Close Your Eyes: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist!
He doesn’t know his name. He doesn’t know his secret.
When Daniel woke up from a coma he had no recollection of the life he lived before. Now, fourteen years later, he’s being forced to remember.
A phone call in the middle of the night demands he return what he stole – but Daniel has no idea what it could be, or who the person on the other end is. He has been given one warning: if he doesn’t find out, his family will be murdered.
Rachael needs to protect her son. Trapped with no way out she will do anything to ensure they survive. But sometimes mothers can’t save their children and her only hope is Daniel’s memory.
Perfect for fans of Holly Seddon, Gillian Flynn and BA Paris.
Also by Darren O’Sullivan
Our Little Secret
Close Your Eyes…
Darren O’Sullivan
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Darren O’Sullivan 2018
Darren O’Sullivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008277864
Version: 2018-05-01
DARREN O’SULLIVAN was born in Slough in 1982 but moved to Peterborough when he was 17 to train in performing arts. He has been working creatively ever since, first as an actor for the stage, then director. Five years ago he felt inspired to write theatre and from that came the idea to develop a novel.
To Helen, because time is the most precious gift, and one you have given me.
Contents
Cover
Blurb
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Author Bio
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Excerpt
Endpages
About the Publisher
Prologue
Daniel
Sheringham
5th January 2018
Breathe.
Just breathe.
That was all I had to do. And yet it was impossible. Lying on the ground, the cold seeping through to my back and chest, I stared up at the sky. Unblinking. A sheet of nothingness stretching in all directions. Flat and smooth and devoid of anything I could identify with, devoid of anything I could latch hope onto. Just grey. I looked anyway, for something, anything that meant there was more. My eyes stung, I needed to blink. But I didn’t dare. I knew if I did, my eyes might not open again. And grey was better than the black of what was surely to come.
Ironically, grey was the colour that made up my past, made up who I was, made up my memories. I had fought against it, now, it was all I had left. The only thing to hold on to. Grey was a friend all along.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
The pain was too much, the knowledge of what was coming next too constricting. I knew I would pass out soon. I could feel it creeping up my arms and legs. A stillness as my extremities conceded defeat. The blood flowing from my body was unstoppable, it came from too many places. My life was leaking out, a millilitre at a time, forming a pool in which I lay. It warmed the concrete around me, inviting me to relax, to accept. And it didn’t hurt, it didn’t matter.
I wasn’t scared of what was next, part of me knew it was inevitable. It didn’t even matter where I went once I died, all that mattered was that life would continue. The storm would end, spring would come. Summer would burn and then winter would return. It would do so for many, many years. There would be laughter and love. There would be success and change. There would be children growing to become adults who would have their own children one day. Then there would be peace as it came to an end, only to be replaced with another winter, another summer for ever and ever.
I was just a very small part of a much bigger picture.
I was just a single paint brush stroke on a canvas that was the entire world. A single small stroke of paint. One that was never very vibrant or colourful. More shading than subject.
Just before I closed my eyes for the final time there was a small gap in the grey, just enough for me to see beyond it. A small space of the brightest blue I had ever seen. Pure. Untouched by the past five days.
And that bit of blue, it told me everything would be okay, for the one person that it was all for.
And that was what mattered.
One week earlier
Chapter 1
Daniel
Stamford
29th December 2017, 7.48 a.m.
A long time ago I was told that the moments that were truly important in life were the moments we carry forward and recall on our deathbeds. Things like the perfect sunset. The moment we fall in love. A passing of someone dear.
As I lay in my bed, I was doing exactly that, as coming from the room next door was the sound of Thomas and Katie, talking and playing together. Their voices were my two most favourite sounds. Katie said something I couldn’t quite make out, but whatever it was it made Thomas laugh and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I wanted to join them. But not yet, first I would use my senses as I had been taught.
