Prologue
Tuesday June
4th 7.30 pm
Plymouth City Centre Gym
He lay slumped against the side wall of the
squash court, sweat cold against his back – his partner kneeling beside him,
their racquets one across the other at his feet – ball at the front wall –
faces of members staring in becoming pale blobs.
‘Have
you still got the pain?’
It
was in his neck and jaw, now, too. He sucked in a breath and shook it out –
tried to focus. ‘Yeah.’
The
glass door to the squash court flew open and the gym medic darted in, dropped
to his knees beside him, grabbed his wrist – looked into his closing eyes.
‘How
long’s he been like this?’
‘Few
minutes. I thought he’d pulled a muscle in his chest.’
‘Hard
game?’
‘No.
I was trying to ease him back into it. He hadn’t played since his wife–’
The
medic raised a silencing hand at him – his head turned to one side, expression
stern. ‘His pulse is all over the place. He could be having an M I.’ He pulled
out a mobile and dialled. ‘Ambulance. And hurry.’
= = =
Tuesday June 4th 7.30 pm
Plymouth - North of the City
She
rose up, ran her nails down his stomach, tongue sliding against her teeth.
‘I’ve been waiting all day for this,’ she murmured moving rhythmically back and
forth.
His moan wasn’t pleasure. He gripped
a hand to his chest at a pain tightening his body and shrivelling his erection.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said
frowning.
‘Can you get off?’
She eased up – slid a sweaty leg
over his thighs and knelt beside him. ‘What is it? Aren’t you feeling well?’
‘Help me up.’
She got off the bed, pulled on his
right arm and he grimaced himself sideways – sat up – blew out a shaky breath.
‘You’re frightening me.’ She reached
for her mobile. ‘Should I get a doctor?’
How would he explain that to his
wife?
‘It’s just a pain. It’ll go.’ He
gestured a trembling hand at his clothes strewn about the bedroom carpet. ‘Pick
them up. Help me get dress–‘
He groaned, clutched at his chest
and fell forward, crumpled onto the floor.
She dialled. ‘Ambulance. Quickly.’
Chapter
1
City Hospital
Plymouth, UK
Wednesday June 5th (mid-morning)
‘Mac?’
The
distant voice had his heart banging against his chest and heavy eyelids
struggling to open.
‘Can
he hear me?’
‘Yes,
Mrs Ford, the anaesthetic’s wearing off. I’ll write up my notes outside. Give
you some time together.’
‘Mac?’
The
voice was closer and his eyes widened, stared at his wife’s face over his. For
a second he loved what he saw – then the bleep on his heart monitor raced. ‘NO!’
he yelled. ‘Get away. Get away.’
She
raised up, her expression confused, gaze darting back to the opening door and a
white-coated Doctor Mason dashing back in.
‘What’s
up with him?’ she said.
‘Nurse!’
Doctor Mason grasped at hands detaching monitor wires and toppling
a drip stand. ‘Calm down, Mr Ford. Nurse … trolley!’
‘Get it away from me!’
Three nurses paced in, one pushing a
drugs cart.
‘Hold him still.’
They grabbed his arms, wrestled them
down against the bed.
‘This isn’t happening,’ he shouted
fighting against the hold on him. ‘Someone get it away.’
‘Mrs Ford, can you please leave.’
‘She’s not my wife. She can’t be.’
‘Why’s he saying that?’
‘Go. Please.’ Mason flicked a finger
against a hypodermic – snapped a look at the nurses pressing down on limbs.
‘Keep him still!’
The needle slid in – a rush of heat flushing
through him as the sedative took effect. ‘My wife’s dead,’ he protested.
‘You’re confused, Mr Ford. You need
rest.’
‘But she’s dead.’ He fought his eyes
closing. ‘I killed her.’
----
A
light warming his face opened his eyes and he squinted at late afternoon
sunshine being split by the slats of a vertical window blind on the opposite
wall. He glanced around the small white room – it felt stuffy. Beside his bed a
heart monitor bleeped faster as he tried to swallow. His mouth was dry and his
head ached with images of the nightmare. He winced, eyes clamping together as a
pain in his temple bore down on him and a whoosh of blood pumping in his ears
gave way to a man’s voice.
‘I’m
sorry, Mr Ford, your wife died.’
The words had his mind unfold to the
worn photograph of Kim he kept in his wallet and a dark blue-suited Doctor
Mason staring at it in his hands.
‘You really don’t remember the
accident?’ Mason said.
Before
he could answer, both the scene and the pain misted away and, eyes open, he
frowned at his father, Ralph, placing a green plastic chair next to the bed.
‘How’re you feeling, now, Mac?’ he
said as he sat.
‘Mac?’ The name resurrected the
nightmare. ‘Why’re you calling me Mac?’
‘It’s your name.’
‘My name’s Harry.’
Ralph frowned. ‘Everyone calls you
Mac.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘You were fourteen. Declared you
hated the name Harry. Wanted to be called by your middle name.’
That was news to him. ‘Who calls
themselves by their middle name?’
‘You?’
Harry huffed. ‘Where’s the doctor?’
‘I don’t know. Did you want him?’
‘He was here, you must have seen
him.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘There was no
one here when I arrived.’
‘But he …’ Harry stopped, stared
down. No photograph. His gaze focused on his left hand. ‘Where’s my wedding
ring?’
‘You don’t wear one.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘You’ve always said real men don’t
wear rings.’
‘I’ve never said that. It’s tight. I
couldn’t get it off if I wanted to.’ He pointed to the cabinet next to his bed.
‘Check in there. Maybe they had to cut it off when I was brought in.’
‘Son, you’ve never worn a wedding
ring. Just look at your finger.’
Harry had already noticed there was
no indentation – no white mark against his tanned skin. ‘Just have a look.
Please.’
Ralph sighed, opened the cabinet
doors and shook his head. ‘It’s just that fake Rolex and this in there.’ He
handed over a bulging brown leather wallet.
Harry took it, slowly. It wasn’t
his, his was black. He opened it, thumbed through credit cards in slots and a
wad of banknotes in the back. There was no photograph of Kim. ‘This isn’t
mine,’ he said closing it.
‘Of course it is. I gave it to you,’
Ralph said as he took it from him. ‘Although, why you keep so much money on you
I don’t know.’ He jammed finger and thumb into a slit and drew out a business
card. ‘Here.’
