A Shadow on the Lens

by Sam Hurcom

  ‘Those fools,’ the mother cackled, ‘think this is all some monster. Have you heard that yet?’

  I nodded, dazed.

  ‘What happened before …’ She trailed off, her words replaced by whispers that battered me from all sides.

  The demon of this village.

  The demon of this village.

  ‘What? What happened before?’ Whether I said the words aloud I cannot be certain. I saw the mother speak a while longer, tried as hard as I could to listen to what she told me. But I was lost, my body engulfed in unseen fire, my senses forgotten – for nothing of what I saw or smelt or heard was truly real. The mother’s bony features exaggerated, oscillated, grew and shrunk. She seemed to tower over me and I became so fearful of her, of her arcane hovel, of the marshlands all around us.

  The leaves of the trees turned cold and grey. The mud and the dirt turned crimson and red.

  The whispered words bombarded me mercilessly.

  The demon of this village.

  ‘I … I shan’t take up anymore of your time,’ I mumbled, terrified.

  I stood and circled the hovel quickly. Then I turned and found the mother standing, the little scrap of material in her hand. She hobbled over to me slowly. I noticed then the light shining through the bushes and leaves of the trees, vanishing piece by piece. The sky overhead – the very sun! – was being extinguished for ever. She took an age to walk to me – I wanted so badly to turn and run.

  When she was before me, she reached out and clumsily thrust her needlework in my hands. I recoiled at first, the cold of her touch feeling now like reptile skin. I looked at what she had given me. I saw it was a tatty ragdoll, a doll of a girl, a doll of her daughter, no doubt. She patted me with fingers that did not feel human.

  There were tears in her eyes, fat and heavy and ready to roll down her cheeks. Her mouth moved but her shrill voice was lost.

  Do not look for her with your eyes, for you will not find her.

  The words were distorted, low and booming. My chest tightened as my heart thundered. The face of the woman before me contorted and changed. Her blue eyes began to shrink and shrivel. When they were gone, she looked at me with empty black hollows.

  I think I gave my thanks. I think I offered my sympathies once more. The mother nodded her head as her skin began to congeal and burn with no sight or flicker of flame. Her mouth moved as she spoke to me. The words were not hers though.

  They seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

  Do not look for her with your eyes.

  12

  The Discovery – June 19th, 1904

  I wandered for such a time, that when I emerged from the swamps and returned to the station, it must have been the middle of the afternoon. I raved as I moved – lost – my sanity gone, my mind overrun by fever. I clasped the little ragdoll in hand and spoke to it, as though I were questioning the girl herself.

  ‘What will you not speak of?’ I muttered at the doll. ‘What happened to you, Betsan?’

  My attentions were all but fixed upon the ragdoll and I barrelled ever more questions at its blank, expressionless face.

  I must have walked up to the common, for my next recollection was standing in the wide spreading field. Something of a crowd had gathered, and those who found me, knowing me as the Inspector and calling me thus, seemed gravely concerned for my manic state.

  Whether they tried to bring me to heel or sedate me through talk and pleasantries I am uncertain, but I brushed them aside, no doubt, and wandered to the farthest edge of the common (for what reason I cannot tell). Perhaps Vaughn had been amidst the crowd, or a runner sent for him, but I recall his speaking to me sometime that afternoon, where I lampooned him with all bluster and bombast, rambling of the mother and her strange ways.

  I cannot recount Vaughn’s words, but know he was gravely concerned for my state, that I had succumbed fully to the fever and may perhaps require admission to an infirmary. He led me off the common no doubt (for I must have been quite amiable by then) and we returned to the Twyn slowly, whereby I was taken to the inn and my room, stripped to my waist and left in the bed. Vaughn brought provisions of water and damp rags, along with a strange herbal concoction that was bitter and unpleasant.

  I slept, and I dozed, and I dreamt, and I muttered and groaned, the little doll for ever staring at me from where Vaughn had set it on the small writing desk.

