by Lauren North
A noise rattles in my mum’s throat, like a hushed whimper.
“Don’t get upset, please.” My exhaustion morphs to frustration. “Please, Mum, focus on what I’m saying. I know you’re upset, but we don’t have much time. We have to get out of here and find Jamie.”
“I should’ve done more when you stopped answering the phone. I told Sam something was wrong. . . .”
“It’s not your fault.” I shake my head, wishing she would shut up and listen.
“Tess, I’m here for you, but you have to listen to what Dr. Sadler is saying.”
“Doctor? He’s not a doctor, Mum, he’s a detective. See, he’s lying to us both.”
The door opens and I jump, stretching the muscles in my stomach and causing another wave of pain to radiate from the wound in my belly. There’s a craving in my mouth; it’s buzzing around my head too. I’m desperate for the morphine to take me away from the pain and from this room.
Sadler appears with a male nurse I’ve not seen before. The nurse is short with a shaved head and is carrying a tray of cups and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits. There’s an A4 brown envelope tucked under Sadler’s arm.
He’s moving to the armchair where he’s sat for all the hours we’ve been talking. The nurse is sliding the tray onto the table. The door is swinging shut behind them, but just before it closes, for a split second, I see Jamie.
It is just a flash of blond curls and his galloping walk as he keeps up with the nurse walking beside him, but it’s Jamie. Our baby boy is here.
My heart is racing, pounding in my chest. It’s making my wound throb so hard I think the stitches will burst at any moment, but I saw him, Mark. I saw Jamie. He’s OK.
The door clicks shut and I turn my gaze to Sadler. He is staring right at me, studying my face.
“You should’ve told me.” I close my eyes for a moment and sigh. How long has Jamie been here? “You should’ve told me,” I say. “You should’ve told me you’d found Jamie.”
Sadler nods but doesn’t reply. Instead he turns to my mother. “Mrs. Garfield, I’ve been recording these sessions and I’d like to continue doing so now, with your permission, please.”
“Yes.” Mum’s voice quivers as she pulls at her handkerchief again. I have a sudden desire to snatch it from her hand and throw it to the floor. It’s me who should be upset. It’s me who was stabbed, me who’s trapped in here. Mum should be out there trying to help Jamie.
I stare at Sadler. In the armchair his stoop is hidden, but even sitting, his large frame dwarfs the room. Sadler’s face is unreadable. We’ve talked for hours, for days, and yet we’ve made no progress. Why didn’t he tell me Jamie was safe? “Who are you?” I ask. “I know you’ve told my mum you’re a doctor. Why didn’t you tell me you’d found Jamie?”
“I am a doctor, Tess. I’m a psychiatrist. You assumed I was with the police, but I never told you I was. I allowed the assumption to continue so you would trust me enough to talk to me.”
“What?” I shake my head. “I don’t believe you. Mum, don’t listen to him.”
“Teresa, please.”
My eyes shoot to my mum’s face. Her eyes are watery and pleading and her hands are shaking so much that the walking stick in her hand is jerking from side to side.
“Why have you brought my mum here? Surely you can see she’s in pain?”
“I am very sorry for any discomfort I’ve caused your mother, Tess, but when I spoke to her on the phone yesterday and explained the situation, she was more than willing to come.”
“Well, perhaps you could explain it to me then.”
“Certainly.” He nods.
“And while you’re at it, you can explain why Shelley is wandering around free as a bird when I’m the one stuck in here. You can explain to me where that nurse was taking Jamie.” I nod at the door and the corridor beyond. “When can I see him?”
“Why don’t we all have a cup of tea?” Sadler leans forward and pushes the cups to the edges of the tray and in reach for all of us. The liquid is creamy brown and steaming and makes me think of the hot chocolates Shelley made for me. Is Sadler trying to drug me now?
CHAPTER 63
You told me you were a police detective.” My teeth are clenched so hard it’s a fight to get the words out of my mouth. “This whole time I thought you were a policeman. If you’re a doctor then where is your stethoscope and white coat? I thought you were here to help me find Jamie.”
