Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

What was the point of Maitland’s life? It was a big question, with no big answers, so he had provided a small one. Doing the Telegraph crossword.

Stephen was Maitland’s disciple. Life was shitty, but it was no longer unbearable. That was despite bloody Alastair Cunningham’s repeated attempts to make it so.

First there was the publication of Death At Wyvis. It was true the book had got Stephen released a few years early for a crime that he didn’t commit. But it had stirred everything up: Sophie’s death, the trial, Stephen’s responsibility for the whole thing. Oddly, Stephen blamed Alastair for that, more than the fact that it was he who had actually killed Sophie.

The fuss died down eventually, and Maitland was let out on parole and came to live in Shepherd’s Bush. He and Stephen began to meet daily at the Windsor Castle for a pint and the crossword. Stephen’s days achieved some focus.

Then, for reasons only known to himself, Alastair had returned from Australia to cause trouble, big time. They were both over eighty, for God’s sake! Why couldn’t Alastair just stay in Australia and rot?

So Alastair felt guilty? He deserved to! Why mess things up for everyone else? Because there was no doubt that Alastair had messed things up for everyone.

And then the stupid bastard had fallen, hit his head and forgotten everything. Excellent! It should all have just stayed forgotten. And it would have done if Madeleine hadn’t interfered again and got Clémence involved.

It was really for Clémence’s sake that Stephen was on the train going north. It wasn’t just that Clémence was an innocent bystander who didn’t deserve to be caught up in the mess. Clémence was Stephen’s granddaughter, and even though he rarely saw her, every time he did she reminded him of Sophie.

Alastair could get what was coming to him. But Clémence? Clémence he had to protect.

Clémence heard wheels crunch gravel outside the nursing home. Their taxi had arrived.

It took them less than ten minutes to get back to the vet’s farm. Clémence didn’t see either Jerry or his blue car lurking, although she couldn’t remember exactly what make his car was, so it was difficult to identify it in the traffic.

Her heart leaped when she saw Callum waiting by the front door of the farmhouse, next to his bike.

She rushed out of the taxi to give him a hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you!’

He squeezed her. He was reasonably tall, very thin, with dark curly hair and gorgeous blue eyes. There was something very reassuring, very normal about his presence. As though the boy sitting next to her in her French grammar class would banish all the weird stuff that had been happening to her over the previous few days.

She paid the taxi driver and introduced Callum to the old man, who greeted him warmly. They went inside, and Clémence made them all tea while she explained to Callum the gist of what had been happening.

Callum took it all in, asking some questions for clarification. Despite the extraordinary situation Clémence and the old man were in, Callum seemed to take it in his stride.

‘So what do we do now?’ he said, as Clémence brought the three of them mugs of tea, and they sat around the kitchen table.

‘Did you bring the manuscript of Death At Wyvis ?’ asked the old man.

‘Yes,’ said Callum, opening the bag he had brought in with him. ‘And the published book, like you asked.’

‘We’ll have a look at this,’ said Clémence. ‘We are meeting my aunt Madeleine for lunch; she knows as much about all this as anyone. And then we are going to the police.’

Callum handed the manuscript to Clémence.

‘I’ll just check the chapter where Sophie gets killed,’ said Clémence.

The old man nodded.

He and Callum sipped their tea, as they watched Clémence scan the relevant chapter, ‘Chapter X — The Boathouse’. The chapter — the conversation with Sophie on Ben Wyvis, the dinner back at Wyvis Lodge, putting Stephen to bed, having sex with Sophie in the boathouse, the row, stumbling angrily around in the woods — seemed to be identical, with the exception that the narrator’s name had been changed from ‘Alastair’ in the manuscript to ‘Angus’ in the printed novel.

But Chapter XI was different. Clémence skimmed the first page quickly.

‘Here, let me read this,’ she said to the other two. ‘In the published novel, Chapter XI starts with Angus waking up at dawn and throwing up in the loo. But there are a couple of extra paragraphs right at the beginning.’

She cleared her throat and began to read.

‘Are you all right?’

I opened my eyes to see Nathan bending over me. I was in a ditch by the side of the track and my head hurt badly.

‘What happened? Did you fall?’

‘I... I don’t know.’ And I didn’t know.

‘Here. Let’s get you out of this ditch.’

I tried to heave myself to my feet, but it was difficult. Fortunately, the ditch was dry, and with Nathan’s help I scrambled out. I saw the boathouse.

‘Where’s Sophie?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s just get you back to the house.’

Leaning on Nathan’s shoulder, I stumbled back to Wyvis Lodge and collapsed on to my bed. I was asleep in seconds.

‘Then what happens?’ asked the old man.

‘It looks pretty similar to the published novel again,’ Clémence said, leafing through the handwritten pages. ‘Hang on, let me check.’ She turned to the open book and checked the paragraphs afterwards. ‘Yes, it’s pretty much the same, but there are a couple of sentences missed out in the novel, about Angus remembering Nathan finding him in the ditch.’

She leafed through the pages. ‘Here we go. This is different. Sophie has been found in the loch, the police have come and Angus hasn’t told the whole truth to them about going to the boathouse with Sophie. He’s gone for a walk and comes back to speak to Nathan. In the book, Nathan tells him that the police now suspect Stephen of being in the boathouse.’ She began to read:

‘They can’t think he killed Sophie, can they?’ I said.

Nathan shrugged. ‘Jealous husband. It’s been known.’

‘I didn’t tell them about you finding me,’ I said. ‘I just said I turned in after putting Stephen to bed. I assume you didn’t say anything, or they would have questioned me more closely.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Nathan. ‘I didn’t think it would help you very much.’

‘I didn’t kill her!’ I protested.

‘Of course not,’ said Nathan. ‘But who knows what the police would have made of it?’

‘But if they suspect Stephen, shouldn’t I admit that I was in the boathouse with her? And shouldn’t you admit you found me unconscious?’

Nathan pondered this. ‘I’m not so sure. I don’t think it would really help Stephen very much: it would just make his motive much stronger. And they do have his footprint at the boathouse, so he must have been there too.’

‘I don’t know.’ I hesitated.

‘Somebody hit you over the head,’ said Nathan. ‘It was most probably Stephen. You’ve got to think of your own position. I’ll stick by you, just like you stuck by me in Deauville.’

My head still hurt and I was struggling to think clearly. But I trusted Nathan: he seemed to have things in hand. He was good in a crisis. It was true; he was playing the same role I had in Deauville.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We stay quiet.’

‘So. Nathan helped me cover it up,’ said the old man.

‘That’s not entirely surprising, is it?’ said Clémence.

‘Is there anything else?’

‘Let me look.’ Clémence read on to the end of the chapter. The two texts were more or less identical until the very end. ‘Here’s something. Stephen has gone to jail and Angus is having dreams that it was he who actually killed Sophie.’ She read: