Now, Kate stood nervously with Paul outside Doreen’s house, a tiny modern terrace backing onto a busy dual carriageway in Twickenham.
When Doreen opened her glass front door and greeted them, Kate wanted to laugh at how normal she looked. She was a grey-haired, friendly-faced lady in her mid-fifties, a little stout around the middle, wearing a nondescript blouse, glasses on the end of her nose, and a pleated woollen skirt.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said, ushering them through a narrow hallway and into a small living room too cluttered with furniture: a large velour three-piece suite fought for supremacy with an over-large dining table and eight chairs. In combination with a swirly carpet, the overall effect was somewhat claustrophobic.
‘Do you live around here?’ Doreen asked, pointing Kate towards the armchair, and gesturing for Paul to take a seat at the dining table. She herself settled on the sofa, with her back to Paul.
‘I don’t,’ said Kate. ‘I’m just staying in the area with my – um – with Paul here.’ She found she couldn’t quite bring herself to say ‘my boyfriend’, and hoped Paul wouldn’t think it was because she didn’t want to think of him that way. The truth, she realised with a shock, was that she did. She blushed.
‘You didn’t mention on the telephone what it was you wanted to see me about. How can I help you?’
Kate glanced at Paul. ‘It’s . . . kind of complex,’ she began. ‘I mean – it’s possibly not something you’ll have come across before. I’m not sure that you even will be able to help me.’
‘Go on,’ Doreen said.
‘Well. We’ve got reason to believe that – oh, it sounds mad – but we think . . .’
She stopped. Suddenly the whole idea seemed preposterous. ‘Paul, could I talk to you a minute outside?’
Doreen raised her eyebrows. ‘I assure you, Kate, anything which takes place inside these four walls will remain confidential, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
You might not be so sure about that when you have Sampson pointing a gun at your head, demanding you tell him what you know, thought Kate, shuddering.
‘I’d still like a quick word first, if that’s OK,’ she said.
Paul stood up. ‘Could we go out into your back garden? Sorry about this. But like Kate said, it’s rather complicated.’
He sounded casual, but Kate could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was frustrated with her. She followed him out onto a tiny patio that comprised Doreen’s garden. There was barely room to stand out there – pots of different shapes and sizes crowded round the edges, overflowing with rampant foliage and elaborately flowering shrubs. It was as cluttered as Doreen’s living room. Through the fence next door, they could hear the sound of a couple bickering over some domestic issue. A plane flew overhead, on its way in to land at Heathrow, drowning out the neighbours’ voices.
‘What’s the matter?’ Paul asked, under cover of the aeroplane noise. ‘I thought we’d agreed what you were going to say?’
‘I can’t,’ Kate said, flapping her hands agitatedly. ‘She’ll either think I’m insane, or she’ll call the police, and if that happens, Sampson will definitely kill us before the truth gets out. How is she ever going to believe that I’ve been “reconditioned”? It sounds like some crappy B movie!’
‘It’s not her job to believe you or not believe you, it’s her job to hypnotise you to see what you remember. Don’t tell her about the reconditioning, or even about the CRU. Just tell her you’ve got a memory blackout about the events of that summer. It’s perfectly understandable – you blocked it out because of the trauma of the fire and Stephen’s death.’
It sounded more logical when Paul put it that way.
‘OK,’ Kate conceded, more quietly now that the plane had passed. ‘Sorry. I just panicked. I guess I’m nervous about the whole thing anyway; about what might come up.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Paul said, squeezing her hand. ‘I’ll be right here. And I think you’re fantastic to do it.’
She smiled at him, and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Thanks. Sorry, again, for going all wobbly on you.’
Doreen didn’t appear to be perturbed by Kate’s eventual explanation, once they were all reinstalled in their positions in the living room. She nodded gravely, as Kate spoke of Stephen’s death in the fire, and how she, Kate, had barely any recollection of what happened in the weeks before or after. That she felt it would benefit her to remember, so that she could finally move on, now that she and Paul were an item. She talked merely of ‘the place’ they had both been staying during that week in summer, making it sound more like a hotel than a scientific research centre, and of how, although very ill, she had escaped with some friends down a corridor as the smoke closed in on them. How she was sure she’d seen Stephen being brought out afterwards, but then been told he had died inside the building, and that this information had confused and haunted her. That she had been in hospital for some time afterwards, with no further memories of that night.
Paul nodded encouragingly at her from his seat at the table, and Doreen made a few discreet notes on a pad of paper on her lap.
‘I see,’ Doreen said. ‘I am sorry to hear your story, it must have been extremely painful for you, to have blocked it all out for so long.’
‘So, do you think you can help me?’
‘I’m sure I can, now that you’ve decided you want to uncover this hidden information. Your brain has been shielding certain things from you, and I will just try to allow you access to them. It’s not complicated really. You just need to relax, and focus on the words I say. Your brain will do the rest. Are you comfortable? Shall we begin? I’m going to record this, so you can listen to it afterwards. Right. Here we go, then. Close your eyes please.’
Kate obliged, closing her eyes and rolling her shoulders to try and release the tension in her back. She heard the click of a dictaphone being turned on. Then Doreen’s voice, lower in pitch than her conversation had been, slow and soothing and soporific. This will never work, was Kate’s last conscious thought. I’ll be asleep in minutes, especially after everything Paul and I got up to last night . . .
Some time later – Kate had no idea how much – she opened her eyes, expecting to find herself curled up in the enormous king-sized bed she’d shared with Vern in the house in Boston. She felt warm and drowsy and utterly relaxed, like the best lie-in in the world. A split second afterwards, her eyes relayed the information to her brain that in fact she wasn’t in any bed, but in a strange house surrounded by too much cheap furniture, and Paul was staring at her with concern and what looked like shock.
He walked over to the armchair where she was sitting, and, squeezing himself in next to her, tentatively embraced her.
‘Oh God, Kate,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘You were right. There was something going on. We can find out now. Thank you so much, you’re so brave, you’ve always been so brave . . .’
Kate blinked and pushed him away slightly. ‘What happened? What did I say?’
Paul hugged her again. ‘It’s all been recorded. We can listen to it later.’ He stood up, extracted a crumpled wad of notes from his jeans pocket, and handed it to Doreen.
‘Forty five pounds, isn’t it?’
‘Thank you. Do you need a receipt?’ Doreen asked politely, putting the money into the drawer of a small desk next to the sofa.
Paul shook his head, smiling. ‘I don’t