“I’ve no idea. He’s not a guest and I’ve never seen him before. One minute I was checking a booking and the next minute he was stood in the middle of the reception, staring into the fire. When I asked him where he was from, he just said outside. When I saw how badly he’d been hurt I called you.”
“Well whoever he is and wherever he’s come from… that will have to wait, because right now we need to get him to hospital as quickly as possible.”
~~~~~
“Rachel, its Henri. How are you?” He’d not spoken to her in three weeks, as they’d both agreed it might be more appropriate if they weren’t seen together or even seen talking to each other so soon after Tom’s unexplained and so far unsolved disappearance. The police had no leads, no one at work had heard from him and there’d been no bodies washed ashore within a fifty mile stretch of the coastline in either direction from the small Cornish fishing village.
They’d called the police the same day but as the sergeant who took the call said, he might just have gone for a walk. Only when he’d been missing more than two days had anyone taken Rachel seriously and started to call around the local hospitals to see if anyone had been brought in injured. The Coastguards and local Lifeboats had searched the beaches and the numerous small coves that dotted that part of the coastline but had found no trace of him.
Ricardo wanted to tell the police about the attack and the fact that he thought the man had been killed, but since he’d managed to use his credit card in a couple of stores in Truro, he wasn’t so keen to be arrested for theft. What he couldn’t understand was why the man’s body hadn’t been discovered in the rear of the helicopter and reported to the police… if by some miracle they’d not seen the dead man, by the time he’d been reported missing and the police had taken his disappearance seriously, anyone flying the aircraft must have been able to smell the corpse.
So when questioned by Henri and then the police, Ricardo had stuck to the story he’d thought up whilst buying the cigarettes and alcohol from the small shop near to the station. If that hadn’t been lucky enough, he’d also found a small boutique, down one of the city’s lesser known back streets that was having a problem with its card reader and the owner, desperate for any turnover, had agreed to process the sale of the clothes manually. Six hundred pounds was too good a sale to miss and as luck would have it for Ricardo, Tom had forgotten to sign the rear of his card, so he simply signed it for him and unsurprisingly when the shop owner checked the signatures they were nigh on an exact match.
“I took the man to the hotel and left him outside the front door.” He’d explained to the detectives who’d come round to the restaurant to take a statement.
“And what did you do then sir?”
“Went back home. It had been a hectic day in the restaurant and I was very tired. I thought I might be coming down with the flu. The following day I wasn’t feeling any better so I phoned work and called in sick. I spoke to Monsieur Henri himself… I’m sure he’ll remember because it left him short staffed for the day but I felt better later on and so went into work for my evening shift.” Ricardo explained. He’d been going to go into work as planned but when he’d woken the following morning a combination of fear, guilt and last remnants of the cold pizza he’d found on his kitchen table had finally persuaded him to take the day off and seek solace on his illicit shopping spree.
“And the last time you saw Mr Cox…”
“He was a little drunk but alive and well. I’ve seen people who’ve had more to drink and many who have been less capable.”
“But you didn’t wait to see him go into the hotel?” The detective asked in and almost accusatory fashion.
“No. I only went back with him as a favour to Mrs Cox, she’s a nice lady and wasn’t ready to leave the restaurant and when Monsieur Henri allowed me to go early if I made sure he got back to the hotel, I jumped at the chance… as I say I was tired and not feeling too good.”
“So you didn’t see him go inside?”
“No, the last time I saw him he was stood on the step, waving to me.”
“I’m fine Henri and you?” Rachel replied quietly. She’d been expecting someone to call ever since the police had started looking for Tom, to tell her they’d found him dead but each time the call had turned out to be either friends or work, asking if she’d heard any news.
“I thought your call might be the police… you know with news. It’s not that I’m bothered about seeing him again, so much as the not knowing what’s happened and then there’s the guilt of course. Whilst he was doing his vanishing act, we were…”
“Hey you mustn’t think like that. We’ve done nothing wrong and anyway Tom was the one cavorting with the nubile and nimble Lisa… by the way did you show the police Tom’s mobile, perhaps he’s crawled back to Paris?” Henri said with as little sympathy as he thought the man deserved.
“No… I couldn’t, it seemed so personal, so dirty. Do you think I should?”
“Well if you haven’t so far I’d leave it. The police might think you had a reason to hide it from them or that you were covering your tracks. They might even start to think that we arrange it all because we wanted to be together. No, if it were up to me, I’d get rid… burn it somewhere and then forget all about it and Lisa.”
“Perhaps you’re right Henri. The police told me that they checked his credit card and he used it in Truro, the day after he vanished. Although they couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was Tom, as the two sales were both done without him using his PIN.” Rachel said hopefully. She hadn’t wanted him dead, just gone from her life.
“Any clues from what he bought?”
“Not really. They said alcohol at the first and lots of clothes at the second. When they checked the sizes everything that was bought would have fitted Tom. I think the police think it’s some sort of mid-life crisis… perhaps they’re right, maybe Lisa was just the start of it all.” A heavy silence descended on the call, as both parties considered what to say next. Both wanted the same thing but neither knew how to broach the subject. Finally Rachel took the plunge.
