Trauma: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Read online

  ‘I’d better get on with things then.’

  Adam appraises me. ‘This is good, Cam. I can see the thought of driving has cheered you up.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I raise my hand and mime twirling a football rattle. He’s right, but I can’t let him see that he is. It’s a game we play. But this time, in response to my sardonic celebration, all Adam does is look a little sad.

  Because that’s the way the world is at the moment.

  12

  I walk back to my flat from the clinic. The East London pavements are slick with drizzle and teeming with people; almost nine million in this city all told. London has a population density of 8,000 per square mile. I know this because every virus news bulletin and every newspaper editorial churns out these numbers. Some wag called them petri dish statistics.

  I cross Tower Bridge Road; an artery into the city that pulses with traffic but keeps a Victorian vibe. People still queue outside Manze’s for pie and mash like they have done for a century. A hundred years before that there was even an eighteenth-century spa near here. But then came the Blitz and the docks died. Regeneration shoehorned sixties towers and eighties style cul-de-sacs between magnificent Georgian terraces and thirties council flat blocks that are almost ornate.

  The word is hotchpotch. Easy to get lost if you’re unfamiliar with the layout. Easier to be pleasantly surprised by whatever gem is around the next corner. But the people who know flock here, looking for a bit of the real London. The grit in the all-too-often perfumed ointment that regeneration brings. Yet the inevitable gentrification of London’s boroughs can’t quite rid Bermondsey of its industrial roots. And many of its new homes come from repurposed factories and warehouses.

  My flat’s in a converted warehouse within walking distance of Maltby Street, where nestles a foodie’s mecca under the Victorian railway arches. Street food and enthusiastic start-ups abound. Apparently, Emma and I visited every weekend for a wander and Saturday brunch, so I’ve been told.

  The flat is the one we shared; a two bed, two baths with a tiny balcony. We bought it because Emma liked London. She also worked here, so it was logical. A clinical assistant in sexual health at Guy’s Hospital, two sessions a week, and a GP for an out-of-hours service one regular Tuesday night. And in between she’d do the odd locum at the practice in Woolwich. Emma must have been very bright.

  I wouldn’t know.

  But other people do and constantly list ‘how good things used to be’. I try not to be resentful and succeed on the whole. But sometimes it can be wearing when people keep telling me what a wonderful life I had.

  For example, I ran a team of developers for a company in Shoreditch providing business software solutions. Software as a service, SAAS for short, integrating micro services into an existing platform around call-tracking software. The smoke and mirrors that no one sees when they casually surf to that sofa company site and see the call direct number. What the unsuspecting punter doesn’t realise is that a minor piece of Java software makes that number unique to each customer, so that when they ring it everything they’ve just been looking at on that site is there for the sales person on the other end of the phone to see. As well as the number of times they’ve visited, their route to contact – whether directly or via a search engine – and a whole slew of other details. All designed to help secure the sale through advertising voodoo.

  People think online shopping is personal and completely private. Yes, well, only to an extent. A lot goes on behind that green curtain, Dorothy.

  I’ve been back to see my old colleagues. Only a dozen people worked at the office and they all knew me. A few people even cried.

  I didn’t.

  Of course, I tried to make the right noises but I’ve never been back since. There is no job for me there and at this stage, a year and a half on, why should there be? I’m not the same person I was. I have nothing like the knowledge base, though I’m doing my best to catch up. My degree is in Computer Science and Maths. A 2:1 after four years in Edinburgh University. According to Josh we had a ‘total blast’ even though the sun only ever shone in April and May. It may have done in the summer, but we were never there for that. I’d be at home stacking shelves. Josh would be picking fruit.

  Six months after I came out of hospital, Rachel, my sister, announced that the life insurance on Emma’s policy had paid out. I used it to get rid of the mortgage with a sizeable chunk left over. Rachel is a solicitor and knows all about this stuff. She did all the legal heavy lifting and it meant that I could stay in London. Why not? I had nowhere else to go. My life was here even if I couldn’t remember any of it.

