by Emily Koch
‘It feels like my mind doesn’t ever get a chance to rest at the moment. There’s always something …’
She kept hitting my leg, a few inches above my knee. It felt like she wanted to hurt me, but I couldn’t help but enjoy the contact – especially when a shiver ran through me, ending at my groin.
Touch me more.
‘… but the run helped …’
Touch me more, please.
‘BREATH by BREATH. STEP by STEP. WORK it OUT.’
With her touching my leg like that, I couldn’t focus on her words. Images stole me. Bea, naked, on all fours over bright blue bedsheets. Peach and strawberry evening sunlight slipping through the blinds and gilding strips across her shoulder. Her bare white back arching, the small bumps of her vertebrae nudging out from under goose-pimpled skin as I reached one hand around to hold her heavy left breast, my other sliding between her legs.
My head spun with lightness.
Stop, Alex. Concentrate. You need to listen to her. She’s stressed. Think of other things. Distract yourself.
Her nipple forming between my fingers.
Do some maths. Thirteen times sixteen. Come on, think.
Turning her head for me to kiss her ear. A small green stud in the lobe tasting metallic as I licked it.
One hundred and thirty, plus thirteen times six.
Bea, getting up to walk out of the room, without turning to show me her face. I never saw her face.
Thirteen times six. Seventy-eight.
The door closed behind her.
Two hundred and eight.
Bea on the blue bed had gone. I tuned back into the voice of the real version of her.
‘… I just kept running. My legs were burning.’
My heart hammered. My body felt alive after our imaginary encounter.
‘I went so far.’ She coughed to disguise her voice breaking. ‘I wanted to feel strong again. In control.’
I realised after she went that Bea hadn’t mentioned Cameron at all. Did she feel too embarrassed? Whatever her reason, her decision didn’t extend to other people. I heard plenty about the guy from Rosie and Tom.
They came in later that day. Or maybe it was the day after, I can’t be sure. They sat in the chairs either side of me, each holding one of my hands. The most recent rearrangement by Connie meant my head was turned and tilted towards where Rosie sat. My neck was stretched on one side and the muscle, bones and skin crumpled up uncomfortably on the other.
Tom, on my left, asked about Cameron.
‘I don’t know if I’d have stuck around if I started seeing a girl
and she told me she had a boyfriend in a coma.’
Exactly. What kind of guy would be okay with that?
Rosie leaped to Bea’s defence. ‘But she’s lovely.’
She squeezed my hand.
‘Not the point.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘It’s a messy situation.
I’m surprised he didn’t run a mile.’
That’s what I’ve been thinking. But then he is the type of guy who picks up vulnerable women by offering them a shoulder to cry on.
‘Well, from what she said, she
didn’t tell him straight away.’
‘Ouch.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Shouldn’t she have told him straight off?’
Tom slid his hand off mine, and the chair’s upholstery made a scrunching noise as he leaned back in it.
‘He thought Alex was dead, at first.’
Oh yes. The grief counselling …
‘What?’
I heard the click of cartilage in
Tom’s knee as he stood up.
‘Long story.’ Rosie was flustered.
‘She told him at first her boyfriend
had died, then only recently
broke it to him that he – well, that he hadn’t.’
‘And you’re telling me this guy is still with her?’
Tom laughed.
‘Yes.’
‘He must be getting something really good
out of the relationship to have swallowed that.’
Don’t, Tom.
‘Tom! Everything isn’t always about sex.’
‘And he doesn’t mind about the investigation?’
‘No. He’s really helping, especially
after what the police said.’
‘They know what they’re doing.’
‘Do they?’
‘They deal with stuff like this all the time. If they
say they haven’t got enough evidence she’s being
stalked, what are they supposed to do?’
So Bea had spoken to the police about her stalker again. Why weren’t they seeing a connection between this and my case?
‘Well, whatever.
Cameron’s good for her – he’s settled.
