Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller

by Charles Harris

  I frown and try to think straight. Aside from a slight wooziness, I feel unchanged. I could have got the same from a gin and tonic, paid less and had more fun. It occurs to me that Nathan could easily have conned me like I conned him. It would be funny, if I felt like laughing.

  I decide I’m going to get hammered, so for starters I buy myself two double whiskies and another beer for Becks. He must still be having trouble with the signal because he’s spending longer over in the corner than I’d have expected and seems to be dialling a second time. He speaks, then comes over, muffling the handset in his chest.

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ he asks, looking at my doubles.

  ‘Doing anything feels like a good idea at the moment.’ I down the first and it cuts like a knife in my throat.

  ‘Aisha sends her love and asks if I’m planning to be back before spring.’

  ‘Nine thirty, latest.’

  ‘You sure? Our boy’s got toothache. Aisha wants me to pick up some Calpol on the way home.’

  I take the phone from him. ‘Aisha, I’m sending him home very soon, I promise.’

  I hand it back firmly. I’m desperate to remember more of R and at the same time scared about what there is. I down the second double whisky. My heart jolts strangely and my knees feel weird like when Paul gave me my first glass of wine – on holiday in Tenerife when I was nine.

  As Becks rings off, I hand him the memo I printed in my office. ‘I wrote this a week ago.’

  He stares at it, then turns it over to see if he’s missed anything. ‘Is that all? What does it mean?’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘SDC?’ He picks unconsciously at a corner. ‘It’s a bit cryptic, isn’t it? Special detective constable? Someone’s name?’

  ‘If so, why didn’t I write down the name? Why only these three letters?’

  ‘You always told me, don’t write anything on a computer you don’t want the world to see.’

  ‘I said that?’ I take the memo back. ‘SDC. St Dunstan Close. It’s the initials of the road where we lived until recently, Laura and me.’

  ‘Until recently?’

  ‘Apparently we moved six months ago. I grew up in the next street. When we got married, the house behind in St Dunstan Close came on the market. Paul knew the sellers and got us a good price. When I ran from the hospital last night, I thought that was where I still lived, but it’s a building site.’

  ‘So, you wrote your old address on a memo to yourself? Why would you do that?’

  I stand up and feel less stable than I expected. ‘I have to look. We can get there and back in time for your kid’s teeth.’

  It’s eight o’clock. Twenty-three hours since I first found myself in a street without my memory and the forecast blizzard has finally arrived. The wind is fiercer and the snow thicker than any time in the last day and night. As I drive, my head throbs and my arms feel vague and numb but I force myself to keep going. I can see no more than a few metres in front, but at least nobody’s going to be around to breathalyse me, and I avoid roads with traffic cameras, in case the killer is tracking us – although I doubt the Automatic Number Plate Recognition will be working very well in the storm either. We pass stalled cars and abandoned buses, a few pedestrians, pulling their coats across their faces like highwaymen. In my mirror I can just see Becks, squinting through his windscreen and I try to peer beyond to see if there’s anyone on our tail, but the snow’s too thick.

  And…

  And the memories start.

  Fragments that nag at me like the snow, swirling particles, the person I was – R – his memories and mine:

  … Celebrating with Laura after her law firm made her a partner. The wine waiter at J Sheekey in Soho opening their most expensive white wine we couldn’t afford…

  … A Caffè Nero near Scotland Yard, talking over Americanos with Gerry, planning how to deal with the local gangs...

  … Arguing with Dave Haskins in his office. A club had been raided for drugs, but the place was clean…

  … Laura yelling and crying. Throwing a glass of red wine in her fury…

  Everything and nothing.

  A shattered mirror. Too many pieces that don’t connect, too many splinters.

  Somehow in this way we reach the road by the deserted building site that was once my home. Little has changed in St Dunstan Close since last night when the taxi dropped me off, except the snow is heavier and the wind fiercer. The Ford Focus draws up behind.

