Tracy Buchanan - The Family Secret

‘Is she okay then?’ Amber says stiffly. ‘The girl?’

He nods. ‘They did a CT scan. She has some damage to her temporal lobe,’ he adds, gesturing to the side of his head just behind his ear. ‘That will explain the memory loss.’

‘Is it permanent?’

He shakes his head. ‘Hopefully not. These injuries can be unpredictable though. She was rather distressed when I saw her. Must be scary being on her own in a town and hospital she doesn’t recognise.’ He shoots Amber a loaded look.

‘Oh, don’t give me that look, Jasper,’ she says. ‘It’s easy for you on your secure doctor’s wage to have the odd day off work. You still get paid. But for every hour I’m away from the shop, I lose money, not to mention precious time to finish painting it.’

He holds her gaze and she stares defiantly back at him. He looks like he’s about to say something then he shakes his head, rubbing at his forehead. ‘I’m too tired to argue with you, Amber.’

‘I didn’t realise we were arguing.’

He smiles. ‘That used to be my phrase.’

Amber can’t help but smile back. Jasper was so laid back, he didn’t even realise when Amber was angry at him. ‘You do realise we were just having an argument, right?’ she used to say to him.

The doors ping open and they both walk out. Jasper leads her towards the children’s ward and she pauses. The memories of being in there scorch her insides. It must be even harder for Jasper being here too, she thinks. He can’t escape the last place he saw his daughter.

‘We’re not sure of her age,’ he explains, eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Thought it best we pop her in the children’s ward, just in case she’s under sixteen.’

‘I think she’s older than sixteen,’ Amber says, swallowing her fear of entering that ward again after all these years.

‘Like I said, we can’t be sure. And the children’s ward is a gentler environment anyway.’

They walk into the ward, Jasper using his card to let them in. A nurse looks up as they approach.

‘Why, hello again, Jasper. Can’t keep away from this ward, can you?’ she asks flirtatiously. Then she notices Amber. The nurse straightens up. ‘How can I help, Doctor?’

Amber looks from the nurse to Jasper and back again. Was she imagining it or was there something going on between them? She feels jealousy curl like a snake at the pit of her stomach. Silly really. It’s been ten years, after all. Jasper must have had many relationships since.

Jasper coughs, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘We’ve come to see the girl who was found on the beach.’

‘Ah yes, our Jane Doe,’ the nurse replies.

‘She’s not dead,’ Amber snaps.

The nurse’s face hardens. ‘I didn’t say she was.’

‘Amber found her,’ Jasper says quickly, trying to diffuse the tension. ‘She’d like to visit her.’

The nurse nods. ‘Right, well, come with me then.’

Luckily, the ward looks different from how it was ten years ago. New paintings on the walls. New beds. New curtains around the cubicles. Amber tells herself it isn’t the same one where she held her daughter as she died. It helps that there are Christmas decorations everywhere too, the staff wearing different items as nods towards the seasonal time of year: gingerbread tights, tinselled hair.

The nurse leads them to a cubicle at the end of the ward concealed by a blue curtain with fish shapes on it. She opens the curtain and peeks in with a smile. ‘We have a visitor for you, love.’

Amber walks in with Jasper, feeling bad she hasn’t brought anything. Grapes. A magazine even. The girl sits up in bed and smiles weakly. She looks worn out, even paler than earlier. A thick dressing is wound around her head and her thin arms stick out from a pale green smock.

‘You came back,’ she says when Amber walks to her bed.

Amber bites her lip. She should never have left. ‘Of course! I just needed to make sure I shut the shop properly, that’s all. How are you?’

The girl scratches at her dressing. ‘Confused.’

‘I presume Doctor Rashad explained about your injury?’ Jasper asks, looking at the clipboard at the end of the bed.

The girl nods. Amber sits down next to the girl’s bed and Jasper takes the seat on the other side. As he does so, Amber gets a flash of that night ten years before, one either side of Katy’s small bed, right in this very ward, one small hand in each of their hands.

Jasper catches Amber’s eye and she can tell he’s thinking the same.

He looks back at the girl. ‘So, any memories come back to you?’

The girl nods. ‘Little things. Like a man with a beard, a black beard. Curtains with robins on them.’ She scrunches up her covers in frustration. ‘But that’s it. That’s all I can remember.’

‘That’s more than this morning,’ Amber says gently. ‘That’s good.’

‘Not good enough though,’ the girl says, turning to look out at the window towards the sea.

‘We’ll get you there,’ Jasper says. ‘Have the police been yet?’

‘Tomorrow – they want to give me more time to remember,’ the girl replies. She puts her hand up to her dressing again. ‘Do you reckon they think someone deliberately hurt me? Is that why the police are coming?’

Amber tilts her head to one side. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘There’s no reason to think that,’ Jasper says softly. ‘Debris was found in your injury, according to the note, so there’s a chance it was just a fall.’

‘Debris could get there if someone injured me and I fell,’ the girl says.

Amber leans forward. ‘Have you remembered something?’

The girl’s eyes flicker and then she looks away, shrugging. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles.

Jasper’s pager buzzes. He looks at it and sighs. ‘I’m needed,’ he says, standing up. ‘But you’re in good hands with Amber. Keep me posted, won’t you?’ he asks Amber.

Amber nods, then turns back to the girl when he leaves. ‘Do you need anything? Another drink?’ she asks, reaching for the empty plastic cup on the table. As she does, she notices a small, dark leather notebook on it.

The girl follows her gaze. ‘They found that in my pocket. Not much use though. Just lots of notes about animals.’

‘Can I take a look?’ Amber asks.

The girl shrugs. ‘Sure.’

Amber picks it up and unwinds the leather string around it. She flicks through it. Its pages are crammed full of untidy writing alongside small pencil sketches of animals from penguins to polar bears to seals, all with notes written beneath them. There are dates at the top of some pages, ranging from 1989 to the present day. The girl wouldn’t have been born back then so it can’t be hers.

She goes back to the first page and reads it.

Ptarmigans are masters of adapting to their surroundings. Feathers will turn white in the winter to act as camouflage against the snow …

Ptarmigans are masters of adapting to their surroundings. Feathers will turn white in the winter to act as camouflage against the snow.

I came across the frozen loch by accident on Christmas Eve, lost after driving back from six months of filming on the Orkney Islands. I’d hired a car after jumping off the ferry at freezing Scrabster, right on the northern tip of Scotland. The rest of the crew were flying back to London but I decided to go on a road trip, staying at different hotels along the way. It would be easy, my producer Julia had told me as she’d handed over a battered map.

‘Easy,’ I hissed to myself now as I reversed out of another dead-end turning. ‘Yeah, right.’