Dr Samantha Willerby Box Set

by A J Waines

  ‘Oh. That’s awful.’

  ‘It’s not just that he’s dead,’ she went on. ‘I’ve got this horrible feeling I might have done something bad. When we were all under water. Why can’t I remember more after we went down? I keep thinking the others must have thought about the back window too. Tried to get out the same way I did. Perhaps we clashed. Maybe I kicked them away – hurt someone, to save myself. I don’t know. I can’t remember!’

  She’d been scratching at a patch of skin on the back of her hand and made it bleed. ‘It’s as if my mind is locked from the inside.’

  She sat back, sucked at her torn wound, retreated into herself. Several minutes clicked by before she emerged from her internal space and spoke again.

  ‘It really looks like I’m the only one left, doesn’t it? Stephanie, first, then Max…I’m sure it’s going to be Richard next and – I don’t know – I feel like it’s wrong that I’m still here.’

  Stay calm. I’d been expecting this; it’s a normal response and I didn’t want to overreact.

  ‘You’re not alone in feeling like this, Rosie – many survivors believe they don’t deserve to be here or feel they might even have contributed to the tragedy.’

  ‘Why should I be the one who survived?’

  ‘Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be an explanation,’ I said, knowing it sounded trite as soon as the words came out. ‘As humans we want to explain everything, see how it all fits together, but it doesn’t always—’

  ‘I want to know,’ she snapped, closing me down.

  She sat forward watching my face for a reaction. ‘Can we go back? Revisit it?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ I got up, ready to prepare the chaise longue for the memory work.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean go back. For real. Go back, together – you and me – to the Lake District, to find out the truth.’

  I stood looking down at her and didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I have to go there in person,’ she persisted, her voice gathering speed. ‘It will all come back to me if I go back. I know it will. I need to find out if I did something terrible to the others. I need to find out if any of it was my fault, don’t you see?’

  ‘Look…I don’t think—’

  ‘Besides, I think I know which bridge the person on the phone was talking about…the one with the fortune underneath it. We could solve the whole mystery, all in one…’

  Rosie had a broad grin on her face, pummelling her fists into her thighs. She’d gone from distraught to exuberant in about twenty seconds.

  ‘That’s not possible, Rosie. Our sessions take place here. Remember our discussion about the auction house?’

  I had to get her to see I was providing psychotherapy, nothing more.

  ‘Blinking rules, again.’ She spat the words out.

  ‘I know, but they’re there for a reason.’

  ‘Why do I have to be punished for your decisions?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, forcing myself to sound less irked than I felt. She was like a bug hooking onto me, constantly trying to bury into my skin. ‘Psychologists have guidelines and—’

  She threw her eyes upwards. ‘Yeah, yeah – so you keep saying.’ Her bottom lip jutted out and a crestfallen expression took over her face. She hesitated and I sensed her weighing her next words very carefully.

  ‘I haven’t been feeling good…’ she said. ‘Lately, I’ve had…dark thoughts about myself.’

  My vision started blurring at the edges. I gulped down a bubble of bile. ‘You’ve been thinking about hurting yourself?’

  She nodded, examining her fingernails.

  Don’t panic – she’s not Joanne, it’s not the same.

  I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘We need to talk about this,’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘I need to go back,’ she said defiantly, looking up, her eyes drilling into mine.

  She was boxing me into a corner.

  She glanced at my phone lying on the coffee table. ‘Tell me again why you record our sessions,’ she said, drawing herself upright. Since that first time, I’d recorded every one of them.

  ‘So I don’t miss anything,’ I said, ‘so I can check we’re on track with our objectives.’

  ‘Who do you play it to?’

  ‘Only my supervisor. You would never meet that person. All psychologists have to be accountable to someone in a higher position…you know that.’

  ‘And is it also so the authorities can tell if you do something wrong?’

  I stalled for a second. ‘Yes, that too – if it ever came to it.’

