When you recall your experiences without reliving them, you’ll be through the worst. But there’s something you’re holding back...

Why am I having this dream?” I said. Dr Langley studied her finely manicured hands. The nails were varnished in the palest rose. I thought of my own, ragged, bitten to the quick, and slid my hands under my knees. “You need to bear in mind, Maggie, that there’s rarely a simple explanation for a dream.” She was in teacher mode now. “Dreams consist of elements which have to be disentangled. That’s not always easy. In yours, some associations are clear. The smell of river water, for example.”

She leant forward.

“But the thing you can’t see, the thing that’s under the water – that holds the key. It’s something you want to discover, which is why you can’t release the chain and the door disappears, trapping you in the bathroom and forcing you to make the discovery. But it’s also something you dread discovering, so your brain wakes you before the thing reaches the surface.” “And the water turning to blood?”

“That’s not so surprising, given what happened at the Icehotel. But the white tiles.”

She made an arch with her fingers. “Your subconscious is drawing your attention to them. My suspicion is you’ve seen them somewhere. Can you remember?”

“I can’t remember what day it is, let alone where I’ve seen white tiles,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t realise I was lying.

“Then that’s something we’ll keep working on.” “And when I find out what’s under the water, I’ll stop having the dream?”

“It’s equally likely you’ll stop having it before you find out.”

Dreams

I rested my head against the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. I hadn’t always had dreams. My childhood and early teens had passed without them.

Dreams had appeared at the onset of adulthood and, with it, responsibility.

But this dream that had reduced me to a fraction of my former self was recent, brought on by the terrible events earlier in the year.

Weeks would pass without it, then, for no apparent reason, three would come consecutively, like buses.

I wondered whether the others who’d been at the Icehotel had dreams. Liz might, although I doubted Mike would. But not Harry. Not now.

Dr Langley’s voice broke into my thoughts. “You’re making progress, Maggie.” She was writing, adding today’s observations to her case notes. “Don’t you feel it?”

“I feel as if I’m living someone else’s life.”

She replaced the cap on her fountain pen, then blotted and closed the file. She always did it in that order. I was fascinated both by this little ritual, and by the medical profession’s apparent disregard for the ballpoint.

“We went a little further today,” she said. “I see evidence of improvement each time we meet.”

“The men in white coats aren’t coming for me, then?”

“When you can recall your experiences without reliving them, you’ll be through the worst.” She searched my face. “But there’s something you’re holding back. Something you’re not telling me.”

I kept my expression blank. It was a look I’d perfected in recent weeks.

“I’m not saying you’re doing it deliberately.” She hesitated. “But you’ve still to tell me what happened at the Icehotel.”

What did she want to know? It had been in all the newspapers.

Fraying sanity

“You’re back at work in the New Year.” She had the file open again and was scanning the pages. “A pharmaceutical company, isn’t it?”

She played these little games. She knew the name, but wanted to see if I remembered it. She knew everything about my life: my childhood, my time at university, my first job in Newcastle. And the move to Edinburgh.

“It’s Bayne Pharmaceuticals, Dr Langley,” I said, my voice level. “They’ve given me six months’ leave of absence. My boss has been brilliant about everything.”

“And how are you sleeping? On the nights you don’t have the dream,” she added.

“Having a drink before bed helps.”

I wondered if she’d guessed I needed to drink myself into oblivion. Even then, I rarely slept through. The worst hour was three in the morning: I’d wake and, unable to sleep, would chain-smoke in bed.

But she knew I drank before our sessions. She couldn’t fail to notice the odour on my breath. I rarely went to the surgery without at least two drinks inside me. The first gave my brain cells a wake-up call, but a second was needed to make them fully functioning.

She was watching me. “You will get over this, Maggie. But you’ve got to give yourself a chance.”

I looked into her eyes, wondering why, after all these months, she still believed it. Probably because she didn’t know the whole story.

Nor did I, come to that. Yet until I did, there’d be no recovery and the dream would overwhelm me.

All it needed was a single, sharp tug at the thread of my fraying sanity, and it would unravel completely.

“It isn’t just about what happened there, Maggie, although those events were terrible enough. Something else is behind this dream.”

She paused. “And you’ve come to the same conclusion.”

Silence

After a silence, I said, “The police got it wrong. They got it all wrong. I need to know what really happened.”

“And what’s stopping you?”

“I might discover something that...” I tailed off, unable to find the words.

“Something you want to discover, yet something you dread discovering?” she said softly. “The thing in the bath.”

“If I discover it, will it release me from this...” – I gave my head a small shake – “from this hell?”

“Nothing else will. And I think you know that. But we can make the journey together.”

Her gaze held mine. “Will you tell me what happened?”

I nodded slowly.

“Start at the beginning, then. Start with how you came to be at the Icehotel.”

So as the wind seized the windows and rattled them, wailing to be let in, I told Dr Langley everything.

More tomorrow.

Icehotel, available on Amazon Kindle, is Hania Allen’s debut novel. Her second book, The Polish Detective (Constable, £8.99), is the first in her new series featuring DS Dania Gorska and is set in Dundee.