by Sarah Rayne
She finally found a reference to Brank Asylum in a small, rather insignificant-looking book at the very end of the shelf. It looked as if it had been printed locally and was intended purely for circulation in the surrounding area. But it had a number of photographs, and part of a chapter was devoted to Brank Asylum. Nell checked it out as a loan and drove out to collect Beth, who had apparently had a brilliant day at school and was more interested in having come second in the spelling test than in what she regarded as a sleepwalking experience.
They had supper, and Beth did her homework, which consisted of reading an allotted chapter of a Philip Pullman book and writing her own explanation of it.
Nell watched her for a few moments, seeing, with a pang, how much Beth’s tumble of hair resembled Brad’s. In the months after his death she had often believed she saw him standing by Beth, smiling down at her. She had known this was a projection of her own longing, but it had brought a faint comfort. Now, as she watched Beth, she realized the image was still there, but it had grown faint. It was as if Brad was only a light pencil sketch on the air. Am I losing you? she thought in panic. But I don’t want to lose you, not ever.
She closed her eyes, to dispel the image and the memories, and reached for the book. The only thing to do when the lonely grief struck was focus very determinedly on something else.
She had expected to find the book rather dry, but it turned out to be interesting. It was well written, and the author had included a number of photographs. He also appeared to have carried out considerable research: there were copious footnotes, with sources quoted. Nell thought these might turn out to be useful and reached for a notebook to write down any likely ones.
Brank House had, it seemed, been built in the mid nineteenth century, and had been for the ‘care and safe housing of the severely mentally afflicted’.
There were several photographs of the place – early sepia ones, and later black and white shots. It was a bleak, sprawling place, and whoever had taken the photographs had apparently done so at midnight or in the middle of a thunderstorm.
The asylum had been demolished at the end of 1966 to make way for a road-widening scheme – patients had mostly been transferred to the county’s psychiatric unit. Nell glanced at the date of the book’s publication: 1968.
By some means or other, the author had gained access to some of Brank’s records, and extracts were included, along with rather blurry images of the originals. The author particularly drew the reader’s attention to two of these documents, whose text was reproduced in full. The first account was of the youngest known patient. She had been admitted to Brank Asylum in the year 1888, and she had been eight years old.
Eight years old, thought Nell. She looked up from the book, to where Beth, sane and safe and healthy, was frowning over her homework.
Brank House. Asylum for the Incurably Insane.
County of Shropshire
Patient’s record.
Name: Elvira Lee.
Address: Mallow House, Marston Lacy, Shropshire.
Date of Birth: 10th November 1881.
Date of admission: 3rd April 1889.
Next of kin: No relatives believed living.
Religion: Church of England.
Diagnosis: Delusional and strongly hysterical.
Admitted under the Lunacy Act of 1840, certifying Elvira Lee (minor) as being of unsound mind and a proper person to be taken charge of and detained.
Signed by the under-named, who both hereby assert they are not related to the patient and have no financial interest in connection with her treatment and care under detention.
Signed: Dr J Manville. Dr C Chaddock
Elvira, thought Nell, staring at the page. That must be what Michael meant when he said he had found her. She thought back to the hasty phone call. He had said Elvira was born in 1880 and had died in Brank Asylum in 1938. That meant she had lived almost her entire life inside the place. Fifty years. The pity of it – the thought of a girl of Beth’s age being locked away for her whole life – was so overwhelming that for several minutes the print on the page blurred. Nell frowned, put the book down, and got up to pour a glass of wine.
‘Can I have some orange juice?’ asked Beth hopefully, looking up from her homework.
Nell would have given Beth anything she wanted at that moment, purely for being here and for not being that poor child in 1889. She poured the orange juice, found the biscuits Beth liked, ruffled the soft chestnut hair, and went back to the book.
In April 1889, Charect House had still been known by its original name of Mallow. Nell scribbled the date down in case it might help in pinpointing the precise year the name changed, then returned to the book.
The author had included extracts from some case notes from Brank Asylum. Nell wondered by what means he had got hold of them, but from the look of the dates they were all sufficiently far back for patient confidentiality not to matter.
The first was headed ‘Chaplain’s Report’ and was dated 1905. She hardly dared hope Elvira’s name would be there.
But it was.
SEVENTEEN
CHAPLAIN’S REPORT: BRANK HOUSE ASYLUM
November 1905
The condition of the patient, Elvira Lee, is increasingly difficult since the visit of two distant members of her family earlier this year – a Mr Frederick Anstey and his daughter, Harriet.
Miss Lee’s intelligence has not deteriorated, but the terrors which have driven her for so many years have increased tenfold. She spends much of her time crouching in a corner of her room, her hands stretched tremblingly before her, as if to push away an encroaching enemy. At those times it is very difficult to reach her – even to make oneself heard.
However, a week ago some rags of her sanity appeared to have returned for a brief time, and I was able to talk with her for almost twenty minutes.
The outcome is that she is to allow me to perform a religious ceremony of healing. I am hopeful it may be a way of persuading this poor haunted soul that God’s love and God’s strength have banished the demons she undoubtedly believes lie in wait for her.
