Pain

by Adam Southward

  The woman continued to stare for a few more seconds before closing her eyes and turning back to the fire, enjoying the warmth on her face.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘At least the weather in London will be warmer than here.’

  ‘Da,’ said the man, backing away, sensing his message had been delivered and his presence was no longer required. Messengers in this place were frequently blamed for the message, and the mountains never tired of hearing their screams.

  The door slammed again at the man’s departure. The woman remained seated, taking a few deep breaths before picking up her laptop from the coffee table. She sent two brief emails and then logged out. She had four hours before her transport arrived.

  Four hours to figure out how big this mess had become, and how deep she’d need to clean.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mia woke with a start. Her legs were slippery with sweat and she kicked off the sheet. Her temperature plummeted and goosebumps appeared on her thighs, but she didn’t notice.

  Before the flash – a car journey. Vivid and coherent. The face turning towards her became clearer each time she saw it. The eyes were like hers, the features the same. The woman in the car smiled at Mia, and Mia knew the smile was because of her. Mia created joy in this person. Family. Her mother?

  So where was her mother now?

  Mia stood and paced the warehouse, naked except for underwear, hot one minute and shivering the next. Coming down or hungry for the next hit, she was never sure. Her bodily sensations were not an accurate or reliable indicator. She took her temperature. Not an infection; not a fever. She suffered regardless.

  A normal person would find this easy. A normal person could go to the police, ask them to help. They would find her mother. Perhaps the driver of the car was her father. Mia didn’t need to be alone.

  But Mia wasn’t normal. She couldn’t go to the police. What if they knew what she’d done? What if they knew what she was capable of? Mia would be arrested and locked away, unable to search for her parents, unable to satisfy her urges.

  The only person Mia could trust was herself, which remained scant comfort, for she knew the hopelessness of her position. Of her life.

  She stood in front of the mirror, examining her body. Thinner by the day, her muscles stood proud, but her body fat couldn’t get any lower. She needed more calories. Getting sick due to lack of food wasn’t an attractive option. She could die in this place, wither away. How long would it be before the smell attracted animals? Rats and bugs. Eaten from within by maggots.

  She couldn’t go to the police, but she had to do something. She had to find answers.

  Mia traced her index finger down her stomach. There wasn’t much for the maggots to eat.

  At least it wouldn’t hurt.

  But then again, nothing did.

  Mia dressed and left the warehouse. The night had brought with it a semblance of rationality. The fact she’d never before needed to alter her appearance was testament to her natural caution, but the time had come.

  Mia headed to one of the more run-down but busy shopping streets. The shopper never saw it coming. Leaving a handbag unattended near the entrance to any store was foolish, and Mia, with a practised swipe, removed the bag from the floor and dropped it into her carrier bag, striding away before anybody had the chance to react.

  The phone went into a bin with the bag and almost everything else. Mia found ninety-five pounds in cash. She also pocketed a mascara, blusher and lipstick. She had plans for the latter.

  Freshly loaded, Mia headed to the nearest pharmacy, before stopping in at a discount clothes store. She was quick, reluctant to spend too long under the watchful eye of CCTV, picking out two pairs of skinny blue jeans, two floral tops – long-sleeved to cover her splinted arm – new sports underwear and a pair of black pumps. The floral tops were a stretch for Mia, but she wasn’t stupid. She needed a complete change of appearance. She shouldn’t have left it so long.

  The shopping spree lasted less than thirty minutes and Mia was back in the safety of her warehouse within the hour. She laid out the clothing and make-up on the mattress. The last item out of the bag was a box of hair dye. Mia stared at the photo of the woman on the packet, tracing the perfect lines of her face, admiring the shine of her hair, the bouncing curls and flawless colour.

  Mia filled the basin with water and applied the hair dye. While it worked she chopped another inch off the length, leaving it close around her chin. She stood, naked, glaring at herself in the mirror, counting the seconds.

