2

The drugs they gave me had the effect of leaving me suspended between drowsiness and oblivion for what seemed an age. Each time I surfaced a nurse checked my temperature and pulse and gave me something to drink. It must have happened half a dozen times before I felt strong enough to push myself up on one elbow and demand to know where I was. The name of the hospital meant nothing, but that was hardly surprising as I had no reason to be familiar with all the hospitals in the city.

A doctor — young, skinny, with a pursed mouth and a nose that pecked at the air as he talked — came in and gave me a cursory examination. He said I had been unconscious for thirty-six hours and would have to remain there a while yet. His manner irritated me beyond endurance. It was as though he tried to compensate for his lack of physical presence by adopting a Gestapo-like peremptoriness which brooked neither argument nor question. I cut him short, swung my feet to the floor, and announced I was leaving at once. My efforts to push him aside must have been comical, since I had barely the strength to stand. Nevertheless I put up as good a fight as I could and we wound up struggling noisily on the floor. I had a brief worm's eye view of the door bursting open and white-shod feet hurrying to his rescue. Then I felt the jab of a needle in my arm and sank, still struggling, once more into darkness.

When I woke, Anne was sitting by my bed. She looked drawn and pale and I had the impression she had been there for some time. I tried to sit up, but she restrained me gently with a hand on my shoulder. 'Please, darling, don't. Just relax, you'll be out of here soon — but not if you start a fight every time you wake up.'

I settled back obediently and looked at her. There must have been something accusatory in my gaze because she shifted uneasily on her chair, then went on with a hint of apology in her voice. 'I know you're in shock, but please try to stay calm and don't make trouble. For my sake, please!' I just looked at her. She leant closer and went on quickly, as though afraid we were about to be interrupted. 'We were lucky, it could have been far worse. No one was badly hurt. All you have to do is show them you're all right and they'll discharge you.'

'For God's sake,' I hissed, 'tell me what's going on. What happened to Charlie?'

'Oh, Richard . . . ' Her eyes filled with tears and she bit the corner of her lower lip.

'And why d'you keep calling me Richard? What is all this?'

She stifled a sob and wiped underneath her eye with the back of her fingers. 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'I didn't mean — '

She shook her head. 'It's all right.' It was then that I noticed she was wearing her hair differently, pulled straight and tied at the back. Also there was something about her clothes: they were more severe somehow, as though she was trying to be someone else. I was about to make a comment when a nurse entered and, eyeing me sternly, held open the door for a doctor — a different one this time, older, but built like a marine and with a greying crew-cut. He was perfectly pleasant, however: relaxed, slow-speaking, and with a hint of irony in his manner.

'I know you feel strongly about getting out of here . . . ' he was shining a light in my eyes, first one, then the other. 'It shouldn't take more than a day or two.'

'There is nothing wrong with me.'

'Didn't say there was, did I? How many fingers am I holding up?'

'Three.'

'Good.'

'It's not good, it's ridiculous!'

'Hey, it's a wonder you can remember which way is up after all the stuff you've had shot into you.' He picked up my chart and made a note on it.

'I didn't ask to have anything shot into me!'

'We volunteered — figured you'd appreciate it later.'

I looked over at Anne. 'I want to see Harold right now.'

Crew-cut raised an eyebrow. 'Harold?'

'His lawyer,' Anne explained.

'Ah. Sure, see anyone you want.'

'Get Harold over here,' I said with emphasis.

She looked unhappy. 'Harold's in New York on business.'

'Since when?'

'Ten days.'

I took a moment to absorb this. 'That's not possible! I haven't been here ten days.' I looked up at crew-cut. 'How long have I been here?'

'Forty-eight hours.'

I turned back to Anne. She flinched at the puzzlement and anger she must have seen in my face. 'You know Harold's not away,' I almost shouted. 'I was with him just before the accident. He told me he talked to you on the phone that morning!'

Anne was biting her lower lip again, fighting back tears. Crew-cut's gaze had been switching back and forth between us. Now he stepped in to take over.

