14 comments/ 39719 views/ 4 favorites Taking the Long Shot Ch. 01-02 By: Denham_Forrest Copyright© 2008 by Denham Forrest (The Wanderer) * Although there is some mention of violence, murder and even rape in this four chapter story. It is completely devoid of any intimate sex. Clarification:- DHS in the UK, historically stands for the Department Of Health and Social Services, that was charged - among other things - with handing out cash to the unemployed and the financially destitute. It's now been abolished under the British government's normal system of spending more cash changing things around and creating jobs for the boys by creating even more departments. Whatever, people who are receiving income support in the UK are still generally termed as being on the DHSS, more often shortened to the DHS. The PCA is the Police Complaints Authority, the government department that investigates the public's complaints concerning British police forces. Taking the Long Shot, Chapter 01 The bar was fairly quiet; it normally was at that time of day, just after opening time. I'd cashed my social cheque first thing that morning and I could afford a decent beer for a change, instead of the canned crap I was normally forced to drink. Yeah, I was a drunk. Not an alkie quite yet, but probably not too far off it at the time. Folks were always telling me that the booze would kill me in the end. Not that I cared much, I didn't really have much reason to go on. Why ... well, why do you think? Because of a woman and the way the police have victimised me since she'd been gone. If anyone wanted to buy me another decent pint I might be persuaded to tell them the story. I suppose I'd better go back to the beginning. I'll try to keep the story as brief as possible. If I went on too long I'd be liable to get melancholy on folks and be unable to finish; the drink did tend to do that to me. Cassandra was a quiet girl when I met her, kind-a shy; you wouldn't think she'd say boo to a goose. We met when she got a job in the office at one of the companies that I was subbing for. I had my own security business back then, installing fire and burglar alarms in homes, schools, offices and the like. Just about anywhere that needed a good security system really. The guys that I employed were good at their jobs and the gear we used was of the highest quality and state of the art. My little company had the reputation as being one of the best and was growing fast. Cassandra had been employed as a bookkeeper or clerk or something by one of the electrical contractors that I regularly did sub-contract work for. They wired the mains and my company looked after the security installations, and latterly computer network wiring. Anyway Cassandra caught my attention the first time that I clapped eyes on her. She did no more than glance up at me and an embarrassed smile briefly appeared on her face, before she quickly returned her attention to her computer screen. You know, there was something about that little smile that I can't explain; but I knew that same instant that Cassandra was the one my mother had told me I'd find one day. The woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. Yeah well, from that day forth I set about courting Cassandra. The odd visit I paid to that particular contractor's office became three or four visits a week. It took some time and a lot of persuasion but eventually Cassandra deigned to let me take her to lunch. As I've already said, Cassandra was very reserved and appeared extremely shy. One would never say she dressed provocatively either, but no amount of dowdy clothing could ever hide that figure of hers. After a couple of quiet lunches together, Cassandra seemed to relax a little when we were together. She even cracked the odd joke about me being a wolf in sheep's clothing; I never did understand what she was getting at there. Anyway from lunches we progressed to dinner dates and finally the theatre, cinema and going out dancing. It was a bit unusual for me to date a woman for nearly two months before I got a first kiss out of her, but it was worth the wait. I was in no hurry, remember; I figured we'd have the rest of our lives for that kind of thing. However after that first kiss, Cassandra loosened up surprisingly quickly and three months into the relationship we'd began to stopover at each other's flats for the night, a couple of times a week. Cassandra's flat took me somewhat by surprise. It was almost brand new and exceptionally large. When I questioned how much it must have cost she mumbled something about a legacy. I enquired no further because I was already aware that her parents were both deceased. Killed in a road accident or something a few years previous and I was also aware that Cassandra preferred not to talk about them or their deaths. The relationship progressed very quickly and within the year we were discussing getting married and how many children we both wanted. My business was growing very fast and as the