Upon A Dark Night

by Peter Lovesey

  Upon A Dark Night

  Peter Lovesey

  Peter Diamond, the traditionalist dinosaur of Bath CID, finds the low murder rate in the city a touch frustrating, so he decides to check whether a couple of suicides which his colleague is investigating have been accurately classified. On the outskirts of the city a woman is found unconscious in a hospital car park, but when she recovers she can't remember who she is or how she came to be there. Soon after she is released into the care of the local authority, Diamond has a 'proper' case to get his teeth into when a woman's body is found in the garden of a flat after a somewhat drunken party. None of the other guests knew her and it is not clear whether she slipped, jumped or was pushed, and with no clue as to her identity Diamond has a puzzle to satisfy his quirky talents. In a mystery of stunning complexity, Peter Lovesey amply demonstrates his gifts as the grand master of the contemporary whodunnit.

  Peter Lovesey

  Upon A Dark Night

  The fifth book in the Peter Diamond series, 1997

  ‘It has been said… that there are few situations in life that cannot be honourably settled, and without loss of time, either by suicide, a bag of gold, or by thrusting a despised antagonist over the edge of a precipice upon a dark night’

  From Kai Lung’s Golden Hours, by Ernest Bramah (Grant Richards, 1922)

  Part One… Over the Edge…

  One

  A young woman opened her eyes.

  The view was blank, a white-out, a snowfall that covered everything. She shivered, more from fright than cold. Strangely she didn’t feel cold.

  Troubled, she strained to see better, wondering if she could be mistaken about the snow. Was she looking out on an altogether different scene, like a mass of vapour, the effect you get from inside an aircraft climbing through dense cloud? She had no way of judging; there was just this blank, white mass. No point of reference and no perspective.

  She didn’t know what to think.

  The only movement was within her eyes, the floaters that drift fuzzily across the field of vision.

  While she was struggling over the problem she became aware of something even more disturbing. The blank in her view was matched by a blank inside her brain. Whatever had once been there had gone. She didn’t know who she was, or where this was happening, or why.

  Her loss of identity was total. She could recall nothing. To be deprived of a lifetime of experiences, left with no sense of self, is devastating. She didn’t even know which sex she belonged to.

  It called for self-discovery of the most basic sort. Tentatively she explored her body with her hand, traced the swell of her breast and then moved down.

  So, she told herself, at least I know I’m in that half of the human race.

  A voice, close up, startled her. ‘Hey up.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said another. Both voices were female.

  ‘Sleeping Beauty just opened her eyes. She’s coming round, I think.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Have a look. What do you think?’

  ‘She looks well out to me.’

  ‘Her eyes were definitely open. We’d better call someone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother yet.’

  ‘They’re closed now, I grant you.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  She had closed them because she was dazzled by the whiteness. Not, after all, the whiteness of snow. Nor of cloud. The snatch of conversation made that clear. Impressions were coming in fast. The sound quality of the voices suggested this was not happening in the open. She was warm, so she had to be indoors. She had been staring up at a ceiling. Lying on her back, on something soft, like a mattress. In a bed, then? With people watching her? She made an effort to open her eyes again, but her lids felt too heavy. She drifted back into limbo, her brain too muzzy to grapple any more with what had just been said.

  Some time later there was pressure against her right eye, lifting the lid.

  With it came a man’s voice, loud and close: ‘She’s well out. I’ll come back.’ He released the eye.

  She dozed. For how long, it was impossible to estimate, because in no time at all, it seemed, the man’s thumb forced her eye open again. And now the white expanse in front of her had turned black.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  She didn’t answer. Couldn’t use her voice.

  ‘Can you hear me? What’s your name?’

  She was conscious of an invasive smell close to her face, making the eyes water.

  She opened her other eye. They were holding a bottle to her nose and it smelt like ammonia. She tried to ask, ‘Where am I?’ but the words wouldn’t come.

  He removed the thumb from her eye. The face peering into hers was black. Definitely black. It wasn’t only the contrast of the white background. He was so close she could feel his breath on her eyelashes, yet she couldn’t see him in any detail. ‘Try again,’ he urged her. ‘What’s your name?’

  When she didn’t answer she heard him remark, ‘If this was a man, we would have found something in his pockets, a wallet, or credit cards, keys. You women will insist on carrying everything in a bag and when the wretched bag goes missing there’s nothing to identify you except the clothes you’re wearing.’

  Sexist, she thought. I’ll handbag you if I get the chance.

  ‘How are you doing, young lady? Ready to talk yet?’

  She moved her lips uselessly. But even if she had found her voice, there was nothing she could tell the man. She wanted to ask questions, not answer them. Who was she? She had no clue. She could barely move. Couldn’t even turn on her side. Pain, sharp, sudden pain, stopped her from changing position.

  ‘Relax,’ said the man. ‘It’s easier if you relax.’

  Easy for you to say so, she thought.

