Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

These weren’t dreams. They were memories. The fragments coalesced, until about a year after Sophie’s death, I was convinced that I had killed her.

The knowledge shattered me. The morally courageous thing to do was to tell the police, but my moral courage had long gone. I tried to continue at my practice in Knaresborough; I was as safe or unsafe there as anywhere else, but I couldn’t.

One day, about nine months after Sophie’s death, I travelled down to London to meet Nathan for lunch at the Savoy on one of his business trips to Britain. I told him about the dreams and the memories. He listened to me with a painful expression on his face.

‘I thought so,’ he said.

‘What do you mean, “I thought so”?’

‘That morning. When it turned out that Sophie had been killed. I thought you must have done it. She must have struggled and given you some kind of head injury, maybe hit you with an oar or something, which had a delayed effect. Stephen was blundering around dead drunk; he could barely stand, let alone kill anyone and dispose of their body.’

‘If you thought that, why didn’t you tell the police?’

Nathan paused. ‘Because I wasn’t sure. If you had killed her, it was clear to me that you genuinely couldn’t remember it. And...’

‘And what?’

‘I thought Stephen was responsible. Just like he was responsible for Alden’s death: he was the one who started playing with swords. If you had killed her it was in a moment of madness, just like I lost control when I killed Alden. So I decided to stay quiet.’

So Nathan confirmed what I already knew. I had murdered Sophie.

‘Whew,’ said the old man. ‘What about the rest of it? The afterword?’

Clémence scanned it quickly. ‘The first sentence is different. Nothing about it being called a novel. Otherwise the same.’

‘Can I read that?’ asked Callum.

Clémence glanced at the old man. He nodded. Clémence passed Callum the book. ‘Read it from Chapter X. That will tell you why we are where we are.’

Callum opened the book, found Chapter X, and started reading.

‘It looks like you were right,’ said the old man. ‘The manuscript was a draft. I must have shown it to Nathan who suggested some changes, basically leaving him out. And so I decided to call the book a novel.’

‘I thought so.’

‘But it still looks like I killed Sophie. Even more than it did before. Nathan corroborates that.’

Clémence sighed. She had really hoped that she would find evidence that the old man was innocent, but she hadn’t. ‘What about Iain?’

‘There was no difference in the passages about him?’

‘No. I checked.’

‘Maybe he saw Nathan carrying me back. That would explain why Nathan wanted to keep him quiet.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Clémence. The excitement had gone. The old man sitting in front of her who was probably her grandfather, was also almost certainly a murderer after all. Then a thought struck her.

‘Do you think Jerry Ranger might actually be Iain Ferguson?’

The old man frowned. ‘He does sound American. It’s quite possible that Iain might sound American after forty years in the States.’

‘And if Iain was eighteen, say, in 1959, that would mean he was born in 1941—’

‘And he would be fifty-eight now.’

‘That’s possible, isn’t it?’ Clémence said. ‘Jerry could be fifty-eight?’

‘Possible,’ said the old man. ‘He looks a bit younger than that to me. But why would be want to kill us? Or kill me?’

‘Maybe it has something to do with what he saw that night?’ said Clémence.

‘What?’

Clémence’s mind was a blank. What indeed?

She had an idea. ‘Maybe he killed Sophie?’

The old man frowned. ‘Why would he do that? An eighteen-year-old kid who had only just met her.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he raped her?’

The old man winced.

‘I know it’s a nasty thought, but people do that. Men do that,’ Clémence said.

‘They do. But in that case why would Nathan go to the trouble of setting Iain up in New York? Why would Nathan help anyone who had raped Sophie? You are clutching at straws, Clémence. Face it.’

Clémence nodded. ‘I know. I wonder what that black exercise book says.’ It was her only hope left, although she guessed it would just provide further evidence to support the idea, or the fact, that the old man had killed Sophie.

Who Jerry Ranger was remained a genuine mystery.

The walk from the vet’s farm to the pub in the next-door village was short, less than half a mile, but it was slow, painfully slow. The old man limped along — his knee was giving him trouble. He was also worryingly pale. Clémence was beginning to wonder whether she should just dial 999 and get an ambulance to take him to hospital.

Their route was along the main road into Dingwall, and around a major roundabout where one road branched off towards Inverness and the other towards Ullapool. Clémence felt terribly exposed along that stretch; if Jerry happened to drive past he would spot them immediately. Callum was lingering in the kitchen reading the end of Death At Wyvis , and he would join them on his bike when he had finished.

The pub was along a row of houses up a hill from the centre of the village of Maryburgh. It was empty, apart from the barmaid and Madeleine, sitting alone with her walking stick and a glass of wine, looking very out of place next to a slot machine muttering to itself in disjointed jangles.

Clémence rushed up to her and gave her a hug.

‘Clémence! What is wrong?’ Madeleine said in French.

‘Oh, Aunt Madeleine, we have had a terrible time!’ Clémence replied in English. ‘A man with a gun was chasing us over the mountains. We spent last night on the top of Ben Wyvis. It was lucky we didn’t die of hypothermia!’

‘ Ah, mon Dieu! ’ Madeleine glanced at the old man for confirmation, and found it in his grim expression. Clémence saw the accusing look Madeleine shot him: it’s your fault my niece was in danger.

‘Who? Who was chasing you over the mountain?’

‘It’s an American who calls himself Jerry Ranger. He says he’s a song writer, but we don’t know who he really is. He has been staying in a cottage on the estate for the last few weeks.’

‘And why was he chasing you?’ Madeleine focused the question on the old man, her eyes accusing.

‘We don’t know,’ said the old man.

‘But it must have something to do with Death At Wyvis, ’ said Clémence. ‘With Alastair killing Sophie.’

‘Must it?’ asked Madeleine, doubtfully.

‘I think so,’ said the old man. ‘Our guess is he came to Wyvis to befriend me. Find out what I knew. And then kill me. But we have no idea who he really is, or why he cares.’

‘Have you been to the police?’ Madeleine asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Clémence. ‘But we will,’ she added quickly. ‘Oh, here’s Callum.’

Callum joined them at their table, bearing the novel. Clémence introduced him to her aunt. The barmaid came over and they ordered lunch.

‘We’ve been finding out a bit more about Sophie’s death,’ Clémence said.

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ said Madeleine.

Clémence ignored her and explained what Mrs Ferguson had told them at the nursing home, and the discrepancies they had identified between the handwritten manuscript and the published novel of Death At Wyvis . The old lady listened closely, taking everything in.

‘So you now know for sure you killed my sister?’ said Madeleine to the old man.

He nodded. ‘But I have had a partial memory. I believe that very recently I wrote down everything I had discovered in a black exercise book. I think I was planning to produce a second edition of Death At Wyvis . Have you seen it? Have you heard anything about a possible second edition, maybe from Nathan before he died?’