‘What do you remember?’
I try opening my mouth.
‘Florence. What can you remember?’
‘Where am I?’ I croak.
A strong smell of perfume enters the air. Pear and freesia and peony, it’s familiar and reminds me of home. I look across to the blurry face of the person sitting by my bedside. A doctor? No.
‘Aunt Bethany?’
‘It’s OK, stay calm,’ she says.
We haven’t spoken in years, not since I pushed my family away, but I’m overwhelmed with relief she’s here. I’m in hospital. Oh, thank goodness, I’ve never felt so happy to be back. Tears fall and I smile.
I move to speak but I’m too exhausted. The words are still muddled. There’s so much I want to say, I want to know. How did they rescue me? That place they were keeping me prisoner, Oh God, it was so utterly terrifying.
‘Try to relax, Florence.’
I sigh, my chest heaving, and then I let myself dissolve into the mattress.
‘Listen to me carefully, I need you to tell me exactly what you remember.’
Revisiting the torture of that place, I can’t. Not yet, it’s too soon.
‘Florence?’
The memory of the treatment smashes its way into my thoughts. Being wheeled into a room, stark white walls smelling of antiseptic and humming with the noise of machines. Fluid being injected into my hand, something cold fed under my skin. A stinging sensation, my eyes suddenly sore.
‘It was cold and I was in pain and then the light . . .’ I try to remember the treatment for her.
A heavy, irritated sigh.
‘Florence, try harder.’
‘I am. I am . . .’ I swallow.
‘What else do you remember?’
I don’t understand.
Why does Aunt Bethany keep asking me that? What does she want from me? Stop, stop, I feel myself getting agitated.
‘Florence.’ Her tone is now laced with something.
I hear a new sound in the room. The gushing of water – a mountain stream. The whistle of the wind through the long grass. The soft music playing over the speaker. Sounds I’ve heard countless times before. Please no. Oh God Oh God I’m still here. I’m still a prisoner.
The bitter taste of medicine floods my mouth. The sharp tang of disinfectant fills my lungs. I blink frantically. The woman next to me, she isn’t my aunt. She’s too broad and too old, and before I even know I’ve opened my mouth, I’m screaming.
The woman’s eyes pinch with irritation.
‘Florence. Shut up.’
‘HELP. HELP ME!’
‘What can you remember?’ Her voice is muffled by her surgical mask.
What can I remember? What can I remember? It feels as if I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times before.
My eyes roll into my head. I blink and swallow, refocusing, the medicine bitter and thick on my tongue. From out the corner of my eye I notice the silver trolley crammed with drugs.
‘Florence, what can you tell me about Martyn?’
Martyn?
‘Martyn Eves,’ she says slowly.
Why does that name sound familiar? It’s on the tip of my tongue, I strain to remember him and then—
‘She can’t even remember her own name.’ Someone speaks over me. Their words skate over my head. The woman beside me moves her chair backwards and rises to her feet. The ripping noise, the familiar sound of the syringe being prepared.
I promise I won’t tell. A boy’s voice drifts into my consciousness and then vanishes.
The woman approaches with the medication. ‘Time to rest. This will all be over soon.’
Promise me, Martyn. Promise me. I can hear myself say the words. I can picture his face, a sweet, lovely boy. Timid and broken, and he was my friend. I really liked him. But I can’t hold on to it. The memory washes away, back out to sea.
The sight of the syringe being filled makes me hyperventilate, and while I’m screaming with the tiny voice I have left, a thought occurs. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.
What if it’s not about the money? What if this, all of it, is about the past? About who killed my family.