‘Any history of hallucinations, sleepwalking or nightmares?’
‘Nightmares? Yes. And poor sleep, particularly at the moment.’
‘What about alcohol or use of drugs?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘No to drugs. Alcohol? I’ve drunk possibly a bit more in the last few weeks, but nothing excessive.’
He again scribbled on the sheet of paper and Alex wondered if he was now underlining the word ‘liar’.
‘OK. Well, that’s the last of those questions.’ He put the clipboard back on the table and laid his pen down. He smiled. ‘So now tell me a little bit more about yourself.’
Alex shrugged. ‘I’m a doctor – it’s what I am, what I do.’
‘And?’
‘It’s what I wanted to do my whole life. It is my life’.
She sighed tiredly and closed her eyes. She heard water being poured into a glass and then heard it being placed down in front of her.
‘Thank you,’ she said after taking a sip.
‘How are you feeling generally?’
Alex heaved a sigh. ‘Exhausted. Terrified. My mind won’t shut down. Every man I look at, I see as a potential abductor. I have nightmares of walking through the hospital and I hear him walking behind me. I start running, thinking if I can get to the end of the corridor, I can hide. But the corridors keep changing. The doors and the exits disappear. The signs pointing to the entrance to the wards have nothing but blank walls beneath them. I’m trapped. Every time I go round the corner at the end of a corridor, there’s another corridor. And he keeps coming .?.?.’
‘Can you see him?’
His words were spoken softly and his voice soothed her.
‘No. But I can hear him! His footsteps are getting closer!’ she cried.
‘Turn around and face him. Ask him what he wants.’
‘He’s invisible. He’s invisible to everyone. No one believes he exists. But he’s real .?.?. He touched me!’
‘When did he touch you?’
‘When I was unconscious, he undressed me. He saw me naked and he touched me inside.’
‘With?’
‘I don’t know if he .?.?.’ She faltered, and then her voice, just above a whisper, was full of despair. ‘He wanted to .?.?. he said he was going to, but I don’t know if he did, but he wanted to .?.?. and I said yes.’
‘And you’re convinced this was real?’
‘Yes!’ she said screwing her eyes tightly shut. ‘It was real! I was there. I saw him.’
‘Are you afraid he will come after you again?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘He told me he’s coming for me.’
Richard Sickert sat silently, but his eyes rested on her, and she felt reassured. Then he spoke: ‘I want you to do something. I want you to keep your eyes closed and imagine yourself in that corridor. It is long, and the walls are high. You are on your own. You begin to walk down the corridor and then you hear him. Now slowly start to count with each step you take. You can still hear him, but his steps are not getting any faster. They match your steps. When you get to ten, you see a glass door. There is a handle you can open. The sun is shining through the glass. The light is bright .?.?. ’
‘It’s in my eyes. I can’t see his face, but I can hear him.’
‘What does he say?’
‘He’s telling me nothing’s happened to me. I get angry and tell him I want to know what’s going on and he holds up his purple hands. The stapler. He threatens to staple my lips together and he says .?.?. he says .?.?.’
She suddenly sat bolt upright. Her eyes opened wide, staring into space, as the memory of what she heard became clear. ‘Alex!’
Her eyes then fixed on Richard Sickert. ‘He called me Alex before I mentioned my name. This man knows me! I wasn’t just a random victim.’
Chapter twenty-five
‘He knew who I was, Maggie,’ Alex said firmly for the second time.
Maggie raised an eyebrow, her lips pressed together, making no comment. She carried on lightly toasting pine nuts in a dry pan. On the island worktop she had prepared rocket salad with diced red onion and halved cherry tomatoes, before mixing the contents in a large shallow dish and drizzling on some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The pine nuts were the last ingredient to go in.
In the Aga two marinated lamb cutlets were ready to serve and on top of the stove two large white plates were warming.
Alex had gone straight to Maggie’s house after her appointment with Richard Sickert, unable to face going home to be alone with her thoughts. Maggie was gracious enough to invite her in for supper. She regretted not stopping on the way to buy a bottle of wine to at least replace the one she had broken, and was now feeling a little embarrassed for having intruded on the woman’s time again.
She might have had a prior engagement, for all Alex knew. She might be standing there at the Aga right now thinking that her uninvited guest was becoming a nuisance.
Maggie felt the dinner plates with the back of her hand and then used an oven cloth to take out the succulent lamb. Still silent, she finished preparing the meal, laid cutlery on the worktop, and then climbed onto a stool to face Alex.
‘Wine? Or are you driving?’
‘Wine, please. I walked again. Still can’t find my fob. I’ll have to get a replacement unless I want to keep calling the security attendant to open the gates to get my car in and out. I don’t know where I lost the thing.’
Maggie lifted a bottle of Pelorus out of an ice bucket, popped the cork and poured small measures into two flutes, letting the bubbles settle before filling each to the rim.
‘When we’ve eaten, we’ll talk,’ she said, finally. ‘You’re too thin by half, Alex, and if we talk first you’re liable not to eat. So eat!’ She gave a pleasant smile.
Half an hour later, deliciously full and beginning to relax from the second glass of sparkling wine, Alex was less inclined to return to the conversation she had started before the meal. If she went home now and didn’t think any more about her discovery she was likely to sleep well. She had tomorrow off and she wanted to look fresh for the plan she had in mind. Nathan Bell was going to get a call from her. She had looked at the rota and seen he had the day off as well. Now she just had to persuade him to spend it with her.
‘Alex, apart from him saying your name, what else makes you so sure this was real?’
Maggie’s voice was gentle, but there was a challenge in her eyes, indicating that she was not ready to accept a simple answer.
‘Well, apart from that night, everything else that is happening around me! Amy Abbott died in front of us, Maggie, and I know she was trying to tell us something. Her death was just not normal. You’re an obstetrician. Can you honestly believe someone would do that to themselves? My car was left with a message on it for everyone to read. He’s phoned me, for God’s sake. He’s taunting me. That poor woman knocked down in my parking space. She, too, is a part of this. I’m positive he’s behind all of it. He’s destroying my world and nobody, nobody believes me!’