The Lingering

by SJI Holliday

  Smeaton feels sick. He takes the small notebook out of his desk drawer – the one he’d collected from the locked records room. He knew he recognised the name. He flicks it open to the first page, reads the careful, curling handwriting – almost too neat and legible for a doctor. The Journal of Henry Baldock, dated 2nd March 1955. This was the man who was sent to investigate abuse within the hospital. The man who went on to write an important paper about controlling behaviour in a hospital setting, which included several case studies where patients had been forced to believe that they had done things that they hadn’t done – and other cases, where they were coaxed and cajoled into doing things that they did not want to do.

  Ali didn’t find this place by chance, on the commune network’s website, did she? She lied about that. She no doubt lied about many things.

  Smeaton feels a chill run over him as he thinks back to the times just after they’d first arrived, when it had seemed like Jack had been looking at Ali with adoration, like he’d do anything she asked him to … And then, for a few weeks, he’d seemed positive and happy – embracing his new life. But now he is nowhere to be seen, and only Ali has access to him … feeding him … nursing him…

  Oh Ali, he thinks. What exactly is it that you’ve made Jack do?

  Angela was right. There is something very wrong with Ali. If only he had listened when she tried to warn him, Angela might still be here now. He knows now, it all makes sense. Angela hasn’t run away at all. She must’ve found something out, and made the naïve mistake of going to see Ali.

  He locks the notebook back in his desk, and goes off to find Ford.

  43

  Ali

  She sits back on the edge of the bath, dips a finger into the bathwater again – still too hot. The plug will have to stay in for now. She’ll have to ask Smeaton about the cold water – maybe there’s a blockage somewhere? She remembers something that Angela said, about some creepy doctor drowning himself in a rain barrel, and she shudders at the thought.

  Angela…

  She closes her eyes for a moment, feeling tired all of a sudden.

  An image floats into her vision, and she tries to open her eyes, but she can’t; it’s as if they are glued shut. She panics, remembers the bath – if she falls in she will be scalded. She tries to stand, but she can’t. Strong hands grip her upper arms, and she hears whispers. She’s not in the bathroom anymore. In the vision, her eyes are open and she is walking across loose gravel. She can see the pond in the distance. She is pushed, roughly, the grip on her arms released. In front of her is a wooden rain barrel. Water is overflowing, running down the sides. She walks closer, unable to stop herself. The water is dark. She reaches out a hand to dip her finger in, and a face floats up to the surface – pale and bloated, dark holes where eyes once were.

  She stumbles back, falls. She tries to scream, but there is no sound coming from her. She edges away, as the barrel tips over and the water gushes out towards her, the bloated corpse floating on the wave and she screams again and this time she can hear it.

  Her eyes fly open, and she is curled on the bathroom floor. Water is overflowing from the bath, hot, splashing, leaving a warm pool around her. She comes to her senses, gets onto her knees. Leans over and turns off the hot tap, smarting from the heat of the boiling brass. She takes a breath. The water sloshes gently from side to side, spilling a little more over the sides, then it stops.

  She stands up, hurries out of the room, closing the door tight behind her. Her heart is still hammering. She thinks she might faint, but she forces herself to take long, slow breaths. Eventually the panic subsides.

  Jack is awake. ‘What’s going on in there?’ he says. His voice is still groggy. There is no urgency. He would not be able to help her if anything else was to happen.

  He’s of no use to her now.

  ‘Get dressed, I’m going to show you something.’

  He turns over, faces away from her. ‘Just leave me alone, will you?’

  Ali balls her hands into fists. Feels her nails cutting into her palms. ‘You can’t just lie around in bed all the time. People are asking questions. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes up here to check on you.’

  ‘Tell them then.’

  The rage starts to burn, from her hands, up her arms, into her chest. ‘Tell them? Tell them? Have you completely lost your mind, Jack? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison? Do you want me in there, too? You’ll never see me again. I might be able to survive a life in prison, but you sure as hell won’t. You’ll be someone’s pet before you’ve even spent a night in there. You know what they do to weak, pathetic little yes-men in prison? You know what they do to ex-cops in prison? Jesus Christ, Jack – you know what they do to serial killers?’ She blows out a breath, starts to pace the room. ‘They won’t believe you did it anyway. They’ll never believe it. You – pathetic little you – you killed all those hitchhikers, did you? You carried their bodies out of the car and tossed them into ditches? They’ll know you could never have thought this one up yourself. Because you have no fucking imagination, Jack. No drive. No wonder you were the laughing stock at work. Useless piece of shit. They didn’t want you working with vulnerable cases – you were a bloody liability. If it hadn’t been for me giving you some sort of purpose in life, you’d still be nothing. Weak, pathetic little Jack, hanging on the coat-tails of everyone else—’

  ‘I got you, didn’t I? Loads of the lads wanted you. But it was me who got you…’

  She laughs. ‘You think you had a choice in that, do you? I picked you out right from the start. I could see you were a follower. You were always a step behind your cocky mates. Letting them make the moves, finding the girls to chat up – and then they’d send you for the drinks. Didn’t you notice that, Jack? You were never first on the scene, so to speak – were you? How you made it as far as DI, I will never know…’

  He appears momentarily lucid. ‘Hang on, you’re saying you picked me? You planned all this?’

