Trauma: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Read online

  From somewhere, a distant scream rents the air, a sudden noise immediately whipped up and away by the wind.

  It takes several seconds for Cam to realise that the screaming voice is his.

  I snap out of it and am instantly aware that I’ve poured myself a bowl of muesli and am standing in front of the fridge with my nose inches from it. A carton of milk is open on the table behind. My heart is thumping in my chest.

  I look down to see I’m clutching a spoon in my hand. No point arguing with fate. I use the spoon to eat the muesli as I crunch around the flat, waiting for my brain to clamber down from wherever it’s been.

  Adam has explained, in scientific terms, what the fugues are and that they are causally related to my SBI. But he admits that little is known about their origin within the brain. They are not real – hence hallucinatory – but I remember them as if they are. Sometimes they feel more substantial than my waking hours. Sometimes, like now, I end up wondering if the rooftop bar is reality and me padding around my Bermondsey flat holding a bowl of muesli is the fugue.

  But Adam has told me what to do if I felt like that.

  Inject a dose of reality.

  I go back into the bedroom. Find a box of DVDs and some games that Josh has given me. A seminal back catalogue of gaming and cinematic experience garnered from his formative years and, given what he knows about me, mine too. Underneath the boxes of Super Mario 64, Street Fighter, Sonic, Myst, Quake and dozens more is a shallow box that once contained a shirt. One Josh’s mother bought for him to wear to his brother’s wedding. The box is made of thick, strong cardboard and has the name of a Jermyn Street tailor embossed upon it. The shirt has long gone. Instead, inside is an inch-thick collection of cuttings documenting an outsider’s view of what happened to Emma and me.

  Josh has collated these. He gave them to me almost solemnly some four months ago just after I moved in. He looked earnest when he said, ‘I think you’re ready for this now.’

  I keep the box hidden so that Rachel doesn’t see it. But Rachel, I remind myself, is home-schooling her kids in Cardiff. She will not appear at the door of my flat. I realise I’m tarring her with a secret police brush. That’s unfair.

  I pick out a handful of ‘L’- and ‘T’-shaped strips of floppy newspaper cuttings amidst the odd full page and spread them, crinkling, over my bed. The headlines shout back at me.

  Horror ordeal of British couple in Turkish paradise resort.

  Woman plummets to her death from cliff in Turkey. Partner suffers life-changing injuries.

  Police investigate mystery of UK couple’s cliff tragedy.

  I’ve been through these before and arranged them in date order. At first, the press is almost factual in their account and the lurid headlines last for just three days. After that, the reports are sporadic. But the one I’m after, the one I want to read, comes almost twelve months after Emma died and I fell.

  Emma Roxburgh inquest finds no answers to the mystery of her death.

  An inquest has heard how a British woman fell to her death from cliffs. Thirty-two-year-old Emma Roxburgh from London died while on holiday with her partner, Cameron Todd. Thirty-three-year-old Mr Todd was also severely injured and hospitalised for several months after the incident.

  It was revealed that the couple had been staying in Cirali, a resort on the Antalya coast of Turkey in October of 2018. The inquest in Southwark Coroner’s Court heard that the hotel owner was the last person to see Dr Emma Roxburgh – a GP in Woolwich – alive when she walked out of the hotel and headed north on a beach road towards the cliff path. A few minutes later, Mr Todd was seen to follow after asking the owner if he had seen Dr Roxburgh leave.

  The hotel owner, Eymen Tabak, giving evidence through a translator, reported that Dr Roxburgh seemed to be in an anxious state as she hurried out to the beach road. Mr Todd’s injuries were so severe that he could not give evidence as to the circumstances leading to the couple’s ordeal.

  Another holidaymaker who was in a beachside bar earlier that evening said that the cliff path at the north end of the beach was well walked but unfenced and, though safe in daylight, would be very treacherous in darkness.

  Pathologist, Dr Alison Barnet gave a medical cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head and trunk including bilateral pelvic fractures, skull fracture and a broken shoulder and arm.

