He leaves the room, comes back with a large canvas bag. My bag. I look at the key on the table beside me.
"You were in a coma for four months," he says.
He pulls the device out of the bag, stretches the wire between his hands. I feel a dull ache of anger at that. It's not right that he should touch it.
"Interesting choice of souvenir," he says, wrapping the wire back around the handles. "You're a riddle, Scott. We've been running trials for over a decade and, over the years, we've learned how to choose the most appropriate subjects. We're better at performing the procedure. Only certain kinds of brains can accept the grafts at all. In the third year of trials, when a graft held for a week, we threw a party. By the time we operated on you, our best subject had given us three months. You're here a year and a half after the grafts. You are a pioneer, Scott."
I don't like the way he looks at me. Then he drops his little bombshell, and watches to see how I will react.
"I know what you did in Florida and Georgia. And I know why you came to London."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When they reconstructed my face, they had nothing to go on. No photographs. Not even the tiny photograph on the stranger's passport I stole at the airport. That's in the bag with a change of clothes, a sledgehammer, my Bible, and the device in a locker in King's Cross station. The locker key was all I had on me that morning. Funny. I've lost everything that matters, but my memory of a locker number is untouched.
The first few weeks after I open my eyes, I wonder if I should kill myself. It would be difficult, but not impossible. I could make a noose from the tube plugged into my wrist. I think I could. But I know I must not.
Simon brought in a Bible when I asked for one.
I remind myself that prophets are tested. Abraham almost killed his own son. Jesus himself had to spend forty days and nights in the desert, and—on the cross—he thought his Father had abandoned him. I will not give in to despair.
I ask Stokely how badly my brain is damaged.
"The brain is still the undiscovered country as far as medicine is concerned," he says. He talks fast, but pronounces every syllable. Like listening to a tape running at the wrong speed. "Take your brain, for instance, Scott." I said he could call me Scott. It's not my name, but it'll do. When I told the American to call me Scott, he gave me a nasty smile like he knew something I don't.
Stokely uses his fingers as he talks. He doesn't wave his hands in the air, he holds imaginary scalpels and makes precise incisions into the brains of invisible patients. "There was significant trauma to the back of your skull, and the initial cleanup and removal of all fragments took hours. Current thinking still holds that parts of the brain do particular jobs. Decades of neuroscience tells us that the signals to sustain life are sent from the brainstem. Breathing, heart rate, body temperature, and so on. Even when to sleep and when to wake."
I look up at him when he says this, but he shows no sign he thinks it's significant.
"The cerebellum controls muscles, coordination, balance. Yours was bruised, but I expect you to make a full physical recovery. Physiotherapy will help your cerebellum to restore those connections. It's the cerebrum which gives me more cause for concern. There was some bleeding. Your brain took quite a knock. However, there have been cases where the brain has circumvented a damaged area and duplicated its functions elsewhere. Or, sometimes, brain injuries have repercussions no one can predict. We will have to wait and see. That you have already undergone brain surgery makes your case even more fascinating. I'd never seen work like it. Pioneering. An experimental procedure of the nature—"
Stokely stopped talking. He looked over at me and apologised. "Sorry, got carried away. Not my place to… that is, shouldn't really discuss… ah. Anyway, the important thing is that you're awake, and there are—touch wood—no worrying signs of debilitating brain damage that might affect your quality of life."
I almost laugh at this. I have no quality of life. Not yet. But I must be strong. If I am to be God's instrument, forged in his furnace, then I must be prepared to be tested.
Stokely is using an invisible saw to remove the top of an imaginary skull.
"People with your injuries used to end up with a metal plate in their heads. It's all much more sophisticated now. We use a mesh to hold fragments of your skull in place until they begin the healing process themselves. Wonderful apparatus, the human body. Whenever I peer inside a patient's head and see a living human brain, I'm reminded of a poem. We had to learn it at school. Can't remember the title now. In fact, I only remember two words. Which is why I pursued the sciences rather than the humanities, I suppose. Those two words sum up the brain for me: fearful symmetry. That's what I was thinking when you were lying there, your scalp peeled back and your brain exposed. Fearful symmetry. Ironic really, as the brain is asymmetrical."
He chuckles, makes some notes on the chart hanging on my bed, and leaves.
One way in which I am prevented from restoring myself is the fact I am awake during the day and asleep at night. This is the first time I have experienced this pattern. It's drug-induced. While my body is healing, they send me to sleep every night. For most of my life, until my surgery, I wanted to be like other people. Funny. I looked at them and I assumed they were rested, alert, awake. Because they close their eyes every night and go somewhere I never go, I thought they lived at an elevated level of consciousness I would never experience. Shocking to discover how wrong I was. I sleep now from ten o'clock at night until seven-thirty in the morning. Three times during that period, a nurse checks me, changes my dressings. I barely stir, then I sleep again. And yet, when daytime comes—signalled by a lightening of the square piece of sky beyond the skylight—I am conscious, but I would not describe myself as awake. I was more awake before, when I couldn't sleep. Here, I am always tired, a dull, spaced-out, staring weariness. I see the same in the face of Nurse Ratched, and in the American's movie-star blue eyes. People aren't awake. They are sleepwalking.
