The House of Sleep (39 page)

Cleo passed it back to him, her hands trembling. Even after more than twelve hours (during which time she had been far too excited to sleep), she was still trying to accustom herself to this new and incredible notion: to the possibility that this image, which had first visited her as a child and had haunted her ever since, might not have been the invention of her dreaming mind at all; that it might have another, independent existence. And to think that it should resurface now – just as Ruby Sharp had appeared at the clinic, only to vanish again, leaving behind her nothing but an extraordinary torrent of words in which the past and future secrets of Cleo’s own life seemed to be magically inscribed. She was too confused and too agitated to know exactly what these events might signify, but had come to a rapid, strong decision all the same: she
would have to abandon her work at the clinic that morning, with a hasty note to Lorna and a promise that she would return as soon as –

– as soon as what, though?

Terry continued to talk about the film as their train gathered speed and swept through the faceless countryside.

‘I’ve got this theory,’ he was saying, ‘that I may have been looking in the wrong place. If a print exists anywhere, then perhaps it’s not in Italy at all: perhaps it’s in France.’

‘Why France?’

‘Because of this word.’ He held up the photograph: behind the figure of the middle-aged woman in the nurse’s uniform, pointing into the distance, there was a notice, partially hidden by her body. It seemed to consist of one word:
fermer.
‘That’s French, isn’t it? It means “close”. So maybe the film was shot in a French version as well, and that’s the one that’s survived.’

Cleo examined the picture more closely. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t make any sense, because
fermer
’s an infinitive. Anyway, the image has been cropped, so you can’t quite see the beginning of the word: and there might be more letters afterwards, where the woman’s standing. So my suggestion would be –’ she gave it one more look ‘– that it says
infermeria.
’

‘
Infermeria
? What does that mean?’

‘It’s Italian: it means “infirmary”, of course. That’s what she’s pointing towards – a hospital.’

A slow smile of recognition crossed Terry’s face. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘I’m not saying it’s the
only
meaning,’ Cleo added; but before Terry could take her up on this mysterious remark, she asked him: ‘So, you’re going to start looking for this film again, are you? That’s going to be your life’s work?’

‘Actually, no.’ Terry slid the photograph into a manila envelope and laid it on the table. ‘I don’t think that’s the point any more. I’d rather just know that it’s out there, somewhere
… maybe waiting for me – I don’t know… In the meantime, anyway, I’ve got to think of something to do with myself: something worthwhile.’

‘Journalism’s worthwhile, isn’t it? If you take it seriously enough.’

Terry shook his head. ‘There’ve been times, recently – just in the last two weeks, I suppose – when I’ve thought about what I do, and it makes me… cringe, almost: really hate myself for it. Do you ever get that feeling? I don’t suppose you do: not in a job like yours.’

‘Oh, I know what you mean,’ said Cleo. ‘Working for Gregory Dudden – it doesn’t guarantee that you feel good about yourself, I can assure you.’

‘No, I suppose not. So why did you go there in the first place?’

‘Well, it’s unique, the Dudden Clinic. It’s almost the only place which offers work to someone in my field.’ She thought back to the day, more than two years ago, when Dr Dudden’s advertisement had first appeared in the
British Journal of Clinical Psychology
: the rush of excitement when she had realized how perfectly the job suited her own skills, and then the disbelief, the trepidation when she found out where the clinic was located – the one place in the world she had resolved never to visit again.

‘Working at Ashdown,’ said Terry, ‘that must feel very odd for you. All those memories…’

‘Memories?’ She was on her guard at once.

‘Of Robert. Not that you knew him in those days, of course, but it must… bring him back to you.’

‘Oh,’ said Cleo. ‘Yes. Yes, it does, sometimes.’

