Two weeks after the visit from the police, another newspaper story appeared. It was in the Belfast Telegraph and this time it did not alarm her.
Not when it was her own doing.
She had discussed the idea with her father and Maginnis. Together. She tried to avoid situations where she might be alone with the Chief Executive. Just in case.
Maginnis had put his people’s public relations office to work negotiating with the paper for what they were now describing as an ‘exclusive’. Meg had said no to an interview or a picture so they had used an old shot of her that had been supplied to the police by her parents at the time of the accident.
But there was a photograph, a brand new one, of Maginnis, who had made himself available to a Telegraph photographer. In it he affected a look that he hoped would show him to be wise and authoritative.
It was the sort of story which journalists loved and assumed that their eager readers also did. Since the Telegraph had it to themselves they had splashed it across the front page with two big banner headlines:
The woman who is a living link to a bizarre unsolved murder is suffering from amnesia, the Belfast Telegraph has learned.
Former doctor Meg Winter (30) who miraculously came out of a four-year coma six months ago remembers nothing about the murder of 27 year-old US business executive Paul Everett whose battered body was found lying beside the wreckage of his sports car.
Miss Winter was discovered in the passenger seat with very serious injuries.
The Telegraph has also learned that the police have been to interview her at Musgrave Rehabilitation Centre where she is undergoing an extensive course of treatment.
Musgrave Chief Executive Liam Maginnis said today: ‘Miss Winter is making good progress. Physically she is getting stronger and she does not have any brain damage. But she is suffering from what is known as psychogenic amnesia as a result of a great trauma.
‘It is similar to what happens to soldiers who have been exposed to horrific events on the battlefield and can no longer remember these experiences.’
He said it was possible that Dr Winter’s memory of what happened that night might never return.
A police spokesman confirmed that two officers had visited her but would not comment further.
The rest of it consisted of some more quotes from Maginnis and a rehash of everything that had gone before.
Nowhere did it say that she didn’t even know who Paul Everett was. Maybe that should have gone in, too. Still, the article made her breathe more easily. For the first time in weeks she did not feel as if someone was looking over her shoulder.
But there were other feelings now.
Guilt. That was one of them. She was alive; Everett was dead. Someone somewhere would have mourned him. His parents. A girlfriend, perhaps.
She agonised over everything Gilmour and Nixon had told her about the events of that night, although she kept her thoughts to herself and did not discuss them with anyone. The police were stuck on this drugs-related theory because that was all they had. Like them, she had thought of herself as someone caught up inexplicably in events that had nothing to do with her. But as the days passed she had begun to wonder, more and more, what if that was wrong? What if all this did have something to do with her?
She felt hungry to know and at the same time afraid of finding out.
Nothing they had told her had made the slightest bit of difference to her memory, yet she knew instinctively that everything they had said was important. Somewhere in it there were answers.
A door was ajar in a dark place. She could not see it but she could feel its draught. What had she been doing that night? Hanging around some dockland place, drunk? She saw Everett’s photograph in her mind. The youthful smile seemed to tease her. He was the key.
Just below her window there was a secluded grassy patch with a garden seat and a bed of peonies.
Elizabeth came to visit her the day the story appeared. She brought her daughter, two-year-old Catriona, a pretty little thing with auburn curls. Since it was a fine June afternoon the ward sister suggested they might like to sit outside.
Meg had changed but she hadn’t expected Elizabeth to look so different.
She had always been attractive but now she was decidedly glamorous. Her hair was blacker than Meg remembered, and cut expensively. She wore a sleeveless shift dress in blue silk, open-toed Chanel shoes and sunglasses with Gucci frames. Rings glittered and a gold rope at her neck caught the sun.
Meg thought she looked like something from the pages of Hello, a magazine with which hospital life was making her increasingly familiar. But the image was slightly marred by the large canvas shoulder-bag she carried.
They hugged eagerly and grinned at each other, then began to talk at once.
‘I can’t believe it’s really—’
‘You look so different—’
They laughed and hugged some more. Elizabeth reached into the bag and got a small carton of orange juice which she handed to Catriona.
‘Look at all the stuff you have to carry around.’ She held the bag open for Meg to see. It held all the support materials for a two-year-old: a box of tissues, wipes, creams, a plastic, non-spill drinking cup, spare pants, a cherished teddy, goodness knows what else. ‘That’s my handbag these days.’
‘Prada?’ Meg asked with a grin.
‘Hardly.’ She turned to help Catriona stick a straw into the carton. Meg couldn’t help staring. She seemed, well, heavier or something, more voluptuous.
Elizabeth saw the look. She smiled and stood up, then she faced Meg and cupped her hands under the curve of her breasts.
‘So what do you think?’
‘Of what?’
