The Final Minute
Authors: Simon Kernick
Tags: #Crime, #Mystery & Detective, #Thriller, #Ebook Club, #Fiction, #NR1501, #Suspense
Contents
About the Book
A traumatic car crash. A man with no memory haunted by nightmares.
When the past comes calling in the most terrifying way imaginable, Matt Barron is forced to turn to the one person who can help.
Ex Met cop, turned private detective, Tina Boyd.
Soon they are both on the run.
About the Author
Simon Kernick
is one of Britain’s most exciting thriller writers. He arrived on the crime-writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel
The Business of Dying
, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman. Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel
Relentless
, which was the biggest-selling thriller of 2007. His most recent crime thrillers include
The Last Ten Seconds
,
Siege
,
Ultimatum
and
Stay Alive
. He is also the author of the bestselling three-part serial thriller
Dead Man’s Gift
.
Simon talks both on and off the record to members of the Met’s Special Branch and Anti-Terrorist Branch, as well as the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, so he gets to hear first hand what actually happens in the dark and murky underbelly of UK crime.
www.simonkernick.com
;
www.facebook.com/SimonKernick
;
www.twitter.com/simonkernick
Also By Simon Kernick
The Business of Dying
The Murder Exchange
The Crime Trade
A Good Day to Die
Relentless
Severed
Deadline
Target
The Last 10 Seconds
The Payback
Siege
Ultimatum
Wrong Time, Wrong Place
Stay Alive
Dead Man’s Gift
For Nick. Here you go!
One
I’ve been worried that I’m not who they say I am for a while now.
It started a week or so back after I fell down the cellar steps en route to getting a bottle of red wine and smacked my head on the stone floor. They kept me in the local hospital overnight as I was showing the symptoms for mild concussion, and ever since they let me out, things haven’t felt quite right.
To be honest, the whole set-up here’s pretty odd. According to my sister, she’s been looking after me at her house for over two months now, and that feels about right, although it’s impossible to tell for sure because the days just seem to drift into one another in a kind of soft fog. The thing is, I’m not sure whether I’m being paranoid or not. When you’ve got no long-term memory you’re as helpless as a young child, which means you’ve got to trust the people around you. And particularly those whose job it is to bring your memory back – like the man sitting opposite me across the room.
Dr Bronson’s a big, dapper man at the wrong end of his fifties with a quite magnificent mane of black hair, tinged with silver, and a long, thoughtful face that would have been described as ruggedly handsome a few years back but which is now beginning to lose its fight with gravity. Even so, you can still imagine that he’d have his pick of single ladies of a certain age. He has that kind of gravitas, but at the same time he also gives off the impression that he doesn’t take himself too seriously – not if the clothes he’s wearing today are anything to go by, anyway. His latest adornment is a tweed three-piece suit, a red bow tie that matches the rims of his glasses, well-worn brown brogues, and loud pink socks.
‘So how have you been, Matt?’ he asked me, his voice soft, yet sonorous and reassuring. We’d been seeing each other twice a week every week here at my sister’s, and this had always been his opening line.
‘OK, I guess. Nothing much changes really.’ Which up until a few days ago had been the truth. Now, though, I was less sure.
‘I sense you’re looking a little despondent today,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t lose hope, whatever you do. Recovery from the kind of immense brain trauma you suffered takes time. Sometimes months. Sometimes years. We’ve both got to be patient through this process.’
The brain trauma he was referring to was my car accident. Early one morning some months back, I was driving in a semirural stretch of Hampshire when my car left the road, went down an embankment, and hit a tree. For some reason I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which possibly saved my life, because I was thrown clear of the car, straight through the windscreen, and was twenty feet away from it when it burst into flames. I was in a coma for three months, and when I woke up my life was this.
A blank slate.
Without doubt, the most lonely feeling in the world.
‘I know, I know,’ I said, with more than a hint of exasperation. ‘It’s just we don’t seem to be making any real progress.’
‘Well we are,’ he countered firmly. ‘We’ve managed to get you to remember growing up with your sister; the camping trips with the family when you were a boy. We’re slowly piecing together your childhood, Matt. And we’re using that as a foundation to allow us to reconstruct the memories of adulthood, and finally get your memory back altogether. When people suffer from the kind of amnesia you do, the memories often come back very slowly, starting with the earliest first. We may never solve the mystery of what you were doing on the road that night, we may never remember the few months of your life prior to the accident, but we will return your life to you, Matt. You have to believe that. It’s like a box we’ve simply got to prise open.’
