Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

‘I know,’ he said with sudden urgency, and he reached out and grabbed me hard by the wrists. ‘Listen. I know you think you don’t remember anything. You’ve spent years excising her and you’ve become very good at it. That’s not what I’m asking.’

I could only stare at him, dumbfounded, his hands warm on my skin.

‘I am asking you to take a leap of faith. To be open to the possibility that Bethan Avery may be in there, locked out of your conscious mind, and that everything that’s happened to you so far is because she is banging on the windows and desperately trying to tell you something. Something important.’

I took in a deep breath.

‘A leap of faith?’

‘That’s it. That’s all I want from you.’

I couldn’t speak, not straightaway. And when I did, my voice was tiny, like something I was hearing from the other side of some enormous distance.

‘All right.’ I licked my lips. ‘I have my doubts. But if you think it helps, I’ll try.’

He released me then, slowly.

‘All right,’ he said.

We paused then, our conflict exhausted.

‘So,’ I said. ‘How do we do this?’

‘I don’t know.’ He opened the door and pulled out his phone. ‘Wait here. I need to call Greta.’

He was on the phone for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time I watched him pacing urgently in front of the post office, listening far more than he was talking. Every so often our eyes met through the windshield and he offered me a wan smile.

While this happened, two thoughts circled one another relentlessly in my mind, like dogs chasing one another’s tails.

Firstly, this was all utterly impossible and insane. I cannot be Bethan Avery. Yet it had been proved impossible for me to be Margot.

Who am I? Who am I?

And alongside this, even if it wasn’t impossible or insane that I was Bethan Avery, or even if it was impossible and insane, but was still, nevertheless, true, then how were we going to find Katie Browne?

I felt sick, nauseous with anxiety, and just when I thought I could bear it no more, and was about to leap out of the car and grab him, he was suddenly jumping back into the driver’s seat, slamming the door after him.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘It’s difficult. There are three ways to treat you. There’s psychotherapy, which takes months. There’s hypnosis…’

I widened my eyes. Of course.

‘But with such an entrenched trauma, it’s more likely to produce false memories than real ones.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘The past is a country you really, really don’t want to visit, Margot.’ He turned to me. ‘Events have proved this. Greta thinks you’d need hypnotherapy under a chemical trance. It’s all very specialized, and very high risk.’

I shrugged. ‘If it helps, I don’t care. I’ll do it.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ he said, starting the car. ‘They need to find someone with the expertise to perform the procedure, and then convince them that the result will be worth the potential risk to you.’

‘Risk to me?’

He nodded, not looking at me, pulling out into the road. ‘Yes.’

‘What kind of risk? I mean, comparatively speaking, how bad can it be considering what we’re up against?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t get into it. It’s pointless until she finds someone prepared to help us. She’s got a few names in mind, and a couple of them are in Cambridge, so with any luck we’ll hear back from her soon.’

‘What do we do until then?’

He had turned out of the village and was heading north fast. For my own part I was glad to see the back of Wastenley.

The pause was so long that for a moment I thought he’d forgotten my question, until he said, ‘We could do things while we’re waiting. We might find something useful there.’

‘Like what?’

‘We could look for triggers.’ That bright green gaze was on me again. ‘It can’t hurt.’

I nodded, as if I understood.

‘And where do we start?’

He turned back to the road, and his smile was small but genuine, spiked with camaraderie, and perhaps something else.

‘The best place. We start at the beginning.’

The clear blue sky clouded over as we headed back to Cambridge, but it had become a little warmer.

‘Snow,’ I told Martin as he punched through the digital buttons, trying to get a radio station that played actual music.

‘You think?’ he glanced upwards, peering at the clouds.

‘A fiver says it snows tonight.’

‘You’re on.’

With a burst of noise, my mobile leapt into life. A picture of Lily in Halloween costume – a vivid blue-green mermaid with shells in her hair – was glowing on the screen.

I swallowed hard and swiped to accept the call. ‘Hello there. I’m surprised you’re still speaking to me.’

‘Margot! I just got your message, are you all right?’

Well, no, I wasn’t all right, but it was too much to get into over the phone. ‘I’m fine. I’m with Martin. We’re heading back to Cambridge.’

‘The police have been here. They’re asking about Katie Browne again…’

‘I know.’

This stymied her. How could I possibly know?

‘They think it’s…’

But Martin was gesturing, drawing a finger across his throat. I understood immediately. Lily would share this all over the staff room, who would share it all over Cambridge. It might do no harm, but better safe than sorry.

‘Sorry, Lils, I meant I knew the police had called. I didn’t know there were new leads on poor Katie. Look, the battery on my phone’s dying so I’ll call you when I get back, all right?’

There was a pause. She could tell I was lying about the phone, I was sure, and she was hurt. Perhaps she thought we were still fighting.

‘And,’ I sighed, trying to put it into words, ‘I just wanted to say that I was sorry about last night.’

She didn’t reply for a minute. ‘But you were right,’ she said. ‘You were attacked… the police said…’

‘I know, I know – what I mean is, I’m sorry I stormed out like that. We’re good friends and we should have been able to talk about it, and if I had, well, maybe last night wouldn’t have happened.’ I rubbed my eye. ‘You know, you’ve been a good mate, and before… well, before things kick off properly, I just wanted you to know that.’

‘Margot, what are you talking about?’ Her voice was still, quiet. I had alarmed her.

‘I can’t say now. When I get back I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’

‘Yeah, maybe. But not as much trouble as some. I’ve got to go, Lils. Bye.’

I hit the button to end the call.

‘Recognize this?’

‘No.’

‘You mean you would drive miles and go to London and undertake all of this trouble and danger, but you were never tempted to visit the neighbourhood where it happened, even though it was only ten minutes away in the car?’

‘Apparently not,’ I said coldly.

He opened his mouth, about to take me to task, then stopped, his jaw clicking shut. There was something in him then, a glint of pity.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry, Margot. I keep forgetting. Of course you wouldn’t come here. You’re always running away from all this. You’re the Red Queen from “Through the Looking Glass”. You have to run with all your might, just to stand still.’

I didn’t know how to reply to this, so I said nothing.

We were west of Cambridge, further west than the sumptuous gardens and greens of Barton, with its multi-million-pound houses. This was a poor, lonely little pocket of council housing, forested in regular rows of planted trees, a desert island before the Fens begin again, spreading flat and green-grey as an ocean under a massive gunmetal sky, which was ramping up its threat of unseasonal snow.