‘My new tits. I had them done. Marvellous, aren’t they?’
Meg stared, wide-eyed, and struggled for words. ‘Well . . . yes . . . they’re . . . they’re amazing. I’d been wondering.’
‘You always had an advantage on that score,’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘Not any more, I see, you poor thing. Let me have a look at you.’
Meg spread her arms like thin, featherless wings. She was wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt with a shuttlecock and ‘Musgrave Badminton Club’ printed on it. They had found a baseball cap from somewhere to shield her from the sun.
Elizabeth’s face changed. ‘Oh Meg,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She bent forward and hugged her friend again. Meg felt a kind of desperation in the embrace. ‘Everything you’ve been through.’
She sat and they talked for a bit, small talk at first, while Catriona roamed among the flowers. As they chatted, Meg could sense herself being assessed and she knew that her friend was trying to figure out whether any mental as well as physical change had taken place.
They talked at last of the crash and Meg’s four lost years.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Elizabeth said, ‘that you can’t remember anything about that night. Nothing at all?’
‘Nothing.’
Elizabeth glanced round to see what Catriona was doing. ‘No, not the big flowers, darling, the little ones, the daisies. That’s it. Good girl.’
She turned back. ‘You need eyes in the back of your head.’ ‘She’s lovely,’ Meg said.
Elizabeth seemed to consider the notion. ‘You think so?’
‘Of course. She’s a beautiful child.’
Elizabeth said, ‘When I heard about the accident, the next morning, I didn’t know what to do. I was in a state of shock. And then I pulled myself together and realised I had to go to the police.’
All at once she looked upset.
‘I know,’ Meg said. ‘You did the right thing.’
She took Elizabeth’s hand. It was hot, the palm damp.
‘I went to see you in the hospital. It was awful just watching you lying like that. I used to go when your parents weren’t there. I didn’t want to intrude. Then they moved you to that Knockvale place. I went there once, after the wedding, just before I went away. I found it very upsetting, the thought that you might be that way – you know, forever. Or that they might decide . . .’
Meg put her arm round her. Elizabeth shook her head to clear whatever image was in it. ‘When you called me that night it was such a surprise. I hadn’t heard from you for months. And there you were on the phone, asking me to come out to play, talking about this Clarendon Dock place which neither of us had ever been to. You said you’d had a bad day and you felt like going out somewhere, having some fun. You also said you’d something to tell me but when I asked what it was, you said it would wait until you saw me.’ She looked at Meg. ‘I suppose I’ll never know now, will I?’
‘Maybe not.’
For a moment Meg pictured Paul Everett’s face in the photograph, the smile that would last forever. Was he what she had wanted to talk about?
‘I’d been wondering what you were up to,’ Elizabeth said, her mood brightening. I’d called you a couple of times but you were always busy, always otherwise occupied.’ She looked at Catriona then turned back and whispered. ‘I thought he might be married.’
‘Who?’
‘Whoever you were seeing. Well, you had to be seeing someone, hadn’t you? That’s usually the reason for somebody dropping off the scene like that. Meeting in secret. Can’t be seen together.’
Everett had not been married.
‘Had I ever mentioned anyone?’ Meg asked.
‘No but like I said, we hadn’t seen each other for a while.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘Let me see . . . Easter maybe. No, before that. March. Maybe even February, come to think of it. A lot could have happened in that time.’
‘We hadn’t fallen out?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be silly. We don’t fall out. We go our separate ways sometimes, do our own thing, but we don’t fall out. You know that.’
Meg smiled as if she understood.
‘Anyway,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I thought it would be good to see you so I agreed to meet you at about nine thirty’
‘But you didn’t go.’
‘No, I got a better offer.’
She stuck her arm into the bag like it was a bran tub and rummaged around until she found a folder of photographs. Meg waited as she sifted through them, finally selecting one particular picture. It was a shot of a pleasant-looking man in his early thirties with sandy hair and glasses. He wore morning dress and a satisfied smile on his big day.
‘Vincent O’Malley. The better offer.’
But Meg thought she said it without much conviction.
‘Your husband. So this is him?’
‘Yes.’
She selected some more photographs and passed them across. Meg thought Elizabeth looked beautiful in them. Dark-eyed. A great smile. More at ease with herself than she was now, despite all the expensive plumage.
There was one in particular, of Elizabeth on her own under a tree. Meg held it up so that she could see. ‘You look fantastic there.’
Elizabeth stared at it, then began to cry.
Meg put the pictures down and put her arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder again. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. Whatever it was.
Elizabeth took a crumpled tissue from the bag. There was a smear of chocolate on it. She blew her nose.
Catriona looked at them with a child’s curiosity, squinting her eyes against the sun.
