The limousine pulled up outside the hospital. Victoria looked up at the imposing old building and took a deep, steadying breath.
Samuel exited the car and jogged around to open Victoria’s door for her. He was clearly in a hurry to fulfil his wish to see the two women immediately reacquainted. But Victoria, who had never dawdled in her life, suddenly felt like her muscles were coated in syrup.
With a deep breath, she pulled herself out of the car and wondered again what she was getting herself into. She debated getting back into the car and instructing the driver to take her to the airport. Louise could deal with this. Holly was just an assistant, an assistant who had left her.
Before she could react, the main door to the building opened and a woman hurried towards Samuel. She was young and wore a dark blue nurses’ uniform. She pulled Samuel into a hug, and the two swayed back and forth with elation.
A second woman exited the hospital. She was older and wore a light grey suit topped with a crisp, white medical coat. Her greying hair was pulled into a severe bun, but her face was warm and friendly.
“Madam Hastings.” She held out her hand. “My name is Doctor Fontaine, but please call me Charlotte.”
Victoria shook her hand. “Victoria.”
Charlotte nodded and gestured for Victoria to follow her inside.
“Samuel tells me that you know Clémence?”
Victoria bristled at the alias. “Holly. Yes, I do.”
“How is it that you know Holly?”
They entered the building, and the sharp smell of disinfectant caused Victoria to wince.
“She was my assistant,” she replied succinctly. She wasn’t interested in small talk, she wanted to see Holly as soon as possible and find out what was going on.
“I see,” Charlotte said. “And why was she in France?”
“Fashion Week.”
Charlotte lifted the plastic card that hung from a lanyard around her neck. It connected with a device on the door, and a green light shone. She pushed the door open and walked into an office where she gestured for Victoria to sit down.
“She did not travel back to America with you?” Charlotte asked.
Victoria looked around the office in frustration.
“Holly terminated her employment with my magazine during Fashion Week last year. We didn’t see her again,” she explained. She stood in the doorway, making it clear that she had no intention of sitting down.
“I see. Was there a disagreement?” Charlotte asked.
“No, there was no disagreement. Do you intend to continue this cross-examination of me?”
Charlotte sat in her office chair and looked up at Victoria.
“I’m afraid so, yes. Clémence…” She held up her hands. “I apologise, Holly, is under my care. And has been for eleven months. She was admitted after suffering from a serious head injury, with no memory and no identification on her. As I’m sure you can understand, this caused us many issues when dealing with her medical treatment, with no medical history to go on, and no understanding of why she suffers memory loss. I need to find out if psychological trauma was a factor in her accident or her memory loss.”
Victoria’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment. She nodded.
“I apologise.” She took the offered seat in front of the desk. “I understand. Holly decided to leave us last year. I don’t completely understand why. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. We never heard from her again and assumed that she had left and returned to America on her own. It was quite a shock when Monsieur Durand showed me her photograph.”
Charlotte looked sympathetic. “I imagine it was. Tell me, do you know of any accident or any medical history that could explain her amnesia?”
Victoria shook her head. “No. She was in perfect health when I last saw her. As far as I was aware, anyway.”
Charlotte leaned back in her chair. She toyed with the pen in her hands while looking at Victoria critically.
“Forgive me for saying so, but your reputation leads me to believe that maybe your staff would be, shall we say, unlikely to confide in you?”
Victoria pursed her lips. It was a fair assessment but not one she enjoyed hearing.
“I suppose that is true,” she allowed. “But I’m still generally aware of my staff and their health and wellbeing.”
It wasn’t entirely true. She hadn’t noticed when Louise had pneumonia and was eventually carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, but Charlotte didn’t need to know that.
“How would you describe your relationship with Holly?”
Victoria tensed. She hadn’t felt under such scrutiny in a long time. She’d become used to doors naturally opening for her the moment she approached them. Her position usually allowed her anything she desired. Right now, she had a desperate need to see Holly but the gatekeeper wasn’t being cooperative. She knew that her usual strategy of demands and bullishness wasn’t going to work.
“We worked side by side for seven months. She was my assistant and, as such, she was closer to me than most. In fact, during that time I probably saw more of Holly than I did my own children.”
It was the truth, but it didn’t mean they were close. Victoria simply worked damn hard.
Charlotte leaned forward. She put the pen back down on her desk and looked at Victoria.
Victoria knew she was being analysed. She knew the look well, she used it herself to great effect. But she analysed magazine layouts, editorial photography, fashion trends. Charlotte analysed people. And that unnerved her.
“Have you ever spoken with someone who suffers from memory loss?”
“No,” Victoria said. “I’m afraid my knowledge is drawn solely from popular media, which I assume is not entirely accurate.”
Charlotte chuckled softly. “You are right. Unfortunately, the depictions you see in television and movies are not at all accurate. I must warn you that it can be very difficult to speak with someone with no memory of you.”
Victoria felt her frame loosen slightly with relief. It seemed that she was passing Charlotte’s entrance exam.
“I’m sure it is,” she agreed. “May I ask of her condition? How much of her memory is lost? Will her memories return?”
Charlotte leaned back in her chair again. She was the picture of defeat. Victoria realised that they had something in common; they were both protective of Holly. Charlotte was standing in between her and Holly, but Victoria knew that if their positions were reversed, she would do exactly the same.
“It is difficult to say,” Charlotte admitted. “The type of memory loss she has is very unusual. Usually with brain trauma, we see a tendency for future memories to become lost or muddled. Patients can often remember their past but have difficulty correctly recording and cataloguing events following the trauma.”
“But that isn’t what is happening here?” Victoria guessed.
“Indeed. With Holly, we see the opposite. Her memories before the incident are gone. Despite how often this type of memory loss appears on film, it is very rare in real life.”
“So, she doesn’t remember her past?”
Charlotte shook her head. “She remembers nothing. Not her name, her family. Her first memory is of waking up in the hospital after her accident.”
“What was this accident?”
“We do not know. She was taken to the accident and emergency department of a local hospital after being found by a police officer on the side of the road.”
Victoria clenched her hands over the arms of the chair.
“But we do not know what happened,” Charlotte continued. “Nor can we tell if the accident caused her memory loss. There is a possibility that something happened prior to the accident, causing her memory loss and therefore causing the accident.”
“I take it the not knowing makes treatment difficult?”
“We know very little about the brain,” Charlotte said. “There are no medications that can cure memory loss. It’s a matter of whether or not the brain will repair itself. Or if it can. The part of the brain responsible for storing those memories may have been damaged, or possibly have disappeared altogether as a result of the damage. Our knowledge of memory centres is very small. What we don’t know far outweighs what we do.”
Victoria swallowed. The enormity of what had happened was starting to settle in her mind. She suspected it would take a while to fully grasp the situation, what they currently knew of it anyway. It seemed that there were a lot of unknowns.
“May I see her?”
Charlotte stood and gestured towards the office door. “Please, follow me.”