Trauma: a gripping psychological mystery thriller

by Dylan Young

  ‘Does seeing me here bother you?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘It doesn’t make you anxious?’

  Selena stands behind me in the room. I stand, too, and walk out. The faint breeze isn’t at all unpleasant in the sunshine. London spreads out before us with half a dozen giant gantries adding jagged toothpick spikes to an overcrowded skyline. I look out and then down. I am not troubled by heights.

  ‘And what you see now is London. Not the rocks of a Turkish cliff?’

  Timpson’s question irritates me. I stand next to him to stare out at an eerily-quiet city poleaxed by a strand of viral RNA that has made the leap into a susceptible species. London’s sophisticated society has been brought to a virtual standstill.

  ‘Of course it’s London.’

  ‘And you don’t have any urge now to stand on the edge of this barrier?’

  I don’t but I would be lying if I said that in the moment of walking through the doorway it hadn’t crossed my mind. I can recollect vividly the viaduct at Hockley. About how, if I’d been higher, I might do a better job of it. Be less of a burden. Then I’d convinced myself that people would miss me. Rachel and Vanessa and Nicole… But that was all a lie. There is no Nicole.

  No Nicole.

  I squeeze my eyes shut to let these thoughts traverse my consciousness. Did I imagine all that? Did I really not smell Bandit on my pillow?

  I stand on the edge, still taking in the city laid out below. The sun slides behind a cloud and the chill is instant. This is not a fugue. This is reality.

  Yet even as I admit my failings to myself, I sense something is different. My mind isn’t as clear as it should be. There’s a dullness, a fog that makes the horizon waver. The heat haze sensation again. I falter. My standing on the roof with Dr Timpson is reality… isn’t it?

  I glance behind. Selena has joined us. She stands with arms folded against the door frame. She’s smiling, encouraging.

  I catch a waft of her perfume. Light and floral. Not Bandit.

  I see her lips move but there is no sound. I read what she says slowly, meaningfully.

  I love you, Cameron.

  My breath catches. No, no, no. Not real. This isn’t real. She isn’t real. I turn back to look down at the cars and the few people on the streets. The prime minister made an appeal on Friday. No one should be out unless they’re exercising or walking their dogs or have an appointment.

  Like me.

  My eyes slide, images shift on a half-second delay. The fog in my head is worsening. And then I focus on a figure. The same figure I’d seen under the trees when I’d stood on the viaduct. The shadow man, the whistler. Big, dressed in a dark coat, but this time it’s exiting a car.

  Just like I seem to be exiting what I perceive as reality.

  Or is this a variation of my fugue? Is that dark shape the same one that roils below the coiling smoke on Ivan’s rooftop bar?

  For the first time I notice that there is a chair next to me. Wood and steel, foldable. I don’t look at Timpson, I can’t return Selena’s gaze. In my mind’s eye I imagine the pressure of my foot on the seat. One step and I’d be up there. One more and I could be over. No more doubts. No more wondering if it was me who pushed Emma. From this height there would be no possibility of survival.

  One step…

  The noise is loud behind me. Someone knocking on a door. No, banging on a door followed by muffled words. ‘Police, open up.’

  I hear Timpson curse. See him shake his head and hurry past. I half turn and see Selena step forward.

  ‘Show us, Cameron. Show us you’re not scared of heights.’

  I blink at her. Is it her voice? Or am I hearing it all in my head? Whatever the truth, the voice seems to fade in and out. Through the balcony doors I can see Timpson at the apartment door. The banging is loud. He seems to be protesting, but the noise persists. If anything it gets louder.

  ‘Cam?’ Selena is trying to get my attention. ‘Cam?’

  In the far hallway, I see the door open. Timpson looks out, hesitates for a moment before trying to quickly shut it. But he’s too late as someone barges in. A woman. Wild, angry, shouting.

  ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ Her voice is distant but clearly audible.

  Not the police.

  For one moment I think about responding. I think about yelling that I’m here. Because it must be me she’s looking for.

  But I don’t get the chance because Timpson grabs the woman by the arm. She swings around trying to fling him off.

  That’s when I see the knife.

