All in Her Head: The gripping debut thriller that readers are going crazy for in 2020

by Nikki Smith

  I glance at Edward, who shakes his head. ‘No, thanks, I should head home.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask, relieved I don’t have to spend any more time with him on my own. He nods. ‘I can drop you at the station if you want?’

  Harry tries to stop Josh from climbing on a stone fountain. ‘You know you’re both more than welcome?’

  ‘No, honestly,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks for the offer though.’

  Em wraps her arms round his neck and gives me a peck on both cheeks.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she says to me as she bends down to kiss Tilly in the buggy. ‘Bye, gorgeous.’

  Edward and I walk to my car, encountering the usual fight with the seat belt to get it to fit around Tilly’s seat. Over five months of practice and I still can’t do it properly. I remember Ali’s hands sliding it expertly into place the day Tilly came home, checking she was safe. The same hands that had held onto her as she’d jumped off the bridge.

  The counsellor had tried to explain about the psychosis, but I’d let his words wash over me, not able to comprehend what he was telling me. I’d smiled when he’d finished talking and had pinned the leaflets he’d given me to my noticeboard when I’d got home. I’d caught glimpses of them when I’d brushed past them in the hall, reminders that pricked my conscience, adding to my guilt. After a few weeks I’d taken them down, putting them away in a drawer, where they still lay, unread. He’d said I shouldn’t blame myself for not realising how ill she was. But he doesn’t know – no one knows what I did and I’m carrying the knowledge like a cancer that’s slowly eating away at me.

  Edward looks at me as he opens the car door to get out when I pull into the station.

  ‘I know you don’t want to talk about her, Jack, but she’s still Tilly’s mother.’

  A cold sweat prickles at the back of my neck.

  I stare at him. ‘What’s happened? Has she remembered something?’

  Edward shakes his head. ‘Her psychologist says there’s been no significant change in her condition. But I think you should consider going to see her. It might help her to remember.’

  I turn away from him to look straight ahead out of the windscreen. ‘I don’t want to see her, Edward.’

  He gets up out of his seat and turns back just before he shuts the door. ‘Just have a think about it. What’s best for Tilly.’ He walks off into the ticket hall.

  I drive home in silence, pulling up outside the flat without being able to remember how I got there.

  I put Tilly in her travel cot and turn on her mobile so the toy animals swing round in a circle above her head. She’s beginning to get more active, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees. It won’t be long before she’s crawling. Ali has missed all of it. I feel a perverse sense of satisfaction. The consultant’s words echo in my head. There may be long-term damage. All Tilly’s subsequent auditory and sight tests have come back normal and she’s met all her developmental milestones, but the slightest jerk or quiver sends prickles of alarm through my head.

  After I’ve made her tea and given her a bath, I settle her down for the night. I’d dragged her cot into my bedroom when she’d outgrown her Moses basket so she could sleep next to me. I hadn’t wanted her anywhere near what had been written in that room, despite it being no longer visible. I worried the words would somehow slide out from under the paint and into her head, contaminating her. Once I’m sure she’s asleep, I pour myself a large glass of red and pull the card out of the hood of her buggy. The bridge is such a vast structure, the river winding its way beneath until it disappears in the distance. Standing on the side, Ali would have been able to see for miles, she and Tilly insignificant compared to the enormity of the landscape. My eyes fill with tears when I think about how desperate she must have been. I miss her. I know Edward’s right, I know I should go and see her.

  Another glass slides down almost without me noticing. I don’t want to see her. I’m frightened that if I do, she still won’t remember me, or Tilly, and without her I am nothing. I couldn’t bear that. But if she does remember, then she’ll leave me. I’m haunted by the sound of my hand on her face. I slam my glass down harder than I mean to on the coffee table and the stem shatters. As I let go, it rolls off the table onto the carpet, a line of crimson liquid sinking into the pile behind it. I get some kitchen roll and dab ineffectively at the stain. It isn’t going to come out.

  The emotion that’s been building up all day explodes in my head. Picking up one of the sofa cushions, I bury my face in it, letting out a scream that only fades when I have no breath left, knowing if Tilly wasn’t asleep next door I’d be tempted not to take another.

