Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (2 page)

I looked beside me.

Janet was there with me, holding my hand, caring for me.

How could I tell her what I’d just seen?

I turned these thoughts away, pretending they were a dream. “You’re still here. Been here all night?”

Her voice was warm, reassuring. “As if I’d be going anywhere.”

“Tell me who I am.”

She didn’t show surprise. Mr. Healey must have been talking with her, telling her about the long road I needed to travel. “Where do you want to begin?”

“At the beginning.”

Janet told me my name is Tom Markland. By next month we’ll have been married for five years. I’m a reporter, working for
The Herald
, making a name for myself as an investigative journalist. We don’t have children yet, though we’re trying.

It sounded as if she was speaking about someone else. But I trusted her. She was all I had. It must be me. I had to listen and learn these things about myself. Then, and only then, would I find a way to recall it all.

“Where do we live?”

She didn’t show any surprise at my question. “I told you that, dear. In Lichfield.” She paused and squeezed my hand. “Mr. Healey says you’re making good physical progress since they admitted you and you can go home in a few days provided you take complete rest. You can see the house then. It will help you piece things together.”

I held on to those words.

Janet travelled with me in the ambulance that took me home.

To Lichfield. Lombard Street. A Georgian property not far from the cathedral. It had a high-walled garden with fruit trees, flowers and a small summer-house nestling under an ancient elm, an old deck chair beneath it. I lay in bed, raising my head high enough to look out through the window, and tried to imagine myself sitting in that deck chair, feeling that I belonged. But the thoughts of belonging wouldn’t come.

My body hurt. I knew it would mend. Putting my mind back together would take longer.

Janet was doing her best to fill in the gaps, telling me more about our life together. How we met while out running in Beacon Park. How she’d been the first to speak.

She smiled. “I just about picked you up. But I knew you were the one the moment I first saw you.”

I tried to recall it but I didn’t remember it at all.

She continued. “It was springtime. And raining. I slipped. You came over to see if I was all right. And I made sure you wouldn’t just go on by asking you to run with me for awhile, until I was sure I was OK.”

I held her hand. I wanted to believe this was the way it was. “Yes, I remember. I do remember. The park. The rain.”

She kissed me. “You see, you will recall it all.”

But I didn’t and I feared I never would.

How could I tell her that the only memories I had were of being unfaithful to her and of killing those girls?

How could I tell her what I recalled about the real me.

The one who had been unfaithful to her.

The one who had killed more than once.

Next day Janet began to take me through my life.

Where I went to school.

My friends there.

She had photographs downloaded to her tablet and she showed them to me. “Class 11, Nottinghamshire High. You’re the spotty one at the back.” She pointed at the screen. “You see this lad at the front?”

“The blonde-haired one?”

“That’s Bill Everett. He was best man at our wedding.”

I searched the young Bill Everett’s face but I didn’t recognize him.

She stroked the screen. A photograph of our wedding. She pointed again. “Here’s Bill again at our reception. He gave the funniest speech about what you and he got up to as students. Made my mother blush.”

I inspected Bill’s face once more. Likable. Intelligent looking. But no one I could say I’d ever seen before this moment.

I tried to reassure Janet. “Yes. Bill Everett. What’s he doing now?”

“He’s a journalist, like you. Comes from you both studying Politics at Essex, I’m sure.”

I tried to recall being there, studying, taking exams, being the radical student - but nothing came.

She stroked the screen again. “Your parents. At the wedding. John and Maggie.”

I stared at the screen, hoping this would be the moment when I started to reconnect with my past, but I had to admit to myself that I might as well have been looking at two strangers. “They look happy.”

“And so they were. Happy for their son.”

“Can I meet them?”

She looked down. “I thought twice about showing them to you, Tom. But Mr. Healey told me it would be better for you to know. They both died. A car crash on the M6. They were cut from the wreckage but they couldn’t be saved.”

“I’m an only child?”

“No, you have a sister. Marianne.” Janet stroked the screen and there was a sunlit Marianne, wearing shades, big wide smile.

“When can I meet her?”

“She lives in Florida. Out on the Keys. Married to Alan, a health drinks franchise owner. They have three children. She’s trying to find a way to get over here, told me she’s anxious to see you.”