  The woman’s shouts are cut off, and she convulses, bends at the hip and bows forward, mouth open in silent shock and pain as Timpson stabs Harriet Roxburgh viciously in the stomach.

  53

  I blurt out a shout, an incoherent bleat of protest. But as I step forward, my legs buckle, and I fall to my knees. My arms should stretch forward to break my fall in a protective reflex, but they don’t. It’s as if they’ve forgotten how to because the world has suddenly become viscous. I hit the ground and momentum tilts me forward and my head strikes the floor with a crack.

  Selena kneels next to me, one arm on my shoulder. I breathe in her perfume. Her floral, not-Bandit perfume.

  ‘Cameron, are you all right?’

  I stare up at her, see double, focus, and croak, ‘He stabbed Harriet.’

  ‘No, Cameron. There’s no Harriet here.’

  Something skitters across the wooden decking and ends up under the chair. From where I’m lying, I can see it. A black oblong. Fuzzy in outline. Everything is fuzzy. Then something else clatters on the other side of me. Metal on wood. A bloody kitchen knife spins to a stop, the blade pointing towards me like some weird game of spin-the-bottle. My arms are heavy but I drag them forward, push up on one and reach for the knife with the other. My hand closes on a handle slick with blood. But then Selena’s foot is on my wrist. ‘There’s no need, Cameron. Let it go.’

  I drop it and someone kicks it away. Timpson has joined us. His foot does the kicking. He stands, still calm, still unruffled, a hand extended to pick me up.

  ‘Just a delivery,’ he explains. ‘Sorry about the intrusion.’

  ‘Cameron seems to have had a bit of a turn,’ Selena says.

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  I’m panting, groggy, as if I’ve drunk too much. But all I’ve had is muddy camomile tea. Timpson’s arm is under my armpit. Selena on the other side. They hoist me up and turn me around so I can steady myself on the metal rail.

  ‘Let’s pick up where we left off,’ Timpson says. ‘You were looking out, remember? Telling us what you were seeing. London? Or is it a rooftop bar with Emma?’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s London. Of course it’s bloody London.’ I pivot towards him. ‘But I saw Harriet. You let her in and stabbed–’

  ‘The term is dislocation, Cameron. You’re having difficulty separating the hallucinations from reality. You’re here with us at our offices. Harriet isn’t here.’

  ‘But the knife. I picked it up.’

  ‘Only a teaspoon,’ Selena says.

  ‘No. It was the knife you used–’

  ‘You’re confused, Cameron.’ Selena holds up a teaspoon. I stare at it, my head shaking from side to side.

  ‘You’ve been confused for some time. Your sister worries about you. We all do. She’s asking why you haven’t contacted her,’ Timpson says.

  I glare at him. ‘You know why I haven’t seen her. She’s isolating. One of the kids has the virus–’

  ‘What virus?’

  ‘What virus?’ I laugh in his face. ‘Coven bloody19…’ I pant in irritation, speak more slowly. ‘Covid-19. The lockdown. Anyone infected or in close contact has to self… self-isolate for fourteen days. The bloody apocalypse.’

  Selena and Timpson exchange glances. They don’t need to explain what they’re thinking. But I need to know.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Paranoia can sometimes be a part of a deteri
oration. SBI patients can become manic. That and the fugues changing…’

  ‘I’m not paranoid. It’s the virus.’

  ‘There is no virus, Cameron. No lockdown. London is as it always has been. Look.’ Timpson stands next to me at the rail, Selena on the other side. I follow their gaze and see a London that I barely recognise. A tenth of the traffic. Empty streets. No sirens. No roar of jets on their flight paths above. A sudden and sickening wave of vertigo washes through me.

  ‘What do you see, Cameron?’ Selena asks.

  ‘I see a London dished… diminished. There’s hardly anyone around.’

  ‘And yet,’ Timpson says, ‘we see normal traffic, bustling roads. There’s even a busker.’

  ‘I… I can’t.’

  ‘Listen, Cameron.’

