Mr. Nobody Read online

  “Um…” I hear a rustle of papers. “Um, no. No, he didn’t.”

  I have met Richard Groves twice. The last time briefly at a medical conference networking session in Dubai three years ago. I wrote my thesis on him, and I had—have—disagreed with some of his methods, but that’s what medical papers do. That’s the scientific method, right there. He was affable when we met, collegial, but I wouldn’t say we were quite on telephone-chatting terms. Out of the blue doesn’t even begin to describe this phone call. Why the hell is he calling me from America at 8 A.M. on a Monday morning?

  It’s a question I’m pretty sure Milly won’t have the answer to. I look at my watch again—two minutes now. I can make it if I run.

  3

  THE MAN

  DAY 1—PEOPLE ARRIVE

  “This is Bravo Seven for Sierra Four-Three. Sierra Four-Three, proceed immediately to the car park at Holkham Beach. Report of suspicious behavior: IC-One, white, male, thirties-forties, approximately six foot, dark clothing, erratic behavior. Elderly caller has eyes on suspect, has been advised not to approach.”

  Static.

  “Received, Bravo Seven. Sierra Four-Three en route. Go ahead, over.”

  Static.

  “Non-urgent call. But proceed with caution, suspect may be under the influence or possible mental health issues. Appears to be in some distress. No visible weapons but potential suicide risk, over.”

  Static.

  “Received, Bravo Seven. Sierra Four-Three proceeding to location. On our way. Out.”

  * * *

  —

  Fifteen minutes later, the patrol car is the only car in the beach car park. The long stretch of ochre shingle usually packed with vehicles during the holidays is now abandoned, deserted for the winter season. The officers—one female, one male—exit their car, the slam of doors the only sound as their breath clings in warm clouds in the early morning air. As they crunch their way out toward the beach path, the female officer slides up the zipper of her fluorescent high-vis coat, a sharp slice of color cutting through the forest.

  The path opens, its gravel giving way to the boardwalk over the reed marshes that connect the forest and beach. Ahead, the vast expanse of Holkham Beach rolls out before them. An elderly man stands waiting on the blustery peak of a steep dune and they cross the soft sand to meet him. Their approach catches his eye and he turns, waving his umbrella to draw attention.

  He shouts something down to them but his words are lost in the wind.

  The female police officer throws a look to the male officer. He drops back almost imperceptibly as she takes the lead. As they reach the dune’s crest, the full extent of the beach rises into view, the long flat sweep toward the breaking waves and the North Sea. It’s choppy out there today.

  The two officers can make out his words now, over the wind, mid-sentence—

  “—don’t know what’s wrong. I asked, but I couldn’t seem to get through to him. He just kept going. He’s gone on down there now.” The old man throws an arm up toward the east and the officers’ eyes follow his motion down the beach. “Over there. Do you see?”

  In the distance a receding figure, walking away, alone on the empty beach, in no particular hurry.

  “I told them on the phone already,” the old man continues. “No way I could stop him, you see. Had to come up here just to get a mobile phone signal anyway. Terrible reception. I told him to wait, someone would be here soon, but he just kept going. Not sure if he even heard what I was saying. There’s something…wrong with him. I don’t know, he’s not in good shape at all. Soaking wet for a start. And on a day like this.”

  The female police officer turns away from the figure on the beach, back to the old man. She takes him in: a smartly dressed early riser on his morning walk, paper under arm, umbrella, raincoat, hat, he’s prepared for the weather. His cheeks ruddy in the cold. “Did you make the call yourself, sir?” she asks.

  “I did. I didn’t think anything of him until he got closer. Some mornings there are other walkers out this early, especially on the weekends, but when he got closer I saw something wasn’t quite right. And I thought I should say something,” he persists, “you know, just in case.”

  “Just in case?” the female officer asks, her curiosity piqued.

  “He needed help,” he clarifies.

