by Amy Cross
“It's called polydactyly,” Doctor Bell explained. “It's pretty uncommon.”
“There are three other women with it,” Amanda replied, turning to her. “In this prison, I mean. They were talking about it.”
“Three others? Add Emma, and that's almost a 2% rate.” She paused for a moment. “Do you happen to know if the extra digit is a toe on the right foot in all those cases?”
“I think so.”
“The odds of that must be pretty high,” she continued. “The more I learn about the population of this prison, the more I feel as if it's all a little strange, almost as if someone has been gathering together certain types of people for some reason.” She paused again. “I guess that's impossible, though. What would be the point?”
“Do you know what killed her yet?” Amanda asked.
“Ms. Tate? I'm almost certain that she suffered a cardiac incident.”
“Is that possible? She was only twenty-five!”
“These things can strike at any age,” she continued. “Obviously they're more of a danger the older we get, but some people have congenital defects that make them a risk in their twenties or even earlier.” She paused for a moment. “I'm not sure that was the case with Ms. Tate, however. From what I can see so far, her heart was most likely healthy before she suffered the cardiac incident, which means...”
“Something caused it to happen?”
“An external event.”
“Like... electrocution?”
“Nothing so simple.” Lifting the lung out of Emma's chest cavity, she carried it over to the scales and set it down, before making a note of the weight. “There's still a lot of work to do,” she continued, “but so far, I'm leaning toward the hypothesis that the inmate died because she was terrified. That might sound dramatic, but actually it's a recognized condition called capture myopathy. Fear caused her body to be flooded with hormones designed to help her run from whatever she thought she could see, but at the same time that same fear was also preventing her from running, so the excess energy simply shook her heart until it burst.”
“What could make someone feel that much fear?”
Heading back over to the body, Doctor Bell carefully picked up the dead woman's heart.
“You can see the damage here,” she said calmly, before turning the heart around, “here, and here. It's quite obvious once you know what you're looking for. The organ basically burst.”
“But what caused it?” Amanda asked again.
“Something that terrified her beyond all reason.”
“She was alone in her cell,” Amanda pointed out. “There was no-one else in there.”
“The mind can create powerful sensations,” Doctor Bell replied. “It's quite possible that Ms. Tate thought she saw something, and that in her mind's eye the image seemed completely real.”
“But why would she start hallucinating like that? She wasn't on any kind of medication and her notes don't mention anything about psychiatric problems.”
“Again, it comes back to the power of the mind. Apparently she had convinced herself that she'd seen some kind of phantom earlier in the day, so with hindsight that could have been a warning sign. I'm sure you know the story about Leonora Blake. If Ms. Tate was in a particularly suggestive state of mind, or perhaps she was starting to develop a kind of psychological disturbance, it's absolutely possible that she built up an experience that seemed so real, it effectively scared her to death.”
“Unless there really was something there,” Amanda replied, looking down at Emma's terrified dead eyes. “Maybe it wasn't all in her mind.”
“Careful,” Doctor Bell replied with a faint smile. “Go too far down that line of thought, and you'll end up agreeing with all the other idiots in this place.”
Six months ago
“It was an acute aortic aneurysm,” the coroner said as he sat awkwardly in the kitchen. “It would have been very quick for your mother, I doubt she suffered at all.”
“That's good,” Grace replied meekly, setting a cup of tea next to him before taking a seat on the other side of the table.
“She most likely felt tired,” the coroner continued, “and then just slipped away. She most likely wasn't aware of it happening.”
Grace nodded.
“Do you... have any questions?”
“No.”
“None at all?”
Grace shook her head.
The coroner turned and looked through toward the hallway for a moment. “So you live here alone now?”
“My mother left the house to me,” she replied.
“And you just...” He turned back to her. “Are you planning to stay here?”
“I guess. I mean, I don't really have anywhere to go. I'll need to get a job, though. She didn't leave much about from the house.”
“How old are you?” he asked. “If you don't mind me asking, that is.”
“I'm twenty-one.”
“And you've always lived here alone with your mother?”
She nodded.
“That's...” He paused for a moment. “Well, I'm very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Grace replied. “To be honest, my mother has been slipping into dementia for the past few years, so I had to care for her. It's quite strange now, not having anyone to look after.”
“Are you lonely?”
“No, not lonely, just... Getting used to a change of pace.”
“Well...” Checking his watch, the coroner got to his feet. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to abandon that cup of tea, I have another family to visit, but once again, I'm very sorry for your loss, Ms. Hooper.”
“Thank you,” Grace replied, standing up and shaking his hand. “It's all been quite a shock.”
Today
Stepping through the door, Robin looked across the chapel and saw with relief that she was alone. She'd been worried that the place might be full following the events of the previous few hours, but to her relief she realized she was the only one who had come to seek a little peace away from the crowd.
Making her way to the steps at the front of the room, she stared with tear-filled eyes at the cross that hung on the wall.