  ‘Planned all what? The Game? You enjoyed it, didn’t you? It was a damn sight more exciting than the rest of your life ever was. Don’t deny it…’

  ‘I’ll admit it was fun at first. It was a buzz. And we always had such amazing sex…’ He pauses, scratches his head. ‘When did that stop? I can’t even remember…’

  ‘You don’t remember because of the pills, you idiot. You made me give them to you. Said you couldn’t deal with the nightmares, the flashbacks.’

  ‘Did I? I can’t remember…’

  ‘I took a big risk getting those drugs for you. You could at least be grateful. I can’t help it if they messed with your ability to get it up, can I?’

  Jack starts to cry, and Ali is horrified.

  ‘I can’t remember it anymore, Ali. I can’t remember what I’ve done … I just know … I know it was bad. When we came here, I started to dream again…’

  ‘I know you did. That’s why I started giving you the drugs again, you idiot. I thought maybe you could go cold turkey here – that maybe your sex drive would come back – but it wasn’t working. I could see how confused you were. I was worried you’d tell someone – like Ford, maybe. He was suspicious. And bloody Angela, too – although she’s been dealt with, at least.’

  ‘Are they still looking for her?’ he says. And then so quietly she can hardly hear, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Where is she? You clubbed her over the head and tossed her in a ditch. You can’t have forgotten that, surely?’

  ‘No … I can’t – I can’t have done that. You’re lying.’

  ‘You remember the hitchhikers, don’t you? Four of them. Do you remember their names?’

  He shakes his head. His face seems to clear. ‘Not their names … but I kept things—’

  ‘I burned them, didn’t I? Jesus Christ. You can’t keep that stuff, Jack. The news clippings either. No one has worked it out yet – that they were all murders. That they were all done by the same person. Using the trial drug was
genius; no way they can find it on a tox screen, because it doesn’t technically exist in its current form and they don’t know what they’re looking for—’

  ‘You drugged them? But I—’

  ‘Of course I drugged them … bottle of Coke. Every time. Never take drinks from strangers, Jack. Or lifts.’ She laughs again, and it sounds strange and alien. Not like her laugh.

  She needs to end this. She’s come full circle, it seems … Her parents, then Jack and now she’s losing grip on reality, too. She knew it as soon as she arrived in this place. She’s always been in control – of herself and others. But now … now, she can’t stop the visions, the voices, the sense that something here, something more powerful than her, is taking control of her.

  ‘Come with me, Jack,’ she talks slowly, calmly. Tries to soothe him again after the turmoil of the last few minutes. The revelations that he is struggling to process. ‘I’ve got an idea. A way to get you off the drugs, so that you don’t have to think about all the bad things anymore. You can move on, live your life. We can enjoy it here.’

  He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He is shaking. Nervous. But there is hope in his voice when he says, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘You just need to come with me, Jack. You trust me, don’t you?’

  He nods his meek little lamb head, and follows her out of the room.

  Dr Henry Baldock’s Journal – 5th August 1955

  I just happened to be in the office when the call came. I answered it, and for a long while afterwards, I couldn’t stop shaking.

  It was Mrs Samuel who visited just the other day. She told me that Jessie’s husband had been found hanging in his brother’s barn; he had climbed onto the hay bales and knotted a rope around the beam.

  I can’t quite believe it. Jessie, George and Thomas Samuel are gone. The whole family wiped out in such a short space of time. A chain of horrific events, leading all the way back to something that happened more than four hundred years ago. Small town rumours with devastating consequences.

  I don’t believe that Jessie should ever have been in here. She should have been cared for by her husband and her family. And yet she was brought here supposedly suffering from hysteria, when what she was really suffering from was being overworked, overstressed and terrified at being a mother, helpless against the cruel bullies who refused to leave her and her son alone.

  By all accounts, her husband had tried his best, but he wasn’t the recipient of the jibes and taunts. He’d come from another village. He had no idea what he’d walked in to.

  I think it’s critical that we look into the mental health of new mothers, to give them more support than they currently receive. There has been some research done already, and this is becoming an area of interest. But I’m not sure if this would have helped Jessie. The church-going villagers had turned against her because of her background, and her son was just another of their victims. The poor boy had existed in a world where he was convinced that no one loved him at all.

  I will be sending my findings to the board about all this, as a separate note, not just part of my report on the whole operation of the place. This is an issue that is too big to ignore. The community here seem to be holding a collective hatred against a family based on ridiculous superstition, and the hospital had somehow become complicit. This is something that should have been addressed long before now.

  I remember seeing the nurses giving Jessie the cold-bath shock treatment, and I wonder if that is really what they were doing after all. Could it be that those women were testing her to see if she was a witch, just as those nasty children did to her son?

