Chained in Time

by David Waine

  *

  The doorbell of a neat, white-fronted terraced house in Notting Hill rang and the two men who waited outside looked around impatiently. Chief Superintendent Abberline and Detective Sergeant Matthews were both acutely aware of the approaching date of November the 9th.

  The door opened to reveal the solemn face of WDC Julie Rutter, which cracked into a brief professional smile as she recognised the visitors and stepped aside to allow them in.

  “This had better be good, Rutter,” growled Abberline, handing her his coat. It was raining steadily outside. “Why aren’t you with her?”

  “He wouldn’t let me, sir.” Rutter’s face was apologetic.

  “Wouldn’t let you? Who wouldn’t?”

  “Mr. Logan, sir,” she replied, hanging the wet coats on pegs by the door. “He says he’s on the point of making a breakthrough and must be alone with the girl for a few minutes. He wouldn’t brook any argument on the matter, which is why I called you.”

  “You do realise that you might have left her alone with the Ripper, don’t you?” snapped Matthews.

  Rutter rode the attack easily. Matthews was no match for her intellectually, and she knew it. “I don’t think so, Sarge,” she replied confidently, “and anyway, it’s not the 9th yet.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” went on Abberline, making for the door to the kitchen. “This way, is it? Who else is here?”

  “Her parents, her friend, Joe. He’s a boy, but I don’t think he’s her boyfriend. More of a soul mate really. Oh, and your favourite reporter as well.”

  Abberline started and his eyes rolled upwards. “Tell me you don’t mean Pit Bull Sally.”

  “I would if I could, sir,” she smiled ruefully, “but police officers aren’t supposed to tell lies.”

  “Mind what you say to her,” growled Abberline. “You heard that Matthews found Mrs. Turner on Henriques Street?”

  “Yes, sir,” nodded Rutter. “Dawson keeps me well updated.”

  “We’ve got her at Bow Road now. Turner’s with her. The fact that the Beeb let her name out means that we can’t even do him for a traffic violation without stirring up a hornet’s nest.” He allowed a slow, irritated sigh to dissipate before continuing with a dismissive shrug, “Still, I suppose we can always ask what we would have done under the circumstances. The hospital discharged her yesterday morning. Turns out that he did nothing worse to her than pump enough sedatives into her to keep her woozy…”

  “And terrify her out of her wits, sir,” pointed out Matthews indignantly. As the man who had discovered her, he felt protective.

  “Well, yes, that as well,” conceded Abberline. “The crucial point is that she can’t remember very much. Turner told us that he wore a ski mask when he kidnapped her. Looks like he kept it on so she can’t give us any more of a description than he could. She does remember vague details of where she was taken, though. That might help to narrow things down a bit, given time. Apparently she was kept in a lock-up in Fulham, so that is where we are concentrating enquiries. We’re checking with DVLC on dark coloured hot hatches registered in and around London because I don’t suppose he lives round the corner.”

  “Any news on the fragment of surgical glove found on the Kelly victim, sir?” asked Rutter.

  “There is,” replied Abberline resignedly, “but it doesn’t take us anywhere yet. There was a fingerprint on it, but we haven't found a match.”

  “At least that rules out our known psychopaths,” put in Matthews helpfully.

  “And leaves us with God knows how many we don't know,” replied Abberline brusquely.

  Rutter opened the door and ushered them into the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly sat at opposite ends of the table by the window that looked out over the back yard. Joe sat between them, facing the window. Sally was in a rocking chair beside the fire.

  Marie’s father rose as Abberline entered. “Are there any new developments.” There was a tinge of desperate hope in his voice.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly, Miss Ferguson,” he added with a rather forced smile. To Joe, he merely nodded. “Bits and pieces only so far, I’m afraid, but each one brings us closer. We were given to believe that this Mister Logan was on the point of a breakthrough.”

  “He certainly believes that he is,” interposed Sally. He’s with her now. In there.” She nodded to the connecting door with the consulting room.

  “They’ve been in there for almost an hour,” observed Joe without the testiness that had characterised his speech for some time. Rutter put it down to the fact that she had not been allowed to witness the session either. At long last he felt more like her equal. She kept the thought to herself.

