by Seb Kirby
Another bolt-lightning stream of memory. Vivid. Seeing myself doing these things.
Margot.
Athletic. Twenty. An illustrator.
We’re looking at one of her drawings for a children’s book. Her first real commission.
It’s good.
We’re in that room again, the one with the books lining the wood paneled walls.
I’m being unfaithful again. Unfaithful to Janet.
I know what’s coming next. A waking nightmare I don’t want to see.
I’m forcing Margot back down onto the couch, gripping her by the neck, squeezing the life out of her, listening to her last gasps.
I want to look away but I have to watch.
I can see the hands gripping Margot’s neck, the same hands that gripped Cathy’s neck, that gripped Rebecca’s neck. But now for the first time I see the forearms, reaching forward, struggling to exert the power to complete the act.
The nightmare vision continues. I’m killing Margot, watching her die.
But what did I see?
As Margot was being killed.
On the left forearm I saw a tattoo.
A single red rose.
I struggled out of the bed, put the light on in the bathroom and looked at my forearms.
No tattoos.
It wasn’t me.
It couldn’t have been me doing those killings.
If it wasn’t me, why was I seeing them?
Why were these memories the only ones I could recall?
I had to believe it wasn’t me.
I had to believe.
CHAPTER 11
Each day I was learning more about who I was from Janet.
Our honeymoon in Venice. The hotel in the Dorsoduro, not far from the Academia, where we stayed. The walks along the narrow alleyways to the square overlooking the Grand Canal.
Janet played the music we listened to then. Our song. Van Morrison. ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’. She told me how I called her my brown-eyed girl.
We’re there in photographs on Janet’s tablet. Standing on the steps of the Academia Bridge, smiling.
Younger. Happier. Together and in love.
I wished I could believe this was me. I wished I could remember being there with Janet.
I couldn’t tell her that what I was doing was learning this from her. I was not recalling this for myself. This was not the spark that unlocked the memory of who I was.
But I learned this and told her that it was all coming back.
She told me about my work for the newspaper. The Herald. “Investigative journalism is somewhat out of favor these days. You know, too many people viewing too much media, on their smart phones and having too little time to take in anything in depth, but you’ve been making quite a name for yourself. Reporting crime. Exposing wrongdoing. You’re a rising star and I’m proud of you.”
I tried to connect with this world I now knew so little about. “I don’t feel much like a rising star at the moment.”
“That’s to be expected. After what happened. But you’re on the mend now. You’ll soon be back.”
She showed me photographs of my colleagues at The Herald. The annual dinner to celebrate the year’s journalism awards. Everyone in evening dress.
I was looking at a five-man group, all smiling, all pleased with themselves.
Janet pointed to the balding, overweight man at the center of the group.
“That’s Evan Hamilton, your Editor.”
“My boss?”
She nodded. “You’ve had more than a few run-ins with him over the years but I’ve heard you say more than once that he’s firm but fair.”
I turned back to look at the group. I was there next to Hamilton. “Why do we look so pleased?”
“The team had just won the Insight Award for their work on financial wrongdoing in the City. People went to prison over what they exposed. You’d just joined the team and there you were at the awards ceremony.”
“Who are the others?”
She pointed to each of the remaining faces in turn.
The first was a tall, thin type with a beard. “This is Jason Blair. The glamour boy of the office. Word is he’d have a fling with just about anything in a skirt. But you’ve told me more than once that the team wouldn’t have succeeded without his skills in convincing whistle-blowers to come forward.”
I took this in. I learned it. But inside I was feeling this was just another face I’d never met.
She pointed to the next man. “Tim Mason. He’s been with the paper since anyone can remember.”
I was trying to recall him, this man who must be important to my work but the longer I stared at his angular face, the more I knew that it was as if I’d never met him.
Janet could see I was having problems recalling any of them. “Don’t worry, love. Don’t take it as a bad sign that you can’t recall them yet. Give it time.”
I shook my head. “It’s painful, Janet. Not recognizing these people when I must have been working with them.”
I looked back at the photograph. “So, who’s the fifth man?”
She leaned back. “I think his name is Tunny. Geoff Tunny. But to me he’s just someone else who worked in your team at the paper. Someone I never met and someone you never said much about.”
I stared at him for a long time, wishing what I must know about him would return.
He looked older than me. Had a crooked face. A knowing look in his eyes.
But I could recall nothing about him.
Janet told me that was enough for today, that I shouldn’t overload myself with too much information all at once.
I wanted to tell her that for all her hard work the only events I could recall in truth were the deaths of those young women. I worried that if I told her, even she wouldn’t understand. But I needed to tell someone.
Instead I asked her what the police were doing about what happened to me. “Have the police found anything yet? About how I ended up in the North Dock?”
