by Seb Kirby
I was struggling to believe what she was saying. “But it feels so real, Jan. These thoughts are the only memories I have that I know are true. Everything else is what I should know about who I am.”
I could see I was worrying her. She must have been hoping that her care in taking me back through my past would have started to rebuild our life together by now. Though she was trying to hide it, my confession had come as a shock.
She took me by both hands and looked into my eyes. “It’s just a setback, Tom. I’ll ask for an appointment with Josh Healey. He was quite emphatic that if we ran into problems we shouldn’t hesitate to see him again.”
She returned from the phone. “He can see you first thing tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 16
Janet drove me to see Mr. Healey.
He listened as I told him about the girls, how I saw myself seducing them, killing them.
He was taking notes and looked up only when I told him about the tattoo.
When I’d finished, he asked me to relax while he told me about false memories.
“You see, Tom, the mind works in unconventional ways when it’s trying to compensate for the disruption caused by the kind of trauma you’ve been through. It needs to find space to recreate the past, to allow you to rediscover yourself, who you are. And that can lead to experiences like this.”
“But, Mr. Healey, they seem so real.”
He smiled. “Call me Josh, please.”
“OK, Josh, these things I’m telling you about are more real than anything else right now. I see myself doing these things, hear and taste and smell it all, every second of these terrible things I’m doing.”
“I know it’s going to be difficult to believe me, but these are nothing but false memories. Think of it this way, you’re taking the worst fears about yourself, your darkest fantasies and experiencing them as real. Making them into memories that you take as real as a way of compensating for the fact that the memories of your real self that you so desperately wish were there just won’t appear. But ask yourself this – would you ever have done anything like this? Being unfaithful to your wife? Killing those women?”
I wanted to accept that what he was telling me was true. “I know that I’m not the kind of person who would do any of that. But you have to believe me when I say that what I’m recalling is real, so real I can touch it.”
“Don’t get caught up with the notion that what you’re experiencing is so unusual. Normally, there’s a filter to such thoughts coming to the surface, to your waking consciousness. Because of what happened to you, because of the trauma you’ve been through, that filter is damaged, has stopped working, for awhile at least. The primitive urges and desires we’ve taken millennia to tame come bursting through. Experiences that you wouldn’t think any of us would be capable of having appear like bad dreams.”
“That’s what they are. Bad dreams that I experience as real?”
He nodded. “While your memory repairs itself.”
“I will get it back?”
“In time.”
“How much time?”
He stopped to scribble a further note. “That all depends. I’ll be honest with you. It could be weeks. It could be months. But once the memories of your true self begin, they’ll come flooding back. And they’ll displace these false memories that are currently filling the void, send them scuttling back where they belong in the subterranean world they’re meant to inhabit.”
He was making me believe him. It would take time but I would find a way back. For things to be as they were with Janet. To go back to my job with the newspaper. To start to live my life again. And to banish these terrible visions once and for all, to recognize them for what they are.
I had one more question. “Tell me, Josh, what’s the significance of the tattoo, the rose that I’m seeing on my forearm?”
He looked up from his notes once more. “If you need to know, I think that’s a kind of transference, a kind of compensation. You’re shocked at what’s happening, what you suppose you’re recalling from your past. You need a sign to tell you that it can’t be you doing these things and you know that you don’t have any such tattoo. So you invent it, place it on the killer’s forearm so that when you see it you can prove to yourself that it can’t be you.”
“And why a rose"?”
“It symbolizes your love and loyalty to Janet. It’s a visible sign that you wouldn’t be unfaithful to her.”
He ended the session by saying he would like to see me again in a week.
When I returned to Janet, waiting for me in Healey’s outer office, she wanted to know if I now felt better about the memories.
I told her that they were false, that given time I would understand that.
But deep down I knew this was more what I hoped for than what it was.
CHAPTER 17
Mr. Healey gave me hope that, in time, I would come to see that the memories haunting me could be understood for what they were.
My relief that this was the course I was on pleased Janet.
The visions – that’s what I was now calling them – were appearing less often.
Cathy.
Rebecca.
Margot.
Felicity.
I saw them and what I was doing to them and I couldn’t look away. But I knew these visions would fade and take their place in the recesses of my mind once my true memories returned.
That was the day I was setting all my hopes on.
Janet was filling in more of my past, showing me more images on her tablet and talking me through them.
“Here we are in London.” She pointed to the screen. “You were spending so much time staying up there for the paper that you thought I should join you for the weekend.”
I stared at the photograph. It showed Janet and me, arm in arm, smiling and looking tipsy outside a bar. “Looks like we were having a good time.”
“We were.”
I only had questions. “So, when was this?”
She paused to think. “It must have been just under three months ago. Back end of summer.”