Harry took it and felt a shiver
prickle up his spine as he read: Mr Harry MacKenzie Ford, Senior Designer,
Sandman Electronics and his company’s address in Plymouth.
Ralph handed back the wallet, leant
across and gently patted a fatherly hand against Harry’s shoulder. ‘You gave us
a scare, Son. Doctor Mason said your heart stopped while they were treating
you. Six minutes apparently. Maybe that or the anaesthetic caused the confusion
about Kim. You frightened her. She’s pretty shaken up.’
Harry’s heart thumped and he looked
up from the business card to Ralph opening the door. ‘What’re you talking
about? Kim’s dead. You know she is.’
‘Look, I don’t want you to get upset
again, but … ’
Harry watched as the woman stood
hesitantly in the doorway staring at him. He sat forward – a ball of emotion
thickening in his throat as chunks of windscreen glass glistening from cuts in
her face appeared and then faded away.
‘Come and tell this husband of yours
you’re alive and well,’ Ralph said beckoning her in.
‘It’s not you – it can’t be,’
panicked Harry. ‘You’re dead.’
Ralph stood, slid an arm around her
shoulders and walked her toward the bed. ‘I think the anaesthetic’s confused
him,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m not confused!’ Harry pointed at
her easing away from Ralph’s comforting. ‘She died.’
‘I’m a ghost? Is that what you’re
saying?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know what you are ... who
you are.’
‘So, if I’m dead, then your dad is,
too?’
‘No, not him. Just you.’
‘You’ve had a shock to your system,
Son. You’re just a bit mixed up.’
Harry glanced at his father then at
her. There was something odd about both of them. His father’s eyes were
brimming – hers were distant. If this was real then it was the opposite of what
he would have expected. Either way they
seemed certain of what they were saying – he was the one at odds with what was
happening here. Of course, that was if this was real and he knew it couldn’t
be.
‘Doc?’ Harry shouted past Ralph.
‘Doc! Someone get the doctor. And get this woman out of here.’
Ralph reached forward, gripped
Harry’s arm and spoke quietly, ‘Stop it. You’re upsetting Kim, again.’
‘She’s not Kim,’ Harry snapped.
‘I think it best if the two of you
give him some space.’ Doctor Mason’s voice had an edge to it as he held the
door open. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid this isn’t helping his recovery. He needs
rest.’
Harry watched his father usher the
woman out and stared at Mason pushing a folded stethoscope into the pocket of
his white coat. ‘Who is she?’
‘She’s your wife, Mr Ford.’
‘How many times do I have to say
this? My wife’s dead.’
‘You’re obviously confused. It’s not
unusual given what’s happened to you, but I can assure you that woman is your
wife.’
‘But Kim had short hair. That
woman’s is down to her shoulders. Kim was slim, athletic. That woman’s heavier,
fuller in the face. She’s–’
Mason held a hand at Harry’s
protestations. ‘Tell me, why you think your wife’s deceased.’
‘Is this some sort of game? You were
here just now reminding me she was.’
‘Me? You’re mistaken Mr Ford.’
‘No, I’m not. I was …’ Harry
hesitated, drew his gaze over Mason’s open-necked shirt and chinos underneath
the white coat and frowned. He remembered a suit.
‘You were what?’
‘I was looking at a photograph of
her and you were telling me she was dead. Not that I needed reminding.’
‘What photograph? Where is it?’
Harry sighed. ‘I don’t know. It
disappeared.’
‘When?’
‘Just before my father arrived. I
had this pain, closed my eyes and saw it.’ He glimpsed Mason’s brow furrow.
‘And, before you say it, I wasn’t asleep. It wasn’t a dream. This is the
dream.’
‘So, where’s the picture?’
‘I’ve just told you, I don’t know.’
‘Then I have to come back to the
question of why you think your wife is dead.’
‘The fact that I buried her last
year might have something to do with it.’
‘But she’s here, Mr Ford, she’s–’
‘I buried her for Christ’s sake! You
signed the death certificate. Don’t you remember?’
‘Hardly.’
‘Then it’s you that’s confused, not
me.’
‘So how do you explain the fact that
she’s here, alive?’
Harry couldn’t explain that any more
than he could explain his father’s new found tactility. ‘I don’t know, you’re
the doctor, you tell me.’
Mason studied him for a moment then
said, ‘We believe your heart attack was caused by what we call Takotsubu
Cardiomyopathy. It’s rare and generally occurs in very high stress situations.
Typically, a reaction to the death of a child or someone very close.’
‘That’s it. Kim died. You’re
supporting what I’m saying about her.’
‘No, I’m telling you what we believe
caused your trauma – yesterday. Although, yes, it has been labelled broken-heart syndrome, it isn’t based in
illusion or an historic event. It’s rooted in the very real stress of the here
and now.’ Mason stepped to the foot of Harry’s bed, withdrew his file from the
rack and opened it. ‘How’s your life been recently?’
Harry pictured months of trying to live
with the guilt, sadness and anger of Kim’s death. He’d done no running, no
weight training. Playing squash against Chris was the first game since she’d
died, and that had put him in this hospital. ‘Pretty quiet,’ he said.
‘You may benefit from regular
exercise – have you considered joining a gym?’
Harry’s brow lined at the
suggestion. ‘I was in the gym when I had the attack. I was playing squash.
Admittedly I hadn’t played for a few months, not since Kim …’
‘Oh. You’re father said you don’t do
much in the way of physical exercise.’
‘Why would he say that?’
Mason shrugged. ‘I assume because
he’s worried about you.’
‘That’ll be a first,’ Harry
muttered.
‘Do you smoke?’ Mason asked.
‘No.’
‘Alcohol?’
‘Couple of lagers a week. The odd
glass of red.’
‘Height?’
‘Six-two.’
‘Weight?’
He glanced down at his stomach. The
muscle tone had gone and he felt heavier than he remembered. Maybe his father
was right and he was more sedentary than he thought. ‘Fifteen stones-ish.’
‘So, exercise at this gym of yours?’
‘Judo. Bit of boxing. Kim and I used
to play squash every Tuesday and ...’ He stopped. Did those nights ever exist?
Did any of it exist?
‘Have you ever suffered any
neurological disorders? Anxiety, depression?’
