A barrage of questions rolls toward me. “Dr. Lewis, can you confirm that Matthew is the missing Taylor child?”
“Benjamin Taylor disappeared in September of 1992. Do you have any knowledge of his whereabouts over the twenty-seven years he’s been missing?”
“Have you spoken with the parents yet, Dr. Lewis?” I become aware that a camera crew is now filming us as we walk, the cameraman walking backward in front of us as our strange parade rushes on.
“Is the patient making a speedy recovery, Dr. Lewis?”
“Does he have any memory yet of the trauma he’s been through?”
“Was he held against his will for the duration?”
“Can we expect to see Benjamin out of hospital soon, Doctor?”
Trevor fends them off, holding the crowd back as we head inside. As we break through into the lobby I gasp in a breath and three security guards block the way of the press after us. The doors slide shut, muffling their shouted questions. I try to keep my expression neutral, even though every pore wants to scream Leave us alone. I’m keenly aware that we’re still on camera. Joe’s expression is unreadable, except for his eyes. In them I see that haunted look I remember so well. We’ve been through walks like this before, Joe and I. And they don’t get easier.
As I leave Joe with Trevor to head back to the train station via the back entrance, he hugs me, tight. “Call me after you’ve done it,” he whispers.
* * *
—
Matthew is waiting for me on the ward.
He’s standing with his back to me, staring out the window at the crisp winter blue of the open sky, not a cloud in sight. “They told me I might be called Benjamin. I don’t feel like a Benjamin.” He speaks with a lightness that almost breaks my heart.
“I’m sorry this is all happening to you, Matthew. I don’t really understand yet on what basis they’re making this connection.”
He turns to face me. “Do you think they could be right? Is this who I am? Benjamin Taylor?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting down on his bed to work through it properly for the first time. “Let’s look at the facts.” Joe managed to find an old news story from the nineties on his phone on the drive here. “Here’s what the authorities know….Twelve-year-old Benjamin Taylor left his house in Tottenham on the twenty-seventh of September, 1992, to walk to school—but he never made it there. At the time, there was a national search for him; they did a reconstruction of his last movements and they questioned a number of suspects. But Benjamin was never seen again.” I’m careful now. “His parents didn’t stop looking, though. They were very vocal during the campaign and they’ve kept up Benjamin’s website all this time. Ben’s father has been checking the missing persons database every week since. That’s how they saw your photo.”
Matthew looks at me. “That’s a sad story.”
“Yes, it is,” I say solemnly as he sits down next to me.
“But…what would I have been doing for the past twenty-seven years?”
God, what a question. “I’m not sure, Matthew. But if I had to make this fit, in any plausible way—which we really don’t have to do—but if I had to? I’d say the fact that your circadian rhythm is completely screwed up could, potentially, be down to a lack of natural light. If you’d been kept somewhere. Your head wound, your memory loss, all of it could point toward trauma received during some kind of escape. The police must have a reason for suspecting you’re Benjamin. Plus, the Taylors seem to recognize you. And you are the right age.”
“You think I’ve been in a basement for almost thirty years? That’s your theory?”
I can’t help but smile slightly. “No, I don’t think you’ve been in a basement for twenty-seven years—but that could be what they’re thinking.”
“How would I have escaped from this hypothetical basement?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it would definitely be possible for a man of your height and build to overpower a man in his, by now, say his…sixties?” I can’t help it but I giggle slightly at this. “Oh God, this is awful.”
“This is a horrible story, Emma,” he says, with that lightness of tone again. Thankfully, right now he has no connection to this story.
I mean, even if he is Benjamin Taylor, let’s not make him remember being Benjamin Taylor—nobody wants to be the person who was potentially locked in a basement for decades.
“They want to meet you. The parents,” I say carefully, watching his reaction. I’ll pull the plug on this in a heartbeat if he needs me to.
“Why do they want to do that?”
“Because they want to know if you’re their son, I’d imagine.”
He rises and walks over to the window. “But even if I am,” he says, looking down at the media swarming below, “I’m not really, am I? I don’t remember being anyone’s son yet.”
“No, you certainly can’t be expected to be something you don’t even remember.”
Silence fills the room and when he speaks again I jump slightly at the sound.
“Who do you think I am?” he demands. I can’t read his expression against the stark light of the window.
“I don’t know, Matthew. That’s what we’re all trying to find out, isn’t it?”
“I know, but you—who do you really think I am? Not as my doctor, not as my psychiatrist, but as a person.”
I stifle a shudder. I can’t tell him who I think he is. The man I think he is died fourteen years ago. Matthew moves away from the light and his face comes into sight, his intelligent eyes studying me.
I push the thought away, taking a moment before answering. “I think there’s a possibility you may have been in the military. I think you could be suffering from PTSD. Of course, there is the possibility that the PTSD could be from any kind of trauma, but I think it’s unlikely that you have been held against your will for the last twenty-seven years. That much seems clear to me, both professionally and…as a person.”
He studies me, then nods. “Okay. That makes sense.” He sits down in the visitor’s chair and rubs his face. “I’ll meet them,” he says decisively. “If it helps them. But I have no interest in being Benjamin Taylor.”
For a moment I think I’ve misheard him. It’s such a strange way to put it, but I understand what he means. He doesn’t believe it’s true but he wants to see if any of it triggers something; he needs to know. And he wants to help these people. Perhaps he is Benjamin. At this stage he could be anyone.