This was absurd, she told herself. Sooner or later she was going to have to tell Terry the truth: in fact she was astonished that it hadn’t dawned on him already. Should she tell him on this train journey, perhaps? Or leave it until they had reached London, and take him for a drink at the station café? Or should she just get his address and phone number, and wait
for a few days, wait until it was over, wait until she had followed Ruby’s instructions and found her again… That was if she could ever summon up the courage…

‘In any case,’ she said, suppressing these thoughts hastily, ‘your career and the future of the Dudden Clinic might not be entirely unconnected.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well,
did
you ever ask him?’

Terry frowned. ‘Ask who, about what?’

‘Dr Dudden, of course: about Stephen Webb.’

‘Not in so many words, no: but I did…’ He broke off, as the implication of her question became clear. ‘So it was
you
, was it, who sent me that note, out on the terrace?’

‘I thought a little hint might get you moving in the right direction, that’s all.’

‘Well, I suppose it did.’ Terry shuddered, mentally revisiting a scene which for the last two days he had been doing his best to forget. ‘One night – a couple of nights ago – he took me down to the basement, you see.’

‘Where he experiments on the rats?’

He nodded. ‘Have you been down there yourself?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘And did you ever see… the other equipment he uses?’

‘What other equipment?’

Terry rubbed his eyes, trying to banish the thought of those whitewashed walls, the huge perspex cage… ‘It’s too big a story for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go into the office on Monday and tell the news desk about it. They’ll be able to handle it properly.’

‘But it’s
your
story, Terry. You got there first.’

‘I’m just… not that kind of journalist. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Yes, but you hate the kind of journalist you are. This is your opportunity to change.’ She could sense that Terry wanted to hear this. He was on the point of believing her. ‘I mean, you could make a real name for yourself with this story. Do you
have any idea what happened down there – any idea what you might be dealing with?’

‘All I know,’ said Terry, ‘is that Stephen Webb was a student at the university, and that he took part in a sleep deprivation experiment for Dr Dudden. I
presume
that as a consequence of this experiment, he was involved in – an accident of some kind? A fatal accident? – but nobody has yet made a direct link between his death and his time at the Clinic.’

‘It was a car crash,’ said Cleo. ‘The morning he finished the experiment Gregory had no beds available, nowhere for him to recover, so he was sent straight home. On his way back to the campus he walked out into the middle of the road and was knocked over. He died on the spot.’ She reached into the overnight bag on the seat beside her, and pulled out two files. ‘But as it happens, somebody
has
already made a direct link. There was another student taking part in that experiment – someone who survived it, and my guess is that Gregory paid her off, because she left the university and nobody’s heard from her since. Except that
somebody
must have tipped off the Royal College of Psychiatrists, because a letter arrived from them this morning. Apparently they want to set up an enquiry.’

‘What was this other student’s name?’

‘Bellamy. Karen Bellamy.’ She handed Terry the two files. ‘I found these in Gregory’s office and made copies of them. Take them. They’re yours. Do what you can with them.’

For the rest of the journey, Terry sat reading through the documents relating to these two unfortunate students. From Stephen Webb’s file he was able to build up a fairly complete portrait of a popular, bright, academically gifted young man who was also a fiercely ambitious and talented actor. His involvement in Dr Dudden’s experiment might have stemmed from financial need, intellectual curiosity, or a combination of both. The information on Karen Bellamy was sketchier, and she remained a more shadowy, altogether more problematic figure. In her case, there did seem to be an obvious background
of financial hardship. She had come from a poor area of London: her parents had lived in Denmark Hill, and it appeared that this was the last place anyone had seen her, more than six months ago. Terry made a mental note of this but found that his concentration was waning as he read further into Karen Bellamy’s file. Vivid but sporadic images from last night’s dream kept flashing through his mind, and he found himself clutching at them hopefully, only to watch them recede into spreading blankness, or feel them trickle through his fingers like sand. The sensation was maddening, and at the same time a source of inexplicable, immeasurable comfort. Once or twice, granted the sudden bounty of a vision slightly more concrete, slightly less ephemeral than the rest, he would seize his pen and scribble a few words down in the margins of whichever page he was reading: ‘a meadow’, he wrote at one point; ‘a young girl, laughing; a woman’s voice, humming beside me in the long grass; the knowledge that I can fly; cool water’. After recording these scattered impressions, he glanced up to find that Cleo was looking at him and smiling.