‘Kim’s death made me–’
Mason shook his head at him. ‘Let’s
leave that mind-set to one side for a moment.’
‘You’re saying I imagined Kim
dying?’
‘Well, the fact that she’s alive
would seem to suggest so.’
‘To you, perhaps.’ Harry squinted at
the sunlight slicing in through the vertical blinds on the window. He didn’t
imagine it. It was nine months before and imprinted on his memory as if it was
the previous day.
‘Well, unfortunately, the TC was
further complicated by your heart stopping while we were dealing with your
condition.’
‘I know. Dad told me.’
‘Fortunately you pulled through.
Although, we still don’t know a great deal about what goes on in the mind when
that happens for as long as it did with you. So, can I suggest you go easy on
your family, this situation has been hard on them too, especially your wife.’
‘She’s not–’
‘She’s alive Mr Ford. That’s a
fact.’ Resting a hand on the door handle, Mason said, ‘It’ll all drop into
place. You will get back to normal.’
‘I am normal, it’s you that needs a
psychiatrist,’ Harry said quietly.
Chapter
2
City Hospital
Plymouth, UK
Wednesday June 5th (mid-morning)
A dull clunk echoed
in his head and brought his eyes half-open.
He dragged in
a breath, glanced right at leads and wires flowing from him to a bank of
monitoring equipment and then left at a nurse placing a plastic jug of iced
water and a tumbler on the cabinet beside his bed.
He blinked heavy eyes and glanced from
her to a dark, cloudy sky visible through a window on the opposite wall.
‘How’re you feeling, Mr Ford?’ she
asked.
He felt like someone was sitting on
his chest and his legs were made of lead. ‘Tired,’ he said.
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No.’
The door opened and she turned, smiled
at a middle-aged man in a dark blue suit – a stethoscope around his neck.
‘He’s just come round, Doctor Mason,’
she said.
‘So, Mr Ford, how’re you doing?’
‘You’re the doctor, you tell me.’
Mason glanced at a monitor screen
sending out a regular bleep, pulled a blue folder out of a rack at the end of
the bed and opened it. ‘Considering what you’ve experienced, your signs are
good. You’re obviously a fit man, and that helped, but we’ll need to keep an
eye on you for a couple of days ...’ He glanced at the open file again, ‘D’you
mind if I call you, Harry?’
‘It’s Mac. My name’s Mac.’
‘Oh. We have you listed as Harry
Ford.’
‘Harry MacKenzie Ford. Everyone calls
me Mac.’
‘Ah, middle name, MacKenzie. Yes.
You’d prefer to be known by that?’ Mason tapped a finger against the page in
the file. ‘Only, your father referred to you as Harry.’
‘No one’s called me Harry since I was
fourteen. Including my father. Anyway, where is he?’
‘He’s at a meeting. He said he’ll be
in once it’s over.’
‘In that case, can someone let my wife
know I’m back in the land of the–’
‘Your wife?’
‘Yes, I’ll need her to do some
telephoning around for me.’ Mac glanced at Mason and the nurse exchanging
concerned glances. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps you could leave us, nurse?’
Mason watched her go and waited for the door to close.
‘What’s going on?’ Mac asked.
‘You don’t remember the accident?’
‘What accident?’
‘The one in which your wife died.’
The bleep on Mac’s heart monitor jumped
a level.
‘I don’t know what planet you’re on,
but my wife isn’t dead. Now can someone telephone her and tell her to come in.’
‘I can assure you–’
‘Doctor, my wife isn’t dead. Get my father
on the phone. He’ll put you straight.’
‘Mr Ford … Mac, as distressing as this situation must be for you there is
nothing on which to put me straight.’
‘You’ve just told me that my wife is
dead for fuck’s sakes. That’s not distressing. It’s wrong.’ Mac wiped his left
hand across sweat on his chin and stared at a curling-at-the-edges blue plaster
on his third finger. He began peeling it off, stared at a gold ring and glanced
across at Mason. ‘What’s this doing here?’
‘We cover any metal that we can’t–’
‘I’ve never worn a ring.’
‘It was on your hand when you came
in.’
‘But …’ He stopped. ‘Where’s my
wallet?’
Mason opened the doors on the bedside
cabinet, reached in, took out a black leather wallet and handed it to him.
Mac stared at it. ‘This isn’t mine.’
‘I can assure you it is.’
‘Stop reassuring me, for fuck’s sake.
It’s not mine. Mine’s brown.’
Mason held a quietening hand at him.
‘Calm down, Mr Ford. I don’t want you getting upset.’
‘You call me by the wrong name, tell
me my wife’s dead and then give me someone else’s wallet. How d’you expect me
to react?’
Mason’s quietening hand became a
placating open palm. ‘I’ll put it back. You can look at it later. When you feel
more up to it.’
‘No. Let’s see who it belongs to,
because it isn’t mine.’ He opened it, stared at a picture of his wife, shook
out a debit card, three ten pound notes and a white business card. Where’s my
money?’
‘It’s there. On the bed.’
‘Not this petty cash. I had five
hundred pounds on me. And my credit cards have gone.’
Mason’s eyes widened. ‘Five hundred
pounds? Why would you keep that sort of money on you?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Mac jabbed a
finger at the wallet. ‘This isn’t mine. Where’s mine?’
Mason picked up the business card and
read aloud. ‘Mr H M Ford, Senior Designer, Sandman Electronics.’ He glanced at
Mac. ‘That’s you. Isn’t it?’
‘Look, that’s not my wallet, mine’s
brown.’
Mason pulled out the photograph and
showed it to him. ‘And this isn’t your deceased wife?’
‘Yes, that’s Kim.’ Mac said, his chest
tightening again as the room began to pulse. ‘But she isn’t dead.’
‘Mason?’ Mac snapped his
head round the empty room – at the strips of sunlight pouring through vertical slats
on the opposite wall. ‘Where the hell …?’
The sound of the door opening, made
him look back at a man entering.
‘Dad?’
‘Dad?’
Mason queried. ‘We were talking about the accident.’
Mac frowned, blinked Mason into focus
then stared across at the slat-less window showing a cloudy sky. ‘Where’s my
father?’
‘He hasn’t arrived yet.’
Mac scanned the room again – his frown
deepening. ‘But he was … ’
‘What?’ Mason said.
