She lay on her back, concentrating on the details to fight off the pain. The wall wasn’t pocked: that was an illusion caused by paint peeling off the concrete. Grey paint. She wondered who on earth bothered to paint concrete grey. The beeping wasn’t irregular: it came from two sources, subtly out of rhythm with each other. One started behind the other, closed in on it until – for a few merciful seconds – they ran almost in synchrony, then overtook it and pulled away.
The roof wasn’t all white. Dark patches stained the tiles like spilled wine.
The smudge on the window moved. It wasn’t on the window: it was outside, someone standing with his back to the door. She waited for him to go away, but he didn’t.
Where am I? she thought. And then, a second later and infinitely more terrifying, Who am I?
Panic seized her. She tried to get up and found she couldn’t move. The panic redoubled; she couldn’t breathe. Her heart raced out of control so fast she thought it would explode. The room began to go dark. She writhed and fought; she screamed.
The door flew open. A man in a tight-fitting suit burst through, shouting words she couldn’t understand. His jacket flapped open. A gun bulged from a brown leather holster under his arm.
She passed out.
‘Abigail? Can you hear me?’
The panic was still there, but now it was dormant, a slow fuse burning a hole in her gut. Her breaths came shallow and unfulfilling. She tried to move her arm and couldn’t. The breaths came faster. Keep calm.
She located the beeping noise and listened, forcing herself to fix on one rhythm among the syncopation. She tried to breathe in time with it. She felt herself relax a fraction – enough that she dared to open her eyes.
A face stared down at her. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown beard. Was he real? Or had her imagination formed him from the brown stains on the roof?
The face moved. The roof didn’t.
‘Abigail Cormac?’ he said again.
‘I don’t know …’
‘Don’t you remember …?’
The panic quickened. Should I remember? What should I remember? Is it important? Her mind felt as helpless as her body, pushing against bonds it couldn’t see.
‘I don’t.’
‘Nothing?’ Incredulous. That only made the desperation worse.
The face drew away. She heard the scrape of a chair. When the face reappeared, it was lower and further back, a sun on the horizon of her flat world.
‘Your name is Abigail Cormac. You work for the Foreign Office on secondment to the EULEX mission in Kosovo. You were on holiday here and things went wrong.’
That sounded mostly right. Like seeing the film of a book you’d read. Some things skipped or not quite right, others changed for no apparent reason. She peered at him.
‘Who are you?’
‘Norris, from the embassy here. Podgorica. It’s …’
‘… the capital of Montenegro.’ It came out of nowhere, surprising her as much as him. How did I know that?
The brown eyes narrowed. ‘So you do remember.’
‘Yes. No. I don’t …’ She struggled, trying to articulate it. ‘I know some things. When you say words like “British Embassy” or “Kosovo” or “holiday”, it makes sense. I understand you. But if you ask me a question, there’s nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
She struggled to think. The effort exhausted her.
‘There was a man with a gun,’ she said carefully. Trying on the words like a dress she didn’t think would fit.
‘Do you remember him?’
She closed her eyes, trying to squeeze the image back into them. ‘A blue suit. He came through the door.’
‘At the villa?’
‘Here. In this room.’
Norris sat back with a sigh. ‘That was this morning. They’ve put a police guard on your door. He heard you screaming and came to make sure you were OK.’
A police guard? ‘Am I in trouble?’
‘You really don’t remember?’
She wished he’d stop saying that. She let her head slump back on the stiff pillow. ‘Just tell me.’
He glanced towards the door, as if looking for confirmation of something. Abby felt a new stab of panic. Is there someone else here? She tried to lift her head, but couldn’t see.
‘You were shot. All we know is that when the police turned up, you were lying there half-dead. Blood everywhere, a bullet inside you. They found your passport and called us. As for your husband …’
Something tightened inside her. ‘What about him?’
‘Do you remember?’
She shook her head. Norris shot another sidling glance into the corner.
‘There’s no easy way to say this. I’m sorry to inform you that your husband is dead.’
‘Hector?’
Now it was Norris’s turn to look baffled. ‘Who’s Hector?’
I don’t know, she wanted to scream. The name had come to her like a ghost, unbidden and unexpected. ‘Isn’t he my husband?’
But even as she said it, she knew that wasn’t right. I’m not married, she thought. And then, with the ghost of a smile, I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.
Norris was looking at a piece of paper. ‘According to his passport, his name was Michael Lascaris.’
And that did mean something. The smile left her; she slumped back in the bed. The monitor raced away at a million miles an hour. Beep. A red sports car gunning through mountains. Beep. A dark bay and a bright pool and dead faces watching from their plinths. Beep beep. Waking up in the middle of the night. A man with a gun. A struggle. The scream as Michael fell over the cliff – her scream. Beep beep beep beep beep …
Someone banged through the door – not a man with a gun, but a woman in green overalls with a syringe in her hand. ‘Wait,’ she heard Norris say. ‘Give her a chance.’
But they wouldn’t give her a chance. Strong hands clamped around her arm and a sharp point slid into her flesh. The monitor slowed its runaway pace.
Then there was silence.
‘So you remember Michael Lascaris?’
The metronome beat of the monitor was stable now, a gentle andante. They’d sat Abby up in her bed, though she couldn’t move much more. A plaster cast covered her right arm and shoulder, entombing her chest and most of her stomach. Somewhere underneath, she’d been told, was the bullet wound.
You were shot. It still didn’t seem like her. Being shot happened to other people – victims. Abby had seen enough wounds in her old job to know they weren’t just things that happened on TV or in the cinema, but there’d still been the distance. You suffer, I pity.
‘Do you remember Michael?’
‘He drove a Porsche.’
Norris’s piece of paper had grown into a folder. He flicked through the pages.
‘A 1968 Porsche Targa, red, UK registration?’
Abby shrugged her one good shoulder. ‘It was red.’
She wasn’t trying to be flippant – not much – but Norris took it badly. He stood, flapping his folder at her.
‘I know you’re in a bad way – Christ, you’re lucky to be alive – but you have to understand how serious this is. Someone bursts into a house and attacks two European diplomats. It doesn’t look good.’
He didn’t burst in, Abby thought. He was already there, out by the pool with Michael.
‘The Montenegrins are running around like it’s the end of the world. They’re terrified it’s going to cause a storm in Brussels, derail their EU application, put them on a terrorist blacklist or whatever. Frankly, they’re overreacting.’ A stern glare, as if it was her fault. ‘You’re not that important.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But we’re still trying to keep it quiet. It doesn’t look too good for us either. Pretty embarrassing, to be honest.’