wedding drew closer Cassandra quit her job and joined the staff of my company, where she was apparently a great hit with everyone. I'd known Cassandra less than two years the day we walked down the aisle together. During those two years I'd seen a surprising amount of changes in her. Her shyness had disappeared almost completely and she'd adopted a much more modern style of dress. Nothing that could be considered over the top, but definitely more fashionable. "Can't have everyone thinking I'm an old maid when I'm marrying a handsome and dynamic young business man," she'd replied with a smile, when I commented on how much her dress had changed, one evening as we were going out to dinner with an important client a few weeks before the wedding. The wedding itself went off fine. It was a pretty small affair as far as relatives were concerned, because neither Cassandra nor myself had much in the way of relations still alive. Cassandra was given away by her uncle, who was — as far as I know, along with his wife — Cassandra's aunt - the only remaining members of her family. My mother — and my only living blood relative, my father having passed away from influenza when I was very young - and my stepfather flew in from the antipodes where they'd been living for many years. That was the first time I'd met Cassandra's uncle and aunt and I have to say that — with hindsight - I'm of the opinion that they didn't like me very much from the moment they met me. An opinion, that was reinforced by their actions over the following few years. Of course we had all of our friends, most of our — the company was in the process of being converted into a partnership — employees, and representatives from quite a few of our clients there. On the whole I thought everything went off very well. Cassandra and I spent our first night as a married couple in the honeymoon suite of the same hotel we'd hired for the reception. The following day we set off on a tour of the country. We'd talked about going abroad, but for some reason decided to visit some parts of the UK that Cassandra hadn't been to before. Cassandra seemed to have a fascination with ruined castles and all things medieval. It was whilst discussing our honeymoon that I discovered that Cassandra had studied history at university. Yeah, all right, it did mean that I/we could phone into the office everyday and check that disaster hadn't struck. Not that we didn't trust the people we'd left in charge. Anyway for the next eighteen days we travelled around middle England and most of Wales visiting said castles and a few civil war battlefields, etc. I learnt a lot more about English history than I thought I needed to know. But Cassandra was enjoying herself; so if she was happy, then I was happy. Especially at night, when we looked out the best hotels in the locality, and spent the night in their honeymoon suite. It was a Thursday, the nineteenth night on our honeymoon, twenty days since we'd walked down the aisle together. We'd booked into a rather plush hotel in Bristol for the night; but for some reason that escapes me, we were trying to enjoy our evening meal at a restaurant in the city centre. As far as I knew everything was fine, Cassandra had been joking about not going back home as planned that weekend, and maybe us running off to Scotland and spending some time seeing the sights up there. Of course we both knew that we needed to get back to the office the following week, but it was fun pretending that we didn't have to. About the only thing that spoilt the evening was a large party of people, maybe twenty or thirty who were eating at the other end of the restaurant. They were foreign, rather loud and appeared to be celebrating something. Later in the evening they took it in turn to stand up and give a little speech in their own language or possibly propose a toast to some unknown person. Anyway, we tried to ignore them as much as we possibly could. Cassandra and I finished our meal and were enjoying a couple of — what are often referred to as - liqueur coffees, mine being rum and Cassie's Tia Maria, which is a rum based drink anyway so you could say that even our tastes were compatible. But suddenly I noticed that Cassandra was sitting there staring into space; and that her face had almost completely drained of colour. "Are you all right, sweetheart?" I asked, concerned about her because she was seeming to sway in her seat a little. I honestly thought that she was about to faint on me. "I feel that I might be sick," Cassandra said as she rose from her seat and headed - very quickly - towards the ladies room, that wasn't very far from where we were seated. I went to go with her, but she insisted that I remained at the table, telling me that she'd be back in a few minutes. So at the table I sat. Ten minutes later Cassandra hadn't returned and I began to get worried. After fifteen minutes - and voicing my concerns to our waiter - I threw caution to the wind and entered the vestibule that