Laura: at first she was cool and distant. I understand that. She’s had a lot to deal with. I had to convince her I was no longer the Ross she fell out of love with. I’d come back. And would never change like that again.
And I was telling the truth. R has learned from our experience. He got a shock, he tells me, and we don’t want to have another crisis like that again. We’ve both learned about the two sides to myself – when to use one and when to use the other. And we need a wife like Laura. She’s intelligent, she works well at dinners, and impresses colleagues and bosses. And we do love her. She’s got style and understanding, a wife we can both be proud of. We also have a mission – we have our new posting, right at the centre, in New Scotland Yard – and we’re not going to let ourselves down.
In the end, it’s not long before Laura begins to soften and believe me. And then I can relax and trust she’ll get on with doing the job. The job of being our wife.
An appointment letter comes from the psychotherapy clinic at the hospital. R slides it into the shredder.
A short time later, the nightmares start. Malevolent dreams filled with a vague all-encompassing fear. At times they feature Amy Matthews, Darjus Javtokas, Becks or Paul, and I feel again the searing jab of grief and remorse, sharp as a razor blade, heavy as an oncoming storm. The bad feeling sometimes goes away with a coffee and croissant and a look around at all we still have: the house, the job, the garden, the successful wife.
But as the weeks and months go on, the dark mood grows and hangs around longer. Some nights R disturbs Laura with incoherent mutterings or shouts, and once she says she woke to find me sobbing pitifully but R can’t remember anything of it except for a feeling that remains. A sense of intense loneliness. A feeling like hell.
And then there’s Crystal. I think of her, lying in her hospital bed, still in a coma, the machines watching over her. R forgets. Until a year later. We’re back in the hospital. Laura’s pregnant with our first child. A blessing after everything that’s happened. Normally we’d go to the antenatal clinic nearest us but there’s some kind of rare problem, something they want to keep an eye on they say, so they’ve sent Laura here to see a specialist. Nothing to worry about, they repeat, everything will probably be fine. But that makes me worry all the more.
It’s late spring, unusually hot and sunny and we’ve come with her for the first visit. This is what it is to be a father today. Involved and part of the process. She’s been sick most mornings, which surprises us. Most pregnancies seem to make women look healthier. But not Laura. She looks more drawn and frail than we’ve ever seen her. But we’ve sat in the toilet with her, holding a bucket and helping tidy and wash her when she’s felt too weak. Our son deserves no less. Or daughter.
So we sit waiting with Laura in obstetrics, R reading the leaflets about diet and exercise and antenatal classes – he’s been taking control more and more – and now he remembers Crystal. Like a cold shock.
He turns to Laura, ‘Look, it’s going to be a time yet. Give me a moment and ring if they call you early, but I’m sure I’ll be back before.’
She nods and turns to a birth magazine she’s been flicking through absent-mindedly, she’s not been much into concentrating recently. We leave her to it and go upstairs.
After all this time, Crystal’s been moved out of Intensive Care into a room in another ward and there’s no policeman sitting by her bedside anymore. Just Crystal, with the machinery, her body slowly healing. We were told some months ago that they wanted to transfer her to a specialist coma unit but the move kept getting delayed. There’s no next of kin, no friends, nobody even to visit her, except a copper, who comes from time to time, they said. Female. I consider this. It must be Jagger or Winstanley. They’re both the type to never let go.
The consultant told us there was no logical reason Crystal should be in a coma any more. She could wake up any minute, any day, some time, never. She’s trapped inside and for all we know she could be thinking, hearing, knowing everything that goes on. Nothing could be more like hell, I think. Imprisoned in the darkness and unable to move, to speak, to scream for help. And one day she may escape or one day she may die.
But for now, the lines on the screens will flicker and the machines will bleep and she’s alive.
And this woman is the only one left who can tell the truth. This beaten, broken nurse on life support. Who could decide to wake up any minute and say who really beat her almost to death.
Just this one loose end.
Now as R stands there looking down at her body the sensible logical part of him tells him to finish the job. Nobody will know. He was careful. Nobody saw us come in today. Nobody will see us leave. There are no cameras in this area of the hospital. Though part of him wonders if it’s a trap. People will know we were in the antenatal unit downstairs. Nevertheless, he looks around and can see no one. He moves towards the bed, towards the machines that are keeping Crystal alive.
But I’m watching him. I know him for what he is. Sometimes he takes me for granted, forgets I’m there, inside him – like he was inside me before. Right from the first time, when I was three, and my father came to my bedroom, the dark shape by the bedroom door, the smell of the wine he was drinking, the sound of his glass breaking.
The night that R appeared and took over for me. He’s always been, he insists, the stronger of us two. As he was, every time I needed him.
As whenever I had to face the shape by the bedroom door.
As whenever he hit my mother.
As when I panicked when a glass broke during my promotion party in the summer of 2008.
As when R killed Amy Matthews to protect our career.
And when he put the gun in my father’s hand and forced Paul’s finger onto the trigger.
In recent months, though, R has taken over more and more, telling me I’m too weak, that I feel too much guilt and he doesn’t trust me. It’s partly my fault. I gave him control during the trial and now I find myself trapped inside more and more, unable to do anything except watch enviously – when he works at Scotland Yard, when he goes for a drink with friends – when he makes love to my wife.
Even when he sleeps, I can’t. I lie awake. Eaten up with guilt. I remember – never able to forget. If only! Never able to close my eyes. Even now, deep inside him, unseen and unheard, I pray, really do pray to God, that Crystal will open hers and condemn the man who’s really guilty.
And in the little hospital side room, with its machinery and its cold strip lighting, suddenly a deep fear strikes.
Because I look inside myself and I come face to face with the worst horror of all: that maybe there is no other person. There is no R. No one fighting me. There is only me. And I hate what I see. I hate the he that I have become.
And a moment later the fear has passed. It can’t possibly be true. R does exist. Must exist. Because if I hate what I have become, then there must be a good part of me that is doing the hating. If he is evil then I must be good – the alternative is too dreadful to contemplate.
And, just then, R spots a nurse watching from across the corridor. He takes a deep breath and turns away. He walks back down towards the obstetrics clinic to the wife who waits for him and his unborn child.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without help from police, medical specialists, those with dissociative identity disorder (DID), and many others who generously gave their time and experience. There are more than I have space to mention and some preferred to remain anonymous; but I would like to thank DCI David Little, DI Carol Andrews and Inspector Paddy O’Leary for their invaluable assistance with police procedure.
Sallie Baxendale, Alison MacLaren and Mog Scott-Stewart for their insights into psychology. Jeremy Harris for his advice on judicial processes. Lucy Ridout, Sheila McIlwraith and Morgen Bailey for their editing skills. Fellow writers and readers Jan Woolf, Eve Richings, Charlie Hopkinson and Lindsay Clarke for reading and re-reading chapters (and often the whole m
anuscript) more times than I had the right to ask.
Linda MacFadyen for giving moral support. Bryony Hall of the Society of Authors, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin and Pam White for their patient advice. Betsy Reavley and everyone at Bloodhound Books for believing in the novel and making it real. Finally, our two cats for reminding me of the important things in life (such as food) while I tried to work, and my wife Elaine for living with an author – something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. They all helped create the good parts. Any errors I managed all by myself.
If you liked this book please consider posting a review on Amazon. It need only be a sentence or two and should be in your own words. You can also contact me on Twitter – @chasharris – and Facebook – charlesharris008 – or email me via
www.charles-harris.co.uk, where you can subscribe to my mailing list for advance information on my next books and regular articles about crime, books, movies and the mind.
ENDS
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