Her reply was calm and considered but I could tell from the quiver in her voice that she was concerned at the lack of progress the police were making. “They’re still investigating, dear. We need to give them time.”
“But there’s been nothing more from them, nothing since I gave them the statement in the hospital?”
“Nothing yet. If there are no other witnesses, it may be difficult.”
“You mean I may be the only witness and I can’t remember a thing about it.”
She squeezed my hand. “It’s too soon to worry about that, Tom. There will be plenty of time to talk to them once you recall what happened.”
CHAPTER 12
I was feeling stronger. The pain in my body was lessening each day.
I decided to go out for a walk.
I didn’t tell Janet.
I wanted to know if I belonged on these streets, in this city.
Walking wasn’t that difficult. The pain lessened with each step.
It was just a small distance down Lombard Street to the Tanneries. I knew where this led. It was the narrow alley that ran alongside the abandoned cinema, a short cut that would take me onto Dam Street and on towards the center of the medieval city.
I walked along the alley and made it onto Dam Street, on past the centuries old squat houses, many now converted into shops and cafés, and up to Speaker’s Corner. I knew what I would find. There was a stand where anyone could have their say but too few did.
I knew when I turned that corner, I’d be facing on to Minster Pool.
It was raining. There was a young father with his four year old daughter and he was showing her how to throw bread to the ducks. I stopped and watched the delight on her face as a mother duck with a trail of five ducklings paddled over from the other side of the pool and started lapping up the bread from the water. The father had set his umbrella to one side on the low iron fence that surrounded the pool. It overbalanced and fell into the water. He groped down to retrieve it but couldn’t quite r
each. He smiled at the thought that he was going to have to leave it there and get wet while his daughter, dressed for the weather in rain hat and coat, would be as dry as a bone.
The sight of the umbrella falling into the water sent a shock of fear throughout me. My heart began to pound. My stomach clenched. I broke out into a nervous sweat. I tried to walk on but my legs felt so weak I was unable to move.
I was back in the water. Back in the North Dock. Feeling the cold, cold water filling my lungs. Sinking. Drowning. Drowning again.
I gripped the railings that surrounded the pool and tried to breathe. I felt for my pulse. It was racing.
The young father came over and offered to help. “You OK?”
I concentrated on making a reply. “I’m fine. Just a turn. It will pass.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded. “It will pass.”
He took his daughter’s hand and walked on in the rain.
As I watched them walk away, I realized he’d helped me. The moment had passed. So long as I didn’t look towards the pool, so long as I didn’t think about the volume of water held there. I would be fine.
The fear had passed. But I now knew that at any time it could return.
I made it to the path that ran alongside the pool and turned right at Bird Street, up a short hill.
I knew where this would lead. To the Close, past Erasmus Darwin’s house, and then to the first full view of the three-spired Cathedral itself.
I knew these things.
I knew I belonged here.
So why couldn’t I remember who I was?
Why didn’t this give me back my past?
I walked into this ancient space. Where St Chad was buried, where the townsfolk fought for a Parliament, where Samuel Johnson walked and, yes, I knew these things about this place.
It was somewhere I should call home.
I stopped walking and looked up at the stone statues of the saints that peopled the front face of the Cathedral. So many saints, too many sinners down here on the ground.
When I made it back to Lombard Street, Janet was relieved yet agitated. “Tom, don’t do that again. Please. Don’t go out like that without telling me.”
“I had to find out.”
“Find out what?”
“If I belong here.”
“You’re wet right through.”
I thought of the young father and his daughter at the pond side. “I didn’t feel the rain.”
CHAPTER 13
My sister Marianne, flew in from Florida and we spent a long weekend reminiscing about our childhood.
The terraced house in Nottingham.
Marianne closed her eyes to bring back the scene. “The house was so small and we had so little. I think times must have been hard for Mom and Dad, raising two children on a health worker’s pay.”
“What did he do?”
“You really don’t recall?”
“I thought Janet told you I need to rebuild it all.”
She apologized. “I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t need to say that. It’s just that I can’t get used to your knowing none of this.” She paused. “Dad was a nurse - and a good one, too. But the pay was poor and Mom couldn’t work. Something about her nerves. I think they kept most of it from us. They gave us a good upbringing and, look, we’ve both done well.”
I nodded as if what she was saying was second sense to me. “Yes, we owe them everything.”
Marianne moved on to talk about the Brogans, the Irish family next door.
Marshall Brogan, my boyhood friend and sparring partner.
“You and he were the same age and fought like demons. I can’t count the number of times you’d be locked together in mortal combat. He was a strong lad. There were times when I thought he might kill you. But somehow you survived. I guess that’s how you learned to step back to get what you want.”
I didn’t like what she was saying. “You mean I’m someone who compromises too much?”