  What, if anything, connects my old home with a dead nurse and another in a coma? I get this frightening feeling that I shouldn’t be here. That it’s some kind of trap. But R wrote ‘SDC’. He must have had a reason.

  I open the door and look back to check again we’ve not been followed. The wind whips the snow into my face and fills my eyes and mouth before I remember to reach inside the back of the Astra and tug out Becks’ all-weather clothing. Ten metres away, I can make out Becks, retrieving the all-weather gear stored in the Focus, pushing against the wind to get to me.

  Shivering, we both pull on the thick hi-vis jackets, hats and gloves. I find myself laughing at the stupidity of it.

  I say, ‘Two Arctic explorers in northwest London.’

  Becks sees the funny side too and gives me a salute, as eager as a large padded ten-year-old, his good spirits bouncing back.

  ‘What do we do now, boss?’

  ‘We go and look. Anything that stands out. Anything that surprises you or doesn’t make sense.’

  For a second the wind drops and I think I hear a car approach and cut its engine some distance away. But there’s nothing else, just the silent swirling of the snow in the night. A moment later, the wind rises again.

  ‘Be careful,’ I say, locking the Astra.

  We push through to the wooden walls that surround the site. The only entrance is a locked metal double gate, too high to climb. It wails in the wind. I kick it once and then kick it again, and Becks shoves enthusiastically against it, to no effect. I slap his arm and point to one of the wooden panels that has warped and thump my shoulder against it. The pain shoots up my arm and neck, but the panel shifts six inches.

  I barge against it again and force myself through the gap I’ve opened. It takes half a minute and then I’m inside. I wait for Becks, who pulls off a piece of splintered wood and levers the gap wider, before pushing through to join me. He grins and shoulders the piece of wood like a soldier on parade.

  The house Laura and I lived in for eight years has been levelled, along with all the others in the row. Building machinery stands under a coat of snow and blue plastic: a concrete mixer, a sand-coloured digger, two pairs of gloves tossed thoughtlessly aside, now frozen solid. I can smell the clay even in the sharp freshness of the blizzard, the smell of graveyards.

  I send Becks to the left of what was my house and he bounds off. Then I set off to the right, pushing forwards into the dark grey nothingness, tasting the snow, cold and wet, skirting excavations and pits, pallets of closely packed bricks, lengths of bright yellow plastic pipe half covered with snow. Already, Becks is nowhere to be seen.

  As I walk, I try to talk to R, the other me, hiding and revealing himself when it suits him. Like when I was a small child and I used to talk to God privately at night, lying in bed, staring up at the frighteningly dark ceiling, making contracts with Him to save me from the horrors of everlasting hell, negotiating for the eternal salvation of my tiny soul.

  So now I speak out loud, my adult words puny against the whining of the wind. And I ask, ‘What do you want me to do?’

  I feel my skin prickle at the sound of my voice; it sets my teeth on edge.

  No answer. Silence inside; and outside, there’s the hellish flapping of the wind on the groundsheets and the low moaning of it in the scaffolding.

  On round the site. Becks must be beyond the equipment on the other side by now, a blurred mass.

  Then, to my horror, I sense rather than see the shape of a man trying to keep o
ut of sight, someone at the far end by the back fence. I blink and peer through the whipping snow, my eyelashes frosted and heavy. But all I can make out for sure is a line of thin vague trees.

  Somehow I reach the rear of where our garden used to be. Here I remember, three years ago, spending a Sunday afternoon with Laura, buying then planting a young rhododendron in the special acidic compost it needed because the natural earth would kill it. The small shrub has been trampled underfoot.

  And I stop. Someone has been here recently. A gap has been forced between two of the wooden panels.

  I peer out. Beyond lies a deserted stretch of undeveloped scrub, where I used to play as a kid, with a hundred places that used to hide hedgehogs and shrews and foxes, and teenagers smoking furtive joints. I widen the gap and push myself through. Outside the protection of the wooden walls, the wind whines even louder in the tall thorns. I walk forwards into the blackness.

  Twenty metres on, I stop automatically. I can just make out a small bowed bush with spiky leaves.