“And who took the photo?”
“I think that must have been Jason. Jason Blair, from your team. You were both there as part of the paper’s investigation into banking corruption.”
She stroked the tablet screen and showed another image. It was the same scene but with four in the picture now. Janet, me and two others.
I recognized the bearded man as Jason Blair from when Janet first pointed him out to me.
She smiled. “Before you ask, I think the photo was taken by one of the waiters.”
I saw the funny side. “OK. Who’s Jason with?”
Janet rubbed her chin. “One of his conquests from the office. I think her name was Carrie, something like that. We had a good time together that weekend, as a foursome. Went to the theatre. Saw a brilliant production of a Tennessee Williams. It was Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. I saved the tickets. I have them somewhere.”
“But you don’t sound as sure about Carrie?”
“Like most of Jason’s trysts, I don’t think it lasted long. He would have moved on, from what I hear. You don’t recall her?”
“I’m sure I’ve never seen her before.”
“Do you recall that weekend?”
I shook my head. “I wish I could say yes, Jan. But I have to be honest with you. I don’t. It still feels like I’m hearing about someone else.”
She gave me a reassuring hug. “It’ll come. Just give it more time.”
There was something else I needed to ask. “Jan, you said I invited you up there because I was spending so much time away from you. How much time?”
“You were staying up in London a lot. Sometimes weeks on end if you couldn’t get back home for the weekend.”
“And you got used to it?”
She smiled once more. “Tom, believe me, if I was the kind of woman who couldn’t trust my man, I’d never would have married an investigative journalist. I knew w
hat I was in for. You have to go where the story takes you. Your work was intense at that time. Your journalism would have suffered if you’d had to come shuttling back and forth each day.”
“And that was just when there’s a crisis?”
“No, that’s the normal way. When you’re following a strong lead, chasing a new exclusive, it’s all hands to the wheel. Not just you. The whole team.”
“And it was like that right up until the accident?”
“You were busier than ever. But I knew I’d get you back when things quietened down.” She looked down. “And when you went missing, I thought at first you’d been so caught up in a story you hadn’t time to get in touch with me. But when you hadn’t called for over twenty-four hours, I knew something was wrong. When I contacted the paper, they assumed you were home with me. That’s when I called the police.”
I kissed her on the cheek. “It’s good you were looking out for me.”
She kissed me back. “But not soon enough to stop what happened to you.”
We spent the remainder of the day going through more of our life together.
Janet was patient and understanding. She knew that she shouldn’t push me too hard or too fast. Yet I think she must have been working on the idea of water breaking a dam, of piling up so much behind the dam wall that my memories would come flooding back once the first breach was made.
I was feeling exhausted by all she’d told me.
She understood. “That’s enough for today. Take a break. Watch some TV while I make dinner.”
She turned on the set and chose a news station before heading for the kitchen.
I stared at the screen.
Journalists were presenting their stories from around the world.
I tried to think myself inside the skin of each and every one of them, trying to remember how it felt to work like that, to be one of them.
The coverage cut to a press conference.
A distraught mother was appealing for information from the public on her missing daughter. Beside her, the father sat silent and ashen faced.
The girl had been missing for too long.
Someone must know of her whereabouts. The family was holding on to the belief that she would be found alive but their faces told that they’d spent too many sleepless nights trying to convince themselves that this could be true.
A picture of the girl appeared on the screen.
I shook my head. I closed my eyes and opened them again, trying to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
I knew that face.
It was Cathy.
One of the women in my visions that Mr. Healey had told me were false.
CHAPTER 18
I called out and Janet came running back into the room.
“What’s happened?”
I pointed at the screen “Jan. Look at this.”
She stared at the image of the girl but didn’t yet understand. “Why is this so important?”
“She’s missing. I know her. She’s one of the women I’ve been telling you about, the one’s I’ve been seeing. I know her name, it’s Cathy.”
Janet held up her hands. “Wait, Tom. That’s what it says on the screen caption. Cathy Newsome, missing teenager. That’s where you saw the name.”
“I already knew the name. I told you - one of the girls is called Cathy. You must remember.”
She sat beside me. “Yes. But that’s just coincidence. There are lots of women called Cathy.”
“I recognize her face.”
“Are you sure that isn’t because you’ve just seen her picture on the TV? Sure you’re not confusing that with what you’ve been recalling? If she’s been missing for awhile, you could have seen an appeal for help in finding her weeks ago, even from before the accident.”
“No, Jan, I swear, I’m not confused. As soon as I saw her face on the screen, I knew where I’d seen her. And you know what it means? Those memories of mine are real. The Cathy I see has really disappeared. This proves it.”
Janet put her arms round me. “Tom, I could call Josh Healey, ask for an earlier appointment.”
