that.'
He stood up and mustered his files under his arm with some difficulty. 'Abigail,' he said.
'Abbie.'
'Abbie. You're a fascinating case. I don't think I'm going to be able to resist coming back.'
'That's all right,' I said. 'I seem to have lots of time on my hands. But I've got one question: is there any chance of my memory coming back?'
He paused for a moment and pulled an odd face, which must have been some sort of indication that he was thinking. 'Yes, it's possible.'
'Could I be hypnotized?'
Suddenly he looked shocked and rummaged in his pocket, which was a particularly awkward operation with his armful of files. He extracted a card and gave it to me. 'That's got various numbers on it. If anybody comes in here and starts dangling things in front of your eyes or talking to you in a soothing voice, call me straight away.'
With that he was gone, and I lay on the bed with my sore, vulnerable head. My head with a black hole in it.
'Have you talked to your boyfriend?'
I only managed to murmur something. I wasn't entirely awake and DI Cross leant closer over me in concern.
'Shall I call someone?' he asked.
'No. And, no, I haven't.'
'We're having a bit of difficulty tracking him down at the moment.'
'Me too,' I said. 'I've left three messages on the answering-machine. It'll be because of his work.'
'Does he go away often?'
'He's an IT consultant, whatever that means. He's always flying off to Belgium or Australia or wherever on special projects.'
'But you can't remember when you last saw him?'
'No.'
'Do you want to talk to your parents?'
'No! No, please.'
There was a pause. I was doing so badly. I tried to think of something I could give Cross. 'Would it help if you could have a look at our flat? I'll be back there in a day or two, I guess, but there might be something there. Maybe that's where I was grabbed. I might have left a note.'
Cross's blank expression barely altered. 'Do you have a key you can give me?'
'As you know I've got nothing except the clothes I escaped in. But in the front garden, to the left of the front door, there are two things that look like ordinary stones. But they're these crazy mail-order gimmicks and one of them is hollowed out. Inside there's a spare key. You can use that.'
'Do you have any allergies, Miss Devereaux?'
'I don't think so. I came up in hives once with some shellfish.'
'Do you suffer from epilepsy?'
'No.'
'Are you pregnant?'
I shook my head so hard it hurt.
It doesn't mean anything but we're legally obliged to tell you that a CAT scan can have side effects, but the likelihood is extremely small, negligible. Would you sign this consent form? Here and here.'
Suddenly the nurse was sounding like an air stewardess. I thought of those demonstrations with the life jacket In the unlikely event of a landing on water.
'I don't even know what a CAT scan is,' I said, as I signed.
'Don't worry. The technologist will explain it all to you in a minute.'
I was led into a large, fiercely bright room. I saw the hi-tech trolley where I was going to lie, padded and concave in the middle, and, behind it, a white tunnel into the heart of the machine. It looked like a toilet bowl turned on its side.
'Ms Devereaux, my name is Jan Carlton. Won't you sit down for a minute?' A tall spindly woman in an overall gestured to a chair. 'Do you know what a CAT scan is?'
'It's one of those names you hear,' I said cautiously.
'We like you to be prepared. Is there anything you're unsure about?'
'Everything, really.'
'It's really just an X-ray enhanced by a computer, which is in another room. Think of your body as a giant loaf of bread.'
'A loaf?'
'Yes. The CAT scan looks at a particular area of your body in slices, you see, then it puts together the slices into a three-dimensional view.'
'Oh, you meant a sliced loaf ?'
'It's just a comparison.'
'I thought scans were for cancer.'
'They are. It's just a way of looking inside the body. It's a standard procedure for anyone who has had an injury, severe headaches, trauma.'
'What do I have to do?'
'We'll just pop you on the table and slide you into that thing that looks like a white doughnut. You'll hear humming, and you'll probably see the track spinning around. It won't last long at all. All you have to do is lie completely still.'
I had to put on a hospital robe again. I lay down on the table and stared at the ceiling.
'This will feel a little cold.'
She rubbed gel into my temples, smearing it over my newly washed hair. She slid a hard metal helmet under my skull.
'I'm tightening these screws. It might feel a bit uncomfortable.' She fastened some straps over my shoulders, arms and stomach, pulling them taut. 'The table is about to start moving.'
'Table?' I said feebly, as I slid slowly away from her and through the tunnel. I was lying inside a metal chamber and, yes, there was that humming. I swallowed hard. It wasn't quite dark in here. I could see lines moving round above me. Out there, a few feet away, was a bright room with a competent woman in it, making sure everything was as it should be. Beyond that was another room with a computer showing pictures of my brain. Upstairs there were wards, patients, nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, visitors, people carrying clipboards and pushing trolleys. Outside, there was a wind coming in from the east and it might well snow. And here I was, lying in a humming metal tube.
I thought that some people, having gone through what I had gone through, might find it difficult to be confined like this. I closed my eyes. I could make up my own pictures. I could remember the blue sky that I'd seen this morning; the electric-blue that stretched from horizon to horizon and sparkled so. I could imagine the snow falling gently out of the dull, low sky and settling on houses, cars, bare trees. But in the darkness the sound of humming seemed to change. It sounded more like a kind of wheezing. And I could hear footsteps. There were footsteps coming towards me. Footsteps in the darkness. I opened my mouth to call out, but I couldn't speak or make a sound, except for a strangled whimper.
What was happening? I tried again but it was as if something was blocking my mouth. I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't draw air through my mouth; I was gasping but nothing was happening. I was going to suffocate in here. My chest was hurting. I couldn't draw breath, not properly. It came in ragged bursts that gave me no relief. The footsteps came closer. I was trapped and I was drowning. Drowning in the air. A roaring built up in my head and I opened my eyes and it was still dark and I closed them and there was red behind my eyes. My eyes were burning in my sockets. Then the roaring split apart, as if my head had burst open to let out all the horror.
I was screaming at last. The tube was filled with the sound of my howling. My ears throbbed and my throat tore with it and I couldn't stop. I tried to make the screams into words. I tried to say, 'Help!' or 'Please,' anything, but all the sounds crashed and bubbled and streamed together. Everything was shaking and then there were bright
