He was pacing up and down the waiting area when he spotted Dr Manzar heading out of the treatment room, and he waved to catch his attention.
‘Everything okay?’ the doctor said.
Ben walked towards him. ‘I just want to know what happens next … What do we do about reuniting her with her family? Where does she go in the meantime?’
‘Well, social services will try to find her somewhere to stay. It’ll probably be emergency accommodation, which is limited in a rural area like this. It might mean sending her on to Glasgow since that’s where she’ll be receiving treatment. She can discuss all of this with the on-call social worker when they arrive. But it could be a while. Sorry … I know you’ve been here a long time already.’
Ben frowned. ‘Okay.’
‘Well,’ Dr Manzar said, ‘if that’s all …?’
‘Actually, there is something else I wanted to ask you …’
The doctor’s eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m really not sure about this, but there is a possibility that she and I have met before.’
‘A possibility?’
Ben sighed. ‘She resembles someone I met very briefly a few years ago, but there are also differences that don’t add up, so I really can’t be sure. And even if I’m right, I’m not sure I know much that will help. We only spent just over a day in each other’s company. All I knew was that she lived somewhere within easy travelling distance of London,and her first name. Do you think I should tell her?’
Dr Manzar pursed his lips together. ‘I would prefer to let the specialists at the memory unit advise you on that. Like I said, she’s in a vulnerable position at the moment, not just physically but emotionally and psychologically. She’s desperately searching for a sense of identity, and if you’re wrong, it could be really upsetting for her.’
‘Okay,’ Ben said, but the frown he’d been wearing deepened. He didn’t like the idea of keeping it from her, but what Dr Manzar was saying made sense.
‘However, I’d definitely mention it to the police when you speak to them.’
‘That was going to be my next move.’
‘Social services will almost certainly contact them after speaking to her. Tell them what you know, and they can check it out with any reports of missing persons from that area. Then you’ll have proof – or not – to back up your suspicions.’
Ben nodded, feeling a little more relieved. That sounded like a sensible plan, but it meant that, very soon, he’d leave the hospital and she’d disappear into the night with an anonymous social worker, untraceable, uncontactable. He glanced in the direction of the ladies’ loos before looking back at Dr Manzar. ‘What if I could offer her somewhere safe to stay tonight rather than a hostel somewhere far away? Would that be allowed?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My aunt and I might be able to offer her accommodation.’
Dr Manzar looked thoughtful. ‘I wouldn’t normally suggest something like that, but seeing as I’ve known your family for at least a decade … and I know you and Norina must have had all the usual safeguarding checks in order for Willow to stay with you,I suppose I could tell the on-call social worker to visit you in Invergarrig rather than you both having to wait around here for another couple of hours.’
‘That would be perfect.’
‘The final decision will be up to social services.’
‘I know. Thank you.’
Moments later, the subject of their conversation emerged from the ladies’. She looked as if she’d splashed water on her face and had freshened herself up a bit. She went to slump into one of the plastic chairs, but Ben shook his head. ‘Change of plans. The doc says you can come back to Invergarrig with me – as long as you’re okay with that?’
She waited behind Ben as he approached the first cottage in a row of four and opened the sturdy wooden door, its black paint stark against the white render. The social worker who’d turned up to chat with her had also been Willow’s social worker, and he’d signed off on Ben’s suggestion to let her stay at his cottage temporarily. No need to be shipped off to a hostel or wherever ‘vulnerable people’ ended up, thank goodness.
Before following Ben through the open door, she took one last look at the mist gathering at the other side of the loch, ghostly grey in the moonlight. Did she know this place? Had she been here before? Was that why she’d come to this town?
She was still finding it difficult to come to grips with being a blank sheet of paper, an anonymous person with no existence,no past, no future, other than today. In one part of her brain, she understood it perfectly, but in another … well, that part shrank away from prodding, scared of what it might find.
They stepped into the front room of the cottage, decorated in neutral tones with splashes of colour here and there – a checked blanket in the same hues as the heathery hills outside, cushions in earthy tones. ‘This is it,’ Ben said, leading her into a small kitchen with a dining table at the back of the cottage. ‘You can’t use the downstairs toilet just now, and there’s a few bits of tiling to be done here and there, but other than that, everything is functional. I’ll leave the heating on low all day. That way, you won’t have to bother messing around with the controls.’
He showed her how the oven worked and where the light switches were, and then they toured the upstairs, which had two good-sized bedrooms with a bathroom sandwiched in between. ‘You’re probably better off in the front room,’ he said. ‘Bigger bed.’
She nodded. She’d noticed the back bedroom had only a single. The lilac walls and the small wardrobe and desk suggested it was intended for his niece. She would have chosen the front bedroom anyway, even if she’d had to sleep on the floor, for its view over the loch through a large sash window. Thankfully it had a king-sized bed, currently bare of anything but a mattress.
