Bones Under The Beach Hut

Carole broke the silence that followed this. 'What happened?'

Mark Dennis shook his head in bewilderment. 'I don't know.'

'What do you mean — you don't know?'

He sighed. 'I literally don't know. I had ... I suppose you'd have to call it some kind of breakdown. I mean, when I left Philly, I can remember that happening. And I can remember having dinner with Nuala at the Oxo Tower — that was on the eighth of May — but . . .' He shook his head again, unable to fill in the gaps in his recollection.

'So where have you been for the last few weeks?' asked Jude gently.

'I've been in a psychiatric hospital for most of it. Only came out a couple of weeks ago.'

'How did you get in there? Did you go in voluntarily?'

'No, I was sent there. Look, I can't actually remember a lot of this stuff myself, but from what the doctors and nurses have told me, I've kind of pieced together what happened. As I say, the last thing I can clearly remember was having that dinner with Nuala at the Oxo Tower on the eighth of May. What I did for the next few days I have no idea, but I was found on Dover Beach on the morning of the eleventh. I had been in the sea, was drenched through and was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts. What was more, I couldn't speak.'

'And you have no recollection of how you got there?'

'None at all. And only hazy recollections of the following weeks. Because of the location, because I had apparently come out of the sea, and because I couldn't — or perhaps wouldn't — speak English, the fairly reasonable assumption was made that I must be an illegal immigrant, who had been shipwrecked, or perhaps dumped in the English Channel by some unscrupulous trafficker. So I was handed over to the police, who apparently questioned me for some time.'

'Do you remember any of that?'

'Only vague sort of impressions — and not very pleasant ones at that. I think the police thought I was holding out on them, that I actually could speak but was just pretending to be traumatized to conceal my identity. So they didn't exactly treat me with kid gloves.'

'Are you saying they beat you up?' asked Carole, whose Home Office background made her particularly sensitive about criticisms of the police.

'No, I'm not saying that. I don't think there was any violence involved, just a lot of suspicion. And my recollections are so hazy that I don't know which bits really happened and which I've invented. Anyway, after a few days the police must have decided that I was suffering from some genuine psychological condition — amnesia at the very least, and possibly some other arcanely named syndromes. So I was then sent to this secure psychiatric hospital in Lewes. Which is where I've been until a fortnight ago.'

'But clearly your memory's come back. You know who you are now, don't you?'

'Yes, Jude, I do. The process was gradual. The psychiatrists who worked with me were very good. And I had a lot of medication too.' He gestured to his flabby body. 'I think that's probably why I put on so much weight. The medication and lack of exercise.'

'Did the psychiatrists have any explanation for what had happened to you?'

'Conjectures, nothing concrete. They reckon that I'd just got to a point of stress where my system couldn't cope, so everything kind of shut down. I couldn't deal with the world around me and so my body reacted by excluding me from that world, shutting me off from it.'

The two women exchanged looks. Something in Jude's expression prevented Carole from expressing the scepticism Mark Dennis's words had engendered in her.

He shrugged. 'Anyway, that was what the psychiatrists reckoned. Whether it's true I've no idea, but I suppose it sounds like a kind of explanation.'

'When you went down to Dover Beach,' asked Carole, 'do you think it was with the intention of drowning yourself, of escaping your problems that way?'

Mark Dennis pursed his lips. 'To be honest I don't know. I don't think so. During the last few months I've never contemplated suicide, however bad things have been. And before that, when I was normal, if that's the right word . . . well, the idea of me topping myself would have been laughable. I've never suffered from depression. I've always been told I'm a rather annoyingly positive person.'

Jude nodded. 'Yes, but depression can lie low in someone for a very long time. And your lifestyle had always been pretty pressured, hadn't it?'

'That's exactly what one of the psychiatrists said to me. Almost word for word. Do you have special expertise in that area, Jude?'

'I do a bit of healing.'

'Ah.' He looked at her appreciatively. 'I would imagine you're very good at it.'

'Thank you.'

'What I can't understand,' said Carole, 'is when you did finally begin to remember who you were, why you didn't make contact with anyone?'

'I hadn't got many people to make contact with. My parents are both dead. There was no way I wanted to see Nuala again until I was sure I was firing on all cylinders.'

'But what about Philly?'

'Yes.' Mark Dennis looked sad and confused. 'Yes, I know I should have got in touch with Philly as soon as I could, but . . . it's complicated. I guess it's something to do with our relationship. Philly . . . she's . . . well, she hasn't got a lot of confidence. She doesn't show it, she always seems bright and bouncy, but her self-esteem is actually very low.'

Jude, who knew this all too well, didn't say anything, as he went on, 'And the previous men in her life haven't done much good for her. From what I can gather, they were mostly inadequates, needy emotional vampires who monopolized all of her energy with their problems rather than her giving any time to her own.

'But when we met, it was different. I was used to being in charge, I was full — perhaps over-full — of confidence, and I loved her. And the fact that someone like me loved her, that gave her a lot of confidence. And the fact that I enjoyed being in charge, and that I sort of protected her, she liked that too. Then of course I'm that much older, so a bit of a father figure maybe. I was like her rock. She knew that, whatever happened, she could rely on me.'

Carole and Jude guessed more or less what he was about to say, but they did not break the silence. 'Well, when our finances started to go belly up, I wasn't so much of a rock, was I? No more Mr Reliable.'

'But Philly didn't take it out on you for what had happened?' asked Carole.

'Good Lord, no. It's not in her nature to do that. No, she was very understanding and supportive. And very practical. She said we'd have to sell Seashell Cottage, and I knew how much she loved the place, but she didn't put any pressure on me. Philly is entirely incapable of emotional blackmail.'

'Which, after Nuala,' Carole suggested tartly, 'must have been quite a relief for you.'

'God, you can say that again.'

'So, when you got your memory back, the reason you didn't contact Philly,' said Jude perceptively, 'was because you were afraid you had become needy, like all her previous men.'

'Exactly that. I wanted to wait till my own confidence had built up a bit, till I could once again be the person she needs. But I'm afraid getting to that situation promises to be a horribly slow process.'

'You could at least have just given Philly a call, though.' There was a note of reproach in Carole's voice. 'Assured her you were still alive. She's been worried sick about you.'

Mark Dennis looked shamefacedly down at the sticky table top. 'I know. I should have done it. But I didn't want her to see me . . . damaged.'

'You did, however, come down to Smalting last week, didn't you?' continued Carole in the same tone. 'Why didn't you see her then?'

'Ah.' His naughty schoolboy expression was just the same as Gray Czesky's in similar circumstances. 'I didn't know anyone had seen me down here.'

'You must've lived in a country village long enough to know that nothing — absolutely nothing — you do in a place like that is unseen.'