Maybe this is part of the test. Showing me how it feels to live like others.
Memories return of some of those I helped find peace. I am satisfied I have done good work. I wait.
I don't count the days, so I don't know how much time passes between the end of my coma and the beginning of physiotherapy. I only know that after the first session, the pain is so great I pray for death.
One evening, the American comes to see me again.
The American brings in the pictures. My body is a torture chamber, nerve endings screaming, muscles spasming. He has Ratched help me sit down at a table. I grip the edge so I don't fall. It takes all my strength to stay upright. My head is full of rocks, my neck isn't strong enough to support it.
He spreads the pictures on the table without comment. At first, I don't look. The American smiles, leans back and crosses one leg over the other. He knows the longer I sit here, the more painful it gets. I'm sweating already.
"Nurse, do you have some painkillers for Scott? He appears to be in distress."
He shakes his head as she approaches. "Not now. When he's back in bed. I have some questions for him first."
"Yes, sir." I can't turn my head, but I hear her drop the pills next to my glass of water. I bet the sadistic bitch is smiling.
"The pictures, Scott."
I can already taste the bitter tang of the pills under their sugar coating, feel the numbness that will envelop my body. I'll do what the American wants. But I'll be careful what I say.
When I see what's on the table, I have to use what strength I have left to hide my excitement. It's hard to explain the shock and delight I experience at the memories provoked by the drawings. Like I've been living in a rundown house for months, and I've unlocked a hidden door, leading to a beautiful room, with light streaming through the window.
I show nothing, say nothing.
I recognise the subject of every drawing. I remember being there. The excitement at finding those who needed me. The anticipation, the
dry-mouthed thrill of planning what would follow.
Ocala, Florida. Toys in the yard.
Hinesville, Georgia. Watching the clapboard house.
Along with the memories, pieces of myself I left down in the deep, in my lonely submarine, slot into place. I remember leaving home, riding the bus north, stopping where I was needed, bringing peace. And I remember the angel that watched with me.
Atlanta, Georgia. The trailer park. The weight of his body when I dragged it inside. I was strong then. I will need to be strong again.
London. The house where I expected to find her. Then despair. Something was wrong. She wasn't there.
I remember finding her again, days later, the connection between us so powerful, I was little more than an observer in my own body. When I found her, I knew it was time. My task completed, the purpose fulfilled, a life brought to its end.
I stare at the pictures. And I know. She drew them. My angel. And I came so close. So close I could have touched her.
I'm making a noise now. A growl, wordless. I can't stop myself. I want to scream but I don't have the strength.
"Stop it." The American scoops up the pictures and stands up.
The noise keeps coming, a howl of frustration. It could have all been over. She was yards away from me and I failed her. It could have all been over.
The American leaves the room and Ratched comes back with an orderly. They drag me over to the bed and hoist me onto it. She injects me with something. Seconds later the room, the nurse, and the whole day fall away. The last thing I'm aware of is my own howl.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The human body is an amazing thing, as is the human will. I've seen documentaries. That guy who cut off his own arm to survive a hiking accident. Plane crash survivors eating the dead passengers and making it out alive.
Some folk get lost in a forest somewhere and are dead in days. Others survive for weeks under the same circumstances. What's different about them? How can they when others give up, their bodies shutting down? I'm no scientist, but I think it's down to what you have to live for.
Over the past few weeks, as Doctor Stokely has reduced my medication, I have returned to my usual sleep pattern. Well, my lack of sleep pattern. I tell no one. I stay quiet at night, close my eyes when they check on me. It's funny, but getting my sleep disorder back gives me hope. If I can be who I was before the accident, my time in the wilderness might end.
Three weeks after the episode with the pictures, the American comes back. It's twenty minutes since Ratched watched me pretend to swallow the knockout pills. The American has someone with him. Another American. Older, from the sound of his voice.
I'm awake when they arrive, but my eyes are closed. The older American speaks first.
"What about the girl? Are you sure there's been nothing? No repeat of the absence seizures? No pictures?"
"Nothing. Not yet."
"It's possible the connection will manifest in a new way. You should be there. Our friend here is going nowhere."
Interesting. The second American is senior to the first.
"I agree," says the younger one."I fly back tomorrow."
"Good. We can't wait much longer before we attempt surgery."
"No. It's too risky."
"He survived the first procedure. He survived being knocked over. It caved the back of his skull in. He's stronger than he looks."
"Perhaps. But we haven't been able to repeat the success with anyone else. And we don't know what came first - the psychosis or the connection. One may have caused the other. We can't mess with his brain."
I thought the American hated me. Now he's defending my brain. Today is full of surprises.
"We may have to," says the other voice. "This is the breakthrough I've been working towards my whole life. If we can reproduce it, my legacy is assured. Yours too. Our funding is still under threat. They'll turn off the tap next June."
