I Know You're There

by Sarah Simpson

  63

  Natalie

  Daniel stands over me. I’ve never noticed before how tall he is. How suddenly broad he appears. And that smell, that sweet, woody smell oppressing my lungs. ‘Daniel?’ I cry.

  ‘Natalie. How charming, we meet at last.’ He holds out his hand to me.

  ‘Daniel. Please. Daniel, you’re scaring me. It’s Natalie, you know who I am.’

  ‘Come on now, Natalie, of course I know who you are. Please do call me Iago. Daniel has told me all about you, of how courageous you are. Don’t disappoint – what is with the trembling hand?’

  ‘What have you done with D-Daniel?’ I stutter. Do I play his game? Will this help? Do I pretend I don’t see what I see? Daniel has lost his mind. I AM NOT WHAT I AM. ‘Where is Daniel, please?’

  ‘Daniel? Oh, Daniel has already left. Tail between legs. Such a shame you missed him. Allow me?’ He thrusts his hand towards me. ‘The floor is no place for a lady.’

  The shivering has overcome me but my head is telling me to do what he asks. I reach forward and take his hand as he pulls me to my feet. He raises my hand to his mouth and gently he kisses it. ‘Do come in, Natalie,’ he says softly, leading me with a firm grip through to the room with the table. Pulling out the chair, he beckons for me to sit. I do as he says. ‘Seems you have saved me a journey, Natalie.’

  ‘The writing on the wall? The flat? The notes? Did you…?’

  ‘Did I? Was I responsible?’

  I nod.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘The dirty footprints in your bedroom… you were really the shadow in the garden? The man to knock me over?’

  ‘So true.’

  ‘Daniel. Why? How could you? We’re good friends. Remember?’ I’m trying to appeal to the Daniel I knew, it’s my only hope, but as he slams his fist to the table I realise I am out of my depth. I don’t understand. This cannot be happening. This man is distorted in every conceivable way.

  ‘I am not Daniel,’ he spits. ‘Daniel is pathetic and weak. Daniel allows people to use him. Daniel cares for others. Daniel cares for you. Daniel is no more than an outline of me.’

  I’m thinking back to the conversation I heard a few moments earlier, loitering outside, the emphasis on betrayal, disloyalty, on Daniel’s feelings towards me? ‘Daniel was never anything but a friend to me,’ I whisper. ‘He didn’t care for me, you’re wrong.’ The monster stares through me. ‘He kept himself to himself for most of the time. I rarely ever saw him.’ What am I saying? He knows how much we saw of each other, because – this is Daniel? My mind feels as though it is smothered in a white mist; I’m helpless against this stranger but I can’t give up. If I can’t reason with him, then… he’ll do as he said; he will kill me. Daniel must have killed Rebecca after all – how have I missed this? The need for Tommy? All the signs were there, clear as day. With my sleeve, I swipe at the tears rolling down my cheeks and out of the corner of my right eye I spot an iron bar resting to the side of the blackened fireplace.

  ‘LIAR,’ Daniel roars. ‘Whilst you may not have cared for Daniel, you’re a fraud, you knew he loved you. Like he loved Rebecca. He loved you. Hung on your every word. Confided in you. Trusted you. Chose you over me. He loved you, you stupid BITCH.’

  Spittle escapes his mouth as he lurches towards me across the table. I leap up into the spinning room, as the floor travels away from my feet, my numb legs stumbling for it. Next, I see my hand glide in slow motion, stretching for the metal bar. As I feel my knees give way, my fingertips grasp the cold iron. I’m holding it for mere seconds before it becomes weighted, then snatched from my clutch. I plummet to the ground. I’m losing awareness. I hear a deafening crashing of symbols, then someone turns off the light. It’s dark, everywhere, ever so black as I gyrate in some kind of whirling tunnel. But it’s okay, I’m also not afraid any more. For the first time I can remember – I am no longer afraid.