  However many hours passed I am uncertain, but light still streamed through my little window as I leapt from the bed, overcome with a powerful compulsion I could not fully comprehend. Something, it seemed, had dawned on me in my hazy consciousness, something I struggled to fix or focus upon.

  Do not look for her with your eyes.

  I vomited from nausea, moving too fast from my resting place. Everything spun as I collapsed to the floor; a hammer smashed against the interior of my skull. No matter the pain, my compulsion was stronger, and I clawed towards the little table to pull myself upwards. The bowl of water sat next to the doll; Vaughn had filled it to the brim. I plunged my face into it, splashing water against my neck and back and chest with no real care. The floorboards were soaked when I was done.

  I moved towards my camera case. Someone had gone to the trouble of tucking my Enfield inside (I presumed this was Vaughn, for Cummings would surely have seen to take the gun from my possession entirely). Some of my sensibility must have remained, for I felt it best to conceal the gun below my bed’s thin mattress. Then I scrambled through my case, collecting all of the exposed plates I had used at the scene and in the cellar of All Saints church. I stuffed my pockets with the vials of developing chemicals I had brought with me and hastened from the room, bungling down the stairs.

  Eyes looked at me with concern, suspicion, judgement as I came into the bar area. I barely gave anyone seated drinking a thought, though I daresay I must have appeared an escapee of Bedlam, bare-chested and sodden with water. This was surely compounded by the manner in which I passed those who stood around and made to gain Solomon’s attention.

  I dropped my photographic plates onto the bar top, knocking drinks as I did. Voices grumbled and cursed me. I believe someone gave me a light shove and told me to calm down – I barked at him which seemed to gain Solomon’s attention.

  He moved out of sight for a moment, appearing alongside me in the bar as I continued to mutter and bellow.

  ‘Upstairs, Inspector.’ Solomon manhandled me, bundling me out of the room. I resisted his heavy frame and grabbed at him, trying to speak with him at first before yelling as we crashed through the small door leading to the stairwell.

  ‘Your cellar!’ I cried. ‘I need to use your cellar.’

  ‘You need rest.’ He muttered something more under his breath.

  I thrust an elbow in the man’s abdomen unwittingly and winded him badly. He recoiled from me and bent over double. I turned upon him with some concern though it was short lived, for my compulsion would not abate.

  ‘The cellar, man. I must use it! I am ill, I know, but this is no act of fever.’

  I talked on as he took a few heavy breaths and straightened up slowly. He shook his head, his round face plum red as he scowled.

  ‘I shall tell the Councillor of this,’ he said quietly.

  I nodded frantically. ‘Send for him. Vaughn too. I shall not be long down there and they will need to see – I think they shall need to see what I may find.’

  I was quite delusional, of course, for I could have had no real idea of what I was soon to discover. Only that strange compulsion drove me, and for many years I have pondered what brought it on. Solomon looked rightfully confused and stood silent for a moment, glancing from me to the little door on his left that led behind the bar.

  ‘You act up, it’ll be a clout,’ he growled.

  Without another word, he slowly opened the little door and led me behind the bar. Th
e revellers watched on in silence, as Solomon knelt and yanked at the hatchway which opened with a great creak of the hinges. I retrieved my stack of dry plates as Solomon stepped downward into the cellar.

  ‘I’ll light all the lamps,’ he mumbled as he became submerged in the gloom.

  ‘No, no,’ I said excitedly as I stepped down after him. ‘Light only one. I need the place to be as dark as possible.’

  I shall not bore you as reader with the intricacies and histories of photographic processing, for whilst many a professional and amateur enthusiast may labour upon the subject for hours on end, the layman need not care for talk of exposure times and gelatin solutions. Many shall not read this for some in-depth analyses of my development process, though I admit to you now, what photographic development I did in Solomon’s cellar that night, would not conform to the strident standards required of a police enquiry.