She smiled. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.” She paused. “How can I say it better? You, Tom, my brother, are the dearest person I know. And the biggest part of that is that you’ve learned to get on in life by avoiding the fight. Any kind of fight. I wish there were more people like you out there. The world would be a better place.”
“You mean I used that with Mom and Dad.”
“All the time. Drove me mad, seeing you getting what you wanted from them.”
“But you’re not still cut up about it?”
She smiled. “Course not! It’s just families. What they are.”
Marshall Brogan’s elder sister Della, the tomboy leader of our gang.
“I think you must have had a crush on her, like all the other boys in the street. She was so full of life, so quick to dare us to do what we knew we shouldn’t do and just as quick to give us a hard time if we refused.”
The times we had, marauding over the nearby Nottinghamshire countryside.
“You remember the oak we called the Bash Tree, the one on the far side of the farmer’s field at the rear of the street. The meeting place for our gang. The place we went to test our honor. The tree we climbed right up to that high branch from where we jumped to the ground to prove our right to belong. The place where we cut each other’s thumbs, pressed them together and swore we’d be blood brothers ‘til the end of time.”
The more Marianne described it, the more I could believe I was there. “I can feel the judder of my knees on my chin as I thumped into the ground. And the jolt of pain in my thumb.”
She smiled. “There, Tom, you can recall it. Recall it all. Just let it all back in.”
“What became of the Brogans?”
“We lost contact once we moved house, once we went to schools different to them. We went our own ways. I wouldn’t know where to look for them now or what’s happened to them. One thing’s certain, Della and Marshall won’t have had the life chances we’ve had and that’s a shame. They were good kids.”
I was reaching for a disturbing thought that wouldn’t quite form itself. “And the father, Jimmie Brogan, something happened to him?”
She looked away. “I hadn’t planned to tell you about that. He was larger than life. The father of the Brogan house, six foot four and a giant to us all. He was killed crossing the road on his way home from his work one misty September night. The immense sadness of Marshall and Della and their mother Caitlin stays with me to this day. The street where we lived and played was never the same again.”
I tried to recall it. “I remember their pain.”
“I don’t think the family ever recovered from the shock of losing him. I don’t think things worked out well for Della and Marshall.”
She moved the conversation on. She talked about the school friends we had in common, our lives as teenagers when it was as if the whole world was against us. Marianne had photographs, too. She pointed to the faces and gave a name to each.
“And here’s Bill Everett. The guy who became your best man.”
“You knew him?”
“Tom, I went out with him for over a year.”
The more my sister told me, the more I felt a part of what she was telling me until I began to say to myself, yes, that’s me, I will remember it all.
Marianne could stay no longer than that single weekend. She returned to her life in Florida.
I thanked her for all the help she’d given me in rebuilding my past. She’d shone a light on our childhood together and, with what Janet had told me, I was beginning to feel more confident that one day soon I’d be able to fill in more of the gaps myself. That I’d be the one to feel these people and places and times were part of me and not just a story about someone else.
And I thanked her for making the long journey to see me when she had so many commitments back home.
I fought the feeling of loss as I kissed her farewell as she walked out to the taxi that took her to the airport.
“Take care, sis.”
She k
issed me back. “Just get well, Tom. Next time I see you I expect you to be your old self.”
If only I knew what my old self was. I tried to smile. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
CHAPTER 14
Another girl.
Felicity.
Young. Twenty-one. Intelligent. A lover of sport.
We’re talking about how we met playing squash.
What am I doing here?
We’re back in that book-lined room.
There’s no lovemaking this time because she’s refusing, saying that she’s not like that.
I’m pushing her back onto the couch and she’s starting to scream.
My hands over her mouth to quieten her.
The tattoo. The single red rose on my left forearm.
This can’t be me. Can’t be me.
Yet I see those hands gripping poor Felicity by the neck.
I see the life leaving her body, her eyes bulging, her face reddening and then darkening.
CHAPTER 15
I knew I couldn’t keep this to myself.
The last return of memory had come out of nowhere, in the afternoon, while I was sitting reading. It had invaded my thoughts.
I should have felt relief that memory, true memory was coming back. But this was all in truth I could recall. The killing of those girls.
How many was it now?
Four. Four women murdered.
How many more?
I told Janet everything.
She didn’t believe what I was saying. “They’re fantasies, Tom. I know you. I’m sure about the man I’m sharing my life with. You’re a kind, compassionate man who’d do anything to avoid any kind of confrontation, let alone the terrible acts you’re describing. These are things you would never do.”
“But, Jan, I see them. I see those girls dying. I was there. I must have been there.”
“It’s the shock of the accident, the harm that was done to you, nothing more.”
I told her about the tattoo. “On the left forearm. A single red rose.”
She leaned back. “There, that proves it. You’ve never had a tattoo, would never want to have such a thing. So these fantasies are just that, fantasies brought on by the trauma you were put through.”
