Page 24 of The Beach Holiday

NOW

‘Sadie, we need to start moving forward. I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Hopefully I can get a few answers to them that might help me help you.’

I look at Dr Bhaduri and blink slowly. This was all getting too much anyway.

The flashbacks had increased the last few days.

I was worrying more about Jane coming back to see me, and the piles of paper in the wardrobe were getting out of hand.

If he could do something to ease some of my worries then that would be helpful.

I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at that.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Fire away.’

Dr Bhaduri looks at me over the top of his glasses for another moment then lets out a long sigh. He uncrosses one leg and crosses it over the other, then puts his reading glasses on and looks down at the paper in his lap.

‘Okay. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? When was the last time you remember seeing your friend Avril?’

The name in this room sounds alien. I try to form a whole picture of her in my mind and keep it there, but the mind is an amazing thing. If you don’t see someone for a period, you very quickly stop remembering what they look like.

But I couldn’t picture Avril in my mind.

Avril. Had I mentioned her name to them? When would I have told them? At the beginning when they found me in the Pacific Ocean floating like a piece of driftwood?

‘I don’t know who you mean,’ I say eventually.

I know that is not what Dr Bhaduri wants to hear; I can tell by the way his lips part slightly that he is letting out a long breath.

He wants me to give him more. I know I should. But the words simply won’t come.