  The flat is now mine and so is Bermondsey. I’m at home here in its fragmented, disjointed, chaotic streets. Streets that echo my fragmented, disjointed, chaotic brain pretty well.

  I wave the key fob to open the entrance door and tilt my chin up at Don, the concierge. He gives me his usual perfunctory smile. The one that pops up when people notice my limp. The one tinged with pity. My flat is on the first floor. White walls and white-tiled bathrooms that remind me a lot of being in hospital. Strangely, that helps. At least it did to start with. When you’ve depended on a place and the people that work there for months to do literally everything for you, it can be very disorientating when you’re left on your own.

  As Rachel said, I was coming back to the flat because Emma and I had lived here for three years. But when I discharged myself from hospital and moved in, it felt like I was walking through the door for the first time. I remembered nothing.

  But I am working on that.

  I walk straight into the living room. On the reminder wall is a line of three corkboards. Stuck to these boards are my aides-memoires. Photographs of the people in my life that I need to know now, and a different list of people I should know from my previous existence, but who I’ve forgotten.

  Top of that second pile is a photograph of Emma. She’s dead, but I study her photograph every day because she’s a part of this flat and my life as was. When I do stare at her, I don’t appreciate any sorrow or regret because I can’t remember knowing her. When I told Rachel that she burst into tears. Everyone that visited me kept talking about her in hushed tones, expecting me to be heartbroken. But I wasn’t because where cognisance of my previous life should be sits a huge black hole. An empty chest. No matter how hard I try, when I’m on the rooftop bar in the fugue I still can’t see Emma’s features on the girl’s face. Until I do, I will keep looking at her picture.

  A candid shot. Outdoors. From the greenery, it looks like spring or summer. Her blue eyes are wide and she’s smiling with an amused, slightly shocked expression at something the photographer has said or done. That photographer is me, apparently. Emma was a head-turner. A heart-shaped face pale against her dark hair. And smiling eyes that make her look so much younger than she truly was. So vibrant and full of fun. I wish I could remember where it was taken.

  One day, maybe.

  Next to Emma is a photo of my mother. She’s dead too. Bowel cancer. When I was eighteen and Rachel was twenty. We were both at university. Rachel says it’s a miracle we got through it. We did because we were there for each other. Apparently, I was a rock. And not, like now, a crumbly one. The photo of Janet Todd is from a time before she was unwell. When she was superwoman, working, entertaining us, putting food on the table. She has kind eyes. I know I would have loved her because I see Rachel in her face and my sister is a pearl.

  Beneath my mother is a photo of my father and his new family. No single candid shot here. Colin Todd lives in Thailand. Work took him there, marriage to a local woman has kept him. Of course he’s been over a few times to see me, but his life is elsewhere. Besides, Rachel says he’s completely bloody useless. She feels he abandoned us once we were old enough to fend for ourselves. And who am I to argue. He seemed nice enough the last time he came home. But he also seemed pretty keen to go back to Thailand. I have his eyes. Rachel says they’re dangerous because they always look like they’re laughing.
As if there’s a lot going on behind them.

  On the middle corkboard are my daily aids. First, a big calendar with the day of the week in red. I can’t remember dates, so this is an essential. Plus there are phone numbers and appointments I must keep. Same thing as a lot of people have, except that mine are up there in giant writing so I can’t forget.

  On the left corkboard is a list, with photos, of the people important to me right now.

  Heading that list is Rachel. She was the one at my bedside when I opened my eyes in the hospital in Turkey. I didn’t know who she was, and it felt odd to learn that she was my big sister. But she looks a little like me – mainly in colouring and the slightly gap-toothed smile – and she’s been there all the way through. I don’t know what or where I’d be without her.

