The House of the Wicked (a psychological thriller combining mystery, murder, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  The light revealed a man’s brutal, dirt-smeared face, his hair long and matted, a beard equally so, but looking so depraved as to resemble a head more animal than human. His crude attire added to the image, for draped over his hunched shoulders, covering the rags that were his clothes, were the skins of goats and sheep. His feet were bare and soiled, sinking into a thin spread of excrement as he moved, a vile smell rising as he stirred the mixture. Clawed hands with long, untrimmed fingernails tried to shield his face, as he pressed himself tight against the glistening wet cave wall. They noticed at once that his wrists were bound with thickly coiled rope.

  There was a filthy mattress on the floor, ripped and slashed as if set upon by a wild beast. Blankets lay in two crumpled mounds on the floor beside it. The man appeared to wither, curl into a ball, and his hands reached out to grasp one of the blankets. He dragged it over to him and attempted to put it over his head as if seeking to hide from the two intruders.

  “Who are you?” said Tunny in a hushed voice, taking a tentative step towards him. The creature shrank back as if burnt. It did not reply. Instead, in the quiet of the cave they heard the faint noise of the sea, sounding almost like that of someone breathing. “Who are you?” he asked again, firmer this time.

  “No, Tunny,” said Jenna, placing a restraining hand on his arm. “You frighten him. Let me.”

  “Careful, Miss…” he aid as she stepped tentatively forward.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said softly. The blanket was now fully over his head and the mewling from beneath it became stronger. He trembled. The smell of the unfortunate creature was overpowering, she thought, but it did not deter her. “We are not here to harm you,” she said. “What is your name?” She reached out a hand.

  “Have a care, Miss!” said Tunny. “That is not wise.”

  She hesitated briefly at his hushed warning, but then her fingertips closed gently around the filthy material of the blanket and she pulled at it ever so slowly so that it gradually fell away from his head.

  In one bound the man lunged towards her, screaming shrilly and clawing with his tied hands at her unprotected face. She stumbled backwards and as she did so boned fingers wrapped tightly around her throat, sharp, jagged fingernails digging into her exposed flesh. She tried to scream but it was choked from her. The weight of the man fell fully upon her, driving her to the stinking ground, his hands lifting her head and driving it hard against the stone floor.

  Tunny launched himself at the creature and beat at him, yet he could not release Jenna from its demented grasp. He wrapped an arm around the man’s throat, pulled with all his strength, but he turned, sank his teeth into Tunny’s hand and bit down to the bone. He was hit in the face by a series of manic blows he could not resist and the old man fell stunned to the ground. The man once again locked his fingers around Jenna’s throat, his face contorted in blind fury, white spittle flicking from his flaring lips as he screamed.

  Gerran Hendra burst through the door and onto the manic scene, crying out for his daughter. He bound swiftly over and grabbed the man by his matted hair and yanked his head back sharply. He yelled, his cries deafening in the confines, and he lashed out madly at Hendra, knocking him away, once more returning to strangle the breath from Jenna. Hendra took the pistol by its barrel and beat at the man with its butt, mercilessly, breathlessly, but he appeared impervious to the pain and would not release his murderous hold on his daughter.

  Hendra cried out in anguish, placed the gun barrel against the man’s temple and pulled the trigger, the shot deafening.

  He slumped instantly dead onto the limp body of Jenna, his blood pouring profusely from the gaping wound in his head onto her face. Gerran, in tears, threw away the pistol and hauled the dead man from his daughter. He wiped her face clean of blood and cradled her still head.

  “Jenna!” he called. “Jenna, what have I done?”

  Reverend Biddle helped Tunny to his feet. The dazed man saw Jenna’s lifeless form and knelt down beside her. He noticed the wound in the back of her head and her blood dripping alarmingly from it.

  “Gerran, she is badly injured; we must get her to a doctor at once,” he said.

  He could not answer; he was clearly in torment. He looked imploringly at Tunny. “I fear she is dead. Please, Tunny, use your powers to help her! Help my daughter back to life! I’ll give you anything you desire, but I beg you, help me!”

