by Ellis, Tim
‘What about staff?’
‘What about them?’
‘Well, could it have been a member of staff?’
‘Not a staff member at the time, but five years previously I wasn’t there. People came and went. Once they left, nobody cared, and because of the strange occurrences there was a high staff turnover.’
‘Could it have been a body from the graveyard?’
She took a drink of her tea, pulled a face and said, ‘As far as I know there’s no physical connection between the graveyard and the sewers, but you’d have to get engineers to check that out. Also, as I said, I saw the body. It didn’t look as though it had been buried.’
‘Do you remember any of the patients wearing a medical alert bracelet?’
‘Patients weren’t permitted to wear jewellery – for obvious reasons.’
‘Of course.’
Dr Hudson gave a wry smile. ‘Now, if I’m not mistaken, you’re making the assumption that Cora Jiggins in both time periods was killed by another patient. First of all, the movement of patients around the asylum was strictly controlled. Doors were locked, and only members of staff had keys. Secondly, only staff had access to the basement. That storeroom was locked at all times, so to my mind only a member of staff could have opened and locked it.’
‘You were there at the time, so let’s focus on 1973. You’re accusing a member of your own staff of the murder?’
She pulled a face. ‘You remind me of the objectionable detective who investigated the murder at the time. I’ll tell you exactly the same thing that I told him – I’m not accusing anybody of anything. All I can tell you is what I know. It would have been next to impossible for a patient to have been in that basement with or without a key to the storeroom. Not only that, Cora Jiggins was there as well. It would have meant that two patients were missing for a substantial period of time. We’re talking about an asylum for the criminally insane, Inspector. There were nurses, guards, doctors, porters and many other staff charged with keeping the patients secure at all times. Patients were monitored twenty-four hours a day, and when they weren’t being monitored they were locked in their cells.’
‘And yet, Cora Jiggins was raped, mutilated and murdered on your watch.’
‘Thank you for reminding me.’
‘I didn’t mean that as a criticism.’
‘You needn’t apologise. It’s true, it did happen on my watch, and I still don’t know how it happened or who did it.’
‘Well, maybe this time we’ll find out,’ he said. ‘Can we get back to the exorcism?’
‘Ah yes – the exorcism. Dr Andrew Towell was head of psychiatry for seven years before Dr Ferris. He was the one who sanctioned the exorcism of the storeroom in 1968.’
‘It’s a pretty extreme measure. I thought the Catholic church had strict rules regarding exorcisms.’
‘Yes, they do. The purpose is to evict demons or other spiritual entities from a person or an area which they are believed to have possessed. The church sent an investigator – a Father Christopher Shiers – to examine the storeroom. Apparently, he stayed for ten minutes and couldn’t get out of the asylum fast enough.’
‘I must have missed something. The silhouette on the floor is weird to say the least, but hardly cause to call in an exorcist.’
‘Yes, you’re right, but even before the exorcism things began to happen. ’
‘Things?’
‘It’s not very scientific I know, but these “things” are all documented in the Daily Occurrence Book. People who went down to the basement reported a number of events, until eventually nobody would go down there. They would hear a woman’s screams – she was pleading for mercy, and a man answered her. There were other demonic sounding voices as well; a variety of putrid odours especially burning; people had hallucinations; doors opened and closed by themselves; items and people flew through the air and smashed against the walls . . .’
‘You’re describing events from a million and one ghost films.’
‘Which are mainly based on real events.’
‘Real events?’
Dr Hudson pushed her glasses up and massaged the bridge of her nose. ‘All right, events that had eye-witnesses and no satisfactory real-world explanation.’
‘People with over-active imaginations, more like. I’ve been in that storeroom a number of times, which is now Room 13. I’ve seen and heard nothing untoward.’
‘With the exception of the murders in there and the fact that the door was locked from the inside.’
‘Both of which could have rational explanations.’
‘I used to be a student of science, a non-believer, but between 1970 and when the asylum closed I saw some things.’
‘There you go again talking about “things”.’
‘A porter took a delivery to the basement. One of the guards accompanied him because he was scared. When neither of them returned, two other guards were sent to find them. The porter and the first guard were discovered kneeling in the corridor praying and bleeding from the hands and feet as if they’d been nailed to a cross.’
‘There have been a number of stigmata cases, all of which could have a psychological explanation. You of all people know that the mind can do some strange and wonderful “things”.’
‘Yes I do, but what I saw while I was there emanated from that room.’
‘We’ll agree to differ. So, what you’re saying is that a demon or some such entity lives in that room?’
‘Cora Jiggins was raped and murdered in that room in 1903, but I think something else happened in there at the same time – something evil.’
‘This conversation has taken a wrong turn somewhere,’ he said.
‘Either the entity was already in that room in 1903, or what occurred allowed it to enter – a gateway was opened.’
‘A gateway! Have you heard yourself? When I walk into that room I don’t fall through an open gateway into the pits of hell. Can we carry on with the story, please?’