“I don't talk to you much,” she said finally, “because, frankly, I didn't see much point to it. Anyway, after a certain while, I just felt ashamed of all the stuff I did that led to me being put away, but... I used to talk to you sometimes, in my head, and I figure there's still a part of me that believes in all this crap, so it's worth a try, right?” She forced a smile. “Hey, if that little moment of honesty doesn't get you on my side, what will?”
Pausing, she realized that she should probably kneel. Wincing a little at the pain in her knee, she lowered herself and look up at the cross again.
“I feel so damn silly right now,” she continued. “I mean, fuck... Sorry, I shouldn't say that here, should I? I just came because I figure, if you're real, that means you can see this place, like all of it, even the parts we can't see, so you know what's really happening and you know what happened to Emma in her cell last night. Maybe she's even up there right now with you, in which case look after her, she's a good kid. Just...”
She bowed her head.
“If there's really a lost soul here, like a little kid or something, can't you give her what she wants? It's not fair to make her haunt the place, not if she's so young. It's not like you can still blame her for all those people she killed in the past. I mean, at some point, everyone can be forgiven, can't they? Even...”
She paused as a tear dripped down onto the floor.
“So I'm asking you to spare the soul of Leonora Blake. Bless her, help her, whatever the term for it is, but just ease her soul so she doesn't have to go around doing stuff like this anymore. I believe in you, Lord, and I think you'll do the right thing. Amen. And... get to work. That little girl needs your help.”
***
“These records are a mess,” Robin said a few hours later as she opened a book in the prison library. “I mean, I know the
y didn't have computers or stuff like that back in the old days, but you'd think they could have at least got people's names right.”
“What do you mean?” Karen asked, looking up from the book she was trying to read.
“Look here,” Robin continued, placing the prison's original register in front of her. “They misspelled Leonora's name wrong there, called her Elenora, and then...” She turned to the previous page. “They listed her birth-date twice, and there's not even any record of her mother's full name. It's patchy as fuck.”
“You were banging on about this once before,” Karen replied with a sigh. “So what? You said it yourself, their record-keeping was awful. You know why? It's simple: they didn't care!”
“You know what I think? I think that 'cause Leonora Blake came from this huge, respectable family, the government agreed to cover things up to save them from embarrassment. Did you know, it's reckoned that there were members of the Blake family living in almost every London borough by the start of the twentieth century? They're still going, too, and some of 'em are right up there in high society. I doubt they'd have wanted to be associated with some dirty little girl, especially after she went around knifing a load of people. There was a cover-up.”
“And?”
“And maybe that's what the kid's so pissed off about. I mean, maybe she's haunting the place 'cause she wants the truth to come out.”
“So that's what you're going to do? You're going to free us all from this terrible ghost by ending a century-old cover-up?”
“You got any better ideas?”
“It's just... If I was a ghost, and I'd murdered hundreds of women, I'd be quite happy if someone covered it up. I wouldn't mind at all.”
“You know your problem?” Robin asked. “You're not thinking like a ghost.”
“Jesus Christ...”
“It's the classic ghost story, isn't it?” she continued. “Something awful happened years ago and the truth got buried, and now the ghost of that little girl wants everything to get out.”
“I'm not sure that quite makes sense.”
“It makes total sense. Leonora Blake feels like she was wiped from history, like everything she suffered was hidden and made to seem like it never happened. She's not gonna rest until someone brings this whole murky thing to light. Sure, the current Blake family might get embarrassed along the way, but that's just something they'll have to live with. It's tragic, having this little girl's misery being airbrushed from history. It's a fucking disgrace.”
“You think you've got it all worked out, don't you?” Karen asked.
“Someone has to do something before there's another death.”
“Do you really think that's likely? There's no way some spooky little girl is gonna go on another killing spree. This is the twenty-first century, not Victorian England.”
“I just want to get rid of her,” Robin replied. “You didn't see the look on Emma's face when they found her this morning, but I did, and I'm tired of worrying that I might spot that kid at any moment. If she's starting to appear to people, any one of us could be next. Maybe she's just trying to prompt us to do the right thing? For Emma's sake, I have to fix this.”
“Maybe you should keep the ghost talk under your hat,” Karen pointed out. “I mean, it was fun for a while, but now someone's dead and it kinda feels disrespectful to go on saying that a ghost killed her. You're gonna start freaking people out.”
Before Robin could reply, the door opened and one of the guards leaned through.
“Come on, ladies. You've got a job to do.”
“Like what?” Karen asked. “It's a rest period.”
“What do you think?” he replied. “You've got to re-do the shitty work you were supposed to get finished yesterday.”
***
“I told these women to bury the bones!” Governor Windsor shouted at Ferguson, one of the guards, a few minutes later as they stood out in the yard. “Now look at the place!”
“They did bury them, Sir,” Ferguson replied, turning to look at the dozens of human bone fragments that had somehow forced their way up through the soil again. “I watched them do it.”