  NOW

  Alison

  Someone’s sitting in an armchair, facing me, when I open my eyes. At first I don’t recognise her as everything is blurry, but then her red jacket comes into focus. I try to get up off the couch, but my limbs are too heavy, my legs disconnected from my body.

  ‘You’ve been sedated,’ she says. ‘That’s why it’s difficult to move. It’ll wear off in a few minutes.’

  ‘Whe … zz … Till … eee?’ My mouth won’t form the words I want to say.

  She puts her hand on my wrist to feel for my pulse and I don’t have the energy to pull away. I catch a glimpse of her painted nails. She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and I remember how it felt between my fingers. I marked you, I think. Like you marked me all those times your nails dug into my skin. You put needles in my arm. You don’t think I can remember you hurting me, but I do.

  She stands up. ‘I’ll get you some water …’ I try to speak but she ignores me, ‘ … and then we’ll talk.’ She walks over to a small sink in the corner of the room, fills a jug and pours some of the contents into a plastic cup on the table.

  I shake my head as she brings it towards my lips. I refuse to take anything from her. She’s a monster in disguise. She knows something about my daughter and she won’t tell me.

  ‘Where—?’ I ask, and she interrupts.

  ‘You’re in my office. I asked them to bring you up here. You can relax. I’ll answer whatever you want to ask me.’

  I reach for the cup she’s holding, my arm an unwieldy lead weight, and swallow to get the saliva moving round my mouth. My hand starts to tremble and she takes the cup away before I spill it. Tears prick the back of my eyes, but I refuse to let myself cry in front of her.

  ‘Where’s Tilly?’ I ask. It’s the only thing I want to know.

  Sarah sits down in the chair opposite me, opens a file and reaches for a pen off her desk.

  ‘To answer that I’m going to have to ask you some questions. Agreed?’

  I nod, making a supreme effort to move my legs off the end of the couch so I’m sitting upright. I want to face her as an equal.

  ‘Where do you think you are?’ she asks.

  ‘In your office. You just told me that.’

  ‘And where’s my office?’

  ‘On the fourth floor of the building I work in.’

  ‘Right.’ She makes a note in her file. ‘In the same building as the library. Do you remember coming here before, Alison? To my office?’

  I shake my head and she stares at me.

  ‘You have been here,’ she says. ‘Many times. You’ve been coming here every week for the last six months since I took over your case.’

  I have no idea what she’s talking about. I look around. I’ve never been in this room before. I gaze at the small figure of a buddha she has on her desk and frown. It does seem familiar. Not that I’m going to tell her that. She notices me peering at it and I turn my head away.

  ‘Do you recognise that?’ she asks.

  I shake my head and run my palm over the velvet fabric of the couch. The buddha reminds me of a larger one I used to have on a shelf. A long grey shelf. When I’d lived with Jack. We’d bought it on holiday in Sri Lanka. It had been supposed to be a good luck symbol to help us conceive. I shake my head to get rid of the unwanted memory.

 
‘Can you remember why you come to see me?’ Sarah asks.

  ‘I don’t come and see you,’ I say. ‘I met you for the first time a couple of weeks ago in the canteen.’

  She clicks the end of her biro. ‘You think that’s the first time we met?’

  ‘Yes,’ I insist. As I say the words, I realise they’re not true. I’ve always thought I knew her but could never remember where from.

  Sarah doesn’t contradict me but continues to click her biro. On and off. On and off. It’s irritating.

  ‘I just want to know where Tilly is.’ I’m begging, but I don’t care. I’ll do anything to get her to tell me.

  She clicks her biro again. ‘Where do you live, Alison?’ she asks.

  I will my body to return to normal so I can get up and leave to find my daughter, but it won’t move.

  I stare at her. ‘Near here. In a flat.’ I’m not giving her my address even if she asks for it. ‘Why do you have a letter from Jack in your bag? What do you know about Tilly?’ My head throbs from whatever she’s drugged me with.

