Trauma: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Page 2

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Leon says with mock horror. ‘Sorry, man.’

  ‘Plus I’ve got pictures of me in the park learning to ride a bike again because my balance was shot.’ I scroll to the photo app on my phone and find one of me seven months ago wearing a bike helmet with someone holding on to the seat as I try to centre myself. The image wobbles with movement. A ‘live’ iPhone photo capturing three seconds of action. I wince on seeing it. The helmet is awry. It makes me look like a toddler in grown-up clothes. I remember the panic as I turned out of control and hit a stone. Remember the smell of grass as I slapped face first into the ground. Still hear kids laughing at my ineptitude as they zoomed up and down past me.

  But it makes Leon laugh again. ‘You’re doing so good, man.’

  ‘Am I though? Remembering some things and then knowing nothing at all about others doesn’t seem so good. I had an itch in my elbow this morning and I couldn’t remember what it was called.’

  ‘Your elbow?’

  ‘Yup. All I could think of was top half knee.’

  Leon looks at me. I can see he’s fighting laughter. It bursts out of him in a roar.

  ‘Top half knee. That’s genius.’

  ‘I’m glad you think it’s funny.’

  ‘So do you,’ Leon goads me.

  I shrug. ‘Pretty funny, yeah.’

  ‘It’ll come, Cam. You know it will. You don’t need to be so hard on yourself, man.’

  ‘It’s taking a long time.’

  ‘No rules in this game. Your mind needs to heal, like your body has to heal, right? Nothing is your fault, man. Accept that. You got to learn to be good to yourself.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I reply. He’s right. The person I have the least patience in the world with is me. But knowing and doing are two different things. ‘I’ll heal a lot faster if bastards like you would stop trying to kill me, I know that.’ The swear word slips out before I can stop it. No maliciousness intended. Merely a verbal tic.

  Leon shakes his head. ‘Harsh, man. So harsh. But on Friday you will do thirty sit-ups as a warm up.’

  ‘You can go off people,’ I say.

  ‘I wish,’ replies Leon. The sun rises all over again.

  3

  I hurry back to the flat along damp streets under a pewter canopy of sodden clouds. The wet winter seems never-ending. Though one of the mildest on record the weather has been dull and miserable for months. Ever since I moved into the flat, in fact. Easy to not want to go out. Easier to hibernate instead. Like a forgetful squirrel, or an amnesiac bear.

  I swing by the car to check that it’s still there, and that I remembered to lock it.

  Owning a car in London these days is expensive. Luckily, the flat comes with a parking space. Not every flat does. Car-free zones are now the best theft deterrent there is.

  The indicator light flashes on the answerphone lurking on a counter in the kitchen. I’ve lost several mobile phones so Rachel insists I keep the landline because it means people can at least leave messages. I’m all for that. Besides, the landline is tied in with my broadband deal; superfast with 55Mbps download speed and 25 upload with unlimited usage. Josh, a friend of mine who knows a lot about these things, says it’s a boss deal for the money. Josh is someone I depend upon for deciding things like that. He calls himself my consumer guide. Plus he uses words like ‘boss’ so who in their right mind would doubt his credentials.

  I press the play button on the answerphone and listen.

  The first call is from Rachel.

  ‘Hi, Cam, cariad.’ That’s Rachel’s standard greeting. It carries no affectation; she uses the word ‘cariad’ as naturally as she breathes air. A term of affection from her native tongue, courtesy of our West Walian mum. Weirdly, the first words I muttered after the incident were also in Welsh, which both Rachel and I spoke fluently by the time we were four.

  My utterings, a request for dwr – water in English – threw the doctors looking after me completely. Not much Cymraeg spoken in Antalya where I started off after the incident as a ventilated almost-basket-case, nor UCH in London where they nurtured the almost-basket into someone who was at least able to breathe on his own. But Rachel soon educated them vocabulary-wise, though the language thing didn’t last. As I improved so did my communication skills. Since my education up to university entry was bilingual in the Cardiff school I attended, before you could say Glasgow Coma Scale, I was asking for water in English.

