said. 'Are you still on holiday?'
'Holiday? No. No, I'm in hospital, Sadie.'
'My God! What's wrong?'
'Can you come and see me? I can't talk about it over the phone.'
'How do I know he didn't rape me?'
Jack Cross was sitting on the chair by my bed, fiddling with the tight knot of his tie. He nodded at the question, then said: 'We can't know for sure, but there's no suggestion of that.'
'How do you know?'
'When you were admitted to hospital, you were, well, examined, et cetera, et cetera.'
'And?'
'And there was no evidence of sexual assault.'
'That's something, at least.' I felt curiously blank. 'So what else has happened?'
'We're building up a picture,' he said carefully.
'But.. .'
'One of the people we obviously want to talk to is your boyfriend, Terence Wilmott.'
'And?'
'How would you describe your relationship with him?'
'Why on earth should I say anything about it at all? What's Terry got to do with anything?'
'As I said, we're building up a picture.'
'Well, we're fine,' I said defensively. 'We have our ups and downs, of course.'
'What sort of downs?'
'It wasn't Terry, if that's what you're thinking.'
'What?'
'He didn't do this. I know the man concealed his voice and I didn't see him but it wasn't Terry. I know Terry's smell. I know him backwards and forwards. He'll be back soon from wherever he's gone off to and then you can talk to him.'
'He's not abroad.'
'Oh?' I looked at him then. 'Why do you say that?'
'His passport's still in his flat.'
'Is it? Well, he must be in the UK, then.'
'Yes. Somewhere.'
I stood in front of the mirror and saw a stranger there. I was no longer me. I was someone else. A thin woman with matted hair and a bruised face. Chalky-grey skin. Sharp bones. Glassy, frightened eyes. I looked like a dead person.
I met Dr. Beddoes in a courtyard in the hospital because, although it was so cold, I had a longing to be outside. The nurses had found me a giant strawberry-pink quilted coat. The courtyard had clearly been designed to be soothing to neurotic patients. It was too shady for grass, but there were plants with huge dark green fronds and the centrepiece was a water feature. A large bronze pot was full and permanently overflowing with water running down the outside. I was alone for a few minutes, so I wandered over and examined it. It looked like a machine for wasting water but I noticed an opening around the base, so I supposed that it was sucked back up again. Round and round for ever.
Irene Beddoes had brought us both mugs of coffee and biscuits wrapped in Cellophane. We sat on a slightly damp wooden bench. She gestured at the wet ornament.
'They got that because I thought it would be relaxing in a Japanese, Zen sort of way,' she said. 'I find it rather creepy.'
'Why?'
'Wasn't there someone in hell who was condemned to spend the whole of eternity trying to fill a huge earthenware jar with water a jar that had a hole in it?'
'I didn't know that.'
'I shouldn't have told you. I may have spoiled it for you.'
'I like it; I like the sound. It's a happy sound.'
'That's the spirit,' she said.
It felt wonderful but a bit strange to be sitting outside on this sunny winter day. I only sipped at my mug of coffee. I had to be careful. I already felt on edge. Too much caffeine would turn me into a basket case.
'How are you doing?' she asked. It seemed a fairly inept beginning.
'You know what I hate about being in hospital? People are being nice and everything and I've got my own room and a T V, but still there's something about being in a room where people don't have to knock before they come in. People I've never seen before come in and clean or bring food and the nice ones give me a nod and the others just get on with it.'
'Do you get scared?'
I didn't answer at first. I took another sip of coffee and a bite of my biscuit. Then I said, 'Yes, of course. I mean, I think I get scared in different ways I'm scared thinking about what it was like; remembering it all over again, almost as if I was still inside it and had never got away. The whole thing kind of closes in on me, like I'm underwater or something. Drowning in it. Most of the time I try not to let myself remember. I try and push it away from me. Perhaps I shouldn't do that. Do you think it's healthier to go over it?' I didn't give her time to answer. 'And the other thing I get scared about is the idea that he hasn't been caught. And that maybe he's just waiting for me to come out and then he'll grab me again. When I let myself think of that I can't breathe properly. Everything in my body seems to be breaking up with fear. So, yes. I get scared. Not always, though. Sometimes I just feel very, very lucky to be alive. But I wish they'd catch him. I don't suppose I'll be able to feel safe again, until that happens.'
Irene Beddoes was the first person I'd met whom I could talk to about what had happened to me in that room, and what I had felt. She wasn't a friend. I could tell her about my sense of losing myself, of being turned, bit by bit, into an animal, or an object. I told her about his laugh, his whisper, the bucket. I told her I'd wet myself. I told her about how I would have done anything, let him do anything to me, in order to stay alive. And she listened, saying nothing. I talked and I talked until my voice grew weary. Then I stopped and leant towards her. 'Do you think you can help me remember my lost days?'
'My concern, my job, is what's happening in your head, what you've been going through and what you are still going through. If it results in anything that helps the investigation, then that's a bonus. The police are doing everything they can, Abbie.'
'I'm not sure I've given them much to go on.'
'Your job is to get better.'
I sat back in my chair. I looked up at the floors of the hospital surrounding us. One floor up a small boy with a high forehead and a solemn face was looking down at us. I could hear the hum of traffic outside, the sound of horns.
'You know one of my nightmares?' I said.
'What?'
'I've got lots of them, actually. Like being back in that room again. And I hate being in this limbo, I feel trapped. But sometimes I fear that I'm going to leave hospital, go back to my life and it'll just go back to normal and the man will never be found and the only trace there'll be will be the bits of memory of him like a worm crawling around in my head eating me up.'
Irene Beddoes looked at me; her eyes were keen. 'Didn't you like your life?' she said. 'Don't you like the idea of getting it back?'
'That's not what I mean,' I said. 'I mean that I can't bear the idea of nothing coming of all this. And I'll never be able to get rid of the idea as long as I live. You know the people who get that sort of deafness, except it's not deafness. It's not silence. It's a noise in their ears and it never goes away and it drives people mad until sometimes they kill themselves just to shut it up.'
'Could you tell me about yourself, Abbie? Before all of this.'
I took a sip of my coffee. From being too hot, it was now too cold. 'Where do I start? I'm twenty-five. Um .. .' I stopped, at a loss.