‘Nothing.’ He dropped the photograph
of Kim onto the debit card and the thirty pounds and flicked a glance into the
cabinet. ‘My watch. Can you give me my watch?’
Mason bent, reached in, lifted out a
chrome sports watch and held it out to him.
‘That’s not mine,’ Mac said.
‘It’s the only one in here.’
That’s some cheap thing, mine’s … ’
Telling him that he owned a Rolex might set hares running on how he could
afford it. It was his guilty secret – and a sure reserve of cash should he ever
need to sell it. The fact that, with the exception of Alex Trent, family and
friends thought it was a fake – a Chinese cheat, he was happy to go along with.
‘Yours is what?’ Mason asked.
‘… Gold coloured.’
‘Are you sure?’
The remark had a patronising tone and
it agitated him. But, as he gazed down again at the three ten pound notes and
the debit card, he was sure of nothing. ‘You’d better find my wallet and my
money otherwise …’
‘If you believe money has been stolen
then we’ll call the police.’
Mac knew that couldn’t happen. They
might ask where he got it. ‘Actually, I may have had two wallets on me. The
black one and a brown one. Sometimes I do that.’
‘And two watches?’ Mason said slipping
the chrome one back into the cabinet.
Mac’s mind was still on the police
being called. ‘I just need you to find the brown wallet. It has some important stuff
inside.’
‘I’ll check with security.’ Mason
turned at a knock on the door and a man poking his head around it. ‘Ah, Mr
Ford, can I suggest that you don’t stay too long. Your son needs rest.’
Ralph Ford shrugged. ‘That’s fine with
me. I’m on my way to another meeting.’
‘Where’s Kim? Isn’t she with you?’ Mac
glimpsed the quizzical look that passed between his father and Mason.
‘I’ve been trying to tell Mac that–’
‘Who’s Mac?’ Ralph asked.
‘Me,’ Mac said. ‘Me.’
Ralph looked at Mason. ‘Have you given
him anything that would confuse him?’
‘No, although there’s a remote
possibility that the anaesthetic may have–’
‘Muddied the waters?’ Ralph said.
‘I am here,’ Mac blurted. He glanced
at his father. ‘Look, just tell him that Kim’s alive and–’
‘She’s dead, Harry,’ Ralph said.
‘Don’t talk rubbish. I need to see
her. Get her to make some calls for me while I’m in this place.’ He watched
another look shoot between his father and Mason. ‘What’s going on?’
‘She died. In the accident. Don’t you
remember?’ Ralph said.
‘When?’
‘Last October.’
Mac’s face screwed. ‘You’re mistaken.
Both of you.’
‘You’re the one who’s muddled, Harry.’
‘Stop calling me Harry! It’s Mac for
fuck’s sake. Mac.’
Ralph glanced again at Mason. ‘Why’s
he so angry?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. Now,
go and get Kim.’
Ralph grabbed Mason’s arm and tugged
him out the room.
‘Where’re you going?’ Mac demanded.
Neither man replied and the door
closed.
Mac stared from it to the drip in his
arm and then the pads across his chest – his heart monitor sounding out a
racing pulse as he pictured him and Kim arguing before he stormed out and
jumped into his co-worker’s bed. To say Kim was dead was crazy. Their marriage
might be, but she wasn’t.
Two minutes
later the door opened and Mason returned, a couple of male nurses behind him.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s had to go to his next meeting.’
‘He’s left?’
‘Yes.’ Mason looked round at a nurse
wheeling in a medicine cabinet, behind her the male nurses standing by the
door. ‘Which is probably just as well as I think you need some rest.’
The nurse handed two tablets in a small
paper cup to Mac and poured water from the jug into the tumbler.
‘Take those. They’ll help you to
sleep,’ Mason said.
Mac threw the paper cup onto the
floor. ‘I don’t need tablets. I need to talk to my wife.’
‘You need to rest.’ Mason held his
hand out to the nurse and she dispensed another couple of tablets onto it. He reached
forward, offered them to Mac. ‘I want you to take these, Mr Ford.’
Mac bashed a hand against Mason’s
fingers and the tablets flew across the room. ‘Get me my fucking wife!’
Mason nodded forward the two male
nurses and they held down Mac’s arms.
‘Get these twats off me!’ he barked.
Mason picked up a syringe and, as Mac
wriggled against the hold, shot the contents into his left forearm.
Mac froze. His heart monitor dropping
to a regular slow bleep as he fell back, eyes closed, against the pillow.
Chapter
3
Thursday June 6th
10.00 am
A
night of fitful sleep hadn’t convinced Harry that his mind was playing tricks
and no matter how he tried he couldn’t erase the memory of Kim’s funeral or his
grief. If he had been dreaming then it had been a nightmare – still was a
nightmare.
‘Mr Ford?’
Harry lifted his gaze from the
bedclothes to Mason standing at the open door.
‘I don’t want you to get distressed
again, but I have your wife here. She would like to see you. Are you happy to
see her?’
Harry narrowed his eyes past him to the
woman – dark shoulder length hair framing a tiredness to hazel eyes and felt a
surge of grief put a chasm in his stomach. He was about to say no, get her out of here when he saw the
yellow jacket clutched in her right hand and his heart monitor’s bleep
increased.
Mason turned to her. ‘I don’t think
it’s a good–’
‘I’ll see her,’ Harry said.
Mason snapped a look back at him, then
waved her into the room. ‘I’ll be outside,’ he said as he left.
As she walked toward Harry’s bed, he
pointed at the jacket. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘You know where I got it.’
‘Tell me.’
‘In the States. You were invited to
some military thing in–’
‘Washington,’ he said.
‘Yes. I bought it at Dulles airport
on the way back.’
His brow furrowed. ‘No. I bought
it.’
‘You don’t buy me presents,’ she
said. ‘If it hadn’t been for Bob telling me the invite was for husbands and wives you wouldn’t have taken me.’
She dropped the jacket onto his bed
and, as she pulled on a chair and sat, he swallowed at the recollection of it –
hanging in the wardrobe with those of Kim’s clothes that he couldn’t give to
charity.
He ran his fingers over the pristine
cloth of the lapel and frowned at a memory of a counter assistant at the
cleaners apologising for not being able to get out all the blood stains. ‘At
Heathrow, when we arrived back, who drove home?’