It was a doctor who told me to let my subconscious take over when it mattered. A doctor who was one of the many I had fifteen years ago in the days, weeks and months after I woke up in a hospital bed. But he was the only one I would never forget. He was the one who first told me what had happened and helped me understand my life had re-begun. He helped me make sense of the facts. I was a broken body that didn’t know where it was. A broken body that didn’t know its name. A broken body whose even more broken mind couldn’t comprehend that it once had a past that it may never see again. Its memories, my memories, like all memories, tiny bubbles that contained joy and happiness, sadness, fear. Only mine had all been popped.
Our conversation, the one that helped to save me from the pit of despair I was in, came on a grey February morning. I was sitting staring out of the window nearest my bed, trying to find a reason to carry on and he, doing his morning rounds, approached. Noticing I was lost in thought he asked me what I saw. I told him I saw drizzle, darkness before looking away from the window, back to nothing in particular.
‘What about the trees?’
‘What about them?’
‘What do you see when you look at them?’
Sighing, I looked outside again, to humour the doctor. Thinking if I did he would go away and leave me alone.
‘They look dead,’ I said, holding his eye. I almost followed it up with a comment about how they were lucky, but stopped myself. The doctor sat on the end of my bed and looked outside. I watched him, wondering what he was doing. Doctors usually rushed in and out. I didn’t blame them retrospectively, I was intolerable to be around. I waited for him to say something, but for a long time he just sat, looking out of the window, a small smile on his face. The silence was too much.
‘What do you see?’ I questioned.
‘The same as you at first glance.’
‘So then why ask?’
‘Because I wanted to see how hard you looked.’
‘Doc, you aren’t making sense. If you don’t mind, I want to be left alone.’
He looked at me, the smile unmoving and nodded.
‘Before I do, Daniel, humour me once more and look again at the trees, but this time, look closer. Focus on the tree tops. Look at the way they are moving in the wind. Look at the very tips of those branches. What can you see?’
Reluctantly I did what he said and looked again, having to hide my astonishment when I focused on where he told me to. The trees may have looked dead at first glance, but as I focused I saw their tips starting to show the signs of sprouting buds that would become leaves eventually, they would attract birds who would nest and raise families. As he spoke I could almost smell the sweet scent a sapling gives off in spring. But I didn’t remember any springs, or summers, or autumns. Only winter, the one I watched from my window. I learnt that the small act of stopping to let my senses work properly helped me see something wonderful that was always there, and the morning wasn’t quite so dreary anymore. As he left my hospital room he told me if we embrace the stillness from time to time, we capture the moment entirely. His final words to me were that letting myself see the small things that really mattered wouldn’t help me remember my past, but it might just help me have a future. That day, I knew I could learn to hold on to the precious moments that were to come in my life. Things I would experience going forwards, and they could be wonderful if I let them, despite not knowing anything about the past. Shortly after that moment with the smiling doctor I was told I would be going home soon. I never saw that doctor again.
I have had several moments in the fifteen short years that I can remember where I have done exactly that. I stopped, I became still, and in doing so I made sure those moments were branded permanently in my mind so that no matter what may happen I would never forget them. Moments likes the two occasions I have fallen in love. The first time to Rachael, traditional, sweet, and almost as far back as I can remember. Two people who were nervous and excited. Full of possibilities. That first kiss suspending me above myself. I didn’t know then, but that first kiss would eventually lead to another wonderful moment when Rachael told me I was going to be a dad. A box presented to me, inside being a positive pregnancy test, a card and baby grow. Tears that fell and warmed my cheeks. Her smile, unfiltered.
The biggest moment of all is reserved for the day my son was born, six years ago. Although it feels like six minutes. His tiny body helpless and defenceless. His beautiful little head that fitted perfectly in my palm as I carried him towards his mummy who lay on the operating table post-caesarean. His cry, his voice. As I carefully moved towards her, his eye found mine and changed everything I assumed I knew about myself.
But there is also the second time I fell in love, more recently, to my Katie. Our meeting and dating coming from a place that was wiser, but no less powerful.
