I’m running, slipping on leaves, the branches of trees smacking me in the face. I fall down an embankment, the freshly broken bark of a tree gouging into my right leg, cutting it all the way from my ankle to just above my knee. Joshua is ahead, lying in the dirt, barely moving, rain falling across his body. I hear him call me.
Mummy.
I wake shaking, my fingers reaching down to my leg, my skin slick with sweat. I run my fingers down the length of the thick red scar. The wound I was dreaming about is the same as the one I see before me now. These dreams are pieces of that night. I have to start putting my old life back together, and maybe DS Gray is the one to help me do that.
I sneak out through the back door, head up the driveway. I’m entering the code at the gate when I hear a man’s voice.
‘Chloe,’ I hear, and as I turn around I see Ben. He is wearing a heavy green overall with mud smudged into the knees. Today his mop of wet blond hair is tucked under a beanie, tufts of it poking out from the edges. ‘Where are you going?’
All the possibilities run through my mind, most of which I don’t want to face. ‘It’s none of your business,’ I say. ‘Please leave me alone.’
‘Chloe, wait.’ He hurries towards me. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you off the other day. I know things are hard for you at the moment. Your father said—’
‘Said what?’ I turn to look at Ben, take a step further away.
He looks down at his hands, one fiddling with the other. ‘That you can’t remember the past. That you don’t know the things you used to know. That it’s risky to push you too soon after your injuries.’
‘What do you know about my injuries? You’re the gardener.’
He looks up, his eyes meeting mine. ‘Just the gardener?’ And he seems disappointed then. ‘I know you can’t remember me.’ He takes a long swallow. ‘But I know how much I wish you could.’
I turn away and hurry through the gate, rushing towards the phone box by the village shop. I call a taxi, still out of breath. Is it really possible that there was something between Ben and me? The implication was that there was more to us than perhaps what even Jess suggested, but I can’t remember anything. Another whole chunk of my life wiped out.
I close my eyes as we drive through the countryside. It’s overwhelming seeing the world before me, so large in comparison to what I’ve been used to over the last few months. I feel lost. I pull DS Gray’s card from my pocket and study it: his name, the number. Anything rather than look outside. I wonder where Ditchling Road is, the place I lost my son. I don’t know, but I know I’m not ready to see it.
The roads are quiet until we arrive in Brighton, our only companion the constant downpour of rain. The driver pulls up outside the police station and I hand over the twenty-pound note I took from my mother’s purse on the way out.
I gaze up at the building as the taxi pulls away: all angles and harsh edges, big, white, and aggressive. It seems brutal, designed to intimidate. Water streams down my face as I look up at the clouds swelling above. Rain forces pedestrians to fight with umbrellas, shelter under porches and porticos. I hurry towards the entrance of the police station and step inside.
A slim uniformed officer leads me through the corridors, dark and narrow, claustrophobic and tight. As he walks, I keep my eyes on the back of his head, studying the sharp haircut, the neat outline of his clothes. The sight of his neck stirs a memory of looking at the back of a man’s head, the hair blonde and wavy, hanging around the neckline in slick, greasy clumps. It’s Andrew’s face I see as he turns to me, smiles. It’s a sad smile, laced with disappointment. The flashback is from near the end. Tainted memories. He had probably lost his job by that point. I used to believe that if only he could get another job, then everything would be all right. That if he had to go to work he wouldn’t be able to drink. How I pinned my hopes on ifs.
I can feel my heartbeat beginning to race, as if the walls are closing in on me as we move deeper through the maze of corridors. The echo of it grows louder, stronger with every beat. The officer’s shoes resonate as he walks. I can barely breathe as people pass, dashing by with hurried footsteps. Did I rush about like this when I was working, making demands, following orders? Did I have a life as rich as this?
We arrive outside a blue door, and the officer who is escorting me knocks twice. I hear DS Gray call for us to enter, and any thoughts of my old job evaporate, like water under the glare of a hot summer sun.
The office is small, only just big enough for a desk and one visitor’s chair. It smells of coffee and sweat. A filing cabinet stands on one side of the room, folders piled high on top. Other files are stacked on the floor. Too much work. The young officer closes the door behind me and DS Gray motions for me to sit.
The walls are unbroken, no windows, so everything sounds dull and echoless, like a small Parisian hotel room. Why do I think that? Have I been to Paris? Post-it notes and photographs cover sections of the wall. Somebody has made an effort to string up a garland of tinsel over the top of a poster about a Christmas party. Was it DS Gray who did that? It makes me warm to him if he did; that effort in an unexpected place. The party is to be held at a place called The Fountainhead, which I think sounds vaguely familiar.
