by Cavan Scott
“You said you weren’t going to use drugs.”
“I said that was my aim, Mrs Stevens, but when necessary such measures must be taken. John was becoming violent. One of the orderlies was injured, struck around the head. We couldn’t allow it to continue.”
Mrs Stevens made no attempt to argue the point, but it was clear from her face that she was seething beneath the surface.
“But we can see him now?”
“He’s awake, and mostly lucid. As I said, I very nearly told you not to come, but when you telephoned and informed me that Mr Holmes and Dr Watson were on their way…” Dougherty turned to us. “I really hope that you are able to help him, gentlemen, in whatever way you can. He really is a gentle soul, but so disturbed. He weeps in his sleep every night. And then there’s the strangest thing…”
“Go on.”
“He suffers nightmares most nights, but cries out in fluent German.”
“You think he picked it up on the front line?” Holmes asked.
“If that is where he was. There are certainly no records of any military service, and when he wakes, his mastery of German is gone, leaving him barely able to understand a single word. Indeed, most days he struggles to string together a sentence in English, let alone any other language.”
“Another symptom of his neurosis?”
“Quite possibly. There’s no way of telling. It’s getting to the point where we are considering electric treatment.”
“No,” Mrs Stevens exclaimed. “You can’t!”
“Please, keep your voice down,” the doctor said. “I can’t have the other patients disturbed.” Dougherty returned his attention to me, looking for solidarity. “It’s a last resort, Doctor, I am sure you understand. Maybe a shock to the brain would release the memories he has locked away. It could bring the real John back, whoever that may be.”
Holmes spoke up. “And where is the patient now?”
“I’ve had him placed in a containment room.” Dougherty raised a hand to stave off the rebuke that was sure to come from Mrs Stevens’ direction. “He is still highly agitated. I’m afraid that for everyone’s safety, we have had to place him in restraints.”
“That is not acceptable,” Mrs Stevens spat, her face flushed.
“But it is the only way for these gentlemen to conduct an interview. Do I make myself clear?”
Dougherty waited, like a schoolmaster laying down the law, and eventually Mrs Stevens conceded, nodding but not meeting his gaze.
“Excellent. If anything were to happen… well, the last thing we need is a public inquiry. We try our best here, but since the war…” Once again, the doctor turned to me. “We’ve worked hard to maintain standards, but it has been near impossible. Half the staff volunteered for service, our food has been rationed, and we have been forced to take more admissions than even our resources allow. Just keeping the therapeutic programme going has been a struggle. We haven’t always time…” His voice trailed off. “Well, we haven’t always the time to do everything we would like for these men and women.”
Mrs Stevens spoke, but I was pleased to hear that it was not her intention to offer more recrimination. “What you have done for John so far has been nothing less than miraculous, Doctor. I’m sorry for my outburst. I just so want this to work.”
I exchanged a look with Holmes, suddenly feeling guilty. Unaware of our ulterior motive, these people still believed that we were here for purely philanthropic reasons. That said, surely no one would complain if we could help this John in the process.
“Perhaps you can take us to him now?” Holmes said.
The doctor agreed, leading us to a door.
“I chose this room because it has a window,” Dougherty explained. “John likes watching the birds. They calm him, and on days like today, every little helps.”
He paused before the door. “Now, if I can ask you to be patient, and remain as passive as possible. No sudden movements or raised voices. If his condition worsens—”
“We understand,” said Mrs Stevens. “Thank you.”
The doctor smiled and fished a large ring of keys from his pocket. The door creaked slightly as it opened, revealing a featureless room with a solitary desk and chair at its centre, and three more chairs stacked against one wall, for us I presumed. John sat in the central chair with his profile towards us, gazing out of the small window.
What I was unprepared for was his size. The newspaper report said that he was tall, but the bulk of the man was immense. It looked like pure muscle too, albeit misshapen. He had a pronounced hunch on his back and his left shoulder was bunched up, as if it had been broken and not set properly. The arms beneath the flimsy asylum tunic were solid, and one could see at a glance the scarring Mrs Stevens had mentioned. It ran up and down those enormous arms, and across his thick neck.
And then there was his head, a grotesque mass of sutures knitting together anaemic skin. His dark hair was cropped short, ridged eyebrows jutting out beneath a monumental forehead.
We stood there for a full minute with no sign that the man was aware of our presence. Dr Dougherty gave a polite cough.
“John? It’s Dr Dougherty. You have visitors. John, can you hear me?”
Perhaps it was the sedatives, still lulling the man into a stupor.
Mrs Stevens tried this time. “John, it’s Cleone. I’ve come to see you.”
At the sound of her voice, that great head swivelled towards us, revealing more of the man’s ravaged face. The biggest scar of all ran from the top of his lumpy forehead, slashing across a flat nose to end on his right cheek, but it was the eyes that I could barely bring myself to look at. They were the same watery yellow as those that had glared at me in the corridor of Abberton Hospital.
Recognition flooded into the man’s face, bringing life to those dead eyes, and tugging his scored lips into a hideous approximation of a smile. What few teeth he had were jagged and almost as yellow as his eyes.
