Peter Lovesey: Upon A Dark Night

‘It seems that you’ve been in an accident. Among other things, you’re experiencing amnesia. It’s temporary, I can promise you.’

‘What sort of accident?’

‘Not so serious as it might have been. A couple of cracked ribs. Abrasions to the legs and hips, some superficial cuts.’

‘How did this happen?’

‘You tell us.’

‘I can’t.’

He smiled. ‘We’re no wiser than you are. It could have been a traffic accident, but I wouldn’t swear to it. You may have fallen off a horse. Do you ride?’

‘No… I mean, I don’t know.’

‘It’s all a blank, is it?’

‘Someone must be able to help. Who brought me here?’

‘I wish we knew. You were found yesterday evening lying unconscious in the car park. By one of the visitors. We brought you inside and put you to bed. It was the obvious thing. This is a private hospital.’

‘Someone knocked me down in a hospital car park?’

He said quite sharply, ‘That doesn’t follow at all.’

She asked, ‘Who was this person who is supposed to have found me?’

‘There’s no “supposed” about it. A visitor. The wife of one of our long-term patients. We know her well. She wouldn’t have knocked you down. She was very concerned, and she was telling the truth, I’m certain.’

‘So someone else knocked me down. Some other visitor.’

‘Hold on. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.’

‘What else could have happened?’

‘Like I said, a fall from a horse. Or a ladder.’

‘In a hospital car park?’ she said in disbelief, her voice growing stronger as the strange facts of the story unfolded.

‘We think someone may have left you there in the expectation that you would be found and given medical attention.’

‘Brought me here, like some unwanted baby – what’s the word? – a foundling?’

‘That’s the general idea.’

‘And gone off without speaking to anyone? What kind of skunk does a thing like that?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s better than a hit-and-run. They just leave you in the road.’

‘You said this is a private hospital. Where?’

‘You’re in the Hinton Clinic, between Bath and Bristol, quite close to the M4. Do you know it? We’ve had car accident victims brought in before. Does any of this trigger a memory?’

She shook her head. It hurt.

‘You’ll get it all back soon enough,’ he promised her. ‘Parts of your brain are functioning efficiently, or you wouldn’t follow what I’m saving. You can remember words, you see, and quite difficult words, like “foundling”. Did you go to school round here?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Your accent isn’t West Country. I’d place you closer to London from the way you speak. But of course plenty of Londoners have migrated here. I’m not local either.’ He smiled. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed.’

She asked, ‘What will happen to me?’

‘Don’t worry. We informed the police. They took a look at you last night. Made some kind of report. Put you on their computer, I expect. You can be sure that someone is asking where you are by now. They’ll get a report on a missing woman and we’ll find out soon enough. Exciting, isn’t it? Not knowing who you are, I mean. You could be anyone. A celebrity. Concert pianist. Rock star. Television weather girl.’

The excitement eluded her. She was too downcast to see any charm in this experience.

Later they encouraged her to get out of bed and walk outside with one of the nurses in support. Her ribs felt sore, but she found no difficulty staying upright. She was functioning normally except for her memory.

She made an effort to be positive, actually summoning a smile for another patient who was wheeled by on an invalid chair, some poor man with the sallow skin of an incurable. No doubt the doctor was right. Memory loss was only a temporary thing, unlike the loss of a limb. No one in her condition had any right to feel self-pity in a place where people were dying.

Before returning to her room, she asked to visit a bathroom. A simple request for a simple need. The nurse escorting her opened a door. What followed was an experience common enough: the unplanned sighting in a mirror of a face that turned out to be her own, the frisson of seeing herself as others saw her. But what made this so unsettling was the absence of any recognition. Usually there is a momentary delay while the mind catches up. This must be a mirror and it must be me. In her case the delay lasted until she walked over to the mirror and stared into it and put out her hand to touch the reflection of her fingertip. The image was still of a stranger, a dark-haired, wide-eyed, horror-stricken woman in a white gown. She turned away in tears.

In her room, Dr Whitfield spoke to her again. He explained that her condition was unusual. Patients with concussion generally had no memory of the events leading up to the injury, but they could recall who they were, where they lived, and so on. He said they would keep her under observation for another night.

The loss of identity was still with her next morning. One of the nurses brought her a set of clothes in a plastic container. She picked up a blue shirt and looked at the dirt marks on the back and sleeves. It was obvious that whoever had worn this had been in some kind of skirmish, but she felt no recognition. Jeans, torn at the knee. Leather belt. Reeboks, newish, but badly scuffed. White socks. Black cotton knickers and bra. Clothes that could have belonged to a million women her age.

‘Do you want me to wear these?’

‘We can’t send you out in a dressing gown,’ said one of the nurses.

‘Send me out?’ she said in alarm. ‘Where am I going?’

‘The doctors say you don’t need to be kept in bed any longer. We’ve kept you under observation in case of complications, but you’ve been declared fit to move now.’

‘Move where?’

‘This is a private hospital. We took you in as an emergency and now we need the bed for another patient.’

They wanted the bed for somebody who would pay for it. She’d been so preoccupied with her problem that she’d forgotten she was literally penniless.

‘We’re going to have to pass you on to Avon Social Services. They’ll take care of you until your memory comes back. Probably find you some spare clothes, or give you money to get some.’

On charity. She hated this. She’d hoped another night would restore her memory. ‘Can’t I stay here?’

She was collected later the same morning by a social worker called Imogen who drove a little green Citroen Special with a striped roof. Imogen was pale and tall with frizzy blonde hair and six bead necklaces. Her accent was as county as a shire hall. ‘I say, you were jolly fortunate landing up there,’ she said, as they drove out of the hospital gates. ‘The Hinton is the clinic to get yourself into, if you’re in need of treatment, that is. I don’t like to think what it would have cost if you hadn’t been an emergency. What’s your name, by the way?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Still muzzy?’

‘Very.’

‘I’ll have to call you something. Let’s invent a name. What do you fancy? Do you object to Rose?’

The choice of name was instructive. Obviously from the quick impression Imogen had got, she had decided that this nameless woman wasn’t a Candida or a Jocelyn. Something more humble was wanted.

‘Call me anything you like. Where are you taking me?’

‘To the office, first. You’ll need money and clothes. Then to a hostel, till you get yourself straight in the head. They told me you cracked a couple of ribs. Is that painful? Should I be taking the corners extra carefully?’

‘It’s all right’

The doctor hadn’t strapped up the damaged rib-cage. Apparently if your breathing isn’t uncomfortable, the condition cures itself. The adjacent ribs act as splints. Her sides were sore, but she had worse to worry over.