‘Father Jack Whittle came to perform the exorcism. He was locked in that room for three days without food or drink, and then he left without talking to anyone. Apparently, three days later he was found dead in his room at the seminary, but no one would say how he had died. The basement was put off limits by Dr Towell, and the staff had to make alternative arrangements for storage and so forth. When Dr Ferris arrived, he thought he knew better, so he opened the basement up again. He disappeared. After two weeks in the job, I closed that basement up again . . .’
‘If it was closed . . .’
‘Cora Jiggins came to us in April of 1973 . . .’
‘Did you connect this Cora Jiggins with the one from 1903?’
‘Not at the time – no.’
‘Why was she committed to the asylum?’
Dr Hudson laughed. ‘You know why?’
‘Oh God!’ Tolliver said. Then, ‘Sorry.’
The old woman continued. ‘She had killed seven men by biting through their penises and letting them bleed to death. Even the police didn’t connect the two cases. But why would they? There was seventy years between them. The events were the same though. Cora Jiggins lived in a boarding house in Twyford Brook, and police found a Queen’s Coronation tin under the floorboards with seven shrivelled penises inside.’
‘What about the eighth victim?’
‘‘On July 3 1973, the day after we’d been notified that the asylum was scheduled to close in the October, Cora Jiggins was found raped and murdered in that storeroom . . .’
‘How . . . ?’ Tolliver bagan to say.
‘Yes, the basement had been sealed up tighter than a clam with lockjaw, but that didn’t stop someone taking Cora Jiggins down there.’
‘Define someone?’ Quigg said. ‘If it wasn’t a patient, and it wasn’t a member of staff, who else could it be?’
‘They didn’t find it until the pathologist carried out Cora Jiggins’ post mortem, and then the police kept it quiet. Now, when the story is told, a
vital element is missed out. Lodged in her throat was a penis, and the bite marks matched Cora Jiggins’ teeth.’
‘So, who was the eighth victim then?’
Dr Hudson shrugged. ‘All I can tell you is that I was glad to get out of that place in one piece. I finished my career as a university lecturer, and buried it all in the back of my mind. Then I heard about the theme park idea and I phoned the developers. I warned them, told them the history, but they wouldn’t listen, thought I was a crackpot. Now it’s happened again.’
Quigg pursed his lips. ‘Yes, but not the same and that’s what bothers me. If it had been the same, I could have probably made some crazy sense of it all, but apart from someone calling herself Cora Jiggins dying in that room – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.’
‘I can’t help you with the recent murders, but I could do with another cup of tea. Us old people like to drink lots of tea.’
‘And you want me to make it?‘ Tolliver said.
‘Only if you put two sugars in the mug. One sugar is hardly worth the effort, and while you’re doing that I’ll go and empty my bladder.’
He had a lot more information about what had happened in that room, and about Cora Jiggins, but he still had no idea about what the hell was going on now. Kline . . . Crap! Where the hell was Kline? He’d have to do something about finding her when he got back, but what? He felt so bloody powerless. Was her disappearance related to the case? Why else would she go missing? The only thing he could do was keep on doing what he was doing. If he found the killer, he’d find Kline. He had to keep believing that, and hope she was still alive when he did find the killer.
Tolliver made him a coffee this time.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the mug with both hands. He could have offered a number of sarcastic comments, but decided not to.
‘I gave you two-and-a-half sugars this time,’ she said to Dr Hudson.
‘A reporter with a heart. Having seen everything there is to see, I suppose the Grim Reaper can come for me any day he wants to now.’
Tolliver gave a poor impression of a smile.
Quigg began again. ‘I’m making the assumption that the 1903 Cora Jiggins was the real one, but who was the woman in 1973? You were there, did you see her birth certificate? Was she really called Cora Jiggins?’
‘Yes, I was there. She was brought to us in a police car with a full set of notes – including a psychological evaluation by a Dr Jane Byrne. I can see her now, being helped out of the car by the two uniformed officers. She wore a pair of white dungarees that were too big for her and was chained up like a dangerous animal, which she was – of course. She looked waif-like – only twenty years old – with chestnut brown hair past her shoulders, large dark eyes and thin lips . . .’
‘Jesus,’ Quigg said.
‘What is it, Inspector?’
He felt ill. ‘I have a partner – Detective Constable Tallie Kline – she’s been missing since yesterday. The person you’ve just described to me is her.’
‘You,’ she said, indicating Tolliver. ‘Take that photograph down from the wall.’ She pointed to the wall behind them – opposite the door.
Tolliver stood up. ‘This one?’
‘All reporters are idiots. The one next to it. Anybody would think I had an arthritic finger.’
Tolliver took the picture off the wall, handed it to Hudson and sat down again.
‘Yes, there she is.’
Quigg stood up. Stooping over Hudson’s shoulder, he peered at the woman she was pointing at.
‘This photograph was taken the week before Jiggins was murdered,’ the old woman said.
He took the framed picture from her and examined the inmate in more detail. It was Kline all right, but how was that possible? Was Kline abducted because she looked like Jiggins? What did the woman from 1903 look like? And the more recent Cora Jiggins? ‘She’s the spitting image of my partner, and I have no idea what to make of that.’
‘You can keep the photograph – the names are on the back. I have no need of it anymore. I expect to meet my maker before the year is out, and there are no relatives who might want keepsakes.’