  ‘Just checking in,’ Rachel’s voice sings out from the box. ‘I’ll call you tonight at six as usual but if you need to talk, use your mobile. Remember, it’s free. Cadwa’n saff.’

  I snort. Rachel now added the ‘cadwa’n saff’ at the end of all her calls. Stay safe. A reference to the virus. Almost a prayer. When her message ends the machine tells me there’s another, received half an hour ago.

  ‘Mr Todd, this is John Stamford. I’ve left you a couple of messages. I very much want to talk to you about some financial issues relating to the passing of your partner, Emma Roxburgh. You can reach me on 07700900735. Thanks.’

  He’s polite and business-like. I don’t ring back. I suspect he’ll ring again. When I told Rachel about him she said to leave everything to her. So I do.

  I check the time. Half past four, and that means teatime. When I was in hospital, they always made tea at half four. A ritual I cling to like a rock in a tempestuous sea. I put the kettle on, wait for it to boil and pour it over a bag of English breakfast. Then I sit on the sofa in the living room to drink it while I eat a biscuit. Just the one. Don’t want to become a lard-ass.

  Another wall – not my reminder wall – is dominated by a large, flat-screen TV. And it is big. Eighty-five inches from one thin corner to the other. It hangs there, tempting me. I could lose myself for an hour watching houses being refurbished or open my laptop and click on shiny things on the screen. Something educational like kittens chasing torch beams, but Adam says best if I concentrate on doing one thing at a time. Right now that means tea and a biscuit (McVitie’s Digestive today). So that’s what I do. But I’m tired from my session with Leon, so I shut my eyes. I won’t sleep, but at least I can relax.

  The DJ is playing ‘The Ketchup Song’. Over to Cam’s left, two of Ivan’s girlfriends are doing the moves. Ivan bobs his head in time, his gold medallion jangling.

  ‘Want to dance?’ Emma asks.

  Cam turns back and sees the smile, the suggestion of dark eyes, but the rest is a blur, pixilated out by neurological fallout.

  ‘The Ketchup Song’ ends and the music shifts to something techno with a droning beat. The waitress comes and takes away Cam’s half-full bottle and replaces it with a fresh one. When the waitress leaves, the girl he calls Emma leans over to talk to Ivan about the cost of flights. Cam joins in. Ivan thinks one day planes will be solar-powered. Cam quips that they’ll never land in London because there’d never be enough sunlight for take-off.

  ‘Then we would need to bring our own sun,’ says Ivan. It makes no sense, but Ivan seems pleased. Cam sits with him and listens to the music while Emma dances with two of Ivan’s girlfriends. The men don’t speak. They just watch and listen as the DJ does his set and the lights go down in the bar.

  Over in the corner, the shadow man watches in a pool of liquid night. Cam gets up and walks across to where he sits. But as he approaches, the light shifts, the shadows retreat and by the time he reaches the table, the seat is empty. Cam looks back towards Ivan. Now, in the seat he’d moments before vacated, sits a figure enveloped in deep shadow.

  When I open my eyes, I’m stunned to find I’m not in the bar but in my flat. In the kitchen with my gym bag open. I’ve stacked two cans of Heinz tomato soup next to a packet of tagliatelle in the bag for some inexplicable reason. The clock says a quarter to five. Fifteen minutes only of dozing, yet I can recall a whole evening in the bar with faceless Emma and medallion Ivan.

  My mental trips to the bar are termed fugues. I can’t explain them. There is no logic. They’re one of those
Cameron quirks inherited courtesy of a metal stanchion on a stone jetty on Cirali beach. That’s near Antalya in Turkey. Where I fell.

  I’m aware post-fugue that Emma is dead, perhaps Ivan is too. Perhaps everyone in the bar is a ghost. But they’re always glad to see me, keen for me to talk. They’re wilful. Determined to engage me, reluctant to let me go. I never feel threatened, though I am often left frustrated because the purpose of my visit is never explained. But as I say, there is no logic. How can there be when they only exist in my head?

  Back in the living room, my tea is lukewarm. I flash it in the microwave and watch the mug rotate for thirty seconds. When I take it out the mug is hotter than the tea. I drink tepid Typhoo and pick up a notebook so I can write down what happened in the fugue. I have pages of it in shaky handwriting. As yet, not much of it makes any sense at all. But then, none of my life has made much sense for seventeen months.

