A male custody officer asks you to empty your pockets and you put the phone and a roll of fifty pound notes onto the counter, along with some smaller notes and some loose change. ‘No keys, no wallet?’ asks Sergeant Patel and you shake your head. She makes a note of your possessions and the male custody officer carries out a thorough search before relieving you of your belt and shoelaces.

  ‘Your possessions will be held here until you are released,’ she says. ’Have you consumed alcohol or drugs within the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘No,’ you say.

  ‘You have the right to speak to an independent solicitor in private before and after you are interviewed,’ she says.

  ‘I’m good,’ you say.

  The male custody officer, his name tag identifies him as Constable Hamza, then takes your photograph, runs your fingerprints through an INK scanner and uses a long cotton bud to take a DNA sample from your mouth.

  The custody sergeant finishes entering your details into her computer and then Constable Hamza takes you down a corridor and opens one of the 33 cell doors. You look inside. A steel bed clings to the wall as if it has no choice, covered with a thin blue mattress. The sink and toilet share a corner, cold stainless steel, functional and unforgiving. The walls are grey, scratched and marked by previous occupants. A camera up in one corner means that everything you do will be watched and recorded. There is a single, high window offering a thin slice of sky, more a tease than a view. ‘Home sweet home,’ you say in a weak attempt at humour.

  ‘In,’ says Constable Hamza. You step inside, wrinkling your nose at the smell of disinfectant, stale urine and sweat.

  Just before the door closes you turn to look at Linklater and Wilde. She at least has the decency to look concerned but Wilde is clearly relishing your discomfort. You flash him a disarming smile and wink at him just before the door closes with a metallic clang. Bastard.

  CHAPTER 30

  Time crawls by as you sit on the blue plastic mattress and stare at the locked door. You know that there is nothing you can do to hurry up the process, it is what it is. The twenty-four hour rule no longer applies now that they have charged you, but they will still have to put you up before a magistrate in a timely manner. Bail will almost certainly be refused and you’ll be moved to a prison. Prison won’t be a pleasant experience, you’re sure. But you can’t remember ever having been in a cell before.

  You quickly lose track of the time but you guess that half an hour or so has passed before the door is unlocked by Constable Hamza. Linklater is standing behind him holding a tray. ‘I got your fish and chips,’ she says.

  ‘Result,’ you say.

  She carries the tray into the cell. The fish and chips is freshly cooked and smells good. The food is on a paper plate and the knife and fork are made of plastic. There’s also a bread roll and a small pack of butter, and a box of orange juice and a plastic bottle of water. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’re red sauce or brown so I got you sachets of both.’

  You smile, grateful for the food. But you have no idea if you prefer ketchup or brown sauce. You thank her and take the tray. She looks around the cell and grimaces. ‘I am sorry about this,’ she says.

  ‘You’re the one who charged me with murder.’

  ‘Strictly speaking it was Harry. But you have to realise that we can’t have you running around leaving a trail of bodies behind you.’

  ‘But there aren’t any bodies, are there?’

  ‘No, but SOCO has found DNA in the bloodstains and we’re looking for matches as we speak. Once we’ve identified them we’ll have a clearer idea of what’s going on.’

  ‘They were going to kill me, Emma,’ you say. ‘Have you had any joy tracking down Peter Thornton?’

  ‘A man matching his description and bearing the injuries you talked about is currently in the ICU of Croydon University Hospital. He’s unconscious and was found in the back of a Range Rover that was left outside the A&E department. He’s under the name of Peter Wilkinson.’

  ‘At least Maggie had the sense to abandon the car,’ you say. ‘You need to talk to her. She can confirm what happened in the warehouse.’

  ‘We’re looking at CCTV as we speak to see if we can track her movements. It’s a pity she didn’t turn herself in when you did. It would have made all our lives so much easier.’

  ‘We figured we’d be better off separately. But that was before I discovered that you wanted to charge me with murder.’

  ‘And before you knew that she had taken you from the house at gunpoint and was one of the team that had tried to rob you.’

  ‘Yes, well hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?’

  She forces a smile. ‘The charges are keeping you safe, Robert,’ she says. ‘The Russians can’t get to you here.’

  ‘No, but I’m only here until I appear before a magistrate and at that point I get transferred to a prison and when that happens I’m fair game.’

  ‘You’ll be in protective custody.’

  ‘Banged up 24 hours a day? Lovely.’

  ‘We’ll see what can be done.’

  You smile but you figure that she’s only telling you what she thinks you want to hear.

  Constable Hamza closes the door and locks it. You can hear his boots squeaking as he walks away, accompanied by the tap-tap-tap of Linklater’s high heels.

  The fish and chips is surprisingly good and you eat it quickly, washing it down with the orange juice and the water. You finish off with the bread roll and butter. You place the tray on the floor by the door and stretch out on the plastic mattress. They haven’t given you a pillow or a blanket and the mattress provides almost no insulation from the concrete plinth it rests on so you sit up with your back against the wall. There are no windows in the cell and no way of tracking the passage of time. Presumably if they are going to keep you overnight they’ll have to give you a pillow and a blanket and probably a toothbrush and toothpaste.

