Chained in Time

by David Waine

  *

  A tight group of people stood or sat in Marcus Logan’s long, narrow kitchen, looking nervously from one to the other as they waited impatiently for him to complete his first session with Marie. Rutter was in the consulting room with them. Although Mr. Logan had politely informed her that his work would be more effective if the two of them were undisturbed, she had insisted that she could not leave Marie’s side, but assured him that she would not interfere.

  “I was doing a series on treatments for psychiatric conditions,” explained Sally, organising some coffee cups while Mrs. Kelly took charge of the kettle, “and I interviewed him.”

  “I thought you did crime reporting,” observed Joe a little testily. He was miffed because Rutter had been allowed to stay with Marie when he hadn’t. He was also annoyed with himself for allowing such petty jealousies to cloud his thinking when he knew perfectly well that there were far graver issues at stake. That failed to quell his resentment of her, however, a resentment fuelled by her formal, efficient manner.

  “Mainly, but not altogether,” she smiled back at him. “Auntie, that’s what we call the BBC, decided that I needed a break from all the horrors that I see every day to remind me that there is some good in the world after all, so I spent some time doing this series instead. They were right. I enjoyed the change. It helped me to get my priorities sorted out. I was beginning to suspect that the planet was populated entirely by murderers, rapists and terrorists — and it isn’t, you know.”

  Mr. Kelly was far from convinced. “It’s just one murderer that concerns me. What can an old Irish hypnotist do?”

  “Hypnotherapist,” admonished Sally gently, passing him a mug of steaming coffee. “He isn’t a nightclub entertainer. He uses his abilities to help those in deepest need of them. He is a genuine philanthropist, which is why he is doing this free of charge. I offered to pay for the consultations, but he wouldn’t hear of it. His only concern is for Marie, to bring her through this safely and with her mind intact. He can do far more to help her than we can. He can regress her through hypnosis and discover where these dreams originate. If he can get to the source, he believes that he can help her to overcome them. I have seen him at work. He is one of the best counsellors, trained or otherwise, that I have ever met. If anybody can restore her, he can.”

  Mrs. Kelly’s eyes, poised above her own mug of coffee, snapped sharply at the television reporter. “Will that lead us to this man?”

  Sally shook her head solemnly. “I can’t answer that, Mrs. Kelly, because I don’t know. Only he can tell you.”

  There was a certain edge in Marie’s father’s voice as well. Sally knew that it was their desperate worry for their daughter that was talking, and that they did not blame her for their torment, so she accepted it quietly. “And what if he is able to regress her, as you call it?” he cried. “What if reincarnation really does exist and she was the original Mary Jane Kelly? Is he going to bring her face to face with that again? I saw the book that Marie’s teacher gave her. I know what happened to that poor young woman. Do you think that I would allow him to do that to my child?”

  Sally looked away purposely, gazing through the window to Marcus Logan’s whitewashed back yard, a blazing sun trap aglow with potted plants in the summer, but as dreary as anywhere else in the autumn rain that currently enveloped them. “Patience, Mr. Kelly,” she said softly. “I know Marcus Logan. If there is one person on this planet who can bring Marie out of her despair, it is him. Trust me.”

  The kitchen door opened and a smiling, elderly face presented itself.

  “We are finished for the present,” announced Marcus Logan softly. “Would you care to come through?”

  Marie sat demurely in the centre of the chaise, still white-faced, but her trembling had lessened and she seemed more in control of herself than she had been. Rutter sat beside her, but rose to make way for her parents, who positioned themselves on either side of their daughter and held her comfortingly in their arms. Joe remained standing behind Marie, a hand laid protectively on her shoulder. Rutter and Sally seated themselves in vacant chairs, facing the others, while Mr. Logan placed himself directly opposite Marie and smiled at her in a grandfatherly sort of way.

  “You are awake, Marie, and refreshed. How do you feel?

  The slightly trancelike glaze in the girl’s eyes faded, replaced by the hint of a sparkle that had been absent for weeks. She smiled softly. “Better, I think, better than I was at any rate. A little less panicky.”

  Logan nodded in satisfaction. “That is good.”

  “What did you discover, Mr. Logan?” asked a concerned Mr. Kelly.

  The old hypnotherapist switched his attention to the man and spoke directly to him. “I have been inside the mind of Mary Jane Kelly,” he announced with finality.

  “The final victim?” asked Joe.

  “In my mind?” Marie had not clearly grasped his meaning. A slow, sympathetic smile spread across his face.

