by Sibel Hodge
He was also having an affair and had lied to me about taking clothes to the charity shop and cancelling my bankcards. He was head of manufacturing where the Zolafaxine was made, so he had plenty of opportunity to tamper with those drugs.
There was only one way to find out for certain if Liam was involved. I find Summers’ card that I packed this morning, along with my meagre clothes, and punch in his number.
‘DI Summers,’ he answers after a long time.
‘Hi, it’s Chloe Benson.’
‘Chloe. How are you?’ He sounds polite but bored.
I hesitate for a second, wondering how to answer that. In the end, I don’t bother. ‘I’ve been trying to find out what happened, and I really need to check some things urgently.’
‘Did you recover your memory?’
‘No. Not exactly. Are you free?’ I ask breathlessly, worried he’ll make up some excuse, and I need to know. Need to know right now.
A pause. Then, ‘Do you want to come to the station? I can be free in an hour.’
‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll be there.’
23
After I finish talking, I hand Summers the page of my scribbled notes. He reads it with an impatient roll of his eyes that he thinks I don’t see. I fidget in my chair opposite him in his office, trying to distract myself by picking at the crusty scabs left on my fingertips. Eventually, he looks up at me, and I can’t read the expression on his face. Sympathy, perhaps, or disbelief.
On the way to the police station, I mentally rehearsed what to say over and over again so it would sound the least insane. Judging by Summers’ expression, though, it didn’t work.
He leans forward and rests his forearms on the table, clasping his hands together. ‘So, let me get this straight. You left Liam on the day he went to Scotland because he was having an affair, and you moved into Sara’s house?’
‘Yes. So you see, it proves the letter he told you was a suicide letter couldn’t have been, could it? It was a letter I wrote telling Liam I was leaving him, that’s all. He also told you he didn’t phone me from Scotland because we had a row about a plate, but we couldn’t have done because there was no evidence of a smashed plate in the bin.’ The words come out in a rush, and I know I’m babbling, but I don’t care. I’m desperate.
‘You went through the rubbish bin?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know the refuse collectors haven’t removed it already? It would’ve been nine days ago by now.’
‘Because they’re on strike, aren’t they? We had four bags of rubbish, and I went through all of it. No plate. And since he didn’t phone me from Scotland, there are only two possible reasons why. One, he knew that my mobile phone was already smashed and in the bin, or two, he was the one who abducted me and knew I couldn’t answer. Both of those reasons means he had to have come back from Scotland.’
Summers looks at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Don’t you think it’s possible that he just didn’t call you because he was busy at work?’
I shake my head so hard I hear a vertebrae click. ‘No. He always phones me when we’re not together. And if I miss a call, I have to call him straight back.’
‘Even if you’ve had an argument?’
‘Especially then! He also lied to me about taking my clothes to the charity shop, didn’t he?’
Summers shifts uncomfortably in his chair, having a hard time trying to be patient. ‘How do you know you didn’t take some clothes to the charity shop?’
‘Because I took them to Sara’s instead.’
‘You’re sure you couldn’t have taken a few other things to the charity shop as well? Have you ever donated old clothes before?’
‘Well, yes, a few times, but—’
‘So, it’s possible you could’ve done this time, too?’
I think about the few items that weren’t in my wardrobes or drawers that I found at Sara’s. Was anything else missing? I didn’t think so, but it was possible there were some clothes I didn’t remember. ‘I’m pretty sure everything that was missing from my house was at Sara’s.’
‘Pretty sure?’
‘Yes. Then there’s the fact that the company he works for makes the Zolafaxine. How do I know he didn’t tamper with it to make me have some kind of reaction?’
Summers’ eyes widen. ‘You think Liam was trying to poison you?’
I swallow hard, knowing what it’s going to sound like. Knowing Summers will just think it’s my warped imagination again. ‘Not poison, no.’
He looks relieved.
‘I think he was trying to kill me.’
Summers studies my face for a moment then sits back in his chair slowly. His mouth falls open a little. ‘You think he was trying to kill you?’ He enunciates every syllable slowly.
‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’
‘Yes!’ I fight the urge to bang my head repeatedly against the desk.
‘Why?’
I count to six before I speak. I know they always say you should count to ten, but I couldn’t possibly make it that far. ‘Because of everything I’ve just said.’
‘Chloe, there are perfectly plausible reasons for all of the things you’ve mentioned. For—’
‘Occam’s Razor,’ I mutter.
‘Pardon?’ He looks at me as if I’ve just spoken Japanese.
‘Occam’s Razor. It’s a theory used by police and doctors. It means the simplest explanation is usually the right one. But it isn’t always the right one, is it? I know how this looks when you take things individually, but if you add everything up together, it all points to Liam. If the letter wasn’t a suicide letter, I wasn’t trying to kill myself, so why would I take the sleeping tablets against medical advice? If Liam wasn’t really in Scotland, he’d know my phone was in the bin, which is the real reason he didn’t call me. If he lied about me taking the clothes to the charity shop, then he knew I’d already taken them somewhere else because I’d left him. See? It all makes perfect sense.’
Summers’ eyes narrow slightly as he weighs everything up.