‘She’ll get too hot,’ Elizabeth said. ‘There’s a hat.’ She began to search the bag again.
‘It’s OK,’ Meg said. ‘Let me.’ She found it quickly, a little cotton thing with a thin brim and sailboats round it. She lifted Catriona onto her knee and put it on. ‘There we go.’ She gave her a kiss on the cheek, set her down again and saw that Elizabeth had been studying them.
‘How did you meet him in the first place?’ Meg asked.
‘I was attending to some client investments. I had to go to Dublin for meetings and he was at a couple of them. One thing led to another.’
She stood abruptly, as if the seat had become uncomfortable, and began to pace up and down on the grass.
‘Oh, you know the way we used to be with men. Just a bit of fun, no long-term attachments. A trail of conquests in our wake.’ She waved her arm in an extravagant gesture.
Meg tried to remember but didn’t succeed.
‘Vincent was different. He pursued me – wooed me, really. I became very fond of him.’ It struck Meg that she did not use the word love. ‘I’d have told you about him that night. But then, some time before nine, just as I was getting ready to go, he turned up unexpectedly. Champagne and flowers. Sometimes it works, you know. I couldn’t send him away. Didn’t want to. So I told myself that since you hadn’t bothered about me for ages, then too bad.’ ‘Probably what I deserved,’ Meg said. ‘But you tried to phone me, just the same.’
Elizabeth sighed and sat down again. ‘Conscience. I wouldn’t just leave you in the lurch. The trouble was you’d already gone. I tried those bars but that was hopeless. And eventually, as the night wore on, I really didn’t care.’ She gave a coy smile.
The Belfast Telegraph was on the grass. Meg had been reading it before Elizabeth arrived. She lifted it and showed her the headline. ‘Did I ever talk about him: Paul Everett?’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No. The police asked me the same thing. It wasn’t a name I knew.’ She thought for a second. ‘Of course, you mightn’t have known him before that night. Maybe he was there and you picked him up.’
Picked him up.
‘It’s just an expression,’ she said, noticing Meg’s look. ‘The men like to think they pick you up, don’t they. It flatters their little egos.’ She paused. ‘Oh, come on, Meg.’ There was a rasp of irritation in her voice. ‘This is me you’re talking to. You were no shrinking violet, darling. You were the girl who always had the condoms in the handbag in case you got lucky. Remember?’
Her eyes flashed. Meg fell silent. She was ill at ease with Elizabeth’s lurching changes of mood and a little startled by what she had just said.
Condoms in the handbag in case she got lucky.
Her handbag.
The police had said her identity had been established from documents found in it. She had forgotten about the bag. Her mother had all her things. She would have the bag, too, whatever bag it was, and she would undoubtedly have looked inside. What would she have found?
‘Did you tell the police this – this theory about Everett and me? That we might have been ships passing in the night?’
‘I think maybe they saw the possibility themselves.’
‘What did they ask you?’
Elizabeth looked evasive. ‘All sorts of stuff. I don’t really remember. It was a long time ago.’ She thought. ‘They asked me what you were like.’
‘What I was like?’
‘Yes. What sort of a person you were.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘That you were nice, a good friend.’ She gave a weak smile that could not mask the guilt.
Meg stared at her. ‘What else?’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘I told them you enjoyed going out and having a good time. They asked me if it was possible you might have gone off with someone you liked at the end of the evening, someone you didn’t know before, and I said it was, although you wouldn’t go off with just anybody.’
She avoided Meg’s eyes.
‘It sounds terrible now, when you ask me. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that you enjoyed a bit of fun, meeting new people.’
Meg felt humiliated. Undermined by her best friend. But there was no point in getting angry about it, was there? The damage was done and Elizabeth would know from this awkward silence exactly how she felt.
This reunion was not what Meg had thought it would be. But she had wanted to find out more. Like it or not, that was exactly what was happening.
A handful of daisies and buttercups landed without ceremony in Elizabeth’s silken lap.
‘Oh darling they’re lovely, thank you. Mummy’ll put them in water when we get home.’
A thought. ‘Where are you staying?’ Meg asked.
‘That’s another thing,’ Elizabeth said, sounding relieved by the shift in direction. ‘I’d just decided to buy a new flat and I’d put the old one on the market. People had been ringing, making appointments to see round it. When the phone rang that night I thought it was another viewer. But it was you.’
‘I don’t understand—’
‘I kept the new flat in the end, didn’t sell it. It’s down by the river at Stranmillis. Vincent and I, we thought it would appreciate in value and it would be somewhere to have when we came home to visit. He has a house in Dublin. We kept that, too. I’ve had tenants at Stranmillis, on and off. My brother keeps an eye on the place for me.’ Carefully she brushed away little grains of soil which had fallen from the flowers onto her dress. ‘What about you? Are you going back to Truesdale Street when they let you out?’
