Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller (23 page)

But it was over too quickly. I kept the accelerator pressed down to the dirty matting and sped down a narrow lane, following the route I’d planned, to a quiet alley where I dumped the car and then I ran back to my hotel. There had been a dodgy moment when I nearly ran straight into reception, but I managed to hold myself back and leaned against a wall until I felt like I could move without panting, until I could disguise the excitement behind my usual placid exterior.

And the job was done. I promised myself that I wouldn’t read the paper the next day. I want my surprise to look as genuine as possible when I got to the hospital. I want to look shocked, but I’m not sure what will shock me most, if I’ve killed her or if she’s still alive. It’s good to have that uncertainty. One flicker of the wrong emotion could have given me away and I’ve come too far to lose everything by over-acting.

And it
was
a shock. A pleasant one but nonetheless a shock. I hadn’t expected such a dramatic reaction. Her face had told me what I needed to know. She was angry and lashing out at anything and everyone. I could tell from the doctor’s face that he’d had an ear-bashing, probably just for being the bearer of bad news and I easily stepped into the role of rescuing hero, again. It was like I was leading a charmed life. When she asked to borrow money so she could check into a hotel I’d hardly been able to cover my jubilation. It was exactly what I wanted, to have her dependent on me, beholden to me. How easy it’ll be to manipulate her when she owes me money and her freedom.

The only problem now is time. I didn’t know how long it will take the embassy in Bangkok to actually do something once they have her picture. I might only have a few days left to get her away. It’ll be tight but it’s probably long enough.

I have a plan, I don’t need much time; all I need is for my luck to hold. I practically have her where I want her. No friends, not even the doctor once she gets away from the hospital, no money of her own and nowhere to go, unless I come up with a few helpful suggestions. And God, do I have a suggestion!

XIII

The room wasn’t quite what she’d imagined. Nor was her arrangement with Mark. The former was quite drab and dingy after the brightness of the hospital room, the latter was a lot less casual than she would have wanted.

He had loaned her some money. He’d turned up at the hospital the day after she’d found out about Ellen’s accident with a wad of notes which he counted out on to her bed. She hadn’t liked his expression much, miserly and a little suspicious, but he’d seemed keen enough to give her the cash. The problem was that it hadn’t been as much as she’d expected. Mark had explained that he hadn’t been able to withdraw as much as he’d wanted from the cash machine, but he’d found a way around the problem. She could keep the cash and he would pay for her hotel room on one of his credit cards. She didn’t like it. She felt kept. But she wasn’t in a position to choose.

After his initial protestations, Ekachai had been very understanding – he knew that he couldn’t keep her there any longer as, physically, there was nothing wrong with her- and he agreed to allow her to leave as long as he knew where she was. He had been very keen that she should be in regular contact, not only with the hospital, but with him personally. She’d given him all the details of the hotel and she’d promised to see him every two days so he could monitor her progress. She also assured him that she would see him immediately if there was any change at all in her condition. He’d agreed to contact the British Embassy and send some photographs and he was willing to use the hospital as a contact address. He seemed a little embarrassed that this had taken so long, but nobody had been sure that she was British until Mark had turned up.

Mark. Her knight in shining armour. He’d organised the hotel, given her money, even taken the pictures that Ekachai would send to Bangkok and hopefully home to the UK.

This had seemed like such a good idea, such a positive step, but now Kai was having doubts. At least the hospital had been safe. She had people she could call if she had a panic attack and she had people checking on her regularly. Of course she had come to resent her lack of freedom, but now it seemed that she had too much freedom. It made her dizzy, like she was standing on the edge of a high precipice and didn’t know whether to take a step back to safety or simply to jump and trust to fate. And Mark.

She studied the room, trying to familiarise herself with her new surroundings. It was smaller than her room in the hospital and more oppressive. The walls were hung with bamboo matting which looked like it had collected the dust of a couple of centuries. At one time it had probably been bright and may have added depth to the room but now its sheen was dulled, the varnish cracked and peeling and gaps were appearing between the strands of bamboo straw, gaping cracks allowing glimpses of the dirty white wall beneath.