  This is me, Natalie. Chief worrier for everyone, available for hire. But I’m no longer afraid. It isn’t until the dark stops spinning that I notice the light. And I feel strange, my legs somehow shorter, and so much lighter, strange but not in a bad way. I’ve no idea where I am but it doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing matters. Then, I see her, smiling, beautiful, my legs becoming fluffier as I hold out my hand to reach her. She pulls me to her and, finally, I bury my face in her softness. ‘You were right, Mum,’ I hear myself say, my voice sounding strange and distant. ‘What you said about father – if I remained strong, he would never be able to break me. He didn’t break me, did he?’ She smiles the gentlest of smiles, kissing the top of my head, then gently holds me away from her and spins me around. But I don’t want to leave; I’m safe here. Still, she pushes me forward.

  Somewhere in the distance I hear a vociferous chuffing sound, becoming louder each time I blink. Then voices. Gradually, I open my eyes to a terrible pain in my head. I see someone who looks like Tommy, first, then, just to the left of him, someone else who looks like Nigel. To the other side of me are two strange men, who appear to be lifting me up on some kind of soft table thing; we are moving. Their lips are moving, the eyes kind of smiling, I’ve no idea what they say. It doesn’t make any sense. They take me outside into the darkness, the bitter rain; I’m shivering despite a binding-tight blanket. I don’t ask any questions. I don’t know what to ask. Slowly, they raise me into something that looks like a helicopter. Faffing around me. I’m wishing they would hurry, whatever they’re doing, and close the door. I’m freezing, my legs violently trembling now, my teeth clattering together. Do helicopters have doors? Then, the man who looks like Nigel climbs in next to me, and for some reason he strokes my forehead. He looks worried but I don’t know why. ‘Daniel,’ I spurt from nowhere. ‘Where is Daniel?’ Who is Daniel? ‘Someone took Daniel. Othello.’

  The Nigel lookalike lets out a strange noise, something sounding like, ‘Shhh.’ He then places a finger to my lips before he steps away, back out into the cold. The strange man stays with me, shutting the door, locking us in. I may not be safe but at least I’ll be warmer now. He turns to me and smiles. His smile doesn’t frighten me, it’s warm. ‘Okay, let’s get you out of here,’ he says. Out of where? Where should I be?

  ‘You don’t smell woody and sweet,’ I say.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I think it’s a good thing. But I’m not sure.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it, Natalie.’ He attaches something else to my arm. I don’t really care what it is. ‘Seems you’re going to be okay,’ he tells me. ‘Seems someone up there was looking after you.’

  I think about this. Who is up there? Why would they be looking after me? I always look after me, don’t I, or is that Mark? Who is Mark? No, I look after me, always. ‘Seems,’ I repeat. Then, I’m not entirely sure why I say what I do next, only it feels important he understands. ‘Seem,’ I whisper. ‘Things are not always what they seem.’ His eyes meet mine. ‘Because you can lock the doors,’ I continue and he nods at me, ‘but you know what?’

  ‘What?’ His kind eyes twinkle.

  ‘You can never hide. You can’t hide, can you? Not from what is already inside.’

  He places something plastic and see-through over my face. I don’t flinch; I don’t put up a fight. He takes a seat next to me. I don’t ask him to move. And as he takes my hand in his, I don’t push him away; instead my hand turns to entwine my fingers in his. As something wet trickles from my eyes, rolling over my cheeks and down my neck, I close my eyes. But I don’t push him away, I don’t want to be alone any more.

  THE ROBBED THAT SMILES STEALS SOMETHING FROM THE THIEF.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later

  I tug the door to behind me. It’s a bright and cold November day and I’m meeting Mo, who’s kindly taking the afternoon off. I’ve not returned to work as yet. Mark has insisted I take paid leave for a few weeks, having suffered the hospital food for longer than deemed humane. Passing Daniel’s flat on my left, I glance up at the For Sale board,
feeling the same pang in the pit of my stomach as the flutter in the middle of the nights, attempting to sleep in my bedroom above the memories. The self-reproach nagging for not seeing then what now appears so obvious. And as I lie awake, a few feet above the horrors of what I walked into, I’m piecing all the random pieces of information together to build a picture. A picture, I fathom, that will always haunt me. The clothes, Mark’s clothes, Marks aftershave, the muddy footprints under the mass of mutilated books, the words on the wall, taken from Iago himself, Jacob being a modern version of the same but in truth – Daniel. The shadow in the garden – had I looked behind the whites of the eyes maybe I’d have noticed the bare feet? The haunting of the man I loved as a brother. It all seems more clear with hindsight.