  “What am I thinking of,” put in Mrs. Kelly, suddenly aware that she was the oldest female present and, therefore, some sort of hostess, even if this wasn’t her house. “I really ought to be offering everybody coffee.” It sounded ridiculous, even to her, but she couldn’t help herself. In her state of heightened nervousness, she was only too willing to clutch at any straw that resembled normality. “Sally, Julie, could you…?”

  She said no more. The door opened quietly and an ashen-faced Marcus Logan entered the kitchen on unsteady feet. Mr. Kelly and Joe rose at once and steered the old man to the chaise, onto which he lowered himself slowly and held up a grateful hand to confirm that he was, in spite of all appearances, all right.

  “Mr. Logan,” said Sally worriedly, “this is Detective Chief Superintendent Abberline.”

  A glint of indignation passed through Abberline’s eyes as the realisation that she knew perfectly well that he was a chief superintendent dawned on him.

  Marcus Logan’s old, grey eyes focused on the newcomer and crinkled in a small smile of welcome. “Please feel welcome in my house, Chief Superintendent.”

  Abberline seated himself opposite the old man. “Sergeant Matthews and I are here at the request of WDC Rutter, sir. She believes that you may be on the point of a breakthrough.”

  “An astute young lady is your Julie,” confirmed Logan, “and she is quite right, for a breakthrough has been made.”

  Abberline leant forward, listening intently. “And?”

  Logan paused for a moment, looking sidelong at the connecting door. “We will go through and speak to Marie presently,” he said softly. “She is recovering her wits from the session and it will take a short time, moments only, before she is fully herself again. She has no memory of the discourse that took place between us because, in truth, although the words issued from her physical mouth, it was not her with whom I was talking.”

  Abberline sat back, eyeing the old man quizzically. “I’m sorry, sir, I think you will have to run that past me again.”

  Logan smiled ingratiatingly. “Forgive me, Chief Superintendent, I did not mean to speak in riddles. I have had an insight into the terror that haunts poor Marie’s mind and it has shaken me deeply.”

  Mrs. Kelly’s hand grasped that of her husband’s instinctively as they exchanged horrified glances.

  “I have been speaking with Jack the Ripper.”

  Fog billowed in, obliterating sight in any direction, reducing everything to a vague grey blankness with dim shapes bleakly discernible in its depths. Gaunt shadows of high, blackened buildings loomed to left and right and Marcus Logan could feel the uneven cobbles beneath his feet. He sensed the dank chill of autumn penetrate his clothing and his flesh. His nose wrinkled at the sooty, smoky smell, the acrid scent of ten thousand coal and wood fires burning day and night to keep the elements from inadequately insulated rooms; a smell that had faded from London in the century since.

  For this was not now. This was then. Ghostly cabs trundled by with top-hatted passengers clutching walking canes. There were spectral ladies with bonnets and bustles, hovering on the limits of his senses. He could hear their voices, as distant echoes, but could make out none of their words. He was an interloper out of his time, adrift in a world that no longer exis
ted, pursuing a phantom that had lost its way.

  The phantom stood before him, blank in the mist: middling height, featureless. All other sights and sounds faded into nothingness until the two of them faced one another isolated from all reality.

  “Will you not speak with me?” asked Logan pleasantly.

  The phantom seemed to shimmer darkly. Its voice had a husky, echoing, distant quality, as if it were not truly there. “What would you have of me?”

  Logan smiled. He knew whom he was addressing, and his smile was forced. Above all, he had to communicate with this thing. He had to discover its fundamental purpose, its ultimate plan. “Merely a moment of your time.”

  There was a long pause while the phantom considered its answer. When it came, it was the response that the Irishman expected, a response that no living being would have given, yet one that was logical enough in this context.

  “What is time?”

  Planting his feet firmly on the cobbles beneath him, Logan faced the man and spoke with a confidence that he did not feel. “A concept that has little enough significance to me and, I dare say, none at all to you.”

  “Then why speak of it?” The voice had a dry, soulless quality.

  “We should speak of something,” replied Logan, his manner betraying none of the dread that he felt. Whatever else, he had to draw some information from this creature, some crumb, some fragment that he could use in Marie's defence.

  The reply was dismissive. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  The phantom turned to go, but the old man stopped it with a sharp word.

