One For Sorrow

by Sarah A. Denzil

  My fingers tightened around my hair. “Show me what?”

  Dr Ibbotson flipped to the back of his notebook and retrieved a piece of paper with a black and white image on the front. Some sort of photocopy. He glanced at it briefly before placing it on the table and sliding it towards me. “This is a copy of the article that was printed in your local newspaper. Could you read that for me?”

  I was already reading. With my head bent low, and my white fingertips clutching the sheet, I read the words and then I read them again. “This is wrong. This has been doctored. It’s wrong.” When I heard the tremble in my voice, I put the paper back down on the table and pushed it away. “It’s wrong.”

  “Are you sure?” Dr Ibbotson clicked the button on his pen and lowered it to his notebook. I hated the thought of him writing his secret observations about me in his little pad.

  “This article says that my father was arrested after Mum died. It says that he was alive. But that’s not true. My father killed himself.”

  After Dr Ibbotson had finished writing his notes, he skipped again to the back of his notebook and retrieved another slip of paper. Again, he gave it a little glance before placing it on the table and sliding it across to me.

  With trembling fingers I reached across and lifted the small, glossy, rectangular paper. A photograph, printed on cheap card, of my father. He was fatter, balding, and was wearing an ill-fitting jumper, a shade too bright for his pale skin. It was him all right, but it also wasn’t him. I knew every expression on my father’s face, from the amiable man who helped his neighbours to the drunken lunatic who terrorised his family, but I didn’t recognise the slack expression on this man’s face.

  “This photograph was taken of your father last week in the high-security hospital where he’s incarcerated. Your father was found guilty of the murder of your mother, but he was not found to be mentally fit to serve his sentence in prison. He was taken to Broadmoor Hospital where he is kept in a secure wing. Your father attended your mother’s funeral under police custody.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No.”

  But deep down I knew it was true. As Dr Ibbotson was talking, I remembered that day with my father’s aftershave drifting to me on the wind. I remembered Tom’s cold hand in mine, and the fact that I didn’t want to look to my right, where my father stood in handcuffs, stooped over so that his tears fell onto the grass. His sobs had been so loud that we’d barely heard the celebrant. I remembered thinking that I wished it was him in the ground.

  When Dr Ibbotson gently took the photograph from my hand, I realised that I’d been clutching it so tightly there was a tear in the corner.

  “What’s happening to me?” My small voice was an echo in the white room. I felt like a shadow of the woman I used to be.

  “I think you have been experiencing a nervous breakdown. I think you have had a psychotic break, which resulted in various delusions and hallucinations.”

  “So I’m crazy.”

  “No,” he said, leaning closer. “Your mind is a little chemically imbalanced right now, but with the right medication, we can get you back on track.”

  I leaned forwards, resting my head in my hands. “I can’t trust myself. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. What if I let Isabel out deliberately? What if I’m as bad as all the others? Like the ones Alfie told me about? What if I’m like them?”

  “Alfie?”

  “A porter who worked on Morton Ward at Crowmont Hospital. We took cigarette breaks together, and he used to tell me about all the serial killers and murderers who stayed in Crowmont.”

  “It’s interesting that you would want to hear these stories. Do you believe you’re a murderer?” Dr Ibbotson asked.

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I never stopped him, did I? I let him kill her. Mum would be alive if…”

  “Your father killed your mother, Leah. You didn’t do anything wrong and it was never your fault.” He scribbled more into his book. “We need to talk about this Alfie.”

  “What about him?”

  “He has the same name as your father.”

  No, no, no, no.

  Dr Ibbotson flinched for the first time as I snatched the photograph back. I don’t know why I needed the photograph to remind me; I know what my father’s face looks like, but at the same time I needed to be reminded again so I truly understood. The man in the photograph was an older, fatter image of the man I’d shared every cigarette break with. Oh, I’d managed to change a few things—the slightly more narrowed eyes, thinner lips, thicker hair. But it was him, all right. All this time, I’d been haunted by the man I hated most on the world, and I hadn’t merely conjured him with my broken mind. I befriended him, too.

  “I feel sick,” I said. “All those conversations with… with Alfie. They were all in my mind.”

  “Do you want a glass of water?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Tell me if you need to stop.” Dr Ibbotson had pushed a box of tissues along the desk towards me. “But I think it’s time to talk about your father now.”

  I’d nodded, agreeing with him. “The first thing you need to know is: Tom isn’t just my brother. He’s also my son.”

  True Crime Junkie

  Isabel is free

  By James Gorden

  Wow, I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent so much time going through the Maisie Earnshaw case, talking on here about my suspicions about David and Owen Fielding, speculating whether Isabel Fielding might be innocent, but I never imagined this would happen. Did you?

  Isabel Fielding is free, but not in the way I ever thought this would happen.

  So, what do we know?

  We know that a nurse (who will remain nameless for her own sake) entered Isabel’s room and the door was closed. Now, the police haven’t told anyone how long the nurse was in the room with Isabel, but we do know Isabel escaped the hospital at 1:30am. She left the hospital wearing the nurse’s clothes, using the nurse’s pass to get through the ultra-secure (pah!) wing of the hospital. She then retrieved the nurse’s belongings from her locker, got into her car, and drove away into the night.