'Mrs Hamilton, there's nothing to seriously worry about. Your husband's going to be fine.' He wanted her out of the room. She took the hint and came over to kiss me. We looked at each other a moment, then she put her arms around me and held me close. I felt a pang of guilt that I had, however indirectly, accused her of betraying me in some strange way that I didn't yet understand. I didn't want her to leave. She was my anchor in a world gone mad.

As though reading my thoughts, she pulled back a little and looked searchingly into my eyes. For a moment everything was all right. I knew this gesture. This was familiar, this was real. 'I'll be back soon,' she whispered. 'I love you.'

'I know. I love you.' I returned the squeeze she had given my hand. 'I'm okay.'

Then she was gone, quickly, not wanting to look back. Crew-cut, who had remained discreetly on one side, now regarded me with professional amiability from the foot of my bed. 'Look,' he started, 'some people get the wrong idea about this when the idea's first put to them, but I'm going to do it anyway.' I waited. 'I can't find a damn thing wrong with you physically. How would you feel about seeing a psychiatrist? We have somebody here who's quite special. I know you'd — '

'You see the fucking psychiatrist!' The force of my response surprised me, but not apparently him. He didn't even blink.

'Like I said, most people get the wrong idea. They think seeing a psychiatrist means admitting they're crazy. That's not so.'

'I'm perfectly well aware of that,' I said testily, but keeping my voice down now. 'I'm not entirely uneducated.' I paused, then added grudgingly: 'I'm sorry I shouted.'

'That's okay. I know all this is a pain in the ass for you. We're only trying to help.'

I sighed and leaned back on my pillows. 'If it'll do any good, I'll see the shrink. All I want is to get out of here.'

***

The young woman who entered my room an hour later was alone. She was also blind. She used her white cane to find the chair by the side of my bed, sat down, and told me her name was Emma Todd. She said if it was all right with me she would call me Richard, and I was to call her Emma. I said why didn't she call me Rick, like everybody else did. She seemed to reflect on this for a moment, then said: 'Okay. Rick.'

I don't know why I was so surprised to come across a blind psychiatrist. In a way I suppose one thinks of it as a uniquely watching profession, though truly it's much more of a listening one. Certainly Emma Todd listened with an attentive stillness that was at first unnerving. But because of the freedom her blindness gave me to watch her without self-consciousness, I quickly began to feel at ease.

Although she struck me as plain, almost homely, in appearance, I realised the longer I looked at her that she had a face of considerable natural beauty. The bone structure was classical and the skin, untouched by make-up, flawless. But the short, straight brown hair did nothing to enhance it; and the dead, staring eyes, which were of a blue so pale as to be almost cataract-white, gave it a flatness which would not normally have merited a second glance. I guessed she was probably about my age but looked older. Also I suspected she had been blind since birth, as her whole posture had the awkwardness of someone unacquainted with visual grace.

Although our conversation had a casual, almost desultory quality, I remained on the alert, fully aware that she wasn't there for small talk but was making a diagnosis, noting my every phrase and careful circumlocution in search of some clue to my condition. I in my turn was trying to telegraph condition normal with every word I uttered. It was, I quickly learned, an oddly difficult, if not impossible, task. She was aware of this and her lips parted in a curiously endearing smile.

'Look,' she said, 'I know what you're doing, and you don't have to. I'm not trying to catch you out. Just talk as you would with a friend.'

'I'll try,' I said. 'You can't blame me for feeling just a little suspicious.'

She laughed, a light, unserious sound which made me like her more. 'Tell me about Charlie.'

'I'd rather not,' I said. 'Talking about Charlie seems to have got me into enough trouble already.'

'That's no reason for pretending he doesn't exist if you believe he does.'

I was silent. How could I pretend that my son didn't exist? Yet what was I supposed to say? Suddenly a sound came out of me that I didn't recognise at first. I wasn't even aware that it was coming from me. And then I realised: I was weeping.