  He lifted the sheet and held her hand. Bloody liberty, she thought, but she was powerless. ‘You were brought in last night,’ he told her. ‘You’re being looked after, but your people must be wondering where you are. What’s your name?’

  She succeeded in mouthing the words, ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know your own name?’

  ‘Can’t think.’

  ‘Amnesia,’ he told the women attendants. ‘It shouldn’t last long.’ He turned back to her. ‘Don’t fret. No need to worry. We’ll find out who you are soon enough. Are you in much pain? We can give you something if it’s really bad, but your head will clear quicker if we don’t.’

  She moved her head to indicate that the pain was bearable.

  He replaced her hand under the bedding and moved away.

  She closed her eyes. Staying conscious so long had exhausted her.

  Some time later, they tried again. They cranked up the top end of the bed and she was able to see more. She was lucid now, up to a point. Her memory was still a void.

  She was in a small, clinically clean private ward, with partly closed Venetian blinds, two easy chairs, a TV attached to the wall, a bedside table with some kind of control panel. A glass jug of water. Facing her on the wall was a framed print of figures moving through a field of poppies, one of them holding a sunshade.

  I can remember that this painting is by Monet, she thought. Claude Monet. I can remember a nineteenth-century artist’s name, so why can’t I remember my own?

  The black man had a stethoscope hanging from his neck. He wore a short white jacket over a blue shirt and a loosely knotted striped tie. He was very much the junior doctor wanting to give reassurance, in his twenties, with a thin moustache. His voice had a Caribbean lilt.

  ‘Feeling any better yet?’

  She said, ‘Yes.’ It came out as a whisper.

  He seemed not to have heard. ‘I asked if you are feeling any better.’

  ‘I t
hink so.’ She heard her own words. Think so. She wanted to sound more positive. Of course if her voice was functioning she had to be feeling better than before.

  ‘I’m Dr Whitfield,’ he told her, and waited.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Well?’ he added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’d like to know your name.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You’re a mystery. No identity. We need to know your name and address.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can’t remember?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘Anything about yourself?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How you got here?’

  ‘No. How did I get here?’

  ‘You have no recall at all?’

  ‘Doctor, would you please tell me what’s the matter with me?’

  ‘It seems that you’ve been in an accident. Among other things, you’re experiencing amnesia. It’s temporary, I can promise you.’

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘Not so serious as it might have been. A couple of cracked ribs. Abrasions to the legs and hips, some superficial cuts.’

  ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘You tell us.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He smiled. ‘We’re no wiser than you are. It could have been a traffic accident, but I wouldn’t swear to it. You may have fallen off a horse. Do you ride?’

  ‘No… I mean, I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s all a blank, is it?’

  ‘Someone must be able to help. Who brought me here?’

  ‘I wish we knew. You were found yesterday evening lying unconscious in the car park. By one of the visitors. We brought you inside and put you to bed. It was the obvious thing. This is a private hospital.’

  ‘Someone knocked me down in a hospital car park?’

  He said quite sharply, ‘That doesn’t follow at all.’

  She asked, ‘Who was this person who is supposed to have found me?’

  ‘There’s no “supposed” about it. A visitor. The wife of one of our long-term patients. We know her well. She wouldn’t have knocked you down. She was very concerned, and she was telling the truth, I’m certain.’

  ‘So someone else knocked me down. Some other visitor.’

  ‘Hold on. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘What else could have happened?’

  ‘Like I said, a fall from a horse. Or a ladder.’

  ‘In a hospital car park?’ she said in disbelief, her voice growing stronger as the strange facts of the story unfolded.

  ‘We think someone may have left you there in the expectation that you would be found and given medical attention.’

  ‘Brought me here, like some unwanted baby – what’s the word? – a foundling?’

  ‘That’s the general idea.’

  ‘And gone off without speaking to anyone? What kind of skunk does a thing like that?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s better than a hit-and-run. They just leave you in the road.’

  ‘You said this is a private hospital. Where?’

  ‘You’re in the Hinton Clinic, between Bath and Bristol, quite close to the M4. Do you know it? We’ve had car accident victims brought in before. Does any of this trigger a memory?’

  She shook her head. It hurt.

  ‘You’ll get it all back soon enough,’ he promised her. ‘Parts of your brain are functioning efficiently, or you wouldn’t follow what I’m saving. You can remember words, you see, and quite difficult words, like “foundling”. Did you go to school round here?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Your accent isn’t West Country. I’d place you closer to London from the way you speak. But of course plenty of Londoners have migrated here. I’m not local either.’ He smiled. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed.’

  She asked, ‘What will happen to me?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We informed the police. They took a look at you last night. Made some kind of report. Put you on their computer, I expect. You can be sure that someone is asking where you are by now. They’ll get a report on a missing woman and we’ll find out soon enough. Exciting, isn’t it? Not knowing who you are, I mean. You could be anyone. A celebrity. Concert pianist. Rock star. Television weather girl.’

