Twisted

by Lynda La Plante

  Lena took out every single plastic carton or zipped bag containing leftovers or home-cooked meals. Throwing them all into a bin bag, she closed the freezer doors, went outside and dumped the bag in the bin.

  Returning to the house, she could hear the phone ringing. Marcus must have picked it up from the bedroom, so she went to the foot of the stairs and called up, asking if it was for her. He appeared on the landing above and told her it was Marjory Jordan. Lena frowned, certain she did not have an appointment.

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘To see if you’re all right. Do you want to speak to her?’

  ‘No, tell her I’m fine and will call tomorrow, and can you come down and look through the photograph albums with me please?’

  Marcus went back into the bedroom as Lena went round the house collecting all the family photo albums. She took them through to the dining room and divided them up for them both to go over to try and pinpoint when Amy’s facial expressions noticeably changed to something sinister. Marcus came down after a while and said that Marjory was just checking in, and there was no missed appointment.

  He sat beside her and looked at her as she took out a notebook and pen and opened an album.

  ‘You know, you consistently amaze me. I would have thought you would maybe need to talk with your therapist after what we’ve been told, but instead of you being the one cracking up, I am – I can’t even think straight, I’m so emotional.’

  She smiled and patted his hand. ‘You always have been, darling, and you know, sometimes having such awful things to deal with sort of straightens out my thoughts, prevents my darkness from invading me. That’s what it feels like, you know, and it is difficult to control, because sometimes it starts without warning, a terrible feeling of despair envelops me, makes me feel totally inadequate, incapable of thinking straight and unable to cope.’

  He couldn’t help but give a small smile; the way she was talking about her depression, it was as if he wasn’t aware of when these episodes occurred. He had borne the brunt of this darkness so many times, and for so many years, and here she was talking about it as if he were a stranger to her condition.

  They remained silent, looking through the various albums, and yet again it was Marcus that felt a welter of emotion that he couldn’t deal with. His eyes brimmed with tears as he turned over the plastic-covered pages of photographs.

  ‘Have you found something?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s just seeing all the good times. Amy building sandcastles, always laughing, and with that golden blonde hair – I don’t think I can do this.’

  He left her looking at the albums and quietly slipped up the stairs, went into her bedroom and opened her bedside cabinet. Here he found numerous containers of Prozac, and other prescribed antidepressants, citalopram and paroxetine, which were known to lift a person’s mood. Reading the pamphlets from the containers, he wondered just how much medication Lena was taking. He carefully refolded everything, returning the containers into the cabinet, then checked the sleeping tablets and took a couple out for himself before he went back down to the dining room.

  She was still sitting with the albums and he rested his hand on her shoulder as he sat down beside her. ‘Can I ask you something, and I don’t want you flying off the handle, but this bipolar thing you have, it can be hereditary, right?’

  She leaned back in her chair as he held her hand. ‘I am just wondering if what this professor has diagnosed for Amy isn’t this multiple personality shit, and that she isn’t being controlled by some monster and planning to poison Christ knows how many people. I mean, could she simply have inherited the bipolar thing from you?’

  She released her hand and her whole body tensed up. She wouldn’t look at him but picked up her pen and began twisting it in her fingers. He continued persuasively, keeping his voice quiet and calm.

  ‘I know that you are and always have been very capable of hiding your true feelings, but all I am suggesting is that perhaps Amy, like you, is bipolar.’

  ‘Do you really want to get into this now?’ she asked and began to tap the table with the pen.

  ‘I think we should. I mean, when did it start with you, because when we were first together you didn’t show any signs.’ She sighed, saying that she had never been diagnosed until after Amy’s birth and at first she wanted to believe that it was postnatal depression.

  ‘I knew it wasn’t – the truth is, Marcus, I’ve been depressed most of my life; it felt like I had some sort of infection,’ she admitted. ‘As a child I was always a bit sad, but things sort of came to a head when Amy was a toddler. I so wanted her to be happy and for me to be able to play with her, and I realised that I had never played much in my own childhood – I became paranoid because it felt as if I didn’t know how. Can you imagine what that felt like, to be unable to play with her?’

  ‘I never realized that, I never noticed it, and you have always been a good mother to her.’

  ‘Yes I know, because I tried so hard, and when I was finally diagnosed and given medication, it eased a lot of my sadness, but then my way of coping was to make myself feel as if I was totally in control of every element of my life,’ she explained. ‘That was when I decided to start my business, and I was constantly trying to prove to myself that by being in control I was better. I kept making these schedules, working out how much time I could give to her, and to you – everything depended on how much work I could get done. It was as if I was constantly against a ticking clock, but I was really trying, and when you said you wanted to leave me, or as you put it, create some space between us, I felt as if I was losing it all again.’

  ‘Why did you never discuss this with me?’