“I’m not that kind of doctor, but I am here to help you, Tess. I never told you I was a detective. You assumed, and I didn’t correct you. I wanted you to talk to me. I wanted to understand the depth of your illness. I’m sorry for your distress but I saw your assumption as a necessary omission of the facts.”
“What illness? What are you talking about?” My voice bounces around the room. I swallow. My throat is dry and sore from talking and crying.
“I believe you’ve suffered a psychotic breakdown, Tess, brought on by grief and depression.”
My mouth drops open. I want to protest but Sadler’s words are a brick wall in my thoughts. Psychotic breakdown? How can he think that? Sadler must be working with Shelley and Ian. Maybe the man is threatening them too. It’s the only explanation.
“Please,” I whisper as Mum’s shoulders begin to shake. Why did they drag her into this? I force myself to calm down. Sadler wants me to be angry. They want to prove their theory right. They want to prove I’m an unfit mother so they can take Jamie away from me. “Please, I just want to see Jamie.”
My mum leans forward in her chair and covers her face with her hands, mottled and clawlike from the arthritis.
“Tess,” Sadler says, drawing my attention back to him. “I have Mark’s death certificate here. It was retrieved by Shelley when she collected your notebook. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to have a look at it for me.”
Tears are blurring my vision and leaking down my face. I reach out and take the envelope in my hands. The lip is creased from where it’s been opened before but the glue is still tacky as I peel it open.
The paper is thick and it has the symbol of a crown top and center. Certified Copy of an Entry of Death is printed in bold at the top and your name is typed in neat Times New Roman.
I brush a finger over the letters of your name. I told Sadler that I hear your voice. That’s why he thinks I’ve gone mad. The thought makes me want to laugh out loud, but then I really would seem crazy. This is what all the fuss is about. They think I’m deluded about your death.
Relief, like a gust of cold wind from the fields, breezes through me.
“I know Mark is dead,” I say.
“Can you remember any more details about the trip he was going on when he died?” Sadler asks.
“It was a work thing. A team-building session. The head office was in Germany. He went there all the time. I don’t know why you keep asking me about the trip. There was nothing special about it.”
Sadler shifts forward in his chair before speaking again. “I want you to really think, Tess. I called Mark’s company and I spoke to Denise. I believe she came to visit you and you’ve spoken on the phone since.”
“Yes, Denise came to see me about a month after the funeral.” I nod, leaning back in my chair. The envelope is sitting on my lap and I fiddle with the lip, pushing it down and using the last of the stick to seal it shut.
“She told me about the trip. It wasn’t just a normal trip at all, was it?” he asks.
“I don’t know what you mean. But look, this is all a big misunderstanding. I know I told one of the nurses I saw Mark in the hospital, but I was on a lot of drugs and in so much pain. I know he’s dead. I’ve not had a breakdown or whatever you called it.”
“Tess.” Sadler places his empty cup back on the tray. “What I’m going to ask you to do now is going to be very hard, but I need you to try fo
r me. OK?”
“OK.” I really don’t know what he thinks will be hard for me. I’ve already told him that I know you’re dead.
“There were two seats on Mark’s booking. You told me that yourself.”
I nod. “Someone else from the office.” I never did get round to asking Denise about that.
“I want you to look in the envelope again,” Sadler says.
I frown and smile at the same time. “I have Mark’s death certificate here.” I wave it in the air. “There’s nothing else in the envelope.”
“Yes, there is, Tess.”
I shake my head, but I peel open the envelope once more, turning it upside down and shaking it. A single piece of paper falls to the floor and skids across to Sadler’s feet. It’s the same color as Mark’s death certificate, and when Sadler reaches for it I catch the sight of the crown at the top.
I snap my eyes shut and scrunch them tight like a child. If you can’t see me, I can’t see you. I hear Jamie’s laughter in my head and it sounds so real that my breath catches in my throat.
“Please look at this, Tess,” Sadler says.
When I open my eyes, he is holding the piece of paper out for me to take.
