Down to Earth. Melanie Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ but when the DI introduced me to Dr Soram Patel I warmed to her immediately, with her soft compassionate eyes and gentle smile.

      Dr Patel was a police doctor and SOTO officer, which apparently stood for Sexual Offences Trained Officer. I wasn’t sure why they were treating me as a possible rape victim, when I’d made no comment or complaint that I had been abused by anyone. I’d tried telling DI Smith that several times, but she’d merely smiled patiently and told me it was best to get me properly checked out so they knew what they were dealing with. ‘We would like you to tell us everything you remember about the last six and a half years,’ DI Smith said shortly.

      ‘In your own time,’ Dr Patel added with an encouraging smile.

      So I told them mostly what I remembered from the moment I left Calum’s house on the day of the jump, to the time DI Smith had come banging on his front door, discreetly leaving out the bit about my having spent the night in Matt’s bed. ‘So you see, neither Matt, nor Calum had anything to do with it,’ I finished, settling back into the softness of the sofa, relieved that for better or for worse, my story had been told.

      ‘How did you come by the cut on your hand?’

      ‘I told you, I nicked it on something when I climbed into the plane just before the jump.’

      The two women exchanged glances.

      ‘Have you heard of hostage dependency syndrome?’ Dr Patel asked softly.

      ‘You mean when a person who has been held against their will, becomes emotionally fixated on their captor?’ I felt the first tug of the underlying current snatching at me.

      The two women nodded in unison.

      ‘One would have had to be kidnapped for that to happen,’ I replied, eyeing them both with suspicion. ‘I’ve just told you I wasn’t kidnapped, held anywhere against my will or even beamed up by a spaceship. I don’t know what happened to me.’

      ‘We have to allow for the possibility that your perceptions of recent events have somehow been altered.’ DI Smith said shortly.

      ‘The human mind is complex and works at more than the one level of consciousness,’ Soram Patel explained more gently.

      Icy waves began to wash over my head. What were they getting at?

      ‘You mean I could have been brainwashed?’

      ‘Not brainwashed. Though there is the possibility of self-induced amnesia caused by prolonged trauma,’ the doctor replied. ‘With your permission, I would like to do some psychological tests on you. It may help establish your mental state and give you some much needed answers.’

      ‘And if I don’t give my permission?’ I could feel the current tugging me forcibly out to sea.

      ‘It would be much easier for us and for you, if you cooperated fully.’ DI Smith crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair.

      I glanced at the door, remembering that I had nowhere left to run. Calum and Abigail obviously didn’t want me back, and if Calum had been telling the truth, my family home had been sold when my mother had been committed to the institution.

      ‘I haven’t even seen my mum yet,’ I said out loud. I was grabbing at straws, hoping to elicit their sympathy. ‘Calum told me that my father died four years ago and my mother is in some kind of nursing home.’

      Dr Patel nodded, tapping the notes in front of her. ‘That is the case I’m afraid.’

      ‘Could I speak to Calum?’ I assumed he was still being questioned at the main police station and hoped they’d take me back there. No matter what he thought of me, I had hoped to find him by my side, being there with me even at the expense of his own safety.

      ‘Mr Sinclair has been allowed to leave,’ DI Smith replied. ‘We haven’t charged him with anything so he left with his daughter.’

      I could see from her expression that this must have been a disappointment to her. It was a severe disappointment to me; he had left me on my own to sink or swim.

      I remembered that Calum hadn’t been the only person dragged off to the police station because of me. ‘What about Matt?’ I asked in a tremulous voice.

      ‘Mr Matthew Treguier is still helping us with our enquiries.’

      I realised with a jolt that I hadn’t even known Matt’s surname. Matt Treguier … I toyed with the name, letting it flow over my lips. Then I saw Dr Patel watching me intently and I closed my mouth with a snap. Matt was in enough trouble because of me.

      But it was too late. Like the vastness of the ocean, this institution was bigger and infinitely more powerful than me. DI Smith narrowed her pale eyes behind those glasses, her expression intent. I remembered what she’d said about hostage dependency and realised I’d been swept right into her clutches.

      ‘Can you tell us about your feelings for Mr Treguier?’ Dr Patel asked in that deceptively soft voice. ‘Do you feel responsible for him, protective of him, perhaps?’

      ‘I hardly know him,’ I replied.

      ‘Then how do you account for the fact that the jumpsuit you were wearing when you went missing over six years ago has been found, along with a toothbrush, which we are currently testing for your DNA, in the back of Mr Treguier’s car?’

      I felt as if a particularly icy wave had slapped me in the face. I’d forgotten to mention in my statement that I’d brought the jumpsuit back with me from Kent when recounting the incredible events of the previous day.

      ‘I put them there.’ I tried to regain some semblance of control. ‘Matt hasn’t done anything wrong. Ask Kevin – he was with us.’

      ‘Would that be Mr Kevin Wheeler?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Dr Patel leaned towards me, her expression intense. ‘And what can you tell us about your relationship with Kevin?’

      The DI gave a triumphant smile as I reeled backwards, shocked that every word that escaped my lips seemed to implicate someone else. ‘We were rather hoping you would mention Mr Wheeler. He’s been of interest to us for some time. He was one of the last people to see you before you disappeared, I believe?’

      I nodded reluctantly. My case had been left open and now they could see a chance of solving a six-year-old mystery; a statistic to add to their end-of-year clean up rate.

      ‘Can you tell us why Mr Wheeler might be in possession of an unusual amount of documentation concerning your disappearance?’

      ‘He was interested in what happened to me, I suppose. It seems my so-called disappearance did make quite an impact on his life.’

      ‘ An obsessive amount of documentation,’ DI Smith declared as if I hadn’t spoken. Her eyes watched me closely for a reaction. ‘Newspaper cuttings, photos of you, computer printouts of other disappearances; the sort of collection someone with an unhealthy interest in your case might accumulate. He and Mr Treguier are friends, I believe?’

      ‘I think they have become friends recently – since the jump. They had never met each other prior to the day СКАЧАТЬ