The Split

by Sharon Bolton

  He waits, until he feels secure enough to turn over and try to return to sleep – and hears something. Something that makes his already frayed nerves burn. He remembers the huddle of homeless people at the crematorium, Dora’s insistence that she’d seen a young woman on roller skates at the drive.

  He lies still and hears it again. A creaking of iron, and then a gentle thud repeated several times. Someone is climbing up the outside fire escape.

  He does not investigate straight away. He simply does not dare. Instead, he switches on the bedroom light, and then the one in the hall. He knows that to turn on the kitchen light will blind him and turn him into a target at the same time and so he stands in the doorway of the still-dark room, looking for the face at the window, hoping to see the troubled young man who is known as Shane because the alternative is unthinkable.

  There is no one there. He hears a clang and a scuffle from several feet below the window and he reaches it in time to see what might – only might – be a dark shadow slipping over the yard wall. He goes back to bed, telling himself that the creaking he heard was nothing more than the wind, rattling the old iron ladder.

  He lies awake for a long time, listening for wind. There isn’t any.

  45

  Felicity

  Felicity stands in the street outside Joe’s front door wondering what the hell she is thinking. She cannot ring the bell at this hour. Even if it weren’t completely inappropriate and, let’s face it, a bit mental, it would effectively scupper her chances of convincing him that she is emotionally sound.

  Oh, hi Joe, sorry to disturb you, but I’ve just learned that I have a habit of picking up young men in bars for casual sex, only to forget about the encounters entirely afterwards. I’m probably riddled with venereal disease and pregnant. Oh, and there’s the small matter of my husband. It won’t be a problem for you to sign me fit to leave the country by the end of the month, will it?

  She turns to head home. Joe can’t help her. But before she has taken half a dozen steps, something small and metallic bounces along the road behind. She spins around in time to see the empty Coke can dance across the street and knows that it has just been kicked. A can dislodged by the wind – there is no wind – would clatter and roll a short distance. It wouldn’t spring, with force, keeping its momentum until it almost reaches the opposite pavement.

  The can has appeared – been kicked – from a narrow alley, one that probably leads to the back of this terraced row of houses. Someone in that alleyway has kicked it, possibly even to attract her attention. She looks around, but the street is deserted. There is plenty of soft, golden light around the front of King’s College but the beautiful old buildings look empty and still.

  She remembers the eyes drawn on her kitchen window. The disorder in her home. The missing car. Its unexplained reappearance.

  You think there’s any place on Earth he won’t find you?

  Still she waits, frozen with indecision and fear. Joe is close by. Asleep, but close. He will help her if she phones him or presses the bell, but she will have to explain why she is on his doorstep in the early hours of the morning.

  Desperation gives Felicity courage and she steps silently back to the alleyway. She takes a deep breath before she steps out of the shelter of the corner but, once committed, she stands at the alley’s entrance to face whatever is down there.

  And sees a human figure, thirty yards away, wearing dark clothes and with its head covered. It looks tall, but the lights in the alley are creating odd illusions. There are several shadows spiking off from the figure like rays from a dark sun.

  The figure – he or she – Felicity cannot tell – moves towards her and its shadow becomes huge, tall and broad as a giant. Felicity starts to back away. The figure keeps coming and as it does so, it raises one arm. It is holding something long and thin that gleams in the dim light. A blade.

  Felicity doesn’t stop running until she is home. If she is followed, she has no knowledge of it because she never looks back.

  * * *

  Felicity manages only a couple of hours sleep before she has to get up for work. She showers and flicks the kettle for coffee. Strong coffee. She is walking back to her bedroom to get dressed when she spots the small pieces of paper that have been pushed through her letter box sometime in the night.

  They are all photographs, taken on a smart phone, and printed using an attachable printer. She catches sight of one that is face up and decides she has no desire to touch them. Using a pen from the hall table she turns them around. There are five in total and she features in all of them.

  In the first, she is leaving Joe’s house in the early evening. In the second, she is arriving back at her own home, in the dark, by car. The third has been taken through the kitchen window, at night, from someone in the courtyard outside and the fourth is of her standing at the window of her office on the west campus, again at night. The fifth is the worst. The fifth shows her stumbling out of Gonville and Caius College in the early hours, her make-up smudged on her face.

  In a strange way, the appearance of the photographs is almost a relief. She might be losing her mind, in fact she almost certainly is, but she cannot have taken these herself. She gathers them up, and places them on the hall table, but one slides off and flutters to the floor. It lands face down, and she sees what she missed before. There is writing on the reverse of the photograph taken of her outside Joe’s house. It says:

  I will kill you. And I will kill him too.

  * * *

  At eight thirty on the morning of Tuesday 16th July, Felicity formally accepts the job in South Georgia and instructs human resources to arrange her travel documents.

  46

  Joe

  It is golden hour in Cambridge, and the warm rays of the dying sun cast an elusive glamour over the city. The beauty of golden hour is all the more valued for being transient, because the term hour is used figuratively and no one knows quite how long the world will appear this perfect.

