‘You remember me?’
‘I think so,’ she lied. ‘I think you’re important to me, maybe a boyfriend. I’ve had a feeling for a few days now. The other night, when you kissed me I sensed that there was something between us. I know you’re trying to help me and I know that you’ve been gentle, not forcing too much on me. I don’t know how I would have reacted if you’d told me who you really were straight away. I’d have probably freaked out or something. I appreciate your kindness.’
David stood up, still looking out into the distance reflectively. ‘That’s what it was you know, kindness. I didn’t want to see you hurt. I want to help you. That’s the main reason I brought you here.’
‘I know.’ She stood next to him and linked her arm through his. ‘And now I have to face up to what happened to me, here. I’m so glad you’re with me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to have done this on my own. I’d probably have never even thought of it.’
He nodded and took a step closer to the cliff edge. Kai held his arm and pulled him back.
‘Don’t, it’s not safe.’
He laughed and shook her off.
‘It’s okay. I just want to know if this is the right place. What should it look like?’
Kai closed her eyes, trying to picture the scene below the path. Rocks, trees, water.
‘There’s a stream,’ she said. ‘If this is the right place you should be able to see a stream through the trees. David leapt on to a rock which jutted out over the precipice and studied the valley below.
‘Hey, I think there is a stream down there. I can see something shining through all the leaves.’
Kai stood up and slowly made her way to the cliff edge. She raised the bamboo pole and jabbed it into David’s back between his shoulder blades, not hard enough to unbalance him but firmly enough to let him know that she was in control.
‘What the fuck?’ he spluttered, trying to turn round.
‘Move again and I’ll push you right over,’ she hissed.
‘What the hell are you doing? You could kill me for Christ’s sake!’
‘Shut up!’ she snapped.
‘Kai, I…’
‘I said shut up!’ She yelled. ‘You know my name’s not Kai, you can stop playing the innocent David! I know exactly who you are and I know exactly why you brought me here.’
‘I don’t– you said you remembered. You said that you knew I was important to you.’
‘Shut up,’ she said poking him firmly with the stick on each word. ‘I know who you are and I know exactly what you did. It was a beautiful plan, get me back here and then what, claim I jumped? I’m sure Doctor Ekachai would support any theory about my being depressed.’
David tried to turn round again until a sharp jab made him face back out over the cliff. He spun his arms frantically, trying to regain his balance.
‘You’ve got this all wrong. I was trying to help you. I thought if I told you who I really was you wouldn’t want anything to do with me so I pretended to be Mark. I wanted to be your friend. I thought if I could get you to trust me, we could try again after you got your memory back. I love you for fuck’s sake!’
Kai studied the back of his head, willing herself to keep the pole in his back and not simply smash his skull in with it. He was such a smooth liar. So convincing. But this time she’d out-manoeuvred him. He’d fallen for her gratitude, her weakness, just as she’d hoped he would.
‘David, if you love me, why did you follow me? Why couldn’t you just let me go? I know what you did to me, I know how you treated me. I read about the beatings, the screaming, your need to control everything in my life. And I know that you tried to kill me, right here. You pushed me off this cliff and left me for dead.’
‘No, you’re wrong,’ his voice trembled with the effort of trying to convince her. ‘I followed you to beg you to come back to me. I met you here and we talked. When you wouldn’t see sense I grabbed you but you struggled away and fell.’
‘David,’ said Kai softly, ‘I remember. I know you ambushed me, I know you never gave me a chance. And I know what a liar you are. I spent three years with you, remember? This is me you’re talking to.’ And suddenly a name came to her. ‘Ruth, I’m not Kai any more. I haven’t really been Kai for a little while now, but you were so caught up in your plans that you couldn’t see it. I’ve never totally trusted you but I wasn’t sure why. Now I know. God you arrogant bastard, you were so fucking sure of yourself that you even gave me a weapon.’
She jabbed him again.
‘So what now? You can’t just walk away,’ he sounded more confident now, like he had a plan. Ruth knew she had to be careful. ‘Are you going to push me off or are you just going to walk calmly back to the road knowing I’m behind you, in the middle of nowhere with nobody around. Christ, I nearly killed you last time. Do you really think I could let you get away with this?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She hadn’t had time to think.
‘Ha!’ he spat at her. ‘Typical – no fucking strategy. You never could see further than the end of your own nose. No wonder I’ve always been able to see straight through you.’
‘Really?’ she whispered, tightening her grip on the pole. ‘Didn’t see this coming, did you? Too busy enjoying having your ego stroked. There’s so much about me that you don’t know, David.’
‘Course there is,’ he responded sarcastically. ‘I know you’re having an affair with your friend Penny. I know you were on the pill when you told me you wanted a baby. Christ, Ruth, I know your every thought.’
‘You have an over-active imagination David. Did you know that? So much of what you ‘know’ is in your head. Everything gets mixed up and turned to poison in that stinking sewer of a mind. I wasn’t having an affair with anyone – though nobody would blame me if I was – and as for the baby…’ she stopped, unsure of how far to push him.
