have. Why? Is it relevant to her memory loss? We were all so panicked, so glad to get hold of anyone, to be honest. We were all focused on Kath.’ She sighed. ‘I so hope she’s getting better, that lovely little girl. How’re they coping, is she getting better?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tessa replied. ‘She is, and this could be really helpful, too. Thank you so much for your time.’

  With a brisk click, Tessa finished the call and set the phone down.

  Dan had been on Dartmoor the night his sister had tried to kill herself. And he wasn’t merely on Dartmoor, but close to the Redways. Staying at Two Bridges Hotel. And he’d been lying about it all along. Lying to everyone: to Tessa, to Kath, to everyone. So Kath was right. There really was a pattern. And it was being progressively revealed. Like a mosaic covered by soil, slowly scraped away.

  Another noise made Tessa look out of the window.

  The little Cremyl ferry, which had been serving this estuary for a thousand years or more, was crossing the harbour. Making its way from the Barbican to the Royal William Victualling Yard. Past the vast concrete bunkers where they kept the nuclear submarines. Dark and concealed.

  Black Tor

  Thursday afternoon

  I must go where the ponies go, as Adam always tells me: watch how the wild ponies walk the moors, moving from tussock to tussock, thereby avoiding the sinks of fetid mire, the sudden, tendon-snapping ditches.

  So that’s what I do, I walk diligently, stepping from clump to clump. And as I do, I look across the rolling green moors, at a distant spire of a church, surrounded by a huddled village. I am following Tessa’s suggestions. I am trying to discover the solution by lonely walking. And meditation.

  Today I am hiking a loop, from Huckerby Farm, over the hills, to Black Tor and back. It’s a walk I’ve done many times. I know this step-wide stream that bars my way. As I jump across I scatter dark birds from the nearest hill; they look like soot shaken across the sky.

  The birds crawk in alarm, as they flee, even further. As if I am the predator, come to kill them, come to kill them and arrange them in lines and rows and circles. Yet I do not feel like a predator. I feel anything but. I am simply a figure alone on the bare moor. A woman bewitched by memories, and the lack of memories.

  Yet of course: I am not bewitched, this is insane. I have to stop thinking this. I have to remember what Tessa said and get a grasp. I used to be logical: I was a scientist, an archaeologist. There must be a reason why I drove into the reservoir, but – I feel like screaming this into the sky, frightening all the birds from Yelverton to Salcombe – I still don’t know why I tried to kill myself. I still can’t believe I tried to kill myself. Somebody did something to me. Was it Adam, was it someone else?

  Taking deeper breaths, trying to get my proper bearings, I stop, and look north. A mist is forming around Princetown radio tower. How quickly mists and fo
gs roll on to Dartmoor. I can only see the top of the tower: the rest is cloud underneath. That means the whole town, as so often, will be wreathed in a cold and vile fog. Forcing the prisoners, the rapists and childkillers, to stare at a chilly grey nothing. Like an extra punishment.

  My pace quickens. I used to like walking the moor, these days I begin to loathe it. Who is out here? Anyone could be out here. Some random man, some killer; or another ghost. But there is no one visible. There aren’t even sheep saying meh. The solitary noise is the squelch of my boots as I walk towards the next hill, and as I consider the facts in my possession – all the fragments in my mind. They are like potsherds from an archaeological dig. But I am a trained archaeologist. I can piece them together.

  One of the few facts I possess, which I haven’t really addressed, is that suicide note.

  I can vaguely remember writing this. In Huckerby. I have a visual memory of my hand putting these words on paper. But that is all. I have no further context, no scenario. I do not know what I was wearing when I wrote it, let alone what I was thinking. So what did I mean? What is ‘this’ that I let into my heart? And why is it, or was it, so unforgivable?

  I am near the top of the next hill. And as I crest the rise, the fog parts dramatically, down to the south: in that abrupt Dartmoor fashion.

  The clouds above me are still a grey coffin-lid, sliding over the moors, but now, down there nearer the coast, the sun is bright: shining on the rich golden patchwork of fields, on the soft and lovely lowlands. And for a second it feels as if I am surrounded by a promised land. By Eden. The whole moor might be a prison, with cattle grids for jail bars, but out there all is loveliness.

  And I have been there before, and I will get there again. I will get out of this. I am resolved. I will do it for Lyla.

  Determination fills me. I am keen to be home now. Keen to see my family. Give Lyla a hug.

  And I know a shortcut. It’s not my planned walk, it takes me along Devonshire Leat, and on past Whiteworks, with its desultory ruins of chimneys and old spoil heaps, then through a scatter of ruined barns.

  There are so many abandoned buildings around here. Some are original longhouses, like Huckerby. Six hundred years old. A thousand years old. Places where laughing children used to live with nursing lambs; now it’s weeds and thistles, and dead rabbits.