The floor was dark wood, scuffed and chipped but at least it had been swept and polished recently, even if some of the dust had been polished into the cracks. The furniture matched the floor, dark woods with a collection of circles made by glasses and cups and the darker scars of cigarette burns. In the midst of the darkness was the bed – an oasis of white sheets and a creamy duvet cover. Both spotlessly clean. Both inviting. But Kai had resisted the urge to lie down and pull the covers over her head. She sat in a straight-backed chair next to the bathroom door and tried to decide her next move. Her few possessions were scattered on the bed looking like the leftovers from a jumble sale. The clothes were crumpled; the empty rucksack looked like overgrown litter and her journal could have contained a dusty Victorian manuscript.

Excitement and depression warring within her, Kai picked up the rucksack. This time she knew where to look, this time she could remember. She flipped back the top section and slid her hand down inside the main part of the bag. The internal frame was sewn into the fabric of the rucksack but there was a gap, almost like a pocket, about three inches across. Kai gently manoeuvred her hand underneath the material and her fingers brushed something. She grabbed with her fingertips and withdrew her hand, holding on to her prize carefully.

Smiling she unrolled the bundle of papers, each one a crumpled note. Three hundred dollars in fifties. Just as she’d remembered. She hadn’t told anyone about her secret stash, or the way her memory had been jolted when she’d packed her rucksack last night. She hadn’t dared to look in case this small memory had prompted Ekachai to keep her a little longer so that he could perform more tests. Some instinct told her that this was something she should keep to herself despite the fact that it made her reliant on Mark’s money. She didn’t want Ekachai to know that something had come back to her because she couldn’t risk him wanting to keep her in the hospital, especially now. She saw her memory block as a dam and now there was a crack, seepage. Somehow Kai understood that if there was one flaw in the structure then eventually the whole thing could be swept away by the rising pressure of memories.

Energised by her discovery, Kai peeled off fifty dollars and slid the rest of the money back into its hiding place. It was time to go out, on her own, and face up to her loneliness. Instead of being led, looked after, patronised, Kai wanted to try to find some independence. She picked up the bundle of clothes from the bed and threw them on to the top shelf of the wardrobe. As an afterthought she buried her journal underneath the pile, locked the wardrobe and slipped the key into her pocket. Time for a shopping trip.

The bustling streets were less intimidating than Kai had expected. She decided that the buzz of independence was probably making her feel more confident than she’d been when she was out with Ellen or Mark. She’d felt a little foolish creeping past Mark’s room as she left the hotel, but she knew that it was important to do this on her own. In some strange way Kai felt like she had to show Mark that she didn’t need him, to shake his perception of her dependence on his charity and time.

She crossed to the moat, the speeding cars and tuk-tuks a stark reminder of Ellen’s accident. Kai remained unconvinced that an intelligent woman would be foolish enough to get herself hit by a car on a road she walked every day. Her mind was still struggling with the accident theory and, for some unknown reason, rejecting it as unlikely.

Her first stop was a clothes shop, its windows bright with flowing cottons in rainbow shades. She stopped at the threshold and added her sandals to the assorted shoes waiting patiently for their owners. It was a familiar movement, removing her footwear before entering a building. More seepage.

She browsed among the racks of trousers and skirts, occasionally holding something up to her waist and inspecting the mirror. Kai found her reflection less daunting now. The scar on her forehead was shrinking and her forays into the sunlight had helped to disguise it beneath a flush of mild sunburn. She could sense that, not far beneath the composed exterior was another Kai, an animated face trying to tell her its name, its secrets, its fears.

Settling on a pair of dark blue baggy trousers, which claimed to be silk, and a white cotton T-shirt Kai approached the counter. Trying to look more confident than she felt she asked, ‘Is there somewhere I can try these on?’

The sales person smiled at her as though she approved of the clothes and gestured to a curtained alcove in a gloomy corner of the shop.

‘Back there.’

