“My therapist in London had recommended another therapist in Brighton. He specialised in repressed memories, recovering them, that sort of thing. That wasn’t why I went to him, though – it was more that I needed a therapist and this was the only one I knew of that was any good. So we start the treatment and he does the repressed memory thing on me.
“All my memories were still there, from my childhood. Right up until the age of ten. Not wholly, not completely, but enough. You were there, although I couldn’t remember your name. My parents. Our house in Hellesford. Myself as a young girl, an innocent young girl, before all these terrible things had happened to me.
“I remembered what happened that night. The night, the night we were going to go to the stones. I remembered walking up the road by the farm, how big the countryside was all about me. It was so cold... I didn’t go to the stones, I don’t know why. I think I walked to Penzance. There was still a lot missing - I remember vaguely, very vaguely, waking up in an alleyway somewhere, hidden behind cardboard boxes. I went into a cafe somewhere – I remember the steamed up windows and they had plastic ketchup bottles on the tables that were shaped like tomatoes. A man sat opposite me and started talking to me – or did I go there with him? Then there’s nothing, a complete blank, for the next few years.
“Well, you can imagine. It was like an earthquake in the middle of my life. But in spite of it, I was glad. Because I’d always known that there was something more to my story than the bits that I could remember. It was like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.
“A journalist in one of the national papers did an article on all the famous kid disappearances. I think Ben Needham’s name was mentioned, and a few others, and just a little tiny paragraph at the end mentioned me. Jessica McGaskill. I was reading it in a coffee shop, and when I got to that bit I – I fainted. Fell right to the floor, got cappuccino everywhere.
“And after that, I knew. I knew who I was, or who I had been. I did my own research and I compared more memories, and I was certain. I was scanning the papers every day, to see if I could find anything else – I almost wrote to the journalist who had written the first piece but I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea... Anyway, one morning, there was something in the paper about Angus and the school thing that he owns – sorry, owned – a college, right? And as soon as I read that, I remembered your name. And I knew I had to find you.”
She stopped talking. We were the last people in the bar and the barman was stacking chairs around us. I unclenched my fingers from the edge of my chair.
Jessica was looking down at the table. She hadn’t looked at me once during her recital.
“It’s weird,” she said. “Being able to remember something and then you hit a complete wall. Like it’s a photograph in your mind and then you come to the blank part and it’s like the photo fades out. And there’s nothing left. Nothing you can see, anyway. But you know, deep down, you do know what happened. You just can’t retrieve the memory.”
I stood up abruptly. I still couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth to say something but I didn’t wait to hear it. I ran for the toilets and crashed open the cubicle door.
I didn’t vomit, although for a few minutes I was sure I was going to. I hung over the porcelain bowl, gagging and gulping. My whole body ached. Eventually, I stood upright, moving like an old woman. I felt faint.
I heard the door to the bar open and Jessica’s voice a moment later.
“Maudie, for God’s sake. Speak to me!”
I caught sight of my face in the mirror over her shoulder: I looked deathly white.
“Christ,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would get to you so badly.”
“Don’t worry.” My mouth felt numb – I couldn’t form the words properly.
“You’re as white as a ghost,” she said. “I think you need another drink.”
I managed to get back to the bar, walking by her side with her arm under mine. She ordered the drinks, triple vodkas for the both of us; just as well, as the barman would never have served me. Jessica steered me back to the table and we drank our drinks, grimacing, as if they were medicine.
“I’m sorry,” I said, managing to speak properly. “I don’t know what happened there.”
“You scared me.”
“I was scared myself.”
I felt as if I’d just avoided a terminal accident, or I’d stepped away from a crumbling cliff top just in time. I drank the rest of my drink and felt the vodka move through me at quicksilver speed, numbing me, protecting me. That awful feeling of panic subsided and I sighed.
“Jessica–” I began.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say anything now.”
“But–”
“That’s all there is,” she said. She sounded very sad. “That’s all that needs to be said.”
“But–”
Her chin came up again. Her eyes glittered. “That’s it. That’s all there is. The whole truth. So now you know.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
A shadow bent over me. I made a low noise in my throat, something like ‘ugh’. I felt the warm pressure of Matt’s hand on my shoulder.
“I’m off, darling. Don’t get up.”
I managed to raise my head two inches from the pillow. “What?”
The hand squeezed my shoulder. “I’m off, darling.” One final pat. I collapsed back onto the pillows. “Go back to sleep. You look all in.”
I didn’t hear him leave. The next thing I was aware of was the phone ringing. I buried my head in the pillow, wanting to shut out the real world for just a little bit longer.
My eyes remained stubbornly shut but now my mind was racing. I gave up, sitting up in the tangled bedsheets, and reached for the bedside clock. Ten thirty-two. I collapsed back on the bed with a groan.
The phone by the bed rang again, shatteringly, sending me upright and clutching my chest. I reached out a shaking hand to the receiver, then drew it back. I lay back down and pushed my head under the pillow.
The phone rang again. I kept my head under the pillow, listening to the ringing of the phone, once, twice, three, four, five – the answerphone clicked on and I heard the hesitant sound of a voice.
“Maudie, are you there? Maudie?”
It wasn’t her. I sat up, catching the next part of Becca’s message. “Maudie–”
I scrambled for the phone, and reached it just in time. “I’m here–”
“Maudie?” There was a gasp in her voice, as if she’d been crying. My mental antennae went up, quivering. Becca never cried.
“Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
There was a silence, and then another faint gasp. “Can I come round?”
“Now?” I looked down at myself, at my stained nightshirt and unshaven legs.
“Please. I need to talk to you.”