lights in my eyes and hands on me. Hands that held me down, that wouldn't let me go. I screamed again. Wailed. Screams were pouring out of me. I couldn't see in the light. Everything stung. Everything around me bore down on me. There were new sounds, voices somewhere, someone calling my name. Eyes looking at me out of the dazzling light; watching me and there was nowhere to hide because I couldn't move. Fingers touching me. Cold metal on my skin. On my arm. Something wet. Something sharp. Something piercing my skin.
Then suddenly everything was quiet and it was as if the light that hurt and the terrible sounds were gradually fading away from me. Everything was fading and going grey and far off, like night falling, and you just want it to be day. Just want it to be snow.
When I woke up, I didn't know if it was the next morning or many mornings later. The world was in black and white but I knew that it wasn't the world. It was me. I felt like there was a grey filter over my eyes, bleaching the colour out. My tongue felt dry and fluffy. I
felt fidgety and irritable. I wanted to scratch myself or scratch somebody else. I wanted to get up and do something, but I didn't know what. Breakfast tasted of cardboard and cotton wool. Every noise made me wince.
I lay in the bed and thought dark thoughts and then made plans, which involved getting up and finding someone, anyone, in authority and telling them that it was time for me to go home, and then finding Detective Inspector Cross and telling him to bloody get on with his inquiry, and somewhere in the middle of this a woman came in. No nurse's uniform, no white coat. She must have been in her fifties. Red-haired, pale freckly skin, rimless glasses. She wore a honey-coloured sweater, shiny grey trousers. She smiled at me.
'I'm Dr. Beddoes,' she said. There was a pause. 'Irene Beddoes.' That was Irene rhyming with 'sheen' and 'clean' rather than with 'eenymeeny'. 'I saw you yesterday afternoon. Do you remember our conversation?'
'No.'
'You were drifting in and out of sleep. I wasn't sure how much you were taking in.'
I had slept and still I felt tired. Tired and grey.
'I've been seen by a neurologist,' I said. 'He tested my memory. I've been put into a machine. I've been examined for physical injuries and been patched up a bit. What are you here for?'
Her concerned smile only wavered a little. 'We thought you might like someone to talk to.'
'I've talked to the police.'
'I know.'
'Are you a psychiatrist?'
'Among other things.' She gestured at the chair. 'Do you mind if I sit down?'
'No, of course not.'
She dragged it over and sat by the bed. She smelt nice; subtly fragrant. I thought of spring flowers.
'I talked to Jack Cross,' she said. 'He told me your story. You've been through a terrifying ordeal.'
'I'm just happy to have escaped,' I said. 'I don't want you to see me as some sort of victim. I think I'm doing OK, you know. For several days I was dead. It may sound stupid but it was true. I was above ground, I was breathing and eating, but I knew I was dead. I didn't exist in the same world that everyone else occupied. What do you call it? The land of the living. The place where people worry about money and sex and paying bills. Mainly through luck I escaped and I'm alive again and I just think every day is something I never thought I'd be allowed.'
'Yes,' Dr. Beddoes said, but still looking concerned for me.
'The other thing is that I'm not ill. I know I was knocked around a bit. I know that I've got a problem with my memory because I got a bang on the head. But I feel fine on the whole. A bit unreal, maybe. And this isn't how I imagined it would be.'
'What would be?'
'Being free. I'm lying in this bed in an old itchy nightie that doesn't belong to me and people bringing me awful food on a trolley and people coming and sitting next to my bed and looking at me with anxious expressions on their faces and talking to me in a soft voice as if they were trying to talk me off a window-sill. What I really want is to get back to my flat and get on with my life. See my friends. Go to a pub again, to a cafe, walk down ordinary streets in my own clothes, go dancing, lie in bed on a Sunday morning with the sun streaming in through the windows, eat what I want when I want, go for a walk at night down by the river .. . But he's still out there, in the world I want to be in. If you want to know, that's what I really can't get out of my mind, the idea that he's still walking the streets.'
There was a silence and I felt a bit embarrassed by my outburst. But she didn't look too disconcerted.
'Your flat,' she said. 'Where's that?'
'It's not exactly mine,' I said. 'It actually belongs to my ... to the guy I live with. Terry.'
'Has he been in to see you?'
'He's away. I've tried calling but he must be working somewhere he travels a lot.'
'Have you seen anyone else? Family or friends?'
'No. I just want to get out of here and then I'll call them.' She looked at me and I felt a need to explain. 'I guess I'm putting off telling my story,' I admitted. 'I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to tell it because it's still not finished. I want there to be a proper ending to it before I begin, if you see what I mean.'
'You want him to be caught first?'
'Yes.'
'But maybe, in the meantime, you could talk to me.'
'Maybe,' I said cautiously. 'What I really want to do, though -the one thing I know I need is to get out of here. It's as if this hospital is a half-way house between being in prison and being free. I'm in limbo here.'
Dr. Beddoes contemplated me for a moment. 'Something terrible happened to you, Abbie. You're being dealt with by about five different speciali ties at the hospital and that's not to mention the police. It's quite a logistical struggle to get everybody to communicate. But as far as I understand there is a general agreement that you should stay here for at least a couple more days. For a start, I know that the neurologists want to keep you under observation for a time, just in case. And the police obviously are very worried indeed. The man you encountered must be exceptionally dangerous and they would rather have you in a more secure environment while they make certain decisions.'
'Do they think I might be under threat?'
'I can't speak for them, but I think it's extremely difficult to assess. That's part of the problem. What I want to say is that I would like to use the next couple of days to talk to you. Obviously it's up to you but I think I could be helpful to you. Not just that. It's possible that if we talk things over we might come up with details that could assist the police, but that would only be by the way. You talk about just wanting to get back to your normal life.' There was now a sudden, long pause that I found disconcerting. 'I'm thinking about how to put this. You might not find it as easy to return to your life as you assume. It may be that you take things with you from an experience like this.'
'You think I'm contaminated by it?'
'Contaminated?' She looked for a moment as if she were smelling the contamination, or trying to sniff it out. 'No. But you had a normal life, then suddenly you were thrown out of it into a terrible horror. Now you have to return to normality. You have to decide what to do with this thing that happened. We all need to find ways of accommodating things that have happened to us. I think that if we talked, I could help you do that.'
I looked away from her and I saw the greyness of the world again. When I spoke it was as much to myself as to her. 'I don't know how I'm supposed to accommodate someone wanting to kidnap and kill me. That's the first thing. The second is that my life wasn't as smooth as all that before it happened. But I'll give it a try.'
'We'll meet for a chat,' she said. 'And you aren't going to have to lie on a couch. We can do it in more pleasant surroundings, if you like.'
'That would be great.'
'I may even be able to find somewhere that serves proper coffee.'
'That would be the most therapeutic thing of all.'
She smiled and stood up and shook my hand and left. When Dr. Beddoes arrived, I had wanted to turn my back to her and close my eyes. Now that she had gone, I was shocked to realize that I already missed her.
'Sadie?'
'Abbie!' Her voice was warm and clear, and relief spread through me. 'Where are you calling from?' she
