Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged disappearance of her acquaintance Graham Folger. Original statement given July 1st, 2007. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins. I first met Graham two years ago, more or less. Its hard to say exactly when we first met or even started talking, as we were taking a class together at the time. Im sure there was plenty of discussion or interaction before we learned each others names, but I started my course in September of 2005, so yeah, about two years. I had decided to take a Criminology course at Birkbeck University as a way of getting out of the rut with my office job  Im an Associate Compliance Analyst at Deloitte, and if you think that sounds boring, well yeah. It is. I knew a night course in Criminology wasnt going to go anywhere, of course, even if Id finished it. I just had to do something to find a bit of interest in my life, and it was either that or become an alcoholic, so Sorry, Im going off topic. I initially found Graham a bit off-putting, to be honest. He was a chain smoker and wore far too much deodorant to try and cover the smell. He was a bit older than me, maybe ten years or so. I never asked his age, I mean, we werent that close, but he was starting to grey at the edges of his hair, and you could see that the tiredness on his face wasnt just from missing a single nights sleep. Thats not to say he was bad looking  he had a round, open sort of face and quite deep blue eyes, but very much not my type. He was well-spoken in group work, at least when he did speak, and I think it came up once that hed been to Oxford, though I dont know what college. Id noticed earlier that during lectures he always seemed to be scribbling furiously in a notebook even when the lecturer wasnt speaking. At first, I just thought he was thorough, but I swear I watched him fill a whole A5 notebook in one lecture. I remember it was a talk on youth and the justice system where the speaker was so slow that it wouldnt have filled that book even if Graham had been writing down literally every word. Not to mention I asked to borrow his notes once for an essay, and he gave me this weird look and said he didnt take any notes. So yeah, point is, I wouldnt have called him a friend, but we got on alright. It was about four months into my course that I first encountered Graham outside of the university. I was riding the night bus home, having gone for a couple of drinks and missed the regular service. I live in Clapham, so theres a pretty regular night bus service headed there. Of course, regular also means drunken angry vomiters, so yeah, I generally try to be unobtrusive, sitting in a seat at the back of the top floor. It was there that I saw Graham. He was sat right at the front, staring out of the window. People-watching is one of my guilty pleasures, so I decided not to say hello, at least not right away. I wasnt disappointed, either  he was stranger alone than he had ever been during class. It was the middle of winter at this point, so the windows were solid with condensation, but he almost obsessively wiped it away from the one in front of him the moment it started to obscure his view. He seemed to be intently scanning the street for something, except that at times he would crane his neck to stare at the roofs of the buildings passing by. He seemed nervous, as well, and was breathing way faster than normal, which fogged up his window even more. It was slightly alarming to watch, to be honest, and I finally made up my mind to tell him I was there. He jumped a bit when I greeted him, and I asked him if he was alright. He told me he didnt usually stay out so late and found nighttime public transport unsettling. I sat next to him, and he seemed to get much more relaxed, so I didnt push the issue. We talked for awhile about nothing in particular, until the bus started to approach my stop. As I rose, I noticed that Graham had stood up at the exact same time as I had, and I realised with some discomfort that we must live at the same stop. I liked the guy fine, dont get me wrong, but I still didnt really feel ok with him knowing where I lived. But yeah, it was obvious that Id gotten up to get off the bus, so I couldnt really ride on to the next stop, and it wasnt even that I felt unsafe with Graham, Im just a private person. I decided to just walk back with him as far as necessary and make sure he didnt see what building I went into. Maybe we werent even walking in the same direction. Yeah, we were walking in exactly the same direction. We even seemed to be heading to the same street. It was at that point I felt a hand grab my shoulder and throw me into the road. I dont know how else to describe it, one moment I was walking along, the next I was flying towards the ground. It cant have been Graham  he was in front of me at the time, and I would have sworn there was nobody else on the street. There werent any cars coming, but I hit my head hard. I think I must have been unconscious for a few seconds, because the next thing I remember is a panicky Graham on the phone to an ambulance. I tried to tell him I was