This morning I received permission from the Bishop to hold the ceremony and the doctors have given their consent, although stress it cannot effect a cure. At their request, I am making an official record of the event. The notes are to be appended to the patient’s medical history.
Nell paused to refill her wine glass. So Elvira Lee had been thought of as haunted. How much of that had been due to her being incarcerated in an asylum since the age of eight? She remembered again how Beth, and also Ellie Harper, had insisted it was ‘Elvira’ the man in their nightmares was trying to find. Ellie in particular had been terrified for Elvira. ‘He mustn’t get her,’ she had said. ‘Promise you won’t let him get her. She’s so frightened of him.’
Nell pushed this troubling memory away and looked across at Beth, who was still absorbed in her homework. Then she returned to the chaplain’s account of the ceremony performed on Elvira Lee more than a hundred years ago.
The ceremony began at three o’clock today, Sunday 16th November. It was not that of exorcism, for that takes much preparation and is rarely performed in these enlightened times.
Dr Manville and Dr Chaddock were both in attendance – partly in case Miss Lee should require their intervention, but more, I believe, from curiosity.
The attendants brought Elvira Lee to the chapel. She was calm, and there was not the sense of ‘otherness’ that is so marked when the madness seizes her. I took her hands and assured her she was in God’s house, and that no harm could come to her in this place of refuge and sanctuary.
I began a simple prayer asking for peace and serenity to surround this troubled soul. At first Miss Lee murmured suitable responses – she has regularly attended all church services, as have most of the patients, and despite her affliction is well acquainted with both the New and Old Testament.
I had begun to entertain hopes that the peace I sought for her was beginning to soa
k into her mind, when she suddenly snatched her hands from mine and began to speak. Her voice was slurred and harsh. It is foolish to say this – and this is intended as a factual account – but the words rasped through the small, hallowed chapel like raw nails scratching across silk.
‘You waste your time,’ she said. ‘You can never drive out the creature that seeks me.’
I reached for her hands again – they were hot and dry and the very bones seemed to push through the flesh and clutch me. She pulled away and backed clumsily into a corner of the chapel, crouching against the pew in a huddle, her hands over her head – I know that to be the classic gesture of someone seeking to defend him or herself from attack.
‘He comes to me most nights now,’ she said. ‘I hear him making his blind fumbling way along the dark passages. He knocks at every door until he finds me. Just as he did the night my mother died.’ She paused and half-raised her head in a listening attitude. ‘Hear him now,’ she said, and so forceful were her words that I swear before God I heard three sharp raps on the chapel door. The two doctors heard it as well, for they both started and looked sharply round.
I said, in a low mutter, ‘There’s no one there, of course,’ and turned back to Miss Lee.
She had begun to sing the macabre verse she so often sang when the madness visited her, and even though I had heard it so many times, it still chilled me.
‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .
Fly bolt, and bar, and band . . .
Nor move, nor swerve, joint, muscle or nerve,
At the spell of the dead man’s hand.’
As she began the second part of the song, a curious little echo picked up her voice, and the chant seemed to trickle in and out of the corners, a half-second behind her, almost as if a second voice was trying to join in. I saw Dr Manville, the younger of the two, shiver and glance nervously round the chapel.
I said, ‘Miss Lee – Elvira – who is it you think comes to find you?’
A great shudder shook her body, and she said, ‘The man who murdered my mother. I saw him do it, and that’s why he has to find me.’
This time it was Dr Chaddock who spoke. ‘Elvira,’ he said, ‘the man who killed your mother is dead.’
‘Is he?’ she said, in a dreadful, harsh whisper. ‘Can you be sure? Because I hear him singing to himself – I hear him chanting the rhyme I heard the night my mother died. If he is dead, how do you explain that? And,’ she said, ‘if he is dead, then who is it who creeps through the dark, searching for me?’
Nell was unable to go on reading. She put the book aside, saw it was almost half-past seven, and chased Beth up to bed, grateful for an interlude of normality. Back downstairs, she sat by the fire with a glass of wine, trying to persuade herself to read the rest of the chapter. When the phone rang at twenty-past eight, she was not prepared for the leap of delight at the sound of Michael’s voice.
He said he had not heard from Jack Harper yet, but had left messages on both phones.
‘I found out a bit about Brank Asylum,’ said Nell, pleased to have something definite to report.
‘Did you?’ His voice seemed to fill with light when his interest was caught. ‘What is it? Did you find Elvira?’
‘Yes, I did. How did you know I would?’
‘I didn’t know, but I hoped,’ he said.
‘You found her as well,’ said Nell, making it a statement.
‘Yes. When I was in Charect House – oh hell, I was going to confess to you sooner or later. The builders were demolishing part of the attic wall. I found a second set of papers.’
‘Really? To find one set of papers is surprising; to find two looks like a fake,’ said Nell, deadpan, and he laughed softly.
‘I don’t think they’re fake, Nell. I haven’t read them all yet though; in fact, the last few pages are very nearly illegible – I might have to get someone here to help me decipher them.’ He paused, and Nell waited. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about them yesterday,’ he said.
