Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

The flames in my heart roared. I couldn’t live without her. She shouldn’t live without me.

I opened my eyes. It was light outside, and the birds were yelling at me. My head hurt. I was lying on top of my bed in my trousers and shirt sleeves.

I was going to be sick!

I rolled out of bed and lumbered to the lavatory at the end of the landing, only just making it in time. I heaved and retched. And again. And a third time.

God my head hurt!

I stumbled back to my room, aware of Tony staring at me from an open bedroom door.

‘Are you all right, Angus?’

I waved him away, collapsed on the bed and shut my eyes.

I awoke again later. I had no idea how much later. The light through the curtains was fuller, brighter, and the birds were making a little less of a racket. The headache was still there, though.

And I was going to be sick again.

I ran to the lavatory and only just made it; vomit went everywhere.

Christ this was some hangover! The worst I had ever had, and I had had some in my youth with Stephen. I ran my fingers through my hair and felt a large bump on my crown. There was a scab there as well. I examined the sick-spattered lavatory bowl in front of me.

Projectile vomiting.

I was a doctor, I knew the signs, and I recognized them from my rugby career. I was suffering from concussion. But how did I get it?

Then it came flooding back. The climb up Ben Wyvis. The dinner. The walk with Sophie by the side of the loch. The boathouse. The argument. And then...

Then what?

I tried to clean up the lavatory as best I could, washed my face, brushed my teeth and put on some fresh clothes. My head felt as if it was floating a couple of feet above my body as I descended the stairs to breakfast.

They were all there, waiting for me. All except Sophie.

‘Boy, you look rough!’ said Nathan.

‘You look so pale!’ said Madeleine.

‘You didn’t seem very well first thing this morning,’ said Tony.

‘I wasn’t,’ I said. ‘In fact I don’t feel too marvellous now. Perhaps just a cup of tea for breakfast.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Nathan. ‘You need food for a hangover.’

‘Do you think Macpherson has one of those Jeeves-type hangover cures?’ said Tony. ‘I’ve always wanted to try one of those. You certainly look like you could use it, Angus.’

I blew through my cheeks. Until I could unscramble my brain, it seemed best to go along with the hangover idea.

‘All right. Breakfast it is.’

‘Kippers, this morning,’ Nathan said. ‘I must admit I have never understood what you British see in kippers.’

At that moment, I agreed with him.

‘Have you seen Sophie?’ Stephen asked me. He wasn’t looking too good either.

‘Er. No,’ I said.

‘She’s not in your room, is she?’

The breakfast table was silent. Tony opened his mouth to protest, but everyone around the table knew it was a fair question.

‘No,’ I said, answering the question asked and keeping to that.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. You’d think I’d notice if she was, wouldn’t I? And believe me, no one would want to have slept in my room last night.’ I could tell that sounded credible. ‘Go and check, Stephen! I know you want to!’

Stephen left the breakfast table. He reappeared a minute later. ‘Not there. I can’t think where she has got to.’

‘Maybe she got up early and went for a walk along the loch,’ said Madeleine.

‘I didn’t hear her come in last night. I don’t think her side of the bed has been slept in.’

‘We put you to bed last night, Stephen,’ said Nathan. ‘You had no idea what was going on.’

‘Well, I got up to look for her,’ Stephen said. ‘The one place I didn’t look was Angus’s room.’

Madeleine frowned. She glanced at me. ‘Was her dress in your room, Stephen? She was wearing the yellow one last night. Perhaps I should check?’

The stalker’s Land Rover pulled up outside and I heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel. In a moment Ferguson appeared. He looked grim.

‘What is it, Ferguson?’ Stephen asked.

Ferguson looked at the assembly, hesitating. Then he decided to speak. ‘It’s your wife, Mr Trickett-Smith. I’ve just found her in the loch as I was driving up here. I’m sorry, sir. She’s drowned.’

The first on the scene was the local Evanton bobby, PC MacArthur. He asked us all very simple questions about who Sophie was and when we had last seen her alive. Then he began organizing prodigious amounts of tea for everyone, especially himself, while they waited for CID from Dingwall.

I lied. I told PC MacArthur that I had last seen Sophie when I had helped put Stephen to bed. I had gone to bed myself, and woken up very early the next morning with a bad hangover.

I lied because I couldn’t think straight, I could barely think at all. At first my brain had simply been unable to process what Ferguson had said: that Sophie was dead. I couldn’t believe it; in my befuddled state I couldn’t even understand it.

Stephen could. His face was stricken with horror, horror which crumbled into misery. Madeleine could. Within a couple of seconds of Ferguson telling her, she began to sob. The sob turned into a wail, verging on a scream. Tony looked shocked. Only Nathan kept his wits about him.

But then Sophie’s death forced its way into my cranium, like an approaching army, a gentle drumbeat becoming louder and louder, until it reached a crescendo, surrounding my damaged brain, breaking its way in, overwhelming me.

She was dead! Sophie was dead. I would never see her again. I would never touch her, hear her, I would never even know that she was existing on a continent far away with her children and her husband.

My head hurt, really badly. I felt sick. I wanted to cry out, like Madeleine. But Sophie was Stephen’s wife; it would be terrible if Stephen found out that the last thing his wife had done before she had died was sleep with one of his oldest friends.

I rushed to the lavatory and vomited. Again. People noticed. They looked at me with either horror or sympathy I couldn’t tell. I knew the concussion was bad and I needed sleep in a darkened room, but I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to manage it. I excused myself, saying I needed to be alone, crept into my room, closed the curtains and flopped onto the bed. I need not have worried; within moments my brain shut down and I was asleep.

I was woken by banging on my bedroom door. I heard Madeleine calling out my name and then I heard her come in and felt her nudge my shoulder. ‘Angus! Wake up! You have to wake up! The police want to talk to you.’

My brain felt cloudy, but the pain had eased off. My stomach was churning but empty — I was glad I hadn’t had time to ingest any of the kippers.

I sat up and remembered Sophie was dead.

Stunned, I turned to Madeleine.

‘Get up! You have to get up!’

I did as I was told; I was still fully clothed.

‘Oh, Angus!’ Madeleine said, her eyes red. ‘The police say Sophie was murdered! Someone killed her, Angus!’

She grabbed me and hugged me tight. Behind her a uniformed police constable coughed.

I blinked. ‘Murdered?’

Madeleine took me downstairs. ‘We’ve all been answering questions. You are the last.’

‘Murdered? Murdered?’

Madeleine led me into the little library which looked out over the walled garden at the side of the house. Two detectives in plain clothes waited for me. The smaller of the two, a dapper little man wearing a three-piece tweed suit with a watch chain, held out his hand.

‘Dr Culzie? I’m Detective Inspector Dewar, and this is Detective Sergeant Brown. We have some questions for you about Mrs Trickett-Smith’s murder.’