You Were Gone

by Tim Weaver

  To the left, there was a box high up on the wall, adjacent to one of the second-floor windows: it was blinking on and off. The alarm I’d half expected, but there was a plate screwed to the front wall with the silhouette of a CCTV camera on it and the number of a security firm underneath. I couldn’t see any cameras, and wondered if that was just a bluff, but the security firm were real, and his alarm would almost certainly be linked to their system. If it went off, and the code didn’t get put in, they’d be turning up on his doorstep inside ten minutes. It was way too risky to attempt a break-in.

  For now, his house would have to wait.

  27

  Eighty minutes later, I saw the hospital for the first time.

  I approached it from the west, along the Thames Path. On the near side of the building, I could see a short road, illuminated by security lamps, leading from the hospital site, and then the hospital itself, modern and brightly lit; on the far side, it was almost completely dark, difficult to make out except for some high fencing. As I continued towards it, I remembered what Kennedy had said on the phone to me about St Augustine’s being a difficult place to forget, and how it had been divided into two distinct halves.

  He was right. The half closest to me was made up of five buildings, all angular except for one on the end – a cylinder – which appeared to house four lifts, side by side: I could see two of them moving up and down, the cylinder finished in a mix of glass and steel, so that the occupants of the lifts could look out at the river, and anyone outside could look in at them. The other four buildings were constructed in a succession of layers, different-sized rectangles laid one on top of the other, like a wedding cake gone awry. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did: in the darkness, it was like a Cubist interpretation of a boat, a huge vessel about to push off. Maybe that was the point: now I was closer, I could see triangular flags on the roof which could only have been put there to look like sails.

  But the half furthest away from me was different.

  The closer I got, the more I could see. A gauzy white glow had bled across it from the hospital side, from the housing estate crammed in on the other side of the nature reserve as well, revealing a similarly sized chunk of land. Except, in this half, nature had taken control: trees and vines, weeds and wildflowers had all swamped the structures that had once contained this part of the former sanatorium. Even at this hour and deep into winter, I could hear wildlife: the squawk of Canada geese, the chirp of smaller birds like starlings, goldfinches, redwings. Trees, twisted and gnarled, had risen up and spread above the level of old buildings, some still intact, some hollowed out and half collapsed. Most of the walls – whatever their condition – were covered in greenery, thick and rampant, but I could see these buildings were made from London stock brick and, under the lights, and with the structures long abandoned, their yellow colour made them look sickly. Along the high fences were signs saying DANGER! KEEP OUT! and NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.

  I turned my attention back to the newer half and drew level with the entrance. Every night light was on here, lamps perched on top of the huge gate that segregated the approach road from the route into the hospital. Behind the first gate was a second, and beyond that was the hospital itself. Whether you came by foot or car, or tried to get here by boat, it wasn’t important – there was only one way in and out.

  On a wall adjacent to the gate was a buzzer. I pushed it and waited, reading the signs above the bell: EAST LONDON MENTAL HEALTH TRUST. ST AUGUSTINE’S HOSPITAL.

  It took a couple of minutes and then a slot in the gate whipped across to show the face of a man in his early sixties, white-haired and dressed in a security uniform.

  ‘Yes, pal?’

  ‘I’m here to see Erik McMillan.’

  He nodded. ‘Mr Raker, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dr McMillan says, “Welcome back.” ’

  28

  His office was on the top floor of Newton Block, a big building with west-facing views towards Beckton and the towers of Canary Wharf.

  It seemed to take an age to get there. The interior of the hospital was a rabbit warren, corridor after corridor, all colour-coded in whites, pale greens and blues like a mainstream hospital, but sectioned off by secure doors, communal areas and suites with reinforced glass. The walls were a mix of plaster and brick, and I realized this half of the hospital – all the new buildings – had been built on the carcass of the original quarantine centre. It made me wonder how many untold stories were trapped beneath, how many echoes of the hospital’s former existence, the conversations that had happened here, the arguments, and then – almost on cue – I heard someone shouting, unintelligible, strained; there was a howl, animal-like, that became a scream. Some nurses appeared from one door and crossed the corridor into another. After that, there was silence.

  The route we took seemed to follow the entire north wall of the block, presumably avoiding the areas that were most high risk. A couple of times I tried to engage the guard in conversation, but on both occasions he shut me down almost straight away, and the further in we got, the more on edge I started to feel.

  Why had I agreed to meet McMillan here?

  There were more doors, each one opening and closing with an identical buzz, a flight of stairs, and then we were in the administration block, a dark space with an open-plan seating area and a series of offices in a vague circle around it. All the offices had night lighting on and were empty; everyone who worked in admin had gone home. Bright ceiling lights came on as we moved towards McMillan’s office, the room slightly removed from the others and positioned in the corner, the door ajar, his job title stencilled across the middle in black: CLINICAL DIRECTOR.

  The guard knocked twice and then pushed.

  The door swung back to reveal a large room with windows most of the way around. McMillan was behind a desk directly in front of me. He was smiling.

  ‘Hello, David,’ he said calmly, warmly. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’

  I just stared at him.

  ‘You look like you’ve lost a little weight.’

