I Know My Name: A stunning psychological thriller

by C. J. Cooke

  I climb back to the top of the cliff, intent on heading for the barn close to the farmhouse to see if there’s any wood I can use, but when I reach the top I spot the derelict hotel in the distance. It has started to rain heavily and I am famished, having spent the whole day wrangling with the boat. My clothes are still damp from falling into the water and I am shivering from head to toe. But on the spur of the moment I fashion a makeshift rain cover from palm leaves and set off towards the hotel. The drum of the rain against the leaves is oddly soothing. I’m hopeful that, at the very least, the hotel might have a bed for me to sleep in.

  The hotel is a four-storey whitewashed building with sun-bleached wooden shutters and rusting balconies, much of its signage pulled off by high winds and perhaps vandals. Minoan Palace is written on an overturned posterboard. I was surprised when Sariah said the hotel only closed last year – it looks as though it’s been vacant for decades. Maybe it’s the ghostliness that surrounds it, like the aftermath of an apocalypse.

  The rain has transformed the ground to clay, and my shoes are filled with it. I kick them off and sit beneath a plastic awning, rubbing my arms and thighs vigorously to keep warm. Mounds of fresh dung are visible around the entrance to the hotel – most likely wild goats – and I am nervous about going outside. The sun is low in the sky and the entrance is like the mouth to a dark cave. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths before stepping inside.

  My bare feet meet cold, dusty slate. The hotel bar is visible through a set of double doors to my right, and a small desk to my left is likely where the concierge would have greeted guests. I fumble around the bar – the large windows afford views of the sea and let in enough light for me to make out chairs and tables – but find nothing that I could use for the boat. I take the stairs to the first floor and head for the bedrooms.

  The light is much dimmer here, and it takes a while for my eyes to adjust. A dark corridor stretches ahead of me. I try not to think what might lie behind each of the doors that lead off it, though a scuttling sound to my right suggests that rats have the run of the place. The carpet smells like sewage and feels damp underfoot.

  I turn the brass doorknob to the first bedroom, a gold-plated number one nailed to the wood of the door. Inside, there’s a metal bedframe stripped of its mattress and sheets. Purple curtains flap against a broken window, and the stench of damp and rot hang in the air. I stride across the floor, looking over the furniture. All metal, except for the chests of drawers, which are made of heavy wood. I yank out a drawer, sending a flurry of large spiders scuttling over the sides to the floor. I give a loud shriek and race out of the room, still carrying the drawer.

  It takes a while to gather myself. I set the drawer against the wall and open the door to a room on my right. It has been trashed – the bed is tipped over and the mattress slashed, the wardrobe keening forward with its doors open towards me. It is creepy enough to make me turn around and walk quietly out the door.

  I pick up the wooden drawer that I left leaning against the wall and make to leave, but then I hear something downstairs in the lobby.

  Slow, echoing footsteps.

  My heart beats in my mouth. The footsteps stop. I dare not breathe. I try to look down through the banister rails but I can’t see anything. A low groan from the lobby. I hold my breath and freeze. Whoever is down there is taking the first stair, then the next.

  It’s George. George followed me here.

  I look around for somewhere to hide or escape. The window ahead of me is broken, but a rapid scan of my memory tells me that there was no balcony there – only a sheer drop to the ground below. The staircase continues upward to two more floors, then a balcony on the roof. The footsteps continue slowly up the stairs. I could throw the drawer down at whoever is approaching, but if it is George I have no doubt he’ll have his rifle.

  Another sound from the lobby.

  I take my chances and bolt up the stairs. The footsteps below escalate, clattering up the stairs towards me. I reach the top floor, my heart about to burst out of my chest, but the stairs don’t continue up to the roof. No sign of a door. There is only the long shadowy corridor ahead of me with doors leading off to bedrooms.

  Rats dart into the rooms as I hurry along the corridor. George has reached the second floor, his footsteps echoing off the tiled walls. I race towards the end of the corridor and see a staircase through the glass panels of the door there, but the door won’t budge.