‘If I’d found something like that I think I’d want to savour it on my own,’ said Nell. ‘After everything that’s been happening here, I mean.’
‘I did want to savour it,’ said Michael, sounding grateful. ‘But I’d like to tell you about it now – at least, as far as I’ve read. I’ve made a bit of a precis as I’ve gone along. Or are you in the middle of something?’
‘I’m not in the middle of anything, and I’ve got all the time in the world,’ said Nell. ‘Beth’s in bed, and I’m curled up by the fire with a glass of wine.’
‘That sounds nice. I’m having a glass of wine here, as well. I’ve got a stack of second-year essays I should be reading and marking, but I’ll do them later. Oh, and Wilberforce is here too – he’s asleep in front of the fire.’
When he said this, Nell had a sudden image of him in a deep armchair, surrounded by books, the firelight bringing out lights in his hair, the cat contentedly asleep at his feet.
‘Can I hear what you found first?’ said Michael.
‘I haven’t read the whole chapter yet,’ said Nell, reaching for the book. ‘But it doesn’t look as if there’s much more – and what there is doesn’t look particularly relevant to our search. What I have read, though, is an extract from some case notes – a kind of healing ceremony they attempted for Elvira. Could you listen now if I read it out? It’s not very long.’
‘Yes, of course. Hold on while I get a pen and paper. All right, the floor’s yours.’
She read the chaplain’s account to him, strongly conscious that he was listening very intently. Several times she heard the faint rustle of paper as he made a note, but he did not interrupt.
‘His report ends there,’ she said. ‘With Elvira asking that question about who was creeping through the dark. Either the chaplain didn’t want to write any more, or there was nothing more to say. Or, if there was more, the editor of the book decided not to include it.’
‘It’s remarkable,’ he said. ‘You have a very good reading voice, by the way.’ Before she could think how to respond to this, he said, ‘Whoever that chaplain was, he had a vivid way with words, didn’t he? I wonder how much we can take as actual fact.’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ said Nell eagerly. ‘And although some of what he says is a bit off-the-wall, there is one thing that can be checked.’
‘Whether Elvira Lee’s mother really was murdered,’ he said promptly.
‘Yes. There’d be police records – most likely newspaper reports. And if the chaplain’s report is genuine – and if Elvira herself can be believed – she saw the murder take place. That could be true.’
‘Yes, certainly it could.’
‘Which means,’ said Nell, encouraged, ‘that Elvira would have known the killer’s identity.’
‘But would she?’ said Michael, a shade doubtfully. ‘She was only seven at the time.’
‘She would have recognized somebody she already knew.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘But that doctor – what was his name?’
‘Chaddock.’
‘Chaddock says the killer was dead. Hanged for the murder, would you think?’
‘It’s possible, isn’t it? Not definite, though. Because Elvira believed he was still searching for her – even after she was in Brank Asylum, even after all those years. It sounded as if she thought he wanted to silence her.’
‘Maybe he did. Maybe they hanged the wrong man. But that account was written twelve years after it happened. That’s a long time for someone to go on searching. Elvira had been in the asylum all that time, remember. Easy enough for him to find her, one would think.’
‘Yes. And it’s a long time to go on being terrified, as well. I’m not sure we can trust Elvira’s story. Twelve years in a mental institution would dent anyone’s sanity. And if she really had seen her mother murdered when she was seven, her mind might already have been damaged beyond help. Oh, Michael, that poor little girl . . .’
‘It
happened a long time ago, whatever the truth of it,’ said Michael.
‘I keep trying to remember that. But how about the incidents that came later? Beth’s abduction. Ellie’s nightmares. Those don’t come from Elvira. And—’
She broke off, and Michael said, ‘There’s something else?’
‘I’m not sure. But that day when we were in the old graveyard – you went back for an umbrella, you remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought I heard someone while you were away,’ said Nell. ‘A sort of soft singing.’
‘Ingoldsby Legends among the graves? That macabre verse again?’
‘That’s what I thought at the time. But now I’m not so sure. My judgement probably wasn’t very reliable that day.’
‘Understandable,’ said Michael. ‘But let’s remember two more girls were taken like Beth was taken. That one in the nineteen sixties – the one who was found in St Paul’s Churchyard – and the earlier one in the nineteen thirties.’
‘Could it be some kind of copycat crime?’ said Nell, rather doubtfully. ‘I know it’s an awfully long time-span in-between, but—’
‘Elizabeth Lee’s murder would have been remembered in the nineteen thirties,’ said Michael. ‘Marston Lacy’s a very small place, and it sounds as if the Lee family were quite prominent people. If there was a murder in their house, I’ll bet it was talked about for years.’
‘Could the nineteen thirties’ case even have been Elizabeth’s killer?’ said Nell. ‘No, it’s a fifty-year gap. And what would be the motive?’
‘Some local weirdo might have become obsessed by the original case. Or fixated on the Hand of Glory superstition. He might have believed he was the reincarnation of the killer, or thought he had to complete the killer’s task.’