  She clicks her pen again. ‘Can you take me there?’ she asks.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To your flat. Can you take me?’ She looks down at her file, scribbling something. I want to rip it out of her hands and force her to tell me what I want to know, but I can’t. I don’t even have the strength to move properly. I have to stay civil.

  I frown. ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, now.’ Before I have a chance to refuse, she adds, ‘And then I promise we can talk about Tilly.’ She slides her file into her bag and stands up. ‘Do you think you can walk?’

  I hesitate, then nod, pushing myself gingerly to my feet. I’m determined to do this if it means she’ll tell me what I want to know.

  She stands beside me, letting me put my hand on her shoulder and we make our way slowly down the corridor towards the lift, the blue carpet tiles the colour of deep water under my feet. She smiles at me encouragingly as the doors slide open. She doesn’t seem to realise I’m only doing this to get the information I want.

  ‘So, where do we go, Alison? How do you get home?’

  I hesitate, then press the button for the ground floor. Sarah holds her pass in front of the control panel and the lift moves down smoothly. We stand in silence. I let go of her shoulder, my limbs starting to respond to my brain’s instructions. My mind, which has been whirling with a multitude of thoughts, has gone quite still. It knows something I don’t. I’m still standing in the shallows, squinting into the sun, oblivious to the wall of water advancing towards me as the tsunami approaches. Almost here. We step out of the lift.

  ‘Where now?’ she asks.

  Directly in front of me is the main reception and the glass doors leading out to the car park beyond. A couple of staff stand behind the desk.

  Sarah puts her hand on my arm and repeats her question. ‘Where now, Alison?’

  I ignore the light streaming through the exit ahead of me and turn towards an empty corridor in the opposite direction. We walk in silence, the carpet muffling the noise of our footsteps. Sarah’s leather bag swings rhythmically with each step. Are there more letters from Jack hidden in there? She’s been deceiving me all this time. I’m only doing this to humour her. After she’s told me where Tilly is, I’ll never speak to her again. I haven’t seen her every week; she’s making it up, trying to confuse me. One couch feels very like another when you’re sitting on it. We reach a white door. I stop and she hesitates beside me.

  ‘This is it. This is my flat,’ I say, holding up the pass hanging round my neck to the control panel by the door and hear the familiar beep as it clicks open. I’m home. My face burns even though I’m ice-cold.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ Sarah puts her bag down and turns on my kitchen tap. She puts the plastic cup down on the table as I sit on one of the chairs, my legs buckling beneath me. ‘So, this is where you live,’ she says. I nod, picking up the cup. ‘It’s not far from my office, is it? Can you think why you might have been coming to see me?’

  I shake my head. Flashes of memories. My arms hurting.

  ‘We talk,’ she says, sitting down opposite me. ‘We talk about what happened last year. Except normally I talk and you don’t, because up until now you haven’t been able to remember.’ She stares at me, waiting for me to speak.

  I drink some water. I want to keep drinking. I don’t want to think about this.

  ‘But I think you do now, don’t you?’ She moves my hand away from my head to stop me twisting my hair into tiny ringlets which I pull out and rub between my fingers. ‘Do you remember now, Alison?’ she asks.

  Don’t make me think about it. I grip the cup, tipping it up so the liquid runs into my mouth, down my throat, and across my face. I gulp and gulp but can’t swallow fast enough. Now I remember. I’m drowning. I’ve lost Tilly and I’m drowning.

  The water had been freezing. It had been like concrete when I’d hit the surface. It had hurt so much that I couldn’t help letting go of her. Shooting pain had flared up my legs with an agony that took my breath away. For a moment, the pain had filled every crevice of my mind and every inch of my body. It had wiped out the voice, it had wiped out everything. I’d been consumed by the brightest, white-hot fire I could imagine. Every fibre of my being had wanted to surrender myself to it. It was the truth. I saw it now. The intensity was so great it had overwhelmed anything that came before. And then it had faded.