‘I did. You said I had to. You were
tired.’ She gave him a sideways look. ‘I was tired too, but that didn’t seem to
matter,’ she said.
‘You were sick a couple of times on
the plane, that’s probably why you were tired.’
She frowned, shook her head. ‘I
don’t get travel sick.’
‘No. You thought it was the meal on
the plane. Dodgy liver pate. Mine was OK though.’
‘I don’t like pate.’
He remembered her eating it. She
seemed to enjoy it at the time. ‘Did anything happen on the drive back?’
‘Like what?’
‘Anything.’
‘You slept most of the way.’
That wasn’t right. She was the one who was tired – she was the one who’d slept. He stared
at her. Other than the hair and the increase in weight, she looked and sounded
like Kim, but something wasn’t right – couldn’t be right.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘No reason.’
‘Right, well … look, we need to talk
before you come home.’
‘About what?’
She drew in a breath, let it out slowly
and stared at the floor as if gathering her thoughts.
‘About what?’ he repeated.
She raised her gaze, bit on her lip.
‘Us,’ she said.
‘What about us?’
She sat back in the chair – her gaze
narrowing on his eyes. ‘D’you need me to spell it out?’
Harry’s brow lined. ‘I’m sorry, I
don’t know what you you’re talking about.’
‘You and I … ’
He watched as she drew in another
breath, held it for a second and swallowed, before letting it out.
‘The way you’ve been with me,’ she
said. ‘Especially since your mother died.’
‘I was fourteen when Mum died.’
‘She died last year. August tenth of
last year. A stroke.’
‘Stroke?’ He shook his head. ‘She
had cancer. Pancreatic cancer.’
‘No, she didn’t, it was a–’
‘I should know what my own mother
died of, for Christ’s sakes!’ he snapped. ‘I was fourteen and it devastated
me.’
‘Look, I’m not going to argue with
you about it. I didn’t come here to discuss your mother.’ She straighten the
sleeve on her jacket and ran a hand along the material, flattening it against
the bedclothes. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’ she said.
‘Someone else?’
‘The late nights, you saying you’ve
been at work when you haven’t. I’m not a fool, Mac. You’re having another
affair.’
‘I’ve never had an affair.’
She gave him a tearful look.
‘Don’t.’
‘But I haven’t.’
‘I said, don’t.’
His bewilderment grew. ‘I’ve never
cheated on you.’
‘You already have. Twice to my
knowledge. God knows how many others you’ve played around with.’ She raised her
head sniffed in a breath. ‘All I’m asking is that you end it.’
He beat a hand against the
bedclothes. ‘Look. There’s nothing to end,’ he said.
She snatched the jacket off the bed,
held it to her. ‘You were blue-lighted in here from god knows where on Tuesday
night and your office manager found your car locked up at your company car park
and the keys pushed through the company letter box yesterday. So, where were
you taken ill, eh?’
‘I was at the gym. I collapsed there
playing squash.’
‘Squash?’ She laughed. ‘It’s all I
can do to get you to cut the bloody grass.’
‘I’m telling the truth. Ask Chris
Pope.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s a surveyor. He goes to the
gym. He picked me up. Took me there.’
‘Picked you up from where?’
‘Home.’
‘Our home?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve never mentioned anyone by
that name before.’
‘He‘s relatively new there. He’s
been helping me … ’ Harry sighed at a mental image of him unloading his
feelings about Kim’s death to Chris over a beer and closed his eyes for a
second.
‘Helping you what?’ she said.
He opened them. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You mean I won’t believe you. Chris
Pope? Squash? A gym?’ She shook her head at him. ‘If you’d said you’d been
stuffing someone called Christine Pope
behind a gym you might have stood a chance. You think I’m a fool, Mac.
Well, let me tell you I’m not.’ She stood, padded across to the door, turned
and glared at him as she opened it. ‘And I won’t let you put me through that
humiliation again, Mac. I won’t.’
As she strode out through the
doorway, Mason appeared and looked in.
‘Everything alright?’
Harry sighed. ‘I don’t know who the
hell that woman is, but she isn’t my wife.’
Chapter
4
Midday
Harry
couldn’t get Kim’s accusations out of his head. Of course he’d looked at other
women, but that was as far as it had gone. To say he was a serial adulterer was
crazy.
‘Lunch, Mr Ford,’
The nurse’s chirpy voice, as the
door opened, stopped his introspection and he looked across at her wheeling a
table alongside his bed, on it a tray with a covered plate and a glass of
orange juice.
‘Not hungry, thanks.’ He rested up
onto one arm and pointed to the bedside cabinet. ‘Could you give me the wallet
out of there?’
She opened the doors and handed it
to him. ‘Doctor Mason is due around at one. Try to eat something before he
arrives.’
Harry watched her leave and glanced
at the plate – he didn’t feel like food.
He opened the wallet, took out five
credit cards and examined each in turn. He didn’t remember applying for any of
them. He drew out a blank white plastic card with a black strip on it and
turned it in his fingers. It meant nothing to him. He dropped it onto the bed
with the others and pulled out a wad of ten and twenty pound notes. He placed
that on the bed and unclipped a buttoned flap on a small pocket at the front of
the wallet. It was too tight to get his fingers in, but when he shook it a key
fell out. He placed it on the bed and slid out the business cards. Had it not
been for them he could have said this wallet belonged to someone with the same
name – a wild coincidence, but these cards proved he couldn’t grasp at that
straw.
He began putting them back and froze
at a pain in his head snapping his eyelids together.
When he opened them
the bed was clear and the table parked against the wall, its top empty.
His confusion grew
as the door opened and the nurse he’d seen before brought in a tray, placed it
on the table and began wheeling it across toward the bed.
‘Lunch, Mr Ford.
Doctor says you must try to eat something.’
Harry didn’t move as
she slid the table into place over the bedclothes.
‘Feeling more
relaxed?’
‘My wallet,’ he
said. ‘I’d like my wallet.’
‘Are you OK with
things now? Doctor said not to give it to you if it was going to upset you
again.’
He nodded. ‘Just let
me have it – please.’
She opened the
cabinet doors and lifted out a thin black wallet.
‘That’s mine,’ he
said.
The nurse smiled.
‘Did you expect someone else’s?’
‘No. It’s just …’ He
reached for it and stopped – his gaze fixing on the gold ring on his left hand.
