Mr. Nobody Read online

  “These are the initial scans—for your eyes only. I mean that.” He holds my gaze pointedly until I nod an assurance.

  I study the screen. A secure medical results site. I scroll down and click on the only file visible, labeled Patient M. Scans. “Has Groves seen these?” I ask.

  “We sent a link through to him yesterday. I don’t know if he had a chance to look them over before he passed on the case. But the file portal is password protected.”

  I click on the attachment and the gray and bright white of a CT scan fills the screen. The delicate crenulations of the patient’s brain. Peter’s right, there is no atrophy, no areas of brain have died. I look to the hippocampus, the tiny seahorse-shaped mass of tissue nestled under the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for the creation and storage of our episodic memory. It’s the unassumingly small piece of brain tissue responsible for holding a whole human life together.

  The hippocampus in this scan is intact—no physical damage, just the light gray that represents living tissue. Not the dark mass of dead cells you’d expect to see on an Alzheimer’s or dementia scan. There are signs of a wound and slight contusion at the base of the skull, probably from a fall or a blow. The injury might have been enough to cause a mild concussion perhaps, but not major damage; it’s unlikely to have caused memory loss, but there are no other immediately observable causes on the CT scan. I let my thoughts run with the idea of the concussion—there’s the outside chance that if the patient is epileptic, a seizure could have caused his memory loss. But after six days it would have returned, he would be remembering by now. So if the problem isn’t physical or electrical, it must be psychological.

  Which means—this could be a fugue.

  A real live fugue patient. His memory loss in all probability has been caused by mental trauma. Meaning: something very bad happened to this man.

  But then it catches my eye, I see it, a tiny dark speck buried in the pituitary gland. I missed it initially, but there it is, faint on the scan.

  My eyes shoot up to Peter.

  I know for a fact this type of pituitary growth has been present on other fugue patients. In previous cases it’s never been given much credence, as pituitary tumors are usually inert. But could the pituitary be linked to fugue?

  “Oh my God.”

  His eyes meet mine and he raises an eyebrow. “Yes. You’ve seen it? Took me a bit longer. I only noticed it on the train earlier. I had to get my glasses. Tiny.” He fishes them out now and swivels the screen around so we can both study the minuscule fleck of darkness on the scan. “Yes, obviously a CT is not the ideal imaging to pick this kind of thing up on. An MRI will help us more,” he mutters. But then, I’m guessing whoever ordered these CT scans wasn’t looking for what we’ve both found. They would have been looking for large-scale brain trauma or atrophy. What we’ve found appears to be a tiny growth. So easy to miss nestled in there.

  Peter looks up from the computer screen. “Listen, we can get fresh scans done once you’re up there. At the hospital. If you’re happy to go up there?” he asks. It’s a straight-out question. Will I go? He’s striking while the iron is hot, while I’m intrigued by the material.

  I study the scan again. That dark speck. What on earth could that have to do with his memory loss? The pituitary gland has pretty much nothing to do with the hippocampus, nothing to do with memory, as far as we know. As far as we know yet—I’m hooked.

  I look back to Peter. “Where do I sign?” I grin.

  But Peter doesn’t smile back. In fact he frowns. Looking more concerned than ever. This was not really the reaction I was expecting.

  “And you’re sure you’re okay with the location? You don’t want to ask me any more questions?”

  “What? Why would I?”

  I now wish more than ever that I’d had a chance to google the news stories before Peter showed up. I don’t even know what hospital the patient’s in. Is there something wrong with the location?

  “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Emma, but you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “You’re right, I have no idea what you’re talking about, Peter. Sorry. Why would the location be an issue?”

  “I see. Right, my mistake, I just thought you might…Well, I thought you might have changed your mind about the job. Or had stipulations, when you saw more of the details.”

  “What details? I haven’t seen any details.”

  He studies my face. I stare blankly back.

