Where the Memories Lie (4 page)

What the hell did he mean he’d killed her? Killed who? Who

was Georgia?

It couldn’t be true, though. Absolutely not. Confusion was

a perfectly normal symptom of the disease. Maybe he’d seen a

TV programme about someone called Georgia who was killed,

although quite frankly, I didn’t think they should be letting the

residents watch stuff like that. Or maybe he’d been chatting to

one of the other patients whose daughter called Georgia had gone

missing.

Yes, that was it. That was absolutely it. I’d never heard Tom

mention anyone called Georgia before.

When I got home I made myself lunch and turned on the TV,

flicking through the channels to find something to distract me. I ate
Where the Memories Lie

a cheese and ham sandwich that I didn’t even taste, swallowing it

down with water to get it past my dry throat. I couldn’t even tell you what programme I watched.

After letting Poppy out into the garden to do her business,

I walked the ten minutes to work.

I was chock-a-block with patients from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m.

when the nurses’ appointments finished. I thought maybe dressing

changes and assisting with smear tests and blood pressure checks

would keep me occupied. Usually, I would have a great time chat-

ting with the patients, putting them at ease, finding out what they’d been up to − I’ve always been pretty nosy and love talking − except I couldn’t get it out of my mind: the look of guilt on Tom’s face. The desperation in his eyes. The fear.

When I walked back in the front door, Poppy greeted me, wag-

ging her tail so hard with excitement her whole backside shook.

I praised her, flapped her ears a bit, which she loved, and kicked off my shoes by the bottom of the stairs next to Anna’s.

‘You OK, darling?’ I called out.

‘Yeah,’ Anna said. ‘I’m in the kitchen.’

I walked up the hallway and found Anna sitting on a stool at

the island in the centre of our large farmhouse-style kitchen, which oozed sunlight and was the heart of the house. Her school books

were placed in neat rows over practically the whole surface. Pens of various colours were lined up horizontally in front of her. She was so precise about certain things I sometimes wondered if she had OCD,

but I always pushed that thought to the back of my mind. We all

had it to varying degrees, didn’t we? We all had routines, things that we liked just so. I’d seen far too many labels placed on kids these days. I wasn’t about to put one on my precious girl.

I kissed the top of her head. ‘How was school?’

‘Good. But I’ve got some maths homework I might need help

with. When’s Dad back?’

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Sibel Hodge

Ethan was the maths genius and always helped Anna out with

it. I could only add up with a calculator. I think I had number dys-lexia, or something. When I looked at numbers on a page they all

swam together.

‘He’ll be back Friday.’

‘But he’s always working away at the moment,’ she whined.

‘He’s overseeing a big project in York and he needs to be on

site. He can’t commute from there to Dorset every day; it’s too

far.’ I stroked her hair then peered in the fridge. My appetite still hadn’t returned, and I didn’t fancy cooking. What I fancied was a

big glass of wine. ‘He’s going to call later so you can have a chat, though.’

‘OK.’ She bent over her notebook and underlined something

neatly with a red marker pen and a ruler. ‘I’ve got to do a project on capital punishment for Religion and Ethics.’

‘Oh, how nice,’ I drawled. I’d had a meeting with the school

recently about them wanting to fast-track Anna through some

of her subjects because they’d classified her as ‘gifted’. Ethan and I had debated this for a while. I didn’t think the school should be bandying about those kinds of terms. What about the other kids

who weren’t gifted? How would it make them feel? Still, Anna was

very intelligent, and we’d decided in the end to go ahead with it. It meant she was learning some of the curriculum a lot earlier than she should’ve been, but she was clearly enjoying it, and from her reports she was doing really well.

‘It’s really interesting, actually,’ she said. ‘What do you think

about the death penalty?’

What a cheery pre-dinner conversation. ‘We don’t have the

death penalty in the UK.’

‘Yes, I know, but I don’t think I can put that excuse on my

homework as to why I haven’t done it. We’ve got to consider the

ethics behind it.’