led to both ladies and gents conveniences. Getting no reply when I called Cassandra's name at the door to the ladies room, I charged inside followed by a waitress who been obviously been sent to investigate with me. The ladies conveniences were empty; there was no sign that Cassandra had ever been in the place. Further panicked investigation informed us that the fire escape that led outside from the vestibule had been opened recently and the catch hadn't reengaged properly. A quick search of the back alleyway the emergency exit led into showed no sign of Cassandra. I was in panic mode by then, because I could think of no reason - other than to get a breath of fresh air - for her to go out into the alley. And if that was the case, then she should have been right outside the door. The police were called, but they didn't attend until nearly three quarters of an hour had past. And to start with, they didn't appear to be very interested, suggesting that Cassandra had probably decided to walk back to our hotel on her own. But then one of the kitchen staff - who'd been asked by the restaurant's manager to take a good look around — returned with Cassandra's handbag that he'd found in a bin at the end of the alley. But he had seen no sign of Cassandra herself. One of the officers searched Cassandra's bag — with my permission — and found her purse inside that had contained several hundred pounds after we'd visited an ATM earlier in the evening. Cassandra's credit cards were still there in her purse, but all of the cash was missing. The police then suggested that I return to our hotel, in case Cassandra went back there. They would have every officer locally and the towns CCTV camera operators keep an eye out for her. As you have no doubt guessed by now, Cassandra didn't return to the hotel that evening, nor the next day. It was just as if she dropped off the face of the earth; I never saw - or heard - anything from her. Mind you, I did see a lot of the police when they eventually deigned to accept that foul play might be involved in Cassandra's disappearance. I have no idea how many newly married women do a disappearing act in the city of Bristol, but, to start with, the police appeared to treat the investigation as fairly low key. But after a week I was a complete head-case and the coppers seemed to pull up their socks some. Only at the time, I never realised that the more I bugged them about finding Cassandra, the more they appeared to focus on me as a suspect in her disappearance. Especially after her Aunt and Uncle — who'd I'd informed of her disappearance by telephone - turned up in Bristol. I'm not sure how to explain the next year to you. But I will say that the police both in Bristol and my hometown seemed to have decided that I'd somehow done away with Cassandra, or was at least responsible in some way for her disappearance. My motive, they suggested, was Cassie's three million eight hundred thousand trust fund that I'd had no previous knowledge of whatsoever until the accusation was thrown at me by a Chief Superintendent Conway during a very frightening interview. During which, it was pointed out that I was deeply in debt and that my company ran a very large overdraft. Nearly four million - it was suggested - was ample motive for just about anything. Technically I wasn't that much in debt, if in debt at all. My company was owed far more cash from clients with in progress contracts, and the overdraft was basically working capital for those jobs. We'd been growing fast in the previous year and income hadn't quite caught up with outgoings; but the company's balance sheet itself, was pretty healthy. I was running a personal overdraft, because I hadn't wanted to take my and Cassandra's wages out of the company until some of the clients paid up. And the credit cards ... well, who pays those buggers until the last minute. Actually I'm not one of the credit card company's favourite type of clients; usually paying off the debt at the end of every month, before they add their interest on. Whatever, the police seemed to figure that Cassandra's almost four million was enough of a motive for me to want to dispose of her. I'd better explain that trust fund, as best I can; I've already told you that I knew nothing of its existence until after Cassandra was gone. Anyway, apparently, it was set up by her mother's solicitor after her stroke. Apparently Cassandra's father had been killed in some kind of accident and her mother had suffered a stroke when she heard the news. Basically Cassandra's uncle and aunt were supposed to administer the trust fund until Cassandra, either reached the age of thirty, or got married; whichever came first. Cassandra was to receive a generous allowance from the trust in the mean time. Looking back, I suppose that might have explained her aunt and uncle's animosity towards me. Hey, folks who administer trust-funds don't do it for their health; usually there's some cash incentive for their labours. But that