  I listen and hear nothing. I see the seat of the chair again. Christ, this can’t go on. The damage in my head is far too great. I thought I was recovering, getting better. Instead, I’m getting worse; nothing but a burden. I can’t explain any of it. I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Someone moans from inside the office. It sounds like someone calling my name. I turn. A bloody hand reaches up to touch the inside of the glass before falling again. It leaves a red smear.

  Selena says, ‘There’s no one there, Cameron.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut and put one foot on the seat, ready to stand. I take one last look at Selena and say, ‘Nicole, I…’

  But Selena only points to her name badge. There’s an odd flintiness to her expression as she says, ‘It’s all in your head, Cameron. I am not Nicole.’

  My eyes fall to the badge. Selena. Selena Burridge. It’s the first time I’ve looked at it properly. And I notice that unlike Timpson’s, there’s a logo. An animal. A horse.

  I stare at it and its incongruousness pierces the fog that my mind is struggling through. I recognise that logo from a well-known bank. So why would Selena the therapist be wearing this? Unless this name badge is from another life. A non-therapist life. Still it makes no sense.

  Yet it makes me wonder who this Selena Burridge truly is.

  An idea forms. A vague flickering ember of realisation that catches fire and instantly illuminates everything in a fresh and sickening light.

  Burridge. Easy to misspell. Easy to leave out some letters, especially in translation. Burridge could become Burdge.

  Become one of the names on Stamford’s list of car renters.

  It’s a stretch.

  Another moan from inside the office reaches me. And on the end of it, I hear a name. My name.

  ‘Cameron,’ in Harriet’s tremulous voice.

  The monstrosity of what I’m thinking comes crashing down. I may not be the person I was before I fell on that quayside in Turkey. I may be damaged physically, mentally and emotionally from all that trauma. I may have a memory like Swiss cheese. Yet despite what these two beside me want me to think, I am not going bloody mad.

  ‘You’re lying,’ I say.

  Timpson tenses beside me as he senses the change. I push away from the wall, kick the chair away. But then Timpson grabs me from behind, pinning my arms. I fight but my reactions are slow and the more I resist the more the world spins sickeningly. Nausea makes me close my eyes. It helps a bit but then Selena has me by the thighs. She isn’t big, but she’s strong. I realise that they’re trying to lift me off the floor. I kick out. It loosens Selena’s grip for the moment. But not for long. She comes back and I’m lifted from behind by Timpson. This time, Selena tries to grab my legs below the knees. We swivel and sway and panic surges as I realise what they’re trying to do.

  If I give in they’ll hoist me over the edge.

  I fight for my life.

  I fight with all the diminished strength I can muster. Timpson is strong but I push him back against the rails and hear him grunt with pain.

  I shout a curse of satisfaction. Find my voice and yell for help. I kick Selena away. ‘Bastard,’ she mutters.

  From behind me Timpson barks out an order. ‘Get a towel to stuff in his face and one to wrap around his legs.’

  Selena runs to the kitchen. Hot breath close on my neck. But not Timpson’s. Impossible because Timpson doesn’t exist.

  It’s Haldane’s. Has been all along.

  I keep shouting, wriggling, fighting.

  Selena comes back with a dishcloth. She rams it into my mouth, but I shake my head and clamp my teeth shut like a Rosie resisting her medicine. Haldane pulls my arm up from behind, torqueing my shoulder. I yelp with pain and Nicole stuffs in the cloth. I can taste soap. Smell lemons.

  ‘We can play this game all day, Cameron. We only have to wait it out. There was enough tranq in your tea to poleaxe a horse. You’re fighting a losing battle. I can hang on to you for another ten minutes and then it won’t matter. Or you can let us do it quickly and easily. Put you out of your traumatised misery. What do you say?’

  I try a back kick and connect with his shin. He grunts and it gives me a spurt of pleasure to think I’ve hurt the bastard. He adjusts his position with a wider stance.

  ‘You little shit,’ he hisses.

  Selena has a long towel in her hands. I kick out at her as she approaches. But all she does is come at me from the side while Haldane holds me, and whips the towel around my thighs. She slides it down. It tightens around my knees and then my shins. I resist, kick out. No use; the towel tightens further, my legs become a single impotent unit.

