by kindels
Within days of the receipt of his legacy, Jack's whole demeanour and personality appeared to his parents to have undergone a radical transformation. The happy young man they'd watched develop with such pleasure after the childhood psychological problems seemed to be slipping away from them. He returned to his studies at the teaching hospital but there was no longer a smile on his face either at the beginning or the end of the day. His conversation grew stilted, almost monosyllabic. His mother in particular worried that perhaps his close proximity to the original source of his childhood fixations, blood, teamed with whatever disturbing news he may have read in the papers bequeathed to him by his uncle had in some way brought about this alteration in her son's personality. His father, though he didn't mention it to Jennifer, went so far as to call on Jack's senior tutor at the hospital who was reluctant at first to divulge much in the way of information about one of his students, but who was persuaded to open up to the father in the end. The one-time golden boy of the course had let his standards slip. Jack's work on the wards, once regarded as exemplary, had become shoddy and constantly in need of correction. His written work and other aspects of his study course had fallen below par and Tom was warned that such a rapid deterioration in standards could only lead to eventual failure if not corrected sooner rather than later.
Despite being taken to task by his father on his alleged shortcomings in relation to his studies, over a period of weeks Jack Reid's demeanour and attention to his work underwent an almost total transformation for the worse. In short, the life of the young man, who up until recently had appeared to have a glittering career in the nursing profession ahead of him, simply imploded. Tom and Jennifer pleaded with their son to go and see his own doctor, to talk about the things happening to him, but as far as Jack was concerned everything was as it should be. He saw no need to consult a doctor over what he deemed "his personal business".
Finally, unable to withstand the constant barrage of criticism and questions from his disbelieving and apparently disapproving parents, Jack left home. There was no discussion on the matter with his parents and no forewarning of his intentions. One morning, he quite arbitrarily walked out of the door with a suitcase in his hand and never returned to his parents' home again. Attempts to contact Jack on his mobile phone over the following days proved useless; the phone either being switched off or diverted to voicemail. His father found himself having to comfort his wife, Jack's mother, more and more as the sense of loss cut deeply into her heart and mind. Forced to choose between searching for Jack and looking after the psychological well-being of the woman he loved, Tom Reid chose the latter course of action. He would use whatever time he could afford to try to locate Jack's whereabouts, but his first priority would be his wife, the woman he loved and adored above all others.
Tom was faced with the unenviable task of convincing Jennifer that their son had in all probability regressed to his former mental state. As a loving, doting mother Jennifer was hard to convince, but eventually agreed with her husband that such an event was the only possible explanation for the sudden change in Jack's personality, though both she and Tom possessed a firm conviction that the legacy he'd received on his coming of age from his late uncle Robert had in some way contributed to his sudden regression.
"It had to be that package, or at least something in it. He was fine until he received it," Jennifer stated, without any doubt in her mind one evening as she and Tom tried yet again to rationalise all that had happened in recent weeks.
"You're right, of course, Jen," he'd replied. "And somehow we have to find out what was in it. What on earth can have been so shattering that it changed him so suddenly and dramatically?"
"You know, Tom? I know that Sarah said she'd no idea what the package contained, but you have to admit that Robert seemed a changed man shortly before he died. Could he have been affected by the contents of those papers in the same way that Jack has been?"
"Jen, my darling, Robert died from a brain tumour, you know that."
"Yes, but what about before that? Don't you remember how he lay in a coma after the crash that killed his father, your uncle?"
"Of course I do, but what's that got to do with Jack?"
"Tom, try harder. Sarah said that when he came round he was babbling on about having some sort of nightmares, that he thought Jack the Ripper was out to get him or something like that?"
"Oh, come on, Jen, get real. That was just the ramblings of his mind while he was in a comatose state, probably induced by the amount of drugs he was on for the pain."
"But what if it wasn't just the ramblings of his mind? What if something really happened to Robert that we don't know about?"
"If it had I'm sure Sarah would have said something, or Robert himself, come to that."
"But would they have told us? You must admit that Robert seemed a different person after the accident, and we hardly saw him and Sarah much after that time, right up until his death. Since then we've rarely seen or heard from Sarah, and she used to be so bubbly and full of fun before. Now, she's like a recluse, banging about in that big old house by herself, hardly ever going out or socialising anymore. Tom, I want you to go and see her, please. If you have to, press her on the subject of Robert's mental state after the accident. Try and find out if there was anything that happened to Robert that might have been a trigger for what's happened to Jack."
Jennifer wasn't to be talked out of her plan of action and eventually Tom agreed to visit his late cousin's wife on the following weekend. In the meantime, he engaged Philip Swan of Swan Private Investigations, with instructions to locate his son. He provided the investigator with the names of the few friends of Jack's he was aware of, including Anna. Swan said he'd do what he could, though it might not be much. Tom told the man he could ask for no more from him. Swan never found hide nor hair of Jack, and Tom Reid eventually paid the investigator's bill with some regret at having employed him on the fruitless task.