I may have had more of these moments in the years before 2003. But I would never know. Mum prefers never to speak of the time before the accident; it’s not important she tells me. I know that they’re memories that she doesn’t want to relive and I’m not interested in finding out about them, not when I have no way of remembering. She’s more focused on the man I am now – on rebuilding my life after what happened. She has spoken of my kindness though, my ability to love others and to jump into situations too quickly. Sometimes I will catch her staring into space and I just know she’s recalling another time, another me.
In some ways, me losing my past is harder for her, she has to mourn for the man I once was without mourning at all, and I knew, despite how much I wanted to know about the me before, that if I asked her outright, she might break her silence, spilling the bottled-up emotions she held on to for my benefit. Something I couldn’t do to her; she has been through enough. So I left it alone and focused on the now and the future. Which was Thomas and Katie.
From his bedroom I heard Thomas tell Katie what Santa had left him at Mummy’s house before asking her to build a tower from the Lego my mum had bought him. His voice was followed by the crashing sound of hundreds of plastic blocks being poured onto his bedroom floor. It wasn’t the words spoken or the sounds of Katie and Thomas building that would form into a lasting memory, but the context.
The woman I loved and the boy who means more than anything else in the world to me had formed a relationship that didn’t need me to mediate. I wasn’t required for them to be able to play and talk. I wasn’t needed for them to be able to know and care for one another. And, with what I had planned for after New Year, Katie and Thomas caring for one another in such a way was essential.
Katie still thought I was asleep. I knew because she was speaking in her quiet whispery tones despite Thomas not lowering his voice at all. Truth was, I’d not really been asleep since just after 4 a.m. A dream, my dream, waking me early. The same one I had been having for over a year. The one of the accident that took away my memories and the life before.
Slipping out of bed I tiptoed towards Thomas’s room. As I stepped in, I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the sight of them sat next to each other, him leaning into her as they built some sort of tower that stood about eighteen inches tall. Katie saw me first as Thomas was concentrating on his building task, and she smiled, looking from me to Thomas before resting her chin on his head. Her eyes told me everything. She was happy that he let her be close, she was content. After just over a year, he was treating her like part of his family. She mouthed a good morning to me, and I mouthed it back before turning my attention to my fixated boy.
‘Morning, Thomas.’
He looked up at me, a smile spreading across his face.
‘Daddy, look at the robot Katie and me made.’
‘Wow, did you two really make this?’
‘Yep’
‘All by yourselves?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s amazing. You are both very clever.’
‘Well, Thomas did most of the building, I just helped where I could,’ Katie said, focusing on Thomas as she spoke.
‘Well then, I’m even more impressed. Bit of a clever one, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, look at your robot. I doubt there is anything you can’t do. Are you two hungry? Shall I make some breakfast?’
‘Not yet, Daddy.’
‘Okay, no rush.’
‘What time are you meeting Will today?’ Katie asked, her smile shrinking, morphing into a tight one that she always held firmly in place when she was trying not to be worried about how I would feel after seeing my therapist.
‘Not till 2.30, so we can take our time this morning.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘No it’s okay. I’ll drop Thomas back at his mum’s earlier than usual this week.’
‘Daddy, can I stay up here and play a little longer? I want to build a racing car.’
‘Of course you can. Do you want me to help?’
‘No. I want Katie to.’
‘You want Katie to?’ I said looking once again to my girlfriend, not even trying to supress my smile.
‘Right, I’ll leave you two to it. I’ll be downstairs, come down whenever you’re ready.’
Once downstairs I flicked on the kettle before sitting at my kitchen table. I quietly drank my coffee and looked into my garden as the lazy sun forced its way over the horizon and listened to them talk above my head. Thomas laughed, his infectious giggle making Katie laugh as well.
Not knowing my past is a huge part of my present, and the questions that remain unanswered about me will be ones I will carry forever. But, listening to my son and my love playing in a bedroom above me, I let myself believe that the questions I had, scars I carried, wouldn’t be the future of me.
The future was now. The future was upstairs and everything about it was definitely real.
Chapter 2
Daniel
Stamford
29th December 2017, 3.18 p.m.