  At golden hour, the Cam below Jesus Green Lock is more rainbow than river. Here we see a blue narrow boat, patterned with diamond shapes and sporting a jaunty yellow canopy. Over there is a yellow-hulled vessel, broad in the beam, its decks awash with scarlet chrysanthemums. Nestling up against its bow is a dainty little craft, bottle green, currently under siege from a family of swans.

  ‘They can break your arm, you know,’ says Joe, as a cob swan rises out of the water, wings spread, to take something from his supervisor’s outstretched fingers. The swan’s mate, more reticent, waits for food to be thrown. Her three cygnets are almost her size now, but still carry the dove-grey feathers of youth.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Torquil replies.

  The pen, the female swan, looks Joe’s way, opens her beak and emits a guttural hiss.

  ‘Come aboard,’ invites Torquil with an evil smile.

  ‘Call off the dogs first.’ Joe will not bet the farm on a swan’s ability to break human limbs, but he is pretty damn sure that they can give him a nasty peck. He waits until a handful of avian treats is thrown into the middle of the river and then leaps for it.

  The cockpit of the boat is small – ridiculously small given how huge the boat’s owner is – and the seats are wooden planks over lockers, but the cold box is full and Torquil has provided bread, cheese, pâté and olives. Joe sits and opens a beer. The evening is perfect; warm and safe, full of colour, food and cold beer and for several long moments, Joe wishes he had nothing more to talk about than the cricket.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Joe knows this is no general enquiry. ‘Just had my seventh session with Felicity Lloyd. Another couple of weeks and she’s no longer my patient.’

  He acknowledges, but doesn’t quite know what to do with, the wave of sadness. Not every patient can be helped. Over the years Joe has parted company with several, knowing their problems will be ongoing, and that their future is out of his hands.

  ‘How did the hypnotherapy go?’


  ‘It didn’t. She cancelled Tuesday’s session, citing a last-minute meeting at work.’

  The swans are back. The male is by the rudder, looking directly at Joe.

  ‘Today, she arrived late, very apologetic, and declined to be hypnotised. Said she was feeling much better, that she’s had no more worrying incidents, and that she didn’t see the point in uncovering more episodes of smoking and eating junk food.’

  The cob is gone from sight and Joe has the uncomfortable feeling that it is creeping closer, tucked away beneath the hull.

  ‘It’s so bloody frustrating, Torq. She was starting to open up, about the voices, the fugue states. Now almost complete withdrawal.’

  ‘It’s not uncommon after a big leap forward. Patients get frightened of what they might uncover.’

  From the water comes the sound of light splashing and Joe cannot resist looking down. A foot or so below his head, he meets the cob swan’s black gaze.

  ‘What’s happening with the South Georgia job?’

  ‘She says she’s still thinking about it. And at the same time, trying to convince me it will be good for her. Quiet environment. No distractions. Challenging project.’

  Torquil takes a long drink of beer. ‘Seems fair.’

  ‘You weren’t there. You didn’t see how shifty she got.’

  ‘You think she’s lying to you?’

  ‘I know she is.’

  Several minutes go by, and Joe is relieved to see another boat has started feeding the river birds.

  His supervisor asks, ‘Has she said any more about who she thinks is chasing her?’

  ‘Nothing. She says it was always a very vague idea of a stalker, and that she now knows such a person doesn’t exist. She claims everything is much clearer now, and that she’s not having any more problems.’

  Torquil smiles, but there is no joy behind it. ‘She’s trying to convince you she’s cured.’

  ‘I know.’

  Joe helps himself to another beer. ‘She’s also changed her GP,’ he says after a few more seconds. ‘She said she’d never felt entirely comfortable with him and prefers the idea of a female GP. I wonder whether she’s trying to muddy the trail.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Felicity needs to be certified fit to take up her job in the South Atlantic. Her new GP will carry out a physical examination and certify her perfectly fit and well. Unless Felicity specifically tells her that she’s been in therapy these last few weeks, the new GP won’t know. She’ll want Felicity’s medical records transferred over, of course, but you know how long that can take. I wonder if she – Felicity, I mean now – is banking on them not arriving in time to stop her going to South Georgia.’

  ‘Blimey, that could work.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So, Felicity is afraid that a psychiatric report from you will scupper her chances,’ Torquil says.

  ‘Her medical records, when they eventually arrive, will reference her treatment with me,’ Joe says. ‘And her new GP will refer to that in her report. Knowing she’s had treatment, I would expect the BAS to want me to sign her off as mentally fit, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You think she’s counting on them not arriving in time, so she can get away with not mentioning that she’s been in therapy for several weeks?’

  ‘I think that’s exactly what she’s doing. And trying to convince me that she’s co-operating and improving is her backup plan.’

  ‘Let’s say the BAS do find out and want you to certify her fit. Is that something you would be happy doing?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m not close enough to a diagnosis to be able to say she shouldn’t take up a new job. And would it be fair of me to stand in her way? She’s obviously perfectly capable of fulfilling her current role.’

  ‘This South Georgia post sounds very different to an office job in Cambridge.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s for me to say.’

  Torquil gives a deep sigh. ‘We can’t cure them all, Joe.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Still doing the Tuesday pro bono work?’

  Joe inclines his head.

