Amnesia Read online

  AMNESIA

  Michael Ridpath spent eight years as a bond trader in the

  City, before giving up his job to write full time. He lives in

  North London with his wife and three children.

  Visit his website at

  www.michaelridpath.com.

  In memory of my late uncle, Michael Ridpath, ornithologist, of Mundaring, Western Australia

  CONTENTS

  Part One

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Afterword

  Part Two

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  PART ONE

  PROLOGUE

  Friday 5 March 1999, Wyvis, Scotland

  He heard a cry, almost a scream, cut short. Then the rapid tap of feet on floorboards.

  ‘Jesus Christ! What happened to you? How long have you been there like that? Oh, you poor wee man!’

  The voice was Scottish, female, concern verging on panic.

  He was lying on something hard. He was cold. And his head hurt like hell. He tried to open his eyes but he couldn’t.

  He felt a gentle nudge on his arm. And then a hand on his cheek. Warmth.

  ‘You’re so cold! Are you alive, pet? Wake up! Open your eyes!’

  His eyelids felt as if they were zipped shut, but he wanted to re-assure the woman before panic overwhelmed her.

  He forced them open. He saw a pair of tight blue jeans. And a concerned, lined face beneath short blond hair. A tattoo of a Chinese character in green ink on a collarbone.

  ‘Thank Christ! You are alive!’

  He tried to say ‘yes’, but all he could manage was a groan.

  His head hurt. A herd of elephants wearing stilettoes was performing a dance at the back of his brain.

  ‘You’re freezing. Stay there! I’ll call an ambulance.’

  The woman disappeared from view, and he heard her voice on a telephone.

  He was lying on a wooden floor. He lifted his cheek. It was sticky. Blood – he could smell it, the tang of iron, of rust.

  He tried to haul himself upright, but he couldn’t. He tried harder. Somehow he pulled himself up onto his elbows, dragged himself a couple of feet across the floor, and twisted round so that his back was resting against the wall.

  He was in a hallway. Above him, a steep, spiral wooden staircase, shiny with wear, curved into darkness. Next to him, a patch of dry brown spread across the floorboards. He raised his hand to his cheek, and then to the back of his skull. His head was caked in the stuff. The elephants were still dancing.

  The woman returned, and squatted on the bottom step of the staircase staring at him. She was tall, long-limbed, about forty. Kind blue eyes. ‘Don’t worry. They’re on their way.’

  He tried to say something. He couldn’t. He tried harder.

  ‘Who are you?’ he managed to croak.

  The woman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Och, you know who I am! I’m Sheila. Sheila MacInnes? From the Stalker’s Lodge?’

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ he said.

  Then another, more worrying question occurred to him.

  ‘Who am I?’

  1

  Saturday 13 March 1999, St Andrews

  Clémence huddled deep into her coat against the wind threading its way through the university buildings from the North Sea, only a quarter of a mile away. One day into the spring vacation, the town was already almost empty of students. Clémence was staying on: she lived in Hong Kong, and for one reason or another, she couldn’t go back there for the holiday. She had just dropped her friend Livvie off at Edinburgh Airport to join a university ski trip somewhere in Austria. Livvie had said Clémence could borrow her car while she was away, provided Clémence picked her up the following week.

  It was very nice of her – the car was a cute yellow Clio, brand new – but where would you drive to in Scotland alone in the middle of March?

  She had also dropped off her boyfriend Callum, who was taking the bus back to Glasgow, where he was going to be working in a pub to earn much-needed spending money. They had only been going out three weeks, but Clémence would miss him. The university discouraged students from staying on in the vacation, and she would be virtually alone in St Andrews. She had considered asking Callum whether she could stay with him, but it was too early in their relationship for that. Maybe she would visit him for a couple of days over the weekend.

  She had moped in her room in halls for an hour, and then set off for the university library. If she was going to be stuck in St Andrews, she may as well use the time productively. She had fallen behind with her work: a bit too much socializing, a bit too much drinking, way too much faffing about. Callum. Nothing drastic, nothing that a couple of weeks in the library wouldn’t sort out.

  St Andrews was an ancient university of beautiful buildings, but its library looked like a car park built in the 1960s. Yet it was familiar, it was welcoming, and it was out of the wind.

  She was walking through the entrance to the entry gates, when her phone buzzed. She checked the number and grinned. An American international dialling code. New York.

  ‘Tante Madeleine!’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  Tante Madeleine was actually a great-aunt, the sister of Clémence’s long-dead French grandmother. It was Aunt Madeleine who had paid for Clémence to go to boarding school in England, and who was now paying for St Andrews. Clémence’s own parents were teachers, divorced from each other, and earning little money. More importantly, it was Aunt Madeleine who cared about her.

  They spoke in French. ‘Oh, Clémence, darling, I am so worried. I need to ask you a favour, a very great favour. I hope you can help me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clémence, more worried herself by how long the favour would take to explain than what it actually was. International calls from Aunt Madeleine ate up her phone credit.