I pushed her away. “I don’t want Healey. I don’t believe a word he says about my memories being false. I know what’s real.”
She looked shocked that I had reacted in this way. “So, if you don’t want to see Healey, what do you want to do?”
I moved closer to her once more and held her hand. “Jan, that girl is missing and I can no longer doubt that I know what happened to her. I have to tell someone. You’ve seen the agony of her parents. If there’s anything I know that might help them, I need to come forward.”
“So, who?”
“The police. I need to call the police.”
CHAPTER 19
It was something Janet didn’t want me to do, but I called the phone number shown on the screen during the appeal for Cathy Newsome.
They must have been busy. I was held in a queue.
Doubts filled my mind as I waited.
Should I be doing this?
What I knew could end the agony of Cathy’s troubled parents.
But would anyone believe me?
I was on the point of giving up when a tired female voice came on the line. “Metropolitan Police.”
At first the words wouldn’t come, but at last I summoned up the courage to speak. “I’ve just seen the appeal about the missing girl.”
When she replied it sounded as if this was the hundredth time she’d said it. “Cathy Newsome?”
“Yes.”
“You have information that might help the enquiry?”
“I’ve seen her. I’ve seen her die.”
She asked me to repeat it. “Are you clear about what you’re saying, sir?”
“I’m aware how strange this must sound but I saw her as she died.”
Her voice betrayed the fact that to her this was no doubt sounding like just one more of the crank calls that appeals like this were bound to attract. “And how was that, sir?”
“In my visions. I see her and the others die.”
“You know, don’t you, sir, that it’s an offence to waste police time.”
“No, I want to help. I want to help you find her. To find them all.”
“So, you know where this happened?”
I faltered. I was trying to think of anything that would allow me to pinpoint the location of the book-filled room but I realized then what little of real use I knew. “It’s near a railway line. I recall hearing a train rattling on the tracks somewhere nearby. But that’s all.”
“I thought you said you saw what happened?”
“Yes, I saw the room it happened in but I didn’t get to see where it was.”
She sounded close to exasperation. “So you don’t know where she is?” She paused. “I have to warn you again about wasting police time. Do you have any idea how many calls we get after an appeal like this, how much false information we have to sift through, how many man hours that takes when we could be using that time for something more useful?”
“I’m trying to help, I really am.”
“And this is the best you can do? Can I ask if you’re on any medication, sir?”
“Some sedatives. I’m recovering from an accident.”
The change in her voice told me that she was trying to be understanding despite the pressure she was under but it sounded more like pity to me. “And don’t you think your response to the appeal has been affected by that?”
“No, it’s real. Everything I’m saying is real.”
“We have your number, sir. Do you want to leave a name?”
“It’s Tom. Tom Markland.”
“Thank you Tom. We’ll be in touch if we want to talk to you further.”
It was clear she’d concluded that I was a timewaster. I wasn’t making her understand the importance of what I was saying. “There are others, other women. I’ve seen them, too.”
“You have their names?”
“Rebecca. Margot. Feli
city.”
“No surnames?”
“No, that’s all I have.”
She was even less convinced now. “OK, Mr. Markland. We’ll be in touch if you can help us with anything.”
I sank back in the chair.
Why wouldn’t they believe me?
It wasn’t difficult to answer my own question. I wouldn’t have believed me if I’d been that officer on the end of the line.
CHAPTER 20
I felt better for having made the call.
And it was a relief having told someone other than Janet and Mr. Healey.
It was something like a confession. I had tried. I had tried to get someone to believe me.
Janet acquainted me with more of my life, through images on her tablet, through her own recollections and what I must have told her before the accident. It was still like learning about myself second hand, as if I was this other person I must become. And, though I couldn’t say any of this felt like the real me returning, like the dam had broken and memories were flooding back, I got to know much more about this person that I was.
I heard more about my colleagues at the paper.
I began to feel a connection with Evan Hamilton, my boss. Janet told me how he’d advanced my career as a journalist, given me the breaks that had taken me from reporting petty crime to the front line in the investigative trade.
“He’s been something of an inspirational figure to you.”
“Maybe we should meet.”
“He wants to visit. To tell the truth, he’s been insisting. But I told him it’s too soon, that your recovery is still in the early stages.”
My recovery? I guess I had to accept that’s what it was but it was still a shock to have to accept that I had been driven so low. “If he needs to see me, maybe next week?”
Janet nodded. “Maybe then. I want him to see you at your best, as the uncompromising journalist they all know you to be.”
I wanted to know more. “Who have we investigated?”
It was a question Janet had been waiting for. “I keep a collection of your articles.” She smiled. “I’m your greatest fan. You can read them all here.”