  The dye worked. Her hair was now a dark brown with a red tinge, distinctly different. Dressed in her new clothes with a touch of make-up, she was transformed. Whoever the police were looking for wouldn’t be found in this body.

  She gazed at herself in front of the mirror. It would take time to get used to it. I look almost normal, she thought as she slipped the pumps on to her feet and picked up her bag. Some women would kill for a body like this. Mia killed and got a body like this.

  Perhaps it would be a good thing, she considered. Pretty people were treated differently, she noticed, as a rule. They could get away with things others could not. Go places others could not. Persuade people they were right, they were innocent.

  Pretty people could persuade other people they were not monsters.

  She moved her gaze up, away from her damaged torso to her neck and face. Olive, she decided. Light brown, at a push. She’d often tried to compare her skin tone to the racks of make-up in the high street, never sticking around long enough to find a match. It was important, wasn’t it? To know what colour your skin was? If she knew, would that tell her where she was from? But who to ask . . .? Mia put the questions aside for now. Her features were dark and striking, she knew that much. It would have to do.

  Again, Mia headed out of the warehouse, carefully locking the door behind her.

  She braved it. Her choices were dwindling. Her hand had been forced and she needed answers.

  London City Hospital. As before, two police officers stood outside, clipboards in hand, scrutinising the masses of people flowing in and out of the hospital entrance.

  Mia didn’t pause for a second but crossed the road and joined the throng. Avoiding the police officers’ gaze would be suspicious, so Mia tested her own theory, walking right past one of them, a young man. She caught his eye, and he held it for a second longer than was necessary, a glint in his own. Pretty people. He offered a nod and a smile to Mia, who returned it and kept walking.

  Inside the doors, she let out the breath she’d been holding, facing the crowd with renewed purpose. Today wasn’t about a fix. Not yet. Today was about the memories, about where they came from, about what had happened to her.

  Mia forced herself through the emergency room, hearing the occasional cry from a patient and checking her own heartbeat, which fluttered longingly in response. She managed to leave the temptation behind and ventured into the corridors.

  A maze, that’s how it appeared. But it was organised, colour-coded, clean and efficient. Mia paused with several others to study a map. Names, departments and clinical disciplines jostled for space on the huge sign, but none triggered any recognition in Mia. Stroke, cancer care, endocrinology, ophthalmology, dermatology . . . Mia’s gaze jerked down the list, not spotting anything that jumped out at her.

  She picked a direction at random and trod the corridor, careful to keep her face forward, unemotional, uninteresting. The corridors were long and busy, full of voices – sometimes shouts, sometimes laughter. Mia walked for twenty minutes or so, taking lifts, stepping around trolleys, circling upwards through the building towards the upper levels.

  Occasionally, she would pause at the entrance to a ward – to catch her breath, she told herself, but really to hear a snippet, a scrap of pain. She listened to the suffering and smelled the fear, the noises and odours of human anguish seeping through the air into her consciousness, teasing her about what could follow. But she stopped herself in time. Only just. Sev
eral floors up with no easy route of escape, this was the wrong place to satisfy her urge.

  She dug deep.

  That was not the purpose of today.

  Stepping out of the lift, Mia paused to stare at the nurses and doctors milling around. Nothing familiar, nothing at all. It was only when a bed appeared from her right, pushed by a porter dressed in a light blue top and black trousers, that Mia’s heart skipped a beat. The porter paused, gripping his end of the bed. The patient lay flat, awake and staring upwards. An elderly lady with severe lower abdominal pain, her skin pasty and beaded with sweat. Mia swallowed and tried to focus.

  Two doctors appeared at the foot of the bed. They both wore green scrubs, but nothing on their faces. Their hair was also uncovered. The scene almost formed into something familiar in Mia’s mind, but it was wrong, all wrong. She shook her head, approaching the bed. The doctors should be wearing masks, she thought. It was right and proper. It was necessary.

  ‘Where is your mask?’ she heard herself say, standing not three feet from the bed. The patient’s pain radiated outwards. Mia wanted to reach out and touch her.