  “Ah, well then,” he continues tentatively. “I suppose I had better fill you in. They found him on Holkham Beach, Dr. Lewis—near where you grew up, not too far from where your family home was, it would seem, in Norfolk.”

  I feel my stomach flip and the room around me spins. Because there is no way Peter could know that: where I came from, where I grew up, who my family was. Nobody knows that. I had a different name back then. Before everything happened, before we moved away. How could Peter know where I used to live?

  Does he know what happened there?

  “Obviously, Emma, we had to do a background check prior to contacting you. Surprises aren’t exactly ideal when the media are already swarming over this case. But, needless to say, what happened back then, it isn’t an issue for us if it isn’t an issue for you. I wouldn’t be here if it was. I just wasn’t sure if you’d want to, to be perfectly honest, considering what happened there.”

  I feel my face flush.

  He knows what happened there.

  I try not to let my breathing change. I try not to let my body betray what I’m feeling.

  What kind of background check did they do to find that out? That information isn’t just available on the Internet. But I suppose they have access to old police records. Yes, I guess he would need to do that, especially if they’re worried about the media; it makes sense.

  I look down at the table and try to get a hold on myself, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “That’s why I came down in person, you see, Emma. I thought you might need a bit of extra persuading. Considering…”

  I turn back to Chorley now. His eyes are flickering across my face, assessing; God knows what he sees there. I’m too busy trying to keep my breathing normal to worry about that. Too busy trying not to think about what exactly his background check threw up. The photos of that night. The aftermath.

  “I see.” I say it slowly and clearly. “I hadn’t realized. I didn’t know the case would be up there.” To my credit my voice doesn’t crack.

  His eyes soften. “I’ll totally understand if going back is not something you’d be comfortable with. We could keep looking. I’m happy to tell Richard you aren’t available after all. I’m certain he’d understand. And I wouldn’t divulge your reasons, obviously….” He trails off.

  “Richard doesn’t know, does he?” I blurt. I don’t know why this is so important but it is.

  Peter gives a concise shake of the head. “We don’t pass along background check information.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Thank God. I would hate for Richard of all people to know.

  My brain is whirring. What does this mean? So many good things have happened today. This perfect offer out of the blue, this opportunity, the chance I’ve been waiting for. But I’d have to go there? Why does it have to be there of all the places in the world?

  I’ve spent fourteen years of my life trying to get away from that place, what happened there, and now…now I find out that the only way forward, the only way out, is back.

  But could I go back? Is it worth it?

  I look out at London bustling by the café windows, and across the street, outside Euston Station, I see a man and a woman waving as they rush to greet each other. The crowd swirls around them as they hug, then there’s a cheek kiss, she rumples his hair, he pulls her bobble hat d
own over her eyes, and she laughs. I look back at Peter.

  “I’d need to check with someone else before I say yes. Does that work for you?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Peter agrees. “Of course.”

  7

  THE MAN

  DAY 1—HOSPITAL

  At the nurses’ station, Rhoda, a Trinidadian triage nurse with warm eyes, looks down at the intake notes she’s just been handed and carefully squeaks the words UNKNOWN MALE out onto the large Triage whiteboard. She adds his priority status next—P2—seriously ill or injured but not in immediate danger. He needs a CT scan for his head injury.

  In cubicle 7 he lies silently curtained off as the ward bustles around him. The unconscious man is hooked up to an IV drip, an oxygen mask cupping his blueing mouth and nose. It mists and clears and mists with each breath.

  His wet clothes have been removed and replaced with a crisp medical gown. Metal foil blankets help to slowly raise his core temperature.

  Rhoda erases the name from the cubicle 4 box; her last patient, discharged. She checks the other priorities on the board. There are three P2s on the board. It’s a tough call. She checks her watch—she’s technically finished her shift. She should call it a day, or rather a morning, but she looks up at the words she’s just scrawled out.

  Cubical 7: UNKNOWN MALE.