“Cleone,” he echoed, drool running down his square jaw. “Cleone here.”
It was the voice of an imbecile, sluggish and raw.
Mrs Stevens looked to Dr Dougherty and, when he had nodded his approval, took a step forward. “That’s right, John. I said I’d come back, didn’t I?”
A flicker of confusion registered on his brutish features.
“John?” She took another step. “That’s the name we chose together, do you remember? Until we find out who you really are. You said you liked it.”
John nodded, like a puppy wanting to please his mistress. I glanced at the shackles that were attached around his ankles, the skin raw against the metal. How could a man such as this be a threat?
“Like it. Yes. John. Like it.”
“I’ve brought someone to visit, John. Someone who might be able to help work out where you came from, who you are.”
“Help?”
“Yes, John. Help.” She indicated where we were standing. “These are my friends, Mr Holmes and Dr Watson.”
“Friends, good,” said John, still not taking his rheumy eyes from Mrs Stevens.
“Yes, they are. Very good. Would you like to meet them?”
John nodded so hard that, ridiculously, I feared that the stitches on his neck would split open. “Yes. Meet friends. Yes.”
Dr Dougherty indicated for us to enter, warning us again not to excite his patient. John was already shaking his restraints in eagerness. We approached cautiously, and Holmes and I unstacked the three unoccupied chairs for ourselves and Mrs Stevens. John’s eyes nervously flicked from Cleone Stevens to us, and he sank back into his chair.
Mrs Stevens took the chair furthest from the door and made soothing noises. “That’s it, John. Nothing to worry about. Remember, these are friends. They’ve come to help.”
“Yes. Friends, help. Friends, good.”
“Friends are very good,” said Holmes, never breaking eye contact with the terrified man. “My name is Holmes and this is Watson.”
John shot a look
in my direction. “Hair on face.”
I laughed, and the man chuckled with me. “That’s right. It’s a moustache.”
“Moustache. Funny.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes. Like moustache.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. My wife isn’t keen.”
The laughter stopped and John frowned, his slab-like brow creasing. “Wife.”
Mrs Stevens’ head cocked to one side. “You’ve never used that word before, John. Did you have a wife?”
There was no response, the patient rocking slightly in his chair.
“John?” she tried again.
Suddenly the spell was broken and John laughed again, pointing at me with his shackled hands. “Hair on face. Hair on face.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I suppose you are right. It does look rather funny.”
There came another lightning-fast change of subject, as John showed his hands to Mrs Stevens, with a movement so abrupt his restraints clattered against the bolt on the table. Dr Dougherty made to jump forward, ready to intervene, but there was no need.
“Put John in chains,” the patient explained. “Look.”
“So I see,” said Mrs Stevens. “Is it very sore?”
“Sore, yes. John, bad.”
“No, no you’re not.”
He nodded again, this time solemnly. “John hurt man. Man trying to help. John sorry.” He looked piteously at Dr Dougherty. “John want to come out now.”
“You will,” replied the doctor. “After your friends have gone.”
That seemed to please John. He turned back to us and smiled that strange gappy grin. “Yes, friends. John friends.”
“Can your friend ask you some questions, John?” Holmes enquired.
Another nod. “John like questions. Fun.”
“Yes, they are, aren’t they? Do you like it here, John?”
The man glanced at the window. “John can see birds.”
“No, I don’t mean in this room. In this building, where you live?”
“John live here now.”
“Yes.”
“John like it. Men kind.” Another shadow passed over his face. “John hurt man. John, bad.”
Mrs Stevens went to interject, but Holmes continued. “Where did you live before, John?”
The patient stared at Holmes as if he were incapable of understanding the question.
“John live here.”
“Yes, but before. Before you came here. Where did you live?”
John shook his head. “Nowhere. John nowhere to go. No one to go to.”
“Were you in France, John? Before you came here. Before you saw Ellie.”
A jolt went through the man, as if he had received the electric charges Dr Dougherty had already planned.
“Ellie. Saw Ellie.”
“Careful,” warned Dr Dougherty, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
“Yes, you saw her, didn’t you? Saw Ellie, your wife.”
This time Mrs Stevens did cut in. “No, Mr Holmes. You’ll confuse him. Ellie Grimshaw was definitely not his wife. She never married.”
“Not wife,” the man confirmed. “Not Ellie.”
“I think we should try another line of questioning,” Mrs Stevens suggested.
“I agree,” the doctor concurred.
“Fiancée,” said John.
Mrs Stevens blinked. “What did you say, John? She’s your fiancée?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Ellie. Come back to me. Come back to me.”
“Is that what she said to you, John?” Holmes asked, looking the man straight in the eye. “Before you went away?”
“Not John. Didn’t say to John.”
“Then who did she say it to?”
“Come back to me. Ellie. Come back.”
Dr Dougherty was watching his patient, studying every twitch of the man’s face. “This is fascinating. We’ve never seen him react like this. Please, Mr Holmes, carry on.”
At the sound of his voice, John looked at the doctor, distracted.
“No, John,” Holmes commanded, his voice sterner. “Look at me. I’m talking about Ellie.”
“Fiancée.”
“Your fiancée?”
“Not John.”
