The Campbell Curse

by Olivier Bosman

  “You didn’t see her. Your daughter is dead. The doctor has confirmed that she is dead, and you yourself have identified her body.”

  “It was her ghost, then!”

  “Miss LeFevre…”

  “She has come to haunt me! Like Banquo in Macbeth. She blames me. I killed her! I killed her!”

  “Keep your voice down, please. Your audience is watching.” Desperately, he turned towards Billings.

  “Get her in the room and I’ll give her some morphine,” Billings whispered to him. “That should calm her down.”

  “Morphine? Where are you going to get morphine from?”

  “Never you mind that. Just get her in the room.”

  6. Excerpt from Gordon Campbell’s Diary

  Five years after acquiring the witch’s former property, my ancestor was found dead in his house. A bailiff who had come to collect the debt found his body, naked and emaciated, on the bare floorboards of a room on the second floor. He had found the house empty of any furniture or ornamentation, apart from a diary, a quill pen and an ink fountain, which he had discovered in the same room as that of the cadaver. The diary, written by the deceased and passed down through his descendants, records Alexander Campbell’s slow but steady decline.

  Alexander Campbell had always been a jovial and confident person, but since he started the refurbishment of his new house, he became suspicious and mistrustful. He described in his diary how he thought people were constantly looking at him; judging him for buying Megan’s house and blaming him for her death and that of her little boy. He also described that he felt he had to watch the builders day and night, fearing that they might malinger, steal from him, or otherwise sabotage the refurbishment. It is said that he became so intolerable to work for that local builders refused to carry out any work for him, and that he was forced to bring in people from outside the city to complete the work. Even then, he continued to be suspicious and kept firing builders and hiring new ones. This constant interruption to the works meant that there was a great delay in completing the refurbishment, which as a consequence put a strain on his finances and forced him to take out a new loan with the bank.

  The house was eventually completed two years behind schedule. My ancestor thought that he would finally be able to recoup some of the money he had invested, but alas, Megan’s curse had something else in store for him. After selling his old house and moving into the new building, a strange fear came over him. His mistrust and suspicion of other people had now grown into hatred, fear and outright misanthropy. He lived in constant fear that he may be robbed, or attacked, or even murdered, and he found that he could not bear to let other people into his house.

  In the meantime, his debts kept increasing and no new money was coming in. My ancestor was forced to sell most of his furniture and send his son away to live with his sister and brother-in-law in Falkirk. He was now left alone in his house with two servants, on whom he became increasingly dependent. His irrational fear of other people meant that he was unable to leave his home. Every time he opened the front door and looked out onto the street, he would break out in sweat, his heart would start pounding in his chest, and he was unable to breathe. His servants became his only contact with the outside world, and he relied on them for everything. They in turn took advantage of the situation, and bit by bit, the remaining items of furniture – the candle holders, the silverware, the paintings, the lace tablecloths – went missing. But by the time my ancestor became aware that he was being robbed by his own servants, he was being plagued by a new horror.

  Ever since his son had left the house, he had acquired an inexplicable itch, which slowly spread from his arms to his chest, then to his groin, until it covered his whole body. A physician was called in to inspect him, but he found no rash or discolouring of the skin and concluded that the problem was psychological rather than physical. He prescribed rest and fresh air and charged two florins for his consultation. The itch was incessant and intolerable. My ancestor was forever scratching himself over and over, first with his fingernails, then with a hair brush and eventually with glass paper, which removed the skin from his shins and forearms, but nothing could soothe the itching. Sunlight and water inflamed it, so he kept away from the windows and stopped bathing. The feeling of material on his skin also made things worse, so he stopped wearing clothes and started wandering around the house naked.

  Alexander Campbell had become a pathetic, malodorous, bleeding creature, cowering in the dark corners of a large, empty and lifeless house. All traces of pity and loyalty that the servants may previously have held for him were gone. Dividing the remainder of my ancestor’s furniture and clothes between them, they left him lying naked and alone in a dark corner, scratching his skin off. There he starved to death and was found a few weeks later by the bailiff.

  The diary was eventually passed on to my ancestor’s sister in Falkirk, who in turn passed it on to her nephew, Francis, when he came of age. It was meant to serve as a reminder of the curse that Megan Malone had inflicted on Alexander Campbell and his descendants. Fearing that a similar fate might be awaiting him, Francis Campbell became a Presbyterian minister, hoping that his religion would protect him from Megan’s wrath. He too kept a diary, with the objective that the information within it might help future generations battle this bitter curse. His life, however, proved uneventful. Alexander Campbell’s condition was considered to have been nothing more than a bout of insanity, and any notion of a family curse had been dismissed. As a consequence, his diary ended up in the bottom of a small chest, along with the other family heirlooms, which was passed down the generations, unread and neglected. Until, many years later, my father re-discovered it.