‘The sleeping tablets are the key to this. If I really did take them willingly, where are they? Yours and the doctors’ theory that I took them either to help me sleep or kill myself can’t be right, can it? I couldn’t find them at my house and they’re not at Sara’s, either.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean—’
‘Wait. I’m not finished.’ I hold my hand up to cut him off. ‘If you were going to take sleeping tablets, where would you put them?’
He presses his lips together for a moment, thinking, or maybe trying to hatch an excuse to get rid of me. ‘Probably in my medicine cabinet or by the bed.’
‘Exactly! But they’re nowhere to be found. So your theory is impossible now, isn’t it? If I took the sleeping tablets to help me sleep, or even to commit suicide, I would’ve taken them at Sara’s house after I moved out.’ I almost want to say ‘Ta-da!’ and do an elaborate, triumphant hand gesture.
Summers just stares at me.
‘So I need to know if you checked whether Liam really was in Scotland when he said he was. He lied to me about going there before, you see.’
‘When he stayed in the…’ He picks up my notes and reads again before his gaze goes back to me. ‘The Royal Lodge Hotel?’
‘Yes. Several times, apparently.’
He taps his fingertips against the desk, eyeing me. ‘Do you want something to drink? Tea or coffee?’
‘No, thank you. I just want to find out what you know.’
‘We made a request to the Scottish police to carry out some enquiries after I spoke to you in the hospital. Liam flew from Stansted to Aberdeen on the sixth of May as he said he did and checked into the Murray Inn. Our Scottish counterparts confirmed that during the time he was in Aberdeen, there was only a maximum of eight hours when he wasn’t accounted for. He was either seen by hotel staff or staff at the Devon Pharmaceutical plant.’
‘Yes,
but what about those eight hours in between? Couldn’t he have flown back and found me?’
‘We checked the passenger lists for all flights from Scotland. His name wasn’t on any of them until the tenth of May when he flew back to Stansted, so he couldn’t have come back in between that time.’
‘Well, maybe he hired a car and drove down.’
‘It takes about eight and a half hours to drive one way alone. There’s not enough time unaccounted for where he could drive here and back again.’
‘Couldn’t he have hired a really fast car, though?’
‘Have you ever hired a car before?’
‘No, I can’t drive.’
‘Of course. Well, when you hire a car, they want to see annoying bits of information, like driving licenses and proof of address. They can’t risk someone taking it and not returning it, which means they do plenty of checks to be sure. So, no, he couldn’t have hired a car, whether it was a Ferrari or a Smart Car.’
‘OK, what about a train, then. They’d be quicker, wouldn’t they?’
‘We checked the train times, too. The fastest train from London to Aberdeen takes seven hours and five minutes, and he’d have to get from London back to here then repeat the journey on the way back.’
‘Yes, but…but…’ But what, I wonder? ‘Couldn’t the witnesses who saw him be lying?’
Summers makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a cough and a snort. ‘All nine of them? No, I’m afraid it’s just not possible in any way, shape, or form, for Liam to have travelled back here.’
His words hit me like an icy wind blowing in my face. Not possible. Not possible.
I thought Liam was lying to me. Trying to make me go mad. Trying to kill me. But this means he couldn’t have known I’d left him, so he genuinely thought the letter I’d written was a suicide letter when he found it on his return from Scotland after the hospital rang him. That’s why he was so concerned about me. And if he didn’t lie about that, then maybe he didn’t lie about the other things, either. Maybe I did really take a few clothes to the charity shop that I haven’t even noticed are gone. Maybe he really didn’t phone me from Scotland because he was busy. Or maybe we did have a row about a plate but it didn’t actually smash. I’ve been so preoccupied with thinking it was Liam that maybe I’ve ignored the obvious.
Right then, I don’t know which is worse, thinking my husband was involved in kidnapping me or finding out he’s not. Because now I really don’t have any clue who could’ve done this to me. It means someone is still out there, lurking in the shadows. Someone who could take me again and I wouldn’t even recognize them.
A gurgled sound hits my ears, and I realize it’s coming from me. I want to cry. Want to let out all the frustration, fear, and terror, but I’m afraid if I do, I’ll never be able to stop again.
Must stay calm. Must try harder. Must think clearly!
‘Look, I’ll get you a coffee with some sugar in it, OK? You look a bit ill.’ Summers stands and exits the room.
I rub my stomach, trying to stop the queasy feeling. It wasn’t Liam. It wasn’t Liam. It wasn’t Liam.
So who the hell was it?
A few minutes later, he returns with a lukewarm coffee from a vending machine. He puts it on the desk in front of me and my gaze meets his. This time I think I see pity. I grasp the cup and hold it to my chest for comfort. ‘So…so if Liam didn’t do it, who did?’ My voice wobbles.
‘Chloe,’ he says calmly and patiently. ‘I liaised with Dr Traynor and Dr Drew before, and they both thought it was another kind of reaction you were having to the sleeping tablets. You were hallucinating and wandered off into the woods somewhere, ending up on the road where you were picked up by the motorist.’
‘I know that! But they’re not right! Dr Drew would’ve told you I was perfectly sane.’