  ‘You can be stretched too thin you know.’

  ‘I’m coping.’

  ‘Really?’

  Joe opens his mouth to say that he’s fine and thinks better of it. ‘The break-in knocked me back,’ he admits. ‘I can’t be in my flat without checking Ezzy Sheeran isn’t in one of the cupboards or under the table. Forget sleeping. I barricade myself into my bedroom with any number of alarms and booby traps and I still can’t manage more than an hour or two.’

  ‘Still having the dreams?’

  Joe doesn’t need to ask which dreams. ‘Not sure they’ll ever stop,’ he says.

  ‘They might. If your mum and her squad find a dead body. Or apprehend a live one. Any news?’

  Joe shakes his head. ‘None. The girl you all saw at the crematorium – probably just coincidence.’

  ‘And the police are convinced it was a man called Shane who entered your flat?’

  ‘There’s no doubt. Two uniforms saw him drop the knife. The prints match those in my flat. It was definitely Shane.’

  ‘The same Shane who’s the prime suspect in the murder of Bella Barnes?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Why would a homeless man called Shane break into your flat at night?’

  ‘Very good question. The only thing I can think of is he knows about the work I do with the homeless and has a problem he thinks I can help with. Maybe he didn’t mean any harm, he just wanted to talk to me.’

  Torquil’s heavy ginger eyebrows rise. ‘And is this what your mother thinks?’

  ‘My mother thinks he’s on a mission to rid the city of the scourge of rough sleepers, and is targeting me because I’m known to be someone who helps them. She thinks I narrowly escaped being stabbed in my sleep. Which, to be fair, is what happened to Bella.’

  ‘And they still haven’t found him?’

  ‘Every rough sleeper knows him, but no one knows where he comes from, where he beds down, how he can be found.’ Joe sighs. ‘I tell you, Torq, the man’s a ghost.’

  47

  Felicity

  The Rosemary Clinic on the ring road around Cambridge takes extremely good care of its patients. The sofas in the reception area are clean and comfortable and the coffee table has a perfect fan of lifestyle magazines. A side table is stocked with hot coffee, artisan biscuits and eight different kinds of tea, not one of them Tetley.

  Felicity has been at the clinic for the past hour and a half. She has peed into a small plastic jar, had her upper arm squeezed by a blood pressure machine and her heart has been monitored. She has been weighed and measured, and an electronic machine has told her the exact proportions of bone, fat and muscle in her body. A nurse has given her a fitness test that she has passed with flying colours and now, for the last twenty minutes, she has been with the doctor. It has all gone exactly to plan.

  The only tricky moment came when he questioned the number of scars on her body, but seemed satisfied by her account of missing her footing and sliding down some ice, studded with razor-sharp pieces of scree.

  ‘South Georgia?’ he says now. ‘Not a place I know anything about.’

  ‘Cold and remote,’ she tells him. ‘But crucially important to how we learn about the polar regions.’

  He smiles, and looks interested, although she suspects he isn’t really.

  ‘Well, I can’t see a problem,’ he says. ‘It will take a few days for the tests to come back, but I can have a report to you within a couple of weeks. Copy to your GP, of course.’

  ‘Perfect,’ she says. She has not given the name of her new GP to the clinic yet and will not do so until reminded. Every day’s delay will help.

  After she is done, she drives to Joe’s office for her Tuesday evening appointment. The buzzer sounds to indicate the front door has been unlocked. She doesn’t hear Joe’s voice, but the door latch has opened, a
nd she knows her way up. The stairs are carpeted, and she makes no sound as she climbs. At the top, the internal doors to Joe’s flat, and to his consulting room, are open. As she steps into the room she can see him at the window, resting his forehead against the glass. He looks weary and terribly sad, and she knows she has intruded upon something private. For a second, she thinks about retracing her footsteps, but knows she won’t get away with it.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, instead.

  His reaction is instant and terrifying. He leaps around, grabs a paperweight from the desk and raises his arm as though to throw it.

  ‘Jesus, I’m so sorry.’ His arm falls to his side.

  It would be hard to say which of them is the more startled. Joe is trembling. His face has turned ashen and there are beads of sweat on his forehead.

  ‘Joe, are you OK?’ Felicity ventures.

  He slumps into a chair. ‘I didn’t hear you come up.’ He can’t look at her.

  ‘I think someone else buzzed me in,’ she replies. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  He holds up a hand to stop her apologising. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Sit down.’

  She sits, nervously.

  ‘A couple of months ago,’ he says. ‘I was attacked by a patient. A very disturbed, very sick young woman.’

  She waits, knowing there is more to come.

  ‘When you first came to see me, it was my first day back from convalescence. A lot of people thought I wasn’t ready. Maybe they were right.’

  He seems to be thinking for a moment and then lifts the flap of his shirt. She sees the ugly raised scar, six inches long, running diagonally across his abdomen.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she says.

  Joe forces a smile, as though to soften the impact of what she is seeing. It doesn’t work. ‘Not so long ago, someone broke into my flat at night, while I was asleep,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t her, but it shook me up. When you took me by surprise just now I panicked. I’m sorry, it was very unprofessional of me.’