I’m cold. So cold, Mark. And even though I don’t want to touch the paper or read the words written on it, I reach out and take it in my hands.
“Mark didn’t go alone on his trip this time, did he, Tess? It was a special trip. Look at it,” he urges.
My teeth are clenched together so hard that my head is throbbing from the pain but I look. I stare at the paper, the replica of Mark’s. The same crown at the top, the same writing: Certified Copy of an Entry of Death.
“It’s a second copy.” I shrug. “A spare.”
“No, Tess. Read the name.”
I shake my head and slam the paper to my lap, turning it over so I can’t see it anymore.
“Who was on the plane with Mark?” Sadler asks. “Why did they go on the trip?”
“I don’t know,” I cry out. A sob shudders through my body. “I want to take a break. Let me see Jamie, then we can continue.”
“We’ll take a break in a little bit. Right now I want you to tell me who was on the plane with Mark.”
Sadler stands up and shuffles around the table. He takes the certificate from my lap and turns it over. “Whose name is written there?” he asks, pointing at the paper.
I gasp as I read the name again. “Jamie,” I whisper. Jamie Edward Clarke. Born April 8, 2010.
“Mark’s company were hosting a special event in Germany for their employees and their families,” Sadler explains, his voice calm and loud at the same time. “Jamie was on the plane with Mark. Jamie died too.”
I shake my head from side to side. “No. You’re wrong. This is a fake. This is what Shelley wants you to think so she can take Jamie away from me.”
“That’s not true, Tess. Your belief that Shelley wants to take Jamie away is a paranoid delusion. It’s a belief that your mind is telling you is real, but is created by your illness. From our talks and looking at your notebook, I also believe the voice you heard on the phone is a hallucination of persecution triggered by Richard Welkin’s repeated attempts to contact you and your desire to uncover the truth of Mark’s secret project.
“With Shelley, you believe someone is threatening your existence with Jamie, and you’re seeing evidence to support this that isn’t there, just the same as how you’re seeing Jamie. It’s an illness, Tess.”
“Jamie is alive.” I whisper the words aloud, an affirmation for myself as much as for Sadler.
I struggle to my feet, ignoring the pain clenching my stomach and the dizziness pressing down on my head. “JAMIE,” I shout. “JAMIE.”
“Your mum is here for a reason.” Sadler raises his voice, a deep baritone next to my shrill cries. “In cases like this,” he says after I fall silent, “evidence that contradicts the delusion is ignored, explained away just as you are doing now. You are burying the facts, making them part of your delusion, just as you’ve done any time you’ve found yourself confronted with the truth. It’s why you cut yourself off from your mum and your brother, and your friends in Chelmsford. All those in fact who knew Jamie was dead. It’s why you’ve suffered from episodes of isolated amnesia whenever you came too close to the truth.”
“No.” I shake my head from side to side. “Mum.” I turn to face the frail frame of my mother. “Please, I’m begging you, whatever they’ve told you, whatever they’re threatening you with, please—” A sob catches in my throat. “Please tell them they’re wrong. You stayed with us after the funeral. You saw Jamie.”
Mum nods and for a fleeting second I think she’s going to agree with me. “I heard you talking to yourself,” she says. “I should’ve questioned you on it but I knew you were hurting so badly. I didn’t think there was any harm in that, but I didn’t know you were seeing Jamie. I called the grief charity so you’d have someone to talk to. I should never have left. I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted you to go,” I mumble. “Jamie was hiding in his room too much. Neither of us could grieve properly with you there.”
Mum reaches forward and squeezes my hand. “But Jamie died too.”
“Why are you LYING?” I shout. Mum jerks away and shrinks against the chair as if I’m a violent lunatic, but I can’t stop. “Why would you say that?”
“Often with hallucinations there’s a clue,” Sadler continues, his voice now calm as he positions himself back on the armchair opposite me. “A telltale sign that if you look hard enough at the hallucination, then you’ll see it for what it is. I want you to do that now please, Tess. Think about the Jamie you’ve seen since the plane crash. You’ve said yourself that Jamie was hardly talking to you. Does this seem like the same Jamie you loved before the crash?