  Rachel is thirty-seven but wears it well. The photograph is recent, copied from her office website (Meechum Rickards – for all your legal needs). She’s attractive and accomplished and professional. The image captures all that perfectly, though she says it makes her look like a hard-faced old trout. Rachel is my anchor to the world of the past, present and future. The Griffithses – her married name – live in a Victorian pile in Penarth on the coast near Cardiff. In the photograph her dark-brown hair is highlighted and she wears more makeup than is usual. Much as you’d expect for a corporate website image. But still a light touch. She doesn’t like too much of that stuff, she tells me.

  Adam is also on that side of my wall and so is Josh and Leon and several more people and names that are vital to me; the Cameron Todd who lives and breathes now and who should, by right, be dead. At least that’s what several of the doctors and nurses and physios and rehabilitation experts repeated over the slow months of recuperation. Not nastily, more by way of encouragement at my progress. Which was very different from Emma’s sister’s reaction when I bumped into her alone on a visit to the cemetery where they’d buried Emma.

  While the healers expressed good-natured surprise – ‘You’re lucky to be alive, Cameron’, Emma’s sister bristled with hate – ‘You’re the one that should have died.’ Perhaps both sentiments are correct.

  Two sides of the same doubloon, as Josh would say.

  Sometimes I wonder if I really am dead and that this is all some kind of limbo that I’m in. But then Adam tells me not to be maudlin while muttering something about me definitely not having Cotard’s syndrome – when people really do believe they are dead. And Rachel… Rachel tells me not to be so bloody stupid, but with even better swear words and in far more inventive ways.

  I wonder what she’d say if I told her about Nicole.

  13

  Hers is the one photo that’s missing from my wall. She’s also the person I’ve been thinking about all morning.

  I sit, staring at the pasted-up images of my past, unremembered life. Then I fish out my phone and put it on the table, call up my contacts list and search in the N’s. I find it easily, exactly where I put it a day ago.

  Nicole.

  Not made up. Nicole is real. But if she is, it leaves a lot to think about. I sit for five, ten, twenty minutes, thinking. And then, instead of making a sandwich – today would be cheese and marmite – I pick up my mobile again and text Josh.

  Thirty minutes later I’m sitting in reception at Whoneedspensions.com’s building off The City Road. The whole of the ground floor is taken up with small tables and comfy chairs. There’s water and juice and coffee on tap. Fruit in bowls and nuts and granola in hygienic hoppers for anyone to help themselves. WNP believe in looking after their employees. We’re eating bowls of ramen brought in by a local restaurant served from a pop-up table on one side of the room.

  ‘Good to see you out and about, mate,’ says Josh. He’s small and wiry, jet-black hair in unruly curls and a little too much in the eyebrow area. When we were at Edinburgh we shared a scruffy top-floor tenement flat and had – according to Josh – a banging time. Now he lives in Wandsworth with his events organiser girlfriend. She gets lots of comps and so I, gooseberry (fool) Cameron, get to see bands I’m supposed to have liked. Some I do. Others I’m not so sure about. Mainly the electro minimalist stuff Josh loves. I sometimes wonder if he is pushing the envelope of credulity when he reassures me I was a fan.

  Josh slurps some noodles, chews appreciatively and asks, ‘How was your hospital appointment.’

  ‘Wasn’t really an appointment. I sometimes do this thing for Adam. More students.’

  ‘You’re their star patient.’

  ‘That’s why they pay me the big bucks.’

  He squints. ‘They pay you?’

  ‘The Tube fair.’

  Josh lets out a snort. He has his nose down ready for another spoonful. He sees the expression on my face and says, ‘You’re supposed to slurp. Something to do with adding air to augment the flavours. Like frothing wine when you taste it.’

  ‘Yeah, but then you spit wine out,’ I say in response to this little nugget.

  ‘Don’t be a smart-arse. Besides, it was you who told me that after a trip to Japan.’

  ‘I’ve been to Japan?’

  ‘2015. I’m still jealous.’

  Josh slurps. I follow suit. When we’ve swallowed that mouthful, Josh remembers. ‘Hey, did you drive yesterday?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Didn’t run anyone over.’

  ‘No, I mean the visit. To Emma’s practice.’

