by Ruth Dugdall
‘Hej du, Holly, have you enjoyed a good day? Fancy a fika with me?’
She tried to think of a response that would set the right tone, given she’d fucked him twice already today. ‘I’ll have to say no, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘I need a quiet night rather than sex.’
Leif feigned offence, one hand to his chest. ‘Fika is coffee and cake! You English, with your dirty minds.’
She smiled at the misunderstanding, but still had no intention of taking this any further.
‘I’m too tired, Leif. It’s been a tough day.’
She took her key from her bag, keen to disappear inside her flat and close the door on Leif and any possibility of them being more than neighbours.
‘Me too!’ he said, as she was turning away. ‘I was called in as guard duty after some woman tried to blow her head off.’
Holly’s key was still in her hand, frozen in space. ‘Where was this?’
‘At this creepy farm out in the sticks. I had to stand for hours, bored and cold. That’s why I need coffee and cake.’
Holly slid her key back in her bag. ‘On second thoughts, cake would be perfect.’
Holly found herself on Leif ’s sofa, listening to his lyrical Beowulf accent describe being called in for duty, which as far as she could work out consisted of standing outside the front door of the farmhouse and taking people’s names as they came and went.
‘So the police think there was foul play?’ she asked. After she’d driven Cass to the hospital, she’d been to see Jon and done as she promised, telling him of Cass’s suspicion that her mother had not shot herself. He’d put a call through to CID, and a chain of action had been triggered. One that, it seemed, had included Leif.
But he seemed blasé. ‘An attempted suicide isn’t a crime, but because of the gun they have to check there’s nothing suspicious. The forensics team came and went very quickly.’
Holly’s only knowledge of such things was limited to the rare times she’d watched a police drama on TV. ‘So they didn’t find anything to say it wasn’t attempted suicide?’ She seemed to care so much more than Leif. His eyes were heavy, and he looked almost bored with the conversation.
‘I don’t think so, but it takes time, Holly – all the tests they do.’ He yawned, stretching his arms over his head. ‘My only other visitor was a nosy neighbour, and a reporter who kept trying to take photos whenever I turned my back. But I promised you cake. Actually, let me feed you properly. Come!’
The sudden change in focus stunned her, and she found herself with more questions than Leif was willing or able to answer. She leaned on the doorway of the kitchen, wondering how Cass was doing right now, and if Maya had woken yet. Leif grated potatoes and whipped eggs, and all the time her thoughts kept returning to Innocence Farm.
‘How many are on the investigating team?’
‘Hmm? It’s a routine investigation, so not many. Our SIO said it was a waste of resources because . . .’ He paused, looked down at his cooking. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, trying not to appear too eager. ‘You can trust me.’
He sighed. ‘He said farmers have the highest suicide rate of any profession. It’s a hard life, and there are guns on hand. One thing leads to another, yes?’
Holly recalled Cassandra saying, She thinks suicide is for cowards.
‘But enough of this. Raggmunk,’ he said, handing her a plate. ‘Potato pancakes to you. Best served with cranberry sauce.’ He opened a jar and spooned a dollop onto the pancake.
‘Yum,’ said Holly, taking a bite. Its savoury wholesomeness was very welcome, almost transporting her from her circular thoughts, and she ate quickly. ‘God, this is delicious.’
‘Missed lunch, Sötnos?’
Holly felt her lips twitch at the corners. ‘Who are you calling snot nose?’
‘It’s a term of endearment. Literally, sweet nose. Which, by the way, you have.’ He was still busy, making cups of sugary tea. ‘The only drink that goes with raggmunk. Come on, bring your plate.’
She followed him back to the lounge, where she cleared her plate while Leif knelt on the floor by the TV, soon brandishing a black-and-white DVD, Murder on the Orient Express.
Holly laughed. ‘Don’t you have anything more modern?’
‘This is a timeless classic, Sötnos. Give it a try.’
Stomach sated, Holly sipped her tea. ‘Okay. But I can only stay another hour.’
She was shocked at the spookiness of the opening scene, the newspaper features that flashed in front of the screen telling the story of a kidnapped child who was eventually slain. The house from which the child was taken was large and forbidding, and her mind clicked back to Innocence Farm, though not as she’d seen it today. As it had appeared to her twenty years ago, when she was a terrified eight-year-old.
‘This is really creepy. I thought Agatha Christie was supposed to be twee?’ she said, and Leif turned to her with mock horror on his face.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this?’
‘I’ve never seen any Agatha Christie.’
‘But for sure you must recognise this man?’ Leif pointed with his knife. ‘Albert Finney, from the Bourne films.’
Holly didn’t tell him that she hadn’t seen any of the Bourne films, which would open up a line of enquiry she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t watch films because she’d literally experience every touch, every smell, and be bombarded with emotions she couldn’t predict. It was as if, that Halloween long ago, her synaesthesia had been born in the place of her conscience. While she was running away from something – or someone – in pain, her senses were rewiring, to ensure she’d never do it again. It made life unbearably close and loud, especially before she knew what was actually wrong. Over the years, she’d learned tricks to manage it, and training to be a paramedic was her latest and best effort to lead a normal life. If I confront the very thing I did twenty years ago, if I deal directly with pain and suffering, then my senses will quieten. That, at least, was the hope.
She didn’t own a TV and avoided books, especially crime novels. She didn’t even watch the news if she could help it. But this film, perhaps because it was set in the 1930s, or because of the formulaic investigation by Hercule Poirot within the gilded confines of the luxurious train, pulled her in and amused her. His was a type of detecting, now hopelessly outdated, that relied on a sort of cod psychology that surely wouldn’t stand up in court. The ending shocked her.
‘So Poirot is going to let them get away with it?’ she said, feeling disappointed in the detective she’d grown strangely fond of during the course of the film. ‘Twelve people, all guilty, walking free.’
‘Well, Samuel Ratchett did deserve to be murdered,’ observed Leif. ‘He organised the kidnapping, and there were all those repercussions for everyone on that train. He was a nasty piece of work.’
‘Surely that’s not the point?’
‘You’re overthinking it, Holly. It’s just a great twist.’ His Nordic blue eyes were sparkling with energy. ‘Twelve people in this conspiracy, all surely guilty, each one stabbing the victim. But none knows which of the others dealt that fatal blow.’
‘Preposterous,’ said Holly. ‘And a police officer’s nightmare, I would think.’
Leif leaned back, his arms behind his head. ‘Ja, it’s a tough job. Even from what I see, I wouldn’t want to do it for a living.’
‘But you do see things.’ Holly coaxed him back to the subject, unable to leave it alone. ‘Like the shooting at Innocence Farm today.’
Leif looked confused. ‘Did I say the address?’
She shifted awkwardly. ‘Actually, I was there – one of the paramedics attending the scene. I’m still in training, so I didn’t do much.’
‘But why didn’t you say so?’ He sounded hurt. ‘Why the secrecy?’
She had no good answer. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, wiping his hands clean on the legs of his jeans,
and reaching for her with carnal hunger, ‘it’s unlikely a crime was committed. There’s nothing suspicious about what happened. So my small part in it – and yours – is finished.’
6
Cassandra
Waiting. Watching through the café window at every doctor who passes, lifting my head every time a nurse in squeaky shoes walks along the corridor.
Waiting to know if you’ll survive.
Then, suddenly, Clive is crouched beside me, holding my wrist and peering carefully into my eyes. Dr Clive Marsh, esteemed psychiatrist and – I like to think – my friend.
‘Cassandra? Daniel called me, and I drove straight here. Oh, love, I’m so sorry about what’s happened to your mum.’
He hugs me, and I breathe in the barky scent of pipe tobacco, my chin against the tweed of his jacket. I can’t let go, can’t cry. I’m still too stunned. I didn’t ask Daniel to contact him; it makes me nervous that he did.
That was two years ago – a bad time, I tell myself. He’s not here to lock you away. He’s your friend.
‘They’re saying Mum shot herself,’ I tell him, as if hearing the words out loud will make me understand. Dad’s still outside, standing in the cold air. He’s chain-smoked since we arrived, and I feel like he’s avoiding me.