  Biddle went over to Jenna and felt the pulse in her neck. “She is alive, Gerran,” he said, “but her pulse is weak.”

  “Thank God!” he exclaimed, clutching her daughter close to him, blood smearing his coat. He turned and ran sad eyes over the crumpled form of the dead man. “That it should come to this, after all these years,” he said, sobbing.

  “Who is this loathsome creature?” asked Tunny.

  Gerran Hendra closed his eyes. “He is my brother. My dear brother Bartholomew.”

  * * * *

  18

  Begging Forgiveness

  The doctor emerged from the room, fastening his Gladstone, his expression grave. The Housekeeper, her face dressed in worry, passed him his hat and coat, which he’d left hurriedly with her whilst he attended to Jenna’s deep cut on her head. Gerran Hendra came rushing to him, Reverend Biddle following close behind.

  “Is she going to be well, doctor?” he asked, his cheeks pale, watery eyes flushed with the pink of many sleepless nights. He bade the Housekeeper leave at once. They waited till she had hurried away.

  “She has had to have a number of stitches to the back of her head. I am afraid I have had to cut away a little of her hair to carry out the procedure but that will soon grow back. She now wears an unsightly bandage, but judging from her wounds it appears it could have been far worse. She has a variety of bruises around her throat, and small scratches and puncture marks that I have cleaned and attended to. She will feel sore for a day or two yet. She is still in a state of shock and distress, and little wonder.” His old face was deadly serious, and as he fumbled with his Gladstone he glanced at Biddle. “The man – your brother Bartholomew – is dead.” He shook his head. “Gerran, I cannot begin to understand any of this. I have been a doctor to your family since before your wife died. More than that I have been a friend. Yet you never once came to me, not once…” He trailed off, straightened himself, as if shrugging on his profession. “You know I must inform the authorities immediately.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Hendra distractedly. “My girl – may I see her now?”

  “You may go in, but remember she must have copious rest. Please do not tax her unduly. She has gone through so much already and I fear she needs all her strength to attend to further trials. I have given her something to help her sleep so she may seem sluggish and drowsy.” He turned to Biddle. “Reverend, perhaps we may share a few words before I leave for Penleith?”

  Hendra left the two men, tentatively opening the bedroom door. The room was warm, for a tiny fire burned in a small black grate, and it was lit by two oil lamps, the one by the bed casting its buttery glow over Jenna’s still form, her arms beneath the covers. The rest of the room lay in sticky black shadow. On hearing his stealthy approach her eyes flickered open. For a moment she seemed not to recognise him, then as the painful memories seeped in she closed her eyes tightly and averted her head.

  “Jenna,” he said, standing close to the bed. He desperately needed to reach out and brush his fingers against her face, as he had many times when she had been a child and lay in the same bed with a fever or some other ailment. Her skin appeared as translucent, as fragile as an egg shell. But he could not bring himself to do it and his poised hand retracted to his side. “Please forgive me, Jenna,” he said.

  She turned to look at him. “I cannot begin to conceive what it is you have done, father. Is it true? Is it true that the man now lying dead down there in that horrid cave is Uncle Bartholomew? Tell me this is not true, father.”

  He nodded grimly. “It is true.”

  “That c
annot be,” she said. “My uncle died many years ago, abroad and serving his Queen and country. You told me so. That depraved, filthy wretch cannot be my uncle.”

  Hendra grasped the back of a chair and pulled it to the side of the bed. He sat down heavily, his head looking too weighty for his neck, his eyes downcast, the folded skin of his face pale and washed out.

  “You must first understand, before I relate what I must, that whatever I did, whatever course of action I took, I took it for you. I kissed your mother’s lifeless lips and vowed that I would do all in my power to love and protect you, and not neglect you as I felt I had done with her. Please, before you condemn me, understand this.”

