He offers a humourless laugh. ‘Damon, why would I do that when you offered me the perfect case study? You were an otherwise normal, even endearing boy, who happened to possess antisocial aspects to his personality and who acted aggressively with poor impulse control and elements of Reactive Attachment Disorder. That you traversed many typical diagnoses made you difficult topigeonhole. Some of your behaviour was undeniably psychopathic, but that was fleeting. You were able to form genuine emotional bonds, you had empathy and felt immense remorse for the pain you had inflicted. The dual aspects within the same persona fascinated me. You had your whole life ahead of you. A life that I could shape through my treatment. We were all in agreement that you needed help to make you forget what you had done, and to steer you on to a different, better path.’
‘Rubbish,’ I say. ‘You’re trying to justify using your illegal methods on a child. And now you’re trying to cover your own back. You already told me that ECT can’t erase specific memories. Now you’re saying that’s what you did.’
He doesn’t offer a direct answer to this. ‘With repeated procedures, I was able to accomplish what I set out to do: take away your murderous impulses and help you to forget. And you cannot deny that it worked, until your recent brushes with death. Think of your brain as you would a computer you are disposing of. You can’t erase everything by deleting the hard drive. It reassigns that space so that more recent files – or in your case, new memories – can be added. Only, these new files are now competing for space with the old. Perhaps it’s time to jig them around again.’
An intrusive thought appears from nowhere and sets my skin prickling like it’s charged with static. I imagine, in spectacularly vivid detail, punching Fernandez-Jones to the ground, shoving a fistful of electrodes down his throat and turning one of his machines up to full power. Then I watch as his body fits and spasms with shock after shock, until he bleeds violently from each and every orifice. I wave the scene away. Where the hell did that come from? Being here is clearly no good for my already fragile mental health.
‘This is over,’ I say. ‘You’re wasting my time.’
I turn my back on him and approach the door.
‘Callum Baird,’ he says. I’m stopped in my tracks. But I don’t turn around. ‘You know the name, don’t you?’
‘What about him?’
‘He was one of the children you killed. You told me yourself.’
Without warning, the ground beneath me begins to crumble. I haven’t mentioned the boy to him by name, so how could he know him?Dad, I tell myself.Dad killed him and told Fernandez-Jones I did it.But why? What would he gain from doing this? I steady myself against the wall as the dead boy appears to me again, standing in the corner of the office. I glare at him as he places his fingers inside his mouth and begins to pull something out. It’s a piece of material. Not once in my previous hallucinations did I realise his dark hole of a mouth was actually a cloth stuffed inside it. Slowly, it unfolds and I eventually recognise what it is: one of the handkerchiefs I used for my nosebleeds. The initials DL are embroidered in the corner.
Fernandez-Jones is clearly oblivious to the boy’s presence.
Of course he is. The boy is mine alone.
I suddenly become aware of my racing heart and how light my head is. I need air. I need to get out of here. I hurry out of the room and retrace my steps through the house as Fernandez-Jones follows. I get lost and panicky but eventually I locate the front door. By now, my stomach is churning and I bend over and begin to dry-heave over the lawn.
‘You might not remember what you’ve done, but you know I’m right, don’t you?’ Fernandez-Jones asks my back. ‘You know that you’re capable of killing. And I wonder if you’ve done it since?’
I turn to face him. ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Once.’ My answer lights up his face.
He suggests we could begin another course of ECT therapy, but I shake my head.
‘Allow me to help you again,’ he persists as I walk up the gravel path. ‘This time I can help you remember or help you forget. You decide. I can make it happen if you let me.’
I slow my pace until I stop, then turn to him. I no longer possess the ability to read a person. I cannot tell if he is looking at me with the eyes of a devil or an angel. His crooked smile doesn’t help.
‘Come back inside, Damon. What do you have to lose?’
I want to tell him to go to hell and that I don’t need him, that I’ve never needed him. But I don’t.
‘I want to remember,’ I say.
And I follow him back inside.
Chapter 72
Damon
It’s 2009, I am eleven years old, and neither Callum nor I know it yet, but within weeks, I will kill him.
For now, I watch us in his lounge, logged into his dad’s Xbox account, building animated fantasy football teams and competing against one another in FIFA tournaments. A few months earlier, Callum moved into the flat next door with his father, following the death of his wife from cancer. As kids often do, we built up an instant rapport, spending most evenings and weekends playing together. I’m drawn to his dad, Lloyd, as much as I am Callum. Mum says my own dad has begun working on a building site nearby, but he hasn’t bothered to drop by. He has a knack for making me feel worthless even when I haven’t seen him in months. So why as an adult did I think he’d died a couple of years earlier? More unanswered questions.
However, my relationship with Callum at school isn’t mirroring our time away from it. From morning until mid-afternoon, I don’t exist in his life. He is a year above me and has his own friends. He gives me the cold shoulder each time I try to become a part of theirgroup. Being pals in public with someone younger than you isn’t cool, he reminds me. And I reluctantly accept it.
Mum has taken a shine to Callum and the feeling is mutual. Especially when his dad begins travelling cross-country as a delivery driver. Lloyd slips Mum money each week to keep an eye on his son and ensure he’s fed and dressed in clean clothing. So Callum is a regular face around our breakfast and dinner table and Mum makes us both packed lunches for school. The extra responsibility seems to bring out something different in her. Maud visits less frequently, and Mum smiles more. I enjoy having a brother figure, even if it’s only on his terms. But it’s all odd. Until it isn’t.
Now it’s a hot Sunday afternoon and I watch as Callum and I return to my flat. I’m pouring us drinks when I hear him giggling by the lounge door. It’s slightly ajar, and when I peek through it, I see Mum and Callum’s dad together on the sofa, kissing. His hand is down the front of her joggers. Up until this point, I thought I liked Lloyd. But watching him and Mum together makes me uncomfortable. Going by the smile enveloping his face, Callum thinks differently.
Our parents are red-faced and flustered when they realise they’ve been caught. My gaze fixes on Mum, but she struggles to maintain eye contact with me when they sit us down and explain how they enjoy spending time together. I suddenly feel stupid for believing Mum has begun wearing make-up and started doing her hair because I’ve made her better. It’s all for him. And it makes me wonder why he’s enough to keep Maud away, and I’m not.