Knows what he wants. Having him around makes her feel safer,
with everything that’s been happening.’
Tom leaned his weight onto my
mattress as he spoke across me.
‘She doesn’t need a guy to feel safe.
She could come and stay with us.’
‘Ah. So that’s what this is about.’
‘What?’
‘You’re jealous.’ She laughed.
‘Piss off.’
‘I’m only kidding. But what’s with all this,
“She doesn’t need a guy to feel safe”?
You just don’t think she should be seeing anyone, do you?’
‘She can do what she wants.’
‘But you still think she should be the good, dutiful girlfriend to Alex.’
‘It just seems weird to me, that’s all.
She was always the possessive one.
You know what she was like, hated him
talking to other girls in bars.’
‘She’s not doing anything wrong.’
‘But Alex can’t fight for her when he’s like this.’
I imagined him waving a hand dismissively at me as he said those words.
‘Like this.’
He was right. I could do fuck all about any of it.
22
‘… IT’S NOT LOOKING great for the poor chap.’ Mr Lomax’s voice gradually grew louder as he walked in.
‘No.’ A new doctor? I didn’t recognise this voice. Whoever he was, he was standing by my side, checking the pulse in my right wrist. ‘What do they think?’
‘It’s looking as if he will have to have both legs amputated,’ Mr Lomax boomed from the end of the bed. ‘There’s no feeling in them and the damage is too bad.’
What? But my legs are fine, I can feel when you touch them.
‘It’s so sad for such a young man,’ the other doctor said, taking his hand away from my wrist. He sounded young.
They couldn’t amputate my legs. Somehow, for those few moments I forgot that I wanted to die. I guess an instinctive reaction kicked in and overrode everything else – all I could think was that I didn’t want to lose my legs.
‘And it was a car accident, Caroline told me?’ the younger doctor asked. ‘I wasn’t working here when he was admitted.’
A car accident?
‘No. Motorbike, I believe,’ said Mr Lomax. ‘Head-on collision with a bus when he was overtaking another car.’
I’d never ridden a motorbike. There must have been a mistake.
‘And what about this one?’ the new doctor asked, fiddling with the cover on my tracheostomy. ‘How long will he carry on?’
This one? Me?
My legs were safe. I felt light-headed.
‘He’s a tricky one,’ said Mr Lomax. ‘On the one hand, his injuries have healed remarkably well, I must say. I was just reminding myself what a state he came to us in, looking through his admittance records. You heard those obnoxious detectives were asking for exact timings and the injuries he presented with and so on?’
‘Dr Sharma did say something�
��’
‘On the one hand, he’s done very well. But obviously, the biggest risks now are infections. Pneumonia. As you know, one day it might be too severe for us to save him.’
His colleague murmured assent.
I listened carefully as they discussed my prognosis.
‘That could happen in the next few weeks,’ Mr Lomax continued. ‘Or he could survive for many years. Patient hasn’t shown any signs of improvement since we admitted him from ICU.’
I had improved. They just couldn’t see.
‘Wouldn’t a fatal infection be one of the best options for him? For the family?’
‘You could look at it like that, Dr Carmichael, yes.’ Mr Lomax spoke sternly. ‘They wouldn’t have to make any decisions for him. Difficult decisions.’
‘And you’ve discussed all of the options with them?’ Dr Carmichael asked.
‘Yes, of course. After the twelve-month period for diagnosing a permanent vegetative state, we told them we doubted there would be any improvement. Families generally hang on until then, hoping for some glimmer. But even after we pass that point, it isn’t as simple as the cases you might have seen in ICU. It’s not a case of switching off life support.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dr Carmichael, sticking something into my ear. I strained to listen from the other side.
‘If the family decides that it’s time to acknowledge that he’s not going to get any better, then we would be looking at withholding medical treatment if he got another infection. We could withdraw nutritional support but that would mean going to court. For certain families this is a more difficult decision to make than switching off a machine.’
