Mr. Nobody Read online

  Mr. Nobody is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Catherine Steadman Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Steadman, Catherine, author.

  Title: Mr. Nobody: a novel / Catherine Steadman.

  Other titles: Mister Nobody

  Description: First Edition. | New York: Ballantine Books, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019035576 (print) | LCCN 2019035577 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524797683 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984819925 (international edition) | ebook ISBN 9781524797690

  Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.T4265 M7 2020 (print) | LCC PS3619.T4265 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019035576

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019035577

  randomhousebooks.com

  Title-page image: © iStockphoto.com

  Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán

  Cover photograph: Shutterstock

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Man

  Chapter 2: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 3: The Man

  Chapter 4: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 5: The Man

  Chapter 6: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 7: The Man

  Chapter 8: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 9: The Man

  Chapter 10: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 11: The Man

  Chapter 12: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 13: The Man

  Chapter 14: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 15: The Man

  Chapter 16: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 17: The Man

  Chapter 18: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 19: The Man

  Chapter 20: The Man

  Chapter 21: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 22: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 23: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 24: Zara and Chris

  Chapter 25: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 26: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 27: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 28: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 29: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 30: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 31: The Man

  Chapter 32: Zara Poole

  Chapter 33: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 34: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 35: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 36: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 37: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 38: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 39: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 40: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 41: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 42: The Man

  Chapter 43: Zara and Chris

  Chapter 44: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 45: Chris Poole

  Chapter 46: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 47: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Chapter 48: The Man

  Chapter 49: Dr. Emma Lewis

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Catherine Steadman

  About the Author

  Better by far you should forget and smile

  Than that you should remember and be sad.

  —CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, “REMEMBER”

  Yesterday, upon the stair,

  I met a man who wasn’t there

  He wasn’t there again today

  I wish, I wish he’d go away…

  When I came home last night at three

  The man was waiting there for me

  But when I looked around the hall

  I couldn’t see him there at all!

  Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!

  Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door.

  Last night I saw upon the stair

  A little man who wasn’t there

  He wasn’t there again today

  Oh, how I wish he’d go away…

  —HUGHES MEARNS, “ANTIGONISH”

  If the car crashed at this speed the impact wouldn’t be enough to kill us instantly. Which you might think is a good thing.

  But it’s not.

  The one thing worse than dying on impact is not quite dying on impact. Trust me, I know, I’m a doctor. And now that I’m thinking about it—I’d be genuinely surprised if this rental car even has airbags.

  Sparkling snow-covered fields hurtle by at speed. White-dusted hedgerows, sheep, ruts, and ditches—the background of my childhood, a winter blur of pastoral England. Crisp sunlight high in a rich cobalt sky.

  I flash a look to the driver—face locked in concentration—as the brakes squeal and we change down a gear, grinding into another blind corner. All I can do is will us on and hope we make it in time. Before my patient does something terrible.

  We accelerate out of the bend, the drag of it pulling us sideways, perilously close to the narrow lane’s now forest-lined edges. I let the imagined consequences of a car crash flash through my mind: I see the fragile sweetmeat of our neocortexes smashing forward at a hundred miles per hour into a quarter of an inch of solid skull bone. I hear the thick packed-meat sound of our heads connecting with the dark matte-gray plastic of the dashboard and then, instantly, whiplashing back into our headrests with blunt force. A double cranial impact. War on two fronts. The reason armies get defeated.

  That delicate gray matter that we all take for granted, the part of our bodies that makes us us. All that we are, crashing forward and backward at high velocity into our own skulls. Frontal, parietal, and occipital blunt-force trauma. Massive hemorrhaging, internal bleeding, bruising, and atrophy. Dead tissue. The brain damaged beyond repair. Who we were: gone.

  And then a new thought tops those terrifying images: Even if we somehow managed to survive all that, I’m probably the only person who would be able to fix us afterward. I’m the only doctor with relevant clinical experience in a hundred-mile radius. The irony smarts.

  We swerve tight around another bend, branches jab into the broken window next to me, and I dodge farther into the car.

  I need to focus.