  The words snag her interest. Time for one more before she clocks off. It must be fate, she thinks, and nods, scrawling her own name onto the whiteboard next to his.

  As Rhoda turns, the duty nurse catches her eye and raises a comic eyebrow. “Last patient, right? No more,” she warns, mock-stern.

  Rhoda smiles. “Last patient, I promise, Maeve. Got to go pick Coco up after the shift.” Rhoda thinks of Coco’s fluffy little face. Ha, such a good doggie. “Can you call ahead to Radiology, Maeve?” Rhoda asks. “Book the CT, we’ll get that done first and hopefully ICU will have space by then. And Maeve, could you page up another doctor? That junior doctor is still up to his eyeballs with that missing-finger situation. He isn’t going anywhere soon.”

  Maeve lets out an unexpected burst of laughter and sets about calling Radiology.

  Rhoda grabs the unknown man’s medical notes again and breaks into a gentle jog back toward cubical 7, her white nursing shoes squeaking across the linoleum.

  “Oh, and porter, please!” she calls behind her as she disappears out of Maeve’s sight.

  * * *

  —

  In cubical 7, Rhoda works fast. A series of actions she has gone through multiple times over the last thirty years. Pulse, blood pressure, fluids, ready for transfer.

  She looks through his entry notes again. She reads the notes on his behavior in more depth: “disorientated, aggressive, highly agitated, and nonresponsive.” Excellent, what a wonderful combination to end the shift with, she thinks.

  Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do with you.

  The patient’s breathing changes infinitesimally in depth. Rhoda looks up from the clipboard.

  Oh God.

  The man begins to stir under the blankets. The notes say, “Patient has been slipping in and out of consciousness for approximately 35–40 minutes.” There might not be long to get him transferred before he wakes up again and this all gets slightly more complicated.

  She pokes her head out through the cubicle curtains. “Porter, now, please,” she calls, louder this time.

  Behind her the man shifts in his bed. Rhoda sighs. He’s waking, looks like it’s happening regardless. She moves around to the man’s bedside and steels herself.

  He stirs again and suddenly his eyelids flick open.

  He looks directly at her.

  She smiles down at him. “Hello, you.” Her tone is gentle, maternal. “How are you feeling?”

  The man stares up at her warm face floating above him. He takes it in, studying it. He was on the beach and now he is here.

  His brow slowly knits as he looks at her, her kind eyes, the small scar hidden in her hairline. Does he know her? No. He doesn’t know her. Rhoda watches the realization flash across his face.

  “My name is Rhoda. I’m a nurse. You’re in a hospital now. But there’s no need to worry, you’re fine, everything is all right. I’m just here to help you. Okay? That’s all I’m here for. Now, you’ve had a little knock to the head but we’re going to get it all sorted out. Everything is going to be just fine.”

  A knock to the head? His eyelids flicker in concern.

  “Nothing too serious,” Rhoda counters. “Nothing for you to worry about just now. All you need to do is lie there all cozy and let me do everything. Have a nice relax and let me do it all. Do you understand? You’re in safe hands with me.”

  His muscles slacken back into the bed as he stills himself. He blinks up at her and lets out a sigh that clouds his oxygen mask.

  “Trust me?” Rhoda asks.

  He looks up at her and she looks straight back down, solid and safe.

  His eyes fill and when he blinks, tears run in two rivulets down either side of his face. He exhales deeply again and tries to raise his arm. Rhoda rests a hand on it lightly, she feels the quivering of his muscles beneath the sheet.

  “Okay, then. That’s a deal. You trust me and I’ll get you all fixed up. Shall I?”

  He blinks at her slowly, consenting.

  What the hell happened to you? she wonders, and moves her warm hand to his shoulder.

  “Do you remember banging your head? Do you remember that?”

  The man closes his eyes to concentrate, breath momentarily held. When he looks back at Rhoda, there is only thinly masked confusion. He can’t remember.