  Coroner James Quigley said: ‘The Turkish police continue to investigate the tragic case, but there is no evidence at this time of foul play. We may never learn the full circumstances of what transpired that October night and I am therefore obliged to record an open verdict.’

  I know what an open verdict is. Coroners use this when there is not enough evidence to reach any other conclusion. That means that no one is wholly convinced it was accidental. Emma’s death remains suspicious in the minds of the public, the authorities and, as DS Keely has already reminded me, the Turkish police.

  And therefore in mine. But of course, I should know because I was there.

  But I can’t remember. The only thing I am certain of at this point is that Emma wasn’t sandblasted to death by a hurricane on a rooftop bar, even if my brain suggests otherwise. But what I’m also sure of is that something is changing inside my head. Because my fugues are. For months, faceless Emma and Ivan and I have sat around, chewed the fat, and then the woman I am supposed to love has fallen off the roof. With me following a moment after her.

  Because of this, I am convinced my fugues must have an underlying meaning. They’re mental ciphers. Must be. Otherwise I have to accept that they’re nothing more than random synapses firing off and colluding together to taunt and tantalise. And if that is the case, what’s the difference between a fugue and pure madness?

  I wait for the answer, but my stubborn psyche leaves the question hanging. Big joke. No punchline.

  So I choose to believe the rooftop bar and faceless Emma and the storm are cryptic crossword clues which, at present, I have no idea how to unravel.

  I don’t know where to look for answers either. Other than the obvious places.

  I’ve tried Josh. I’ve tried Keely. I’ve gone for the safe options. Time I lived a little more dangerously.

  I walk to the kitchen, reach for the landline handset and dial a number I’m familiar with, but I’ve never dialled before.

  From somewhere in the caverns of my mind, I hear Rachel screaming, ‘NO.’

  But I dial the number anyway and leave a message.

  Now we wait and see.

  21

  Friday at 5.30pm I meet Josh for an after-work drink as arranged. We’re not going overboard; Josh has a girlfriend – Lisa – to go home to and I’m not a big drinker these days. I used to be, according to Josh, but since Turkey and all the drugs I’m on, two pints maximum for me. Adam says alcohol and quetiapine isn’t a good mix.

  As always on a Friday, the pub is busy; though not as full as usual. Some people are taking note of the government’s request to implement some social distancing. Avoid restaurants and limit our visits to the pub if we can. Common sense says the only way to enforce that is to shut places down. Because people take such requests as optional. And Friday after work is more than a bit of a tradition with the young professional crowd. Tonight, the end of a normal working week, restrictions must be for other people because here there are as many drinkers outside as in. Not only sad smokers cram the pavements on a Friday night.

  The weather is hardly conducive either. Yet the cold and wet is the price you pay for an after-work drink in a city of almost nine million. But what most revellers in the Grey Goose in Shoreditch are unaware of is that there is a mezzanine with half a dozen tables inside the pub accessed by a stairway just past the toilets. Most punters, keen for a swift Chardonnay or a pint of Doom Bar, never get that far down the corridor. I’m not complaining. Josh and I usually meet in this secret spot and tonight we make a beeline and squeeze through to grab the last available chairs. Fifteen minutes later there’s standing room only and
by six we have to shout to be heard. Hardly congenial, but as I say, no such thing as a quiet pint on a Friday night in London.

  I scan the room. If there is a virus in here, its birthday and Christmas has arrived all rolled into one. Brad Pitt would have apoplexy. Josh senses my anxiety. ‘Think of us doing our bit for herd immunity.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘No, I don’t think. And I don’t know what to think. That’s the trouble. South Korea seems to have a handle on it whereas Italy is in meltdown, so I hear. Perhaps we’re all on the deck of the Titanic listening to the band play on as we slide beneath the waves.’

  ‘Delightful image.’