  In some way I know I must squat down at the foot of the bush and dig my hands through the snow. Is R telling me this? It surprises me to find the ground underneath is loose. It must have been turned over very recently and I can push into it with my gloved hands. But not far enough. I need tools to dig deeper. Fighting against the storm, I make my way back through the gap in the wall. The nearest Portakabin is locked, but I almost trip over a rusted metal bar, jammed half under the hut. I wrench at it and finally it jerks free, an ugly jagged thing, but I can’t see anything better.

  Once again, as I straighten up, I feel I’m being watched. But the only person I can see is Becks, crouched far off in deep concentration over something on the ground, his yellow hi-vis shining through the veil of driving snow.

  I take the metal bar back to the foot of the small bush, keeping a fearful watch on the way for anyone tracking me. Standing in front of the bush, I jab the earth with the bar and dig easily through the grit and crumbled soil. Two feet below the surface I strike something.

  With growing excitement, I clear the earth with my gloved fingers and uncover the top of what looks like a large black cash box. Was this buried by R? Is that what he was telling me? A time capsule?

  I remove more earth and try to pull it open, but to my frustration it’s locked, though the lock itself is only a flimsy child’s one. I look around for a piece of wire to pick it with, and then change my mind and whack it with the rusty metal bar. Once, twice. The third time the lock simply gives up and I yank the lid open in triumph.

  It’s now that I hear something – a faint footfall in the snow – or maybe it’s just an instinct that makes me shift quickly. Looking up, I see a shape move beyond the dark bushes to the right.

  I grab the metal bar and step rapidly round, as fast as I can, stumbling over a tree root. From what I glimpsed, he was large, also wearing a police hi-vis jacket and all-weather clothes. Through the gap in the back fence I can still make out Becks’ yellow hi-vis, but there’s no way to shout to him and both our phones are off. Suddenly the other policeman makes his move, running fast through the driving snow to where I was a moment before. And there’s something dark in his hand.

  I’m cool, detached. For the first time, I feel that R is with me for sure. I’m no longer alone. I know immediately what to do and I step in fast and swing the bar at the hand holding the weapon.

  The other man half turns. But, confused as to where I am, he looks in the wrong direction and his head is in the way of the heavy metal bar as it comes down, too late for me to stop it, or perhaps I don’t want to stop it, and it smashes into the back of his hat with a sickening thud.

  The wind blows into my face. I can hardly see for the pain of the icy flakes that are hitting me like shotgun pellets. I tell myself there was nothing I could have done. It was self-defence. He shouldn’t have moved when he did.

  I wipe the snow out of my eyes and, to my horror, I see it’s Becks lying at my feet. He lies motionless, snowflakes settling on his face, and he’s not holding a gun or knife but the piece of splintered wood that he used to lever open the fence.

  His mouth is open as if he was about to speak but got caught by a surprising thought, still struggling for the right word.

  Bewildered – is he? Shocked? Dying?

  No, already dead.

  45

  8.40pm

  I limp back, pushing through the gap into the building site, my coat and gloves spattered with blood. What have I done? What has R led me to do? But then to my relief, I look across and past the Portakabins I can see Becks is still crouched down where he was before by one of the concrete mixers, in his yellow hi-vis jacket, inspecting something he’s found. Have I been hallucinating? Didn’t Nathan say precisely that this might happen? I shout over the howl of the wind but he doesn’t answer. I run towards Becks, ignoring the pain in my leg, only to stop in dismay. What I’ve been looking at all this time is nothing more than a shape made out of yellow plastic piping half covered in snow.

  It was no hallucination. I force myself to return through the blizzard, to the wasteland behind. Becks’ body lies where I left it. Desperately, I search for a pulse, but there’s none.

  Was he attacking me? It adds up. Becks could have beaten Crystal and killed Amy Matthews in the hour before he clocked in on duty last night. Later, he was working in the station when I was driven to hospital. He could have told Darjus Javtokas. Then, today, he could have easily made the phone call to the armed guard, pretending to be me.