  “It’s okay,” she soothes. “It’s okay if you don’t remember that. That’s perfectly normal after a bang to the head. It doesn’t mean a thing. We’re going to get you nice and warm and do a quick scan of your head to see what’s what. How does that sound? Does that sound like a good idea?”

  He grimaces.

  “Yeah, maybe no nodding!” Rhoda soothes. “That’s where the knock is, on the back of your head there. It’s not a big one but it’ll be a bit sore for a while. So, no more nodding, okay? You just relax.”

  He blinks in acknowledgment. No more nodding.

  She throws her gaze out toward the ward and seems to reach a decision.

  “Right, you know what, let’s just get going without them.” She releases the footbrake on the gurney and smiles. “If there’s no porters, then I’m just going to take you over for the scan myself. If you want a job done right—”

  She pulls back the curtains.

  8

  DR. EMMA LEWIS

  DAY 6—JOE

  Isn’t it funny how you can successfully not think about something for months or even years, you can almost forget, almost, and then one simple sentence or word can bring it all back with a sudden sickening immediacy?

  Peter and I say our goodbyes outside the café and I head back to the hospital, my mind whirring. I need to center myself; it’s just that I wasn’t expecting that, to be confronted with the worst moments of my life. Not today, not when things seemed to be going so well.

  I scan the hospital lobby as I enter—faces, so many faces, all with their lives and their own stories. I try to shake off the feeling that everyone who sees me knows, knows exactly what happened fourteen years ago. I try to shake off the sharp shame of it, the dread. The feeling I’ve managed to avoid for so long. Even if sometimes memories of it stop me in my tracks on Oxford Street, my Christmas shopping bags trembling in hand, as strangers swirl around me. Or make me fall silent mid-sentence in restaurants with countless prospective boyfriends. Even if they make me question my instincts in every aspect of my personal life, and mean my only freedom, my only escape, is through work. Even if they are the reason I have chosen to live alone, in case, just in case, somehow, I make
it all happen again.

  Like anyone in recovery, I try to be wary of certain people, places, and things.

  And somehow, over the years, I’ve managed not to reveal it, to keep it all inside, the sadness and the regret, like a gaping hole inside me.

  I take the glass elevator up to the third floor, watching the heads of patients and visitors recede beneath me and feeling my familiar stomach-flip of vertigo. My primal fear of heights snapping me back to reality. A decision needs to be made. Peter will be waiting for my phone call this evening. I’m going to need an answer by then. Do I stay and keep pretending none of it ever happened? Or do I go and face the past and perhaps make something good of it?

  The elevator doors open and I head down the corridor to my office. Milly isn’t at her desk when I round the corner. I check my watch. Lunchtime. She won’t be back for a good half hour yet. I need to speak to Joe. Joe’s who I need.

  I flick on my office lights, lock the door, and sink into my chair. On the desktop I bring up FaceTime, wiping the dust and various marks from the screen and camera with my sleeve. I guess it’s been a while since I needed to make a video call.

  Joe is my brother, and whenever I make a big decision in life, it’s Joe I tend to run it by. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying I ever actually follow his advice, but I at least know that whatever advice Joe gives, he’ll give it to me straight. And that’s what I need right now. I need another person’s gut reaction. Plus, Joe is the only one who knows about Norfolk. Well, Joe and Mum and Dad. I’ve never told another person what happened. I don’t think I’m even allowed to. Which has made relationships hard, to say the least.

  My last proper relationship was with an orthopedic surgeon. Harry. It lasted three years. He was easy to spend time with but I didn’t want to marry him, so, yeah. I don’t have someone like that just now.

  Joe has a family; he’s a husband and a dad. Which is great. I’m an auntie.

  Joe’s got ties, responsibilities, connections. I do not. So, I’ve sort of come to value his opinion more as the years go by. He seems, for want of a better word, happy.