  The porter and two doctors turned to stare. Mia saw their eyes burning into her, the porter’s in amusement, and the doctors’ with concern.

  ‘Are you a relative?’ said one.

  Mia looked up from the bed and met the doctor’s eye. Concern and sympathy with a dash of suspicion stared back at her.

  Mia shook her head, backing away. This was all wrong. She was sorry she’d come.

  As she retreated into the lift, the doctors lost interest and moved on. The doors closed and Mia clenched her jaw in frustration.

  Keeping her head down as she exited the lift, she found herself lost, frustrated and angry in the rabbit warren of corridors. She barged into people and ignored their comments as she hastened away.

  Finding herself going in circles, she headed into the ladies’ room and locked the door, standing against the cold tiles of the wall, eyes closed. Breathe in and breathe out. She tried not to listen to the niggling feeling in her gut. The urge was there, lurking, not quite ripe, but Mia knew it was unpredictable.

  She relieved herself, glad of a clean bowl and fresh paper. She washed her hands and splashed her face. Staring into the small mirror, she cursed, realising she’d smudged her make-up. Sighing, she wiped away the smears as best she could with tissue paper and water.

  Mia paused to stare out of the window, which overlooked the street below and the emergency entrance, its bays half filled, the others painted with red warning lines. Her vision drifted, her eyes casting into the distance, where they landed on an approaching ambulance. The lights were off until it reached a set of traffic lights, at which point it erupted in sound and light, a cacophony for the senses.

  It filled Mia’s head and her eyelids flickered. Standing in the corridor several floors up, suddenly she could smell the exhaust fumes, hear the drone of the diesel engine and feel herself drifting.

  The memories surged to the surface.

  The back seat of a car, driving at night. The seat was black leather and Mia was sitting on her hands – younger but not much, her teenage body planted firmly in the seat.

  The car disappeared. Flashes of light and white noise followed. Then she was lying on her back, listening to the rumble of tyres and the drone of an engine. A siren wailed. They accelerated, swerving left and right until she felt dizzy and lost. Someone was talking to her, repeating a question, but she couldn’t hear it.

  The vehicle stopped and she felt the trolley shift under her, the slamming of doors and shouts. The lights flashed, reflecting off the windows. Mia stared at the ceiling of a place she didn’t recognise. Lights flew past overhead.

  A feeling of vertigo, lying flat on her back but in motion. A man stared down at her. He said something, but his voice was too deep and slow, muffled by the mask over his face. A surgeon’s mask. She knew what it was, but she didn’t know why. He bore a scar below his right eye, raised and pink. It flashed like lightning in her eyes.

  Mia tried to raise herself up to tell the man she couldn’t hear him, but she was unable to move. Her whole body was rigid. Panic took over. Her chest heaved, and pins and needles stabbed at her hands and face. She couldn’t breathe, hyperventilating until the light faded and the vision tunnelled into darkness.

  She felt hands on her, several at once, rummaging around her body. In her body. Muffled voices overlaid with hisses and beeps.

  A voice. ‘I said, are you OK?’

  Mia snapped awake. The darkness retreated and the noise of the hospital slapped her into the moment. A female nurse was standing next to her, staring with concern.

  Mia remained dazed. She turned back to the window, watching the lights of the ambulance spinning their dance. She waited for more, but the moment had gone and reality insisted.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, turning to the nurse, ‘but I have to go.’

  Mia stumbled out of the toilet, heading for the stairs, keen to leave this place.

  The dream was real – a memory – she was certain of it now. But what had happened to her? And why?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘A paper tiger?’ The young woman stared at Alex with suspicion. Alex placed his cup carefully on the coaster so as not to mark his expensive hardwood desk and nodded.

  ‘It can’t hurt you,’ said Alex, ‘even though it appears frightening.’