alright, but didnt really manage to get the words out, which, yeah, probably meant I wasnt alright. The ambulance arrived in pretty good time, considering it was London on a Friday night, and the paramedics gave me a look over. I was told that the injury itself wasnt serious  apparently head wounds always bleed that much and its nothing to panic about  but that I did have quite a nasty concussion and shouldnt be left alone for the next few hours. Even though we were within sight of my door, I had for some reason settled upon the idea of Graham never knowing where I lived. In retrospect this was likely the concussion talking, but the upshot was I agreed to go back to Grahams flat to recover. He was quite awkward about the whole thing, and took great pains to assure me that there was nothing untoward about the situation; apparently he was a gay, which Ill admit did actually reassure me a bit. Still, it was clear this wasnt how either of us had hoped to be ending our nights. As it turned out, Grahams flat was directly across the street from mine, just a couple of floors lower. I wondered if I could see my window from his, and I remember I had the odd thought that, if I had to look out, Id need to be careful of his window box, as I could see the hooks attaching it to the frame. I asked him what he grew, and he gave me a look, as though my concussion had stopped me making sense again. I mean, maybe it had, because when I looked back at the window the hooks were gone, and there was no sign of any window box. At the time I put it down to my head wound, and even now Im not sure. The flat itself was a simple affair, quite big by London standards. It had only a few pieces of furniture and a lot of bookshelves, each covered with rows and rows of identical notebooks, with no apparent marking system or indication of contents. I started to ask about them, but my head throbbed and I didnt feel up to any answer that might have been forthcoming. Graham led me to the sofa and disappeared to fetch me an icepack and a mug of sugary tea. I graciously accepted both, though I wasnt in much of a mood to talk. Graham clearly felt awkward enough with the silence to do the talking for both of us, and I learned more about him over the next hour than Id ever had a desire to know. Apparently his parents had died in a car accident a few years previously and had left a great deal of money and ownership of this flat. He didnt need to work anymore and so had found himself somewhat adrift, taking night college courses to pass the time and broaden his mind  his words, not mine. He said he was trying to figure out what to actually do with his life. He talked on like this for a while but I stopped listening about that point, as Id become enraptured by the table on which hed placed my tea. It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole. Graham noticed me staring, and told me that interesting antique furniture was one of his few true passions. Apparently hed found the table in a second-hand shop during his student days and fallen in love with it. It had been in pretty bad shape but hed spent a long time and a lot of money restoring it, though hed never been able to figure out what was supposed to go in the centre. He assumed it was a separate piece and couldnt track it down. And yeah, like most of his conversation, Id have found it dull even if I wasnt concussed. But by this time, I was beginning to feel well enough to leave, and started to make my excuses to Graham. He expressed his concern, said it hadnt been as long enough, as the medics suggested, but if I had to Well, you get the picture. In the end I did leave, as I kept getting lost in the lines of the table, and the pipes outside of the window made such a weird noise that I didnt think staying was actually going to help me recover. I went straight home, making sure Graham couldnt see me from his window, and spent a few hours watching TV until I recovered enough to go to sleep. By the time I woke up the next morning I was feeling more or less ok, though I kept a plaster on the cut on my forehead, and tried not to think too much about the previous night. One evening a few days later, though, I found myself staring out of my window, the one that faced the street, and I remembered how close Graham lived. I looked to see if I could figure out which window was his and, yeah, sure enough, there it was. It was actually a remarkably clear view of his flat, and I could see him sat on the sofa, reading one of the notebooks from his bookshelves. I realised that if I could see him so clearly, he could likely see me just as well if he chose to look up, and, with some remnant of my apprehension from that Friday, I decided to turn off the light in my flat, so he wouldnt see me if he looked up. And then, I went back to watching him. Yeah, I know that sounds creepy. It really wasnt meant to be. I said earlier that I really enjoy people-watching and, regardless of how boring he may have been to speak to, Graham was weirdly compelling to watch. So thats just what I ... ...

Edit
Pub: 16 May 2022 19:59 UTC
Edit: 26 Jun 2022 11:04 UTC
Views: 120