‘I’m so sorry, love. Why do you think she did it?’ Clive releases me and lowers his rather bulky frame gingerly onto the plastic chair. His battered jacket smells of cold air and smoke, familiar and comforting. His kind, crinkled face, his unkempt beard, his round glasses behind which twinkle gentle brown eyes. He’s here to help me. I don’t need to be scared any more. And I need to talk to someone.
‘I don’t believe she did. Yes, she was angry about everything that’s been happening with the farm, and I know she’d had a big argument with Dad about it, but she wasn’t depressed.’
Clive is turned to me, twisted in his chair despite his girth, so he can hold my hands. His assessing gaze scrutinises my face. ‘Suicides aren’t always the result of long-standing depression – it can be much more impulsive than that. You know this, Cassandra.’
He pauses. I feel the fingers of my right hand moving to the wrist of my left, where the old scars are. Yes, I know this, better than most.
‘Mum thinks suicide is a sign of weakness. Even back when she was first diagnosed with cancer, she never spoke about giving up. She’s a fighter: she tried everything to save herself. That’s how she met Daniel, how he came into my world.’
Clive knows the story of how Daniel cured you – most people in Suffolk do, since Daniel talks about it on his radio show most Fridays. I was away at university when you were first diagnosed, so I didn’t see your daily struggle, but you’d tell me when I called about this amazing man who was healing you using ancient ways. When I came home, fatigued and stressed with finals looming, you made an appointment for me. You introduced me to Daniel, and he became mine instead of yours.
‘Mum’s a fighter. She always has been.’
Clive looks unconvinced. ‘Hmm. It’s not always possible to predict things like this. A suicide attempt knocks any family sideways, but your mum is alive, and you’ve said she’s a fighter.’
I remember something then. It comes to me in a hot flush of panic. ‘Clive, I’ve forgotten Victoria! She’ll be waiting at school to be collected for half-term. I don’t know if Daniel will have remembered to call her. If not, she’ll just be stood there, waiting for me.’
‘I’m sure he’ll have sorted it out – he sounded very calm when we spoke. He was organising everything so he could come here as soon as possible. But I can check if you like?’
He slides his Nokia from his pocket and begins to search for the number in his contacts. I place my hand over his to stop him. I want him to understand, because panic is rising in me.
‘What will happen to Victoria’s cake?’
He frowns, the phone in his hand forgotten. ‘What cake, love?’
‘Daniel will bin it – you know how evil he thinks fat and sugar are. Her homecoming will be ruined!’
He takes my hand in his and I see him contemplating me afresh. ‘Cass, you’re displacing your anxiety. Remember how you did that before? The cake isn’t important. You’re feeling overwhelmed and I’m here to help you. I think you should take something. I could prescribe a small dose or tranquilliser, just to get you through this. You’re in severe shock . . .’
‘I took trazodone,’ I confess. As far as he knows I haven’t even got any, but my GP keeps prescribing it and I have a secret supply. ‘Last night.’
He removes his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose where the skin is red. I can see his disappointment that I self-medicated without checking with him first. ‘How much?’
‘One, maybe two tablets. I keep a bottle in my car for emergencies.’
Before last night, I hadn’t taken antidepressants for two years, not since that terrible September when I was confined at the Bartlet Hospital. I’ve kept well all this time, with only the blood in my body, the air in my lungs, to tell me how I feel and keep me going. Mindfulness and clean food have cured me – Daniel healed me just like he healed you. But yesterday, I couldn’t see past my delusions, my grasp on reality slipped and it terrified me.
I’m lying to Clive: I took the whole bottle.
If you hadn’t found me, Mum, and made me purge, I wouldn’t be here at all. So, yes, I know how suddenly suicidal thoughts can come, just like they did two years ago, and I’m not strong like you. I can’t stop thinking about that iced pink cake going to waste.
Clive watches me the way he does the members of Team Talk. I’ve become his patient once again, and fear grips me. I won’t go back to the Bartlet. I won’t let that happen. The same thought that hounded me last night, that made me swallow those pills.