fact never crossed my mind at the time and it was too late to point it out to the police when my solicitor eventually spelt it out to me; what the fuck did I know about trust funds? But by then the police had me firmly in the frame. The trust fund also explained that impressive flat of Cassandra's. Whatever, Cassandra wasn't around to sign the relevant paperwork, so as far as I knew at the time the trust money stayed sitting in a bank somewhere. That, to my mind - and my brief's - was a pretty good motive for Cassandra's uncle to arrange for her to disappear somehow. Not that we could ever get the police to think that way. Anyway I spent the next few months dashing up and down the M4 either pushing the police to find out what had become of my wife or being interviewed by them, because they were convinced that I held the answer to Cassandra's disappearance. You would never believe all the different scenarios they accused me of organising. Old friends that I hadn't seen since my schooldays were interviewed as possible accomplices. Even my staff and the staff of some of my clients and suppliers were interviewed along the same lines. I was soon to become a person it was better not to know in a lot of people's eyes. Then the bloody newspapers got in on the game. They were subtle, I give you that; but every time the police questioned me, it was reported in the papers. Of course hints of my possible motive for doing away with Cassandra were bandied about in vague detail. Even old clients who'd suffered break-ins — no security system is completely proof against a determined burglar — were interviewed by reporters, and their tales of woe published in the newspapers. Of course the stories never mentioned that often their system had not been serviced since the day they were installed, because the client wanted to save a few bob. Or that sometimes their system hadn't even been set. But that wouldn't have painted me or my company in the light the reporters were intending to do, would it?" The newspapers let the readers' minds do the rest. Within a couple of months, my company's order book began to suffer and most of our pending contracts were quietly cancelled. Some of my clients and the companies I subbed for, stayed with me; but then some of them found their order books suffering. In less than a year I had to call in the receivers and my company was sold by them to a competitor. With little or no cash coming, I couldn't pay the mortgage on the house Cassandra and I bought to spend our married life together in; so the bank foreclosed and repossessed it. My personal bankruptcy followed soon afterwards and I moved down to the coast where I took up the profession of a full time drunk, supported by social services. I was by then living in a disgusting little bed-sit halfway between the social office and the one pub I frequented when I had enough cash. So there I was that morning enjoying the first decent pint I'd had in over a week when my nemesis walked in the door like they owned the bleeding place. I'd just about had my fill of Chief Inspector Conway and his Sergeant sidekick, so I was ready for the buggers when and if they walked over to my table. To be precise I was already hitting the speed dial button to call my brief, possibly the only friend that I really had left in the world, but hey the bugger was being paid by the legal aid people anyway; it was in his interest to remain my friend. Anyway he was handling my continuing complaints to the PCA of police harassment against the two monkeys, which had been upheld by the way, but I had not been awarded any financial compensation so far. It appeared that even the PCA was convinced that I had something to do with Cassandra's demise. Oh, yeah, by then, I - like just about everyone else - was convinced that Cassandra was dead. After all it had been nearly four years; if she was alive, surely she would have been in touch with me by then. Either that or someone would have spotted her somewhere; damn it Cassandra's face had been slapped all over the TV and newspapers for months after her disappearance. "They're here again, Mark! Get on to the powers that be, before I do something I'll regret." I was shouting down my mobile phone to my brief as the two officers arrived at my table, confusingly carrying three pints of beer. "Dan, can we speak to you for..." Was as much as Conway got out of his mouth, before I turned on him. "No, you fucking can't, arsehole. Come one step closer and you'll get this fucking snooker cue around your bleeding ear'ole, and damn the consequences," I shouted back at them. To be precise it was a pool cue, but who gives a monkey; I'd had just about all I could take from those two arseholes. They sort-a stood there in what I can only describe as a stunned silence for a few seconds as I downed the rest of my beer. My intention was to get out of the pub before I did something that would lead to me spending a long period behind bars at her Majesty's pleasure. Taking