  ‘I thought so,’ she said knowingly.

  She gave me an odd stare, twisting her mouth into a half-smile as if we were playing a game. She cleared her throat. ‘I need to go back. If we don’t go back to the place where it all happened…if we don’t make this last-ditch attempt to find the truth, I don’t know what I might do to myself…’

  Was Rosie consciously blackmailing me? Or was this the voice of that seven-year-old desperate to be heard?

  Revisiting the trauma location was an entirely bona fide form of therapy: Exposure Therapy. I’d used it with a number of patients. It might give Rosie the very best chance of recovering those last threads of memory that were floating near the surface. It might even give her all the answers she needed, so I could bring our sessions to a close with a clear conscience.

  The problem was that Rosie undoubtedly exhibited traits of a histrionic personality disorder. She came on too strong, constantly seeking approval, she showed limited empathy, found it hard to tolerate frustration and was like a jack-in-a-box, always jumping from one emotional state to another. It didn’t mean she was dangerous, as such, but it did mean I had to be highly vigilant in setting tight and clear boundaries with her.

  Going away together? How would she interpret that? Could it do more harm than good?

  On the other hand, what if I turned her down? Was I really going to take the chance after what had happened with Joanne?

  As long as I made everything crystal clear and Rosie was in no doubt about the limitations, might it just be worth a try?

  ‘If it was possible, and I’m not saying it is, yet, we’d then have to bring our sessions to a close.’

  ‘Oh…’ Her mouth hung open waiting for more.

  ‘Even if your memory didn’t return fully and you were still left with loose ends.’

  ‘Ok-ay,’ she murmured, her eyes narrowing, full of mistrust.

  ‘You understand what I’m saying? We carry out the therapy at the crime scene by the book and afterwards, no matter what happens, the sessions come to an end between us.’

  ‘Yeah. All right.’

  ‘Right, then…this is my proposal,’ I said. ‘We would travel separately and find different guest houses. We wouldn’t be going as friends or companions. We’ll have two or three sessions while we’re there, over two days, at the scene itself. Otherwise we’ll be separate. It won’t be a holiday. No meals together, no chatting.’

  She got to her feet and clasped her hand to her heart. ‘Thank you so much. You might just have saved my life.’ She took a half step forward and waited, as if she was hoping for an embrace. I stayed in my chair.

  ‘Then, after that, we will end our sessions. By then, we’ll have done a lot of work together.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Of course. I understand.’

  ‘Are you happy to proceed under those circumstances?’

  ‘I am. Yes. More than happy.’ She was clutching the bookcase now, wavering as if she didn’t know what had hit her.

  ‘Then we can go to the Lakes,’ I said.

  Her chin began to wobble and she stared at the carpet, trying to hide the fact that her eyes were filling up.

  ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she said suddenly and rushed off. Through the closed door, I could hear her sobs muffled by a towel. When she came back her eyes looked puffy and raw.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m just a bit…ove
rwhelmed.’ She gave me a half smile, trying to compose herself as she sat down again.

  ‘When can you get time off work?’ I said.

  ‘Any time. I’m due loads.’

  ‘Make enquiries and then leave a message for me on the hospital number, okay?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll pay for your train fare and room, of course,’ she said.

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  The idea was already forming in my mind of staying on for a few days once we’d done the Exposure Therapy and Rosie had gone back to London. I could escape my own demons for a while – the silent phone calls, Con and Miranda, renewed remorse about Joanne. I could switch off for a bit and enjoy the bracing fresh air, peace and quiet. I hadn’t had a break in ages. The whole trip was starting to feel like the right thing to do.

  She gave me a wink as she departed, calling out ‘See ya soon’, before she hurtled down the stairs – a stark reminder of what I was taking on. I squeezed my eyes shut with a shiver of dread.