While Terry was occupied with the files, Cleo delved into her bag and took out the transcript Lorna had prepared for her: the record of Ruby Sharp’s strange nocturnal monologue. She read it through for the fiftieth time, still finding it hard to believe that any of it was true, or that the miracles it promised would ever come to pass, and still baffled by its relationship – prophetic? coincidental? – to Terry’s photograph, to that abiding image from her one well-remembered dream. Fumbling for rational explanations, she thought back over Ruby’s behaviour: her failure to introduce herself, when they had met on the beach two weeks ago; her unexpected appearance at the clinic yesterday, and even more abrupt departure this morning – for she had slipped away without leaving any kind of message (or payment). Unless the transcript itself were to be regarded as a message, of sorts.

If so, could it be trusted?

Yes. Yes, of course it could. Cleo reached this conclusion
just as the train had penetrated London’s outer suburbs, and her reasoning was simple enough: for in the midst of all this confusion, all these unsettling convergences between past and present, at least one incontrovertible truth remained.

Nobody told lies in their sleep.

∗

Terry was at a loose end. Half an hour after saying goodbye to Cleo, he could not decide what to do next. He felt restless, unsettled. The thought of returning to his flat depressed him. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and he could not face the prospect of a whole evening alone, at home, with only his television and video recorder for company.

He bought a copy of
Time Out
and skimmed through the cinema listings, but somehow the titles meant nothing to him, and after a few minutes he tossed it aside, leaving it on a bench outside the station for the next passer-by.

He opened his suitcase and took out the manila envelope which contained his photograph, and the two files which Cleo had copied for him. Then he walked back to the station and deposited his case in the left-luggage office.

He took the tube across London to another mainline station, and from there he caught a connecting train to Denmark Hill.

Terry himself could not have explained this decision. He was merely obeying some instinct – probably formed after watching a good many films on the subject – that this was what journalists (or was it detectives?) did when they were starting to investigate a story. If they wanted to follow a trail, if they wanted to trace somebody’s movements, then the first step consisted of empathizing with their quarry, getting inside that person’s head. He had never been to Denmark Hill before, and felt obscurely that this put him at some sort of disadvantage in his new task, which was to locate Karen Bellamy and unearth the truth about Dr Dudden’s sleep deprivation experiments. He was hoping that to visit the area in which she had grown up, and where she had last been seen, might yield something in the way of clues: a chance encounter
with a friend, perhaps, or a conversation with a garrulous neighbour in the local pub.

Terry was forced to admit, after several hours’ aimless wandering through the streets, bored loitering in cafés and solitary drinking of numerous pints of beer, that he still had a few things to learn about investigative journalism. He felt no closer to Karen Bellamy than when he had started; and he was also, by now, overwhelmingly tired. He was longing for bed, already, and nothing seemed more attractive at this point than the prospect of an early night – lights out by ten o’clock, say – followed by a solid twelve hours’ sleep. Perhaps if he got enough sleep tonight he would be visited by more dreams, and there might be a chance that he would remember them in the morning.

He walked back to Denmark Hill station and ran down to the platform just as a train was pulling away. The disembarking passengers thinned out, plodded up the stairs to the ticket barrier, and left Terry with the platform to himself, apart from a solitary figure walking up and down past the snack machine. Terry had spotted this man before, while he was approaching the station from the road. Idly, he wondered why he hadn’t got on to the train along with everyone else. What was he doing here, after all, if not waiting for a train to central London? He decided to walk to the other end of the platform, to give this bulky stranger a wide berth. He did seem to be behaving rather strangely. He was about six feet two inches tall, wearing black jeans and a green combat jacket. He was pacing backwards and forwards along the platform, muttering to himself and occasionally shouting. The blade of his knife glinted in the evening sunlight.