  Rachel says I was in a coma for ten days and pretty much semi-conscious for six weeks after it happened.

  It.

  I can’t remember it. I can’t even remember what Emma looks like so that’s hardly surprising. But the facts are this:

  Emma, my partner, died on a beach in Turkey and I almost died too. Those are the pared-down and brutal facts. But all I can remember is a white hotel in Cirali I recognised when I saw a photograph of it. Oddly, I even remembered the number of the room. But that’s all. A report of what happened is posted on my wall. Typed up by Rachel to remind me.

  I can recite the summary of facts and witness reports verbatim. Still, I read it every day in case something triggers a memory. Sometimes I think I’m doomed to repeat this same act like a character in a film. Josh calls it a ‘looping trope’, but then Josh would. He suggested I watch Groundhog Day. I did, twice, but I’m still not sure about using all that spare time to learn the piano. Electric guitar, maybe. Or drums. But not the piano.

  Instead, in my version of the looping trope, I stand here in front of this corkboard and read about a life, my life, that I have no recollection of. And I keep doing that until I’m stooped and grey. In my Groundhog Day, when I finally break out of the loop, the last scene is a pillar of dust around a pair of empty slippers belonging to the man who forgot.

  Adam says that I should switch out of these thoughts whenever I get them. But it isn’t always that easy.

  I go to the sink and fill up my water bottle, let it overflow. The water froths over my hands. Cool, tingling. Underneath the blur of bubbles I’m glad to see that today they’re steady. They aren’t always. Then I slope back into the living room, to the wall where I look first at Emma’s photograph and then at the typed report beneath.

  4

  POLIS Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü 26/11/2018

  SUMMARY FINDINGS INTO THE DEATH OF EMMA ROXBURGH – FEMALE.

  At 8.30pm on 12th October 2018 the body of Emma Roxburgh, 32, was found in the sea at the Northern end of Cirali beach on the south coast of Turkey. Cause of death was noted to be severe trauma of the head and upper torso. The most likely cause was a fall from the cliff path onto rocks below. Miss Roxburgh’s partner, Cameron Alun Todd, was also found severely injured in the water nearby. His injuries were also consistent with a fall. Mr Todd was taken to hospital in Antalya and remained in a coma for ten days.

  Toxicology reports indicated a minimum amount of alcohol and no opiates nor stimulants in either of the victims’ blood. Mr Todd’s Glasgow Coma score at the scene was 8, indicating a severe brain injury. An MRI showed skull and facial fractures as well as contusion to both frontal and left temporal lobes.

  Because of the severity of the trauma, Mr Todd could not provide any details of the circumstances leading up to the incident involving him and his partner. Eyewitness reports gathered by local police suggest that both Mr Todd and Dr Roxburgh had been in a beachside bar near the hotel they had been staying in an hour before the scream was heard.

  Bar staff reported no altercation between the two but that Dr Roxburgh left the bar before Mr Todd. A short time later Mr Todd also left the bar. Hotel staff report him asking after Dr Roxburgh who was not in their room. Mr Todd then ran out of the hotel.

  Some boat owners moored just off the beach heard shouting and alerted authorities. Mr Todd was found in the water near a concrete jetty. Dr Roxburgh’s body was recovered some hours later under the cliff face where the tide had washed it in. Local police are continuing their investigation. Current theories are:

  1/ That one or the other got into difficulties on the path and fell off the cliff.

  2/ That Dr Roxburgh fell and Mr Todd injured himself on the jetty in trying to help her.

  3/ That they might have been attacked by person or persons unknown.

  Metropolitan police officers are currently liaising with Turkish authorities in the investigation. Liaison officer Detective Sergeant Rhian Keely, Metropolitan Police, Central South Basic Command Unit, Southwark Station, Borough Hill Road, London.

  I know DS Keely. Small, dark, intense… I like that description of her because it makes her sound like an espresso. Which isn’t far off the mark in the way an espresso will give you a kick. Not in a bad way. Not always.