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Where the Memories Lie

‘Um . . . well, let me see.’ I shut the door on the pretty much

empty fridge. Unless I could make something out of a lone cheese

triangle, some dried-up flat leaf parsley, a wrinkly mushroom and

a potato with sprouty bits on it, then dinner would be of the

takeaway variety. ‘I think if you’re guilty of committing a crime −

and presumably to get the death penalty we’re talking terrible

types of murder − then I think you’d probably deserve it. I mean,

take Myra Hindley, for example. What if she’d ever been let out

of prison before she died? Or Peter Sutcliffe? People wouldn’t

be safe, would they?’ I explained who they were. ‘So the death

penalty could be for the protection of the public to make sure it

doesn’t ever happen again. Plus, it would hopefully put people

off doing such crimes in the first place and the crime rate might

go down.’

‘Actually, from the research I’ve been doing so far, about

90 percent of top criminologists in America think that the death

penalty doesn’t act as a deterrent to reduce murder or violent crimes.

And . . .’ she lifted her pen in the air and pointed it at me, ‘doesn’t it actually make you as bad as the criminal if you kill them?’

‘No.’

‘Why? It violates their human rights.’

I rolled my eyes. I hated these in-depth ethics homework

debates. Sometimes you just know things, don’t you? You know

things are right or wrong, but you don’t want to spend all night

analyzing
why
you know it. ‘Because people who kill and rape and torture shouldn’t have any human rights. They gave them up when

they did whatever heinous crime they committed. And if a bunch

of psychos were allowed to wreak havoc and do whatever they

wanted without consequences, then we’d be living in a world of

anarchy and chaos, wouldn’t we?’ Although I sometimes thought

we already
were
living in such a world, anyway, but we were calling the psychos ‘governments’. ‘Every action has a reaction. Every deed 21

Sibel Hodge

has a consequence. There’s always a price to pay. And people have to think about that before they commit crimes.’

‘Yes, but two wrongs don’t make a right.’

‘Sometimes they do.’

‘You could make the criminal pay back to society by serving

their time in prison instead. That would also give them punishment

for what they’d done and would still protect the public.’

‘Not if they got let out again, which happens a lot now due

to overcrowding. Most of the time they only serve piddly little

sentences these days. And I wonder how many prisoners actually

reoffend. Have you researched that yet?’

‘No, but that’s a good point, Mum.’ She scribbled that down.

‘Yes, I make them occasionally.’

‘Shouldn’t they have a second chance to become educated

in prison and change so they could start a new life when they’re

released?’

‘Not everyone deserves a second chance.’

‘What if the person was innocent, though, and they got the

death penalty and were executed? Then you would’ve killed an

innocent person.’ She sat back smugly and crossed her arms. ‘That

wouldn’t be justice, would it? We’d be as bad as they were for

supposedly murdering someone.’

‘Do you want a delivery pizza for dinner?’ I changed the subject,

not really wanting to talk about death anymore. It made me think

of what Tom had said again, and I wanted to get it out of my head

because there was no way it could possibly be true.

The guilt of not providing a healthy, home-cooked meal like

Nadia would be doing right now was cancelled out by the excitement

on Anna’s face.

‘Yeah!’ Her eyes lit up. ‘Ham and mushroom?’

‘If you like.’

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Where the Memories Lie

I ordered the pizza, fed Poppy and poured myself a large glass of

something Australian, fruity and red. Ethan knew all about differ-

ent kinds of wine. I just knew about drinking it. Pulling up a stool, I sat next to Anna and stared into space.

‘What do you think?’ she asked a few minutes later, popping

the cap back on her marker pen.

‘Pardon?’

‘Weren’t you listening?’

‘Um . . . sorry, I was miles away.’

‘About penicillin?’

‘I know all about penicillin. What about it?’ I said, thinking

back to my medical training.