  My father was an amateur historian who was tracing his ancestry as part of his research for a planned book on the Campbell Clan. He started off by reading Alexander Campbell’s diary and then began scouring the public records for information about his descendants. He was shocked to find out that Alexander Campbell was not the only member of his family to have suffered from insanity. Two of his grandchildren suffered similar fates. Elizabeth Campbell is said to have suffered several bouts of insanity after marrying her cousin, Chester Campbell, and moving to his plantation in Ulster. Her name is mentioned repeatedly in local newspapers of the time as having caused a local disturbance in a public place. When Chester’s plantation failed (possibly because of the scandalous behaviour of his wife), he and his family returned to Scotland. Elizabeth Campbell died in the crossing. Some papers claim she fell overboard. One paper claims she committed suicide.

  Elizabeth’s brother, Jonas, who also became a Presbyterian minister, led a comfortable life until his wife died in childbirth, leaving him alone with seven children. Letters sent to him by concerned assembly elders suggest that he was unable to cope with the burden of fatherhood. They expressed their disapproval of his harsh and cruel treatment towards his children and offered to ease his burdens by fostering his children for him, but he refused. Jonas Campbell and six of his seven children died in the year 1814 when, having shackled all his children’s ankles to his own with a long chain, he marched into the sea, dragging his children behind him. All but one child drowned. The surviving child, Gabriel Campbell, died aged forty-seven in a lunatic asylum after repeatedly bashing his head against the wall.

  My father was descended from Elizabeth Campbell’s youngest son, Michael. He too had developed some unusual behaviour as a young man. He always used to think himself terribly ill. Every time he heard of a new disease, or learned of somebody else’s illness, he would convince himself that he was suffering from the same. He also suffered terribly from several phobias. He was afraid of hats, top hats in particular. The taller the hats, the greater the fear they instilled in him. He was also sensitive to light, which he claimed made his body itch, even though no rash or skin discolouration was visible. These two conditions meant that he would rarely venture outdoors, and when he did, it would be at night, when he would walk down the street with his he
ad bowed so as to avoid seeing any hats.

  My mother did not know about the family curse when she married my father and considered his behaviour to be mere eccentricities. She didn´t become concerned about him until he started researching his book. She told me that his work became an obsession and that he would spend every hour of the day and night sitting at his desk, bent over books and documents. He spoke of nothing other than the supposed curse and how the only way for the Campbell family to combat the propagation of this curse was for them to stop having children. This last comment was of particular concern to her, as she was at the time six months into her pregnancy. However, she did not know quite how strong my father’s obsession with ending the curse was until she woke up one night to find him towering over her with a kitchen knife, determined to cut the baby out of her belly. She was able to jump out of the bed before the first incision had been made and run out onto the street in her nightgown, crying out for help. My father was arrested that same night and sent to the Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum, in which he was confined until he died fifteen years later.

  And so now the chest with the family heirlooms has come to me. And I too have started a diary, of which this is the lengthy preface. I will admit that my hand is trembling slightly as I write this, and my heart is pounding in my chest. Will I too be affected by this curse? Or will I be among the lucky generation who gets to skip Megan’s wrath? Only time and the scribblings of this diary will tell.

  7. Moira

  Three days had passed since the tragedy. The show had been cancelled and most of the cast and crew had returned home, but Mary, Hardy, LeFevre and Westbrook remained in the hotel. And so did Billings. He was still suspended and was not allowed to leave the city.

  He saw little of LeFevre. She refused to see both him and Westbrook. She had left her daughter in their care and blamed them for her death. She had requested for the two men to be moved to another floor, so as to reduce the chance of her bumping into them. But despite this precaution, Billings still heard plenty of her. The nightly wailing and smashing things against the wall continued, particularly after she had had something to drink. In fact, the damage that she had caused to the hotel’s property had been such that Hardy had urged Mary to do her best to control her, because he refused to pay any more for it, insisting that the hotel send the bill to LeFevre instead.

  Mary was now in charge of looking after LeFevre, and this was not a mean feat. Both LeFevre’s physical health and her emotional stability were deteriorating rapidly. She still maintained that her daughter’s ghost had appeared to her on the night of her death and was desperate for the apparition to return. She refused to sleep in case Kitty’s spirit tried to pay her another visit, and this, of course, further damaged her health.

  In fact, Mary was worried that the shock of the vicious murder had caused LeFevre to go insane. There were two episodes in particular that concerned her deeply. The first one occurred on the day that the newspaper article about her daughter’s death had come out. A large crowd of sympathizers carrying wreaths and flowers had assembled outside the hotel. The police had advised LeFevre not to go outside to meet them, but wanting to show her appreciation, the actress insisted she go out onto the balcony and greet her admirers from there. Putting on her furs and her white gloves, she stepped out onto the balcony and waved at the crowd. The crowd cheered and applauded her, which made her feel better. She tried to make eye contact with every individual member of the crowd, smiling and nodding at them to show her gratitude. But then, quite suddenly, she froze. Her body stiffened, her face went pale, and a look of sheer horror came over her.