  On a more rational note, it is my belief that had Jessie been given better care, then not only would she be alive now, but so would her husband and her son. But then there’s no way to account for the bullying that her son received – the taunting and accusations from the other children. I do wish that there was a better system in place to deal with vulnerable children.

  Don’t people realise how dangerous superstition and gossip can be?

  44

  Smeaton

  Ali stops walking when she sees them. She turns, as if about to disappear in the opposite direction, then seems to decide against it. Her face flits from surprise to panic before she appears to gather herself together and gives them a small smile.

  It’s too late though – she looks guilty. Smeaton is confused. He opens his mouth to speak, but Ford gets there first.

  ‘Where’s Jack?’ Ford’s voice is filled with venom.

  ‘He’s sleeping, he’s—’

  ‘He’s been sleeping a lot these past few days.’ Ford says. ‘What exactly is wrong with him?’

  Ali sighs, looks away. ‘Look, I didn’t want to tell you when we arrived. He’s … he’s had some issues. Some mental-health issues. The doctors were trying to label him, drug him – take him away for evaluation – all of that. I – we – didn’t want it. That’s why I brought him here. I thought it was all stress, you know? I thought the fresh air and the change of pace would sort him out, I thought—’

  ‘That’s bullshit, Ali. You’ve been drugging him, haven’t you? I could tell the difference. I’m not stupid. The first few weeks with me, he was completely fine. He seemed happy. Then recently something changed. He became spaced out. I asked him what was wrong and he said he got confused sometimes. That he couldn’t remember things…’

  ‘Maybe we should go and sit downstairs and have a nice cup of tea,’ Smeaton says. ‘Discuss this calmly.’

  Ford ignores him. ‘You know what I used to do before I came here, right?’

  Ali shakes her head.

  ‘I was in the Met. North of the river. Major Investigations. Burned me out. Too much shit, so I gave it up and found this place. I needed a complete change. Jack was the same, yeah? He told me. West London – child protection. More awful stuff than anyone ever needs to deal with in their life.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ali says. She sounds confused.

  Smeaton is confused too. ‘You knew him?’ he says.

  ‘No. Of course not. Do you know how many officers are currently serving in the Met? Besides, I’m at least ten years older. I was gone long before Jack started to run into difficulties.’

  ‘What do you mean, difficulties?’ Smeaton is worried now. He hopes his imagination is running away with him.

  ‘I did a bit of checking. Asked a couple of mates still in the force to look him up. I was intrigued. Don’t ask me why. He was reluctant to talk about stuff, and I started to wonder if he was lying – about having been police.’

  Ali shakes her head. She’s smiling now. Looks relieved. ‘Why would he lie? He didn’t do anything wrong. He had a clean sheet. The pressures got to him. Hardly surprising.’

  ‘Mate of mine told me his sheet wasn’t quite clean. That there were mistakes. Questions asked about why a vulnerable child was left in a home with an abusive father. Jack was acting strangely, they said. Made some poor decisions.’

  ‘I told you, he was stressed. They sent him for all these tests. Couldn’t find out what was wrong. You’re right, he wasn’t himself. He was confused, his brain was mashed. It happens.’

  ‘And yet he got pensioned off without a blot on his record. This stuff was all off the record, right? My mate says there was talk of him being an addict. Says his division wanted to keep it quiet. Wouldn’t look good for them if a vulnerable child getting her legs broken by her junkie dad could’ve been avoided if the DI in charge of the case wasn’t off his head too.’

  Smeaton is taken aback. ‘Is this true, Ali? Is he an addict? Is he still using drugs? Because you know our policy on drugs here … We have people in recovery. We don’t have the facilities to deal with addicts here…’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong, but it doesn’t matter. We’re leaving. You people are not for us. This place is not for us, that’s clear.’

  Ford looks as if he wants to say something else, but Smeaton lays a hand on his a
rm.

  ‘Let us see Jack, maybe we need to call the local GP to have a look at him. Get him seen to before you leave.’

  Ali shakes her head. ‘There’s no need. Really. He’ll be embarrassed now, knowing that you know. He’s struggled to deal with it all. He hates it. Feels powerless. Please, just let me go to him now. Then tomorrow, we’ll pack up our things and we’ll be gone. I don’t think we’ve brought you any good feeling, have we? We seem to have unsettled everyone. Angela running off like that…’

  ‘Did she tell you she was leaving?’ Ford’s anger is bubbling again. Smeaton can tell that he is trying hard to keep it in check.

  ‘Of course not. We didn’t even get on. She didn’t like me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite true,’ Smeaton says. ‘She told me she’d tried, but that you weren’t receptive—’

  ‘To what? Her crazy babbling about ghosts? Of course I wasn’t receptive to any of that nonsense. A grown woman, going on about spirits and crystals and witches, for goodness’ sake. She was a fantasist, that’s putting it mildly…’

  Smeaton sighs. ‘Maybe you’re right to leave. This place isn’t for everyone.’

  ‘Maybe once you’re gone, the girl will come back,’ Ford says, and Smeaton gives him a look.