She made no attempt to comfort me, no words of reassurance, no hand reaching for mine. She just let me go on for a while until I was quiet, then said: 'That's enough for now. You're tired. I'll come back tomorrow, you'll find it easier then.' She was halfway to the door, white stick probing the air for obstacles, before I spoke.

'Emma . . . ?'

'Yes?' She stopped, turned partially, seeking me with her ears I realised, not her eyes.

'Just tell me one thing. Am I being held here? I mean, against my will?'

Her reply had a simple directness that I was grateful for. 'Yes, in a sense. This isn't a psychiatric hospital, just a special unit in a general one. We persuaded your wife to sign you in for your own safety. But don't worry, the law doesn't allow us to keep you for more than three days without a review by an assessment panel, and I don't think they'll find grounds to hold you. You're suffering post-shock trauma. It's not unusual, although the form it's taken in your case is a little out of the ordinary. The best thing you can do is sleep. I'll see you in the morning. If you need anything, you'll find a buzzer by your bed.'

'Yes, all right, thank you.' She went out. There was a pause, then I heard someone lock the door behind her. I suddenly felt more wretched than I had ever in my life. I gazed at the window. All I could see was sky. There were no bars, but I could see the glass was thick, and there were catches to prevent it opening more than a few inches. I was overwhelmed by a combination of exhaustion, despair and the residue of whatever, as crew-cut put it, they had 'shot into' me. I fell into sleep as the only escape from the nightmare that my life had become.

***

From the light outside my window it must have been early evening when I woke. I buzzed for help in getting to the tiny bathroom that adjoined my room. At least I was being spared the humiliation of urinating into bottles and struggling on to bedpans. Afterwards they brought me something to eat — I was surprisingly hungry — and then a nurse came in pushing a cabinet on wheels from which she measured out a handful of pills into a small plastic cup. She poured me a glass of water and told me to swallow them. I debated refusing, but decided not to make trouble. I did something I must have seen a hundred times in movies but never thought would work in real life: I kept the pills in my mouth, swallowed the water, and turned away from her as though pretending to go to sleep, hiding my bulging cheeks. I heard her go out, lock the door, and realised that she had suspected nothing. I spat the pills into my hand and hid them underneath the mattress.

That little triumph gave a much-needed boost to my self-confidence. I began to feel, if only slightly, once more in control of events. Looking back, I suspect that, ironically, that was the moment when I actually began to lose what little control I still had.

Throwing off the bed covers I swung my feet to the floor and tried to stand unaided, and found that I could. The discovery flooded my whole system with an adrenalin-charged high. I felt suddenly that nothing could stop me. My one thought was to escape. Somehow my mind had convinced itself that if only I could reach the outside world I would find everything as it was, and the insanity of the recent past would be left behind in this sterile white cell.

As I thought, the window was fixed to open no more than a few inches, and even if the glass had been breakable I could not have risked the noise. However, I could see I was on the top floor of an L-shaped modern building which seemed to be near the edge of the hospital grounds. I had already noticed a trapdoor in the ceiling of the bathroom. Standing with one foot on the hand basin and the other on the lavatory flush tank, I managed with some effort to force it open and haul myself up into the darkness.

I made a discovery that night that has stayed with me ever since. I discovered how easy it is to get away with murder. Not literally, of course; I didn't kill anybody to get out of that place. But there I was one minute in my hospital-issue smock, bare feet and not a cent on me, scrambling around in the loft in search of a way down; and the next I was flagging down a cab and directing it to Long Chimneys. I was quite pleased with the way I looked — tweed jacket, grey flannels, Oxford loafers. Some doctor was going to be very upset when he got back to the locker room that night. Never mind, everything would be returned, including the money I had taken from some woman's purse that had been left for an instant just off the main reception area: I wasn't a thief.