  ‘Cheer up,’ Josh says. ‘So long as no one in here prefers face flesh over pork scratchings, we’re safe. Just wash your hands and practise sneezing etiquette. If your inner elbow looks like a snail has crawled across it, time for the launderette.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘What the hell else can we do?’

  I take a sip from my pint. Josh is right. What the hell else can we do?

  ‘Get everything sorted the other evening, did you?’ he asks.

  ‘Some things,’ I reply.

  Josh grins. He finds my pedantic responses amusing for many reasons. ‘Some things is dead right. Everything would include world peace, a Covid vaccine and solving the thorny issue of fusion reactors. My bad.’

  He’s fishing for a response. I don’t take the bait. ‘Do you remember the last time you saw Emma?’

  Josh’s grin freezes and his throat makes a two-tone buzzer noise. ‘End of banter warning.’

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘It was a few days before you went to Turkey if my mind serves me. We had a drink. Not here, but somewhere like this. The Drum or maybe even The Marlborough–’

  ‘How did she seem to you?’

  ‘Normal. Looking forward to going away.’

  I nod. ‘I suspect that she wasn’t normal.’

  ‘We know that. She was going out with you for a start.’ Josh waits, but I don’t laugh. He gives a slight shrug. ‘What’s all this about, Cam?’

  I tell him more or less what I told Keely. But once again, I don’t mention Nicole. I don’t have to because I’ve told Josh I met her. He doesn’t need the extra intimate details. Not yet. Nicole needs time to sort out Aaron.

  I pull out the small notebook. Josh looks at the entry:

  14/10/18. Cam’s do with Quantiple.

  Pants on fire?

  ‘What do you think it means?’ I ask.

  Josh shakes his head. ‘I remember the Quantiple thing. They had a recruitment bash. That was two months before they opened their new offices. You were supposed to go, but you cried off because you were struck down by some kind of intestinal malaise. A bad lamb bhuna if I remember rightly.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  He studies the notebook again. ‘But why the pants on fire?’

  ‘Liar, liar.’

  Josh looks up, frowning. ‘You or Emma?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

  He makes a troubled, sceptical face. ‘This could mean nothing at all.’

  Josh is right. It could all mean nothing. Just a hasty scribble in a throwaway notebook.

  ‘What makes you suspect things weren’t normal?’ he probes. ‘There must be something else? Have you remembered something else?’

  ‘Nothing concrete,’ I say. And it is the truth. I haven’t remembered anything. Nicole has filled in the blanks. ‘Just an impression. Something was off. Either with Emma… or me.’

  Concern crumples Josh’s brows. ‘You and Emma were tight, mate. I can’t remember seeing anything off. That’s the truth.’

  ‘But what if something was off? What if something happened between us in Turkey?’

  Josh puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Bloody hell, Cam. What’s brought all this on?’

  ‘Pants on fire has brought this on.’

  Something chimes and Josh reaches into his pocket for his phone. ‘Here we go. News alert. Latest from our headless chickens – I mean, great leaders. Apparently, we’re going to be asked to avoid all non-essential travel; curtail visits to pubs, clubs, theatres and restaurants, and vulnerable groups will need to self-isolate.’ He looks up, stricken. ‘Imagine not being able to do this of a Friday evening.’

  ‘Voluntary though, right?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘You think things could get worse?’

  Josh drains his pint, puts down the glass and smacks his lips. ‘Worse, no not at all. And just by way of reassurance, I know which book you need to read next. I take it you haven’t read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Then that’s definitely one you should dive into. It will ease your troubled soul and fill you with positivity and hope for all mankind.’

  Josh has that look in his eye. A mischievous glint that tells me everything.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ I say.

  ‘It was even made into a film. None other than Viggo Mortensen. Amazing performance. He has them rolling in the aisles. Read the book, though, and tell me what your take is. Oh, and drink up. Come on, my shout.’

  ‘We don’t usually drink more than two,’ I say. Adam and Rachel both warn me constantly about the risk of mixing too much alcohol with my current drug regimen. But I don’t overdo it and have worked myself up to a maximum of three pints and or a couple of glasses of wine without losing it. My liver may not be dancing a jig, but mentally, I can cope. Says he.