  ‘Because I never wanted to lose you, and you were adamant that you wanted to leave. And then you moved into Simon’s flat. I just worked harder and harder and kept up this crazy schedule, proving to myself that I was brilliant at business.’

  ‘It was your decision to put her into that boarding school.’

  She bit her lip, her face becoming tense, and she turned to face him. ‘You see, you blame me – admit it, you blame me, first by saying she inherited my depression, which I know is possible, but Amy did not have my background and I never even considered that she could in any way feel the way I did. She never showed any symptoms – don’t you think I would have noticed?’

  ‘Well, you just said you were very capable of hiding how you were feeling, so perhaps that was what she did.’

  She sighed with irritation, asking him what the point was of his questioning her.

  ‘I am just trying to understand everything, that’s all,’ he said, putting his hands on his head and running them through his hair.

  She stood up and looked at him. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that? What we should be doing is as DI Reid said and trying to find out what might have trigged this DID, gain some insight into the fact that she might be somewhere, not knowing who she is, and if anyone else in her journal dies it could prove that she is alive.’

  ‘Terrific – prove premeditated murder. Personally, the more I think about this, the less I believe it.’

  ‘So you think she’s dead?’ she asked in a raised voice.

  ‘I don’t know, Lena, I DON’T KNOW!’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, Marcus. I don’t care what she might have done, or what she is doing; if she is sick I want to find her and I will never give up hope of bringing her home. If you can’t help me then I will do it on my own, because I won’t stop, I want to take care of her, and I’ll do anything I have to do.’

  He hit his flat hand on the arm of the chair. ‘All right . . . I’ll look through the albums.’

  He banged one open in front of him and began thumbing through the photographs; everything she had said about trying to be a good mother was evident there, one photograph after another showed them together, always smiling, many of him with Amy, from riding ponies to playing tennis and skiing. He was yet again about to say it was a pointless exe
rcise when she pushed back her chair and gave a strange half-moan.

  ‘What, what is it?’

  She pointed to the open pages of the album in front of her; they were not photographs of Amy. In gathering up the albums, she had mistakenly brought one of own from when she was a child.

  ‘What, what’s the matter?’

  She got up from the table and walked towards the glass-panelled doors that led into the garden. She stood still and then pressed her head against the cold glass.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned.

  Still facing away from him, she said in a small quiet voice that she had never wanted to ever open that album. She had kept it in the drawer, hidden away, because it was too painful.

  Marcus somehow knew to encourage her to continue, and he got up and put his arms around her, drawing her away from the glass. She leaned against him, and instead of returning to the table he walked with her into the TV room and then sat beside her on the big wide-cushioned sofa. He was trying to think of what he should say, hoping that she might have found some detail that would help them to understand their daughter.

  His silence and the comfort of his arms made her want to talk about something she had never told him before, something she had only touched on with her therapist. It was coming out, unstoppable, and she had to take deep breaths as she described what it had been like to be told her mother was dying, the cancer affecting and consuming her fragile body as she slowly lost her mind to the disease. The terrible screams that permeated her mother’s semi-consciousness as the morphine eased the pain. She had felt helpless and repelled by the odours at her mother’s bedside, but still she helped wash her and clean the bed linen.

  Marcus felt Lena’s body shudder and he held her tighter, as she described lying awake night after night waiting for the end, and then waiting for her father to come and comfort her. She was eight years old when the comfort became physically abusive and the grief-stricken man professed his love, and then the secret that she must never tell to anyone went on and on even after the funeral.

  ‘I never told a soul, and his drinking spiralled out of control so he would often be so drunk he’d just lie beside me. I was too frightened to move away from him in case he would force me to pleasure him.’

  Marcus rocked her in his arms, unable to find a word of comfort, and appalled that she had never trusted him enough to tell him this until now. He was also trying to think about the possibility of her father, Amy’s grandfather, ever being left alone with the little girl. He had met him when they married, and he had stayed with them for short periods, but he was a wretched alcoholic and as far as he could recall he died when Amy was two or three years old.

  ‘Are you disgusted with me?’ she asked softly.

  ‘What, how can you even ask me that? Dear God, I am disgusted with myself, ashamed that you never had enough faith in me to tell me any of this.’

  ‘Shame is what I have felt nearly all my life, but he made me promise not to tell, and constantly told me it was because he loved me, and if I was to ever tell anyone he would be arrested and taken to prison.’

  ‘So you kept his filthy secret – was there no one you could have turned to?’

  ‘No, when I reached sixteen I had a lock fitted to my bedroom door and he stopped. He was so pitiful I used to feel sorry for him.’

  ‘My God, if only I had known, I’d have beaten the shit out of him, and you let him stay with us, he gave you away at our wedding.’

  She was curled up beside him, her head resting against his body. He gently stroked her hair and she pressed her face into his chest.

  ‘It wasn’t him, was it? I mean, you don’t think he would have touched Amy?’