Kai ducked through the curtain and quickly changed clothes. She felt different instantly, like she’d shed an old skin, cleaner, newer somehow. Invigorated, she marched back to the counter wearing her new clothes.

‘I’ll take them,’ she announced to the smiling woman. ‘I’d like to wear them now. And could you put these in a dustbin for me please?’ She handed over the bundle of old clothes, strangely relieved to be rid of a small part of her past.

The sales assistant didn’t seem in the least surprised by the instruction, placing Kai’s old clothes under the counter before writing the price of the new ones on a notepad. She turned it round so Kai could read the amount, three hundred baht. A quick calculation, based on the tourist rates she’d seen posted in the hotel reception, told Kai that the clothes were about eight dollars, a bargain. She dug in the pocket of her new trousers for the money that Mark had given her the previous day and then her gaze was drawn to a display of small bags and wallets woven from brightly coloured thread and scraps of cloth. Impulsively she chose a large shoulder bag and a wallet to go with her new outfit.

An hour later and Kai’s new bag bulged with purchases. More trousers and T-shirts, a book,
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood because the name had seemed familiar and a pair of sunglasses. Now she felt like every other westerner she passed, comfortable and anonymous. And rich. She’d managed to change her fifty dollars for over two thousand baht which she’d placed carefully in her new wallet, enjoying the feeling of spreading the notes out into the different compartments. Her own money.

For the first time in days she found that she was hungry, ravenous in fact. A small café offered ‘Thai food in an Enlish menu’ tempting her inside with promises of ‘red curri’ and ‘fish caks’. Kai settled herself at a corner table, ordered fish curry, rice and a Coke and opened her new book. She didn’t really feel like reading but being occupied made her feel less conspicuous and it was a good disguise, allowing her to look self-absorbed while studying her fellow diners.

The café seemed to cater mainly for westerners, who huddled round the tables in couples and small groups. There were no mixed couples; there were no Thai people at all except for the staff who delivered food with friendly efficiency. The customers were all dressed in a similar style to Kai – cool cottons in bright colours, sandals and, of course, sunglasses nestling next to plates and glasses. Kai began to understand why travelling had appealed to her other self – the relaxation, the sense of nowhere to be, no hurry. And there was the independence, coping with an alien culture, a debilitating climate and the unfamiliarity of every aspect of life. It was an uplifting feeling, Kai thought as she tucked into her fiery curry.

As she turned the key in the lock of the hotel room door Kai felt a prickle of unease. She entered the room holding her breath and feeling like she should be on tiptoe. Something was wrong. It was dark inside compared to the blinding sunlight of the balcony and she struggled to focus in the claustrophobic blanket of gloom, trying to assess what had caused her nervousness. The room looked exactly as she’d left it earlier in the day, except for the bed – there was something huddled on top of the duvet at the foot of the bed. Kai flicked on the light, her pulse pounding loudly in her head like waves crashing on a shingle beach. She couldn’t hear the snap of the switch as brightness flooded the room.

Towels. She’d been frightened by the fresh towels that had been left at the bottom of the bed. She sank into a chair laughing at herself. Somehow she’d sensed that someone had been in her room, but she’d forgotten that the rooms were serviced every day. Of course someone had been in: to clean.

‘What’s funny?’

Kai squinted at the figure in the doorway. Mark, his hair damp from a recent shower or a swim, a look of frank amazement on his face.

‘Just laughing at how much I’ve forgotten,’ Kai told him, deliberately cryptic.

‘I suppose there’s a lot to laugh at then,’ he said, entering the room without waiting for an invitation and sitting on the low table next to the bed. ‘Where’ve you been all day? I knocked earlier but either you were hiding or you were out.’

‘Shopping. I needed some new clothes and a few other bits and pieces.’

Mark raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘On your own? You should have said and I could have come with you. Or maybe you don’t think I have very good taste. You’ve not done so bad by yourself though,’ he said giving her an appraising look.

‘Maybe that’s one thing a woman never forgets, how to shop. I’ve had a nice time, and it was good to be on my own. I need to get some independence back if I’m going to start living my life again.’