Far from the air being cleared after our bust up, a fog of unresolved problems drifted between us.
I still couldn’t believe that Neil had thought I had something to do with the missing girls — even though the same thought had come to me earlier. And he couldn’t believe that I had suspected him of being involved.
Seeing as I was the one that was potentially going insane, I thought that his suspicion of me was the greater of the two crimes. I was entitled to see things skewed.
As a result, I slept in the bed, and he slept on the damaged sofa.
I made sure I had his sawn-off broom handle by my side of the bed.
It was nearly 2am when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
I reached out from under the duvet and felt the smooth wood of the broom handle.
He tapped at the door.
‘Are you awake?’ he said. ‘Chris?’
I thought it unlikely he had come to kill me. I pulled my hand back under the duvet. But made a mental note of the angle I needed to shoot it out if it came to it.
We talked for just over two hours. Then Neil went back downstairs to the sofa and I stayed under the duvet.
In all the years we had been together, we had never had a “trial separation”, and I wasn’t about to start one now. But we both agreed that it might be good for me to get away for a bit. Good for us both.
But I really needed to be at home. I needed the Internet and I needed to try to maintain at least a tenuous grip on normality. Neil had the bank. I had the home. School didn’t seem like much of an option at the moment. And the silence from Margaret about the Deputy Head position was screaming volumes at me.
So I agreed to spend the nights with my mum and dad, and the days at home, probably with Abi.
I was starting to wonder how much our friendship could take. Not only was she looking after my children morning and night, but she was becoming my permanent unpaid minder during the day. She still insisted she was happy.
The morning after our argument, then early morning talk, Neil went off to work as normal. I showered, wandered through a living-room that Neil had obviously tidied after our chat, ate breakfast and debated whether I should ring Abi or not.
I didn’t need to debate for long. The phone rang.
‘Hello Mrs Marsden.’
It was Doctor Jones. Killer, or carer?
‘Are you free to come and see me this morning?’ he said. ‘We have the results of your MRI scan back and I would like to go through it with you.’
‘Is everything OK?’ I said. ‘Is everything still normal?’
He hesitated. Perhaps it was my use of the word “normal”.’
‘We aren’t really able to discuss things over the telephone,’ he said. ‘And it’s much easier to point things out to you as we speak. Can you get to see me as soon as is convenient?’
My stomach turned over.
‘I can probably be there in about half an hour,’ I said.
‘That’s fine. If you just go to reception when you arrive and they’ll let me know you’re here. I’ll see you straight away, or if I’m with a patient you’ll be my next one.’
My heart started pounding as I hung up from the doctor. A sensation trickled across my skin. Would I be walking into the surgery of a lunatic? A man who had joined forces with Colin Connell, and possibly Neil, to abduct and kill young girls?
I wasn’t a young girl. But surely I knew too much. What if Neil had contacted the doctor and let him know about my accusations the night before?
Neil didn’t have to kill me to keep me quiet. He only had to let the doctor know, and he would prescribe something. Something to numb my ability for coherent speech or thought. Or something to keep me quiet for ever.
How did I know Neil had gone to the bank that morning? He may have gone straight to see Doctor Jones, or Colin Connell.
And what if I hadn’t answered Neil when he’d tapped on the bedroom door in the middle of the night? Would he have assumed I was sleeping and done something to shut me up then?
Of course not. It would be too obvious. There were three of them to sort out any problem. That was why the doctor wanted to see me now.
The phone rang again. I looked at it. The caller number looked familiar, but my mind was spinning out with all the questions rushing through it. I couldn’t place the number.
Was it the attacker? Had he got my number? Perhaps he was someone I knew. Someone like Neil.
I grabbed the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Christine? Is that you?’
It was a woman. I knew the voice, but the face was still unclear.
‘Hello,’ I said again.
‘Christine, it’s Margaret. How are you feeling?’
I felt as though thousands of eyes were watching me. Like I was on a stage in front of thousands of people. All up in the cheap seats and all looking down on me. Their staring eyes pushing me into the ground.
‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘I left a message for you on your mobile a while ago,’ she said. ‘I never heard back from you. I was just thinking that you and I haven’t had a coffee together for a while. It would be useful to catch up with how you’re doing. Let you know about things here. Perhaps I could come round and see you? I have a free morning today.’
How did she sound? Was she happy? I couldn’t tell. If she had good news for me I would pick it up in her voice. But Margaret never gave anything away in her voice.
‘I’m just on my way out to the doctor,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be there. Maybe another day would be better?’
‘Today would be best for me, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll pop around at about 11 o’clock if that’s alright. That should give you plenty of time for the doctor. I don’t mind waiting if I have to.’
As someone who was battling to stay in control, the two phone calls telling me I had to go there, and I had to be here definitely knocked me back a bit.
I decided that the doctor wouldn’t kill me in his surgery, and that I didn’t have to take any medicines he gave me if I didn’t want to. If he did prescribe something, I would look it up on the Internet as soon as I got home. If he tried to inject me with anything, I would refuse. I could always just walk out. I couldn’t see him chasing me through the waiting-room brandishing a syringe, even if he was a cold-blooded killer.
