Mr. Nobody(16)

    Peter delves into the rucksack on the floor next to him and retrieves a slim silver laptop. “Have a look,” he says. I feel another shiver of excitement fizzle through me as he opens it up and slides it across the table.

“These are the initial scans—for your eyes only. I mean that.” He holds my gaze pointedly until I nod an assurance.

I study the screen. A secure medical results site. I scroll down and click on the only file visible, labeled Patient M. Scans. “Has Groves seen these?” I ask.

“We sent a link through to him yesterday. I don’t know if he had a chance to look them over before he passed on the case. But the file portal is password protected.”

I click on the attachment and the gray and bright white of a CT scan fills the screen. The delicate crenulations of the patient’s brain. Peter’s right, there is no atrophy, no areas of brain have died. I look to the hippocampus, the tiny seahorse-shaped mass of tissue nestled under the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for the creation and storage of our episodic memory. It’s the unassumingly small piece of brain tissue responsible for holding a whole human life together.

The hippocampus in this scan is intact—no physical damage, just the light gray that represents living tissue. Not the dark mass of dead cells you’d expect to see on an Alzheimer’s or dementia scan. There are signs of a wound and slight contusion at the base of the skull, probably from a fall or a blow. The injury might have been enough to cause a mild concussion perhaps, but not major damage; it’s unlikely to have caused memory loss, but there are no other immediately observable causes on the CT scan. I let my thoughts run with the idea of the concussion—there’s the outside chance that if the patient is epileptic, a seizure could have caused his memory loss. But after six days it would have returned, he would be remembering by now. So if the problem isn’t physical or electrical, it must be psychological.

    Which means—this could be a fugue.

A real live fugue patient. His memory loss in all probability has been caused by mental trauma. Meaning: something very bad happened to this man.

But then it catches my eye, I see it, a tiny dark speck buried in the pituitary gland. I missed it initially, but there it is, faint on the scan.

My eyes shoot up to Peter.

I know for a fact this type of pituitary growth has been present on other fugue patients. In previous cases it’s never been given much credence, as pituitary tumors are usually inert. But could the pituitary be linked to fugue?

“Oh my God.”

His eyes meet mine and he raises an eyebrow. “Yes. You’ve seen it? Took me a bit longer. I only noticed it on the train earlier. I had to get my glasses. Tiny.” He fishes them out now and swivels the screen around so we can both study the minuscule fleck of darkness on the scan. “Yes, obviously a CT is not the ideal imaging to pick this kind of thing up on. An MRI will help us more,” he mutters. But then, I’m guessing whoever ordered these CT scans wasn’t looking for what we’ve both found. They would have been looking for large-scale brain trauma or atrophy. What we’ve found appears to be a tiny growth. So easy to miss nestled in there.

Peter looks up from the computer screen. “Listen, we can get fresh scans done once you’re up there. At the hospital. If you’re happy to go up there?” he asks. It’s a straight-out question. Will I go? He’s striking while the iron is hot, while I’m intrigued by the material.

I study the scan again. That dark speck. What on earth could that have to do with his memory loss? The pituitary gland has pretty much nothing to do with the hippocampus, nothing to do with memory, as far as we know. As far as we know yet—I’m hooked.

    I look back to Peter. “Where do I sign?” I grin.

But Peter doesn’t smile back. In fact he frowns. Looking more concerned than ever. This was not really the reaction I was expecting.

“And you’re sure you’re okay with the location? You don’t want to ask me any more questions?”

“What? Why would I?”

I now wish more than ever that I’d had a chance to google the news stories before Peter showed up. I don’t even know what hospital the patient’s in. Is there something wrong with the location?

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Emma, but you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“You’re right, I have no idea what you’re talking about, Peter. Sorry. Why would the location be an issue?”

“I see. Right, my mistake, I just thought you might…Well, I thought you might have changed your mind about the job. Or had stipulations, when you saw more of the details.”

“What details? I haven’t seen any details.”

He studies my face. I stare blankly back.

“Ah, well then,” he continues tentatively. “I suppose I had better fill you in. They found him on Holkham Beach, Dr. Lewis—near where you grew up, not too far from where your family home was, it would seem, in Norfolk.”

I feel my stomach flip and the room around me spins. Because there is no way Peter could know that: where I came from, where I grew up, who my family was. Nobody knows that. I had a different name back then. Before everything happened, before we moved away. How could Peter know where I used to live?

Does he know what happened there?