‘August.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s hot outside.’
‘You’re not dressed for a hot day.’
He looks at his clothes, almost surprised. I then notice his eyes lift and move slightly to focus on something behind me. I keep talking to him about the weather and turn my head far enough to see the wall at my back. A framed print is hanging beside the mirror- a beachside scene with children playing on the shingles and paddling. There is a Ferris wheel in the background and an ice-cream barrow.
Patrick constructed his entire alibi from a single scene. The picture helped him fill in the details that he couldn’t remember about last Friday. That’s why he was so sure it was a hot day and that he took his children to the beach.
Patrick has a problem with his contextual memory. He retains snippets of autobiographical information, but cannot anchor them to a specific time or place. The memories drift loose. Images collide. That’s why he tells rambling stories and avoids eye contact. He sees mousetraps on the floor.
Reality is under constant review in his head. When a question comes along that he feels he should be able to answer, he looks for clues and creates a new script to fit them. The photograph on the wall gave him a framework and he spun a story around it, ignoring anomalies such as the rain or the time of year.
If Patrick were a patient, I’d make an appointment schedule and ask to see his medical records. I might even organise a brain scan, which would probably show a right hemisphere brain injury- some sort of haemorrhage. At the very least he is suffering from post-traumatic stress. That’s why he confabulates and invents, constructing fantastic stories to explain things that he can’t remember. He does it inadvertently. Automatically.
‘Patrick,’ I say gently, ‘if you don’t remember what happened last Friday, just tell me. I won’t think you foolish. Everybody forgets things. A phone was found in your house that belonged to a woman who was at Leigh Woods.’
He looks at me blankly. I know the memory is there. He just can’t access the information.
‘She was naked,’ I say. ‘She was wearing a yellow raincoat and high heel shoes.’
His eyes stop wandering and rest on mine. ‘Her shoes were red.’
‘Yes.’
It’s as though the wheels of a fruit machine have lined up inside his head. The scattered fragments of memory and emotion are falling into place.
‘You saw her?’
He hesitates. This time it will be a genuine lie. I don’t give him the opportunity.
‘She was on the path.’
He nods.
‘Was she with anyone?’
He shakes his head.
‘What was she doing?’
‘Walking.’
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘No.’
Did you follow her?’
He nods. ‘That’s all I did.’
‘How did you get her phone?’
‘I found it.’
‘Where?’
‘She left it in her car.’
‘So you took it?’
‘It was unlocked,’ he mumbles, unable to think of an excuse. ‘I was worried about her. I thought she might be in trouble.’
‘Then why didn’t you call the police.’
‘I–I-I didn’t have a phone.’
‘You had hers.’
His face is a riot of tics and grimaces. He is on his feet, pacing back and forth, no longer avoiding the mousetraps. He says something. I don’t catch it. I ask him to say it again.
‘The battery was flat. I had to buy a charger. It cost me ten quid.’
He looks at me hopefully. ‘Do you think they’ll give me a refund?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I only used it a few times.’
‘Listen to me, Patrick. Focus on me. The woman in the park, did you talk to her?’
His face is twisting again.
‘What did she say, Patrick? It’s important.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t shake your head, Patrick. What did she say?’
He shrugs, looking around the room, trying to find another picture to help him.
‘I don’t want you to make it up, Patrick. If you don’t remember, just tell me. But it’s really important. Think hard.’
‘She asked about her daughter. She wanted to know if I’d seen her.’
‘Did she say why?’
He shakes his head.
‘Is that all she said?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened then?’
He shrugs. ‘She ran away.’
‘Did you follow her?’
‘No.’
‘Did she have a phone with her, Patrick? Was she talking to someone?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. I couldn’t hear.’
I carry on with the questioning, trying to build a framework of truths. Without warning, Patrick stops and gazes at the floor. Raising one foot, he steps over a ‘mousetrap’. I’ve lost him again. He’s somewhere else.
‘Maybe we should give him a break,’ says the lawyer.
Outside the interview room, I sit down with the detectives and explain why I think Patrick confabulates and invents stories.
‘So he’s brain damaged,’ says Safari Roy, trying to paraphrase my clinical descriptions.
‘Doesn’t make him innocent,’ adds Monk.
‘Is this a permanent condition?’ asks Veronica Cray.
‘I don’t know. Patrick retains kernels of information but he can’t anchor them to a specific time or place. His memories drift loose. If you show him a photograph and prove to him that he was in Leigh Woods, he will accept it. But that doesn’t mean he remembers being there.’
‘Which means he could still be our man.’
‘That’s very unlikely. You heard him. His head is crowded with snatches of conversations, images, his wife, his children, things that happened before he was injured. These things are bouncing around in his head without any sense or order. He can function. He can hold down a simple job. But whenever his memory fails him, he makes something up.’
‘So we won’t get a statement,’ says the DI, dismissively. ‘We don’t need one. He admitted to being at the scene. He had her phone.’
‘He didn’t make her jump.’
DI Cray cuts me off. ‘With all due respect, Professor, I know you’re good at what you do but you have no idea what this man is capable of.’
‘You can think I’m wrong, but that’s no reason to quit thinking. I’m giving my opinion. You’re making a