The weekend arrived, and Tom Reid left his worried wife at home alone as he set off in the family car for the home of his late cousin's wife. He'd purposely not given Sarah Cavendish any advance warning of his arrival. He thought that any such warning could put her on her guard, if indeed there was something she'd held back from them since the death of Robert. He though it preposterous of course, but his wife's pleadings and belief that something in the past tied Robert and Jack's behaviour together made him just the slightest bit reticent in his approach to Sarah.
As he pulled into the sun-drenched, leafy tree-lined avenue where he and Jennifer had shared so many happy evenings with Robert and Sarah in the dim and distant past the dark shadows of his son's mental state seemed to recede from his mind. Here in the heart of English suburbia, all appeared normal and peaceful. One of Sarah's neighbours was outside mowing the pristine lawn in front of his mock-Georgian home. Another was trimming the overhanging branches of an expansive lavender bush threatening to encroach over his fence onto his neighbour's property.
Only as Tom pulled onto the driveway of Sarah's home was he brought back to the reality of the reason for his visit. He pulled up behind Sarah's red Toyota, pleased that its presence probably indicated she was at home. As he stepped from his gleaming black BMW, Tom couldn't help but notice that though clean, Sarah's car appeared to be coated in a thin layer of dust, including the windscreen, giving him the hint that she hadn't been out in the vehicle for a few days at the very least. Jennifer's observation that Sarah had become something of a recluse came into his mind and for the first time, as he stood and pressed the doorbell to announce his arrival and despite the warmth of the day, Tom felt a cold shiver of foreboding at what he might discover in the home of his late cousin. Receiving no reply to his first press of the bell he tried again and again, and after what appeared an age to the increasingly impatient Tom, he heard footsteps from within. Sarah was coming!
Chapter 4
Sarah's Confession
The face that greeted Tom Reid as the door opened was one he k
new only too well, and yet something in Sarah's smile rang false in his mind. This was not the happy and carefree woman who'd laughed and swapped jokes and stories with him and Jennifer in the good old days when Robert had been alive. It had been over a year since he'd seen his cousin's widow and she seemed to have aged considerably in that time.
Following Robert's tragic death, Tom and Jennifer had for a time maintained close ties with Sarah, but as often happens in families, the visits to one another's homes grew less frequent until they'd diminished to maybe once a year, until even those occasional visits stopped and the telephone became the chief means of maintaining communication. After all, they were struggling with the problems posed by the adolescent Jack and Sarah had been attempting to rebuild her own life after the death of her husband. Somehow, the two opposing threads had gradually driven an insurmountable wedge between them.
"Well, this is a surprise. Come in, Tom. To what do I owe the honour?" asked Sarah, doing her best to appear welcoming, though Tom felt as though he were intruding upon her privacy and in truth he felt less than welcome as he stepped over the threshold in to the once familiar home of his cousin.
"Hello, Sarah. Sorry to drop in unannounced, but there's something I need to talk to you about and it couldn't wait. It's urgent, and it concerns Jack."
"Jack? Why? What's happened?" she asked with a look of bewilderment on her face. "I'd have thought I'd be the last person to be able to help you with a problem that concerns you and your own son."
"Look, Sarah," said Tom as she led him into the familiar sitting room where he'd often held long and enjoyable discussions on all manner of subjects with Robert in happier times. "I know you said when I phoned you a while ago that you'd no idea what was in the package Robert bequeathed to Jack, but Jen and I are convinced it has something to do with his disappearance."
"His disappearance? Tom, what on earth's been going on? I've no idea why Jack should disappear. When did this happen?"
As Sarah sat with a worried look on her face in the armchair opposite the sofa, Tom related the tale of Jack's apparent descent into psychological trauma following his birthday and the receipt of his 'legacy' from Robert. She didn't interrupt his lengthy discourse on the events that had led to his arrival on her doorstep. Instead, she listened carefully, the frown on her face growing deeper as Tom arrived at the end of his tale.
"So there you have it, Sarah. From the day Jack received that package his life gradually fell apart. All I'm asking you to do is to please tell me if you have any idea whatsoever why that may have been so. Surely Robert must have given you some hint over the years as to what he proposed to leave to Jack?"
"I've told you, Tom, and Jen too, that Robert never mentioned a thing about it to me. I knew he had something he considered important for Jack but he never, ever told me what it was."
"I'm sorry, Sarah. I don't mean to sound disbelieving and I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm harassing you, but you and Robert were so close it's almost inconceivable that he'd keep something like that from you."
"But he did, Tom, and that's the truth."
"OK, Sarah. Let's suppose that to be the case. Can we look at this from another angle?"
"What 'angle' would that be, Tom? I just don't see what all of this has to do with Jack running off. Where is all this leading?"
Tom took a deep breath. He'd no desire to rake up old and painful memories in Sarah's mind, but concern for his son's mental well-being over-rode such considerations as he continued.
"Well, you remember when Robert first came out of his coma? He talked of being hounded or haunted by Jack the Ripper?"