  Mary, who had accompanied her onto the balcony, scanned the crowd to see who the actress had been looking at to account for this sudden change in her demeanour. It didn’t take long for Mary to find the culprit. It was a woman. A perfectly common woman. She had long grey hair. Uncombed. Tied back with a ribbon. She was looking up at the actress, holding one single rose in her hands. There was an expression of pain and sorrow in her eyes. She was dressed rather shabbily. Not like the others. In fact, she looked a lot like a char woman. Mary wondered why she was standing there and how she had heard about LeFevre. She was clearly not somebody who could ever afford to go to the theatre.

  “What is it, dear?” Mary asked LeFevre.

  “The witch!”

  Mary looked at the woman. “That’s not a witch.”

  “It’s a witch. She has come for me!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She has come for me!” LeFevre went back into her room, pulling Mary in along with her, and locked the balcony doors. “We must lock her out! Don’t let her come in!”

  The second incident happened later that same night. Having dozed in her chair beside LeFevre’s bed, Mary woke to find the bed empty. She got up to look for her and found the actress in the bathroom, standing before the basin, vigorously scrubbing her hands below the running tap with a brush. As Mary got nearer, she saw that the intense scrubbing had caused LeFevre’s hands to bleed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.

  “It won’t come off.” LeFevre continued to scrub her bleeding hands, more aggressively than before.

  “What won’t come off?”

  “The stain. The bloody stain. It won’t come off!”

  Mary recognised immediately what was happening. The witch, the ghost, the imaginary blood stain. All these were scenes from Macbeth. LeFevre was confusing her real life with her stage life.

  A doctor was summoned to see LeFevre the following day, but all that he could say was that grief affected people differently and that it was not surprising that LeFevre’s behaviour should have become so erratic, considering the horror of the crime. He gave LeFevre some laudanum to calm her nerves and prescribed plenty of rest. He reassured Mary and Mr Hardy that LeFevre would recover in due time, but Mary was not convinced. She feared that LeFevre was slowly falling into a deep and dark abyss, out of which she would never be able to crawl.

  Billings was awakened by someone knocking on the door. He reached for the bedside cabinet and picked up his pocket watch. It was quarter past one in the afternoon. He frowned. It must be Westbrook again, he concluded. He had been avoiding him for three days. Billings threw his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

  There was another knock.

  “Billings? Are you there?”

  The detective opened his eyes again and pricked up his ears.

  “’ere, Billings. I know you are in there. Open up.”

  It wasn’t Westbrook at the door. Billings recognised that voice immediately. It was Clarkson. He jumped out of his bed and rushed to the door.

  “’avin’ a nap, were you?” Clarkson said with a broad grin on his face.

  “What are you doing here?” Billings felt like throwing his arms around Clarkson’s neck, so glad was he to see a friendly face, but he resisted the temptation.

  “We’re involved now; ’aven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “The press have got hold of the story. Haven’t you been reading the papers?”

  “I never read the papers. You know that.”

  “Well, it’s a good job too, ’cause you don’t come across too well in them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “‘Daughter of celebrated American actress dies right under nose of policeman assigned to her protection’. That was one headline.”

  Billings put his hand to his face and shook his head.

  “The Edinburgh Police have asked Scotland Yard for assistance. That’s why we’re here.”

  “We?”

  “Flynt came along with me. He’s downstairs in the lounge. I came up to summon you for a briefing.”

  The delight of seeing Clarkson again faded as soon as he heard Flynt’s name. He was bound to receive another severe grilling from his boss. His hand began to tremble at the thought of it.

  “Come on,” Clarkson said and led the way down the corridor. “
Time to face the music.”

  As Billings and Clarkson descended the stairs, they found Flynt and Thwaite sitting opposite each other on two Chesterfield sofas. Both were smoking pipes and laughing.

  “There he is,” Thwaite said as he saw the two men approach.

  Flynt turned his head and frowned upon seeing Billings.

  “Sit down, gentlemen.” Thwaite pointed at the two Chesterfield armchairs beside the sofas.

  Billings and Clarkson took their seats.

  Flynt turned to face Billings. “A fine mess you’ve made of things, haven’t you?” he said, puffing on his pipe.

  “Are you blaming me?”

  “Of course I’m blaming you! You were supposed to be looking after the little girl.”

  “My brief was to guard Miss LeFevre, and that’s what I did. I had to patrol the area. I could hardly take the girl with me. So I left her in the hands of someone I thought I could trust. What else could I do?”

  “Someone you thought you could trust?” It was Thwaite who responded. He was looking at the detective with a mysterious look in his eyes. “I assume you’re referring to Mr Westbrook?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you suggesting you don’t trust Mr Westbrook now?”

  “Well… um…” Billings didn’t know how to answer. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Westbrook and whether or not he could trust him.

  “Do you think he could have killed her?” Thwaite asked.

  “How could he have killed her? He was outside with me.”

  “He may have killed her while you were doing your patrol, then joined you outside the theatre after dumping the body in Grindlay Street Court.”

  “What?” Billings stared back at the Scottish inspector with horror. This was a possibility he had never considered. “What motive could there be for Mr Westbrook to kill her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Billings suddenly thought of LeFevre’s reaction when she had been told that Westbrook had been left alone with Kitty. “Hal?” she had said, with a look of horror and disgust on her face. “You left her alone with Hal?” Why did she say that?