  ‘There is an old friend of mine, of your grandparents, called Alastair Cunningham. Have you heard of him?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Clémence. ‘I think he visited us in Morocco when I was little.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, he knew your grandfather at university, then became a doctor and emigrated to Australia. Anyway, he came back to Britain last year and now he lives in the highlands of Scotland in a little cottage somewhere.’

  ‘Do you want me to visit him?’ said Clémence. ‘I can. It’s the spring vacation and I can borrow a car.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ said Madeleine. ‘Last week he fell down the stairs and hit his head. It is serious: so serious he has lost almost all of his memory. He’s in Inverness Hospital, and he has no relatives still alive in this country, nor friends for that matter.’

  ‘Poor man!’

  ‘Exactly. Somehow the hospital got hold of my number, and I am planning to fly over to Scotland to organize things for him. But could you fetch him from the hospital in Inverness and take him back to his cottage and look after him? It will only be for a few days. I remember you saying that you volunteered at the old people’s home?’

  ‘All I do is read to them,’ said Clémence. ‘I don’t know how to look after them.’

  ‘The hospital say he is ready to go home,’ said Madeleine. ‘I don’t think it will be too difficult.’ She paused. ‘I know it is a lot to ask, Clémence, and I would understand if y
ou said no. I can probably employ a nurse to stay with him, but I feel so bad for the poor man.’

  Clémence did too. She had a reputation for being a bit of a ditz, partially justified, and she wasn’t confident of her ability to take care of a sick old person. But her Aunt Madeleine rarely asked her for anything – never asked her for anything – and Clémence owed the old lady so much.

  Besides which, St Andrews, a town she normally loved, was already beginning to depress her.

  ‘All right, Aunt Madeleine. I will go and pick him up tomorrow.’

  They discussed details and then Clémence hung up, a little worried about what the next few days would bring, but pleased she still had some phone credit left.

  Sunday 14 March 1999, Raigmore Hospital, Inverness

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The old man’s brown eyes stared up at her, shrewd, angry but also unsure. Vulnerable.

  ‘Clémence,’ she answered, in as encouraging a tone as she could muster.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No. I mean yes. Sort of. We met when I was little. In Morocco. But not since then.’

  The old man took in the information from his position propped up in the hospital bed. He looked a tough old bird: firm wrinkles, a square jaw with a cleft chiselled at its centre, a thinning grey buzz-cut mocked by dense shaggy eyebrows. His eyes were sharp. Demanding. But unsure.

  ‘Are we related?’

  ‘No,’ said Clémence. ‘I’m Madeleine’s niece, or rather great-niece. Madeleine Giannelli? A French lady? An old friend of yours?’

  ‘I know who Madeleine Giannelli is,’ said the old man, with a flash of irritation.

  The nurse, an Irish woman who had been hovering behind Clémence’s shoulder, leaned forward. ‘Be nice to the girl, Alastair. She doesn’t know what you can remember and what you can’t.’

  The irritation switched from Clémence to the nurse. Then the old man grunted. ‘They tell me Madeleine is an old friend,’ he said. ‘I have to believe them. So far she is the only friend of mine they have discovered. I have no family, apparently.’

  Clémence glanced at one end of a neat scar, the stitch marks still visible, that sneaked up the side of the old man’s skull from his pillow.

  ‘She’ll be here as soon as she can,’ said Clémence. ‘She lives in America. I’ll bring you home and take care of you until she arrives.’

  The old man looked Clémence up and down doubtfully and grunted. The nurse clucked her disapproval.

  Clémence thought the old man had a point.

  ‘Ah, here’s Dr Stenhouse,’ the nurse said.

  Clémence turned to see a small dark-haired woman in a white coat moving towards her briskly.

  ‘Are you here to take Dr Cunningham home?’

  It took a moment for Clémence to realize that the doctor was talking about the old man, not one of her colleagues. ‘Er, yes,’ she said.

  ‘Can I have a word before you go?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clémence.

  ‘I’ll get Alastair ready,’ said the nurse.

  Clémence followed the doctor away from the beds to a quiet corner beyond the nurses’ station.

  ‘I’m very glad you can do this,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not just that we need the bed. Dr Cunningham may be eighty-three, but he was a very fit man when he came in here, and if we keep him in too long, his muscles will atrophy and we’ll never get him out of bed.’

  ‘Has he recovered fully?’ Clémence asked.

  ‘Physically, yes,’ said the doctor. ‘He fell on the stairs and the trauma was quite severe. He was unconscious for several hours and, as you can see, he has suffered severe memory loss. He had a subdural haematoma which we had to drain surgically. An MRI showed that he had sustained at least two previous head injuries in the past; your aunt says he used to play rugby, which might have been responsible. He was admitted nine days ago, but he hasn’t complained of a headache for three days.’

  ‘What about the wound?’

  ‘It’s healing nicely. Bring him back next week and we’ll take the stitches out.’

  ‘Can he remember anything at all?’ Clémence asked.