  “Yes, you do.” The dim shadow paused, considered a moment and then turned back. Before it could respond, the old man pressed on, “You cannot harm me, and I cannot harm you. I know the agony that you feel, and I can help you to end it. When you wrote your little note, did you not address it, ‘From Hell’?”

  There was a pause. Although he could not see its face, he knew that the phantom's eyes were fixed on him. “I did,” it said at last.

  “Is that where you are?”

  Again there was a pause, but Logan was aware of more than consideration this time. Now he could sense real suffering, genuine agony, a soul twisted and writhing in torment.

  “I am in darkness.”

  Logan's eyes were steady, his look piercing. He understood. “And I am in the light. Look on me and you will see the light.”

  “I see no light.”

  The old man fought down the vague sense of irritation that this answer awoke. It would do no good to become annoyed with this creature. His patience was fathomless, his resolve indomitable. “You are not looking,” he said gently. “Look closer.”

  Again there was a long pause and the old man knew that his words were being weighed. “The light has gone.”

  He was not expecting that answer and it unnerved him for a moment. His response came out automatically without thinking. “Why?”

  “She put out the light.”

  Realisation dawned. The phantom was beginning to open up to him. With renewed confidence, he pressed his questioning further. “Who put out the light?”

  “My love.” The answer was immediate but delivered flatly and without the slightest hint of warmth.

  Two words only. Not enough. Logan needed more. “Who is your love?”

  There was a faintly wistful hint in the phantom’s otherwise dead voice as a mournful memory awoke within its tortured soul. “She was not there.”

  “Not there?”

  The phantom gave a wheezing intake of breath. “I came back for her, but she was not there.”

  The crude beginnings of a pattern were emerging in Logan’s mind now; information was coming in through more than the phantom’s words. He could perceive images, sounds, emotions and all were fitting together into an obscenely bizarre, but nonetheless logical, picture.

  “Mary Jane?” There was no reply, but there was no denial either. “Mary Jane abandoned you?”

  A new quality crept into the ghostly, distant voice. Logan could discern the cracked strain of anguish, but not of remorse. There was no hint of regret for what it had done. Its agony was for itself. The ghostly voice was on the edge of tears. “She defiled herself.”

  That would seem to explain Mary Jane, he thought rapidly, but nothing else. “But what of the others?”

  “Forgotten.”

  Logan’s voice was rising. He fought to bring his impatience under control. “Forgotten?”

  “By Mary Jane. They were practice.”

  A wave of pure revulsion ran through the old man at the absolute callousness of the remark. Four innocent victims destroyed mercilessly for no other reason than to polish his skills before putting them to the ultimate test. He gaped in disgust at this darkly shimmering monster, fighting down his natural abhorrence. He had to keep it talking, he had to maintain its confidence. He must not allow his innate goodness to sever the link, not now that he was so close. He fought down the nausea that threatened to engulf him. He must keep it talking, he must! For Marie's sake.

  Taking a deep breath, he continued, his voice beginning to shake with suppressed emotion. “So Mary Jane is your true love?”

  “My love.” The original flat tone had returned.

  In spite of the fog-born chill, Logan was perspiring freely. The phantom seemed to have said all that it wanted to say and turned to leave. Logan cried out for it to stop, but it did not. Frantically he sought for another angle. “Then why do you hunt her?”

  A pause. It considered coldly for a moment and then turned slowly back to him.

  “She is mine.”

  “You seek to possess her?” Logan's sense of alarm increased suddenly.

  Another pause.

  “She is mine.”

  A long pause.

  “She is my love.”

  This could not be allowed. Marcus Logan’s fundamental decency was so outraged at the presumption of this beast that he could no longer hold his feelings in. “Love is not founded on possession!” he cried. “Love cannot be coerced from one soul to another. Love can only be given freely and it demands no price. Why do you torment yourself with a hopeless task?”

  There was another long pause before the flat monotone returned.

  “She is my love.”

  “If you truly love her,” there was no mistaking the anger in Logan’s voice, “you must respect her; you must strive to bring her happiness.” He was rebuking the creature, and it listened. “If she does not return your love, you can never wrench it from her. What you seek is impossible. She cannot surrender to you something that does not exist. Have you stalked her for a century?”

  Yet another seemingly endless pause.

  “What is time?” Flat monotone.