"Oh Tom, really!" Sarah snapped. "Poor Robert had been in a coma, and those were just the fevered dreams and nightmares that he experienced while he was in that terrible state. How on earth can that have anything to do with Jack?"
"Look, I know this is painful for you, and I don't mean it to be, but, well, just suppose that Robert's nightmares were in fact slightly more than that."
"What the hell d'you mean by that? How can they have been more than that? They were nightmares, bad dreams, the hallucinations created by his mind while he was in the coma. How could they have been anything else?"
"I don't know, Sarah. I suppose I'm clutching at straws here, trying to find some logical reason to explain the sudden change in Jack's personality and behaviour."
"I can understand and sympathise with that, but blaming something that may or may not have sprung from Robert's hallucinations while he was in a coma isn't exactly logical, is it?"
"I know, but there has to be something, somewhere that'll give me a clue as to what's brought all this about so suddenly."
Sarah didn't answer immediately, and Tom suspected that she wanted to say something but couldn't find the words to express whatever it may be. He waited, the few seconds pause in their conversation seeming like hours as silence descended on the room and the chill he'd felt on his arrival returned to cause the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. Sarah finally broke the silence.
"I think we need a cup of tea, Tom. What do you say?"
"Eh? Oh, yes, tea would be nice, Sarah, thanks."
She rose from her chair and without a word left Tom sitting on the sofa as she made her way to the kitchen. Tom thought better of asking if she needed any help. Sarah was far too independent to accept any such offer. He knew her well enough to make that assumption and in the few minutes she was employed in the making of the hot steaming brew he wondered what, if anything, could be the reasons for her sudden silence and reticence immediately prior to the offer of tea. He felt sure that Sarah knew something, or that at least she thought she knew something. Would she reveal all on her return? Tom didn't have long to wait, as Sarah soon returned with tea for two, served on a solid silver tray, the tea cups and saucers of the finest Royal Worcester bone china, and sugar provided in the old fashioned way, in lumps served from a bowl complete with silver-plated serving tongs.
"Still take sugar, Tom?" she asked as she poured the tea from a pot that matched the cups and saucers.
"One, same as always," he replied.
"Of course. I thought maybe you'd given it up, the sugar I mean," Sarah smiled at him, though the smile carried a certain falseness about it that Tom found unnerving.
Sarah passed him his tea and Tom went through the motions of stirring it with his teaspoon, and taking a small sip from the cup before speaking again.
"Sarah&" he began, but she forestalled his words by raising her hand.
"Tom, be quiet, please," she said, and she smiled that false smile once again. This wasn't the Sarah he'd known across the years. The woman who sat opposite him now bore the hallmarks of a woman with deep and intense problems of her own. He wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. Even her hair had begun to succumb to grey at the edges, and her once long locks were now cut in a less than fashionable style barely reaching her neck. Tom Reid suddenly realised that his cousin's widow could be harbouring some deep and terrible secret, something that she was afraid to discuss, even with him. He decided not to push the issue but to wait and see if she would eventually reveal what he suspected she may be hiding.
"I'm sorry, I&"
"Tom, please, be quiet. I have something to tell you. I don't know if it's relevant to what's happened to Jack and it may be just the ramblings of a lonely widow, but there was something odd about the things that happened to Robert, after he came out of the hospital you understand, not directly to do with the coma, at least, I don't think so."
"What do you mean, odd?"
"Well, when he came home it took a few days for him to open up fully and tell me all about the dreams or hallucinations or whatever they were. When he did, he related them to me with a sense of great fear and foreboding. I'm sure he didn't tell me everything, but Robert had been convinced that the spirit, the soul, call it what you will, of Jack the Ripper, had invaded his mind while he was in his comatose state. I pooh-poohed the idea of course, but he was unsh
akeable in his belief, and in the end I went along with what I thought were his delusions in order to pacify him, as he'd often become quite agitated when relating his stories of the 'Ripper's life' to me. A few weeks after he came home he received a package from his father's solicitor, which he told me contained personal papers and letters, but I know he was greatly affected by something in that package, and he'd often spend long hours in his study, usually late at night, reading through whatever it contained. Later, when he was diagnosed with the brain tumour, I presumed that his rather odd notion about the Ripper might have been caused by whatever was happening to his brain. I never for one moment, of course, believed any of it, but it is possible that the package he received from the solicitor may have been the one that he left to young Jack, though what it contained I've no idea."
"Sarah, what you're saying makes sense and at the same time it doesn't. It seems to me that you're trying to say that the package may have had something to do with his Jack the Ripper delusions, but if they were just that, delusions I mean, then why on earth would his father's solicitor have had them in his possession and why would he hide them away for years and then leave them to my son?"
"That's jut it, Tom. I have no idea at all. I don't even know if I should be telling you all this. It doesn't mean a thing really, does it? Like you, I can't see what connection any of Robert's dreams or delusions or fears may have with Jack's current mental state."