‘No, it’s OK. That would be cheating if I asked you. I’m going

to do some research on the Internet about it.’ She slid off the stool, tidying her books into a neat pile. ‘I’ve just started doing the history of medicine.’

Conscientious to a fault, my daughter. I wondered how long

it would be before it all went wrong. Before she locked herself in

her room and only came out to eat. Before the only response I’d get from her would be a monosyllabic grunt. When she wouldn’t want

to be seen dead in public with me or Ethan, and would take the

advice of her friends over her parents. Before she stayed up all night partying and slept all day. I dreaded the thought of when it would

all change. I didn’t like change.

Later, I was on my third glass of wine, staring through

the window of the kitchen into the dark woods behind, when the

phone rang.

‘I’ll get it!’ Anna shouted from the lounge and picked up the

wireless phone. ‘Dad!’

I heard her chatting and laughing with Ethan but I couldn’t

make out what they were saying. I was too busy deciding how to

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Sibel Hodge

broach the subject of what Tom had said. In between swigs of wine I chewed on the skin at the side of my thumbnail until I drew blood.

Fifteen minutes later, Anna padded gracefully into the kitchen

like a dancer, all skinny long limbs and perfect posture. Not like some of the kids in her class who slouched all over the place. I wanted to tell them they’d end up with neck and shoulder problems later in

life. She handed me the phone and padded out again.

‘Hi, sexy,’ I said to him, watching Anna’s retreating back.

Anna glanced over her shoulder and pulled a face at the word

‘sexy’, miming sticking her fingers down her throat.

‘Hi, darling. How’s everything going?’

‘I’m going to take this upstairs.’ I slid off the stool, picked up

my wine and went up to our bedroom, shutting the door firmly.

‘Oh, sounds ominous. What’s Anna been up to that you don’t

want her to hear? Did she get caught shoplifting? Or try to get

served at the Kings’ Arms with a fake ID?’

I laughed but it sounded flat. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with Anna.

It’s Tom.’

‘Dad? Why? What’s happened?’ His voice rose with concern.

I lay on my side on our king-sized bed, head propped up with

one hand. ‘I don’t know how to say this, but when I got to the nursing home today, Mary said he’d been having some bad dreams and

acting agitated afterwards.’

‘I thought you were going tomorrow, not today.’

By then, I’d completely forgotten what Nadia had told me

before about Lucas and his possible affair. I wanted to tell Ethan

about that, too, ask his opinion, but I’d promised to keep her secret.

‘Well, Nadia was tied up with some stuff so I said I’d go. Anyway,

Tom’s been acting strange after these dreams, they said.’

‘He’s got Alzheimer’s. He’s been acting strange for years. And

he’s had bad dreams for a long time. What do you mean by strange?’

I stared up at the ceiling and took a breath.

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Where the Memories Lie

‘Liv?’

There was no easy way to repeat what Tom had told me so I just

blurted it out. ‘He said he’d killed someone called Georgia.’

Silence on the other end. Then, ‘What do you mean? Killed

someone?’

‘Just what I said. Tom’s been dreaming about someone called

Georgia. Afterwards, he gets very upset and agitated, so much so

that Mary asked if I knew anyone called Georgia because Tom told

her she’d disappeared.’

‘Disappeared? Well, who is this Georgia?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to explain. I asked him

about her and he said she was haunting him. That she wouldn’t

leave him alone. And then, when I took him outside for a walk

and some fresh air, he told me he’d killed her.’ My head throbbed.

Probably with the wine, but maybe from anxiety, too.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Liv!’

‘I’m not being ridiculous. I’m not being anything. I’m just

repeating something Tom told me and the staff.’

‘Well, it doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t even know anyone

called Georgia. Neither do I. He’s just confused. I mean, last week he came out with a really obscure story about walking along the

Great Wall of China, and he’s never even been there!’

I rubbed my forehead. ‘I know, I know. I’ve been thinking of all

the strange things he’s talked about lately that either didn’t happen or didn’t happen like he’s remembering them. It’s just . . .’