Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

‘You don’t have to be so graphic. I just had a mushroom omelette.’

‘Some time last week, he sat in a chair, put the muzzle of his twelve-bore under his chin and pulled the trigger.’

‘I know that. Did he leave a note?’

‘No.’

‘Any family?’

‘They’re checking. His name was Gladstone, like the old Prime Minister.’

‘Before my time.’ He leaned back as the waitress placed a toasted teacake in front of him and served the coffee. When they were alone again, he said, ‘But what’s the ray of sunshine in this squalid story? What brought John Wigfull hotfoot from Bath?’

Julie added some milk to her coffee, taking her time. ‘They only discovered that by chance. It was pretty overpowering in the house while the pathologist was doing his stuff. One of the constables, Mike James, felt in urgent need of fresh air.’

‘A smoke, more like.’

‘Anyway, he went outside and took a stroll across the field.’

‘Found something?’

‘As I said, the land hasn’t been farmed for some years, so it was solid underfoot. He hadn’t gone far when he noticed his feet sinking in.’

‘Moles.’

‘No, Mr Diamond. Digging had taken place.’

‘Ploughing, you mean?’

She shook her head. ‘This was definitely done with a spade.’

‘The old boy buried something before he topped himself?’

‘They’re not sure. This was recent digging. It could even have been done after the farmer’s death.’

He paused in his eating. Julie, is that likely?’

‘You know what freshly dug soil is like,’ she said, as if Diamond spent all his weekends in gumboots. ‘After a few days the top hardens off and gets lighter in colour. Some shoots of grass appear. This wasn’t like that. Anyway, with his arthritis the old man was in no condition to dig holes.’

‘Are you saying there was more than one?’

‘Mike found another patch, yes.’

She had his full attention now. ‘I can’t picture this, Julie. Is it just a spade’s depth, like a gardener turning over the soil, or something deeper?’

‘I’m only reporting what they said. I wasn’t there. From the look of it, deep digging. Holes that had been dug and filled in.’

‘What size?’

‘I got the impression they were large. They think something could be buried there.’

‘Or someone.’ This was the head of the murder squad speculating.

Julie said, ‘All I know is that when it was reported to John Wigfull he drove out especially to look.’

‘If these are graves, I should have been told,’ said Diamond.

A couple of heads turned at the next table. ‘I think we should lower our voices,’ Julie cautioned.

‘What’s Wigfull playing at, keeping this to himself?’

‘Give them a chance. They haven’t dug anything up yet. They’ve been too busy inside the house. There are only two of them. He’s talking about sending some more fellows out with spades.’

‘Sod that for a game of soldiers.’

Overhearing the sounds of displeasure, the waitress paused at the table and asked if anything was wrong.

‘It is, my dear,’ Diamond said, ‘but it has nothing to do with the food. That was not a bad omelette, not bad at all.’

When the waitress was out of earshot, Julie said, ‘Unless they find human remains, he’s within his rights, surely. He is head of CID operations.’

‘There’s such a thing as consultation.’

Wisely, she refrained from comment.

‘I might just take a drive in that direction when I get an hour to spare,’ he said.

Some of the bored outpatients in the waiting area stirred and looked across with interest when Rose’s name was called as ‘Miss X’, but she’d been through this before. She was past the stage of embarrassment.

She was required to give samples of blood and urine – not exactly the way she had visualised the day. Another hour went by before she got in to see Dr Grombeck.

He was not the earnest, bespectacled little man she anticipated from his name. He looked as if he had wandered in after driving from London in a vintage sports car. Young, ruddy-faced and with black, unruly curls, he had the sort of smile that would have made you feel good about being told you only had hours to live. He glanced up from the card in front of him.

‘Well, Miss X, I don’t know much about you, but it seems you don’t know much about yourself.’

‘That’s right.’ She told him about waking up in the Hinton Clinic and knowing nothing at all.

‘This was when?’

‘Last Tuesday morning.’

‘That isn’t long.’ He asked her a series of questions to elicit information about her family, education and friends, and got nothing. But when he turned to matters of general knowledge like the names of the royal princes and the Rolling Stones, she supplied the answers with ease.

He enquired about her injuries and she told him about the cracked ribs and the bruising.

‘Nothing to show on the head? No sore spots?’

‘No.’ She told him Dr Whitfield’s theory that concussion can be caused by a sudden jerk of the head.

He didn’t comment. He asked to examine her head. Probing gently with his fingertips, he said, ‘You’re quite certain you were unconscious when they brought you into the Clinic?’

‘Well, I can’t be certain.’

‘Dumb question. Sorry.’ He flashed that smile. ‘That’s what they told you, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then there’s no question that you spent some hours in coma. You’re not diabetic – we tested. And presumably the Hinton tested you for drugs and found nothing. So we’re back to this accident as the explanation.’ He perched on the edge of his desk and rubbed his chin. The few known facts of her case seemed to perplex him. Finally he sighed heavily and told her, ‘Miss X, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m the chap to help you.’

‘Why not?’ she said, feeling cheated. She’d pinned strong hopes on this man.

‘I’d better explain about memory loss. For our purposes, there are two sorts. The kind we’re used to dealing with in this place is known as retrograde amnesia. It’s caused by an injury to the brain. The patient is unable to remember the events leading up to the injury. It’s a permanent loss of a small section of memory – and that may well have happened to you. But it shouldn’t have blocked out your long-term memory. It doesn’t behave like that.’

She listened apprehensively. She didn’t want to be a problem case. She wanted a simple solution.

‘The amnesia you’re displaying at this stage – the virtual loss of identity, the blocking out of all your personal memories – has to be different in origin. It’s the other sort, and I have to say I’m doubtful if it came as the result of the accident.’

Rose was frowning. ‘What is the “other sort”?’

He didn’t answer directly. ‘The good news for you is that the memories can be recovered.’

‘How soon?’

‘Hold on a minute. The point about your condition – if I’m right in my opinion – is that it has nothing to do with an injury to the brain. The cause is psychological.’

She stared, repeating the last word in her head.

‘For some reason, your memory is suppressed. It isn’t lost. Something deeply upsetting must have happened to you, some emotional shock that you couldn’t cope with. You blot out everything, denying even your own existence. You won’t recover your long-term memory until you’re capable of dealing with the situation that faced you.’

‘How will I do that?’ Rose said blankly. This fresh theory had poleaxed her.

‘Psychotherapy. Investigation.’

‘Doctor, let me get this clear. You’re telling me my loss of memory wasn’t caused by the accident. Is that right?’