“I want you to think back over these past weeks and find that telltale sign, that one thing that will help your mind recognize the hallucination for what it is—a psychosis brought on by your grief.”
I shake my head, short side-to-side jerks that blur my eyes. I want to cover my ears with my hands and scream for Jamie but my mother’s face is ghostly white and the tears are streaming down her cheeks just as they are mine. “Why are you doing this to me?” I ask her.
She swallows as if about to speak but Sadler holds up his hand.
The death certificate is lying on my lap and I push it to the floor. “These are easy to forge, you know. If you know the right people.” I don’t know if that’s true, but it has to be, doesn’t it? It’s just a piece of paper. Nothing special at all.
“Tess?” Sadler leans forward so his elbows are resting on his knees.
“There isn’t anything. I know in my heart that Jamie . . . that Jamie . . .” The words are there in my head, but they are stuck, like a packet of crisps in a broken vending machine, dangling halfway between out and in, waiting for someone to give the machine a nudge.
Jamie’s face floats through my mind. His beautiful eyes are wide and sad, and oh so blue. I can picture him now on the floor of the living room with the PlayStation controller in his hands. His face fixed in concentration, his tongue prodding at the baby tooth at the front, wiggling it back and forth, wondering if today is the day it will fall out.
A wave of sickness hits me. My face must change, because Sadler is nodding and leaning closer, barely perched on the chair anymore. “Follow that train of thought, Tess. Tell me what you see.”
“The tooth,” I whisper. “Jamie has a wobbly tooth. It’s been hanging on by little more than a thread for . . . for months.”
A wall of tears builds in my eyes and I can hear Jamie’s singsong question in my ears. “Mummy, if my tooth falls out when I’m in Frankfurt with Daddy, will the tooth fairy give me a pound or a euro?”
I crouch forward and cover my ears with my hands, muffling the noise in the roo
m but doing nothing to stop the memories I don’t want to remember.
All this time Jamie has been pushing the tooth with his tongue, all this time since the plane crash, and the same tooth hasn’t fallen out. Darkness and cold flood my body, like jumping into a pitch-black, icy sea. Other memories are breaking free now. I can see myself standing in my slippers on the driveway, waving and grinning at Mark in his gray jumper as he pulls out of the driveway. And there in the back seat with his mess of blond curls, wearing his favorite Liverpool football shirt, is Jamie waving furiously at me.
I see Jamie in his bedroom with his new rucksack open on the bed. The rucksack I couldn’t find. “How cold will it be in Germany?” he asked, examining a thick jumper as if the answer might be inside the wool.
I remember the rain tapping at the stained-glass windows, the hard wood of the pews. My eyes staring at the worn tiles on the floor, my brother’s hand squeezing mine so tight as I fought the urge to keep my gaze down and away from the coffin, so small—too small—sitting beside yours.
“That’s it, Tess.” Sadler’s voice shatters the memory. “That’s the sign. Jamie’s tooth. You didn’t ask him about it, did you?”
I shake my head.
“I think on some level, deep down, you knew Jamie had died that day.”
“I didn’t,” I cry out.
“I’ve spoken to Denise and Shelley and to your mum.” He nods to my mum, pale and quiet and so small in the armchair. “You were so careful not to talk directly to Jamie in their presence. Not until the end when your breakdown worsened and you couldn’t keep it in anymore.”
Tears fall from my eyes. I’m shivering all over. My stomach hurts. “It doesn’t make sense. It can’t . . . it can’t be true.”
“You were supposed to go to Frankfurt with Mark and Jamie. Do you remember? Denise told me she canceled your booking at the last minute. Why didn’t you go with them?”
“My passport expired,” I whisper. “I didn’t check it until a few days before. I was going to go to the passport office and get one the same day but Mark said not to bother. He knew I hated flying. ‘A trip for the boys,’ he called it. I . . . I was relieved. Oh my baby. My poor sweet baby.”