  I should call it in. But I shouldn’t even be here. I hid my amnesia from my superior officers. I got myself suspended. I bribed a doctor to give me drugs. And I have no proof that Becks was the murderer. I can’t even prove it to myself. No more than I can prove that I killed him in self-defence. They’ll use all that against me.

  I allow myself a moment to think clearly. Stick to the facts. Nobody knows we’re here. My phones are still switched off. What’s also good is that Becks’ heavy-weather gear reduced the blood splash that might have flown up when I hit him. It’s good that his hat kept his skull inside. (Good? I ask myself. By what definition of good?)

  Keep thinking.

  I search Becks’ pockets for the key to the Ford Focus, shuddering as I do so, then pick up the tin box I dug out of the ground. Next I force my way back to the cars, pull off my bloodstained gear and stand shivering painfully in the wind and the driving snow. (But, I tell myself, I deserve to suffer. I’ve just killed a man, whether for good reason or not.)

  I fight my shaking hands long enough to unlock the boot of the Focus and scan inside for some kind of large bag, but there’s just a box of evidence packs. I tug open the boot of the Astra and find a pair of pink women’s sunglasses and a child’s stick-on toy dashboard with plastic steering wheel. His family’s, of course. But I mustn’t think of them.

  Feeling nauseous, I push them to one side and at the back there’s a large green Enfield Council recycling bag. I tip out a small pair of mud-crusted football boots (don’t think, stay sharp) brush out any last crumbs of earth and turn the thin plastic inside out and wipe it for good luck with handfuls of snow. Then fold up my bloodstained coat, hat and gloves, and stuff them into the bag, tying it together as best I can. This could just work. Spreading an unused hi-vis jacket across the inside of the boot, I place the bag on it and double wrap everything firmly to make sure nothing seeps through.

  I move automatically. I can allow myself to feel later, for now I have to be efficient, but every movement I make is slow and I grow even heavier inside. Again, I see myself hitting Becks and his expression of total surprise.

  Ironically, taking Becks’ battered car will be the safer option. I hate to leave the nice new Ford Focus, but the station records will show that Becks booked it out and anyway the Astra is already full of my prints and fibres, far more than I could ever wipe away. So pulling on latex examination gloves, I wipe my prints from the Ford’s electronic key and drop it onto the passenger
seat. With a little luck, someone might steal the car and add even more complication to any investigation. Then I take Amy Matthews’ diary from my jacket pocket. Better for it to be found in the car Becks was using than mine. Tearing out the incriminating page with its ‘R’, I slide the book under the driver’s seat, and thrust the page into my pocket.

  I go back to the Astra, reach in and open the glove compartment only to find four recent parking tickets stuffed inside, which seems very much Becks’ style. For a second, I smile, until I remember he’s dead. I shake away that thought yet again, sit in the passenger seat with the tin cash box I dug up and lift the lid. Inside are a number of one-ounce bags of light-brown powder and a handful of cartridges for a gun. All of these I jam into the Astra’s glove compartment on top of the parking tickets. Then I stand up and hurl the empty cash box over the wall of the building site, hearing it land with a clatter.

  Before I leave the scene I stop. It’s not too late to phone it in: Becks came at me, out of the blizzard, holding a heavy piece of wood. I was in fear for my life. But there are too many ways a good prosecution barrister could pull that defence apart. I can’t take that risk. So instead I turn towards the Focus for the last time, heart beating fast, and force myself to go over everything once more for safety, making a final rapid recheck of the interior, asking myself why I’m wasting important seconds on stupid double-checking.

  Then I feel down the side of the driver’s door and find the memo with my name and SDC on it. And I numbly thank God or someone for my obsession with detail. And I push the memo into my pocket next to the diary page, climb back into the Astra and swing the car round in the road. The ground is frozen, too hard, I feel sure, to leave traces on the tyres and the blizzard will fill in the tracks in a few minutes. There’s nothing now to link me to being here except the bundle in the boot.

  46