  The excitement eluded her. She was too downcast to see any charm in this experience.

  Later they encouraged her to get out of bed and walk outside with one of the nurses in support. Her ribs felt sore, but she found no difficulty staying upright. She was functioning normally except for her memory.

  She made an effort to be positive, actually summoning a smile for another patient who was wheeled by on an invalid chair, some poor man with the sallow skin of an incurable. No doubt the doctor was right. Memory loss was only a temporary thing, unlike the loss of a limb. No one in her condition had any right to feel self-pity in a place where people were dying.

  Before returning to her room, she asked to visit a bathroom. A simple request for a simple need. The nurse escorting her opened a door. What followed was an experience common enough: the unplanned sighting in a mirror of a face that turned out to be her own, the frisson of seeing herself as others saw her. But what made this so unsettling was the absence of any recognition. Usually there is a momentary delay while the mind catches up. This must be a mirror and it must be me. In her case the delay lasted until she walked over to the mirror and stared into it and put out her hand to touch the reflection of her fingertip. The image was still of a stranger, a dark-haired, wide-eyed, horror-stricken woman in a white gown. She turned away in tears.

  In her room, Dr Whitfield spoke to her again. He explained that her condition was unusual. Patients with concussion generally had no memory of the events leading up to the injury, but they could recall who they were, where they lived, and so on. He said they would keep her under observation for another night.

  The loss of identity was still with her next morning. One of the nurses brought her a set of clothes in a plastic container. She picked up a blue shirt and looked at the dirt marks on the back and sleeves. It was obvious that whoever had worn this had been in some kind of skirmish, but she felt no recognition. Jeans, torn at the knee. Leather belt. Reeboks, newish, but badly scuffed. White socks. Black cotton knickers and bra. Clothes that could have belonged to a million women her age.

  ‘Do you want me to wear these?’

  ‘We can’t send you out in a dressing gown,’ said one of the nurses.

  ‘Send me out?’ she said in alarm. ‘Where am I going?’

  ‘The doctors say you don’t need to be kept in bed any longer. We’ve kept you under observation in case of complications, but you’ve been declared fit to move now.’

  ‘Move where?’

  ‘This is a private hospital. We took you in as an emergency and now we need the bed for another patient.’

  They wanted the bed for somebody who would pay for it. She’d been so preoccupied with her problem that she’d forgotten she was literally penniless.

  ‘We’re going to have to pass you on to Avon Social Services. They’ll take care of you until your memory comes back. Probably find you some spare clothes, or give you money to get some.’

  On charity. She hated this. She’d hoped another night would restore her memory. ‘Can’t I stay here?’

  She was collected later the same morning by a social worker called Imogen who drove a little green Citroen Special with a striped roof. Imogen was pale and tall with frizzy blonde hair and six bead necklaces. Her accent was as county as a shire hall. ‘I say, you were jolly fortunate landing up there,’ she said, as they drove out of the hospital gates. ‘The Hinton is the clinic to get yourself into, if you’re in need of treatment, that is. I don’t like to think what it would have cost if you hadn’t been an emergency. What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Still muzzy?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I’
ll have to call you something. Let’s invent a name. What do you fancy? Do you object to Rose?’

  The choice of name was instructive. Obviously from the quick impression Imogen had got, she had decided that this nameless woman wasn’t a Candida or a Jocelyn. Something more humble was wanted.

  ‘Call me anything you like. Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To the office, first. You’ll need money and clothes. Then to a hostel, till you get yourself straight in the head. They told me you cracked a couple of ribs. Is that painful? Should I be taking the corners extra carefully?’

  ‘It’s all right’

  The doctor hadn’t strapped up the damaged rib-cage. Apparently if your breathing isn’t uncomfortable, the condition cures itself. The adjacent ribs act as splints. Her sides were sore, but she had worse to worry over.

  ‘I’m an absurdly cautious driver, actually,’ Imogen claimed. ‘Do you live in Bath, Rose?’

  Rose. She would have to get used to it now. She didn’t feel like a flower.

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  She thought it unlikely that she lived in Bath, considering it made no connection in her mind. Probably she was just a visitor. But then she could think of no other place she knew.

  They drove past a signpost to Cold Ashton, and she told herself it was the sort of name you couldn’t possibly forget.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ asked Imogen. ‘I saw you looking at the sign.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The way we’re going, down the A46, you’ll get a super view of the city as we come down the hill. With any luck, some little valve will click in your head and you’ll get your memory back.’

  The panorama of Bath from above Swainswick, the stone terraces picked out sharply by the mid-morning sun, failed to make any impression. No little valve clicked in her head.

  Imogen continued to offer encouragement. ‘There’s always a chance some old chum will recognise you. If this goes on for much longer, we can put your picture in the local paper and see if anyone comes forward.’

  She said quickly, ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’