  Josh has no qualms. ‘Well, we ought to this evening. We’re celebrating the fact that I am about to introduce you to the laugh-a-minute world of dystopian literature as per McCarthy, and, not to put too much of an Orwellian spin on things, this might be the last chance we get to do this.’

  ‘Make mine a half.’

  He’s grinning as he gets up to jostle his way to the bar. Josh takes my empty glass and wriggles his way through the packed crowd, leaving me to ponder my anxieties. I can’t imagine not being able to enjoy a pint together on a Friday night. What the hell will people do?

  There are two beer mats on the table. I arrange them so they are centred, and equidistant two inches from the edge. Seeing them there like that is pleasing. I wish I knew why it helps.

  ‘You and Emma were tight, mate.’

  Josh is genuine. His recollection of us as a couple is an accurate reflection of how he saw us. And perhaps he’s right. Perhaps that was the impression we projected. But it doesn’t feel tight to me. Not anymore.

  My hand falls and knocks the table, disrupting the pattern of the carefully-arranged beer mats. They spin into a random arrangement. One on top of the other, their perfect alignment destroyed in an instant.

  Is this what happened to me and Emma? If we weren’t in harmony, if we were drifting apart, could we have argued? Could we have gone for a walk on that beach after dark and ended up in a fight? Could a moment of chaos have caused both our lives to implode?

  Josh comes back and we drink but somehow the evening is soured and, once I down the half, I make my excuses. He doesn’t object. He knows my tolerance of social situations is low. But I don’t share my thoughts with him.

  These are way too dark. Labelled ‘personal consumption only’.

  22

  There’s a message on the landline when I get home at a little after 8pm. I press the play button and listen.

  ‘This is John Stamford. Thanks for returning my call. Best we meet face to face because I don’t discuss anything over the phone. How about The Pommelers Rest. I’ll stand you a Wetherspoon’s breakfast. 9.30 tomorrow morning. You can text your answer to this number.’

  I write the address down. I’ve never been to The Pommelers Rest, so I flip open my laptop and surf to the website and up pops a pub on Tower Bridge Road. A big pub from the looks of it. And not only the building; the breakfasts look gigantic.

  While I’m in the shower, Rachel messages me. She wants to FaceTime. I c
hange and go into the kitchen where the wifi is at its strongest and call her up.

  Rachel answers on the third ring. She’s sitting in her kitchen with a glass of red wine on the table in front of her. I recognise the Welsh, patterned oilcloth and note the flotsam of plates and soup bowls pushed to one side ready for the dishwasher. I can hear some extraneous noise. The sounds of children laughing punctuated by a rich fruity cough. The backdrop is a kitchen dresser painted in cream with natural oak tops. Rachel did the painting. It’s her thing. A life’s project given that the house they live in was built in 1889, has five bedrooms and views over the Bristol Channel to Weston-super-Mare and North Devon on good days. Brown water and Channel fog on bad ones. Rachel and Owen are working on the house room by room. They hope to finish by 2060. I suspect that’s a joke but given the size of the place I would not be surprised.

  ‘Hi, Cam, cariad.’ Rachel looks a little tired in jeans and shirt.

  ‘Hi, Rache. Aren’t the kids in bed?’

  ‘I wish. No point much before ten. We’ll dose Rosie up with Calpol and hope for the best. But Ewan’s cough is better.’

  ‘Is that him I hear or a dog barfing? I mean barking?’

  Rachel gives me a long-suffering look. ‘Barfing works just as well after Rosie’s performance last night. She was up half the night.’

  ‘Poor her. And poor you.’

  ‘They’re playing games with their dad.’ Rachel turns and shouts. ‘Hey, you two, come and say hello to Uncle Cam. Yes, now. FaceTime.’ The scene shifts and spins before a face dips into view. My brother-in-law, Owen.