‘What? Come on. What about the baby?’ Ruth could feel herself losing ground. She could tell him the truth, provoke him further or she could lie, deny that she’d been going to say anything, back down. Like she always had done. Just keep her mouth shut and hope that everything would be fine. She tightened her grip on the pole and kept her voice low, controlled.
‘I aborted it David. I found out I was fucking pregnant when you put me in hospital and I got rid of it. Do you know why? I didn’t think I could love anything that was part of you, even my own child. That’s how fucked up you made me. And that’s when I knew I had to get away from you.’
She felt the pole tremble as he tensed with fury.
‘I’m going to kill you for that, you bitch!’ he yelled lurching backwards and pushing her off balance. As she stumbled Ruth tried desperately to cling on to the pole, but as she dragged it towards herself, it turned traitor and tangled with her feet. She fell on her side, scrambling at the rocks, frantically trying to pull herself back upright. She felt the pole roll away from her as she got to her knees and tried to steady her breathing. Her heartbeat was relentless as she waited for David to make his next move.
‘You fucking bitch!’ he yelled again and Ruth gasped out her hard-won breath as he grabbed the pole and brought it down hard in the middle of her back. She collapsed face first on to the dusty path and felt David grab her hair. He knelt and pulled her head up until it was level with her own.
‘Not so clever now, are you?’ he hissed, spraying her face with spittle. He drew back his hand and delivered her a stinging back-handed slap that made her bite her tongue.
‘Well?’
‘No,’ she managed.
‘Not so clever last time, either. You thought you could escape, run away to the other side of the world. Didn’t you know that I know you so well? Pretty stupid sending out e-mails when I knew the password to your account. I hadn’t known it when you left but it was pretty simple to work out. What was your pet rabbit been called when you were six? What was your mother’s middle name? What was your fav
ourite song? There’s nothing I don’t know about you, nothing you can keep from me. It took me six attempts and I was in, prowling around in there collecting information.
‘It was a piece of piss after that. A quick look in the Lonely Planet and I nearly caught up with you in Hanoi. Not quite though. I bided my time, following you through your e-mail until I saw an opportunity. You led me straight to you, you only have yourself to blame really, you thick cow. In fact, everything that happens from this point on is all your own stupid fault for being so fucking arrogant!’
His breath was hot and stale in her face as she fought for breath.
‘Now, tell me again about the baby.’
‘David… I…’ she struggled to find the words, any words that would help her to escape from this situation.
‘Just tell me!’ he yelled, hauling her to her knees. ‘Tell my why you killed our child.’
‘Because you nearly killed me,’ she whispered. ‘You tortured me for three years. You put me in hospital when your mind games stopped working. If I’d had that baby I’d have been tied to you for the rest of my life. So now you know.’
He pushed her away and she glanced up at him, squinting in anticipation of another slap as she studied his face. He seemed calm, almost reflective as though he was considering what she had said. And then he kicked her. Suddenly he was leaning over her, tearing at her clothing trying to get a grip on anything that would enable him to haul her back to the cliff edge. Instinct forced Ruth to curl into a foetal ball as he grabbed at her insistently. Finally his hand lodged in her hair again.
‘Get up!’ he ordered. Ruth had no choice, the pressure on her scalp was becoming unbearable.
‘Move!’ He dragged her closer to the edge, grabbing one arm and forcing it up behind her back. She tried to go limp, to make herself heavy but he just pulled her hair harder as he inched her closer to the edge. Ruth couldn’t look, didn’t dare see how close she was, didn’t want to see how far she would fall.
‘That’s far enough!’ Ekachai emerged from the bushes a few yards down the track. Ruth couldn’t turn round far enough to see him properly, but she could tell from his laboured breathing that he’d had to hurry to catch them up. She shut her eyes and offered up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods might be listening.
‘Oh, it’s the Good Samaritan,’ David laughed, pulling Ruth’s arm further up her back, wrenching her shoulder. ‘And what are you going to do?’ Ruth managed to shuffle her feet enough so she could turn her head to see the doctor.
‘I’m not going to do anything.’ Behind him two Thai policemen emerged from the bushes, their hands conspicuously close to their holstered guns. ‘You see, my friends have a car waiting down at the road. It seems they want to interview a mister Mark Adams about an attack on a prostitute a few days ago.’
‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ David grinned. ‘My name’s David Mackin. Right Ruth?’
Ekachai shook his head. ‘But I have seen your passport. You yourself allowed me to inspect it on your first visit to the hospital. Travelling on a false passport is a very serious offence, Mr Mackin. As is assault. I suggest you put her down and go with the police.’ He muttered something in Thai and the two men moved forwards warily.
‘You set me up?’ he was incredulous.
Ruth shrugged herself free from his grip and turned to face him. His expression was that of an astonished child who had just had his favourite toy taken away. She backed away, stopping when she felt Ekachai place a hand on her shoulder.
‘Of course I didn’t set you up,’ she sneered. ‘Do you really think I’d have come out here with you if I’d known who you were? I just didn’t know if I could trust you. I gave Doctor Ekachai details of the walk at our appointment yesterday and I told him that I wasn’t sure if it would work. I didn’t know about the police though. I just thought I could tell you that someone knew where I was and who I was with if you tried anything funny.’