  She gave a long sigh and eased away from him. ‘No, I never left him alone with her ever; by the time she was three he was dying, and I was very protective of her. I said to him once that if I saw him so much as touching her, even holding her hand, I would kill him. He was sort of afraid of me, because he knew I meant it.’

  Marcus was stunned that she had kept all this from him, and he had never felt so protective of her before. He looked down into her beautiful perfect face, and he kissed her.

  ‘I won’t leave you, Lena, we’ll go through whatever we have to together. I’ve been pretty useless of late, but I promise I am going to change.’

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered and he lifted her up in his arms, carrying her up the stairs and into her bedroom. He was gentle and caring, and she responded with such adoration, he would have made love to her, but she seemed only to want him to hold her and eventually she fell asleep. He got up and drew the duvet around her and slipped out of the bedroom.

  Marcus rarely if ever went into Lena’s office, but now he did and stood staring around the usually neat room. Stacks of unopened mail were left on her desk and some had been tossed onto the floor. Every surface was covered with documents and papers and over the carpet were littered torn-up letters and envelopes. The answer machine on her desk was blinking to indicate the memory was full; the house answer phone was also blinking with unanswered calls.

  He sighed and glanced over the mound of receipts, some with ‘Urgent’ stamped across them, payments due for deliveries and orders. He would have liked to open her computer but had no idea what the password could be, and so instead he sat in her desk chair and began to sift through some of the unopened mail, growing increasingly concerned when he found a recent mortgage company letter claiming payments had been late for six months. He couldn’t understand why, as he knew she had the finances, particularly after their meeting with the divorce lawyers. Checking more recent demands for payment, he realized that Lena had been ignoring all the household bills since before Amy had been missing. He wondered if she had become so consumed by her Kiddy Winks business that she had neglected her everyday bills or whether she was ploughing the house money into the new venture. He gave a deep sigh, knowing they would have to discuss the situation.

  Marcus returned to the bedroom to check on Lena, who was still sleeping, and so he decided to go and find something to cook for them both. As he was going downstairs the doorbell rang then rang again, and when he opened the door there were two journalists asking to talk to him and Mrs Fulford. Marcus curtly told them they were on private property and they should leave. The big wrought-iron gates at the foot of the drive were rarely closed and were not electronically operated. Marcus went out to the garage to fetch a padlock and chain and, returning to the front of the house, again demanded that the journalists leave. As he drew the gates closed, two more journalists drew up, beginning to make him feel threatened, as their cars were parked outside in the road by the entrance. He hurriedly secured the gates with the chain and locked the big heavy padlock.

  The journalists called out his name and there was a flash of a camera. Marcus’s first reaction after anger was that they must have information about Amy and he dreaded that maybe her body had been discovered. He was just wondering whether he needed to contact the police when suddenly his mobile phone rang.

  ‘Hey there, is this Marcus?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  She sounded so friendly that he almost regretted snapping so rudely but she said she would be willing to meet with him and discuss having an exclusive and she would be prepared to pay him a considerable amount. He cut the call, stupefied as to how the press had got his mobile number. When the same caller rang back he said he’d recorded the calls and would be reporting it to the police, who were also monitoring his mobile, and this time the caller cut off. He fought hard to contain the rising feeling of panic.

  Lena came downstairs, an expression of dread on her face, and said she’d been watching out of the bedroom window. She had an awful foreboding feeling. ‘Have they found her?’ she said pleadingly.

  ‘I don’t know, sweetheart, I’m just trying to find out what’s going on. Let me talk to Detective Reid. Why don’t you go back upstairs and stay in the bedroom?’

  Lena drew the bedroom cu
rtains and then sat waiting, certain that it was bad news. Eventually Marcus came back up.

  ‘They’ve not found her. Reid just called. Apparently there was a press conference, in the hope of getting an update – by that I mean they are hoping it will help trace Amy.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘I’m not letting the bastards in though. Don’t answer the phone, we don’t talk to anyone, do you understand?’

  ‘NO, I don’t,’ she said shrilly.

  ‘Detective Reid said he would get officers back over here.’

  Marcus went round the house, drawing the curtains, and could see that by now there were even more journalists outside the gates. He thanked God he had padlocked them so they couldn’t get in, but it meant they couldn’t get out.

  En route to the station Reid received a call from the handwriting expert who had been examining the journal.

  ‘Due to the many different styles I can’t say for definite who exactly wrote the entries in the journal. There is much variation in the handwriting so it’s possible more than one person wrote in the journal.’

  ‘Amy has DID, it’s a multiple personality disorder, so that may be the reason for the different writing.’

  ‘That would explain it. I’ve never seen it myself, but I have read an expert forensic article on the subject where the subject’s different personalities made the entries in different handwriting styles. I would say though that some bits of the journal were similar to Amy’s handwriting on the diaries and cards.’

  ‘Well thanks for looking at the journal . . .’

  ‘Actually there is something about the entries at the back of the journal that is quite worrying.’