ROOM 211

PART TWENTY TWO

26.

Henry sits in an interrogation room within the local town police precinct, and he is left there alone for a good half hour at which point the two detectives who had picked him up from room 211 at The Mulberry Hotel, enter the room.

Henry sits on one side of a rectangle metal table and the two detectives sit quietly opposite him. With his memory loss he has no way of knowing if he has done anything wrong so if an accusation comes his way, he cannot even begin to defend himself. A big cause of worry is that bag of money he awoke to, do police know of it and if they do, they it then how can Henry offer any kind of defense to any possible accusation?

At that almost complete loss for why he is here, and why he had been named as Doctor Archer; Henry speaks first.

'So ... what? Am I in some sort of trouble or something?'

'Not as such, not yet anyway' speaks one detective.

'Then I am free to go?'

'You can leave anytime you like' speaks the other detective. 'However, as we said earlier, we have questions to ask of you.'

'Such as?' asks Henry with an element of relief and a hope that his relief if not all so obvious to those before him.

'Doctor ... Doc, can I call you Doc?'

'You can call me whatever you like' says Henry trying not to be too definitive one way or the other to knowing or not knowing his actual name.

'Good, then Doc it is.'

'So, Doc ...' speaks the first detective. 'You do know you have been missing for three months now, right?'

'Missing? I don't get you ...'

'Your wife reported you missing three months ago?'

'Wait ... what? My wife?'

'You do remember your wife ...' says the first of the two detectives to have spoken. If they are looking to catch their guest off guard, then they have already done that by speaking the word wife.

'Yes ... wife' says the other detective. 'We received reports that you have been seen around town over the past couple of days and we traced you back to room 211 of The Mulberry Hotel.'

'My wife ... where is she?'

'On her way to the precinct sir, is there any reason as to why you would not want her notified of your current location?'

Henry is hesitant to answer though answer he does as his hands clench together upon the table and his focus too is upon that table. 'No, no reason at all.

'You don't sound all so convincing.'

'Could you tell us where you have been for the last three months?' the detectives continuing to alternate who speaks.

Again, Henry is hesitant to answer. 'I have been around town for the last two days ... staying at The Mulberry as you know ... before that ...'

A knock comes to this interrogation room and the door opens the instant the knock stops. Another man sticks his head into the room and speaks. 'Missus Archer is here and wanting to see her husband.'

The door bursts open and in comes a woman with whom Henry does not recognize one little bit. Before she even begins to speak it is clear that she more than seems to recognize him, so he stands to greet her unenthusiastically. This also happens a little too soon for both the detectives liking for they would like to ask their guest as to what business he had with the particular hotel room they discovered him within.