‘It’s a nice place,’ I hear him say. I avert my eyes when I realise he is staring at me. ‘Do a nice roast on a Sunday, too.’ He gazes up at the string of green tinsel and shakes his head. ‘I was the mug that suggested it, so I got left with the organisation.’ I smile, unsure what to say. ‘Anyway, email sent,’ he says as he hits the enter key with a show of enthusiasm. ‘I’m all ears.’
He sits back in his chair, folds one awkward leg over the other, squashing his thigh against his ample stomach. He seems uncomfortable, unable to fit into the chair properly. He edges back and after a bit of manoeuvring finds the sweet spot, laces his fingers together over his protruding gut. He snaps one thumbnail against the other.
I can hear people in the corridor on the other side of the wall, hurried footsteps, distant laughter. ‘It’s about Damien Treadstone,’ I say. I have so much I want to tell him, so many things that I have learned or remembered. I don’t know where to start, but I’m aware of a need to be cautious. ‘I’ve been called as a witness by his defence.’
He rocks on his chair. ‘I know that.’
The thought of having to stand up in court makes my skin crawl. ‘Considering I can’t remember what happened, what does he expect me to say?’ I feel guilty, aware that I’m not telling DS Gray the entire truth of what I think I know. There are so many possibilities running through my mind, potential explanations of what happened and why I was there. Most significantly, I’m almost certain that at some point I wasn’t in my car that night. But this has to be taken one step at a time. If it was Damien in the churchyard the other night I must first try to understand what he wanted before I give too much away. I only have a little knowledge, and so I hold on to it, protect it with my life.
‘Well for a start you can’t testify to his presence. I’m guessing he is rather hoping that once you see him there on the stand, you’ll admit that you don’t remember seeing him at the scene of the accident. That would be very good for his defence.’
I think about Damien Treadstone’s son, the idea of what lies ahead for his family if he is found guilty. ‘DS Gray, do you believe him when he says that he wasn’t involved?’
He chews on his lip, still flicking one thumb against the other. ‘It’s not my job to believe him or not, Chloe. It’s my job to collect and collate the evidence as I find it. The courts will decide if he is guilty.’
‘But if he’s innocent and is telling the truth, he’d be desperate, right? He’d try anything to get me to help him.’
‘Such as?’
‘Like finding a way to talk to me.’
He shakes his head. ‘Legally he cannot approach you.’
‘What about illegally?’
He sits forward in his seat, rests an elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand. He chews on an already bitten nail. ‘Are you telling me he’s tried to approach you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. It’s possible that he came to my parents’ house.’
He thinks about that for a moment, rubs his face with his hand. ‘That’s a very serious allegation, Chloe. Were you able to identify him clearly?’
‘Somebody was in the graveyard next door. I was walking in my garden. When my parents arrived, he ran, drove away.’
‘But did you see his face?’
‘I heard a man’s voice.’ I think back to that moment, the blur of red light disappearing into the fog. If only I’d seen his face. I realise that I can’t truthfully testify that he was there. I look up, find DS Gray waiting on my answer. I shake my head. He stands, sits on the edge of his desk and folds his arms, his backside edging piles of papers out of the way. I feel hot, sweaty, pull at the neckline of my jumper. I can’t breathe in here.
‘Chloe, here’s the thing. What you’ve just told me doesn’t make much sense. Besides the fact that you can’t identify Damien Treadstone visually, only a feeling you had that it was him, why would he call you as a witness and then try to approach you? He would know it would be detrimental to his case.’
‘I didn’t say it made sense.’
He lifts piles of papers until he finds a pack of Nicorette gum, flicks a tablet into his mouth. I am hit by a sudden urge to smoke. Was I a smoker in my previous life?
‘I know you’ve been going through a difficult time,’ he says as he chews, an off-mint smell drifting through the air. ‘Especially with the loss you have suffered. But you’re smart, I think, Chloe. I know you used to be a lawyer.’ There it is again, the implication that my previous life is over. Used to be. Was. Done. ‘But while Damien Treadstone might be desperate, he is most definitely not stupid.’
He leans over and opens a drawer, pulling out a file. From it he takes a picture and passes it to me. It’s Damien with a woman I assume is his wife. Between them the little boy who has facelessly plagued my thoughts since I decided to come here and try to do the right thing. She looks nice, his wife. Smiley and neat. His son is plump, happy. It’s one of those pictures people get done professionally when they first have children. White backgrounds and happy smiles. Do I have these kinds of pictures? I feel sure I must have. Somewhere.