He ran finger and
thumb around the tight band – an image of Kim giving it to him on their wedding
day punching into his mind.
‘Mr Ford?’
He looked at the
nurse shaking the wallet at him.
He took it from her,
and stared again at the ring.
‘Is something
wrong?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s … it’s
fine. Thank you.’
He opened the wallet
and held his breath at the picture of Kim – his heart thumping as the image
faded into a swirling grey mist.
A clattering crash cracked through his head and he
snapped a look across the room at the nurse picking up food and a broken plate
from the floor.
‘There was no need for that, Mr Ford,’ she said
shakily.
‘What happened?’ Harry asked.
‘You threw it at me.’
‘But I wouldn’t … ‘ He glanced down. On the bed, the
black wallet had gone and the credit cards from the brown one were in disarray
around him – the money back inside, the key missing.
He began searching for it amongst the cards and stopped
as he glimpsed the bare third finger of his left hand.
The door opened and he glanced across at Mason talking
with the nurse as she left carrying the tray.
He glared across at Harry. ‘I appreciate you’re not well,
but I will not have my staff subjected to violence.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Harry said.
Mason stepped around a pool of orange juice on the floor.
‘There’s no one else in here, Mr Ford.’
‘Look, I had that thing again. Like before. My head was
thumping and I saw that nurse bring in a tray. But I already had one. She
brought it in earlier. She got me my wallet.’ He lifted the brown one. ‘Not
this one. Mine’s black and has Kim’s picture inside. I was looking at it. Then
I heard a crash and saw the nurse picking up the plate of food.’ He dropped the
wallet onto the bed.
‘I don’t know what went on in here, but something did.’
Mason lifted the file from the rack at the end of Harry’s bed, scribbled a note
and slid it back. ‘You and I need to talk.’
‘Hang on.’ Harry pulled at the bedclothes again.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘Looking for my wedding ring.’
‘You didn’t have a ring.’
Harry looked up at him. ‘I was wearing it just now …’
‘When you thought your wallet was black?’
‘It was black,’ Harry said lifting the bed sheet.
‘Just stop what you’re doing a moment, and tell me what
you remember about your wife’s death – in this ... vision.’
There was a quietly interested tone in his voice and it
confused Harry. ‘I thought you didn’t believe me,’ he said.
‘I believe you believe what you thought you experienced.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. I’m trying to help you, here, Mr
Ford.’
Harry wondered if this was a precursor to a clinical
psychologist appearing and felt Mason’s gaze on him intensify. ‘I don’t need
help.’
‘I thought you might want to talk through what you
thought you saw.’
He did, but the more he
thought about it the less sense it made.
‘Anaesthetic can cause certain people to experience
dreams – that, even after a procedure, can feel real for a short period.’
‘Exactly. Short lived. A flash of ... whatever,’ Harry
said. ‘Kim’s death’s no flash. I can describe every second of it. It’s real.
The grief’s real. How can that be if it’s something the anaesthetic created?’
‘So what happened? How did Kim die?’
‘You know how she died.’
‘Look, Mr Ford, I’m trying to help you come to terms with
this ...’
‘Memory?’ Harry said.
‘I was going to say notion.’ Mason pulled up a chair and
sat. ‘Humour me for a moment. Just tell me how she died.’
Harry’s breathing deepened. ‘A car crash. My car.’ He
swallowed. ‘We’d been to the States. Flew into Heathrow. She offered to drive
us home, but she’d been sick on the plane, looked tired – so, I said I’d do it
and she slept. Close to Plymouth I must have fallen asleep. We crashed into a
bridge support.’ He gazed at his ringless finger for a moment, then back at
Mason. ‘Her side of the car took the impact. When I came round I couldn’t move.
Kim was trapped too – unconscious. Her head was resting on the dashboard.’ He
grimaced at an image ricocheting around his mind. ‘Her face was cut to pieces.
I grabbed her hand, but she didn’t respond. I must have become unconscious
again, because the next time I came round she was being cut out. That was the
last I saw of her alive. My father told me she’d died in intensive care.’ Harry
swallowed again. ‘He said she looked terrible. That I shouldn’t visit her in
the chapel of rest. That it was better to remember her as she was.’ He sighed.
‘I did go. But they’d covered her head and put her in a white full-length
gown.’
‘And this happened, when?’
‘October 8th last year.’ Harry studied Mason’s
bewildered expression – it was as if all of this was totally new to him.
‘And she was brought into this hospital?’
‘Yes.’ Harry didn’t want to say again you-should-know, you-declared-her-dead, and
that worried him. He was beginning to doubt himself. ‘When I was brought in
here with this heart problem it brought it all back. The accident. Kim’s
death.’
‘You told me that the Kim who was here looked slightly
different from the Kim in your vision. Other than her weight and hair, was
there anything else about her which was different?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Then isn’t it irrational to insist that your wife is
dead?’
‘Totally,’ Harry said. ‘Which begs the question why do I
know she is?’
‘No. It begs the question why you can’t move past that
notion. Why, despite physical evidence to the contrary, something is preventing
you accepting that your mind is playing tricks.’
Harry glanced again at his ringless finger. ‘This trauma
memory thing. How long until it goes away?’
‘That rather depends on you.’
Chapter
5
Midday
A loud crack
echoed and Mac’s eyes opened. Across the room rain pounded against his window
showing a thunderous sky.
‘Mr Ford?’
He stared vacantly at a nurse holding
the door ajar and smiling at him.
‘Lunch will be round shortly. Doctor Mason
said you should try to eat something.’
He ran his tongue around the inside of
a dry mouth and tried to swallow. ‘Get me a drink.’
She poured water into a glass and
placed a bent straw in it.
Mac reached up a wobbly hand to take
it, sucked on the cold liquid and swallowed. It shocked his system into life
and he pushed the half-empty glass back at her.
‘Feeling better?’ she asked, placing
it on the cabinet.
‘What time is it?’ he said.
‘Twelve o’clock.’
‘What day?’
‘Thursday.’
Mac remembered being held down while a syringe
was dug into his arm. That was Wednesday. ‘Where’s Mason?’ he demanded.
‘Doctor Mason will be doing his rounds
later. What would you like for lunch? We’ve lasagne, fish and–’
‘Just get me Doctor Mason.’