  We’ve spoken many times since I was well enough for visitors at the hospital and rehab unit. She is one of the people Rachel says it is okay for me to talk to without her – Rachel – being present. But there’s one part missing from the report. A different theory. One that I like the least of all. That is that Emma and I had a fight and that I threw her off the clifftop and then somehow fell myself. DS Keely has never accused me of this.

  But other people have.

  At six o’clock, Rachel rings.

  ‘Hey, Cam, it’s Rachel.’

  ‘Hi, Rache,’ I say. Rachel always introduces herself like this in case I forget what she sounds like. But it doesn’t work like that, my axonal fallout. Of course I recognise her voice. I only saw her a week ago. It’s the past that is a black hole. BT – Before Turkey.

  ‘So, when are you seeing Adam next?’

  ‘He’s got some trainees this week. I’m seeing him Wednesday. I am his official number one patient.’

  ‘You don’t need to go. Not as a guinea pig.’

  ‘Okay. But when a consultant psychiatrist begs you to turn up and be a star turn, what are you supposed to say? He keeps telling me that hallucinogenic fugues are rare as hell’s teeth.’

  ‘It’s hen’s teeth.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ I know it isn’t. But this is my sister I’m talking to. Dangerous to show any signs of weakness.

  There’s a pause while she considers jousting, but she lets this one go and starts telling me about a friend of a friend who also had an accident but who now owns a series of restaurants. A classic Rachel pep talk. I walk to the reminder wall in the living room, phone in hand, and study her photograph. She’s two years older than me. A sculpted, wedge-shaped face with chocolate hair and slender brows arching over light-brown eyes. I go to one of the big albums on the table and open it. Rachel has pasted in snaps from our childhood. A montage of a life I have no recollection of living. Beaches, woods, back gardens, swings, parties. I’m in them all, Rachel in half of them. I can remember only one of them clearly. A beach holiday on the Pembrokeshire coast. We caught crabs and Rachel threw one at me. It landed in my hair. Perhaps that’s why I remember it. The giggly-screaming trauma of a crab fight.

  Rachel ends the apocryphal story and asks, ‘How you feeling?’

  ‘Good. I saw Leon today and tomorrow I’m driving out to Emma’s old practice.’

  ‘Of course…’ Hesitation. ‘I still think it might be a good idea if I come with you.’

  ‘But you can’t because you’re stuck at home with the kids.’

  Rachel sighs. ‘You remembered that.’

  I reel off the litany. ‘Ewan’s got the lurgy and who knows if it’s the virus. So you’re being the responsible parent and self-isolating. Owen stays in a different part of the house so he can go to w
ork. And the kids are driving you insane.’

  Owen, Rachel’s partner, is also a lawyer.

  ‘No need to rub it in. I think they’re going to shut all schools.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. Look at what’s happening in the rest of Europe. At least I won’t be the only one tearing my hair out.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Of course not. The kids are great. I can work from home – sort of. And the talk is that schools will set online work for the kids. That’ll help.’ She sounds unconvinced.

  ‘How is Ewan?’

  ‘Fine. Probably just a cold, but who knows. It could only be hay fever, but it’s a bit early for that so we’re being safe and watching him.’

  I visualise the kids. They treat me like I’m the best surprise ever when I visit. Like a pair of friendly hyperactive dogs that want to jump all over me. They’re amazing and funny and I love them. ‘Say hello from me.’

  ‘I will. And remember, even though I am tied here I carry my phone with me at all times.’

  Officially, Rachel has two children. But I am obviously her third. She would never say so out loud. She doesn’t need to. We both know it.

  ‘I’ve got your number and Owen’s,’ I say with a sprinkling of reassurance.

  ‘Are you being careful, Cam? Washing your hands. Got plenty of sanitiser?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. I bought six toilet rolls and so will not be buying in bulk.’

  ‘No joke, is it.’ Rachel pauses. I can visualise the worry etched on her face even though this is not a FaceTime call. Mortgage, husband, kids, job, virus. All that’s missing is a plague of locusts. I can see her expression perfectly in my mind’s eye because this is not our first parley on this subject. ‘How was your day otherwise?’

  I tell her about the call from Stamford.