Inevitably Long Chimneys was the first place they would look for me when my escape was discovered, but for the time being I had the advantage of surprise, and I had to talk to Anne alone. I had the cab drop me about a quarter of a mile from the house, which I approached on foot. There were lights on but no signs of unusual activity — no police cars, ambulances, men lurking in the shadows. It was still possible that my escape had not been noted, but there was no time to waste. Through the hedge (which I noticed with a perverse sense of irrelevance was more in need of a trim than I recalled) I could see that the curtains of our living room were open. I eased my way around until I could see in clearly, hoping to find Anne alone. What I did see was something that I was entirely unprepared for.

His back was to me and my first thought was that it must be Harold. Then he moved to pick up a newspaper and I realised he was no one I had ever seen. A woman came in, also a stranger. They spoke a few words, then she called off into the kitchen. Mesmerised, I moved along the wall and around the corner, and through the kitchen window saw two children aged about ten and twelve. They were dressed for bed and chasing noisily around the table with a large black and white English sheepdog.

I must have stayed there for some time, gazing in at those strangers; and at, I now realised, that furniture, those paintings on the wall, that huge television dominating the room, all of which had nothing to do with me or my life there with Anne and our son. Someone had taken over our house and totally wiped out every trace of our ever having lived there.

That was when I became aware of the dog's frantic barking. The sound seemed to come at first from a great distance, then I realised that I was standing right up against a window, and the animal was scrabbling to get at me from the other side, only inches away. Instinctively I started to run, headed for the road. But I only got to the corner of the house when the man I had seen inside met me, rifle in hand, and looking like nothing in the world would give him more pleasure than to kill me. I put up my hands and tried to explain that I meant no harm. He told me to shut the fuck up and marched me at gunpoint in through my own front door.

His wife was on the stairs, white-faced and frightened, ushering the children to safety. He told her to call the police. Her hands shook as she dialed 911.

Through the door into the living room I was aware of the big-screen television on too loud. A newscaster was announcing the death of some public figure whose name meant nothing to me. Then they ran some archive film from the early sixties. It was peripheral to the situation I was in, but suddenly it jumped to centre stage and seized my whole attention. They were running some film of the first President Kennedy, Jack Kennedy. It was a scene in Dallas somehow connected with the person who had just died. I watched with growing disbelief, and at the same time the first glimmerings of understanding, as the scene unfolded.

I saw President Jack Kennedy assassinated in an open car alongside his wife on a sunny November day in 1963. The whole thing was presented as established history, a footnote from the past.

But as I and the whole world knew, Jack Kennedy had not been killed that day. True, somebody had taken a shot at him and missed, and had never been caught. Jack Kennedy served out his full term and was still alive. So was his brother Bobby who served one term as President after him.

And suddenly I knew. I knew what had happened.

I didn't understand.

But I knew.

***

The trip to the police station, the questions, the statements, all passed me by as little more than background noise. It was as though the whole world was just a television left on in the corner of the room, and the room was my head. It must have seemed to the cops that I was in a daze, but my mind was racing so fast I had to make a conscious effort not to cry out from the almost physical pain of it.

I don't know if they suspected something and called the hospital, or if the hospital had put out a warning by then that a patient was missing. At any rate I wasn't surprised to see two muscular male nurses arrive. I was resigned to going back. I was resigned by then to things I had never thought in my wildest dreams I might ever have to contemplate. My only concern was how to tell the truth without labeling myself a lunatic. I was turning over and over in my mind possible ways of beginning, thinking of people whose confidence I must win and whose help I would need. It amazes me, looking back, that I was so calm. But it was the calm of utter panic. I was frozen by the recognition of my situation like a rabbit in the headlights of a car.

A familiar voice pierced my absorption, and I turned to see Harold arguing with two cops at the desk. He looked like he had come straight from the airport, coat over his arm, bag at his feet.

Then I saw Anne pushing past him, her eyes on mine as she hurried towards me. All the little things that had bothered me about her last time I saw her didn't bother me any more. It all made sense now, if 'sense' was the right word; it was the only word I could think of. The idea of all that nonsense making sense made me laugh suddenly. Anne's face, already distraught from worry, took on such a look of alarm that I immediately felt guilty. I held her to me, assuaging her obvious pain with my leaden inner numbness.