‘But you need to eat someth–’
‘For fuck’s sake. Get Mason, here.
Now!’
As she left, Mac Felt a pain in his
chest spew acid into his throat and sink him, eyes half-closed against the
pillows.
When he opened them, he
blinked at sunshine pouring through window slats and stared at a covered plate
and glass of orange juice on a table next to his bed where a brown wallet lay
open.
His eyes widened at a desk key, wad
of notes and credit cards spread around it.
He pushed the money and the key back
into the wallet and heard the door open.
He looked up as a nurse entered.
‘Someone’s been going through my
wallet.’
‘Yes, you. You asked me for it
earlier,’ she said.
‘How can I have? Mason said it
didn’t exist … and yet here it is.’
She lifted up the cover on the plate
of food and replaced it. ‘You need to eat something before Doctor arrives, Mr
Ford.’
Mac wasn’t listening.
He pointed at the cabinet doors.
‘Let me have the other wallet out of there.’
‘What other wallet?’
‘The black one.’
‘There isn’t another one.’
‘Just open the cabinet.’
‘But …’
‘Just open the fucking cabinet!’
She shot him a look, opened the
doors and turned it toward him. ‘There’s only your watch in here. Look.’
Mac gazed in – the Rolex.
‘Yes?’ she said sharply.
He nodded and she closed the doors.
She began pushing the table into
place over his bed. ‘Now, can you please try and eat something.’
He wasn’t listening. His gaze had
moved to his bare finger. ‘Where’s the ring?’
‘You weren’t wearing one.’
‘I …’ He looked across at the
sunshine streaming through the window and clutched a hand to an ache in his
chest.
The nurse pushed the table closer to
him. ‘Can you please eat something, Mr Ford?’
The room pulsed and he slammed a
hand against the plate and glass. ‘I’m not fucking hungry!’
All became black for a second – the
sound of rain tapping against the window as it lightened.
‘She
looked a lovely lady.’
He looked up from the photograph in
his hands to the nurse uncovering a plate on the tray.
He thought he’d sent that flying.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Your wife … she looked a lovely
lady.’
He stared from the nurse down at the
wedding ring on his hand holding the picture and his heart beat faster. This
woman did look lovely, and the more he studied the photograph, the more
differences he noticed – a more toned face – bright, lively eyes, a smile that
radiated warmth and the hair … short hair. This was a Kim he didn’t recognise. Like
she had a twin – not the identical kind.
‘Can you open that cabinet?’ he asked.
She bent and pulled on the doors.
‘What did you want?’
He stared past a mobile phone, a bunch
of keys on a racquet shaped key ring that he didn’t recognise, to the chrome
sports watch and felt sick. ‘Nothing. Can you leave it open?’
She nodded and pointed at the tray.
‘If you can manage to eat something, that would help,’ she said as she left.
Mac slid the photograph into the black
wallet, closed it and stared at rain hitting the window. Was he hallucinating?
He knew hallucinations could alter someone’s perception of the world for a
while – until whatever caused the illusion wore off, but nothing was wearing
off – unless he was still in the hallucination? But he wouldn’t know he was –
like he knew people don’t know they’re dreaming until they wake up.
He slid the wallet back into the
cabinet and pulled out the mobile. It wasn’t his. This one was smaller, had a
scratch on the screen from top to bottom. He scrolled through the Contact list. No Charlie. No Fionna. He
scrolled again and stopped.
‘Home,’
he said to himself and dialled. The line rang and he tapped fingers on the bed
clothes impatiently as he waited. Maybe Kim was on her way in. That would prove
Mason and his father wrong. Eventually the answer service cut in: “You’ve reached Harry Ford. Please leave a
message after the tone”.
‘What
the fuck?’ he mumbled – that wasn’t right. Their home phone’s message was: “Mac and Kim can’t come to the phone right
now …”
Another
scan through the Contacts made him
nod reassuringly.
‘Trent,’ he said – his finger hovering
over the Call button. He wondered
what sort of mood he might be in. He’d been acting up recently – causing
problems, but Mac needed to talk to someone he knew. Someone who called him Mac.
He pressed Call and waited, his pulse upping as the ringing tone stopped and a
voice answered.
‘Harry?’
It sounded different, less gruff – and
they got his name wrong. ‘Alex, yes.’
‘How are you? Maggie and I were so
sorry to hear about your heart problem.’
‘Forget my heart, what’s happening
about the meeting with Kerschmann?’
‘Who?’
‘Viktor Kerschmann.’
‘I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t know anyone
of that name.’
‘Why’re you calling me Harry?’
There was a muffled conversation at
the other end of the phone that Mac couldn’t understand.
‘You sound confused,’ Alex said
finally, adding. ‘Maggie sends her love and I have to shoot off to a meeting.
You know how it is.’
‘Can I phone you later?’
‘Yes, before seven. I have Bridge club
this evening.’
‘Bridge?’ Mac said.
‘Yes, I can get you in if you fancy it
when you’re out of hospital. They’re a great bunch of people.’
Mac pulled the phone away from his ear
and stared at it, before putting it back.
‘Harry? You there?’
‘I’ll catch you again, Alex.’
He ended the call and frowned. Alex
Trent didn’t play Bridge. He gambled. Gambled heavily. And what is it with people
calling him Harry?
Mac pushed the phone back into the
cabinet, closed the doors and glimpsed Mason walking in.
‘You
wanted to see me?’ Mason said reaching for the file at the foot of his bed.
‘I want to know what the fuck’s going
on.’
‘Is this about your wife again?’
‘Yes, and my wallet, and that excuse
for a watch and a key ring that looks like a snow shoe.’ He glanced at the rain
streaming against the window. ‘And the weather. Something’s not right. One
minute it’s like I remember, then …’ Mac stopped. Shook his head. ‘None of it
makes sense.’
‘Mr Ford, you’ve suffered a
heart-attack. Fortunately you didn’t need surgery, but your heart stopped just
after you were brought into the hospital.’
‘For how long?’
‘A few minutes. Sufficient to cause a secondary
trauma. Disturb the equilibrium within your mind. Something that could create
false memories … illusions.’
‘Hallucinations?’ Mac said.
‘Yes. So, perhaps you can now see why
I needed to sedate you. Needed to keep you calm.’