  The female officer looks down at the tracks in the sand below the dune. A line of bare footprints leading all the way back to the west cove, perhaps two miles, certainly as far as the eye can see. She looks east, out toward the walking figure in the distance. He has no shoes. Then, as if on cue, as if he can feel her eyes on his back, the figure stops.

  He stands there motionless, letting the wind roar around him. His wet clothes slapping heavily against him.

  And then he drops. Half collapsing, half sitting, onto the wet sand.

  The male officer turns to the female officer, touches her sleeve. She gives him a nod, then turns to speak to the old man. “Sir, this is Officer Poole and he’s going to take a statement from you, about what’s happened. Are you okay with that?”

  The old man nods.

  The male officer retrieves a slim black notebook from his utility pocket, flips it open, and begins.

  Officer Poole’s questions fade out of hearing in the wind as the female police officer moves off in the direction of the sitting man.

  A series of thoughts flicker across her face as she walks out across the sands. She depresses the button on her radio.

  “This is Sierra Four-Three. We are at the scene. I have eyes on the suspect, IC-One, approximately six foot, dark clothing. East Holkham Beach. Subject has no shoes. I am approaching with caution.” She continues to close the wide gulf between them, the sand twirling in tiny whirlwinds between him and her. There is something surreal about the scene. It makes her think of the past. There is something Gothic about it, she decides, something so expansive. And for some reason the start of Great Expectations springs into her mind. A convict washed up in the marshes.

  Without a second thought she pulls her radio up again, depressing the button. “Bravo Seven, this is Sierra Four-Three. Can we run a check on HMP Bure? Anyone unaccounted for, let me know. Suspect may be missing person, over.” It’s just a feeling, nothing more, an instinct, but she knows sometimes instincts are right.

  Her radio crackles to life loudly. “Acknowledged, Sierra Four-Three. Running prison check now. Stand by. Over.”

  He doesn’t turn at the sound. She’s closer now, she can see his clothes, soaking wet, just as the old man said. His body shuddering, struggling to maintain core temperature and failing. The early stages of hypothermia, she thinks.

  “Sir?” she shouts, trying to lift her voice over the howling wind, but the wind throws it back in her face.

  Still, the figure does not turn. She is close now, close enough to see the rise and fall of the man’s shoulders, the shallow pant of his breath in the icy air. She pauses.

  The radio on her chest bursts loud with static again. “Sierra Four-Three, be advised that is a negative, repeat negative on HMP Bure. All accounted for. Advise. Over.”

  The figure before her still does not move, he does not appear to hear, as her fingers fumble to silence the radio.

  She moistens her lips, makes another assessment.

  The suspect is not responding. He has no visible weapons but could possibly have a concealed one, though where he might be hiding it she does not know. His clothes are loose and wet, clinging to his chest and arms. He could already have hypothermia. He could be in shock. His behavior could be erratic.

  It would be possible for her to overpower him for the short amount of time necessary for Officer Poole to make up the distance across the beach between them, should she need to, in the unlikely event the suspect becomes violent.

  She proceeds, with caution. “Sir?”
/>
  A movement. His back muscles tense at the sound of her voice. He can hear her, that much is clear.

  “Hello, sir? Can you hear me, sir?”

  He does not respond.

  “Bit of a cold morning for a swim, isn’t it? Why don’t we all head in somewhere warm?”

  He remains motionless, his back to her.

  “Can I ask what exactly you’re doing, sir?”

  The distance between them fills with the roar of the wind and waves.

  She makes a decision and moves in a wide semicircle up the beach until she has an angle on his face.

  He’s looking out at the sea, his features slack, tension around his eyes, lost in thought.

  He could be in shock, she thinks; it certainly looks like it. In which case whatever has happened to him has already happened, this is the aftermath of something. Whether he is the victim or the perpetrator remains uncertain.