  Logan's eyes clamped shut at the realisation of his gaffe. They had gone full circle and arrived back at the beginning. Then they widened in abject horror as a new realisation swept through him like an icy dagger. “Dear God! How many times have you killed that poor girl?”

  He knew he had broken through. There was a long pause during which he could almost feel the man's thoughts, and then the trickle of information he so desperately sought became a torrent.

  “We are bound together, she and I. I have lost the light and she cannot find it. Soon.” There was a hint of gloating in the cold, almost expressionless voice.

  “Give it up,” Logan pleaded desperately, on the verge of tears himself. “The Mary Jane you love is dead. Allow her to find the light and let her modern counterpart live in peace. Do not hunt that which can never be yours. Seek the light instead.”

  “Soon.”

  “That will not bring you peace,” he cried. “Only the light can do that. Continue with this and the pair of you will be trapped in a web of horror for all time.”

  “What is time?”

  The fog swirled in, obliterating everything from sight.

  Everything.

  “Mr. Log
an! Mr. Logan! Are you all right?”

  Marcus Logan’s eyes flickered open weakly. Worried faces stared at him. One of them was the senior policeman whose acquaintance he had only just made. It was he who spoke.

  “You met with him, then?”

  Reality returned to Marcus Logan slowly. He was vaguely surprised to find himself lying on his own chaise longue surrounded by those very people who had come to him for help. Struggling into a sitting position, he apologised profusely for his weakness.

  “Please forgive me, everybody; I think I must have had a dizzy spell. This does not usually happen.”

  Sally was sitting beside him holding him gently by the shoulders. “You fainted, Mr. Logan, just as you returned to the room after you told us you had been talking to Jack the Ripper.”

  “I did?” Realisation dawned at last. “Oh yes, I suppose I must have. A moment’s weakness. Please forgive me.”

  “I think we all need something to settle us down,” said Sally slowly with a pointed look towards Mrs. Kelly.

  “I’ll make us all a coffee,” said Marie’s mother, rising and turning for the kitchen.

  “If you could possibly include a generous measure of brandy in mine, Mrs. Kelly, I would be most grateful,” asked a contrite Logan. “Anyone else who needs one, please feel free.”

  Nobody spoke until Mrs. Kelly returned with the drinks. Setting his down finally, Abberline asked, “So you have been talking to Jack the Ripper, Mr. Logan?”

  Logan took a deep sip and nodded. “I have.”

  “Did he give a name?”

  Logan shook his head dispiritedly. “He did not. Even if he had, it would have been that of the original Ripper in 1888. The man he possesses has no knowledge of him and does not realise that he is being driven to do what he does.”

  “So why does he do it?” Sally's eyes questioned him earnestly.

  Logan looked her full in the face and answered simply. “He loves her.”

  Mrs. Kelly gaped in shock. “He loves her!”

  He realised only then that Marie was sitting on his other side, her hand on his, her eyes over bright and watery in her pale face. “Loves me?” Her voice was a terrified whisper.

  Marcus Logan shook his head with a sad smile and pressed her hand fondly. “No, he loves Mary Jane Kelly. She abandoned him.”

  A confused look entered Marie's frightened eyes. “But she was a prostitute.” That simple sentence betrayed how little she really knew of prostitution.

  “She was a woman,” replied Logan gently, taking his coffee and sipping tentatively. A slow feeling of warm restoration began to spread through his vitals. The living should not spend too long communicating with the dead, he told himself. “Despite her calling, it does not necessarily follow that she would never reject an advance. Who knows? There could have been any number of reasons.”

  Abberline sat back, thinking deeply and sipping his own coffee. “Did he give one?”

  “Not really.” Logan smiled briefly. “Like many men who have been rejected by women, I imagine that he either does not know the true reason or cannot face it.”

  “Did he say when she rejected him?” The ever-organised Rutter was already testing the options.

  “No. He said she wasn’t there. Yes,” the memory clarified, “he came back for her and she wasn’t there.”

  A concerned frown spread across her face. She knew that what she was doing was no more than a stab in the dark, yet it seemed to offer possibilities that other explanations lacked. “Might he have known her before she sank into prostitution?” The others listened intently. “Was there a relationship already? If he said he came back and she wasn’t there, it implies that he went away and returned to find the situation changed.”