“Look I was hoping to come down there next weekend, can I see you?” She sounded desperate… she was desperate.
“Of course. I’d like that very much. Why don’t you stay here with me?” Rachel considered the offer. It’s what she wanted but her sense of propriety was sat on her shoulder encouraging her to say no.
“I’ve missed you.” Henri said, as he knocked the last nagging doubt from her mind.
“I’ve missed you too.”
~~~~~
“How long will he be in the coma doctor?” Martha asked, as the doctor finished his routine check and made the entry into his patient’s notes.
“Well I shouldn’t really discuss the patient’s condition with anyone but his nearest relatives but because it’s you Martha and your father has been my friend for more years than I care to remember, I’ll dispense with the excuse of medical ethics.” The white haired surgeon said with due consideration for his oath and his longstanding friendship with the Monroe family.
“The police still haven’t found out who he is.” Martha said looking down at the mysterious man. “They thought he must have had some sort of accident in his car but they’ve found nothing, it’s almost as if he just fell out of the sky and landed outside the hotel.”
“Didn’t he say anything to you?” The doctor asked.
“Only that he came from outside.”
“Perhaps he’s an alien?” The doctor quipped with a reassuring smile.
“Well if he is, he’s an alien with an English accent.” Martha smiled back.
“That proves it then… there’s nothing more alien than a Sassenach.”
The light started to appear as a dot and then gradually it opened out until all he could see was the white ceiling above his bed. He remembered the blazing fire, which seemed important to him but he didn’t know why… and the painting of the animal hung above the fireplace but he didn’t reco
gnise what it was and the letters underneath it seemed to be just gobbledegook. He tried to think back beyond the log fire but could get no further than standing outside the doors of the large building looking up at the sky and wondering where he was.
Everything else was a blank. Like a new canvas before an artist starts a painting… unfortunately though he couldn’t even remember who the artist was or what he’d been trying to paint before everything went black. There was the girl of course…
She’d walked towards him and asked him where he’d come from… it had seemed such a simple question but the answer had appeared more complicated than it should have. Outside was all he could remember. He walked through a large door but from where? That was the part of his memory that still eluded him.
Involuntarily, he blinked repeatedly, as the brightness flooded his retinas. It felt as if he was floating in a white cloud, which took away the sharpness of the sun’s rays but not its luminosity. With each new flicker of his eyelids, he hoped that the light would reignite a memory, which might show him more than the painting’s white blank canvas. But it made no difference. Each time was the same as before and each time there wasn’t a glimmer of anything other than the light.
If his eyes couldn’t detect any changes, his ears were more attuned to his predicament. There was a noise to his right and another to his left. He couldn’t tell what they were but he knew they were something more than the blank canvas above his head. In an effort to locate the source of the noise he desperately tried to move his head sideways but something was restraining him, preventing any lateral movement. Instinctively, he tried to lift his hand in a bid to free the unknown obstruction, but like his head, his hands and arms appeared to be held tight. Whatever was happening to him, it wasn’t allowing him any freedom to experience the world around him. The white canvas was all there was, all that made sense and even that was too tiring to keep awake for. He closed his eyes one final time and plunged himself back into the darkness… into some limbo land where the sights and sounds that surrounded his corporeal self, failed to register with his subconscious and left him gloriously oblivious to world around him.
“Doctor! Doctor! He opened his eyes just then and appeared as if he was trying to move but couldn’t. Do you think his injury has caused him any permanent paralysis?” Martha asked, as the nurse and doctor rushed back into the room. The man wasn’t due to be brought out of the induced coma until tomorrow and only then if his vital signs were stable.
“Are you quite sure Martha? Any movement, no matter how small should be impossible considering the amount of medication flowing around his body.” The doctor lifted back the man’s eyelids and flashed his light into each in turn. “Well at least that’s normal.” He said slipping the pencil torch back into the top pocket of his white coat. “Look there’s no point you staying here, I can assure you he won’t wake up until we stop the drugs and we don’t plan to do that for another twenty four hours at least. Why don’t you get off home and come back when he’s wide awake?”
“But I was the last person he saw before he passed out in the office. I must be around when he wakes up… at least that way he’ll see a friendly face… sorry what I mean is a face he’ll recognise.” Martha felt embarrassed that she might have implied some sort of slur on the medical staff but she remembered the time her mother had been in her coma after the road accident and how she had felt coming out from her deep and prolonged sleep with no one around to explain what had happened… no this time she would be there for the man, even though he was a complete stranger.
“What does your father think about you staying here?” The doctor probed a little deeper.
“He understands how I feel… call him if you don’t believe me. He’ll only tell you that he’d probably like to be here himself if it wasn’t for his patients.”
“What about your job? Don’t you have to get back to work?” The consultant tried another angle. He’d have preferred Martha to leave his medical team to look after the patient.