  Everyone who’s a part of my support circle knows just about everything that I do. Apparently because I’m vulnerable. I know that Rachel has Josh in a WhatsApp group. Called Cam’s Carers, I bet.

  I wave a hand in a so-so gesture. ‘I remembered bits but nothing significant.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘I met a very nice admin person though. Name of Nicole. Ring any bells?’

  Josh begins a Quasimodo impression, but remembers where he is and thinks better of it. Instead, he does an exaggeratedly-slow shake of his head, which is his trademark not-a-clue move. ‘Should it?’

  ‘I think you’d remember her if you’d met. She’s pity.’

  Josh’s thick eyebrows go up. One movement.

  I sigh and do the correction. ‘Pretty.’

  Josh smirks. ‘Ooh. You getting back on the horse, Cam?’

  ‘I don’t think I could even find the stirrups.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one minute.’

  I change the subject. ‘Do you eat like this every day?’

  ‘No.’ Josh is defensive. ‘Sometimes we use chopsticks or even knives and forks. Depends on the food.’

  I send him a withering glance.

  Pleased at his own biting repartee he says, ‘On Tuesdays and Thursdays we bring in our own.’

  ‘That must be tough.’

  ‘A full programmer is a happy programmer. Lucky you came today. This might be the last time we’ll do this for a while.’

  I raise one eyebrow. The other one doesn’t move as well post-surgery.

  ‘Social distancing and all that palaver,’ Josh explains. ‘We’ve moved the tables further apart.’

  ‘You think it’ll get that bad?’

  ‘Our CEO has a place in Spain. They’re rapidly catching up with Italy and it is not pleasant. He reckons Spain will lock down by the end of this week. He’s already got us planning for the zombie apocalypse.’

  ‘Rachel says it will get worse too.’

  ‘It will. There may even be furloughs. We’re considering moving at least half the staff to a home-working schedule. And speaking of that, the last bug fix ticket you did was spot on.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I slit my eyes. ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  ‘Definitely not. I’m pretty sure you’d smash the technical side of any interview for a senior dev job.’

  I’m delighted because the money I’m living on, savings and what’s left over from Emma’s insurance, will not last for ever. I need to get back to work. If anyone will have me, that is. And that’s the
point. Cam the technical developer is fine. But Cam, the man who may not cope so well in a room full of people has a way to go.

  ‘Any time you want me to put in a word, give me the nod.’

  ‘I will do that.’

  Josh sighs. ‘Fancy a beer later?’

  I make apologetic noises and look doubtful. ‘I’ve got some stuff to sort out.’

  ‘What, things you can’t sort out during daylight hours any day of the week? Is it something nocturnal? You shooting a wildlife documentary on lemurs?’

  ‘No. I’m doing something for Rachel.’ The lie comes easily because I often am doing things for Rachel. Usually computer-related. Since I am their go-to family-tech guy, even the simplest of tasks requires my input. Rachel couches it in terms of doing her bit for rehab.

  ‘Okay,’ says Josh. ‘But you are still on for beers on Friday night?’

  I incline my head. ‘I’ll check with my social secretary and get back to you.’

  Josh grins. ‘Five thirty at the Grey Goose it is.’

  ‘That’ll do it.’

  ‘We must preserve these ancient cultural traditions for as long as possible. Who knows, after-work drinks may become a thing of the past.’

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  Josh waves away my concerns with a spoon. ‘Hell no. I have a nuclear bunker at the back of my fridge and at least three weeks’ worth of Quavers still in their boxes. Your task for the next few nights is to watch World War Z. Brad Pitt as the badass UN troubleshooter tracking down the source of the end of the world as we know it. Ironic or what? There will be an exam in the Grey Goose. Guaranteed to ease any worries you may harbour about the pandemic.’ His grin is manic.

  We sit and chat over a half-decent coffee for fifteen more minutes. Then I leave and go home again. If anyone knows about Nicole and me, anyone I think I might have confided in, Josh sits at the top of the list. Him not knowing her means that we must have kept things very close to our chests.

  Just like she said we did.