  It still saddens me how in the end I began to suspect everyone, even Mo. She had a key to my flat, or so I thought, and a background I knew nothing about. I kept pushing it away but… I’m ashamed to admit it, I couldn’t rule her out. Had she told me, three weeks ago she’d discovered her spare key for my flat was missing, I may have been able to… to what? She hadn’t wanted to frighten me more than I was. Daniel must have taken the key. We have no idea when. He’d been inside her flat many a time and she’d not noticed it missing; it was in the drawer in her dressing table. Daniel had been in and out of all our homes, our personal lives, in each nook and cranny. Even Mark’s flat. Stealing items from all of us – my cardigan, my lip balm and my lipstick – then planting them strategically to create an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion, to feed Iago? To serve Iago. The man he feared more than anything other than his conscience.

  I breath in deeply passing the bakery and head down towards the seafront. As I pass the spot where I was knocked to the floor, I shiver, because, for all the knowledge I now have, I still struggle to come to terms with Daniel doing this to me. The hours I’ve spent on the Internet, researching the condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which has both spooked me and offered me some comfort. I need to always view Daniel as Daniel, and Iago as Iago, two separate people at complete odds with each other. I will not allow Iago to take Daniel from me. Daniel was a sweet, loving man, he was my friend and his death was because he loved me. He saved my life. That fateful day, he must have left his flat as Iago not Daniel, trashing anything of importance to Daniel. He also left with his kitchen knife. The knife Iago intended to kill me with; the knife that in the end Daniel killed himself with.

  I’m lost in a baffled fugue, gazing out to sea, when I feel an arm slide through mine. ‘You okay, love?’ Mo asks.

  ‘I am. I think.’

  Mo hands me a paper cup. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with, shall we? Thought you may fancy a coffee to take with.’ She smiles.

  ‘You know me so well,’ I say. ‘I really should stop using these silly aphorisms.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If we’ve learned anything over the last few weeks, it’s that none of us knew any of us. Did we?’

  Mo opens her mouth to dispute but instead she says, ‘I’d like to say you’re wrong, but I can’t.’

  We wander past the cafés and shops with the sea on our left until reaching the end of town, where we continue on until we arrive at the timeworn track leading up to the cliff.

  ‘You sure about this?’ Mo asks.

  ‘No, but I think I need to do it. Not only for me, for Daniel too.’

  Mo squeezes my arm as, probably for the final time, we climb the hobbly-bobbly path, snaking up to the cottage. Inside I am both numb and tingly. The last time I climbed this path is deeply etched in the conduit leading from my gut to my brain. But still, I have very poor recollection of the events leading up to leaving here. What I do know is, Daniel died here that night. He took his life to save mine. Daniel killed Iago to save me from him. And I may still have died after this, from the extent of my head injury and blood loss, if it hadn’t been for Nigel and Tommy. Tommy, who sounded the alarm, told the police, when no one could find me, and who knew to look for me at the cottage. Tommy, who knew all about Daniel’s disorder, of course he did, but shouldn’t we have been told, warned? Tommy who knew all about Iago or Jacob as Daniel used to refer to his other identity, being a modern more relatable version of Iago. But then Daniel may have been okay if he’d continued with the prescribed medication. In moments thinking alone, I am beyond angry with Tommy, but then I remind myself, Daniel lied to Tommy too, about his medication. This isn’t Tommy’s fault; this is Daniel’s parents’ fault. Estranged relationships void of responsibility. Full of denial and shame – maybe Rebecca could not have been reached, but Daniel? His father, especially, engineered everything to hide the son he was so embarrassed of, to cover for the wife he thought he should have had. He told Nigel, he told Tommy, he’d run checks on everyone’s background checks on all of us with his special connections, everything documented, each secret and weakness to establish the suitability of the Daniel’s placing in the house. Textbook – information and power in the wrong hands. Daniel’s hands in the end.

  Reaching the top, both of us short of breath, I’m struck by how different the picture looks. With the beautiful azure sky and the turquoise waters lapping in the background, it’s anything but creepy. Even the outbuildings hold a certain charm in this light. Without speaking we wander past them until we draw level with the cottage, which is now out of bounds and cordoned off with police tape, not that I would have contemplated stepping over the threshold. Removing the heavy rucksack from my back, I pull out the large rock, removed from Daniel’s flat, and a small posy of winter flowers. Mo and I wander closer to the edge where the original stone bench rests, looking out across the bay, and together we sit.