  “Father,” she said, “I could never condemn you – “

  He raised a finger to silence her. “Listen me out before you say you can stand behind such a declaration, for I am afraid I have been party to terrible things and now I must pay the price of my sins.” He stared into her eyes. His wife’s eyes. “I cannot bear it that the highest price I must pay is never to see you again.” He stilled her protestations with a finger to his lips. “I intend to leave tonight for Penleith, to hand myself over to the authorities. No, child, do not say a thing. You must hear me out, in full, and not interrupt. I have strength enough to relate this to you but once, and you can never know the pain it gives me to have to do so.”

  Her breathing was rapid, a tear dislodged from her eye to streak down the side of her nose, but she did not wipe it away, almost as if she refused to admit her upset. “I am ready.”

  “That’s my Jenna,” he said, forcing the faintest of smiles that quickly faded upon his bloodless lips. He gathered his thoughts in silence for a moment or two, as if steeling himself to bear the consequences of what he must say.

  “It really begins with your Uncle Bartholomew’s return from China and his experiences in the Opium Wars. But in truth I suppose it extends even further back than that, for, if I am to be honest, I must confess Bartholomew was always such a sensitive and troubled soul, given to fits of passion. It came as a surprise to all of us that he said he would take a career as an officer in the army, but he would not hear anything counter to his wishes so take one he must, and take one did. He most notably distinguished himself in China at the taking of the Taku Forts on the banks of the River Pei-Ho. In this instance casualties for the allied army of French and British, Bartholomew told me, were not high, a mere twelve, yet nearly two thousand Chinese perished. But it was the event of his being captured, treacherously and whilst under a flag of truce, by the soldiers of Seng-Ko-Lin-Sin whilst on a march to T’ung-chow, several miles from the capital of Peking, which appears to have accelerated his mind’s decay. Thirty prisoners, including Bartholomew, were treated with every indignity that could be inflicted upon men, and mercilessly tortured in return for the disgrace the enemy felt at losing their forts. Some died of their privations. Your uncle thought his time had come too. He was eventually released but suffered such nightmares from his combined experiences that he would never be the same man again. He could only refer to the haunting images in his head in an abstract manner, but they were evidently very real to him, as if they played out before him as we spoke.

  “You will remember him as always jolly – ah, he doted on you, his Goddaughter, and called you his little darling, plying you with sweets and presents, and so to you he will remain ever thus. But his feigned good humour hid a troubled soul. He drank heavily, and I believe he partook heavily of the very opium he went to war over. He could not sleep, would not lay his head on a pillow without a pistol or sword by his side. And if he did, his fitful slumber was populated by unspeakable nightmares. He spoke of murdered innocents slain in mindless violence, of torture and pain, and that death hung forever about him like a cloak. He abhorred war and all that it stood for, could see no gain in killing one another. So affected had he become that he once threatened a maid with a loaded pistol when she happened upon him unexpectedly late one night in the corridor. But he dutifully returned to service, glad of the short respite his leave had delivered.

  “Though I was naturally concerned for his welfare, I had other matters to attend to. The business, ever a difficult beast to manage, was struggling. As today catches were dwindling, profits plummeted, so I busied myself in attempting to straighten out my affairs. At one stage it appeared I would lose everything. I was in the middle of negotiations and on the verge of securing rewarding investments from potential partners when Bartholomew returned unexpectedly some months later.

  “But this time I hardly recognised him as my brother, he was so changed in appearance and personality. I was taken aback. He was unshaven, unwashed, his clothes those of a pauper. He explained he had absconded from the army and was on the run. He had simply left his regiment and his duties behind. He had no notion of where he had been or how he had arrived back in England. The scandal, as you can imagine, would have led to our immediate ruin, for not only was our name and honour in jeopardy, but what investor would wish to be part of my business then? And neither could the man stay in the home. For as I say, I could not afford for him to be discovered; I had to keep him concealed until such a time as I could consider how best to deal with the situation. But Bartholomew himself sought security, secrecy and anonymity; somewhere he could not be seen. He demanded he be hidden away.