‘Thank you.’ His mind was racing as he sat back down and finished his coffee. The women from 1903 and 1973 had been murdered on their twentieth birthday, and yet the supposed victim from this investigation was thirty-one years old, and – if her clothes were anything to go by – she was a “large” woman. It made no sense, but then nothing with this case seemed to make any sense. ‘I have one last question before we leave you in peace. Can you recall if any of the staff wore a medical alert bracelet?’
Dr Hudson pointed to the wall on her left. ‘That photograph.’
Tolliver made a move to get up, but Quigg was nearer and signalled for her to stay seated. He found the photograph. It was a long thin black and white picture entitled: Waterbury Asylum for the Criminally Insane – Staff Photograph, 1st August 1973. ‘I’ll need a magnifying glass.’
‘Yes, it is a bit small. That was the last photograph taken with nearly all the staff before the asylum closed down.’
‘Nearly all the staff?’
‘You’ll find the names on the back, together with the people who weren’t there . . . In fact, we had a staff photograph every year.’ She pointed to the same wall. ‘Take the photographs for 1970, 71 and 72. Between the four of them you should have a picture of every member of staff during the period I was Head of Psychiatry.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Take them. I never look at them anyway. I have my memories, that’s all I need now.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And to get back to your question. As far as I recall there were three members of staff who wore medical alert bracelets: Staff Nurse Sara Roberts who had a penicillin allergy; a porter called Reginald Newton who suffered from epilepsy; and a male nurse by the name of Donovan Keller who had a rare condition called Von Willebrand Disease, which is a hereditary coagulation abnormality.’
He glanced at Tolliver to make sure she’d written it all down.
She nodded.
‘Dr Hudson, you’ve been extraordinarily helpful,’ he said, standing up. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘I’ll wash up, shall I?’ Tolliver offered.
‘Don’t bother. Someone comes in to do a bit of cleaning later, but don’t think you’ve changed my mind about reporters by pretending to be nice. When I get to hell – as I’m sure I will – I suspect that journalists will be running things.’
Tolliver smiled. ‘You’ll get everything you deserve then, you old bat.’
Hudson laughed like a hyena. ‘Reporters never change their spots.’
Chapter Thirteen
Where the fucking hell was she? She’d been driving the buggy through the horror park to get to the Audi. She was on her way to interview the cleaner – Paula Roberts – and to try and find out what had happened to Daniel Frye – the manager. A clown had jumped on the buggy. By the time she’d asked herself what the fuck he was doing – it was already too late. She’d felt a sharp pain in her arm, and then nothing.
She was so cold. She shivered. Her hand moved and touched the cold, damp floor. She opened her eyes. A small amount of light came from somewhere high up.
Hands grabbed her arms.
She struggled against them.
‘It’s all right,’ a man said. ‘Like you, we’re all prisoners here. Let us help you to sit up.’
She looked around. Including herself, there were seven people – two men and five women. What did the man mean - prisoners? She tried to stand up, but felt an iron manacle and chain pulling at her left ankle. The other end was attached by a solid link to a ring in the centre of the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. Feelings of powerlessness overwhelmed her. Memories of the gang rape flooded into her mind. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
‘We don’t know.’ The man told Kline about the clown and Hugo Twelvetrees.
�
��I’m familiar with the clown. Any idea who he is?’ Not that it mattered who he was. She would either arrest him or kill him – the bastard.
‘None at all. We haven’t seen him without the clown mask on. Why are you here?’
‘I presume because I’m a detective constable investigating the murders at the hotel.’
‘A police officer?’
‘Yes, but don’t get too excited. Nobody knows I’m here – wherever here is – and I haven’t got a gun. I was on my way out of the park to a couple of addresses in Acton when the clown ambushed me.’
‘This is a disused attraction called the Clown’s Revenge. Nobody ever comes here. We’ve been squatting in here while we wait for the end of the world.’
‘Nobody told me the end of the world was coming.’
‘We’re used to people making fun of us,’ the other man said.
‘That’s good, because I have lots more where that came from.’
Nobody laughed.
Kline picked up the thick rusty chain and examined each link – they were solid. The manacle had a nut and bolt securing the two ends. ‘So, what have you done to get out of here?’
‘We’re open to suggestions,’ one of the women said.
‘I’m Tallie Kline. What’s everyone’s name?’
The man who had been speaking to her was middle-aged with long wiry hair and a hooked nose. ‘I’m Chris Tams.’ He pointed to each person as he said each name. ‘That’s Alan Hewitt, Joy Chart, Laura Cole, Olivia Lewis and Charlie Myers.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said. ‘I wish it was under different circumstances though.’
‘Yeah,’ someone agreed.
She smiled at them. ‘Come on then, empty your pockets. Let’s see what we’ve got between us.’ She rummaged in her own pockets, but they were empty. The clown must have taken the keys to the Audi. He’d better not be driving it, she thought.
All they could find was a handkerchief, a menthol nose inhaler and a small pot of Vaseline.
‘That’s why we’re just sitting here,’ Tams said. ‘If there was a way out, we’d have found it.’