the Long Shot Ch. 01-02 I'm not by nature a violent person, but if I wanted to do serious injury to anyone in this world, it was those two. And Cassandra's uncle and aunt who I was fairly convinced orchestrated the newspaper campaign against me, that led to me becoming a bankrupt. Yeah, I'd come to the Popeye point in my life, "That's all I can stands and I can't stands no-more!" were the thoughts going around in my brain. Having finished my beer I headed towards the door, pool cue still in hand. As fast as my legs would carry me, without actually running. "Stay away from me, Conway, or you might not live long enough to collect your pension," I was saying as I reached for the door handle. But Conway stopped me dead in my tracks when he called out, "Cassandra's alive and well, Dan!" End of Chapter 01 -------------------------------------------------- Taking the Long Shot, Chapter 02 "Cassandra's alive and well, Dan; we've found her!" Conway called out as I opened the door. Of course that stopped me in my tracks, and I turned to look at him, wondering what kind of a sick trick he was trying to play this time. Several times during the intervening years he'd told that me bodies had been discovered that were tentatively identified as being Cassandra. Forensics had always proven otherwise of course; but Conway and his oppos had always used the discovery of those bodies as an excuse to pull me in for yet another grilling. I had no idea what kind of a game he was trying to play this time, and I had no intention of hanging around long enough to find out either. "Bollocks!" I replied and then I walked out of the pub. Of course I did wonder whether Conway was telling the truth or not, but I doubted it from the beginning. The man had told me all kinds of tales during his interrogation sessions; I figured that he was playing another of his mind games, trying to get me to say something stupid like "That's impossible because I killed her and buried her where you'll never find her!" Which of course I couldn't, because I hadn't! Those sort of dumb confessions only happen at the end of badly written TV programmes anyway. Over the next week or so there were a couple of times that I thought he might have been telling the truth. Actually at one time I hoped Conway had been telling the truth, but then I got to thinking about the few words he had said. "Cassandra's alive and well." Yeah, well, if she was alive and well, then why hadn't she come looking for me? Good question, eh? Cassandra would be a millionaire; finding the husband she walked out on four years before should be no problem for her. Well, when you think about it, there's only one answer to that question, isn't there? Cassandra must have been stringing me along all the time, maybe to get her own hands on that trust fund of hers. Although I couldn't imagine why she didn't just divorce me. But then, who knows what was going on in her mind. I could not make any sense in her letting me go through the hell I'd been through since that evening in Bristol. I had to come to the conclusion that if she was alive and well, then she had never felt anything for me in the first place. For the next few weeks I checked the newspapers that I found laying around — I didn't waste my precious beer money on buying the bleeding things; after all most of them had been part of the conspiracy to get me hung, drawn and quartered. But there was never any mention of Cassandra being located. I had just about convinced myself that Conway had been lying. I'd say at least a month had gone past before anything else happened, maybe longer; time had little meaning for me by that stage. It must have been at least a month, because I got my social fortnightly and I was back drinking a proper beer in the same pub again. I saw the guy come into the bar, a little later in the day than when Conway and his oppo turned up, so I was a little bit closer to never never land. Anyway, he had some tart with him and they had had a whispered conversation with the barman, who I noted had gestured in my direction. He brought a couple of pints and a drink for the woman, then strolled over to my table and placed the full beer before me. "Dan Elks, my name's Fox. Cassandra is one of my patients," he announced. I was looking straight in his eyes as he spoke and somehow I knew that this wasn't some kind of trick of Conway's. "I thought she was supposed to be well," I blustered. This guy had referred to Cassandra as his patient. That made him a doctor; if Cassandra was his patient then how could she be in perfect health as Conway had implied. I thought that a logical conclusion even if I was half pissed. "Oh, she is ... physically, Mr Elks. But not quite in perfect health mentally." And that was supposed to be news to me. Cassandra had to have been a sandwich short of a picnic to do what she'd done to me. "You can say that again! Have you any idea what that woman has done to my life?" I found myself retorting. "I read the papers, Mr