'You have to give back the clothes, I've made good the money, and they won't press charges for theft.' I realised Harold was speaking to me.

'But what am I going to wear?' I heard myself saying in the dismayed tone of a perfectly reasonable man asked to do an unreasonable thing.

'Don't worry, we'll take care of that. Just say you agree.'

'Of course I agree,' I replied, adding: 'I only took them because — '

'Don't say any more,' Harold cut me off, holding up the palm of his hand. 'That's all I need.' He returned to his negotiations at the desk.

I looked down at Anne, and she met my gaze with a mixture of concern and puzzlement at my apparent calm. 'It's all right,' I said, 'I'm not crazy. I'll explain everything later.'

Of course 'explain' was the one thing I couldn't do. I could describe what was happening but not explain it — yet. Or maybe there was no difference. At that moment the distinction didn't bother me. All I felt was a flood of relief that I was able to function. 'It's all right,' I told myself, 'just take one step at a time and you'll get out of this.'

Again, looking back, I think I was afraid even to try to look further ahead than that. Had I done so I would have lost my precarious sense of balance and fallen off the tightrope into madness. It was strange, and also fascinating, to find myself so poised between two worlds. Or, more accurately, four: the world I had come from and this; and the worlds of sanity and madness.

Harold came back and drew us both aside, explaining in hushed clear tones what must be done. It was reassuring to have him there taking care of things. I realised not for the first time what a good lawyer, and good friend, he was. 'I can make a deal to get the trespass charges dropped and — maybe — get you released into Anne's custody. But you'll have to answer some questions. I've got a friend of mine coming over, a psychiatrist. If you can convince him that you're rational we'll get a provisional order — I've already called Judge Strickland — letting you go home.' He looked at me a moment searchingly. 'Can you handle that?'

'Absolutely,' I assured him. 'Thank you, Harold.' He nodded and went back to the growing crowd around the desk. I could see crew-cut there now, overcoat pulled up around his face. Behind him the man who had threatened to shoot me was watching me with dark suspicion. I tried to give him a smile of understanding, man to man, no hard feelings. He looked away.

The interview with Harold's psychiatrist friend, whom I'd never met before, took place in a bare room in the police station, just the two of us on either side of a table. He was around sixty with thinning hair, a tired face and heavy horn-rimmed glasses. The questions were routine: name, date and place of birth, parents' names, all of which I answered satisfactorily. Then he hit me with something I wasn't ready for. He asked me my home address.

I must have looked blank, because his eyes locked on to mine and he repeated the question. And suddenly I said, like it was the most natural thing in the world: 'Apartment 4b, Belvedere House, Castle Heights.'

How the hell did I know that?

***

The rest of the interview went like a dream — literally! Information poured out of me that I didn't know I had. Even simple stuff like who was president of the United States came out as a name I'd never heard before, but it was the right answer. My social security number, which tripped off my tongue as though I knew it by heart, was absolutely new to me; and yet was, apparently, mine.

Slightly trickier was the question of what I had been doing in the garden of the house where I was arrested. However, I had realised that this would have to be explained, and I think I managed to turn it to advantage. I was trying to escape, I said, from what I considered to be an unjust incarceration in the hospital. Obviously my home was the first place they would look for me when I went missing — home, for this purpose, being the address I had given in the wealthy Castle Heights district. So, with what little money I had managed to steal, I had taken a taxi in the opposite direction. Fortunately Long Chimneys was more or less in the opposite direction, taking the hospital as starting point. I paid off the taxi, I said, intending to cover my trail by walking a while before finding another cab to take me to the station or the airport. However, I needed more money and was, frankly, hoping to steal some from the house where I was captured.