  Logan's eyes widened in surprise. That outcome had not occurred to him, yet suddenly it appeared to be the only reasonable conclusion. He admired the young policewoman for her deductive capabilities. “An astute deduction,” he smiled, “and one that, I admit, had not occurred to me. Was there a time when she still considered herself a potential consort to an honourable man? He leaves, expecting to return for her. When he does, he finds her on the streets, selling her body. Fragments that he let slip would support that supposition.”

  Abberline also saw that now that she had mentioned it. “But why kill her?”

  Logan’s revelation had sparked a chain of thought in Rutter’s mind. Mentally thumbing back through the endless pages of Ripper lore that she had studied since being put on the case, a new suggestion forced its way to her lips. ”Just a suggestion, sir,” she answered, “but the Ripper books I have read make quite a point that Victorian prostitutes were often reviled as nymphomaniacs, fallen women, base, evil creatures, rather than the pathetic victims that we would tend to see them as today. Apparently there was a fairly widespread view that they brought it on themselves by doing what they did.”

  “A view borne of ignorance of their true condition,” added Logan. “He mentioned to me that she had ‘defiled herself‘ — his words, not mine.”

  Abberline considered for a moment. “So he took her slide into destitution and degradation as a rejection of him, and punished her for it,” he mused. “Seems hardly credible, but times change. We shouldn’t judge a nineteenth century man — even one like that — by twentieth century standards. What about the others?”

  Logan grimaced in disgust and took a moment to compose himself. “You may find this hard to stomach,” he murmured, “but he told me they were practice.”

  Mrs. Kelly spoke for them all when her gasped, ‘Oh, my God,” ended the shocked silence that followed.

  Unlike most of those present, Abberline was well used to dealing with prostitutes. Like all police officers, he was in daily communication with the dark underbelly of humanity and little of what happened to them came as a surprise to him. He, too, admired Rutter's leap in the dark. “Well, that may tell us why,” he pondered, “but not who. Besides all that, Mr. Logan, have you established beyond doubt that Marie, here, is the intended fifth victim?” he asked.

  Logan nodded with certainty. “Oh, yes. There can be no doubt about that.”

  “Marie's is the only note with a 'FIVE' on it that we have received,” put in Matthews, “and there have been no sixes, sevens or eights.”

  Abberline confirmed that with a nod. “Does he mean to stop after that?”

  “He intends no further killings,” said Logan quietly.

  That was not enough for Abberline. Too much was at stake. He leaned forward to press his point. “Did he say that?”

  Logan shook his head. “No.”

  “Then how can you be sure?”

  Before answering, the old man took a further sip of his laced coffee and reflected for a moment. He knew exactly what he needed to tell them, but was momentarily uncertain of how to say it. “His words were only part of our discourse,” he said at last. “As he spoke, I felt his memories flood through me and I saw much that he did not mention. That is often the lot of a hypnotherapist. We invariably glean more than the client wishes to divulge. We regard it as an occupational hazard, for the results can occasionally be alarming. The original Ripper died within hours of Mary Jane Kelly.”

  “How?” asked Rutter

  “By his own hand.”

  Abberline took a further sip before setting his mug to one side. “So he intends to kill himself after he finishes with Marie?”

  Logan nodded his affirmation. “He does.”

  This was getting too much for Mr. Kelly. He had held his peace until this point, but could restrain himself no longer.

  “Gentlemen!” he cried, rising. “Please consider. My daughter is in the room!”

  Abberline looked away, embarrassed. The information was vital, but the girl's father had a valid point. A simple rebuff would not do. Before he could frame a satisfactory answer, however, the old man apologised.

  “You are quite right, Mr. Kelly,” he said humbly. “Please
forgive me, Marie.”

  She shook her head firmly. “Nothing to forgive, Mr. Logan. Don't you think I have a right to know?”

  Marcus Logan did, but he could think of no way in which to convince the girl's parents of that. He smiled worriedly and gave a half-hearted shrug. Mr. Kelly's face was still indignant. It was Marie, herself, who finally settled him.

  “I know what he means to do to me, Dad,” she said softly, “and I also know that everyone is doing everything they can to stop him. Believe me, it's better knowing what is going on than staying in ignorance, waiting and wondering.”

  Mr. Kelly glared at his daughter for a moment, unable to speak until his wife gently laid her hand on his arm and nodded to him silently. Only then did he sigh and shrug in resignation, indicating that they should continue.