He pauses for a moment. ‘Dr Drew also explained to me about False Memory Syndrome. You could be—’
‘These aren’t false memories! I spoke to Jordan on the phone and told him I was leaving Liam. I found my stuff at Sara’s but no sleeping tablets. That’s evidence and corroboration, isn’t it?’ Tears well up in my eyes. I close them and press my fingers against the lids until I see white lights, hoping to push the tears back inside.
‘It shows you moved out of your house, nothing more.’ He leans forward. ‘We had to look at all the evidence available at the time, and that evidence pointed to a medical issue rather than a criminal issue. You couldn’t give us any further information to go on, so we had to make a professional decision based on the facts in front of us.’
‘But it’s not true. Something happened. Yes, I can’t remember what, but it did happen. I woke up underground, where someone left me for dead!’ I’m yelling now, unable to control myself any longer. I’ve been trying to keep calm, trying to fight the hysteria curling like a serpent in my guts, but it’s too late now. All the pent up feelings are unleashed. ‘If something happens to me, it will be on your head. If I disappear again, or you find me dead, then you’ll know I was telling the truth, won’t you?’ I glare at him, my eyes feeling like they’re about to pop out of my sockets. ‘And then it will be too late!’
He recoils then, as if I’ve slapped him. ‘OK, OK. Don’t get yourself upset, now.’
‘How can I not? Don’t you get it? Someone tried to kill me!’ I’m fully prepared to take this further, to go over his head if necessary, but this seems to spur him into action finally.
He breathes in slowly, studying me with a look of concentration on his face. ‘After what you’ve told me today, I admit there are some questions.’
‘So, you believe me now that I was abducted?’
‘I think it’s odd you can’t find the sleeping tablets.’
I notice he doesn’t answer my question, but it’s a start. ‘Exactly.’
‘But since you obviously did take them, because traces were found in your system, it’s still possible you had some kind of hallucinogenic allergic reaction to them and imagined you were being held captive. Or perhaps during this hallucinogenic state, you took the tablets with you somewhere and lost them.’
‘No, it’s not possible.’
‘Why not? It happened before.’
‘Because if I can’t find them at Sara’s, someone must’ve given them to me somehow. They must’ve used them to knock me out so they could abduct me and leave me underground in that place. Even if I took them voluntarily, how did I end up miles away on a road in the middle of nowhere? Someone must’ve seen me if I was wandering around hallucinating all over the place!’
He doesn’t look convinced. ‘The things is, though, that you don’t remember what happened after you got to Sara’s. You could’ve gone to stay somewhere else. Maybe to another friend’s house? You could’ve taken the tablets at another location, and that’s where we’ll find them. We’re just going round in circles here.’ He glances at his watch.
‘But I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
He gives a reluctant sigh, as if he’s just humouring the crazy woman so he can get rid of her. ‘Did you find anything at Sara’s that might help discover what you did next?’
I shake my head forcefully. ‘Not really. I rang the bank, which is the last call from her landline. I went to Waitrose at some point and came back with food. I slept there at least one night, because my stuff is in the bedroom and the bedclothes are rumpled.’ I suck in a breath and hold it as I try to formulate things in my mind. ‘Dr Traynor said my level of dehydration pointed to not drinking for no more than two days.’
‘Were there any signs of a struggle or break-in at Sara’s?’
‘No, I checked. The doors and windows were all locked and secured, and there were no signs of a fight or struggle.’
‘OK, so let’s work out a timeline of the missing days.’ He slides my notes closer to him and glances at them. ‘You were found on the road on the ninth of May. On the sixth, you went to Sara’s and probably stayed the night if the bedclothes were
slept in. So whatever happened occurred somewhere between the seventh and ninth. Do you agree?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s have a hypothetical question, then.’ He taps his finger on the desk thoughtfully. ‘Instinctively, you already seem to be repeating what you did before. You’ve found out about Liam’s affair, and you’ve moved to Sara’s house. You’ve phoned the bank to change your address. So, what would you do next? Where would you go? Who would you talk to?’
‘I’ve thought about that so much, and nothing can point me in one direction or another. It’s all just a dead end after that.’
‘Think about it again, then,’ he says calmly. ‘Sara isn’t due to come home for another few months, so you could’ve stayed there for a while. Is that what you would’ve done, or would you have looked for a place of your own?’
‘I…I don’t know. I mean, Liam would’ve most likely known where I’d be, and I wouldn’t have wanted him to try to find me and change my mind. I probably would’ve looked for somewhere else to live. Somewhere he didn’t know about.’
‘Right, that’s a start. And you were still signed off work, so you wouldn’t have gone back there? Theresa said she hadn’t seen you, but would you have gone to speak to any of your other colleagues?’
Jordan is the only one I would’ve wanted to see, but he didn’t mention it. In fact, he said he wanted to call me but stopped himself because that’s what I wanted. ‘I don’t think so.’ I bite my lip and stare at the ceiling, as if it somehow has all the answers I need.
‘You’d already been food shopping, so you didn’t need immediate supplies.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What about your mobile phone? You said you broke it when you were leaving home. Would you have gone to buy another one?’