  Chapter 36

  Sam

  We agreed I’d catch the train from Euston at 12.30pm and Rosie would catch the next one. Shortly after I took my seat, I had a message from Professor Dean to say he would email over Erica’s therapy notes later that afternoon. At last…although I’d only brought my phone and didn’t fancy reading piles of pages on the small screen.

  I got to Penrith just before 5pm and took a taxi to my guesthouse. Rosie was staying just over the hill in the same B&B they’d booked for the quartet reunion.

  My room smelt of lavender and fresh linen. The single bed was high and squeaked like an old bicycle when I sat down on it, the floorboards sloped visibly from one side of the room to the other, but the place seemed comfortable enough. A radiator was gurgling to life under the sash window and the landlady had left a fan heater near the wardrobe. There was an old sampler framed on the wall and stems of fresh holly in a vase by the window. Cosy and quaint. It was a long time since I’d been this far away from London. Already the pace of life had slowed to a pleasant crawl.

  I ate steak and chips on my own in the 1930s-style dining room; it seemed no one else was straying this far off the beaten track at the end of January.

  ‘You’re lucky I was open,’ Mrs Waterman said when I’d rung to make the booking. ‘Most of the guest houses around here close down out of season.’

  I rang Miranda from the landline before I went to bed, as I couldn’t get a consistent signal. It had suddenly occurred to me that she might have sent the note about Con and the baby in a roundabout way of setting my mind at rest.

  The patchy connection probably also explained why no email had come through from Professor Dean.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, when Miranda answered. ‘I just wanted to touch base.’

  ‘Where are you? The hospital said you were on leave.’

  ‘You tried to reach me?’

  ‘Nothing urgent…’ she said, her voice cool.

  I filled her in on the basics and asked about her work.

  ‘I’ve finished two new pieces since that exhibition we went to at the V&A. One of the tutors thinks I might be able to get an agent; he’s talking to a gallery, apparently.’

  ‘That’s amazing…’ I was overjoyed for her, she deserved some success.

  ‘I sold that picture, by the way. To the woman from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. She wants to see more.’

  She was animated and sounded genuinely pleased I’d called.

  ‘We must make a date for that lunch,’ she said.

  ‘As soon as I get back,’ I assured her. I didn’t have the heart to bring up the note I’d received.

  By morning, my hot-water bottle had found its way onto the floor, but I woke up feeling keen and alert, so I must have had a decent night’s sleep. I switched the fan heater on for an extra boost of warmth around my ankles and opened the curtains.

  Outside the sky was cloudless and the window ledge twinkled with frost. I could see smoke rising from a chimney beyond the brow to the place where Rosie was staying. We’d agreed to meet at her B&B at 10am and follow the route the van had taken along the edge of Ullswater. She’d assured me it was only about a mile on foot.

  At breakfast, over a warm crusty roll with homemade marmalade, I asked Mrs Waterman where I could get decent Wi-Fi access.

  ‘You need to get to the Post Office – down the lane and to the right.’

  She poured coffee from a silver jug into my cup.

  ‘I read there was a terrible accident round here last October. The van that went into the lake?’ I said, hoping to pick up a local perspective.

  ‘Very nasty affair,’ she said, wiping her hands on her frilly apron. ‘They weren’t from this area. Something to do with the Hinds’ family up at the big Matterdale Estate. Musicians, I think.’

  ‘I saw it on the news at the time, too,’ I fibbed. ‘It looked like it wasn’t an accident, but beyond that, no one seemed any the wiser.’

  She poked the fire and a few lumps of coal crunched into the flames.

  ‘The police came asking questions and there’s been all kinds of talk about it around here, but who’s to know the truth? Some reckon it was all connected to a priceless violin, others said it was a cover for a drugs’ deal. The Hinds have had trouble before. Cameron’s brother was sent down for money laundering a few years ago. But didn’t one of the musicians escape from the van? Maybe she’s got the answers.’

  If only…

  I nodded vaguely, picked a dried fig from a bowl with the word ‘Nuts’ glazed on the side and chewed on the gritty seeds.