  Needing no further indication, Rutter continued the questioning. “What could he possibly gain from his own death?”

  Logan's face cleared. He was on surer ground now. “He is already dead. The body he possesses is merely a host. Other than that, it means nothing to him. There were others in the past, and there will be more in the future if we cannot stop him.”

  “So he has done this before?” Abberline.

  Logan nodded. “Oh yes. The Ripper has struck many times and in many lands since his original reign of terror. Those events were among the images that he did not intend me to see.”

  “And he means to go on re-enacting the whole scenario, age after age, throughout all time?”

  The old man looked him in the eye. “Precisely.”

  There was a general pause in the discussion while all present took this in. It was Marie's father who eventually broke the silence.

  “So how is Marie caught up in this?”

  Logan put his mug down on the coffee table and addressed the girl's father directly. “It is called Karma. That is a Buddhist expression, but there is no Christian equivalent, so I will use it. Two souls have missed the light for their different reasons. He told me that they are 'bound together'. A Buddhist would call that a ‘Karmic Bind’. They are chained to each other, to repeat the horrifying event that links them until the circle is broken. Chained in time.”

  Sally sensed her opportunity for a contribution. “So how do we break it?”

  “He must be made to see the light, and to pass through it. When he does, Mary Jane’s spirit will also pass through and the nightmare will be over.”

  “Fine,” she said doubtfully. “How do we do that?”

  Logan stared at his discarded coffee mug. Sally knew that he was not telling them everything that he knew. “If he can be persuaded not to attack Marie, the circle will break without further bloodshed.”

  “Do you hold out any hope of that?”

  Logan shrugged, a small apologetic smile on his crinkly face. “There is always hope.”

  Abberline pressed his point. “And if he can’t be persuaded?”

  “If he will not pass through the light voluntarily, he must be thrust through it.”

  “Would the circle not break if we arrest him in time, and deprive him of the opportunity to — attack her?” asked Rutter, deliberately, and awkwardly, avoiding the word 'kill'.

  Logan shook his head sadly, “Or if you shot him?” he asked softly. “No, you would merely delay. He must choose the light or be thrust into it. If he survived, he would immediately hunt her down on the first available anniversary after his release. If not, the spirit would possess another host and the whole hideous sequence of events would begin again.”

  “What if we just took her away to a place of safety until after the date?” asked Abberline earnestly. “Might that not stymie him?”

  “No more than if you arrested him or shot him,” replied Logan, shaking his head sadly. “What you must realise is that more happened this afternoon than my meeting him. Crucially, he also met me. Now he knows what we intend to do with him, one way or another, and he regards it as a death threat, for he does not understand what it truly means. Therefore he is as determined to stop us as we are to stop him. It is the battle of wills that we must win, or we will achieve nothing.” He paused, panting slightly, a haunted look in his eyes as he regarded the three police officers gravely. “For that reason, we have no option but do the unthinkable. All conventional policing practices are doomed to fail inevitably in this case, for our subject moves in realms beyond your mortal capacity. I know that this is highly irregular, Chief Superintendent, but even if you succeed in identifying this current assassin, you cannot arrest him yet. To do so would be to condemn Marie as surely as if you did the deed yourself, not to mention who knows how many other innocent women in the years to come?” He paused again, taking a further sip of his coffee. “Be assured that he will make no further attacks before November the 9th.”

  “How can you be certain of that?” demanded an exasperated Matthews.

  Logan raised his hand gently. “I understand your frustration, Sergeant, but you have my assurance, and I am afraid that you will have to trust me because I cannot prove it to you in any way that you would accept.” Turning back to the others, he continued, “Concentrate your efforts on protecting Marie, and he will come to us on that day. Then I will confront him and convince him that she is not the woman he lost all those years ago. If I can succeed in that, there is a probability that he will give up his insane hunt and choose the light instead.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” asked Abberline.

  “Then I must force his hand,” replied the old man with surprising strength. “Either way, he must see Marie for what she is — or, from his point of view, for what she is not.” Turning to the girl, he removed his hand from beneath hers and laid it gently on top. His brow was deeply wrinkled and his eyes seemed sunken in their sockets. Apology and regret showed in their depths. “There is no easy way for me to tell you this, Marie, but I am afraid that you will have to face him. We have no other choice.”