  He leaned back in his chair, feeling the squeak of the soft leather, breathing in the mild aroma of the diffuser on the mantelpiece. Katie had bought it for him. Pomegranate and something citrusy; he couldn’t remember what. He thought the Met’s open-plan office could do with one or two; perhaps it would diffuse the smell of sweat and overwork.

  He’d committed to a morning of private appointments back in Harley Street. It was useful: a complete distraction from the case and time to clear his head, focus on a different problem.

  Jessica, the woman in front of him, had called three weeks ago about her anxiety. After several calls, during which Alex had managed to persuade her that anxiety couldn’t be treated quickly or via the phone, she’d agreed to come in and see him.

  Outwardly, Jessica was a delightful young socialite. Twenty-two years old, she’d had a privileged upbringing, a university education and more money thrown at her than even Alex was likely to see in his lifetime. Today she sat perched in a Ralph Lauren dress, her Louis Vuitton bag clutched to her chest. Her tan suggested a recent holiday; her jet-black hair suggested an expensive stylist.

  But Alex knew all too well that anxiety didn’t discriminate. It took its victims from all walks of life, and a millionaire’s daughter was no less likely to find herself crippled with panic attacks than someone living in poverty. Alex sympathised regardless and knew he could help most people regardless. Luckily for Jessica, she could afford private therapy quickly and on her terms. Alex had agreed to see her as soon as she was able.

  ‘But it feels so real,’ she said. Alex could see her shaking. She sniffed, the tears kept at bay. Alex didn’t push; she’d cry when she felt comfortable enough to do so. Sometimes it happened in the first session, with other patients not for weeks. Every journey through cognitive behavioural therapy was different, but the success rate was good. Alex was positive about Jessica.

  ‘It does,’ agreed Alex, ‘but I want you to think about what we’ve discussed today. When you next step into a party or a gathering and you feel the panic rising, as you’ve described, imagine this paper tiger lurking in your head. It’s big and fierce and if you pay attention to it, it will grow in size and detail and effect. But . . . it is only there by your grace. It cannot hurt you.’

  Jessica nodded. Gazing at her lap, she chewed her lip. She was bright – Alex could tell the minute she’d called – and she listened too.

  ‘And remember,’ he said, ‘our plan for you. Don’t avoid: expose. You have this thing on Saturday?’

  ‘A friend’s twenty-first,’ she said, taking a deep brea
th. ‘Fancy dress.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Use it. These events will become part of your treatment. They’ll help.’

  ‘How long?’ Her eyes pleaded a little. ‘I just want to enjoy a party without having a panic attack. It’s not normal. How long will I be like this?’

  Alex fingered the handle of his coffee cup. How long indeed. He considered his answer carefully. His own anxiety had presented at an early age and he’d hidden it, not having anybody he could talk to. His father was distant and his mother suffered from anxiety so acutely herself she couldn’t see beyond her own daily battles. His teachers had been good, but only the most troublesome kids got attention. He coasted through school, bright enough to pass everything, shrewd enough to hide his suffering.

  Alex started self-medicating in his teens, using his mother’s pills. By the time he hit university his addiction was established and therapy seemed like a distant goal, to be taken at some point later in life.

  Now, at forty-one, Alex had spent over half his life on benzodiazepines. The fact he was a respected clinical psychologist changed nothing. Alex could understand the theory, know the practice and deliver lectures on the damaging long-term effects of benzos, but still be no closer to treating his own anxiety than when he’d first popped one of his mum’s Diazepam tablets at fourteen. That was life. Being a doctor didn’t change it. Alex was still human, his flaws no greater or less than in the average person. Alex would seek therapy when he was ready. He suspected, deep down, that day would never come.

  ‘I can’t give you the answer to that,’ said Alex truthfully. ‘You’re young and bright with a fantastic support network. Work hard at it and I’m sure we’ll make progress.’

  ‘Progress?’

  ‘Yes. We don’t talk about cures for anxiety, we talk about strategies. With work and practice, your anxiety will be manageable. You’ll live a normal life and enjoy it. That’s what I want you to focus on at the moment.’