‘Understandable.’
Mr Lomax continued, ‘Of course, it can get more difficult, the longer you leave it. It always strikes me that it has a lot to do with guilt.’
‘Guilt?’ Dr Carmichael inserted a finger into my mouth and lowered my bottom jaw. Poked around on my tongue. I tasted antiseptic and rubber – a gloved hand.
‘Yes. Families who feel guiltier are always less ready to let them go. They want the chance, I suppose, to make things better. Families who have had a good relationship with the patient tend to be more comfortable considering it. Although, evidently, it is always a very traumatic decision.’
‘You think that’s a factor here?’
‘I’m not sure. With this patient’s family, I can’t work it out. They want to keep him alive but there is no big family rift that they have mentioned.’
I’d never thought about it like this. Did Dad and Philippa feel guilty? Or Bea?
‘Have you spoken to them recently?’ Dr Carmichael closed my jaw, and rested a hand on my shoulder.
‘The last conversation I had with them, they said they wanted to give him more time. The sister is more resistant than the father – she isn’t quite ready yet. But I have a feeling it won’t be too long.’
Won’t be too long.
They finished their checks, moved on to talking about a new government initiative they disagreed with.
Won’t be too long.
If they really were going to let me die soon, I needed to get my act together and work out who had done this to me. I needed to know who would be held responsible for my murder. Just like the police, I was trying to work out plausible suspects and motives, but with significantly fewer resources.
I imagined laying all the facts out on the floor, like I had done with all my notes on Holly King. What did I have? Where were the holes? What were the patterns?
The first thing to consider was a series of photos. All women. I turned them over, one by one, to read the text scribbled on the back in my handwriting. First, a pale face, dark thick fringe, big brown eyes, thin lips. ‘Clare. Second year uni. Few dates. Sociology? Saw her once more, third year. She didn’t see me. No baby with her.’ Then three more photos in quick succession, out-of-focus, poor-quality images. A blonde (Kate), a girl with long dark curls (Susy), a petite redhead with freckles (Sophia). Only their names on the back of each print. On the back of a photo of a girl with tattoos down one arm, were the words: ‘Vicki. Could drink me under the table. Nice laugh.’ And finally, I flipped over the photo of another blonde, this one strong-shouldered with chalky hands. ‘Rachel: really good climber, from Exeter Uni. First year. Level-headed. Can’t be her?’ And that was it. Those were the only ones I could really remember. There were other names that I couldn’t even match to faces – Erin, Dani, Georgia. I didn’t feel proud of myself – if I’d paid more attention, been a bit less of a dick, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up where I was now. But try telling that to a randy nineteen-year-old.
These few faces, and these sparse facts, were all I had on this line of my investigation. Yes – any of them could have sent the letter, if somehow I had managed to get one of them pregnant. But could one of them have tried to kill me? It had to be unlikely. Wouldn’t there have been some better revenge to take? Wouldn’t it have been better to get money out of me, or even just an apology?
Which led me to the next thread of my suspicions. Work-related grudges. I imagined sitting down at my computer and trawling through my cuts: every story I had ever written. I wasn’t perfect, but I had never pissed anyone off that badly, had I? I’d always seen myself as the kind of reporter who could talk to anyone – from brickies to barristers, from little children to nonagenarians. I found it easy to get on with people, to such an extent that Bill used to sneer across the office after listening to me charm someone over the phone, ‘Alex bloody Jackson. Thinks he’s everyone’s best friend.’
But that wasn’t completely true. There were plenty of people I had written stories about, who later called in to complain. Court cases I’d covered that went online and made it hard for the defendant to get a job once they came out of prison. Interviews that people felt had misrepresented them. All of us in the office had had a couple of death threats in our time, but they were rarely taken that seriously. One guy who didn’t like the story I wrote about his restaurant getting a low food hygiene rating called me up to say, ‘I hope you sleep well tonight and don’t lie awake, thinking about me coming round there with a meat cleaver’. I couldn’t even remember his name, though – that was the last I heard from him, and it was at least two years before my fall.