  I squeeze my bleeding fist, hard, letting the pain thunder through me. Focus. No more mistakes. This is all my fault. Everything that’s happened. I could have stopped all of this if I’d only done better, looked harder. If I’d picked up on certain things, if I’d seen the signs.

  My eyes flick up to the road ahead of us. I see it fast approaching on the horizon: the lay-by, the path that leads directly down to the sea. That wild expanse of water. That’s where he’ll b
e. If we’re not too late.

  There was another time, long ago, when I wasn’t focused either. I missed the signs then too and I let something very bad happen. But not this time. I promise. This time will be different. So different. This time I will stop something awful from happening. I will fix it this time.

  And, if I’m brutally honest with myself, perhaps this is exactly what I’ve always wanted it to come to. A chance to fix things this time around.

  I mean, no one becomes a psychiatrist by accident.

  1

  THE MAN

  DAY 1

  The bright glare of light as the soft skin of two eyelids part.

  A body sprawled on the sand.

  The fast flutter of eyelashes as awareness blossoms within and, just like that, he’s awake. Consciousness floods through him; he feels the skin of his cheek pressed against the brittle cold of the beach. Confusion.

  Sounds of the sea. Waves crash and pull back, the pop and shhh.

  It’s early morning in January. A British beach in the depths of winter. Miles of golden-white Norfolk shore with the crisp dawn light throwing everything into high definition.

  Wind-borne sand grains blow in architectural ripples across the flats straight into the man’s unprotected face. He squeezes his eyes tight shut against the sting of it.

  A hot throb of pain crests sharply inside his skull, and the papery skin around his eyes creases deeper, his forehead puckering, as he flinches from it. The unanticipated pang lengthens, stretching itself inside his head, almost too much to take. A sharp gasp of breath and the pain stabs back, harder. His hot exhale drifting away in the cold sea wind.

  He tries to relax into the pain, letting the wave of agony wash through him, over him. And it seems to work; the feeling begins to still within him. He lies there limp on the sand for what seems like an eternity, letting the restless throb slowly quiet.

  He hurts everywhere. The ghost of a thought drifts through his mind.

  Where am I? It floats gossamer thin in the air, fluttering just beyond his reach.

  He takes another cautious breath and tentatively tries to raise his head, careful not to stir the lurking pain nestling in his skull. Damp sand, like candied sugar crystals, sticks to his stubbled cheek as he shifts his weight up onto aching forearms, cautiously testing the limit of their strength as he squints out into the morning light.

  How did I get here?

  Gulls skip along the sand as he searches the landscape for an answer—but nothing here looks familiar.

  What happened?

  He takes in the silent forest that backs the beach, its dark canopy beyond unreadable. No clues. No hook to hang understanding on.

  Okay. Where was I before I was here?

  He looks up at the haunting gray vault of winter sky hanging overhead and wonders if he might be dreaming. If he might be in bed, safe back at home, wherever that might be. But the clouds look back, heavy and full of rain. He shivers.

  It is only now that he notices his clothes are wet, their sodden fabric clammy against his skin. He shudders, cold to his bones. He must move, he knows that much, he must get warm, or risk freezing in this weather.

  He needs shelter. He looks back toward the trees that skirt the beach. The wind whips sharp needles of sand into his skin, tiny pinpricks against his numbed flesh.

  Struggling clumsily to his feet, he begins to process the extent of his injuries as each muscle is asked to move.

  Upright, he hesitates. He turns in a small circle, checking the sand around where he lay. A natural instinct telling him to look, nothing more. To look for things he may have lost, belongings left behind, although what those would be he does not know. But then, he must have some belongings, mustn’t he?

  He thinks for a second before jabbing his numb hands into his wet pockets.

  There must be something.

  His pockets are empty. He is momentarily flummoxed into inaction.

  Wait. What the hell is going on?

  He runs a quick hand through his damp hair, trying to grapple back control of the situation, trying to wrangle the logic of it. He must remember something, surely? His hand skims the back of his head, and the throb of agony at the base of his skull washes over him again, pinching tight. He sucks in a sharp breath and whips back his hand to see the dark smear on his fingers.

  Blood.