  Meanwhile, the nurse was found after taking an overdose of anti-psychotic medication.

  What the hell happened in that room?

  Did the nurse believe Isabel was innocent? Did she set her free and then take a bunch of drugs as an after-party? Was the nurse using before Isabel was set free/escaped? Or did Isabel mastermind this entire venture?

  Whatever happened, Isabel Fielding is now out there in the world somewhere. We’d better hope she really was innocent, or the world could be in trouble.

  What do you think?

  COMMENTS:

  TrueCrimeLover: The nurse let her out. How could a trained nurse be so stupid as allow a prisoner to escape? It doesn’t make sense.

  JamesGorden: We all have off days…

  Bundy’s Bitch: Isabel did it. She’s the mastermind behind it all. She’s been waiting for some low-hanging fruit to pluck and this nurse came along at the right time.

  RedRose: It was her brother. He blackmailed the nurse and got Isabel out. Bet they go on a crime spree now. Like Bonnie and Clyde, but Lannister style.

  JamesGorden: Um, eww…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I was thirteen when I gave birth to him. The whole thing was a blur. All I remember is the screaming, not just from me, but from Tom too. His red little face all screwed up in anger. That’s all it was: screams, blood, and my mother holding my hand. There’s no father filled out on the birth certificate, and I never told my mother who the father was. I never told her, so I can’t blame her for not knowing. I can blame her for not leaving when he continued to hit her, but I can’t blame her for what he did to me. Perhaps if I’d told her she would have left him, at last, and she’d still be alive today.”

  “I’m not sure you can blame yourself for anything. You were a child,” Dr Ibbotson had said kindly.

  “No, I suppose
not. But I had a chance to speak up. I was thirteen years old. I had to talk to the police, but I refused to tell them who the father was. In the end, they gave up with me and moved on to another case. I had my chance to tell them and I didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was embarrassed!” I’d let out a hollow laugh that echoed off the walls and came back to me. “And I think some part of me still loved him, my father. I didn’t want him to go away. This was all before he became very violent. Before the drinking got worse. He was still… he could still be, sometimes, a loving father.” I inhaled loudly, sickened by my own words. Sickened by the fact that I missed him, no matter what had happened, no matter what he’d done. “It only happened one time, and sometimes I wonder if he even remembers what he did. Sometimes I feel like I made it all up in my mind. If it wasn’t for Tom’s existence, I think I might have blocked the whole thing out.”

  “You blame yourself for what happened.” It wasn’t a question because it was so obvious. I knew it myself, and I had for a long time.

  “I begged Mum to raise Tom herself. No one knew I was pregnant, they just thought I was fat. Then, when I stopped going to school, a rumour spread that I’d been admitted to hospital after a suicide attempt. They said I was fat and depressed and wanted to die. They weren’t wrong. I did want to die.” I took a deep breath, composing myself as the memories came flooding back. It wasn’t a time I liked to remember. When it came to Tom, I mostly tried to convince myself that the pregnancy and the labour had never happened. “I didn’t hold him as a baby. I never breastfed him. He wasn’t mine, I told myself. He was my little brother and I had no reason to feed him. That was Mum’s job.”

  “And you’ve never told Tom any of this?” Dr Ibbotson asked.

  “No. Are you joking? How could I tell him?”

  “It would be very hard,” he admitted. “But this isn’t a unique case, sadly. You’re not the first person to survive this kind of abuse, and Tom isn’t the only child born from rape. If you want to tell him, you can.”

  My eyes had burned as I’d met the doctor’s gaze. My skin burned along with them. Every part of me needed to shed tears, but I couldn’t. “I always believed that Tom was born with the birthmark as a punishment for what happened to me. It was my fault.”

  “Birthmarks are a result of pigment cells and blood vessels. It could be genetic, but it’s certainly nothing to do with anything you’ve done. You’re not to blame, Leah. Think about that. You’re not to blame.”

  But I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t.

  *

  The birds are quiet in the mornings now. They’re either building their nests for the coming winter, or migrating away to a sunnier clime. The birds are quiet, but the spiders are restless. I hear them scuttling around my room at night. Except that I don’t, not really.

  Dr Ibbotson told me that one of the most common hallucinations in schizoid disorders is seeing insects. That makes sense when I think of the ants I’d witnessed invading the kitchen. Tom told me he’d never seen them, which always seemed bizarre at the time. Then there were the bats swooping through the sky at night and the insects I saw stealing around the hospital.

  They weren’t real. It was all in my head.

  We’re working on getting my anti-psychotic medication exactly right. It’s a process. The latest had been doing well, until I started hearing the spiders. It’s September, which is when they always come into the house to escape the rain, so I saw a couple of real ones. I even made myself hold one in my hand to prove it was real. But the fear of holding it triggered something in my mind, letting the hallucinations back in.

  I get up, shower, dress, and eat breakfast. One of the other patients at Oakton Hospital told me all about overnight oats, so I’m trying them. She was right; they’re delicious. No more hangovers for me. I start the day with water, oats, and a morning check that everything is in order. I need to know that no one broke into the house while I was asleep.