‘So you called the police,’ David hissed at the doctor.
‘Oh no, the police came to me.’ Ekachai gave him a big grin. ‘It seems they were already looking for you and had even been to your hotel early this morning, but you had already gone. The young woman who contacted them mentioned that you had a connection with the hospital and so they found me.’
‘And I bet you couldn’t wait to tell them where I was.’
‘Naturally I was concerned,’ Ekachai said. ‘I advised Kai against coming here with you when we spoke yesterday. I felt it would be too much for her. Obviously when I discovered that her ‘friend’ likes to attack women I was keen to find her.’ His tone was mild but there were deep lines of contempt etched around his eyes.
One of the policemen moved forwards, removing the handcuffs from his belt and securing one steel bracelet on David’s wrist in a single fluid motion.
‘I just wish you’d arrived a few minutes earlier.’ Ruth smiled wanly at the doctor and rubbed her bruised ribs as the policeman pushed David back down the path. Ekachai stood back to let them pass then gestured to Ruth to follow.
‘In a minute,’ she said, gazing out over the edge of the cliff at the tapestry of fields and sky. The breeze had picked up to a dull roar through the trees. Overhead the vultures were circling, searching. Ruth picked up her day sack and began to trudge slowly back to the road.
Epilogue
January 5th – Bangkok
This feels really odd but, somehow, it also feels appropriate. I might not be intending to finish the journey that I’d planned but at least I know that I have another one ahead of me in a few weeks. I want to have some sort of record of what’s happened. Perhaps it’s a superstitious thing – if I don’t write my memories down I might lose them again. Or I might lose myself again.
It’s tempting to write down everything that happened since I left David with the police on the cliff top, everything since I remembered who I am. At least then I’ll know that it was real, that it all happened exactly as I remember it but, if I commit every detail to paper, then it also gives him space in my words and in my head. I don’t want him there ever again.
The police seem to think that Phet’s evidence and the discovery of the car will put him away for a very long time. I just hope that it’s horrible – I’ve seen Midnight Express and I hope Thai prisons are worse than Turkish ones. I hope he suffers. Does that make me a bad person? Should I take a few lessons from Buddhism and learn to forgive? The trouble is that I don’t want to forgive David. I don’t need to and I don’t have to. There’s a big part of me that wants to hold on to my anger so that, when I’m feeling weak or uncertain, I can tap into it for strength.
I was worried that Phet might back down, or disappear but her visit a few days ago convinced me that she’ll give evidence. She looked really shaken, not at all like the person that I met in the bar and she seemed genuinely contrite about the role that she played in Ellen’s death. She still says that she didn’t know why David suddenly wanted a car but I’m not convinced that she is that clueless.
She didn’t say as much but I had the feeling that she’s done some sort of deal. I suppose that, if she organised the stolen car for David she could be charged as an accessory and I expect the police have used that to get her to cooperate. I hope it’s not just to save her own skin. I know what David was capable of and I can only imagine how he ‘persuaded’ Phet to help him – I wouldn’t blame her at all if she wanted revenge.
God, it feels good to get away from Chiang Mai.
I was starting to feel suffocated; by Ekachai, by the police, by the city itself and I’m sure the doctor is glad to see the back of me. At least I’m not there to remind him of what almost happened. He was the one who allowed David to see me after the accident; he was the one who encouraged me to try to move on but I don’t blame him for anything. David is such a manipulative prick that he would have worked something out, turned on the charm, been convincing in his role as concerned ex.
The police
rang today on my brand new mobile phone – well, it’s new to me anyway – a gift from Ekachai, probably one of his son’s cast offs. It’s been good to be able to contact people easily though – it makes me feel connected with my old life again. I’m not taking it to Cambodia though. The police can e-mail me if they need anything else – at least that way I can deal with things in my own time.
Apparently, David hasn’t confessed to pushing me off the cliff and the police don’t think that he’s likely to unless I can add to my statement. The problem is that I can’t. It’s the one part of my memory that won’t fully come back.
David maintains that he did follow me, we did argue, but he didn’t touch me. He claims that I ran away from him, tripped and fell.
So why didn’t he get help? The lying piece of shit. And where did my passport, money, and camera go?
The police don’t seem to want to believe that whoever found me stole my valuables but that’s the only other possibility. I don’t know why they haven’t tried to trace my passport or my camera – searched the house of the person who reported my ‘accident’ They won’t find them though, I’m sure. David will have dumped them – and the memory cards with my pictures – somewhere that they’ll probably never be found. I’m gutted about the pictures, but I’m so glad that he didn’t find my diary.
I wish I could remember what happened though. I tried one of Ellen’s relaxation exercises yesterday – sat on my bed, cross-legged like some old hippy, and tried to empty my mind. The problem was that it just reminded me of Ellen and I couldn’t settle. It still hurts to think about what David did to her. In some ways that’s the worst thing – that he would ‘get rid’ of an innocent person just because, in his warped, fucked up brain, she was in his way. I never expected him to be capable of something like that.
Ekachai says my memory will fully come back but I think his confidence is misplaced. Everything else is there so why not this one event? I think it’s probably gone for good and I still can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.
Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller Page 23