  He squeezes his eyes shut, breathing through the pain as it slowly subsides. When he opens his eyes, he notices something, on the other side of his hand. He turns his palm over and there on the back in blue ink—writing. A faint ink mark faded by seawater, a word. He stares down at it, perplexed.

  Strange. What does it mean?

  The word dances on the tip of his recollection, the answer so close he could almost reach out and grasp it. But it rolls away, out of reach, evasive, mercurial. Like the bright filaments that play on the inside of his eyelids each time he closes them.

  He shudders, the cold snapping him back to the immediate situation. He needs shelter.

  It will come back, he tells himself. He gives himself a brisk shake and starts to walk inland purposefully.

  Wet sand squelches up between his bare toes as he walks, cold and thick like poured concrete. All the while the tendrils of his brain search, delicately, for something to cling onto.

  What is the last thing you remember?

  Silence. The sound of sea-foam bubbling and popping as it dries in the wind.

  His thoughts roll on.

  How did I end up here?

  Did something happen to me?

  Suddenly the realization hits him. He stops abruptly.

  Wait. Who am I? What’s my name?

  He stands frozen, his short brown hair tousled by the wind. His mind races.

  Where am I from?

  He can’t remember. He looks down quickly at the blood smear across his hand. The word on the other side. The panic rising now with incredible speed.

  Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I remember my name?

  The weight of what this means bears down on him with each cold snatched breath he takes. Fear pumping through him, primal and quickening.

  Oh God. It’s all gone.

  His world shrinks to a pinhead and then dilates so wide, suddenly terrifyingly borderless. He has no edges anymore. Who is he? He has no self. He feels the panic roaring inside him, escalating, his heart tripping faster. His mind frantically searches for something—anything—to grab hold of, his eyes wildly scanning the landscape around him. But there is no escape from it, the void. He is here and there is no before. There are no answers.

  Thoughts thrumming, he fumbles to check his empty pockets again. Nothing. No ID, no phone, no wallet, no keys, nothing with a name on it. No way to find out.

  He tries to slow his breathing, to stay calm. He tries to think clearly.

  If something has happened, someone will find me. Someone will find me and take me back to where I was before. I’ll remember. Someone will know me. And everything will come back. It will be okay. I just need to find someone.

  He looks up, eyes finding the forest again, and the indent of a path. He sets off, his pace frenetic. He needs to find someone.

  Wait.

  He stops abruptly again. A jolt of self-preservation.

  Maybe you’re out here alone for a reason.

  He studies the word written on his hand. It is all he has to go on but it is not enough.

  Is it a reminder? A warning?

  Perhaps something very bad has happened? He thinks of his head wound. If he was attacked, being found wouldn’t be the best idea, at least until he knows what happened, or who he is. He could still be in danger. It’s impossible to tell yet.

  He commits the word on his hand to memory and then he rubs the ink away against his wet trousers until the mark is
gone. He’ll remember it. Best to cover the evidence in case he’s found.

  A thought flexes itself deep inside his head, awakening. Something creeping on the edge of recollection, a memory, or the ghost of one. Just out of reach. Someone saying something to him. If he could only remember. Someone telling him something important, so important. Something he needed to remember. Something he had to do. Suddenly it comes to him.

  Don’t fuck it up.

  A memory. That’s what they had told him, but who exactly he can’t recall. He grasps at the memory. Its warning, the threat, so strong and clear.

  Don’t fuck it up.

  Don’t fuck what up? Think. Think.

  He chases the thought but it disappears out of sight. He notices his own bare feet beneath him on the sand. A thought surfaces; he remembers reading once that suicides often remove their shoes before killing themselves. Is he a suicide? How he knows the fact about the shoes he does not know. Did he take off his shoes, did he leave them, and his things, and his life, in a tidy pile somewhere? Abandoned? But why would he do that? He doesn’t feel sad. He doesn’t feel like the kind of person who would kill himself. But then, maybe nobody ever does?

  Don’t fuck it up is all he has to go on. But what if he already has?

  Another memory flashes out of the darkness. A burst of something. Someone telling him.

  You need to find her.

  Find her? He straightens. It’s a crystal-clear directive. A purpose.

  Is that why I’m here? To find someone? Who is she to me?