‘Why are you showing me this?’ I say, tossing the photo down onto the desk.
‘Chloe, Damien Treadstone is a twenty-eight-year-old married man, and the father of the boy you see there. He works for Meditec as a rep, supplying catheters and lithotripsy equipment to various hospitals in the south-east. He has no criminal record, and an excellent reputation in his work and private life. He’s an active member of his local church, and two years ago he spent six months as a missionary working in Uganda. No matter where I dig, I can’t find anything to discredit him. He’s like a goddamned saint.’
A bead of sweat trails down my back. ‘So you don’t believe me when I say he came to the house.’
‘It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I want you to see the bigger picture, and what we are up against.’ He chews hard on his gum. ‘Like I’ve told you before, Damien Treadstone claims that he wasn’t even in the car at the time. That it was stolen prior to the accident.’
I feel desperately out of my depth, kicking about in the open ocean with no sign of the shore in sight. Like I am drowning. Like the boy in my dream. ‘Is there any evidence to support that?’
‘Well, he has no alibi. He claims to have been in Kemp Town at the time of the accident, drinking in a bar after finding that his keys and his car had been stolen. But we can’t place him on CCTV, and nobody who was working in the bar that night can remember him. His car was found at the scene, keys in the ignition. We checked for prints, came up with nothing. Interestingly, not even Damien’s. But when we picked him up, he was inebriated, his trousers were covered in mud and he had a cut on his forehead. We also found evidence of paint transfer from his car to yours on the rear wing, driver’s side, which would support the theory of a collision prior to you leaving the road.’
‘Well surely that all goes against him?’
‘Right, yet still he insists that he wasn’t there, and he hasn’t deviated from his statement once. Plus, in addition to your amnesia and inability to place him at the scene of the crash, there is other evidence that his defence team will be focusing on. For example, your injury pattern.’
I pull my coat around me, try to cover my right leg, DS Gray’s eyes instantly slide towards it. He knows what marks lie beneath my clothes.
‘For a start, there’s your position in the vehicle upon discovery. You were found in the driver’s seat with your seat belt fastened. You seemed to have careened off the road and travelled almost fifty feet down an embankment before hitting a tree. Logically, you must have been wearing your seat belt otherwise you would have been thrown from the car like Joshua.’ He pauses briefly, and I am grateful that he feels awkward about bringing up my dead son. ‘Yet when you were admitted to hospital, you were found to have sustained no trauma consistent with a seat-belt injury. No skin abrasions, no broken ribs. Not even any bruising to the chest.’
And in that moment I can picture myself in the car, trying to unclip my belt, fumbling about in an attempt to escape. I was definitely wearing my belt when I first woke up, just like DS Gray tells me.
‘Then there’s your direction of travel. You claim to have no memory of what happened after you left your father’s house, but when the crash occurred, you were travelling towards your father’s house. You had been in Brighton, it would seem. But what had you been doing? Who had you been with?’
He shakes his head, flicks another tablet of gum into his mouth. ‘There are inconsistencies, Chloe, and such discrepancies cast doubt on Damien Treadstone’s guilt, which is the very reason his defence wants to call you as a witness. It’s not what you can tell them, it’s what you can’t.’ He reaches down for a mug of what looks like cold coffee and knocks it back with a wince. ‘To be quite honest with you, nothing you’ve told us makes much sense. But it’s not just that.’ He pauses, his fingers tapping at the desk. ‘There is one other thing that none of us can yet explain. We were rather hoping you would be able to help us, but you claim to have no memory of what happened that night.’
‘What is it?’ I ask. When he doesn’t answer, I stand up. ‘Please, DS Gray, just tell me.’
He takes a long breath, and the sickly scent of coffee mixed with mint wafts over me. He swallows hard. ‘The dress you were wearing on the night of the accident was covered in blood.’
‘Well it would be, wouldn’t it? I hit my head. My leg was cut.’ But I stop talking when I realise that he is staring right at me, his face expressionless. My anxiety level shoots up.
‘When we look at blood in forensics,’ he says slowly, ‘we look at the kind of pattern it leaves. If it was your blood, running like you suggest from your facial injuries, then it would create what we call a passive stain. What we found on your dress was a pattern of staining consistent with blood transfer by direct contact.’ He gives me a moment to take that in. ‘But Chloe, it wasn’t just the pattern of staining. It was the blood itself. It didn’t belong to you. I’m sorry, but I have to tell you that the blood we found on your clothing belonged to Joshua.’