  Until now, I have spoken to very few regarding my time in Dinas Powys. Of those to whom my greatest confidence was previously given, some defended my rather unconventional development methods. Others argued against them, suggesting I was perhaps foolhardy in my efforts, allowing uncontrolled light to expose my plates and obscure the images captured, prior and during the development process. It is plausible, though even in retrospect, considering my poor state, I lament such claims.

  For those who now read this, you may go so far as to question my skills as a photographer; to explain away what I claim to have seen in those images (for what is surely my greatest regret is that I have no evidence to support my claims) by way of my eagerness or lack of skill at the very time the plates were exposed, in the woods and church cellar. ‘It is likely,’ you may say, ‘that the focus was incorrect, or ample time was not given during each exposure; that what is claimed to be visible, was surely caused by movement of the camera.’ To that dispraise I merely laugh and do not dwell.

  Cast such doubts if you will, or call me fainéant, but know I hold my reputation as a professional above all else in this matter, and let me assure you, that what was revealed in those photographs was not put there by the dishonesty of my heart or the ineptitude of my hand.

  The cellar was small, cramped and dark, laden with barrels and bottles of spirits. Solomon lit a small oil lamp which he hung from a hook on the low rafters. I swirled and searched for a usable space, clearing a narrow shelf littered with a few tools and other trinkets. I swept all these to the floor, despite Solomon’s protests.

  I removed the vials of chemical spilling from my pockets and asked for water, both hot and cold, and large pint glasses. As Solomon made his way up the little steps I called after him.

  ‘And dishes, shallow plates, tin preferably. And a thermometer if you have one.’

  He only grunted back at me.

  Each photographic plate had been individually wrapped in thick black paper sleeves after exposure, which I had stacked in order. Solomon returned several times, bringing with him a metal pot of steaming water, large jugs of cool water, three pint tankards and various dishes, bowls and plates of all sizes and shapes. He told me he had no thermometer to which I did not answer – by then I was already combining chemicals.

  ‘What is that?’ Solomon asked, watching me with cautious fascination.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said rather facetiously. I was impatient, keen to be working. But Solomon remained close by and some small awareness of my discourtesy implored me to answer him properly.

  ‘This,’ I said, lifting a small ounce vial, ‘is metol.’ I lifted another brown bottle and dabbed some powder into the mixture, estimating somewhat, for the fine measurements on its side were barely visible.

  ‘This is sodium sulphite, what we call the preservative.’

  I must have seemed quite menacing to Solomon then, my face glossed in sweat, cast in the dim light of a dipped oil lantern, my eyes wide and shifting, jabbering on about strange chemicals as though I were the mad doctor of a Robert Louis Stevenson novella.

  ‘This is hydroquinone – the developer along with the metol. Here then, we add sodium carbonate, a little more … a little … there! With this we finally add a fraction of potassium bromide, a fraction to restrain the development.’

  I admired the concoction as Solomon asked me what it was for.

  ‘I need something to mix it with,’ I murmured, completely ignoring his question. ‘A ladle or spoon, clean, mind you.’

  Solomon scrambled back up the stairs. Whilst he was gone, I filled a large shallow dish with cool water, tipping in a small fraction of acetic acid to form the stop bath for the developed images. I set this to one side of the little shelf. Solomon returned as I prepared a final solution for fixing the images. He brought with him an array of wooden spoons and metal ladles.

  I mixed my solutions in silence. When I was satisfied enough, and had laid out three large metal dishes containing the developer, stop bath and fixing solutions, my hands were shaking with anticipation. My skin pulsated, as hot blood, like thickset tar, coursed through my veins.

  ‘Dim the light some more,’ I said quietly. When Solomon hesitated, I pushed past him and reached for the oil lamp. The room was shrouded in such darkness then that Solomon and I were but crimson faces, demons rising from an inferno. His pale eyes were fearful – not of the darkness but surely of me, for I was not myself, not the tempered man going about his enquiries, but a being unhinged, fired like a salamander.

  ‘I shall fetch the Constable,’ he said quietly and left without another glance at me. By the time he had closed the little hatch above, I was already submerging my first plate in the developing fluid.