  Cameron Hinds’ brother. Interesting. Nobody else had mentioned him so far.

  Rosie waved as she saw me coming. She was standing outside her B&B, slapping her gloved hands together and stamping her feet. In her denim mini skirt over stripy nylon tights she was hardly dressed for the weather, but I noticed again how different she looked these days from the person I’d met a few months earlier. She was slimmer, wore tighter-fitting trendier clothes, and her frizzy red hair was straight and nearly black.

  ‘Frickin’ freezing, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Sorry, are we allowed to talk?’

  I smiled. ‘Good morning, Rosie. Good to see you.’ I turned towards the sun. ‘I suggest we wander along the road beside the lake and you tell me what you notice on the way. I’ll record, if that’s okay.’ She nodded, so I pressed the record button on my phone. ‘Try to set a little running commentary going of what you remember about the setting, the surroundings, anything that comes to mind about that day…’

  ‘Okay.’ We started walking, but Rosie didn’t say a word. Instead, like a child, she was going out of her way to find icy puddles on the rough track, and smash them with the heel of her boot. She looked up, jubilant, at the brittle splintering sound.

  ‘You need to focus, Rosie. Try to take yourself back.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah – I will.’ She swung her arms shaking off my rebuke.

  Once we were on the road itself, she began to look around, watching and listening intently. A blackbird flew out of the hedgerow and made us both jump.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ she reported.

  Rosie walked on ahead, looking lost, mystified. We turned round one bend and then another. A car passed us, followed by a small van coming in the opposite direction, then the road dropped down until we were about two metres from the edge of the water. It looked uninviting, a grey mass wrinkled with ripples beyond the prickly hedge.

  ‘It was here,’ she said. She stared at the road, across to the wide expanse of lake and back to me.

  ‘I remember the road being bumpy – look…’ She pointed to blisters and cracks in the tarmac.

  She crouched down to study the surface. ‘I’ve got something,’ she called out.

  She straightened up and looked one way, then the other. ‘Richard was saying something like, “Bastard – what the hell is he playing at?”…’

  ‘As you came along this stretch?’

  ‘He was pulling at the
wheel…looking in his mirror…’ Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Bloody hell, there was someone behind us…’

  I asked her to look back the way we’d come and take in the whole scene. Then I suggested she closed her eyes for a second and tried to imagine herself inside the van. ‘Can you look out of the back window and tell me what you see?’

  She dropped her head down and shielded her eyes. She was familiar with the process by now, but standing at the exact spot where the accident had happened felt different; far more intense. She was shaking.

  I helped guide her through it.

  ‘I can’t see who it is, but I can hear a revving sound, the wheels behind us are squealing.’ Her voice became breathy. ‘It’s like someone’s trying to drive us off the road…’

  ‘A car, a motorbike, a truck, a minibus?’

  ‘I don’t know, sorry.’ She shook her head, opening her eyes. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  I kept going; ‘“Bastard – what the hell is he playing at?” What does that say to you?’

  She blinked fast. Her eyes were watering with the cold, but were wide and animated. ‘Oh my God – that Richard knew the person.’

  Rosie picked up the pace and I went with her. We came to the next bend with a section of brand new fence on the left. Broken pieces from the old one were scattered underneath it.

  ‘This is it…’ she said, the wind carrying her words away.

  There were several long-dead bunches of flowers strapped to a nearby telegraph post. Apart from that, there was no evidence of the incident at all. No skid marks in the road. No chunks of missing turf or ruts in the grass. Nature had healed its wounds during the intervening months.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. She was about to climb over the fence. ‘Take your time. Just spend a moment or two taking this in.’ We kept close to the hedge. A red car sped past us, blasting us with cold air. Rosie looked up at the stretch of road the van never reached and back to the hedge.

  ‘This was all thick,’ she said, patting her gloved hand on the spikes. ‘Turning brown.’

  ‘Excellent. Now take a good look around.’