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to respond to me. Can you do that?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  Tricky, she thinks. They usually run at you or away from you at this point. Either they’re being chased by you or rescued by you. She can’t tell which she’s doing here. The other shoe usually drops at this point.

  But then he has no shoes.

  “Sir. I’m going to need you to look at me.” He briefly glances away in the other direction as if he hears something in the distance.

  She tries again.

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to turn around—”

  He turns, calmly, and looks straight at her.

  His features are striking though softened with age. An attractive man in his late thirties or early forties, she guesses. She takes in his thick dark hair, his brown eyes, the shadow of stubble across his jaw sprinkled with the first signs of gray.

  Then their eyes lock and the sounds of the beach around them seeming to fade away, a bubble forming around them, a connection.

  There is something odd in the way he looks at her.

  When questioned afterward she will struggle to accurately articulate how his look made her feel…but after some thought she will settle on the adjective “peculiar.”

  A calm descends over them, like being underwater, like falling through the air, together. Like a dream.

  A gull shrieks and the female officer’s attention flicks up and away for the fraction of a second, but the spell is broken.

  She looks back just in time to see the man’s eyes flutter as he slumps softly down onto the wet sand, unconscious.

  “Oh shit,” she mutters. Her words again lost in the wind.

  Her eyes dart up the beach to where Officer Poole and the old man stand, both dumbly staring back.

  Officer Poole starts running, sand flying out behind him.

  She snaps back into action, diving forward onto the sand, moving the huddled body into a recovery position, gently adjusting his head and freeing his airways. Her hands coming away streaked with slick, wet smears. A head wound.

  Officer Poole stumbles to a halt over her. “What happened?” he pants.

  She looks up at him, depressing the button on her radio, pulling it toward her mouth, by way of explanation.

  “This is Officer Graceford, come in, over.” She eyes Officer Poole as she waits. “Check for ID,” she prompts Poole.

  The radio crackles to life. “Received, Graceford. Go ahead, over.”

  Poole is on his knees now, his hands urgently searching the man’s body, probing pockets for identification.

  Graceford speaks quickly and clearly into the radio. “We have a medical emergency on Holkham Beach eastern. Closest access point Holkham car park. Requesting immediate medical assistance. Over.”

  Poole shakes his head. “No ID. No bag, nothing.”

  Graceford depresses the button again. “Assistance required for unidentified white male, in his thirties or forties, unconscious, potential head injury, initial assessment indicates early stages of hypothermia and shock. Unclear if drug related. Please advise. Over.”

  Static.

  “Sierra Four-Three. Be advised. Paramedics are en route from King’s Lynn, ETA eight to ten. Are you able to administer first aid on-site? Over.”

  Poole nods to Graceford and starts to remove his jacket. He throws it to her and immediately sets about unlacing his work boots.

  “Yes, yes, we’re administering basic first aid on-site,” she says into her radio. “ETA acknowledged, Dispatch. We’ll try to keep him warm out here. Do not advise moving at this stage.”

  “Received, Graceford. Stand by.”

  Graceford clips her radio away with numb fingers and shrugs off her own coat. She shifts the unconscious man onto it and places Poole’s coat over him.

  Officer Poole, having removed both of his boots, begins to remove his socks too, one bare foot dancing on the cold sand to keep his balance. Gingerly, he thrusts each of the unconscious man’s feet into his still-warm socks.

  Next Graceford tosses Poole his own discarded boots, which he pulls onto the end of each limp leg.

  Poole looks down at his watch. “That’s five minutes. Another three to five to wait.” Now coatless and shoeless, he rubs his hands together briskly to warm them.

  Graceford nods. She releases the man’s wrist. “Pulse is fine.”

  Poole scans the horizon. Three hundred and sixty degrees. Nothing. Nothing but the fading form of the old man. On his way home.

  “What do you think this is then?” he asks Graceford.