Elks ... and I've spent some time talking to John Conway. It was he who informed me where to find you." "You've just made yourself very unwelcome at this table, mate; I suggest you leave whilst you're still able to walk." "Hear me out please, Mr Elks. I'm a psychologist and I'm treating Cassandra for what is commonly known as amnesia." "So what the fuck's that got to do with me?" I said angrily. I never had had much faith in all these shrinks and the like, with all their psychobabble. "Everything, Mr Elks, believe me. Cassie is in what we call a fugue state; have you any idea what that is?" "Not the slightest and I don't much care." "Mr Elks, Cassandra's condition is not only extremely rare, it's almost unheard of for it to have lasted as long as it has. Usually, the patient recovers within a matter of days or weeks. We believe Cassandra's been in this condition since the night she disappeared. And we believe that you might hold the answer to bringing her out of it." Damn it, when he first spoke to me I'd intended to see the tosser off, the same way I'd seen Conway and arse wipe off a few weeks previous. But the bugger had got me intrigued; which I suppose, was what he'd intended to do. Crafty arsehole. "Oh, yeah, how can I hold the answer to anything? I don't know what the bitch was playing at or why she ran off that way. Where's she been anyway?" I asked, surprising myself somewhat that I even cared. Shit! With that damned question, the bugger had me, and what's more he knew it. Maybe there is something in all that psychology crap after all. Fox slipped into the seat opposite me, and his female colleague came over to join us. I was to find out later that she was into people who drink too much. Not alkies, but the likes of me who try to hide in a bottle. What's that? You didn't know there was a difference? Yeah, well, there is! Alcoholics drink because they are addicted to the stuff. When they've got it bad enough they will drink just about anything that contains alcohol. Some of us don't get addicted; we can take or leave alcohol as we please. We are choosy about what we drink and only consume the stuff to turn our minds into mush. We choose to drink ourselves into oblivion as much as we can. "I'd better explain a little about Cassie's problem to you first, Mr Elks; and I'll try to keep it in layman's terms as much as I can. Cassie appears to be in a fugue state. As I told you it's a rare condition, but extremely well documented. The sufferer loses all knowledge of who they are, and inexplicably are known to travel away from home, or places they are familiar with, as if running away from something." "Usually they are assumed to have taken on or invented a new persona for themselves whilst in this condition. And most commonly they recover after a few days or even weeks. The odd thing is, they usually have no recollection of the time they are in the fugue state. So knowledge of what they actually do whilst in a fugue is extremely limited." "As far as it's understood, usually they will just wake up one morning in a strange place, with no idea how they got there or what they've done during the fugue. Sometimes giving the impression that they've only just lost their memory. Other times the memory has returned. But rarely with any knowledge or memory of what happened when they were in the fugue." "So, Cassandra should know why she left then." "No, Mr Elks; Cassie is the exception, it's been nearly four years and she's still in the fugue condition. She has no recollection of her childhood, or of you. She believes at the present time that she's an American by the name of Sarah Lee." "Why should she think that?" "Because that's who she's been for the last four years. Look Mr Elks, let me explain how she was found. You know the Americans are getting a little paranoid about the terrorist threat. Well, apparently Sarah Lee applied for a position in a government agency over there. As a matter of routine she was finger printed and her prints didn't match up to the prints of Sarah Lee that the FBI had on file." "Add to that, she speaks English with a very pronounced English accent and she is also fluent in Serbo-Croat..." "Do what?" "Yes, she apparently speaks it like a native, didn't you know? Well, it's not surprising really, her parents were Croatian. Ah, you never knew that either!" "They were both dead long before I met Cassandra." "Don't suppose there was any point in Cassie mentioning the fact then. I know she had ample reason to want to forget the country. Anyway the American authorities kind-of had themselves a communal heart attack, and assumed that Cassandra, or Sarah Lee, was some kind of terrorist sleeper. Apparently it's routine for them to check terrorist fingerprints with the British police and their system threw up Cassandra's name as a missing person pretty quickly." "It took a few months before an American psychologist realised that Cassandra wasn't a threat, but a patient in need of help. They eventually got