  The first two negatives revealed nothing, or perhaps I should say nothing untoward. I remember feeling a sense of frustration, one that spurred me on to move with a greater sense of urgency. It seemed I was searching for something.

  The soft glow of light through the tree leaves, the thick trunks and the dense foliage of wild-growing garlic and ferns, shone with a silver luminescence against the dull black canvas of the clouded sky. Vaughn was visible in the first image (though absent from the second), his dark police uniform now a silvery white. He stared into the camera lens, the features of his face clear enough to see his curious expression.

  I began developing the third plate, rocking the little dish gently to ensure fresh fluid remained in contact with the emulsified plate surface. The scorched black earth where the body was found appeared first, before the surrounding dirt and leaves came clear. It took some seven or eight minutes to develop the images before they were placed in the stop bath and fixing solutions. In truth I could have taken more time. But my frustration was growing rapidly, the compulsion that had driven me down below the bar still raging with my fever.

  I skipped the fourth and fifth plates knowing them to convey various angles of the scorched earth and surrounding ground. In the sixth and seventh images I had focused on the wall of granite, casting the camera lens upward to reveal the overarching canopy and gentle slope of the wooded hillside. Neither of these images revealed anything to me, and as I set the eighth plate into the developing fluid, I reviewed each one again, standing close to the oil lamp so I could scan through every fine detail.

  ‘Nothing,’ I growled despondently, though I knew not what I hoped to find. I prowled around the little space then, impatient, agitated, raving.

  By now it had been an hour or so since Solomon had left. I expected both he and the Constable to emerge in the cellar at any moment. I slouched onto a heavy cask barrel and tried to think straight. I spoke to myself, scratched at the sides of my face and smacked my hands against the cool stone wall behind me.

  ‘What is it? What is it?’ I repeated to myself, on and on, before falling silent, staring at the floor of the cellar as beads of sweat fell and dripped from my forehead. Each minute dragged past, so that eventually I pounced across the dark room to glare down at my next submerged negative.

&nbs
p; There was the scorched dirt, a whitened scratch in the foreground at the base of the image. There too were the trees rising upward with the land, the undergrowth and ferns spreading away, arching with the curve of the landscape. There, dashed across the image amidst each well-formed leaf, were the blackened clouds of the skyline.

  And there, just obscured behind a narrow trunk, perhaps thirty yards from where the camera stood, was a face. Unclear, blurred, but visible. A face was staring at the camera.

  I pulled the negative from the tray, and held it close to the oil lamp, incapable of words or real understanding.

  I could not believe what I was seeing.

  Then I was submerging the next plate, my vigour and sense of urgency renewed. I watched it as the dark sky emerged first, then all manner of deepest shadows, the specks of the trees, the outline of each trunk, the bumps and shallows of the land as it spread into the background.

  There was the figure, closer now, silver, glowing, the head and upper torso clear, the shape of a woman, a young woman no doubt.

  Then the next image, similar to the eighth, and the last of those taken at the scene. The woman was much closer again, almost fully revealed, a few yards from where I stood with the camera. The thin features of her face were clear, a small but sharp nose, thin arms and body, not unhealthy but merely petite. Her hair was so white in negative, it was surely darkest black in life.

  Then the depths of All Saints church, and the girl’s body laid upon the table, the cracks of burnt flesh revealed as white bolts of light across her skin, the hollows of her eyes, emblazoned in silver fire.

  The ghoulish figure reappeared, lurking at the head of the table, looking straight into the camera lens.

  Then the body lying horizontally across the image, her left hand, that which was not damaged by flame, visible and at her side. There I noticed something strange, for a thin band, a ring no doubt, was clearly visible on the fourth finger. It glowed as hot as lead, and I recalled with what sanity I had then and there, that no such ring had been present before. In the background, the numerous flames of candles, each positioned at varying heights, appeared inverted as black pools of deepest darkness, wells that engulfed all light rather than projected it.