I recognize her from the hospital lobby that morning—she was talking to someone in the coffee shop queue—but I don’t recognize her from school, so it comes as a shock to see she did actually go to Waltham House too. I try to remember redheads from back then, any girls who were that stunning. Surely that would have stuck in my head. Her bio tells me her maiden name was Zara Thompson. But then I see her school dates. She’s younger than us, by three years. She would have been thirteen when I left. That’s why I don’t remember her and it’s highly unlikely she’ll remember me. I click on her profile picture. Zara looks back at the photographer teasingly, invitingly, her lips parted ever so slightly, and I wonder if Chris took the photo. I catch myself wondering if they’re happy.
Shit. This is not why I am on here.
I feel a tight gnaw of shame in my stomach. I definitely shouldn’t go for that drink with Chris.
I click out of Zara’s profile back to Chris’s, and then a strange thought strikes me. Is there a chance I could know my patient? Perhaps he did recognize me, and in the same way I couldn’t place Zara perhaps I can’t recall him because he’s older than me. He wouldn’t have been a student at the school then, but he could have been a teacher. Perfectly plausible. Although odd that no one else would recognize him from this area. I realize what I really need to do is get my hands on a list of everyone who was working at Waltham House in the years I was there. That would be a start. I could ask Chris. But then I might have to explain why I needed it. Or maybe, knowing Chris, I wouldn’t have to tell him, maybe he’d just trust me enough not to have to explain, if I said it was for the case. Which of course it would be. I grab my phone and tap out an impulsive message to him.
For the next two hours I keep searching, recalling, and tapping in the names of everyone I can remember from those years, all those almost-forgotten children of my childhood.
Chris’s dad was chief inspector at the Burnham and Hunstanton station. Local police. I should have known Chris would still be here; his family have been and always will be local.
Our family, on the other hand, had no choice but to leave.
Then the thought occurs to me again: If my patient does know me, he knows about what happened. Could he be faking his symptoms to get me to come back here? The lure of intrigue. After all, a patient like this is the only reason I’d ever come back here. It’s a paranoid thought and I shut it down. A shiver runs through me and I pull the cashmere throw tighter around me as my thoughts continue to slip and slide over the idea. It would be hard for anyone to pull off what he’s doing alone if they were faking, but perhaps he’s not doing this alone. I think I hear something in the darkness beyond the patio doors, but when I stand up to peer out I see only my own reflection in its black mirror.
I need to know if my patient is lying. I need to make sure I do my fMRI test as soon as possible. I need to know if this case is really fugue, if he really can’t remember who he is. Or if he’s doing something else entirely.
24
ZARA AND CHRIS
DAY 8—SECRETS AND LIES
Zara is on her laptop, fingers clacking over keys, her legs curled gracefully underneath her on the sofa, when Chris finally returns from the hospital. The winter sun is setting outside their Georgian windows, and she’s bathed in a soft peach-and-lilac glow.
They bought the house for its period features, the fireplaces, coving, big sash windows—if they couldn’t move to London, Zara had argued, then they’d get the best money could buy in Norfolk.
She looks up briefly from her screen as he wanders in. He watches her working, her eyes momentarily masked by a stray curtain of glossy red hair.
“You’re back early,” she says wryly. He’s not. Sarcasm plays across her screen-lit face. “So? How did it go?
“Yeah. Long day,” he says, shrugging off his jacket and perching on the edge of an armchair, lost in thought.
Today was supposed to be Chris’s day off. He’d been called in to pay a site visit to the hospital and have a conversation with the new doctor about the case. He hadn’t been too surprised to be called in, not since the hotline went up. Everyone had been working extra shifts since that had started. When he’d gotten to the station to change into his uniform, he’d been roped into following up on a whole tsunami of hotline leads, none of which had amounted to anything.
Overnight, the well-intentioned hotline had turned into a complete free-for-all. People from all over the country calling in, with all kinds of bizarre sightings and tip-offs, and they, the Burnham and Hunstanton station, had to follow up on nearly everything. Assess the information, grade it in order of relevance or urgency, and flag it up if the lead looked promising. That’s a lot of paperwork.
When he’d finally headed over to the hospital it’d taken him a good half an hour to track down the new doctor. And she’d turned out to be Marni Beaufort.
He’d found her. Found her in the hospital canteen. After fourteen years.
Seeing her had been very confusing. And now he felt…weird. But kind of good weird. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. How she used to look playing lacrosse at school, her cheeks flushed in the cold, her mischievous grin, her freckles. The Beauforts had been rich back then, crazy rich. Before it all happened, obviously. And all that wealth had somehow lent them this air, this healthy seductive glow. That calm, the ease, like nothing was ever a struggle, even winning, which the Beauforts seemed to do a lot.
Zara looks up from her article and frowns. She’s pretty sure Chris didn’t hear what she just said.
She asks again. “How was it with the new doctor, honey?”
Chris’s attention snaps back to her, he gives a quick smile. “Yeah. Yeah, it was good,” he says, getting up and heading into the kitchen.
“And…?” Zara probes further, following him into the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe and watching as he stares unseeingly into the fridge.
“And…er, and yeah, she was nice.” Chris realizes this line of questioning will not go away unaddressed. “Her name is Emma Lewis. Dr. Lewis. She seemed nice. She’s from London. Seemed good at her job. The hospital says they’re lucky to get her. I told her I’d send her everything we have that could help. And that was it.” He closes the fridge door empty-handed. He’s not exactly sure what he was looking for in there—but he didn’t find it.
“Did she say what she thought it was?” she presses. “What’s wrong with him?”
“No. I didn’t ask. First day, isn’t it?”
“And what’s the general mood at the station? Any leads? Is that why you’ve been so long?”
“Just got dragged into all that hotline stuff as soon as I got there.”