Clive reaches down to his black hinged bag and brings out a small brown bottle, rattling it towards me, like a tempting toy. He shakes two white capsules onto his palm. Two nubs of narcotic, one swallow is all it takes, and then I can relax, and later my sleep will be heavy and deep.
‘I’m going to try you on something different this time, Cass, because we know the trazodone disrupts your sleep. I’m going to monitor you closely, and you must tell me if you have any side effects.’
He uncurls my hand and places the pills on my palm, where I balance the weightless possibility of them. ‘What are they?’
‘Fluoxetine.’
I know about antidepressants and their names. I’ve become an expert thanks to Team Talk. ‘Prozac,’ I say.
‘It’s for the best, Cass. You’re in severe shock and there’s no shame in getting help. I’m going to give you something to calm you.’
Clive goes to the café counter and buys a bottle of water. He returns and hands me four pills. I swallow the drugs without thinking and sit quietly like a good girl, because I don’t want him to think I’m refusing treatment. Hard down the throat, sugar on the bitter pill, landing in my stomach when it’s too late. Too late to stop the capsule breaking apart and dissolving like sugar into my bloodstream, sweetening the pain, blurring the edges of my world which is suddenly so cruel. My hands are so shaky, he has to hold the bottle to my lips and I sip again, letting my tongue swim in the relief of the cold water, as my body sweats and my limbs shiver. I regret it when my mouth is empty, when the water washes away the acrid coating on my throat, and hits my stomach. I want this all to be just a bad dream.
When the rush comes, it’s familiar. Antidepressants make feelings – love and pain, nested like sick birds in the heart – become distant, separate. I know they’re inside, cawing, but I no longer need to nurture them. This is how the drugs work: I’m able to starve my own heart of feeling. This is how I was healed two years ago.
I want Daniel to comfort me. Why isn’t he here?
Dad returns, and the stench of cigarettes and despair is overwhelming. He looks blankly at Clive, though I know he must remember him – he was there for the family sessions at the Bartlet too.
The three of us continue to wait for news. Finally, a nurse comes for us.
‘Mr Hawke, Miss Hawke? I’m Lauren, the ward sister in intensive care. Maya’s out of theatre and in her own room. She’s in an induced coma, her condition is still critical, but you’re able to sit with her. It’s best that the atmosphere is calm around her, as she may be able to hear. If you’d like to follow me?’
Clive stops me, a hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you want me to come with you, Cass?’
I hesitate, because I would, but it’s better if I seem to be coping. ‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Then I’ll say goodbye, but I’ll drop in on you tomorrow. Call me if you need me.’
Dad and I follow the quick-footed nurse across the car park to the Garrett Anderson Centre and upstairs to the intensive care unit. She opens the door and ushers us inside. The overheated hospital room is in semi-darkness, the blinds are pulled low.
Oh, Mum, there you are! Propped high on a narrow bed with tubes connecting you to machines, your head in a brace, your mouth and nose covered by a misted oxygen mask. There are dressings on your head and neck. Dad moves towards you without hesitating, his bad hand hanging limply at his side, all bluster and breeze. He’s a man who belongs in the open air, not in a small room. He leans so heavily over your poor body that the bed sways.
‘Maya! Oh God, Maya, wake up!’
I lean against a nearby chair, unable to move, watching him panic.
‘Please lower your voice, Mr Hawke.’ The nurse has her hand on his arm, touching the corduroy elbows of his crumpled work jacket. He has no other type of clothes, though he’d normally also wear a cap. It’s strange to see him bareheaded, and he must feel this too as he keeps running his left hand through his thinning hair.
‘It’s better if you speak calmly,’ the nurse says. ‘It’s possible Maya can hear us – when people wake from comas, they often say they could. So please talk to her, reassure her.’
Dad rubs his good hand over his face, then says, ‘But when is she going to wake up? Maya!’
He’s angry with the nurse, with you, with me. He’s a bull in a ring, not sure which way to direct his impotent rage. It’s all she can do to coax him into the seat beside the bed. He looks aghast at the array of machines, all connected to you by wires, at the tube coming from your mouth. You’re so absent, the idea that you can hear anything seems ridiculous.