One threat I did take more seriously, and which Bill made me report to the police, was from Rita Younge, a woman in her forties who we knew had been sectioned several times. The story I had written wasn’t about her, but about her twin brother, who had been caught exposing himself to children in a park in St George. He’d been sent down, but Rita didn’t like the way I had written about him, and began a nasty vendetta against me. She wrote in to the letters pages under false names, slandering me and saying I was a paedophile; we recognised her handwriting from the notes she stuck to my car windscreen detailing how she would go about torturing me. She would call my office landline and repeat, over and over, ‘You won’t get away with this. He wasn’t a bad man, my brother. He’s innocent.’ I tried reasoning with her, the first few times she called. I explained that I wasn’t the judge that sent her brother down, that he had pleaded guilty, and I’d written a very reasonable account of what he had been caught doing. It was, in fact, a very dull article, buried in a left-hand hamper on page twenty-four. I wasn’t afraid – it was clear that she wasn’t well and I didn’t think she would see her threats through. But when she wouldn’t stop, Bill called the police. An officer was sent to speak to Rita and I never heard from her again. It couldn’t be her, could it? Why would she go quiet for months and then reappear to do something to me while I was climbing? It didn’t seem plausible. And the letter – it wasn’t her style. The wording didn’t fit. Neither did the photo of the baby.
But then, the letter appeared to have nothing to do with the Holly King case, either. Apart from the fact that there was no child involved, the letter had arrived at our flat before I’d started doing any interviews. I was pretty sure about that.
The other doubt I
had was that killing me wouldn’t have killed the Holly King story. True, the rest of the articles in that series we were going to run were still unwritten – interviews with relatives, Ormond’s lawyer. (As I left the office on that final Friday afternoon, Bill had shouted after me: ‘I want the next one filed by Monday at eight sharp, princess. Get those fucking interviews out of your notebook.’) But anyone in that office could have followed my trail and done those interviews again – and besides, for all the murderer knew, the shorthand scribbles in my notebook had all been typed up and turned into page leads. It would have been a massive assumption on his part to think that killing me would stop the paper running more.
No. If Holly’s murderer was behind this, then he must have been banking on scaring the rest of my team so badly that nobody would touch the story, that even the editor would be afraid to take it further. He obviously didn’t know how a journalist’s mind worked.
For all the question marks that lingered over the Holly King case, it remained the most probable lead I had. For someone to try to kill me, they had to have a reason to punish me. Or, they thought and acted differently to most decent people. Someone who didn’t have a problem with killing. There had to be a link between this case and my letter, I just couldn’t see it. It was too much of a coincidence for me to receive such a threatening note within weeks of someone trying to kill me.
I never knew what happened to the rest of that case. Was William Ormond out of prison? Had they caught the real murderer? If only I knew.
But there was one more person to consider. Eleanor. If only to rule her out once and for all. Practically, I couldn’t think what she could have done to make me fall the way I had. And then there was the question of motivation. There were only two ideas I could come up with. One: that I’d done something that day to piss her off and she’d done something on impulse. Two: she genuinely was in love with me, though God knows why, and decided that if she couldn’t have me, then nobody could. That, quite frankly, seemed ridiculous.
It made more sense, if she really did care about me, for it not to be her. I remembered how angry she had been when she saw Bea with Cameron. If anything, her target would be Bea, not me.
Out of everyone I was lining up as a suspect, I knew Eleanor the best. I trusted her. She wouldn’t try to hurt me. She just wouldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that one of my closest friends would do that. What kind of a man did it make me, even allowing myself to consider it? And besides, whenever she visited, she not only went over the day of my fall repeatedly – an unlikely thing for my attacker to do – but she bombarded me with a never-ending stream of confessions. Wouldn’t this have been one of them? The biggest of all?