“Mr Fitzgerald has been very good and has given me as much time off as I need.” Martha replied with an unconvincing brief smile.
The sounds returned before the white blank canvas reappeared above the bed. The man’s eyelids flickered and then opened fully. He was back looking at the whiteness but was still no wiser as to his whereabouts or his situation. Nothing made sense and he had no memory of anything. There was no before, nothing except the fireplace, the doorway and the girl. This time though he could move his hand and that gave him hope, hope that something was different. He tried to move his head to his left and was pleased when the apparent restraints seemed to have been removed.
“Hello again.” The girl said staring down at him. He didn’t know who she was but he remembered her from the place before. He was looking at the fire and she’d appeared from nowhere… just like she had now. “Do you remember me from the hotel? You were stood looking at the fire… I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“The hotel? What hotel?” He could still feel the heat of the fire, which gave him further hope but for the present whatever hope there was remained cloaked by the black veil, which seemed to have obscure most of his thoughts and all of his memory.
“Do you remember what happened to you?” Martha wanted to know everything all at once but the doctor had told her that the man would probably take time to remember the details.
His injuries had been significant and the swelling to his brain had so nearly killed him, but the operation and the induced coma had saved his life and given the surgeon’s hope that he’d make a full recovery… well a full physical recovery, as for his mental capacity they couldn’t make any promises or give any guarantees. If he came out of the coma in any state other than a permanent living, breathing vegetable they’d consider him a very lucky man.
“I’ve seen you before and I remember the fire but there’s nothing else.” He looked around the room and wondered what sort of place he was being kept in. “Is this the hotel? Am I in the hotel that you asked me about?” There was nothing about where he was that seemed remotely familiar. The blank canvas had started to take shape but as for the subject matter, he was still in the dark.
“It’s a sort of hotel but not like the one you walked into… like the one where the fire was. You’ve been very ill and this is the sort of hotel that makes sick people better. It’s called a hospital, have you ever been in a hospital before?” Martha wondered whether that’s where he’d come from before he’d had the accident or at least before whatever else had caused him such terrible injuries.
“No… I don’t know. The pictures don’t look like any I’ve seen before.” The stranger said without making much sense.
“What pictures? When you came here you had no pictures on you. There was no wallet nothing but that.” Martha pointed to the small card that displayed a number on one side and a partial photograph of an ivy clad wall on the reverse. The doctor had insisted that it remained next to the man at all times, as it seemed to be the only item linked to his past and if anything was going to kick start his memory, the card might. “Is that the picture you mean?” She asked handing the card to the man.
“I don’t know, what is it?”
“We were hoping you might tell us… you know remind you of a place from your past… where someone might know you.”
“It doesn’t. Sorry. I found it.” He closed his eyes.
“Found it? Where? When?” Martha pressed but it was to no avail, the man’s re-emergence into the conscious world had been nothing more than a brief foray… a scouting trip for his longer journey to a full recovery.
Luxuriating in the comfort of his own unconscious reverie, the man thought that the girl had a kind voice and a pretty face and that made his inability to remember anything even harder to understand. He’d wanted to thank her for being there but hadn’t been able to stop himself drifting away once more into that dark world, where he felt safe and secure in the knowledge that there was nothing to remember or w
orry about. But such was convoluted hidden depth of his subconscious memory that for the moment nothing, not even his name, could escape its grasp and return to his conscious world
~~~~~
Two months after Tom’s disappearance, Ricardo moved away. His explanation was simple, he wanted to see more of Europe and he’d spent longer in Cornwall than he’d ever intended. Of course he’d left his mobile number with Henri and assured him he’d keep in touch but like snowflakes on a warm car bonnet, his promise had lasted only as long as it took him to leave the country.
The extension to his visa he’d bought at the Cornish Arms in Truro… the Latvian man had promised him that it would be valid for another six months but Ricardo had decided not to take any chances. It had cost him everything that he had bought with the stolen card, all his meagre savings and the card itself… but he’d decided it would be worth it just to escape the prying eyes and the continuous questioning about the man’s disappearance. When it wasn’t the police, it had been Henri and when he’d been satisfied with the answers, the local newspaper had sent a reporter to interview him.
Once free of the shackles that might have bound him to the country, he’d headed for Amsterdam, where after working day and night for six months, serving drinks in a seedy bar, he’d saved enough to catch a flight to Bangkok and from there had travelled on to Langkawi and a new life as a waiter in the first beach-side bar he’d come across. The tourist hotspot was teeming with young nubile girls… none of whom wanted to know anything about his past or his personal life, except for what time he finished work.
The man who’d come into the bar on his first night in Amsterdam, was flying out of Schiphol to Tallinn in Estonia the next morning and had promised to post the letter, which Ricardo had written to Henri explaining where he was and how he could be contacted. The price for such cooperation had been Ricardo’s Apple iPhone… the result had been a vanishing act second only to the one performed by Tom Cox some eight weeks before.
Stranger at the Wedding Page 9