  ‘Grab his feet.’

  I writhe, kick out with my tied legs, but there’s little power in them bound.

  ‘Head first,’ Haldane orders. ‘We can get the towel off as he dangles.’

  I’m a foot below the barrier, still on the apartment side of it, Selena at one end, Haldane at the other. He has my hands gripped behind my back now. I’m sweating, fighting nausea. It would be so easy to give in. Take a breather. Fall to oblivion.

  But what about Rachel?

  What about Vanessa?

  I fight some more.

  They lift me up. My hip bangs against the metal rail. I bend forward, make Haldane twist awkwardly, weakening his grip. But I’m moments and inches away from my weight tipping me over, letting gravity do the deadly rest.

  There’s no noise except grunts and wheezes during this murderous dance. Everyone is intent on their purpose; Haldane and Nicole in throwing me over. Me in wriggling and writhing to stop them.

  Between them they manhandle one of my shoulders on the rail. All it will take is for Nicole to heave my legs up and I am over.

  From somewhere the sound of wood splintering reaches my ears. Is it the posts for the barrier? All there is between me and death? It might be. But Nicole and Haldane ignore it. They’re my executioners. They don’t care about trivial damage. All they’re interested in is finishing me.

  We’re all so preoccupied in a life or death struggle none of us see the dark-clad figure until he’s almost next to us. He’s a shadow in my peripheral vision. But this shape isn’t made of smoke.

  Haldane shouts.

  ‘Who the fuck–’

  A static buzz, a groan, and I’m falling.

  But not over the edge.

  My shoulders hit the floor of the balcony. Haldane isn’t holding me anymore and I twist so that Nicole, who has let go of my legs, stands between me and the barrier. I see something glint in her hand. Long, sharp and wicked.

  Not a bloody teaspoon.

  Pure reflex makes me thrust my legs forward with all the strength I can muster. And despite them being tied, now I have the floor as leverage. It happens so quickly there’s no time to think. But my feet meet with her chest in a convulsive thrust that sends her windmilling back. The knife in her hands flies up and out. Selena hits the railing with such force that her head and shoulders tip back and over.

  Momentum makes her legs follow.

  She doesn’t scream.

  The only noise is a sickening crunch five seconds later.

  I don’t look. I can’t. I’m on my knees fightin
g the nausea that now returns with a vengeance. I try to get up but fall back, face down. A hand presses down on my back and I jerk away.

  ‘Easy, pal. Easy.’

  I lift my head. The world spins. I wait for it to slow. The towel is removed from my mouth and I cough and splutter. Above me, at a strange angle, Stamford’s face floats into focus. He has a taser in his hand.

  ‘Harriet…’ I croak.

  ‘She’s bleeding badly, but she’s still alive.’

  ‘Haldane?’

  ‘Him too.’ Stamford looks across to a figure lying a few feet away. He mutters, loud enough for me to hear, ‘Worse bloody luck.’

  54

  Keely stands in the recording room adjacent to the one they’re holding Haldane in at Walworth Station, gathering her thoughts. She’s waiting for the signal to get things started. Has been for an hour or more. A mindless part of the job. Boxes need to be ticked. And today everyone wants to make sure that all the paperwork is complete and error free. No one wants any procedural hiccups. Especially not for this case.

  The mayor of London, in his infinite wisdom, although not quite following through on his threat to close Southwark station in Borough completely, has slashed its hours. Now only open for eight hours a day and shut completely on weekends. Though still part of the same organisational area of the Central South Basic Command Unit that polices Lambeth and Southwark, Keely still considers the station at Borough High Street her home and being here, closer to Elephant and Castle than Tower Bridge, feels like she’s trespassing. She’s never liked Elephant and Castle because she, unlike most people she knows, has taken the trouble to find out the origin of the name. And being named after a pub popular with ivory merchants in the eighteenth century just about sums up its dubious credentials. Add to that the architectural carbuncle that is its shopping centre and a two-way roundabout that sees an accident every other day and she, for one, will not be sad to see the first bulldozer start the drastic restructuring it’s about to undergo.