  As soon as I wake, I have to check that the windows and kitchen door are still locked. Most importantly, everything must be as I left it before I went to bed. I need to know that I didn’t sleepwalk and touch anything.

  The sleepwalking seems to have stopped, but I no longer trust myself or my judgment, which is why the rituals have become so important to me. Perhaps the sleepwalking component of my psychosis was more wine-induced than it was the mental illness.

  As I’m about to open the kitchen door, the phone rings. I know who it is even before I answer, and as usual, I steel myself for whatever they might have to say.

  “Hello.”

  “Leah, it’s James Gorden.”

  “Hi, James.”

  “There’s no news.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  “No worries. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

  I hang up. I hate how James talks as though we’re living in the movies. I still think he believes this is all a game. But on the other hand, he does tend to have good contacts, and he tells me more than the police do.

  After Isabel escaped Crowmont a huge manhunt ensued, but I was mostly unconscious or delirious as helicopter lights swept Hutton village and the surrounding area. Tracking dogs searched the moors and the woods. Police visited every train station, bus station, and petrol station in the area. The public were encouraged to come forward with any information. Isabel’s most recent photograph was plastered all over the news.

  There have been sightings. London. Manchester. York. Edinburgh. People everywhere think they’ve seen her face, but they’re mostly either mistaken or crazy. DCI Murphy, who is running the operation, told me about one real sighting, or at least a possible one; that was in East London, three months ago. Since then, there has been nothing new. She’s vanished. Some days I wake up feeling positive enough to believe she’s innocent of the murder, and now she’s living somewhere abroad, grateful for her newfound freedom. Other days, I wake up believing a psychotic murderer is out there somewhere, and that one day she will catch up with me in a sick game of cat and mouse. Sometimes I tell myself that Isabel doesn’t care about me in the slightest, that all I was to her was a means to an end. But I never quite believe it. We’d developed a connection while at Crowmont Hospital, and I can’t shrug away the feeling that our fates are intertwined with one another.

  But when you can’t even trust your own memories, it’s difficult to know what to believe.

  Is Isabel innocent?

  Am I innocent?

  Is David Fielding a murderer?

  Are all the Fieldings murderers?

  The police scoured the Fielding property, and found no trace of Isabel, and no reason to suspect any of them of a crime.

  And yet, I still find myself checking David Fielding’s social media accounts on a regular basis. Where is he? What is he doing? The man travels on business a lot, tweeting from London, posting a picture of his lunch on Instagram from a bistro in Paris. Wherever he visits, I search for news articles of missing people, just in case. Even after all this time and everything that’s happened, I still can’t quite let it go.

  At least now I understand why I became so obsessed with the Fieldings. It was a distraction from what was going on in my head. But now that Isabel is out there in the real world and I know what has been happening to me, I don’t feel safe anymore. I don’t remember what happened in Isabel’s room before I was found that morning. I’ve imagined every possible scenario. I’ve imagined Isabel telling me a terrible story, so disturbing that I gave her everything—my clothes, keys—and abandoned the career I’d proudly built over the years to ensure she got her freedom. I’ve imagined Isabel overpowering me and forcing me to hand over what she needed. But in none of the scenarios can I figure out how I ended up with 1800mg of clozapine in my system. Was Isabel trying to kill me? Was I trying to kill myself? If it was the latter, where did I get them from? I’d have had to steal the tablets, which would mean it was all premeditated.

  But what I do know is t
hat I can’t rule out the suggestion that Isabel tried to kill me, which means she could do it again at any time without any warning at all. And along with my fear of what Isabel may or may not be capable of, I still have the creeping, chilling feeling that violent David Fielding is out there, still angry with the way I interfered in his family’s life. Now he believes I let his dangerous daughter go, and maybe he wants revenge for that act.

  Whenever I search for David Fielding’s name, I find myself clicking on the same link over and over again, because I can’t help myself.

  The YouTube video begins with an advert—usually for pregnancy tests or the latest diet food—which I eagerly skip after watching it for the allotted time. Then David’s face pops up on the screen. It’s Newsnight, and Kirsty Wark sits behind a desk in a dark studio with David to her right, lounging on a black sofa. Blue lights illuminate his face in an eerie glow, while the studio audience watches with interest. Kirsty introduces David, explains Isabel’s past, and talks to him about the failings of the NHS. I’ve seen this video so many times I could almost quote it.

  “I don’t blame the NHS, but the truth is they failed her, and they failed my family. The NHS budget has been cut so many times that security measures in these facilities are appalling.” He throws his arms up and the audience claps along.

  I find myself balling my hands into tight little fists. What does he know about working in a psychiatric hospital? What does he know about any of it? He never even visited Isabel.

  “We don’t feel safe in our own home anymore,” he continues. “My wife cries herself to sleep at night because she thinks Isabel is going to come home. She wants her home, she really does—we never stopped loving Isabel. But we know what she is, and we know how dangerous she is, especially when she isn’t taking her medication. Some nights, I lie awake staring at the ceiling, truly believing that Isabel is going to come home and kill us all.”