  This was a game, and he was playing along beautifully.

  ‘Thank you, Clive,’ he said to the security guard behind him. ‘David will be fine with me here.’

  ‘Are you sure, Dr McMillan?’

  ‘Positive.’

  The guard’s eyes lingered on me, and then he left. I quickly took in the room. There was a line of cabinets and bookcases, and two sofas with a low table between them. On the walls were bright artwork and an old framed map of the hospital site. Through the windows, London sprawled, seeming to exist only as lights, thousands of them, the Thames a ribbon fringed by dots. To the right, between here and the housing estate, there was a huge block of darkness.

  ‘How are you, David?’

  McMillan was dressed in a blue checked shirt and mauve tie, his hair perfect, his beard neatly trimmed, its lines exact, as if it had been applied rather than grown. He wore his red glasses initially, but he took them off now, putting them down in front of him without ever taking his eyes off me.

  ‘We’re on first-name terms,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Would you rather I didn’t call you David any more?’ he said, finally getting up and coming around the desk. His trousers were blue too, his brown brogues polished to a shine. ‘I mean, if you’d rather we were more formal, I –’

  ‘Enough bullshit.’

  He just looked at me, clearly hurt.

  ‘Why are you lying to the police about me?’

  ‘Lying? You mean about your treatment?’

  ‘There was no treatment.’

  He frowned. ‘It concerns me that you think that, David.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  This time he flattened his lips, pressing them together so hard they bleached white. ‘I’m not lying, David,’ he said. ‘What do you think I’ve lied about?’

  ‘Why don’t we start with “everything”?’

  ‘And what ha
ve I said that you think is untrue?’

  I studied him for a moment, watching for fractional slips, for a moment of proof – but there was nothing. He looked as if he felt sorry for me. I tried not to show him how much his reactions were throwing me: I’d expected the mask to slip quickly when I faced him down, but it hadn’t slipped at all. He was professional, courteous; in his eyes, when he spoke to me, I saw genuine sorrow.

  I hadn’t prepared for this.

  ‘That woman isn’t my wife,’ I said, my voice a little shakier than I wanted it to be. ‘Before yesterday, I’d never met her in my life.’

  ‘It’s not surprising that you believe that.’

  ‘I believe it because it’s true.’ I gathered myself again, trying to add some steel to what I was saying. ‘I could give you fifty ways in which they’re different.’

  ‘I’m sure you could, David.’

  He was talking to me like a child now, his tone gentle and patient.

  ‘Was it you who gave FeedMe that story?’

  ‘I’m not certain what you mean,’ he said, puzzled.

  This was going nowhere. I looked at the sofas, at the rest of his office, at a coffee percolator on top of one of the cabinets. There were bottles of water there. Looking at them made me realize my mouth was almost completely dry. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours since I’d last drunk something, but it felt like days.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ he asked. ‘I remember you liking a strong cup of coffee.’ He took out a filter and fitted it to the machine. ‘I’m happy to join you. Or there’s water here if your taste for caffeine has fallen away in the time since I saw you last.’

  ‘Just tell me why you’re doing this.’

  He poured some of the bottled water into the coffee machine and flicked a switch. ‘David,’ he said, turning to me, ‘I’d really like to help you.’

  ‘You can help me by telling the police the truth.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You’ve never treated me.’

  ‘I have,’ he said, a harder edge to his voice now. ‘I have treated you, David.’ He returned to his desk, the percolator dripping, the air in the office already heavy with the smell of coffee, and picked up his glasses. The red frames were bright against the low light of the office, and as he sat again, he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and began cleaning the lenses. ‘I think it’s important,’ he said, head down, focused on his task, ‘that you and I are always one hundred per cent honest with each other.’

  When he finally looked up, he placed his glasses on his face, and then instantly adjusted them with the knuckle of his forefinger, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his brown eyes appeared bigger, clearer, and I was close enough to see flecks of green in them, like dots of moss on a tree trunk. They were unusual; so much so that I felt sure I would have remembered them if we’d met before. He said, ‘I know this is a confusing time for you. But, like I told you, let’s always –’

  ‘Why did you back up her story?’

  ‘By “her”, you mean Derryn?’

  ‘No. Derryn is dead.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a seat? Please.’

  I hesitated for a moment. Eventually, I pulled a chair out, seated myself on its edge and looked at him. He had a hand flat on a spiral notepad, the cover closed, a blue fountain pen attached to the binding.

  ‘DS Field called me again this evening,’ he said.

  ‘To say what?’

  ‘She’s concerned.’

  ‘Perhaps she’d be less concerned if you told her the truth.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been doing.’

  I took a long, audible breath.

  McMillan said, ‘I suggested to DS Field earlier that I could talk to you, that it may help you to see things more clearly. It was why I returned your call tonight. I felt it might be pertinent for us to meet again, because you clearly don’t understand.’

  ‘Really? What is it that I don’t understand?’

  He eyed me for a moment.

  ‘You don’t understand how dangerous you are.’

  29

  McMillan was watching me again, a habit of his I’d quickly picked up on, every silence like some minor therapy session where he would examine the tiny movements of my face.