“He's right,” said one of the inmates, as they all stood nearby with shovels in their hands. “We buried those bones six feet if we buried 'em an inch.”
“I'm not having this!” the governor shouted, still addressing Ferguson rather than the women directly. “When I give an order, I expect it to be followed to the letter, do you understand? This isn't the public sector, this is a prison and I expect these women to work properly!”
“It must be something to do with the ground around here,” Ferguson replied. “I watched them, Sir. They buried those bones six feet down, just like you said.”
“Then tell them to do it again, and this time make sure they bury them twelve feet!”
“That's -”
“It's an order!” he shouted, before turning breathlessly to the group of inmates who had been charged with the job. “I won't have any excuses!” he continued. “You might be prisoners, you might be scruffy ne'er-do-wells, but my God I am going to make you lot work until this job has been completed to my satisfaction! Have any of you ever done an honest day's labor in your miserable lives without cutting corners? Look at you, you're all a bunch of feckless idiots with bad attitudes!”
Turning, he took a few steps toward the door before changing his mind and heading back to them.
“And I want this job finished today,” he continued, “and if I ever see another bone out here in this soil again, I will withdraw every privilege I've ever granted in this prison, is that understood?”
He waited for a response.
“Is that understood?” he shouted.
A general murmur of assent rose from the gathered women.
“See to it that they don't screw it up this time,” the governor told Ferguson before heading back inside, slamming the door as he went.
“You heard the governor,” Ferguson said wearily. “Get to work, and this time bury everything twelve feet, not six.”
“You know he's losing his mind, don't you?” Robin asked as she grabbed her shovel. “You can see that, right?”
“Let's just get on with it,” Karen muttered.
“He's literally going bat-shit crazy,” Robin continued. “The man's lost his marbles.”
“Shut up,” Ferguson told her. “It's not your place to question orders, it's your place to carry 'em out.” Looking down at a fragment of human skull, he felt a shudder pass through his body. “In fact,” he added finally, “just to be on the safe side, bury them fifteen feet.”
***
“Five minutes!” the guard called out.
All across the visiting room, people began to say their goodbyes. Over in the far corner, however, one man sat completely alone.
“She's not coming again, huh?” asked the woman at the next table as she got to her feet.
James turned to her.
“I've seen you here the last few times I've come,” the woman continued, with a hint of compassion in her voice. “You just sit there like you're waiting for her, whoever she is, but she never shows up. What's wrong? You two had an argument?”
“No,” he replied, “it's nothing like that.”
“She'll come around,” the woman added as she and her husband headed to the door. “They always do eventually.”
“I hope so,” James muttered under his breath.
A few minutes later, once visiting hour was over, he joined the small gaggle of friends and family-members who were making their way out past the large black gate. Zipping up his coat against the cold weather, he glanced back just as the gate swung shut, and then he checked his watch. There was just enough time to get to the shop and then head home. After all, he had an evening's worth of files lined up as he continued to try to prove Amanda's innocence, and then he'd back at Hardstone again the next day, to sit at that empty table and hope against hope that she might actually see him.
As he crossed the road, he paid no attention to the black car parked nearby.
***
“He was here again today,” Amanda said, stopping by the door and turning back to look at Doctor Bell. “He comes every day. I put him on the block list like you suggested, but they said they can't stop him turning up, they can just let me know that it's him so that I decide whether or not to see him. I guess he just sits there, hoping I'll change my mind.”
“You're not weakening, are you?” the doctor asked as she changed her plastic gloves for the tenth time that day.
“No, of course not, I just...” She paused. “I was wondering if maybe I should see him, though, just one more time, just so that he can understand I don't hate him. I love him with all my heart, it's just that I want him to get on with his life.”
“Of course you do, but by going to see him you'll merely be offering false hope. How many times has he sat alone in that waiting room now?”
“Nine.”
“So if you see him next time, he'll think he can wear you down. He'll visit another nine times after that, and then another, and eventually you'll decide to see him again, to really get the message across, and so on until it becomes a self-repeating pattern. Trust me, Amanda, I've seen things like this before, and a sudden disassociation is the only approach that can ever work.”
“I guess,” she replied, clearly troubled by the idea.
“Do it for him,” the doctor added. “I know it's hard, but you love him, so let him be free. Think of him as a ghost from your past life. You wouldn't encourage a ghost to keep haunting you, would you?”
“You're right. I guess I'll see you in the morning.”
“I'm always right,” Doctor Bell muttered to herself as she looked down at her notes.
She heard the door swinging shut, followed by the sound of Amanda's footsteps heading back to the main wing. Finally, once she was certain she was alone, she looked across the laboratory and allowed herself a faint smile, and then slowly she got to her feet. Making her way across the quiet room, she reached into her pocket and with trembling hands took out a set of keys. She glanced over her shoulder, just to make absolutely certain that Amanda hadn't come back, and then she winced as she struggled to get the key into the lock.