  “Are you saying that Marie and Mary Jane are the same person?” asked a worried-sounding Sally.

  Logan shook his head. “No, I am not saying that. Nor am I saying that this current psychopath is the same individual who terrorised the East End a century ago. That would imply reincarnation, which is a Buddhist tradition and I am a Christian. The Bible teaches me that we pass this way but once. That is the creed by which I must judge, even if I do allow myself a sneaking regard for Buddhist philosophy from time to time.”

  Rutter, keenly interested, leaned forward in her seat. “So, if it isn’t reincarnation, what is it?”

  Logan took a long, slow intake of breath as he considered his answer carefully before giving it. “It could be inherited memory, but that would require Marie to be a direct descendant, and I have no reason to believe that she is. Have the police checked whether any of the current victims were descended from the originals, Julie?”

  “We have,” she confirmed, “but we haven’t found any evidence that they were, and as we don't know the identity of either Ripper yet, we can't possibly check that one.”

  Logan nodded, understanding. “I thought not. It might change things if they were, but they do not seem to be. What we have here, I suspect, is possibly more closely related to poltergeist activity.”

  Joe started up, momentarily releasing his grip on Marie’s shoulder. “Poltergeists? Ghosts that throw things?”

  Marcus Logan smiled indulgently, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. “I said related to it. When a person’s body dies,” he explained, “their spirit continues and changes into a different form. It is often described as passing through an intense light. Some spirits, however, miss the light and wander blindly until they can find it again. We call them ghosts.”

  Mrs. Kelly, remembering her manners, realised that she had not yet passed him his mug of coffee, which she now did with profuse apologies. “What spirits would do that?”

  “There are no fixed rules,” he admitted, taking a first grateful sip of the hot drink, “but a tortured spirit might, one that died in unspeakable anguish.”

  “Like Mary Jane,” put in Marie soberly.

  Logan nodded slowly. “Or one that bore the burden of conscience for having caused that anguish.”

  “Like the Ripper,” suggested Rutter flatly.

  Marcus Logan paused for a few moments, sipping his coffee thoughtfully. Brightening at last, he turned to Marie’s mother. “Mrs. Kelly,” he smiled, “I bought some remarkable new biscuits at the market yesterday. They are in the tin, marked ‘Biscuits’ on the top shelf at the back of the kitchen. I wonder if I could possibly ask you to be so kind to put some on a plate and bring them through. They would go so well with this excellent coffee.”

  Mrs. Kelly went, frowning slightly, wondering why she was delegated this menial task instead of Joe or Rutter.

  As she closed the door behind her, Logan returned to his theme sotto-voce. The others leaned forward automatically to catch his every word.
“These wandering spirits have to have a home, somewhere to settle. Sometimes they centre their attention on the place where their tragedy occurred. That is why so many old buildings are rumoured to be haunted. Sometimes they centre it on a living individual, often a young one — frequently a young girl. That is typical poltergeist behaviour, only these spirits are not poltergeists. What we are discussing here is possession.”

  Marie’s father sprang to his feet in horror. “My daughter is possessed!”

  Logan immediately raised his hands in a placatory manner. “Not by anything evil,” he assured him. “By a benign spirit, that of Mary Jane Kelly. She means Marie no harm. In life, she was a sad, pathetic figure, an outcast of society, forced to sell her body on the streets because the social climate of the day afforded her no other means of support. She may have been at the very bottom of the Victorian social structure, but she was no creature of darkness. Her spirit is seeking desperately to avoid the hideous event that she knows is inevitable. Marie experiences her fear and her despair as her own.”

  “And the Ripper?” asked Rutter.

  Logan’s face darkened at the mention of him. Again he paused before answering. “Likewise,” he said solemnly, “but his possessor is far from benign. He is ruled by a demon, which once wore flesh and knows only rage and pain. It is driven to do what it does and it cannot stop.”

  The door opened and Marie’s mother returned with the plate of biscuits. Looking around, she realised immediately that something had been said in her absence, something that Marcus Logan had wished to spare her from hearing. Well, she would hear it soon enough. Her husband would have no peace until he told her.

  “What can you do?” asked Sally.

  “I must reach the mind of the Ripper himself,” announced Logan with finality, accepting the proffered biscuit with a smile. “I must discover why he is obsessed with this girl. I must touch his sickness and heal it. Then I will show him the light and persuade him through it.”

  “How can you reach his mind?” asked a trembling Marie.

  Putting down his mug, Logan looked hard at her.

  “God willing, through yours,” he said. “We have no other connection.”