  ‘David?’ he said. ‘Are you listening to what I’m saying?’

  ‘I’m dangerous?’

  ‘You could be.’ He studied me. ‘Did you harm Derryn again?’

  ‘ “Again”? I’ve never harmed anyone.’

  ‘Did you hurt Derryn?’

  ‘She’s not Derryn.’

  He didn’t move for a moment, still watching me, and then he nodded, almost glided on to his feet, and returned to the percolator. ‘I discharged you from my care back in 2011,’ he said, fiddling with the top of the machine, ‘because you’d made terrific strides in your recovery. This belief of yours, that the Derryn you knew was dead, and the one that had remained behind for a while after was an impostor, a double, we worked through that. I’m not saying we got to a complete recovery, but we got to a point where I felt you were able to function on your own –’

  ‘Stop.’ I held up a hand to him. ‘Just stop.’

  He snapped the lid shut on the machine.

  ‘Please just tell me why you’re doing this.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, David.’

  ‘Not this bullshit about me thinking she was dead when she wasn’t. That’s not what I mean. I don’t need to hear any more about that, about how I’m sick, and I was treated at St Augustine’s for fifteen months. It’s lies. None of it adds up. I mean, if you’re saying you’d finished treating me by 2011, if I’d made a recovery by then and accepted that Derryn was alive, where’s she been for the last six years? Because she sure as hell hasn’t been living with me, and it doesn’t matter how many times that woman tells the police that she has, or that I drove her to some pharmacy in Woolwich yesterday, or that I’m in denial, or I’m sick, or whatever else – none of it is true. Nothing. She’s a fantasist and the worst bit is, you’re backing up her story. She should be the person you’re trying to help.’

  ‘It isn’t a story, David. It’s reality. This is real.’

  ‘Then why isn’t she living with me? I could go home tonight and ask my neighbours if I’ve been living with anyone and I’d bet all the money I have – every penny – that neither of them would have ever seen her at the house.’

  ‘It would be a bet you’d lose, David. Derryn has been living at 40 Aintree Drive with you for –’

  ‘She hasn’t. She’s not living with me. She’s not my fucking wife!’ I screamed the words at him, and as soon as they were out of my mouth I regretted them: this was exactly what he wanted. Whatever his reasons for doing this, my loss of control, my absolute denial that it was Derryn, all of it played into the idea that I was sick, that I couldn’t – or wasn’t able – to face the truth. I felt so angry it was like a vibration in my blood, in my muscles, in my cartilage, but I closed my eyes and tried to reel it back in. Once I had, very gently, I said, ‘Why are you risking your career like this?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You could get struck off.’

  ‘For wanting to help you?’

  ‘You’re not helping me, you’re ruining my life.’

  We could both hear it: the break in my voice, the last few words collapsing as they formed in my mouth. McMillan came a couple of steps closer to me, and his face took on the same look again, as if he felt genuinely sorry for me, for the fact that I couldn’t recognize or deal with the truth. As I saw his expression, I thought of the conversation I’d had with Tanya Rye – of the ones I’d decided not to have afterwards with Derryn’s other friends – and all the questions I’d tried to ask her returned to me, all the things I’d been unable to say out loud. Had Derryn died? Had the funeral ever taken place? Could I be so sick that I didn’t even realize I was living with another person?

/>   ‘No,’ I said, the word out before I could rein it back in. It had been a reaction to the questions I’d been going through, the ones I’d never asked and was never going to. But as I looked at McMillan standing in front of the cabinets, I realized it had reinforced his position. Now I looked exactly as confused as he needed me to be.

  He poured two cups of coffee.

  ‘Black, no sugar, right?’

  Again, his familiarity with me, his ease in my company, threw me, but I tried not to show it. He brought the drink over and placed it on the desk in front of me.

  ‘You’re emotional,’ he said, ‘I understand that.’

  ‘Of course I’m emotional.’

  He sat back down, taking a mouthful of his coffee.

  ‘Did you have anything to do with Derryn going missing?’ he said.

  ‘She’s not Derryn.’

  ‘Okay.’ He held up a hand. ‘Okay.’

  He took another long gulp and then placed the coffee down.

  ‘Have you harmed the woman who says she’s your wife?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘DS Field says they can’t find her.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘You don’t know where she is?’

  ‘No. And why would I harm her, anyway?’

  ‘Because you can be … unpredictable.’

  I frowned. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  He opened both his hands out, trying to calm me down, and then came forward on his seat, elbows on the desk, the coffee sending strands of steam past his face. He was so close now I could smell the scent of his aftershave and the faint hint of mint on his breath.

  ‘Among other things, you have a condition called Capgras delusion.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice harder again, ‘you do. I need you to listen, okay? You are suffering from something called Capgras delusion. It’s a condition where you believe a loved one has been replaced by someone else: a lookalike, an impostor. The condition most often occurs in people with paranoid schizophrenia or dementia, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that patients suffering from brain injuries are susceptible to it too. There have even been documented cases of migraines bringing it on for a time.’ He stopped, saw me react: a confirmation that the word migraines had registered, meant something, had affected me in the time since he said I’d been here.