I sighed. ‘I’m trying.’
‘So nothing’s come to you since we last spoke?’
I paused. Did I tell him or didn’t I? ‘Everything we talk about here is confidential, isn’t it? It can’t go any further than these four walls?’
He gave me a strong, reassuring smile. ‘Exactly. I’m bound by oath not to repeat anything you tell me to anyone. Has something come back to you then?’
I paused again. Because the thing was, I didn’t entirely trust Dr Bronson. It was hard to say why. He acted genuine enough, but maybe that was the problem: he came across like an actor playing a part. Yet maybe that was what all therapists were like with their patients. In the end, I bit the bullet, figuring I didn’t have anything to lose by telling him. ‘I’ve had a dream.’
Jesus, the dream.
I took a deep breath. ‘The same one, twice in the last four nights.’
‘Did you write everything down like I suggested?’ Dr Bronson always suggested. Never told.
‘I didn’t have to. I can remember the whole thing vividly. And it was exactly the same both nights. I never have recurring dreams. I never really dream. But this …’
Now, suddenly, Dr Bronson looked really interested. He wrote something down on his yellow A4 notepad. ‘Tell me about it. Start from the beginning and take me through every detail. You know, we might have a breakthrough here, Matt.’
That, worryingly, was what I was afraid of. I took a deep breath. Then I began.
‘I’m in an unfamiliar house. The lights are on and it’s night. The dream starts with me standing outside a half-open door. I push it open all the way and I notice that I’m wearing gloves. The lights are on inside the room and I feel a sense of terrible foreboding as I walk slowly inside.
‘The room’s a mess. A lamp’s been knocked over and a glass of wine’s been spilled on the carpet. But my attention’s focused on a naked woman who’s lying sprawled out on her back on a huge double bed. She’s dead and the sheets round her head are covered in blood. As I get closer, I can see she’s been beaten over the head with something and I’m pretty sure her throat’s been cut too. She’s young, somewhere in her twenties, with long dark hair and curves in all the right places, and I feel a pang of something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s more than sadness, but it’s not quite guilt. I touch the skin of her neck with a gloved finger, feeling for a pulse, but to be honest, I already know she’s dead, because I can actually smell the odour of shit in the air, and she’s not moving at all. Her eyes are closed and it looks like she’s asleep, but when I put a hand to her mouth, I can’t feel any breath.
‘I turn and leave the room, still feeling this strange pang. Then I’m back in the hallway of this house. It’s a big, flashy-looking place, with marble flooring and arty paintings on the walls – you know, the sort that are all bright patterns, but not actually of anything. Everything screams money, and everything looks pristine and brand-new.
‘I walk down the hall, and it’s then that I hear a noise behind me. I’m scared, I know that, and I turn round quickly.’ I stopped speaking for a moment. I could hear my heart quickening as I recalled the scene. ‘That’s when I see her. She’s blonde, dressed in black lace underwear – a bra and panties, nothing else – and she’s sitting on the floor against the wall. I wonder what she’s doing. And then she turns her head my way, very slowly, and I get a look at her face properly for the first time. And you know what? She’s utterly beautiful, like the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, and I get this really strong physical hit in my gut. But the thing is, she’s hurt. There’s a gaping wound on the side of her head and it’s bleeding all over her hair and down on to her shoulder. And her eyes are wide and staring.’
I paused again because the memory was bringing back that same feeling in my gut, making me breathe in short, rapid starts. I was beginning to sweat too. I couldn’t work out whether it was excitement at the fact that I could actually picture this scene, and that it felt real, or something else. I shut my eyes, trying to remember everything as it happened, trying to hold the memory absolutely still amid the fog inside my brain.
‘Take your time,’ said Dr Bronson. He said something else too, but I didn’t hear it. I was too busy concentrating.
I took a deep breath. ‘And then this girl’s eyes focus as she sees me properly for the first time, and her expression changes. First, it’s surprise. Then shock. And then something else.’