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bother me?
    DR HARVEY: That you don’t know who sent the text. That the police don’t know who sent it.
    NATASHA: Should it bother me? I don’t know. It’s probably just some random guy I gave my number to when I was drunk.
    DR HARVEY: Does that happen often?
    NATASHA: Being drunk or giving my number away?
(Pause)
What’s often, anyway? Sometimes I give my number out. Sometimes my friends do it as a joke.
    DR HARVEY: The text told you to meet that night at three a.m., in the usual place. And then, in the middle of the night, you went out.
    NATASHA: I know, but the two things might not have been related. I didn’t answer the text, did I? Not according to what Inspector Bennett said. I bet that text wasn’t even meant for me. Could have been a wrong number. How can I have a usual place with someone I don’t know? I don’t have ‘usual places’ with people I do know. Not even—
(Pause. Slight hiccup of hesitation)
Not even with my closest friends.
    DR HARVEY: Are you all right? Did you remember something?
    NATASHA: Yes. I mean yes I’m all right, no I didn’t remember something. Sorry. Just tired.
(Shuffling in chair)
Look, I’m sure this will all come back to me and it’ll be nothing. I was probably just stupid and went out because I was bored and fell in the river in the dark. Maybe that wrong-number text got in my subconscious and made me think about going out. We don’t even know what time I left the house. Probably after the time in that text. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll remember, but right now I don’t know.
    DR HARVEY: I have something for you.
    (A pause)
    NATASHA: What’s this for?
    DR HARVEY: I want you to keep a diary. Your thoughts, feelings. Events. It can often help patients with memory problems. You don’t have to show it to me.
    NATASHA: Which means I don’t have to write it. I just want to go home. I feel fine, honestly. This place stinks of disinfectant. It’s going to take me three showers to get it off.
(Small laugh)
Still, better than freezing river water, I guess. Can I go home?
    DR HARVEY: I’m afraid when you’re released is not down to me, but I’m sure the doctors won’t keep you longer than necessary.
    NATASHA: I’ll promise them I won’t go out at night without swimming bands on in future. Just in case.
(Small laugh)
 
 
    EXTRACT FROM DI CAITLIN BENNETT’S CASE
    REPORT – MONDAY 11 TH JANUARY
     
    Natasha Howland has some bruises and cuts but there are no clear physical indications of an attack. Hospital psychologist Doctor Annabel Harvey believes that, despite the memory loss surrounding the accident, had Howard undergone a trauma such as an attack before falling, or being thrown, into the river, then PTSD would be evident in her reactions and behaviour. At present she appears calm and well.
    Howland’s phone records show no unusual activity before the incident apart from the receipt of a single text from an unknown number at 12.33 a.m.: Meet tonight at 3am. The usual place . Howland claims not to recognise the number and it is not in her contacts list. The text came from a PAYG phone sold by the One Cell Stop in Brackton Shopping Centre. It, and an identical phone, were bought for cash on October 14th. Security footage has been requested from the shopping centre and from One Cell Stop.
    Howland suggests the text was a wrong number. I am concerned by her lack of response to it. When asked, more than twenty teenagers from her school say in that situation they would respond with, ‘ Who is this? ’ Howland did not. Despite my concern over her lack of reply, this proves nothing; she may have chosen to ignore a text she did not recognise.
    There was no indication of a struggle at the riverbank, or in the woods behind it, although the heavy snow that night and morning hindered the search. Until such time as Natasha Howland recovers her memory, there is little the police can do once further inquiries about the source of the text have been made through her friendship