in touch with Cassandra's Aunt and she had Cassie flown back to the UK, where she was placed into my hands. I'm charged with the problem of getting Cassie's memory back." "Well, if you're convinced she lost her memory, surely all you got to do is find out what caused her to lose it. But if you're expecting me to come up with a reason, then you're barking up the wrong tree mate. I have no idea what came over Cassandra that night, or why!" "Oh no, Dan. You don't mind me calling you Dan, do you? We know what caused her problem and what triggered it that particular evening. I've had a detective friend of mine going through everything and we know just about all there is to know about how Cassie became Sarah Lee and why she went. What we don't know, or haven't found yet, is the trigger that will bring Cassandra back. I believe that you might be that trigger." "You know what set her off do you, would you care to explain it to me?" I asked, sarcastically adding. "In layman's terms of course." "Mr Elks ... Dan," Fox's colleague spoke, for the first time. "Were you aware that Cassie was raped as a teenager?" "No!" I replied, taken aback a little by the sudden revelation I'm not sure whether I was surprised that Cassandra had never mentioned the fact, assuming that it was true. I'll admit that I was still pretty sceptical about what these shrinks had to say. "When she was fifteen, Cassandra went to Yugoslavia with her father." Fox continued, "He, his siblings and parents had fled the country at the end of the war, before Tito took complete control over the whole country. The place had opened up again towards the end of Tito's reign and we believe Cassandra's father knew that things were about to fall apart following Tito's death. It's most likely he was in the country looking for some of his relatives. Unfortunately the trouble between the Serbs and the Croats came to a head whilst they were still there." "Cassie and her father were taken prisoner or kidnapped by some Serbian militia or they might have been bandits for all anyone really knows. From what I've heard say things were pretty chaotic. Anyway they shot Cassie's father in front of her and then raped her repeatedly until she was freed by some Croatian fighters some time later. It's believed that they held her captive for about two weeks." "Oh shit, the foreigners in the restaurant. The people who attacked her weren't in that group, were they?" "Quite the opposite Dan. The Leader of the group of Croatian fighters who rescued Cassandra was though. Unfortunately seeing him again, brought it all back to Cassie and ... well, as they say, she flipped." "How do you know all this now, if Cassandra can't remember and the police didn't know it at the time of her disappearance?" "I explained that I had a private detective friend of mine go over everything. Cassie's aunt had told us about the rape and murder of her brother. John Carpenter went back to the restaurant and questioned the manager and staff there with, shall we say, an open mind. Once he realised that the other party there had been mainly Croatian students and ex-pats, it didn't take him very long to find the guy whose father had freed Cassie. "Of course he hadn't recognised Cassie on the night she disappeared. But he was aware that something had happened that evening. They'd gone on to a bar by the time the police started asking questions and for some reason, weren't approached by them later." "He's a nice man, who flew over from Croatia to see if meeting him again would jog Cassie's memory." Fox added "Was that wise?" I asked. "Who knows, but it was worth a try. But Cassie's mind has really clammed up tight about who she was." "How did she come by the name Sarah Lee, and how could she get away with pretending that she was her for so long." I asked. "Well, to Cassie's mind she is Sarah Lee. How she came by the identity is coincidental in the extreme. But as far as John Carpenter my detective friend can put it together it goes a bit like this. A week or so before Cassie disappeared; a small cruise ship was towed into Falmouth harbour with engine trouble. Some of the passengers were flown home, whilst others stayed with the ship whilst repairs were carried out." "One of the people who stayed with the ship was a young American woman by the name of Sarah Lee; she was an orphan and had recently been divorced from her husband, who was later killed in Somalia. Anyway there was apparently no one who she was close to left in the world." "Now, whilst repairs to the ship were carried out, those passengers who remained with the ship treated it like a floating hotel, they came and went as they chose. Unfortunately quite a few of the cabin crew were rotated home at the same time. Some new passengers also joined that ship just before she sailed, her engine having been repaired. Consequently when the ship set sail for Portugal there wasn't really anyone on board who knew that the confused woman found wandering on deck wasn't Sarah