  ‘He has retrograde amnesia, which means he has lost the ability to recall events in his past dating back to his childhood. He can remember his parents, but not his late wife, for example. But he can remember everything required for day-to-day life. He could probably drive a car, although I don’t recommend you try that one out. He doesn’t remember going to medical school or being a GP, but he has a detailed knowledge of medicine.’

  ‘Could it be Alzheimer’s?’ Clémence asked.

  ‘No, it’s definitely trauma. Alzheimer’s doesn’t show up in scans, but Mrs Giannelli said he was alert mentally the last time she spoke to him, and showed no sign of memory loss. Although, if he did have incipient Alzheimer’s, then a head injury could easily make things worse.’

  ‘Will he get any of these memories back?’

  ‘Probably. That’s where you come in. Jogging his memory is the best way to encourage recall, but that’s difficult when there seems to be no one in this country who knows him. But do the best you can. That’s why it’s important to take him back to his home. He moved into a cottage on the Wyvis Estate up by Loch Glass last year and shut himself away. The stalker’s wife up there, Sheila MacInnes, is responsible for renting out the cottage and cleaned it for him once a week. Fortunately, she pops in almost every day to check on him, and she discovered him at the bottom of the stairs.’

  ‘That is lucky.’

  ‘She says there are plenty of papers there and photos; she found your aunt’s address on a letter on his desk. Try to talk through those with him. Do you know much about him?’

  ‘Almost nothing,’ Clémence said. ‘Only the little bit my great-aunt has told me.’

  ‘Well, phone her and find out what you can. When your aunt gets over here in a few days, I’m sure she will be able to help a lot. Now, make an appointment with me back here for early next week, and we will see what progress he has made and take care of those stitches. The district nurse will check in on you to make sure he’s all right, but I don’t anticipate any problems.’

  She might not, but Clémence did. Stuck in a cottage with a grumpy old man who could barely remember his own name suddenly seemed like a big responsibility for a twenty-year-old. It scared her. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  The doctor seemed to sense her doubts. ‘Mrs Giannelli said you had experience working with old people?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Clémence, smiling. ‘Yes, I do.’ Reading to them. Not feeding them or wiping their bums or washing them.

  No. This wasn’t going to work. ‘Look. Can’t he just stay here for a few days until Madeleine arrives?’ Clémence said. ‘It might be better for him in the long run.’

  Dr Stenhouse’s lips pursed. ‘When fit and healthy old people have severe injuries one of two things can happen. Either we and they give up and they spend the rest of their life in a bed in a home somewhere, or we pull our fingers out and help them and they recover. I’ve seen people take the easy option too often, not just doctors, but relatives and the patients themselves. You can never be sure in these cases, but in my judgement, there is a chance that if you take Dr Cunningham back to his home and talk to him and jog his memory, he might recover. That’s not certain by any means, but it’s a possibility. He’s a brave man, not the kind of person to take the easy way out. But if you leave him here to rot, he will do just that. That is for sure.’

  Pull yourself together, girl, the doctor was saying. Fair enough, thought Clémence. She didn’t know the old man, but he needed her help and she should give it.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it. Let’s go back and get him.’

  2

  Clémence drove north out of Inverness, the old man silent beside her. They were soon on the high modern bridge crossing the Moray Firth, with the jumble of the port of Inverness beneath them on one side, a
nd an oil rig lurking in the firth on the other. In the distance, to the north-west, stood a broad-shouldered, white-caped, mountain.

  ‘Is that Ben Wyvis?’ Clémence asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ said the old man. ‘I didn’t even know I was in Scotland till they told me.’

  ‘Take a look at the map,’ said Clémence. ‘It’s on the back seat.’

  The old man hesitated, and for a moment Clémence thought he would refuse, then he twisted around, retrieved the map and examined it. She suddenly had an awful thought that his reluctance might be because he had forgotten how to map read.

  He hadn’t. ‘We’re on the A9, aren’t we?’ he said.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Clémence.

  ‘Yes, that’s Ben Wyvis.’

  ‘Your cottage is on the other side of that, by Loch Glass.’

  ‘I see it. On the map, it looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it? Is that coming our way?’

  Behind the mountain, large dark clouds were gathering.

  ‘I think it is.’

  Great, thought Clémence. She wasn’t a confident driver, and navigating narrow mountain roads in a storm with a grouchy old man beside her didn’t sound like much fun.

  They were on the north side of the Moray Firth now, on the Black Isle, the peninsula of rich farmland between the Moray and the Cromarty firths: low rolling hills, fields of green and brown, scattered whitewashed buildings with grey roofs.

  ‘So what do you know about yourself?’ Clémence asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said the old man. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ said Clémence. ‘You must know something. We have to start somewhere. Did you speak to Aunt Madeleine?’

  ‘No,’ said the old man. Clémence waited.

  The old man sighed. ‘She told the nurses I was born in 1916, grew up in Yorkshire, went to Oxford University, became a GP back in Yorkshire, and then I emigrated to Western Australia in the nineteen sixties. I got married and then divorced. No children. And then for some reason I came back here last year and rented a cottage at this place called Wyvis. Why I suddenly did that I have no idea.’