"What? You never said our funding was—"
"Why would I? That's my business. It doesn't matter now. The future of the company is lying in that bed."
"I accept that. But we can't risk another procedure. We just can't."
"You have a better suggestion?"
"What about bringing them together? When he was in England, he found her in days."
I almost give myself away when I hear that. I assumed I was still in England. If not England, where?
"How?" said the older American. "The subject can never leave this building again."
This doesn't come as a shock. I already figured they would never let me go.
I'm good at lying still. They think I'm sedated. And I'm relying on them underestimating me. My performance in physiotherapy suggests a slow, difficult recovery. My performance is a lie. I am working out every moment I can, even if it's just clenching and releasing every muscle in my body. I must get strong. I will only get one chance to escape. Once they realise my real strength, they will strap me to this bed and I will spend the rest of my life in hell, alone.
As I listen to the American speak again, my eyes fill with tears. I pray that—if they look at me—they will assume I'm dreaming.
They don't look. I am nothing to them. Neither is the angel. They know nothing, understand nothing. They are so far from the light, they have lost their way. To them, I am the subject and she is the girl.
"You don't understand, Dad. No need for him to go anywhere. I'll bring her to him."
Dad? Interesting.
"What about the mother?"
"She won't know. I told her the killer's in a deep, dark hole someplace. She even quit therapy."
"Okay. Try it. Bring them together again. The connection might re-establish itself. If not, we've lost nothing."
They leave, still talking, and I do not hear the rest.
I can hardly believe it. Although I no longer sense a presence, something still guides me, and those around me. He will bring her here. A second chance.
I weep as I silently mouth my gratitude. I will not fail again.
Chapter Thirty
"I have a surprise. How do you feel about spending Christmas in Boston?"
Bradley's smile was unforced, and Mags was glad to see it. Although the last four months had been hard, she now felt happier than she had since Tam produced her first drawing. There hadn't been a picture now since the killer's capture. Well, nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual woodland creatures and unicorns, plus Tam's attempts to draw a comic-strip version of Jeeves and Wooster. The only traumatic event had been the accident outside their house, but the hospital told her the poor man had been moved to a private facility where he was expected to make a full recovery.
She glanced at Kit. Bradley noticed and added, "It wouldn't be a proper family Christmas without Kit, would it?"
Kit's smile was still a little forced, but he was getting better. He was underweight, but not dangerously so.
He had lived with them for six weeks after David's murder. The first viewer of the underpriced Camden Lock house bought it. Kit moved into an apartment on the Southbank. Mags hoped that was a sign he would be okay. He wasn't hiding away from people, he was putting himself in the busy heart of the city. But it also gave him the gift of anonymity. Christmas had been worrying her, and she had been unsure how to bring the subject up with him. Now Bradley might have solved the problem.
Mags and Kit had only talked once about her call on the day of the murder. Kit asked why she told them to leave the house, how she knew they were in danger, and what Tam's picture had to do with it. Mags explained Patrice's theory about the killer posting photographs of his intended victims' houses online, and that Tam found them somehow. When she said it out loud, it sounded ridiculous, and Tam had flatly denied it, but she could offer no better explanation. Well, none she wanted to say out loud. Kit took a long time to consider the implications.
"You think he—the murderer—was coming for Tam? That he traced her somehow?"
Mags put both hands on the mug to stop them sh
aking, only trusting herself to nod.
"Fuck." Kit had a gift for finding the right word. When Mags looked at him, he was crying, silently at first, then crouching, his whole body convulsing. She knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around him while he rocked on his heels. When he could speak, he took her hands in his and looked in her face.
"Do you see? Do you see what this means?"
Mags had thought of nothing else for weeks. What did it mean? Was Tam the reason David was murdered? Would Kit ever be able to forgive her?
"I thought David had died for nothing." Her brother's voice was hoarse. "But he didn't, did he? He saved her. The evidence they found in our house, that's how they caught him, right?"
"Yes. Yes, of course."
It wasn't an outright lie, but it was close. She hugged her twin more tightly, glad he couldn't see her face.
That conversation had taken place over a month ago. It was December now, and they were celebrating Thanksgiving late, as Bradley had been in Boston for most of the previous month. He was working harder than ever; Edgegen was close to a medical breakthrough. She couldn't begrudge him the time away. He had been as good as his word. The Bedroom Killer had gone. Most of the US news sources speculated that he was dead, as serial killers didn't often stop, especially when the gaps between murders were getting shorter. Bradley and his father had saved not just Tam's life, but countless others. Mags wouldn't forget that.
She looked around the table. Tam was bouncing in her chair with excitement.
"Christmas in America, Dad? Brilliant. Can I learn to ski? You said you'd teach me to ski. Can you take me this time? It will snow, won't it? And you'll come too, won't you, Uncle Kit?"
"I can't."
Tam's face fell. Mags raised a questioning eyebrow.
"I was going to wait until the show was definite to tell you," said Kit. "But, well, it's pretty definite."
The Picture On The Fridge: The debut psychological thriller with the twist of the year Page 14