  ‘I feel strange.’

  ‘I bet you do, love.’ Mo takes my hand. ‘You were always going to.’

  ‘Not scared or anything, more – sad. Shit. What a mess. It’s all just so sad.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘I still can’t believe Daniel’s dead. Can you? Gone. Because of me? Mo? Because of me?’

  ‘No, love, don’t you dare say that, not because of you. Because of—’

  I stop Mo. I don’t want her to blame Daniel. ‘Because of his condition,’ I say, and she nods. ‘Nigel came to see me in hospital, stayed a while, we talked about Daniel mostly. You know, Nigel spoke to Tommy after all this happened. He felt bad for him because Daniel’s father left the flat and all for him to deal with. Yes, they held the funeral back there in Bournemouth, but the rest was left to Tommy to sort through. Removal of stuff, redecorating, though I think Mark probably took charge of that, you know what he’s like.’

  Mo turns to face me. ‘Nat, did Tommy ever explain? Give you a better understanding of why?’

  ‘He did, to be fair, seems I got him wrong too. It’s pretty complicated but what it all boiled down to is loss, grief. A lack of feeling loved. Daniel loved his sister. He lived in a strange house. With a mother who couldn’t cope very well, spent most of her time in and out of rehab and therapy most of the children’s lives, whether this was sparked by some kind of post-natal depression or something else, Tommy isn’t sure. His father worked away for most of the time, regardless, loved his wife but couldn’t cope with who she became, not with his high-powered job, not exactly sure what, something to do with the government. Before Rebecca’s death, so before boarding school too, Daniel was a bit of a handful, apparently, or maybe this was just an excuse, who knows? Daniel’s mother always felt her time was consumed looking after Daniel over Rebecca. When Daniel found his sister dead, having cut her wrists and bled to death, Daniel’s father told Tommy that his mother outwardly blamed Daniel for Rebecca’s death. Actually told him, if it wasn’t for him, Rebecca would be alive.’

  ‘No. How cruel.’

  ‘In Daniel’s childish mind, this fact, added to the trauma and grief of losing his sister, kind of blurred together. Eventually, so troubled, he was carted off to boarding school, where he gradually withdrew from anything normal. In his mind
he began to believe he’d really killed Rebecca. Tommy said it was what they call a dissociative fugue. Understandably, he couldn’t cope with this, so this was when he invented—’

  ‘Iago or Jacob. To blame someone else for something he couldn’t cope with doing himself, a different identity. The guilt. Poor, poor lad. But why Iago?’

  ‘It’s not uncommon in these circumstances for the person to identify with a known fictional character. Iago is the deeply unpleasant yet charming villain from Othello. A resentful, jealous, bitter character who manipulated for fun, who targeted the minds of those closest to him, who was capable of murder, who thrived on creating mistrust. Daniel went on to spend years in therapy, but the trauma was too deep-rooted and Iago became real to him. In the end when Daniel saw Iago, he wasn’t a decoy, he was a real person. Someone he then became petrified of. But here’s the thing – petrified of him harming anyone else he knew, but also petrified of him leaving him, alone to cope with the guilt of killing Rebecca.’

  ‘Couldn’t live with him, couldn’t live without him, then.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So Cambridge?’

  ‘Daniel was prescribed anti-psychotic medication. It kept Iago at bay. He was exceptionally bright – I mean, he read Othello for fun as a child, for God’s sake. But then in Cambridge he succumbed to the student alcohol movement, followed by the cannabis, topped up by not taking his medication and…’

  ‘And, Iago returned.’

  ‘Iago and extreme paranoia. He began reading into everything. Every sign became a message.’

  ‘But why us, Nat? Why did he target us?’

  ‘He didn’t target us, Mo, he wanted us to accept him for him. We can only hypothesise. Daniel craved love and acceptance but, as I said, he also couldn’t let go of Iago because it would mean accepting responsibility for Rebecca’s death, or so he thought. But he constantly fought to keep Iago separate from us because he was also scared of his capabilities. Hence, he met him up here.’