  I shove and kick the door, pushing against it until I tumble through, falling painfully on my knees. I pull myself upright on the banister and climb up to the roof.

  The rain is coming down in great sweeping chains and there is nothing on the flat roof to offer protection. I stagger to the far edge and look down – a balcony juts out about fifteen feet below. I would have to climb down and hang on to the drainpipe before dropping on to it. I swing my legs over the edge and look down, wiping the rain from my eyes with one hand. The balcony is tiled, and would no doubt be slippery after the rain. I would have to aim carefully.

  I swivel to hold on to the edge of the roof while I lower myself, but right then he is there in front of me, not four feet away.

  A dark, shaggy coat. Orange eyes staring up at me beneath heavy lids. Alien, rectangular pupils. The horns startle me most, impossibly long and sharp, curled over the head and ridged like a spine. He is surprisingly big, more stag than goat. An ibex. He stares, sizing me up before giving a satisfied snort and turning to head back to where he’d come from, his hooves clopping on the tiles of the roof.

  It’s pitch-black, but I return to the farmhouse out of sheer necessity – I am so dehydrated and cold that I can barely walk for shaking. When I reach the back door I fall to my knees, unable to go any further.

  The door opens swiftly and Sariah reaches out to me, helping me to my feet. She brings me inside and sits me down at the table. It feels a lot like the night when they rescued me from the boat.

  ‘Are you OK, sweetie?’ I hear her say. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

  I manage to ask for water, and she rushes to the sink and pours me a glass. As I drink it down, Joe and Hazel appear out of nowhere, both of them whispering and not coming too close.

  ‘I saw a goat,’ I say.

  ‘You saw a ghost?’ Sariah says in a low voice.

  It takes a lot of effort to shake my head. ‘A goat.’

  ‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes.’

  I peel off my clothes and wrap myself in a blanket. Then I go upstairs to the attic, folding myself inside the mouldy bedcovers and falling into a restless sleep.

  At eight a.m., the sun is already high in the sky and the house strangely vacant. The others must have made their way to their writing spaces. Sariah is gone, too, which disappoints me – I had hoped to take her to see the boat and share with her my idea.

  With much trepidation I head back to the hotel. The sun is bright and high in the sky, reducing the number of dark corners and making the whole place much less eerie. Still, I waste no time collecting the wooden drawer I’d left in the corridor, then locate the staffroom on the ground floor. By a stroke of luck, I find a toolbox with an old hammer and some nails. I drag the wooden drawer and toolbox all the way to the boat. I have no saw to trim the wood, but I manage to prise the drawer apart and fit a panel over the hole in the stern before getting to work on the centreboard.

  I question myself all day long as I work on fixing the boat’s centreboard, trying to wring some memories out of my mind. I figure that I can link my way back to memories by asking myself what I know. For instance, whilst collecting the drawer from the hotel, I recognised some Greek words. There was a sign hanging on the front door that read ‘Kleisto’. I know it means ‘closed’. Nothing earth-shattering, but as I stop and contemplate how I might know this, I realise that I know other Greek phrases: Tee kanis? How are you? Me lene Eloïse. My name is Eloïse. Tha eethela na neekyaso meea varka. I’d like to hire a boat.

  It makes
sense that I would know basic Greek, given that I was travelling across the Aegean. But I keep prompting myself, hoping that something else will occur out of the blue. And then it does, only it isn’t Greek. I find a snorkel mask still in its plastic wrapper, ready to be sold, and as I try to decipher the Greek writing on the tag I notice the French writing there. I read it without hesitation. Ne convient pas à un enfant de moins de 36 mois – Not for children under thirty-six months. I glance around me and try to think of the French for everything I can see, everything I can think. Il y a la mer. Il y a la plage. Quand vais-je quitter cette île? Qui suis je? Pourquoi je ne me souviens de rien? Pourquoi suis-je ici?