In the taxi on the way to the health centre I talked to myself. Not out loud, of course, but quietly, in my mind.
Doctor Jones’ surgery smelled different than the last time I was there. Not so much of sick bodies. More of chemicals. Cleaning chemicals. The blind across the small window was drawn shut. Natural light seemed desperate to get in, but the good doctor was determined it wouldn’t. As I moved over to the seat in front of his desk I scanned the room for syringes. I sat down and pushed the seat slightly further away from the desk. Slightly further away from the doctor, and slightly nearer the door.
Having not located any syringes, I now found myself looking for evidence of phrenology.
And I wanted to open the small window.
Doctor Jones sat back from the desk. He flicked through some pages in a buff coloured folder.
‘How are you getting on, Mrs Marsden?’ he said. ‘Any more blackouts or visions?’
I told him I’d had a blackout while staying with my parents. I forgot to mention the aggression I had shown towards them.
‘And did you manage to speak to your parents about any mental illness in the family?’
I explained the whole adoption thing, and that I was in the process of trying to find my birth parents. I tried to sound nonchalant about it all. As though it wasn’t suddenly the most desperate thing in my world.
He put the open folder down on his desk and moved his chair forward. He clasped his hands together and looked at me. He lowered his head so that he was peering at me over the top of his glasses. I could see the white pages from the folder reflected in the lenses.
‘I wish you the v
ery best of luck in finding them,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You mentioned you had the results back from my scan?’
He sat upright and pulled out a single page from the folder.
‘Our brains are split into regions,’ he said. ‘Sections that deal with different things. Things like sight or hearing, or memory and recognition.’
I nodded.
‘Your results are inconclusive,’ he said.
He looked at the sheet in his hands and shook his head.
‘Swelling of the brain is quite normal in these sorts of situations. Trauma to the head, front and back. Quite expected. Over time, the swelling goes down. That’s why it’s useful to have ongoing monitoring of the situation. Your initial scan may show up the swelling, and any major internal bleeding, but often we see more as the swelling goes down. Hence the additional scans.’
He looked behind him at the blinds across the window. Then looked up at me.
I shivered.
‘I would have expected your swelling to have gone down more by now. It doesn’t mean that there’s a problem, only that it’s taking longer than some.’
I crossed my legs.
‘Why would it do that?’ I said.
He shrugged.
‘Every case is different. Our bodies are different. And we all react differently to different things.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘The report from your latest scan suggests that there may be something in your Frontal lobe and your Temporal lobe. Although, as I say, this is not conclusive. As the swelling goes down it may turn out to be nothing at all.’
Tiny pulses started up in my head as though highlighting the areas he was speaking about. I reached for the scar on my forehead and ran my hand gently from that one, to the one on the back of my head, now just a slight ridge under my hair.
‘I don’t know what the Frontal and Temporal lobes do,’ I said. ‘Does it have any effect on me?’
He tipped his head on one side, stretching his neck, then straightened it again.
‘The Frontal lobe has many associations,’ he said. ‘Damage to that area can affect personality. Also motor skills. It can send mixed messages to your muscles and limbs and often comes out in violent or aggressive behaviour. Sometimes it can cause inappropriate behaviour, like rudeness or swearing. It can make it more difficult for the sufferer to plan or organise things.’
He looked into my eyes. I organised them not to react.
‘And the other one?’ I said.
‘Temporal lobe damage can result in memory issues, a lack of recognition of every day things and can affect perception — hearing, vision or smell.’
He put the sheet of paper back onto the other pages in the file.
‘It is also most closely aligned to schizophrenia.’
I shook my head.
‘What does that mean?’ I said.
‘Schizophrenia describes a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion and behaviour. Sufferers slowly withdraw from reality into a fantasy world, often terrifying and delusional. They may hear voices and see people that aren’t part of reality. Or they may think that there is a conspiracy against them from other sources. They feel as though their perception is failing them, along with their mind.’
I realised I was rubbing the back and side of my neck. My hand came away damp. My chest barely moved from the shallow breathing. If the doctor pulled a syringe on me now — I was screwed.
He smiled.
‘But that’s only a possibility,’ he said. ‘We can’t really see from this report whether there is damage to those areas or not.’
I forced myself to take deeper breaths.
He sat back in his chair and pushed it away from the desk. He reached over to another folder on the side-desk that held his keyboard and monitor.
‘The thing is,’ he said, opening the folder, ‘I have been speaking at length with colleagues.’
He gave the impression of scrutinising the contents of the folder. I knew he was just avoiding eye contact with me.
‘And this really isn’t something we rush into. The general consensus was one of “better to be safe than sorry”.’
I gripped the underside of my seat. I saw it all now. The whole reason for getting me in there as soon as possible wasn’t to go through my scan report, which in reality showed nothing. My brain was still too swollen — the doctor said so himself. The real reason was in the folder he held in his trembling hand. That was the syringe.
‘We have agreed that you should undergo a psychiatric assessment.’
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