The shrink seemed satisfied with this explanation, then started to ask questions about Charlie. On this I was also ready for him and knew exactly what to say. I even managed to look embarrassed and give a kind of aw-shucks grin. I told him that I had been driving at the time of the accident and Anne was in the car with me. We'd been going to lunch across town with some people called Webber (never heard of them before!). I must have got a bang on the head, because when I came out of it I didn't know who or where I was. Nor did I now have any idea who Charlie was, even though I'd made a lot of noise about him at the time. 'Figment of the imagination, I guess. Hell, I don't know how the brain works. You tell me — you're the expert.' This was said with the same aw-shucks silly grin, with no hint of challenge or defiance in the voice. I knew that if I could just hang on to that pose and bury the truth along with my real feelings, then I was free and clear.

And I was right.

***

Anne came and sat with me for ten minutes while the shrink went to make his report. We held hands like a couple of lovesick kids in trouble for staying out late and waiting to hear the verdict of their elders, but we didn't say much. I think she was afraid to talk in case she triggered some response that might unbalance me again; and I know I was afraid to talk in case I told her the truth. I told her I loved her — that was the truth. She said she loved me and that everything was going to be all right. I said sure it was and she mustn't worry. It was good to see her relax a little.

Harold came in with a senior police officer — who looked afraid I might produce a razor out of nowhere and slit his throat — and said everything was arranged. The senior police officer, glad to see the back of us, ordered a car to take us home.

As we approached Castle Heights, with its imposing houses on both sides of the road, my life unfolded for me like a visit to some childhood haunt, where everything is the same, exactly as you remember it, only it's different. And the difference is in you.

We took the elevator up to 4b. Anne unlocked the door with its heavy carved panelling that I knew at once I'd never liked and never would, and the three of us went in. I tried not to make a performance out of looking around — the designer furniture carefully arranged around the large drawing room, the modern art collection on the walls, the soft rugs under foot. I was glad when Harold reminded me that the police driver was waiting downstairs to take back the stolen clothes that I was still wearing.

Without any hesitation I headed straight for the bedroom, found the switch that turned on the artfully placed lighting that illuminated an entirely art-deco bedroom and vast adjoining bathroom, and started to undress. The only shock came when I glimpsed my naked body in the mirror. I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but it jolted me to see that I had no muscles. This was not the body of Rick Hamilton, who worked out rigorously in the gym three times a week. These shoulders slumped forwards lazily, and the stomach was beginning to rival the chest in girth. This was the body of Richard A. Hamilton — and he was flabby.

Even that revelation lost its edge as soon as it had registered in my brain. It was a long, long time since I, this 'I', Richard, had taken exercise. I pulled on a robe that hung in my closet, a black and red affair of silk from . . . India. In fact, as I continued to recall, from Delhi. Yes, that was it. I clearly remembered having been with Anne to India and staying with friends — whose name would later come to me — in Delhi.

I handed the stolen clothes, wrapped in a Nieman Marcus shopping bag, to Harold. Anne had made some tea and brought it in from the kitchen, but Harold said he ought to leave and headed for the door. I watched out of the corner of my eye as they conferred briefly in the hall. She seemed to be assuring him that everything was all right. He scribbled something on a piece of paper that he left on the small Chinese table by the door, called out goodnight to me, and left.

Anne came up behind the sofa where I was sitting, leaned down and put her arms around me, and held me like that for a while, her cheek pressing on the top of my head. We were, if I can put it this way, the same couple that we'd always been. We didn't need to say much. We often did — talk, I mean — but we didn't always need to. The closeness was there, unchanged.

Yet that night there was a loneliness in the room, an emptiness, something missing. Maybe it was only because of what I knew and that I couldn't bring myself to speak of. Or maybe it was always there, between this Anne and this me.

We drank some tea and went to bed. It was after one in the morning and she was as tired as I was, if not more so. She asked if I wanted something to help me sleep, but I said no. I tossed aside the silk pajamas that lay on my pillow, and she did the same with her night-dress. We climbed into the huge bed, turned off the lights, and rolled naked into one another's arms. It was then that she began to talk, that little whispering voice of intimacy and complete trust that I knew so well.

I don't remember what was said, soft words of love and reassurance, little private silly things. But I do remember her saying, 'Darling, don't ever frighten me like that again. I don't think I could live through it another time.'