  “Only one other person knew about Bartholomew’s return, and that was my secretary John Carbis. He understood how we must keep his presence a secret for the time being, especially as I was not only negotiating for my business’s survival but partly because I had imminently to deal with Jowan Connoch’s illegal incursion into our fishing zones. I had to show that I was dealing decisively with this in front of my potential and existing business partners. It was John Carbis who suggested we use the old Jacobite Bolt. Together we converted part of it into passable living quarters. Down there, out of the way, Bartholomew felt more secure, and he was free to rant and rave without causing disturbance or alerting anyone to his presence. The cave exited onto a secluded beach in Baccan’s Maw; a hundred and fifty years ago it was perfectly accessible and an ideal escape route. But the cliffs had collapsed over time and it now provided us with a method of temporarily containing Bartholomew. It was inaccessible by either sea or land, and as Bartholomew only ventured out into the open at dusk or night, there was little chance he would be observed if he went onto the beach. John agreed he would become a guardian for Bartholomew, a duty in which he took some satisfaction as he had always held my brother in high esteem. We each possessed a key to the trapdoor. John would venture most nights secretly to the Bolt with food and drink, and to ensure Bartholomew had all the comforts we could manufacture. Once dark had fallen Bartholomew would be allowed to wander the old barn, if he so desired, under John’s watchful eye. No one ventured out there so there was little danger of anyone seeing him. And John could not bear the thought of the poor man being cooped up like a bat in some dark cave. His existence there was never intended to be long-standing. But with hindsight, and observing his deterioration, now it seems inevitable.

  “His madness – for that’s what it was – ate away at his mind like a disease. He grew ever more edgy as the days progressed, ever more alarmed. He refused to be parted from his pistol and sword. He spoke of seeing his torturers hiding in the shadows and he would chase them, howling, out onto the beach, where he was convinced they took to ship to await their chance offshore. Then at other times he was quite lucid, and it seemed absurd that he should be shut away. I concluded that upon immediate termination of the Connoch affair, and the securing of the necessary investments, I would return to resolving the vexing issue of my poor brother in a manner designed to avoid bringing the family’s name into disrespect and ruin. If I could not find a private cure for his ailment I would arrange to have him secretly housed elsewhere.

  “However,” he said, the word hissed out in a sigh, his forehead dipping down to rest in his large hand, “I would not have the opportunity, for events would spiral
beyond my control. As you know, the deputation of seine owners met with Jowan Connoch to hear his plea and deliver his fate. That same night John Carbis attended to Bartholomew’s needs as usual, but only after the deputation had left the house. He allowed him to wander the barn, believing him quite calm. After all, my brother was not a violent man in spite of his state of mind, and he was not a prisoner; at least not at that time. He understood that he must never be detected and was as shy of company as that of any night creature. I could little foresee that when Jowan fled the house that night, seized by a monstrous rage, it would seal once and for all Bartholomew’s decent into permanent madness and condemn me to a life of guilt, deceit and shame.

  “Jowan’s wife came to the house to beg mercy for her husband, to have sympathy for her young family. Yet I did not know this, for she managed to get a message to John that she wished to speak to me in private. What she hoped to achieve, what she might offer in return, I can only guess at, for she was a woman driven by desperation.” He cleared his throat, swallowed and licked his lips as if his mouth had run dry. “Again, with hindsight it may have helped my case with investors to show leniency rather than press with the full weight of the law, but I could not take that chance.

  “In any event, John met with her at the rear of the house, where no one would witness the discussion, stating – in my very best interests I have no doubt – that minds were made up; Jowan would go to prison for his crime. He bade her go home and left her to her weeping. Yet she knew John would be able to get my ear and did not give up. She followed him, but in the dark she must have lost sight of him and we assume she stumbled across the old barn where Bartholomew wandered free.

  “John said he was brought up by a woman’s muffled scream and rushed back to the barn where only moments before he had observed Bartholomew perfectly at ease sat on a barrel and smoking. Before him was a hellish sight. Mrs Connoch laid dead at Bartholomew’s feet, in his hand his bloodied sword. He was quite senseless, ranting incoherently, speaking wildly of Chinese assassins. It is my belief she came upon him and frightened him with her sudden appearance and scream, and in the dark he perceived her to be one of the many nightmarish visions that haunted his mind and lashed out blindly with his sword. The blow proved fatal, cleaving her from breast to waist.