Lost

“How many engines did it have?”

“One.”

“Was it a stolen boat?”

“Yes.”

“Was the engine running?”

“No.”

“Were you anchored or drifting?”

“Drifting.”

“Were you carrying a weapon?”

“Yes.”

“Did you fire your weapon?”

“No.”

This is ridiculous! What possible good does it do? I'm guessing the answers.

Suddenly, it dawns on me. They think I'm faking amnesia. This isn't a test to see how much I remember— they're testing the validity of my symptoms. They're forcing me to make choices so they can work out what percentage of questions I answer correctly. If I'm telling the truth, pure guesswork should mean half of my answers are correct. Anything significantly above or below fifty percent could mean I'm trying to “influence” the result by deliberately getting things right or wrong.

I know enough about statistics to see the objective. The chance of someone with memory loss answering only ten questions correctly out of fifty is less than five percent.

Dr. Wickham has been taking notes. No doubt he's studying the distribution of my answers—looking for patterns that might indicate something other than random chance.

Stopping him, I ask, “Who wrote these questions?”

“I don't know.”

“Guess.”

He blinks at me.

“Come on, Doc, true or false? I'll accept a guess. Is this a test to see if I'm faking memory loss?”

“I don't know what you mean,” he stammers.

“If I can guess the answer, so can you. Who put you up to this—Internal Affairs or Campbell Smith?”

Struggling to his feet, he tucks the clipboard under his arm and turns toward the door. I wish I'd met him on the rugby field. I'd have driven his head into a muddy hole.

Swinging my legs out of bed, I put one foot on the floor. The linoleum is cool and slightly sticky. Gulping hard on the pain, I slide my forearms into the plastic cuffs of the crutches.

I'm supposed to be using a walker on wheels but I'm too vain. I'm not going to walk around in a chrome cage like some geriatric in a post office queue. I look in the cupboard for my clothes. Empty.

I know it sounds paranoid but they're not telling me everything. Someone must know what I was doing on the river. Someone will have heard the shots or seen something. Why haven't they found any bodies?

Halfway down the corridor I see Campbell talking to Dr. Wickham. Two detectives are with them. I recognize one of them: John Keebal. I used to work with him until he joined the Met's Anti-Corruption Group, otherwise known as the Ghost Squad, and began investigating his own.

Keebal is one of those coppers who call all gays “fudge-packers” and Asians “Pakis.” He is loud, bigoted and totally obsessed with the job. When the Marchioness riverboat sank in the Thames, he did thirteen death-knocks before lunchtime, telling people their kids had drowned. He knew exactly what to say and when to stop talking. A man like that can't be all bad.

“Where do you think you're going?” asks Campbell.

“I thought I might get some fresh air.”

Keebal interrupts, “Yeah, just got a whiff of something myself.”

I push past them heading for the lift.

“You can't possibly leave,” says Dr. Wickham. “Your dressing has to be changed every few days. You need painkillers.”

“Fill my pockets and I'll self-administer.”

Campbell grabs my arm. “Don't be so bloody foolish.”

I realize I'm shaking.

“Have you found anyone? Any . . . any bodies?”

“No.”

“I'm not faking this, you know. I really can't remember.”

He steers me away from the others. “I believe you, Vincent, but you know the drill. The IPCC has to investigate.”

“What's Keebal doing here?”

“He just wants to talk to you.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

Campbell laughs but it doesn't reassure me like it should. Before I can weigh up my options, Keebal leads me down the corridor to the hospital lounge—a stark, windowless place, with burnt-orange sofas and posters of healthy people. He unbuttons his jacket and takes a seat, waiting for me to lever myself down from my crutches.

“I hear you nearly met the grim reaper.”

“He offered me a room with a view.”

“And you turned him down?”

“I'm not a good traveler.”

For the next ten minutes we shoot the breeze about mutual acquaintances and old times. He asks about my mother and I tell him she's in a retirement village.

“Some of those places can be pretty expensive.”

“Yep.”

“Where you living nowadays?”

“Right here.”

The coffee arrives and Keebal keeps talking. He gives me his opinion on the proliferation of firearms, random violence and senseless crimes. The police are becoming easy targets and scapegoats all at once. I know what he's trying to do. He wants to draw me in with a spiel about good guys having to stick together.

Keebal is one of those police officers who adopt a warrior ethic as though something separates them from normal society. They listen to politicians talk about the war on crime and the war on drugs and the war on terror and they start picturing themselves as soldiers fighting to keep the streets safe.

“How many times have you put your life on the line, Ruiz? You think any of the bastards care? The left call us pigs and the right call us Nazis. Sieg, sieg, oink! Sieg, sieg, oink!” He throws his right arm forward in a Nazi salute.

I stare at the signet ring on his pinkie and think of Orwell's Animal Farm.

Keebal is on a roll. “We don't live in a perfect world and we don't have perfect police officers, eh? But what do they expect? We have no fucking resources and we're fighting a system that lets criminals out quicker than we can catch them. And all this new-age touchy-feely waa-waa bullshit they pass off as crime prevention has done nothing for you and me. And it's done nothing for the poor misguided kids who get caught up in crime.

“A while back I went to a conference and some lard-arse criminologist with an American accent told us that police officers had no enemies. ‘Criminals are not the enemy, crime is,' he said. Jesus wept! Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I had to stop myself giving this guy a slap.”

Keebal leans in a little closer. I smell peanuts on his breath.

“I don't blame coppers for being pissed off. And I can understand when they pocket a little for themselves, as long as they're not dealing drugs or hurting children, eh?” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I can help you. Just tell me what happened that night.”

“I don't remember.”

“Am I correct in assuming, therefore, you cannot identify the person who shot you?”

“You would be correct in that assumption.”