Tenderness, longing and physical arousal rose up in me and ignited the same feelings in her. Exhausted or not, we made love with a gutsy luxuriousness that would have drained us both at even the best of times. But we needed this affirmation. I, I suppose, more than she, needed physical, tangible proof of a closeness that would never, whatever happened, let me down.

I must have slept for two, three hours. I looked at the clock when I woke and it was after four. Anne was sleeping, breathing gently, but I was suddenly restless and afraid to wake her. Not just afraid to wake her; I was more generally afraid, and I didn't know of what.

Yes I did. It wasn't any nightmare, any guilty secret; I felt no guilt. It was an overwhelming, agonising loneliness. Our lovemaking had only served to emphasise the impossibility of living with this great lie that had come between us. Suddenly I knew with utter certainty that I could not do it. I had to share with Anne the truth of what had happened.

More than that, I had to trust her to believe me. Without that trust I didn't want to live.

She stirred, as though responding to my thoughts.

'I have to talk to you.'

'What is it?' She pushed herself up on an elbow, anxious, suddenly alert, reaching for the light.

'Don't!' I put a hand on her arm. What I had to say to her I preferred to say in the same intimate darkness we had shared earlier. 'I know how this is going to sound, but I have to trust you, because you're the only person I can. So I have to. Try to understand.'

'Of course I do. Go on. What is it, darling? What d'you want to tell me?'

'It's, I . . . I'm not sure how . . . ' I was stumbling already.

How to begin? I took a deep breath, wound up my courage, and plunged in. 'Darling, don't be alarmed by what I'm going to say. Above all, you must believe that I'm not crazy. What I'm going to tell you is the absolute literal truth, I'm making none of it up. Now I know how it's going to sound at first, but please just bear with me. I have some ideas about what's happened and how, but we'll get to that later. The most important thing you have to believe is that it changes nothing between us. The reason I'm telling you all this is because I love you. You're the only one I can really trust, and if I can't share this with you, then my life isn't worth living.' With that, I embarked on the whole story, right up to the actual moment of its telling.

When I'd finished Anne remained motionless and totally silent. She was lying on her pillow looking up at the ceiling. I could just make out the contours of her face as the first hint of pre-dawn light began to edge around the heavy curtains. Suddenly I saw what looked like a tear running down the whole side of her face, and I was seized by momentary panic. 'You do believe me, don't you?' In the course of recounting the events of the last few days I had relived them so vividly — especially the unbearable moment of her death — that it seemed impossible to me that anyone might doubt my word.

'Oh, my darling, of course I believe you!' She sat up and reached out for me, cradling and stroking my head against the softness of her neck and shoulder. 'Of course I do. You were right to trust me. What a terrible thing to have gone through alone, with nobody to turn to. But it's all right now, we'll cope with this together. You'll see, everything will be all right.'

The sense of relief that flooded through me as I heard these words was indescribable. I was lost in an alien, or nearly alien, world; two persons in one, with no control over what was going to happen next, or even what was going to flash into my mind; and yet I felt relief. I had the trust of the one person who could be my anchor and support in the face of whatever storms were yet to come. Relief turned into waves of irresistible exhaustion. I fell asleep right there, being held and stroked and comforted like a baby.

When I woke I was alone in the bed. The clock showed 8:45, and a strip of light around the still-curtained window suggested that the day was bright and sunny. I got up feeling better than I had in some time and pulled back the curtains. Yes, I recognised that view. I was like a man emerging from a long dark tunnel of amnesia. Except this tunnel had two ends, two separate and quite distinct realities, connected by a mystery that I must now begin to unravel.

First, however, I was hungry. I pulled on my robe and started for the kitchen, expecting to find Anne preparing breakfast. But as I opened the bedroom door I heard her talking to someone, and hesitated.

Then I realised that hers was the only voice. She was talking on the telephone. And she was sobbing as she spoke as though her heart was breaking. Which it was.

She was saying that she'd done her best, but she couldn't handle the situation any longer. They would have to come and take me away.