Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

A note of pride had crept into the old lady’s voice, but she banished it. ‘Mind you, once he got there, it was as if he was wanting to rub out his past life here. We saw him mebbe six times in the last thirty years. I have grandchildren and I’ve only seen the wee bairns twice! I think he’s ashamed.’

‘Ashamed?’ said the old man. ‘Ashamed of what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Ferguson. ‘And I’m feart to find out. But if you do discover what, you will tell me, won’t you?’

‘We will, Mrs Ferguson, don’t you worry about that,’ said the old man, reassuringly. And as he did so, Clémence glimpsed the bedside manner of an experienced GP.

‘Do you know what, Dr Cunningham?’

‘What?’

‘I mind fine that week when poor Mrs Trickett-Smith was murdered. I never really believed Mr Trickett-Smith killed her. But when I read that book, I definitely didn’t think you did it. You were aye the gentleman. And you loved her far ower much.’

‘Gentlemen can kill people just as easily as anyone else,’ said the old man. ‘And the world’s jails are full of people who killed people they loved.’

Clémence and the old man left Mrs Ferguson, and rang a taxi from the nursing home manager’s office. They crammed together into a small plastic sofa in the hallway waiting the promised ten minutes. They faced a prominent framed notice on the rules visitors should follow to sign in and sign out, rules they had complied with in full.

‘At least I can leave this place,’ said the old man. ‘Imagine being imprisoned in here for the rest of your life.’ He turned to Clémence. ‘Promise me you will never let them put me away in a place like this.’

Clémence felt a flash of irritation. It wasn’t up to her where the old man spent the rest of his days. He wasn’t her responsibility. And, thanks to him, her grandfather, one of her grandfathers, had spent fifteen years in a real prison.

She didn’t answer him directly, but asked a question of her own. ‘What do you think Iain saw?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the old man. ‘Probably me killing Sophie. Or coming out of the boathouse, or something that would incriminate me.’

‘But would Uncle Nathan help him like that if that’s what it was?’

‘Possibly. After all, I had helped Nathan in Deauville, and we know he felt in my debt for that. He’s supposed to be one of my oldest friends, but I can’t remember him since my fall, so you know him better. What do you think?’

Clémence sighed. ‘Uncle Nathan could fix anything. And he was always helpful and generous. It’s not as though he was a soft touch; he would always get what he wanted. But if he wanted to help you, you would be helped.’

‘Well, that’s what he did then.’

They sat in silence for a moment. But it didn’t quite make sense to Clémence. ‘If that’s what it was, why do you think you went all the way to America to track Iain down? If he was just covering for you, why bother?’

‘I don’t know, Clémence. I really don’t know.’

‘Can’t you remember?’

‘You know I can’t remember anything!’ The old man couldn’t contain his frustration.

‘Yes you can,’ said Clémence. ‘Sometimes. Sometimes things like this jog your memory. Did this have something to do with whatever you were writing at your desk at Culzie? Perhaps you were writing a letter to Iain? Or Nathan?’

‘It wasn’t a letter,’ said the old man, furrowing his brow. ‘It was longer than a letter.’

‘A long letter?’

‘No. But you’re right, it did have something to do with Iain.’

Clémence saw the old man struggling and kept quiet. He nodded his head slowly. ‘Yes. It had to do with Iain. And Nathan. Going to see Nathan in America.’

‘Anything else?’

The old man smiled to himself. ‘Yes. It was for the book. For Death At Wyvis . It was an appendix for a second edition.’

‘Are you sure?’

The old man’s face was screwed-up in concentration. ‘Not absolutely sure, no. But I think so.’

Clémence felt a surge of excitement. ‘Where is it? Whatever you were writing. Did you give it to someone? A publisher, perhaps? Uncle Nathan? Is it still at Culzie?’

‘I don’t know. But...’

‘But what?’

‘I know what I wrote it in. An exercise book. A black hard-backed exercise book.’

Clémence’s pulse quickened. ‘Big? A4? With red binding?’

‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’

‘I know exactly where it is,’ she said.

‘Where?’ The old man looked at him, his eyes alight.

‘It’s at Culzie. Your desk, middle drawer. I saw it when I was looking for photographs.’

‘Well done!’ said the old man, grinning. ‘We’re getting somewhere after all.’

‘I wish I had asked Callum to look for it.’

‘I’ll go back and get it,’ said the old man.

‘No you won’t. The police will. I’ll tell them about it.’

The old man looked disappointed, but he didn’t argue. Yet Clémence was pretty sure that he hadn’t given up on trying to uncover the truth without the police.

And what was in that black exercise book?

Stephen gazed out of the window at the Firth of Forth shimmering in the weak March sunlight. He had forgotten how beautiful this stretch of the line to Edinburgh could be, at least in good weather.

Which wasn’t surprising. Now he came to think about it, he hadn’t taken this train for forty years. Not since 1959.

He wasn’t looking forward to any of this. Seeing Alastair again. Revisiting Wyvis. Thinking about Sophie and her murder and the horrible things that had happened afterwards.

Of course Stephen had known that he hadn’t murdered Sophie himself, but he had felt so guilty that he wasn’t surprised that the police believed he had. The guilt was an overwhelming burden that crushed him.

He had tried hard when they had first got married to treat her well, and by and large he had succeeded. Even when he had taken on bit roles in films, he had managed to treat them as a nine-to-five job from which he returned to dinner with his wife.

But the movies were beguiling. Even in wartime there was glamour. Sophie was always beautiful, but then so were the actresses. And they were out of bounds and therefore tempting. There were long stretches with nothing to do, and there was alcohol. As he became more famous, there were the fans: the young women who thought he was handsome and dreamed of sleeping with him.

He dreamed of sleeping with them. And then he did.

In Hollywood it all got worse, as Sophie had known it would. He drank. He took drugs. He slept with lots of women. He treated her badly, very badly.

He treated her much worse than Alastair ever would have done.

And somehow he didn’t notice any of this until he was sitting in a Scottish jail, waiting for his trial for Sophie’s murder.

The truth was he broke down; he couldn’t mount a credible defence for Sophie’s killing, since he knew he was responsible for it. When he was found guilty of murdering her, it seemed to him that justice had been done. He wasn’t innocent.

It was lucky that he didn’t have access to alcohol in prison, but even without it, he reached despair that was so deep he couldn’t remember it.

It was Maitland who had pulled him out of it. Maitland was a manager in an insurance company who had murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy when he had discovered her with another man. Unlike Stephen he had always treated his wife well, at least according to him, and Stephen believed him. Unlike Stephen he had actually killed her. Like Stephen he regretted her death.

But he had learned to live with the fact. He was different from other people: he was a murderer, and he was in prison, where he should be. His life was going to be shitty, which was as it should be. But since he was still a living organism on this planet, and likely to remain so for many years yet, he would get as much out of those years as he could. The small things. Like the Telegraph crossword.