  I speak aloud in French for most of the day, mesmerised by this discovery, this treasure from an archaeological dig of my memory. I probably sound like a madwoman, ranting on in French. It feels good to voice my fears aloud, and in a different language, but it doesn’t trigger any memories of my past.

  I’m almost done fixing the boat. It was a complicated task, and I’m nervous about it, but I’ve secured the drawer panel with about twenty long nails hammered strategically into the wood, then a layer of tarpaulin pulled tight over the wood to keep it watertight. It probably could have done with having screws drilled into it, but that wasn’t an option. It’s not perfect, but the stern is high enough now to prevent water leaking in, and I’ve attached another panel to the centreboard. The last thing I need to do is fix the rudder and shift the boat for launching. It’s going to take more than me to accomplish that. It’s a small dinghy, hardly a cruise ship, but too solid and heavy for me to move by myself. I sit for a while and work out a way that I might do it. Without a tide, I’d have to rely on waves coming in from a cruise ship or heavy winds. The fastest way to launch the boat will be to ask the others to help me.

  I sit until night begins to blot out the sun. It’s not too cold, and I consider sleeping on the beach, but I’m famished and desperate for a drink of water. And, while I hate to admit it, I’m lonely. I miss Sariah and her words of comfort. My master plan to launch the boat and set sail is all well and good, but then what? Arrive in Crete with a handful of Greek phrases and expect someone to find me? The thought that I might not want to remember chills me to the bone. I need company.

  I walk slowly across the rocky banks and through the tall reeds, trying not to jump at every sound. Night begins its transformation of the island, and the birds and creatures re-commence their strange shouts and howls. Eventually I make out the lights of the farmhouse on the hill in the distance and hasten my pace.

  But as I make it up the path to the back garden the sound of a gun going off makes me stop dead in my tracks. It is loud and echoing. All the animals fall silent, and a flock of birds rises up from the roof of the farmhouse. And then, a long, blood-curdling scream.

  Sariah.

  George has shot her.

  Without thinking, I break into a run.

  Red Wool

  14 November 1988

  Stockwell, South London

  She was running harder than she’d ever run in her life. Usually she enjoyed dawdling on the walk home from school, but today she was sprinting home, calling Mum! Mum! under her breath, like a prayer. Please don’t let them be there yet! Please don’t let them get there before I do!

  The problem was, Mrs Kellogg was a perceptive teacher. Eloïse had been able to go to school before without disguising a black eye or a cut and nobody had asked questions. Plenty of kids turned up with signatures of violence. But Mrs Kellogg didn’t let it slip past her as easily. She’d asked Eloïse about the black eye. Eloïse had said she’d walked into a cupboard without realising that everyone since the year dot had used that as an excuse to cover up physical abuse. When Eloïse missed school, which was often, Mrs Kellogg wanted to know why. Eloïse felt flustered and had to be creative in her responses. She’d never been required to come up with reasons before. And then today, Mrs Kellogg had asked her to stay behind after class.

  It was Eloïse’s fault for agreeing to it. She could have run out of there when the bell went; unless Mrs Kellogg chased after her, there’d have been no way she could stop her. But she stayed, and Mrs Kellogg closed the door after the other kids had gone and told – no, asked – Eloïse to pull up a seat close by her desk. Eloïse hadn’t any visible bruises – the cigarette burn on her arm was hidden beneath her long-sleeved T-shirt – and she rarely got into trouble. Her schoolwork was top of the class, she made sure of that. She had long ago sussed out the correlation between kids who got poor marks and social worker visits.

  ‘What’s this about?’ she’d asked Mrs Kellogg after devouring the chocolate biscuit she’d been given.

  Mrs Kellogg was small, round, and wore glasses on a chain. She had a way of looking at you that made you feel as though you were made of glass. She reminded Eloïse of a very wise owl. She even had feathery hair to her shoulders in shades of grey, mouse-brown and white, round penetrating green eyes and a flat face. Mrs Kellogg passed the biscuit tin to Eloïse for another helping and said, ‘Last week at parents’ evening I was very much looking forward to meeting with your parents and telling them how brilliant you are. I wanted to congratulate them on raising such a bright little girl. And I certainly wanted to share with them the news that you’ve been awarded the School Cup for Creative Writing.’