  “Hard to say.” She looks pensive. “No ID…No shoes. He could have wandered off from the hospital, maybe? I checked with Dispatch about Bure Prison, that was my first thought, but the prisoners are all accounted for there. Could be drugs, a mental health problem?”

  “What was he saying to you?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Which was…weird.”

  “You think he might have attempted suicide?” He studies her blank face.

  She looks down at the silent body. “He’s soaking wet. So he definitely went into the water—for whatever reason. Either he planned to get out again or he didn’t, but I don’t see a towel.”

  Poole looks down at his feet, now turning blue. “Well, it’s fucking freezing, I know that much.” He gestures toward the dunes leading back to the car park. “Shall I go over, and meet the ambulance crew there? They should be here any minute.”

  “Yeah, you go. Once they’ve picked him up we’ll sweep the area. See what we can find. ID, shoes, clothes, wallet…he must have had a bag or something. It’ll be here somewhere. He couldn’t have got here without it.”

  Poole nods and heads off before suddenly turning back. He raises his voice, shouting over the wind. “Unless he didn’t get here by land? He might have got here by sea, if you know what I mean.” Without waiting for an answer, he shrugs and sets off at a jog back in the direction of the car park.

  Graceford looks down at the wet man, his ribs rising and falling. Maybe Poole is right, she thinks; maybe he came off a boat.

  Another figure rises into view over the top of the dunes, unseen at first.

  This figure is not a paramedic; he is not wearing a high-vis vest; he carries a camera in one hand, its neck strap dangling loosely above the wispy dune grass.

  Graceford sees him first.

  “Oh shit,” Graceford whispers to herself.

  She rises quickly to her feet, takes a deep breath, and shouts as loudly as she can, her chest aching against the noise of the wind. She shouts in the hope that Poole will hear her.

  “GET HIM OFF THE FUCKING BEACH, CHRIS!”

  At the top of the mound Mike Redman doesn’t catch Graceford’s words but he catches her tone. He pauses.

  He takes in the tableau stretched out before him. Graceford bent over a crumpled form, surrounded by miles of
empty rolling sand. Beautiful.

  A barefooted Poole, sprinting tragicomically toward him, mouth wide, mid-shout. Perfect.

  Redman raises his camera. And starts to shoot.

  Over the clacking of the shutter the wail of a siren whispers through the wind into audibility.

  4

  DR. EMMA LEWIS

  DAY 6—THE PHONE CALL

  I burst into my empty office, fumble on the lights, and grab the receiver halfway through the third ring.

  “Hello?” It comes out louder and more flustered than I had anticipated. I feel a hot blush flash through my cheeks even though I’m the only person in the room. I’ve essentially just shouted at the world’s most preeminent neuroscientist. Happy Monday, Emma, you’re doing a sterling job.

  There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line before the caller regroups.

  “Um, hello, sorry. Am I speaking to Dr. Lewis?” The voice has the warm hum of an American accent. “This is Richard Groves calling for Dr. Lewis. May I speak with her?”

  “Yes, sorry, Dr. Groves. Yes, it is, yes, Dr. Lewis speaking.” Complete gibberish. I take a second, cover the receiver, and try to catch my breath from three flights of stairs and too many busy corridors. “Sorry, Richard, that I missed your first call, I wasn’t available earlier. It’s a bit crazy here at the moment…well, always, actually…but you know what it’s like…I suppose.” I bury a groan in my free hand. Oh God, I should have thought about what I might actually say when I answered the phone. Bugger.

  But rich laughter greets me from the other end of the line. “That I do, Emma. That I do. Not to worry. I’ve got you now and that’s all that matters.” I raise my head from my hand. The voice is kind, there’s a calm authority to it. And it’s a voice I recognize very well, from the brief times we’ve met and of course from his TED Talks and audiobooks; there’s something instantly reassuring about it.

  I realize he’s stopped talking.

  “Er, so, how can I help, Richard?” I move a box of case notes from my office chair and sit down, hard, into its puffed leather.