Free Land of the Living by Nicci French

hair. He was carrying a stack of files under his arm. He was trying to speak. I could see his mouth moving. But the noise of the cleaning machine drowned everything so he stood rather awkwardly by the wall until the machine had passed him and headed down the ward. He looked dubiously after it.
    ‘One day somebody’s going to check one of those machines and discover it doesn’t do anything,’ he said.
    ‘Who are you?’ I said.
    ‘Mulligan,’ he said. ‘Charles Mulligan. I’ve come to have a word with you.’
    I got out of the bed.
    ‘Have you got any identification?’
    ‘What?’
    I walked past him and shouted for a passing nurse. She looked reluctant but she saw that I meant business. I said that a stranger had come into my room. There was a brief argument and she led him away to make a phone call. I went back to bed. A few minutes later the door of my room opened and the man was led back in by a more senior-looking nurse. ‘This man has permission to see you,’ she said. ‘He will be with you for a very short time.’
    She left with a suspicious glance at Charles Mulligan. He took some horn-rimmed glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on.
    ‘That was probably sensible,’ he said. ‘It was very boring but probably sensible. What I was in the middle of saying was that Dick Burns rang me and asked me to have a word with you.’
    ‘Are you a doctor?’
    He put down his files on the table and pulled a chair over towards the bed. ‘Is it all right if I sit down?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I am a doctor. I mean, I’m qualified as a doctor. I don’t spend much of my time in the hospital.’
    ‘Are you a psychiatrist? Or a psychologist?’
    He gave a nervous, chopping ha-ha laugh.
    ‘No, no, no, I’m a neurologist, really, more or less. I study the brain as if it were a thing. I work with computers and cut up mouse brains, that sort of thing. I talk to people as well, of course. When necessary.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But what are you doing here?’
    ‘I said. Dick rang me up. Fascinating case.’ A sudden expression of alarm appeared on his face. ‘I know it was awful as well. I’m terribly sorry. But Dick asked if I could come and have a look at you. Is that all right?’
    ‘What for?’
    He rubbed his face with his hands and looked almost excessively sympathetic. ‘Dick told me something of what you’ve gone through. It’s horrible. I’m sure somebody will be coming to talk to you about that. About the trauma. And all of that.’ His sentence had trailed off and he looked lost. Now he pushed his fingers through his curly hair. It didn’t do much to neaten it. ‘Now, Abigail, is it all right if I call you that?’ I nodded. ‘And call me Charlie. I’d like to talk to you about your amnesia. Do you feel up to that?’ I nodded again. ‘Good.’ He gave a faint smile. He had got on to his real subject and his talk, his whole manner, was more assured. I liked that. ‘Now, this is the only time I’m going to behave like a real doctor, but I’d like to have a look at your head. Is that all right?’ More nodding. ‘I looked at your notes. Plenty of bruising all over, but no particular reference to headaches, soreness on the head, that sort of thing. Is that right?’
    ‘My very first memory, from after the bit where I lost my memory, if you know what I mean. I woke up and I had a terrible pain in my head.’
    ‘Right. Do you mind if I take some notes?’ He took a mangy little notebook out of his pocket and began writing. Then he put it on the bed and leant forward. ‘They’re going to pop you into a machine later for a quick look at your brain. But this is a different sort of examination. Do you mind?’ As he said this, he leant forward and very gently touched my face and all over my head. I love my head being touched. It’s my secret fetish. The main thing I love about getting my hair cut is having my hair washed by a stranger, those fingers on my scalp. Terry as well. Sometimes