  Eloïse stared. ‘I have?’

  Mrs Kellogg smiled in that knowing way of hers and nodded. ‘But, unfortunately, no one showed up for the meeting. Now, I’ve checked with other teachers and, apparently, no one has ever met with either your mother or father.’ She leaned forward, which made Eloïse flinch, because the only time an adult ever moved close to her like this was to hurt her.

  There was a long pause, and Eloïse realised a question was being posed.

  ‘My mum …’ she began. ‘My mum’s ill a lot of the time.’

  ‘And what about your father?’

  ‘Mum lives with her boyfriend,’ she said, before realising that she needed to think carefully about what she divulged. ‘I mean, only some of the time. They don’t always live together. He went to prison last year, so she’s got a different boyfriend at the minute.’

  Mrs Kellogg did her best not to reveal any surprise at this. She watched Eloïse take another biscuit before posing the next question.

  ‘Sometimes I notice you have cuts on your arms, Eloïse. Are you self-harming?’

  Two thoughts entered Eloïse’s brain at this point. The first was that there was actually a name for what she did, and if there was a name, it meant that she wasn’t the only person in the world who pressed a razor blade into her skin as a means of releasing some of the fire that swirled beneath it. The second thought was that she needed to get out of here, right now.

  She stood up.

  ‘Eloïse …’ Mrs Kellogg said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eloïse said, and turned to leave.

  Mrs Kellogg rose from her seat and followed her. Eloïse stopped before she reached the door, pricked by a sudden urge to turn and tell Mrs Kellogg everything, even the things she didn’t have a name for.

  ‘Eloïse,’ Mrs Kellogg said, and she sounded breathless and anxious. If Peter were here, he’d have said She really cares about you. But Peter was dead, and so were all the others. Every time she refused to do what Orhan wanted, he took something of hers. Somehow he always knew which of the toys she loved most.

  ‘Eloïse, I’m concerned for your wellbeing. I want you to come home with me tonight, so we can discuss what steps to take. Will you do that?’

  Eloïse shook her head and tried to say no, but it came out as a sob.

  Mrs Kellogg cupped Eloïse’s face in her hands, and it was the strangest and most tender human encounter Eloïse could remember. She suddenly perceived herself from the outside, as though witnessing from a distance the scared, scrawny creature she had become, how her shoes and clothes had holes in them and her hair was so filthy that none of the other kids wanted to sit near her. If she had been older, she
would have known that it wasn’t so much the bruises that drew Mrs Kellogg’s attention as the tell-tale pricks of a needle on the back of her neck, where Orhan believed her hair would fall. Except, she’d cut her hair one night, and now the needle marks were visible.

  Mrs Kellogg looked deep into Eloïse’s too-old eyes. ‘I’ve alerted social services,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to go home. They’re going to your home as we speak.’

  At that, Eloïse turned on her heel and ran. She thumped her feet on the squealing lino of the school corridor to drown out Mrs Kellogg’s shouts. She ran down the school steps and past the other kids at the bus stop, and she ran past tooting cars and through the queue at the post office. She ran until she reached the tower block where they lived, and then took the stairs to the fourth floor.

  When she got inside she found her mother upstairs, throwing up into the toilet bowl. She was heartened by this: at least her mother was awake, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of anyone having been in the flat.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked her mum, who continued being sick. Eloïse went to the kitchen and got a glass of water, brought it to her. Then the doorbell rang.

  Through the slit in the curtains she could see two of them, both in beige trench coats and black high heels with clipboards and steely faces. She could spot them a mile away. Social workers. They all had one objective: to split her and her mother apart. To send her to another family.

  She spent a couple of precious seconds righting the mess in the living room as best she could, glanced in the hallway mirror to check she looked OK. Then she opened the door and smiled brightly.