‘Let me out? You make it sound like a prison. They’re very nice here, as a matter of fact, but no, I won’t go home straight away. They don’t want me to be on my own just yet. I’ve agreed to move in with my mother for a short while.’
‘You’re doing what?’ Elizabeth looked amazed. ‘Did I hear you right? Your mother?’
‘What’s so odd?’
‘I thought you hated your mother.’
Meg raised her eyebrows. ‘No – I don’t hate her.’ She paused. ‘Granted, she can be difficult to love sometimes but I don’t hate her.’
‘I’d have thought hers was the last place in the world you’d want to go to. You used to talk about her with such venom. I can’t imagine the real Meg moving in with her.’
They stared at each other.
The words hung in the air. There was a silence all around them.
Elizabeth spoke first. ‘God, I’m sorry, Meg. I didn’t mean to put it like that. That was dreadful.’ Then she thought. ‘But I suppose, I suppose that’s it, that’s what’s so strange. You don’t – you don’t seem like Meg – my Meg. The old Meg. You’re different.’
‘I look different, I know that.’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘It’s not just your appearance. It’s your attitude. This thing has changed you. You used to be brash, a bit too loud sometimes. You were always so driven, so impatient. For example, you wouldn’t have been content to sit here, in this hospital, saying polite things about the people. You’d want to get out of this place. And children: you wouldn’t take them under your notice, not like the way you’ve been with Catriona. And now this business with your mother. It’s not like you.’
Meg frowned. ‘But it is me,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t know what I was like before. Some of the things you’ve told me – I feel like you’re talking about a different person. All I know is . . .’ she prodded herself with a forefinger, ‘. . . this is me. This is the way I am.’
She felt tense. There was a tightness in her chest. A nurse appeared and interrupted the moment, much to their mutual relief.
‘I think maybe you should come in soon,’ she said. ‘It’s quite hot out here. We don’t want you getting too much sun. I’ll give you five more minutes.’ She went again.
‘You look done in,’ Elizabeth said.
‘Yes.’ Meg found that her voice was trembling slightly. ‘I’m going to have to go in and rest for a while. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s my fault, getting you all wound up like that.’
Meg smiled a tired smile. ‘Will you come again? How long are you planning to stay?’
Elizabeth’s face changed. ‘I’m not sure.’ She muttered it. ‘You’re not sure?’
Elizabeth took her sunglasses off and stared at her hands in her lap. Catriona skipped up and leaned on Meg’s knee. The hat had come off and she had decided that this was her job. Meg put it back on for her.
‘It was fine at first,’ Elizabeth said quietly. ‘A new country, exciting, a lovely house which Vincent’s company was paying for. Lots of money for nice things. I got pregnant practically straight away. And then the problems started. It was a difficult pregnancy, as they say.’ She mimed quotation marks in the air with her fingers. ‘My blood pressure shot up and so did my weight. I was retaining fluid, all the usual things that can happen. Vincent goes out to work at seven in the morning and isn’t home much before eight at night. There were other Brit wives around, of course, but they didn’t want to be bothered with a fat lump with swollen ankles who had to keep her feet up all day.’
She took Catriona’s limp flowers and began idly entwining them into a chain.
‘The birth was unbelievable. Eight hours in labour. Vincent was in Hong Kong at the time, too. I’ll never say another word about the British health service again, believe me. Afterwards I got post-natal depression pretty bad. It took me ages to lose the weight. Vincent hired a nurse to come in, more to keep an eye on me than Catriona, I think.’
She looked at Meg. The sun was in her eyes. She put her hand over them like a visor. ‘I just regretted the whole thing. Vincent, marriage, Malaysia, everything.’ She glanced towards the child. ‘Even her, sometimes, God forgive me. I’m not the world’s most natural mother. And I was angry with you.’
‘With me?’
‘Yes. You’d left me. I couldn’t talk to you, tell you how I felt. I had no one. I even thought that maybe if I’d told you about Vincent, you might have talked me out of it. I wished you had. Now he’s talking about having more children. But there’s no way.’ She shook her head. ‘Not after what I went through with her. He says she’ll get lonely. Lonely? He doesn’t know what it means. Living out there. I hate that damned place.’
Her voice trailed off. Meg waited.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. ‘So,’ she said, exhaling, ‘I’ve . . . I’ve left him.’
‘God, I’m sorry,’ Meg said. ‘I’m really very sorry.’
Elizabeth shrugged. ‘How did he take it?’
Elizabeth said nothing. She looked uncomfortable. Meg frowned, then realised.
‘Oh God, don’t tell me he doesn’t know?’