I was learning everything that Janet was telling me, building a picture of who I was.

But none of it felt like me.

That night.

Lying in bed next to Janet.

Wide awake.

Another bolt-lightning stream of memory. Vivid. Seeing myself doing these things.

Margot.

Athletic. Twenty. An illustrator.

We’re looking at one of her drawings for a children’s book. Her first real commission.

It’s good.

We’re in that room again, the one with the books lining the wood paneled walls.

I’m being unfaithful again. Unfaithful to Janet.

I know what’s coming next. A waking nightmare I don’t want to see.

I’m forcing Margot back down onto the couch, gripping her by the neck, squeezing the life out of her, listening to her last gasps.

I want to look away but I have to watch.

I can see the hands gripping Margot’s neck, the same hands that gripped Cathy’s neck, that gripped Rebecca’s neck. But now for the first time I see the forearms, reaching forward, struggling to exert the power to complete the act.

The nightmare vision continues. I’m killing Margot, watching her die.

But what did I see?

As Margot was being killed.

On the left forearm I saw a tattoo.

A single red rose.

I struggled out of the bed, put the light on in the bathroom and looked at my forearms.

No tattoos.

It wasn’t me.

It couldn’t have been me doing those killings.

If it wasn’t me, why was I seeing them?

Why were these memories the only ones I could recall?

I had to believe it wasn’t me.

I had to believe.

Each day I was learning more about who I was from Janet.

Our honeymoon in Venice. The hotel in the Dorsoduro, not far from the Academia, where we stayed. The walks along the narrow alleyways to the square overlooking the Grand Canal.

Janet played the music we listened to then. Our song. Van Morrison. ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’. She told me how I called her my brown-eyed girl.

We’re there in photographs on Janet’s tablet. Standing on the steps of the Academia Bridge, smiling.

Younger. Happier. Together and in love.

I wished I could believe this was me. I wished I could remember being there with Janet.

I couldn’t tell her that what I was doing was learning this from her. I was not recalling this for myself. This was not the spark that unlocked the memory of who I was.

But I learned this and told her that it was all coming back.

She told me about my work for the newspaper.
The Herald
. “Investigative journalism is somewhat out of favor these days. You know, too many people viewing too much media, on their smart phones and having too little time to take in anything in depth, but you’ve been making quite a name for yourself. Reporting crime. Exposing wrongdoing. You’re a rising star and I’m proud of you.”

I tried to connect with this world I now knew so little about. “I don’t feel much like a rising star at the moment.”

“That’s to be expected. After what happened. But you’re on the mend now. You’ll soon be back.”

She showed me photographs of my colleagues at
The
Herald
. The annual dinner to celebrate the year’s journalism awards. Everyone in evening dress.

I was looking at a five-man group, all smiling, all pleased with themselves.

Janet pointed to the balding, overweight man at the center of the group.

“That’s Evan Hamilton, your Editor.”

“My boss?”

She nodded. “You’ve had more than a few run-ins with him over the years but I’ve heard you say more than once that he’s firm but fair.”

I turned back to look at the group. I was there next to Hamilton. “Why do we look so pleased?”

“The team had just won the
Insight Award
for their work on financial wrongdoing in the City. People went to prison over what they exposed. You’d just joined the team and there you were at the awards ceremony.”

“Who are the others?”

She pointed to each of the remaining faces in turn.

The first was a tall, thin type with a beard. “This is Jason Blair. The glamour boy of the office. Word is he’d have a fling with just about anything in a skirt. But you’ve told me more than once that the team wouldn’t have succeeded without his skills in convincing whistle-blowers to come forward.”

I took this in. I learned it. But inside I was feeling this was just another face I’d never met.

She pointed to the next man. “Tim Mason. He’s been with the paper since anyone can remember.”

I was trying to recall him, this man who must be important to my work but the longer I stared at his angular face, the more I knew that it was as if I’d never met him.

Janet could see I was having problems recalling any of them. “Don’t worry, love. Don’t take it as a bad sign that you can’t recall them yet. Give it time.”

I shook my head. “It’s painful, Janet. Not recognizing these people when I must have been working with them.”

I looked back at the photograph. “So, who’s the fifth man?”