  You spend the time exploring what memories you have. You can picture sitting outside the house in Beckenham - your house - and you can remember going inside with Adeya. But you can’t remember being in the house before that. You can remember the family photographs on the wall with your wife and children, but no memories of them at all. You must have been grief-stricken when they died but you have no memory of that.

  You presumably went to school and probably to university too but you have absolutely no recollection of either. And you have no idea what your parents look like, or if they are still alive. The same goes for siblings. You could be an only child or you could just as easily have half a dozen brothers and sisters.

  What’s strange is that you have almost total recall of everything that has happened since you woke up in the hospital bed. Everything you have seen, everything you have heard, you can remember it with almost perfect clarity.

  The doctor said that he expected your memory to return sooner rather than later but so far there has been no sign of that happening. Does that mean that the memories will never come back? Could those memories be lost for ever? You grit your teeth at the thought that you might never remember meeting your wife for the first time, never remember your children being born, or watching them grow. As things stand, it was as if they never existed. All you have is the photographs you saw in the house in Beckenham. Is that all you will ever have? The thought is almost too much to bear. Your heart begins to beat fast and it feels as if there is a steel strap tightening around your chest. The cell starts to spin and you take deep breaths and try to calm yourself down. You close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing and gradually the feeling of panic subsides. You know that you have to take it step by step. The first step is to convince the police that you are a victim and not a criminal. You have already admitted that you shot and killed four men in the warehouse but there was no question that it was self defence. The good news is that Peter Thornton is alive and in hospital. Once he confirms what happened in the warehouse, the detectives will have no choice other than to believe you. The Russians would have killed Peter if you hadn’t intervened, and then they would have killed you and Maggie. What you did was pretty much the dictionary definition of self defence.

  You open your eyes and keep breathing slowly and evenly. Maybe it’s a reaction to being locked up in a small cell. Maybe you’re claustrophobic. You stare at the locked door, exploring your feelings. It’s not pleasant being locked up but it’s as if you feel that the walls are closing in on you. There’s so much about your body that you don’t know. You seem to be in good shape, you’re not carrying any excess weight, you have your own hair and teeth, your stomach is flat and you actually have a decent six-pack. But for all you know there could be cancerous cells running amok in your liver or pancreas, you could have diabetes or a brain tumour or any of a hundred diseases eating away at you. You don’t remember ever seeing a doctor or a dentist, and your only memory of ever being in hospital is when you woke up from the coma. You smile at the thought that when you eventually do recover your memory it would be ironic in the extreme if the first thing you remembered was that you had a terminal illness and only three months to live. You frown as you wonder where the hell that thought has come from. Is it a real subconscious memory breaking through?

  Your train of thought is interrupted by the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. The door opens to reveal Constable Hamza, who if anything seems less pleased to see you than he was when he locked you in. You assume he’s there to collect your tray but as the door opens wider you see that he is accompanied by a man in a Barbour waxed jacket. The man is in his late forties, early fifties perhaps, with black hair that is greying at the temples, and square framed spectacles sitting high up on a slightly pointed nose.

  ‘Out,’ says Constable Hamza, who is clearly upset at something.

  You slide off the plastic mattress. ‘What’s happening?’ you ask. ‘Where am I going?’

  ‘Rob, it would be in your best interests to say nothing until we’re outside,’ says the man. He has an upperclass accent that makes you think of riding to hounds and blasting birds out of the air with a shotgun. You figure that the Barbour jacket would be the perfect attire for a day’s rough shooting and you’re fairly sure that the oily mark on the right forearm of the jacket has come from countless hours of bearing the weight of an open shotgun. Probably a double-barrelled Purdey.

  ‘Are you my lawyer?’ you ask.

  He slowly raises his right hand, extends his first finger and presses it against his lips. He doesn’t actually say ‘Shhhh’ but you get the message.

  Constable Hamza steps aside and you walk into the corridor. He closes the door and leads you along the corridor. The man in the Barbour jacket follows. He is wearing Timberland boots that appear to make no sound as he walks.

  Sergeant Patel is waiting for you at the counter and she seems to be just as unhappy as Constable Hamza. She already has your shoelaces, belt and phone waiting for you. She pushes a clipboard and pen towards you and you scribble your signature at the bottom of a printed form. You frown as you stare at the signature. You did it without thinking and it seemed the most natural thing in the world, but as you look at it you realise that you have no memory of ever seeing it before. You hold up the pen and frown as you stare at it. You have no memory of being Rob Johnston, but you had no trouble in signing his name.

  Sergeant Patel pulls the pen from your hand as if she’s scared you’re planning on stealing it. You realise that DI Linklater is standing with her back to the wall, her arms folded. You open your mouth to ask her what’s happening but you get a warning stare from Barbour Jacket and he shakes his head. You nod. It doesn’t look as if DI Linklater is in a talkative mood anyway.

