Swallowing with a dry tongue, he stared down at the physician’s hands which had examined him, then decided to call his own doctor. A sedative, an hour’s sleep, and he would recover.
In the falling evening light he could barely see the numerals. ‘Hello, hello!’ he shouted. ‘Is anyone there?’
‘Yes, Dr Singh,’ a woman replied. ‘Is that you?’
Frightened, Elliott cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. He had dialled the number from memory, but from another memory than his own. But not only had the receptionist recognized his voice — Elliott had recognized hers, and knew her name.
Experimentally he lifted the receiver, and said the name in his mind. ‘Miss Tremayne—?’
‘Dr Singh? Are you—’ With an effort Elliott made his voice more guttural. ‘I’m sorry, I have the wrong number. What is your number?’
The girl hesitated. When she spoke the modulation and rhythm of her voice were again instantly familiar. ‘This is Harley Street 30331,’ she said cautiously. ‘Dr Singh, the police have—’ Elliott lowered the telephone into its cradle. Wearily he sat down on the carpet in the darkness, looking up at the black rectangle of the front door. Again the headache began to drum at his temples, as he tried to ignore the memories crowding into his mind. Above him the staircase led to another world.
Half an hour later, he pulled himself to his feet. Searching for his bed, and fearing the light, he stumbled into a room and lay down. With a start he clambered upright, and found that he was lying on the table in the dining room.
He had forgotten his way around the house, and the topography of another home, apparently a single-storey apartment, had superimposed itself upon his mind. In the strange upstairs floor he found an untidy nursery full of children’s toys and clothes, an unremembered frieze of childish drawings which showed tranquil skies over church steeples. When he closed the door the scene vanished like a forgotten tableau.
In the bedroom next door a portrait photograph stood on the dressing table, showing the face of a pleasant blondehaired woman he had never seen. He gazed down at the bed in the darkness, the wardrobes and mirrors around him like the furniture of a dream.
‘Ramadya, Ramadya,’ he murmured, on his lips the name of the dying woman.
The telephone rang. ‘Standing in the darkness at the top of the stairs, he listened to its sounds shrilling through the silent house. He walked down to it with leaden feet.
‘Yes?’ he said tersely.
‘Hello, darling,’ a woman’s bright voice answered. In the background trains shunted and whistled. ‘Hello? Is that Hampstead—’ ‘This is Harley Street 30331,’ he said quickly. ‘You have the wrong number.’
‘Oh, dear, I am sorry, I thought—’
Cutting off this voice, which for a fleeting moment had drawn together the fragmented persona clinging to the back of his mind, he stood at the window by the front door. Through the narrow barred pane he could see that the rain had almost ended, and a light mist hung among the trees. The bedraggled figure on the bench still maintained his vigil, his face hidden in the darkness. Now and then his drenched form would glimmer in the passing lights.
For some reason a sense of extreme urgency had overtaken Elliott. He knew that there were a series of tasks to be performed, records to be made before important evidence vanished, reliable witnesses to be contacted. A hundred ignored images passed through in his mind as he searched for a pair of shoes and a jacket in the cupboard upstairs, scenes of his medical practice, a woman patient being tested by an electroencephalogram, the radiator of a Bentley car and its automobile club badges. There were glimpses of the streets near Harley Street, the residue of countless journeys to and from the consulting rooms, the entrance to the Overseas Club, a noisy seminar at one of the scientific institutes where someone was shouting at him theatrically. Then, unpleasantly, there were feelings of remorse for his wife’s death, counterbalanced by the growing inner conviction that this, paradoxically, was the only way to save her, to force her to a new life. In a strange yet familiar voice he heard himself saying: ‘the soul, like any soft-skinned creature, clings to whatever shell it can find. Only by cracking that shell can one force it to move to a new…’
Attacks of vertigo came over him in waves as he descended the staircase. There was someone he must find, one man whose help might save him. He picked up the telephone and dialled, swaying giddily from side to side.
A clipped voice like polished ivory answered. ‘Professor Ramachandran speaking.’
‘Professor—’ ‘Hello? Who is that, please?’
He cleared his throat, coughing noisily into the mouthpiece. ‘Professor, understand me! It was the tumour, inoperable, it was the only way to save her — metempsychosis of the somatic function as well as the psychic…’ He had launched into a semicoherent tirade, the words coming out in clotted shreds. ‘Ramadya has gone over now, she is the other woman… neither she nor any others will ever know… Professor, will you tell her one day, and myself… a single word—’ ‘Dr Singh!’ The voice at the end was a shout. ‘I can no longer help you! You must take the consequences of your folly! I warned you repeatedly about the danger of your experiments—’ The telephone squeaked on the floor where he dropped it. Outside the headlamps of police cars flashed by, their blue roof lights revolving like spectral beacons. As he unlatched the door and stepped out into the cold night air he had a last obsessive thought, of a fair-haired, middle-aged man with glasses who was a chemist at a cancer institute, a man with a remarkably receptive mind, its open bowl spread before him like a huge dish antenna. This man alone could help him. His name was — Elliott.
As he sat on the bench he saw the lights approaching him through the trees, like glowing aureoles in the darkness. The rain had ended and a light mist dissipated under the branches, but after the warmth indoors it was colder than he expected, and within only a few minutes in the park he began to shiver. Walking between the trees, he saw the line of police cars parked along the perimeter road two hundred yards away. Whichever way he moved, the lights seemed to draw nearer, although never coming directly toward him.
He turned, deciding to return to the house, and to his surprise saw a slim fair-haired man cross the road from the park and climb the steps to the front door. Startled, he watched this intruder disappear through the open door and close it behind him.
Then two policemen stepped from the mist on his right, their torches dazzling his eyes. He broke into a run, but a third huge figure materialized from behind a trunk and blocked his path.
‘That’s enough, then,’ a gruff voice told him as he wrestled helplessly. ‘Let’s try to take it quietly.’
Lamps circled the darkness. More police ran over through the trees. An inspector with silver shoulder badges stepped up and peered into his face as a constable raised a torch.
‘Dr Singh?’
For a moment he listened to the sounds of the name, which had pursued him all day, hang fleetingly on the damp air. Most of his mind seemed willing to accept the identification, but a small part, now dissolving to a minute speck, like the faint stars veiled by the mist, refused to agree, knowing that whoever he was now, he had once not been Dr Singh.
‘No!’ He shook his head, and with a galvanic effort managed to wrench loose one arm. He was seized at the shoulder and raised his free arm to shield himself from the lights and the pressing faces.
His glasses had fallen off and been trampled underfoot, but he could see more clearly without them. He looked at his hand. Even in the pale light the darker pigmentation was plain. His fingers were small and neat, an unfamiliar scar marking one of the knuckles.