She leaned back. “I think his name is Tunny. Geoff Tunny. But to me he’s just someone else who worked in your team at the paper. Someone I never met and someone you never said much about.”

I stared at him for a long time, wishing what I must know about him would return.

He looked older than me. Had a crooked face. A knowing look in his eyes.

But I could recall nothing about him.

Janet told me that was enough for today, that I shouldn’t overload myself with too much information all at once.

I wanted to tell her that for all her hard work the only events I could recall in truth were the deaths of those young women. I worried that if I told her, even she wouldn’t understand. But I needed to tell someone.

Instead I asked her what the police were doing about what happened to me. “Have the police found anything yet? About how I ended up in the North Dock?”

Her reply was calm and considered but I could tell from the quiver in her voice that she was concerned at the lack of progress the police were making. “They’re still investigating, dear. We need to give them time.”

“But there’s been nothing more from them, nothing since I gave them the statement in the hospital?”

“Nothing yet. If there are no other witnesses, it may be difficult.”

“You mean I may be the only witness and I can’t remember a thing about it.”

She squeezed my hand. “It’s too soon to worry about that, Tom. There will be plenty of time to talk to them once you recall what happened.”

I was feeling stronger. The pain in my body was lessening each day.

I decided to go out for a walk.

I didn’t tell Janet.

I wanted to know if I belonged on these streets, in this city.

Walking wasn’t that difficult. The pain lessened with each step.

It was just a small distance down Lombard Street to the Tanneries. I knew where this led. It was the narrow alley that ran alongside the abandoned cinema, a short cut that would take me onto Dam Street and on towards the center of the medieval city.

I walked along the alley and made it onto Dam Street, on past the centuries old squat houses, many now converted into shops and cafés, and up to Speaker’s Corner. I knew what I would find. There was a stand where anyone could have their say but too few did.

I knew when I turned that corner, I’d be facing on to Minster Pool.

It was raining. There was a young father with his four year old daughter and he was showing her how to throw bread to the ducks. I stopped and watched the delight on her face as a mother duck with a trail of five ducklings paddled over from the other side of the pool and started lapping up the bread from the water. The father had set his umbrella to one side on the low iron fence that surrounded the pool. It overbalanced and fell into the water. He groped down to retrieve it but couldn’t quite reach. He smiled at the thought that he was going to have to leave it there and get wet while his daughter, dressed for the weather in rain hat and coat, would be as dry as a bone.

The sight of the umbrella falling into the water sent a shock of fear throughout me. My heart began to pound. My stomach clenched. I broke out into a nervous sweat. I tried to walk on but my legs felt so weak I was unable to move.

I was back in the water. Back in the North Dock. Feeling the cold, cold water filling my lungs. Sinking. Drowning. Drowning again.

I gripped the railings that surrounded the pool and tried to breathe. I felt for my pulse. It was racing.

The young father came over and offered to help. “You OK?”

I concentrated on making a reply. “I’m fine. Just a turn. It will pass.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded. “It will pass.”

He took his daughter’s hand and walked on in the rain.

As I watched them walk away, I realized he’d helped me. The moment had passed. So long as I didn’t look towards the pool, so long as I didn’t think about the volume of water held there. I would be fine.

The fear had passed. But I now knew that at any time it could return.

I made it to the path that ran alongside the pool and turned right at Bird Street, up a short hill.

I knew where this would lead. To the Close, past Erasmus Darwin’s house, and then to the first full view of the three-spired Cathedral itself.

I knew these things.

I knew I belonged here.

So why couldn’t I remember who I was?

Why didn’t this give me back my past?

I walked into this ancient space. Where St Chad was buried, where the townsfolk fought for a Parliament, where Samuel Johnson walked and, yes, I knew these things about this place.

It was somewhere I should call home.

I stopped walking and looked up at the stone statues of the saints that peopled the front face of the Cathedral. So many saints, too many sinners down here on the ground.

When I made it back to Lombard Street, Janet was relieved yet agitated. “Tom, don’t do that again. Please. Don’t go out like that without telling me.”

“I had to find out.”

“Find out what?”

“If I belong here.”

“You’re wet right through.”

I thought of the young father and his daughter at the pond side. “I didn’t feel the rain.”