“No, because you’re not John, are you? That’s not your real name.”
“Come back to me.”
“Before you went away. Before you went to France.”
Again, Mrs Stevens interrupted. “He says he’s never been to France.”
“But you have, haven’t you?” Holmes said, not breaking the man’s gaze. “Is that where you got that tattoo on your chest?” I looked at the man’s neck and saw that, yes, there were three lines on his chest, poking out of the tunic.
“Is it a lion, John?” asked Holmes.
John looked down as if he had never seen the ink before. He went to pull his shirt over the markings, but the restraints stopped his hands. He tried again, more forcibly.
“Calm down, John,” warned Dr Dougherty.
“But you want to see it, John, don’t you? The tattoo you got on your chest in France. Because you were in France, weren’t you?” Holmes’s voice was becoming harder by the second, and the patient was looking more and more confused. Beside us, Mrs Stevens was quite literally on the edge of her seat.
“Mr Holmes, I think that perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. I thought you would just want to see him, to—”
Holmes raised a hand to silence her. “But John wants to talk to us, don’t you, John? You want to tell us about Ellie, your fiancée, about getting your tattoo. In France.”
“No,” he moaned.
The doctor stepped forward, saying that the session was at an end.
“Not France,” John continued. “Not been. Mother cared for me. Mother knows best.”
“Your mother?” Holmes asked.
“He talks of his mother a lot, and yet can’t tell us her name,” Dougherty said.
“Mother looks after. Mother cares.”
“We think that he’s reverted back to childhood memories,” continued Dougherty. “Yet even those evade him.”
Holmes had never taken his eyes off the patient. “Can you remember your mother’s face, John?”
John looked uncertain, cocking his great head as if the movement would dislodge his trapped memories.
“Caw, caw,” he cried out, mimicking a bird. “Caw, caw.”
He looked at the window, searching for his feathered friends.
“Caw, caw.”
“No, John, tell us about your mother. Tell us what she looks like.”
John gave a sharp shake of the head, still not looking at Holmes. “No. Can’t say.”
“Can’t, or won’t, John? Like you won’t tell us about France.”
John shifted in his chair. “Not been. Not been.”
“Yes, you have,” insisted Holmes. “You left Ellie to go to France; so smart in your uniform, ready to serve, to fight. For King and Country, John, do you remember? For Ellie.”
John shook his head violently now. “No. No France.”
“Yes, France. Wanting to go back to Ellie. She wanted you too, but when she saw you, she didn’t recognise you, did she? Didn’t know your name? What is your name?”
“Mr Holmes. I must insist—”
“John. Name John.”
“No. Your real name. The one that Ellie knew. The one she said when she told you to come home. Tell me that name.”
“No name.”
“Mr Holmes.”
“Tell me that name, soldier!”
“Mr Holmes, you should leave.”
“Danny.”
Everyone froze and looked at the man, who was staring at Holmes with a terrifying intensity. “Danny. Danny. Danny.”
“And that is your name. The name you had when you went to war? When you left Ellie? The name your mother gave you?”
The giant was rocking now, back and forth, still staring at Holmes, his chain creaking agai
nst the metal hook.
“Come back to me,” he muttered, over and over again. “Come back to me, Danny. Caw, caw, caw.”
Holmes wouldn’t let it go, despite the man’s obvious distress. “But you did come back.”
“Yes.”
“And she didn’t recognise you?”
“No.”
“Because of the way you look, because of your injuries.”
“No Danny.”
“Is that what she said? That you weren’t Danny? Is that what Ellie said to you?”
Holmes had pushed the man too far. Screaming Ellie’s name, John rose, sending his chair tumbling across the room. The restraints snapped as if they were paper and the giant grabbed the edge of the table, spinning it over so we were forced to jump out of the way.
“Orderlies!” Dougherty called out, but John had already lunged across at Holmes, his still manacled hands wrapped around the detective’s throat. I tried to grab the man’s arm, but it was like trying to wrestle a statue to the ground. He lashed out, throwing me aside. I landed heavily on my bruised shoulder, crying out in pain.
The room was in chaos, Mrs Stevens shrieking at John to stop, the giant shaking Holmes’s head back and forth. Asylum staff poured in, trying to pull the madman from my friend, looping their arms around his monstrous chest, yanking at that immovable grip. And all the time he yelled: “Danny! No Danny! No Danny!”
Finally, when I feared that Holmes’s neck would break, Dr Dougherty himself stepped into the fray, thrusting a needle into the man’s own bulging neck. John screamed in fury, releasing Holmes to crack his elbow into the side of the doctor’s face. Dougherty went down, blood spurting from his nose, but the orderlies had hold of the patient now, stopping those murderous hands from returning to Holmes’s throat. I scrambled up, pulling Holmes free as they manhandled their patient to the ground, whatever drug Dougherty had pumped into his system finally taking effect. As he settled, the yellow eyes rolling up into their sockets, the last word he slurred was the name Holmes had plucked from his head.
“Danny. Danny. Dan…”
And all was quiet, save for our ragged breath.
Leaning back against the wall, Holmes rubbed his bruised throat. “Well, that went better than expected,” he rasped.