It turned out I didn’t need to take Thomas back to his mother’s early after all, as Katie suggested that they went to the park to play whilst I met up with Will. Then we could take Thomas back to his mum’s together. Before I could say anything, Tom was putting his shoes on to leave.
‘Are you sure, Katie?’
‘Of course. We’ve not spent this much time together before.’
‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter if we take him back.’
‘Dan, honestly. It will be fine. I love your little boy. I want to spend some time alone with him.’
‘Katie, come on, let’s go!’ Thomas said, pulling on her jumper and away from me.
‘Right, you need to wear a hat and gloves, it’s freezing out there today,’ she said playfully whilst trying to wrestle his coat on. I asked if she needed a hand, but she told me she was fine.
I had known Katie for two years. She had known Thomas for just over one, and after kissing them both I watched them walk out of the house without me for the first time. It felt good, and weird all at once.
With the house quiet, I got myself ready and drove to Will’s for our session. The hour we spent together mostly followed the same routine as usual, we talked about how I’m feeling, I told him about how I remembered the taste of blood in my mouth, and the pain of a broken bone.
‘Have you told anyone about this?’ he asked.
‘Yes, my mother.’
‘But not Katie?’
‘No, not Katie.’
‘What did your mum say?’
‘She laughed and told me I had been watching too many action movies.’
He agreed; it was my imagination faking memories. I knew the term for it, confabulation. It was common for people with my condition.
As I left we scheduled our next meeting to be just after the Easter weekend. But he told me if anything new happened that I wanted to talk through, he was always on the end of the phone.
In the car on the way back I let myself reflect on my chance encounter with Katie; I often did so after seeing Will. I guess it was because with Will we spoke of a past I didn’t know, but thinking about how Katie and I met, that was from a past I did and our memories, our past, helped me supress the knot in my stomach that sometimes swelled.
Pulling up on the side of the road by the park, I could see the two people I love the most in the distance. He was climbing the ladder to the top of the slide and Katie stood close by, her face glowing in the cold weather. As I walked towards them I took it all in. The crisp winter air, the sound of the breeze creaking through the limbs of the exposed trees. Thomas’s laugh over it. Her laugh. Bright and unreserved.
Thomas saw me approaching and waved. I was expecting him to run over for a cuddle, but he was so wrapped up in playing that he carried on running from the slide to the swings, dragging Katie with him. He climbed into the bucket seat and asked Katie to push him. It warmed me despite it being so cold that the frost had not melted from the night before. I watched them, not wanting to interrupt for a few minutes, and then glanced down at my watch and sighed. It was nearly time to go. It would be getting dark soon. But I didn’t want to move, I wanted to stay in this moment forever. The cold air, the warm laughs.
Thomas shouted for Katie to push him harder, although she was clearly pushing with all of her strength. He was swinging so high it made my stomach turn. Each time he swung into the air I was sure he would shoot off the seat and fly ten feet into the air before hitting the frozen floor. I felt my muscles in my legs ready to spring, my arms ready to catch. He was screaming and for a moment I saw a flash of something from before. It was dark, almost pitch black, a woman’s scream echoed, her shrill bouncing off a low ceiling, and I was running, hard, and crashed through a door.
As quick as it landed it was gone. It took me a moment to realize he was screaming in glee and she was smiling and making rocket noises behind him. He was fine. They both were. Katie looked at me, a quizzical expression on her face. She had seen my reaction. I smiled weakly at her, trying to assure her that everything was fine. No doubt another moment of confabulation; I had seen something similar on the BBC perhaps, and mistaken it for a memory.
I turned my attention back to Thomas, shaking the last of the adrenaline that shot into my chest. I looked at his hands wrapped around the freezing chains, and his feet dragging across the ground each time he passed. It amazed me how big he was getting. Time moving at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with changing him from a defenceless baby, to a gabbling toddler, to a little boy with his own mind and ideas and plans for who he wanted to be. Thomas shouted he was going to be sick and the swing slowed down, being grabbed from behind by Katie to help the process.