  You put on your belt, put the phone into your pocket then go over to a plastic chair, sit down and thread and tie your shoelaces. You stand up and Barbour Jacket opens the door for you. He follows you into another corridor and gestures to the left. You walk with him, in silence, to an exit. It isn’t the way you came in, this door is at the rear of the police station and opens into a walled car park. There is a black BMW 5 Series waiting with its engine running. Barbour Jacket opens a rear door for you and you climb in. He closes the door, walks around the rear of the car, and gets in next to you. A dark blue metal gate opens and the BMW drives out. You can only see the back of the driver’s shaved head but he’s a big man and the hands on the steering wheel are the size and shape of small shovels.

  ‘Where are we going?’ you ask.

  ‘We can chat soon enough,’ says Barbour Jacket. ‘Just stay quiet for the moment. You do know how to stay quiet, don’t you? You just put your lips together - and well that’s it, really.’

  The gate rattles shut behind the BMW and the driver speeds down the road. He’s checking his mirrors and Barbour Jacket is looking over his shoulder. The driver takes a right, then a left, then we reach a roundabout and he drives all the way around before taking the exit on the left. Barbour Jacket relaxes and settles back in his seat.

  There’s a white BMW SUV parked at the side of the road ahead of you and it pulls away from the kerb and follows you. You twist around in your seat to get a better look and you see three big men in the vehicle. ‘It’s all right, Rob, they’re with us,’ he says.

  ‘Who are you?’ you ask. ‘Are you my lawyer? Who called you because it wasn’t me.’

  ‘My name’s Martin,’ he says. ‘Martin Waller. And no, I’m not your lawyer. I’m not anybody’s lawyer. You really don’t remember me?’

  You shake your head. ‘I don’t. But you remember me?’

  ‘Of course.’ He frowns. ‘Why would I not remember you?’

  ‘So you know who I am?’

  ‘Of course. Rob Johnston.’ He frowns again. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ve been having memory issues. Since the crash.’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  I shrug. ‘Hardly anything. I mean, I know now that my name is Rob Johnston but I have no memory of being Rob Johnston. I went inside the house in Beckenham and saw photographs of myself with my family but I don’t remember them.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘My wife and children. I saw the photographs but I don’t have a single memory of them.’

  ‘You don’t have a wife and children.’

  ‘Yes, I know. The police explained that they died in a car crash in Florida five years ago.’

  Waller stares at you for several seconds as if he is weighing you up. ‘I can’t get my head around what you must be going through,’ he says eventually.

  ‘You and me both.’ You grimace. ‘I guess when I do get my memory back there’s going to be a lot of stuff that I’d rather not remember.’

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ says Waller.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘We’ll talk to experts, there must be something that can be done.’

  ‘The hospital doctor said my memory would probably return sooner rather than later, but there’s been no improvement so far.’

  ‘Our experts are the best in the business. We’ll make it a priority.’

  ‘Who are you, Martin?’

  ‘Hold that thought,’ says Waller, patting you on the leg. He leans forward to speak to the driver. ‘Kevin, there’s a nice little pub coming up on the left. The Coach and Horses. There’s a car park behind it.’

  The driver nods. The pub comes into view and the driver indicates left, slows, and drives behind the building. The white SUV follows. You and Waller climb out and walk into the pub. There are thick beams running across a low plaster ceiling, with bench seats and rough wooden tables. There’s a brick fireplace at the far end of the bar but no fire. ‘What can I get you?’ Waller asks and the question stumps you because you’ve no idea what you normally drink.

  ‘We’ve had a drink together before?’ you ask.

  ‘Several times.’

  Two of the men from the white SUV walk in and go over to the bar. They are both wearing leather jackets and black jeans and have a similar swagger to the Russians who were holding you prisoner in the warehouse.

  ‘What do I normally drink?’

  ‘G&T, ice and a slice.’

  ‘Then that’s what I’ll have.’

  Waller points over at a table to the left of the fireplace. ‘Grab a pew. Do you want to eat?’

  You shake your head. ‘I had fish and chips in the cell.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Not bad, actually. Though to be honest I don’t have anything to compare it with.’

  ‘So at the moment, everything is like a first for you?’

  You nod. ‘Yes, pretty much.’

  ‘That must be so weird,’ says Waller. He walks over to the bar, keeping some distance away from the men in the leather jackets. A short woman with tightly permed hair gives them two coffees and they walk over to a table by the window. You sit down at the table by the fireplace. You can’t be seen from the window and you have a good view of the rear door, and the main entrance to the pub. You realise that was probably why Waller chose that table.

  The men in leather jackets sip their coffees, their eyes watchful. What sort of lawyer travels with bodyguards? Except Waller had said he wasn’t a lawyer. So what was he?

  You are still considering that question when Waller walks over with two glasses. He puts a glass of gin and tonic in front of you and keeps hold of a glass of red wine. He takes the seat next to you so that you are both sitting with your backs to the wall. ‘Cheers,’ he says, and sips his wine.

  You sip your gin and tonic. It tastes good, crisp and refreshing with the tang of lemon. You have no memory of ever drinking it before. ‘So can you tell me who you are now?’ you ask. ‘I mean, what are you? You say you’re not a lawyer, so how did you get me out of the police station?’