Mac’s heart sank. ‘You’re telling me,
I’ve been imagining Kim being alive? Imagining a brown wallet?’ He looked down.
‘This ring being on my finger when I thought I’d never worn one?’
Mason nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But when did she die? I don’t
remember any of that.’
‘October. Your father mentioned it
when he was here. A car crash. You were with her.’
Mac shook his head again. ‘But how can
something so profound just disappear from my mind?’
‘In the same way that other memories
that you think are real have been concocted by the trauma.’ Mason opened the
doors on the bedside cabinet, took out the wallet. ‘Like the way you see this
in your mind as something you don’t recognise.’
Mac stared at the wallet and his pulse
raised a level. There really was no wad of notes? No exclusive credit cards? No
key to an apartment? No Charlie?
‘I can understand some of this will
feel alien, Mr Ford. But it will slip into place. You will get back to normal.’
‘Normal? You call this normal? I had
…’ he was going to say I had it all – money,
women, a life on the edge. But it had all been a dream? And the parts that
were real – he didn’t remember.
‘You had a wife you loved and to lose
her like that, must have been an event that your mind has, understandably, but
temporarily, wiped from your memory.’
Mac couldn’t take this in. ‘When will
these … episodes, stop?’
Mason shrugged. ‘It’s difficult to
say. But until they do I don’t believe you should be driving.’
‘When can I go home?’
‘I’d need you to be clear of them for
twenty-four hours.’
‘So, I can go home tomorrow?’
Mason nodded. ‘If you don’t experience
anything.’
‘Good. Can I get some newspapers? I
need something to read – something to pass the time.’
‘I’ll get nurse to organise it,’ Mason
said.
Two tabloids
and a broadsheet didn’t offer the mind-numbing experience Mac needed to stop a
plethora of memories plaguing his emotions. The people in them seemed real. The
events – tangible. The remembered pleasures – authentic. It was hard to cast
them aside as invented, but that was what he had to do if he was to get out of
this place.
Chapter 6
The door
opening had Mac look up at his father padding in.
‘So, how’s it going?’ Ralph asked
picking up a broadsheet from the cabinet and thumbing through it as he sat on a
plastic chair a yard away from Mac’s bed.
Mac didn’t reply. This physical and
mental distance wasn’t like his father. If there was one thing his father did
frustratingly well, it was take an interest in his son. But not tonight.
Ralph dropped one side of the newspaper
and stared across at Mac. ‘Those hallucinations stopped?’
‘They’re invented memories. Caused by
the trauma of the–’
‘Mason said you can’t leave until
you’re free of them.’
‘Tomorrow. I can get out of here
tomorrow. Can you pick me up?’
Ralph shook his head. ‘Meetings all
day. You’ll have to get a taxi.’
Mac watched the page resume its full
height, his father’s face disappearing from sight behind it.
‘Is there a problem?’ Mac asked.
The page didn’t move as Ralph replied,
‘With what?’
‘With you.’
‘Why should there be?’
‘Can you put down the newspaper?’
Ralph sighed audibly, folded the
broadsheet onto his lap and stared across at him – his eyebrows raised. ‘What
is it?’
‘I might need some help remembering
what’s gone on. Everything’s a bit mixed up in my mind. I feel like–’
‘It’ll pass. You’ll sort yourself
out.’
‘But I don’t even remember Kim dying.
In my head she’s alive and well and living at our house. You’d think something
as traumatic as her death would be flashing in my mind like a neon sign. But I
don’t have any recollection of it at all.’ Unlike, he thought, the mistresses,
the money and the other intrigues his mind constantly threw at him.
‘It’ll all slip into place. When your
mother died you went through a strange phase. But you were fourteen, so, I
suppose it was to be expected.’
Mac frowned. ‘She died last year.
August of …’ He stopped and studied the questioning expression on his father’s
face.
‘Christ, you have got problems, Harry.
Or is it Mac? What’re you calling yourself today?’
‘That’s not fair,’ Mac said under his
breath.
‘Well, this is ridiculous. Kim, then
your mother – what else have you forgotten? D’you want me to write down your
address – just in case you don’t know where you’re going tomorrow?’
Despite Mac’s self-confessed ability
to rile a saint, he’d always known his father to be considerate, caring and fatherly, however, tonight he thought
the man staring back at him – the man whose hair seemed greyer, face thinner,
was none of these things. ‘I can manage, thanks.’
Ralph glanced at his watch, stood and
placed the newspaper back on the cabinet. ‘I’ve got a meeting.’
‘Another one?’
He walked to the door and turned.
‘I’ll telephone you at the weekend.’
‘Unless you’re at a meeting,’ Mac muttered as Ralph left.
The sound of a mobile ringing had him reach into the
bedside cabinet.
The screen showed Chris Pope – a name he didn’t recognise.
‘Hello?’ Mac said.
‘Harry. Hey, it’s good to hear your
voice. I’ve got you on speaker. You had us all worried down here at the gym.’
Mac heard a distant cheer.
‘Did I?’
‘So, how’re you feeling?’
‘I’m getting there.’
Another cheer.
‘Good. You didn’t look too well on Tuesday
night.’
‘Guess not.’
‘I’ll take you off speaker. Give me a
mo.’
‘OK.’ Mac could hear footsteps
squeaking along a wooden floor – a door opening and then a horn toot.
‘That’s better. I’m in the car park.
Bit more private.’
‘OK.’
‘How long are you in for?’
‘This is going to sound a strange
question, but how do I know you?’
Chris laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes. Seems my memory’s been affected
by the heart attack.’
‘Oh right, sorry.’
‘So, anything you can tell me would
help.’
‘No worries, Harry. We met up just
after your wife died. You seemed like you needed a friendly shoulder. And ear.’
He’d obviously been telling this guy
his troubles – he wished he could picture him or remember what they’d talked
about.
‘Look, when you’re out, maybe we can
meet up. Have a beer. Are you allowed beer?’
‘Hope so.’
‘Good. I’ll give you a bell next week.
But if you need to chat before then make contact. You’ve got my number. Have
you heard from Bob Connaught?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Just wondered if he’d been in touch.’
‘No, but he’s probably busy.’
‘Yes, probably. Catch you soon, Harry.
Cheers.’
The line died and Mac stared at the
phone. Chris sounded like a concerned friend. It was a pity he couldn’t
remember him.
End of sample
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