  Water was above me. Below me. Surrounding me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see the surface. Every time I’d kicked, another shooting pain had fired down my legs. It had been easier to stay still. Let the water take over. I was so cold. I’d hoped Tilly wasn’t cold. I’d shut my eyes as my hair had twisted around in front of my face. I was so cold, I was numb. A feeling of peace had lapped gently through my head. This had been the only way. Finally, it was quiet. My mind was completely empty and I’d drunk in the silence as it had washed over me, wave after wave.

  Sarah puts her hand on top of mine. ‘Alison?’ The empty cup is on the table. ‘You’re all right. You’re safe.’

  ‘I … drowned.’ I gasp for breath.

  ‘You didn’t drown. You’re safe.’

  ‘I was in the water,’ I say.

  Sarah nods. ‘Yes. But you’re safe now.’

  ‘I jumped, didn’t I?’ I can’t bring myself to look at her.

  She doesn’t let go of my hand. ‘You did. But you’re OK.’

  I can’t answer as it’s not me I care about. Her body had been so light in my arms. I’d thought I was saving her. And now I’d give anything to take it back. I pull away from Sarah’s grasp and put my hands over my ears. I cannot hear her say the words.

  ‘Alison,’ she says, putting her hand onto my arm, ‘Look at me. You’re OK.’ She pauses. ‘And Tilly is OK.’

  I can’t process the words as they don’t make sense; it’s like she’s speaking to me underwater. She has to repeat them, the syllables filtering through my brain one at a time whilst she looks at me. The sense of relief is so overwhelming, I start to shake. I’m not sure I believe her, but for the moment I cling to the words like an anchor. She’s OK. Tilly is OK.

  I start to cry and cover my face in a vain attempt to hide my guilt. I am still a mother. I repeat the words over and over again in my head, using them to block out everything else.

  Sarah holds out several tissues and I take them and wipe my eyes, holding the damp screwed-up bundle in front of my mouth, inhaling through the paper to slow my breathing. Sarah is staring at me, but all I can see is my baby. In her white Babygro. The ache to see her is more painful than anything I’ve ever felt, but it’s an agony I’m happy to endure if it means she’s still here.

  ‘When …?’ I mumble.

  ‘This all happened over a year ago. You’ve been here ever since you left hospital.’ A vague memory of a bed and plaster casts. ‘You hurt yourself very badly when you landed in the water. You broke the bones in your feet, both your an
kles and your pelvis, and you had severe internal bleeding. You were in hospital for three months and you didn’t remember what you’d done. When you were released, they sent you here.’ She looks at me, assessing whether I’m following what she’s saying. ‘It’s a psychiatric unit.’

  My whole reality shifts, and then settles itself. I stare at her as things fall into place inside my head.

  ‘Where’s Tilly?’ I can barely say the words. That rush of love, the bond that I’d been waiting to feel after she was born spreads across my stomach, concentrated into something so powerful I realise I would do anything to protect her. Anything.

  ‘She’s safe. She’s being looked after. You weren’t capable of caring for her and she couldn’t stay with you in here.’

  I look at the floor. ‘This isn’t my flat, is it?’ I say.

  ‘Well, it’s your private space. In the unit. Every patient has one. You’ve got a living area with a kitchenette where we’re sitting now, a bedroom and bathroom, so it’s similar to a flat.’ I know she’s only being kind. ‘We specialise in encouraging patients to develop their independence so they can cope on their own when we feel they’re ready to leave.’

  I look at the black letters on the pass hanging round my neck. ‘This isn’t my name,’ I say.

  ‘We changed it to try and minimise the publicity. There was a lot of press interest in your case,’ Sarah replies.

  ‘And my job?’ I ask.

  ‘In the library?’ I nod. ‘Mrs Painter says you’ve been a role model for the other patients. She agreed to look after you when you were in there, Alison. She’s had a lot going on in her life recently and I think having someone else around to talk to has really helped her.’

  ‘So, I can leave if I want to?’ I don’t want to waste any more time. I need to see Tilly.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Sarah replies. ‘You were sectioned when you were admitted. I have to agree you’re fit to go.’

  ‘When can I see Tilly?’ I demand.

  ‘We need to make sure you’re better first.’

  ‘But I have to see her,’ I say.