Lee." "They just checked all the cabins and put Cassie into Sarah's Cabin because her gear was there, but she wasn't. In her confused condition Cassie probably looked through Sarah's belongings and ... well she became Sarah. We're not sure how people in a fugue condition adopt their new identities but it appears obvious how Cassie found hers." "Three months later, a car that Sarah Lee had hired in Falmouth to tour the county was found in the bottom of a river. But by that time Cassie had become Sarah so the American officials told the British police that Sarah couldn't have been in the car when it crashed, it must have been a car thief." "Yeah, I can remember the body in the car; it was one of many I was asked to try to identify." "What! After three months at the bottom of a river?" Fox's colleague blurted out. "Conway and his cronies were trying to shock me into admitting that I'd done away with Cassandra. I think they were hoping the shock of seeing that body would make me confess." "I would have thought it would driven you too dri..." Fox realised what he was saying and stopped speaking before he finished his sentence. "It did!" I replied. "Sorry that was unconscionable for me to say that." "Why, it's the truth. I was damned near crazy with worry and that bastard tried to send me over the brink. God knows how I haven't laid the bugger out." "Yes, so I gather from your reaction when I asked Chief Inspector Conway to approach you for me. I understand that the local police don't come too near you either?" "I've got five cases for police harassment in the works; if one of the buggers looks at me funny, I call my brief and he lodges a complaint. I'm completely innocent of any crime and yet I've had four years of the buggers giving me grief. They leaked lies about me to the press and vilified me in public. I lost my company, my home and my life because of the way those buggers behaved. They ain't getting away with anything where I'm concerned in the future." Fox and his colleague exchanged glances, then he asked. "Dan are you going to help us try to bring Cassie back?" "I don't know, whether I want to. From what you say Cassandra might be better off as she is. She obviously isn't mine any more, I'd probably do better to forget I ever met her." "But you were in love with her when you married her, weren't you?" The female shrink asked. "Were, being the operative word, madam. It's a very short step between love and hate you know. For a while I thought that Cassandra had been abducted. But somehow I knew that she wasn't dead, even when I tried to convince myself that she was. I knew she was out there somewhere and I grew to hate her for what her disappearance has done to me. In my mind she's grown to be as guilty as Conway and his bunch of arseholes." "Oh dear, so I can't count on your help than." "No I don't think so, Mr Fox. Let sleeping dogs lie, and yesterday stay a long forgotten memory. What if Cassandra gets her memory back, would she still love me, I somehow doubt it. Well not enough anyway, if she'd loved me that much surely she would have told me about her past?" "Not necessarily Dan. Have you ever heard of repressed memories?" "Eh, yeah kind-of." "Well it's not only possible but very likely that Cassie had repressed those memories of her father's death and what happened to her in Yugoslavia. Seeing that man who rescued her that day may have brought it all back into her conscious mind. We have no way of knowing for sure though." "Well then, it's probably better that she doesn't remember it now either. So possibly the best thing anyone can do is leave her mind where it is, don't you think?" "No, because the confused woman who thinks she's Sarah Lee, will spend the rest of her life in a mental health unit if we can't bring her back." "Probably better than the hell I've been living in for the last four years. But I'm pretty sure sclerosis will ensure that I don't suffer for too much longer." I replied, as usual feeling sorry for myself. To be honest, I was seriously reticent about helping the doctor with Cassandra's treatment. What would happen if she didn't come out of it, but I fell in love with her again? Being without her had been bad enough in the beginning when I could kid myself she was dead. But how would I feel if she rejected me. I honestly did fear for my own sanity. "I'm sorry, doctor; but you are on your own on this one. I really can see no point in me trying to assist you. I'm not even sure that I can trust myself to be in the same room as Cassandra. I really don't know how I would react to seeing her again." Much to my surprise the two doctors didn't try to persuade me any further; although I did thank them for telling me the details of Cassandra's disappearance. Taking the Long Shot Ch. 01-02 Professor Fox gave me his business card and asked me to call him if I changed my mind. Doctor Lillian Skinner gave me a leaflet with details of her alcohol abuse clinic. Then they got up and left. End of chapter 02