Close Encounters of the Strange Kind

by Michael Kerr

  “Oy, what goes on?” A peeler cried, racing down the alley, his truncheon drawn.

  “I...I...found―” Jimmy started, holding forth the knife.

  The oak cudgel smashed into his temple, knocking him senseless, denying him the chance of reasonable explanation.

  The result of the subsequent trial was a foregone conclusion. Jimmy had been found next to the victim’s body, with the bloody weapon in hand and his clothing besmeared. Guilty, was the unanimous verdict of the jury, of murder done with malice; a heinous crime. The judge produced what looked to be a jet-black silk handkerchief and placed it over his powdered wig. At this, a hush descended on the courtroom as all present waited with bated breath to hear the passing of the death sentence.

  Jimmy had to be held upright as he was informed that he would be hanged by the neck until dead. The judge added that he trusted God would show more compassion to him than he had shown his innocent young victim.

  The morning of the execution duly arrived. Jimmy could not eat, and had he not been going to swing, then would most certainly have starved away. His heart was as leaden as his feet as he was led to the topping shed of Wandsworth prison. And on climbing the wooden steps of the scaffold on rubbery legs, he began to cry.

  The hangman had weighed and measured the boy to calculate the drop. Too long a drop and the head could be torn from the body; too short and the subject would asphyxiate and suffer a slow demise. It had to be just right, if professional pride was to be maintained. When executed properly, the hapless subject would fall to almost instantaneous death. The neck would break, and the corpse would make a half turn to the right and hang still.

  Charles Plimpton was one of several hangmen used on a regular basis. He would travel in from Woking and dispatch maybe ten condemned men and women during a five day period. The fee was low, considering the infrequency and nature of his trade, and bearing in mind that just one bungled job could put him off the list, out of favour and poorer for it.

  Jimmy stood on the trap with difficulty, shaking and in the grip of a terror that crushed his heart in an icy grip, as his stomach churned in the manner of a ball of squirming eels fighting to untangle themselves.

  The hangman, quick as a fox, secured Jimmy’s wrists and ankles with well worn leather straps.

  “I di...didn’t do it, ‘onest, guv,” Jimmy said with his eyes awash and face as white as high grade flour.

  “I know, son. I know,” the executioner replied as he lowered the hood and then tightened the noose around the youngster’s neck.

  The trap was loosed, and yet another tormented soul dropped through, on a swift journey to heaven or hell.

  “An unpleasant task well carried out,” said Henry Marsh, the prison governor. “Thank you Charles, you always send them off quick and clean.”

  “It is my pleasure to be of service once again,” Charles replied, his comment heartfelt and sincere; his work a vocation, nothing less than a labour of love.

  Replacing his top hat, the hangman left the platform, a sparkle in his oil-black eyes, and the trace of a smile on his thin-lipped mouth.

  “Let me assist,” he said in a deep, rich voice as the body was taken down. He was eager to reclaim his straps, hood and rope and be on his way.

  As he stepped through the prison’s gate, Charles absently rubbed his lantern jaw, and then reached into a pocket for his silver cigarette case.

  Late that very evening, again in shrouding fog, the hansom rattled through the cobbled side streets of Whitechapel. It was back to Woking in the morning, and Charles wanted to make the most of his last night in the city.

  8

  DO YOU BELIEVE?

  Waking up at four in the morning to find a total stranger standing at the side of the bed looking down at her was to say the very least extremely alarming.

  Elizabeth could not move a muscle. Her entire body felt as though it had been pumped full of Novocaine. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the figure, which was softly lit by the pearly lunar light that shone coldly through the bedroom window. Time stood still. The scene in the room could have been a tableau in a waxwork museum.

  The uninvited visitor was a young woman. Her alabaster-white face was impassive. Only the eyes – as dark as midnight – were expressive. They gleamed wetly and were full of such deep sorrow that Elizabeth could almost feel a tangible aura of melancholy, so powerful that it spiked her heart and depressed her spirit.

  The woman was clothed in a thick cotton nightdress that covered her from neck to ankles. The garment appeared to be saturated. It clung to her body, moulding itself to her shapely figure. And her mahogany tresses were plastered to her head. She might have just stepped out of the shower, or have been caught out in a sudden downpour, had it been raining outside.

  After what seemed a small eternity, the figure began to lose substance, drifted backwards and amalgamated with the shadows in the corner of the bedroom.

  Elizabeth woke with a start and shot up into a sitting position. Thank God! The incident had been no more than a vivid, scary dream. And yet it had left her feeling morose and unsettled. Strange how some dreams could linger and set the mood for several hours, while others evaporated within seconds of waking and could not be recalled to mind. If she dreamed of happy and heart-warming events, then she felt buoyant and carefree. But a nightmare left a dour mental aftertaste that might persist for much of the day.

  Climbing out of bed, Elizabeth wished that Richard was with her. They had only relocated to this isolated neck of the woods in Wiltshire two week ago, and he had flown out to New York City five days later, to make presentations of some architectural plans that he and Donald Mercer, his business partner, were trying to sell to interested parties: a new concept of public housing that might integrate communities, rather than isolate them in utilitarian high-rise projects that were, historically, breeding grounds for crime and assorted antisocial behaviour.

  With a sharp intake of breath, Elizabeth jumped back and stared at the pool of water on the varnished floorboards. She knelt, put her finger to the wet patch and felt a painful jolt, which could have been an electric shock, shoot up her arm. This was weird. She looked up at the bedroom ceiling, expecting, or more precisely hoping to see a damp stain or a drip forming, ready to fall from bulging plaster. But the ceiling was smooth and dry. There was no leak from the plumbing in the loft.

  After mopping and drying the floor, Elizabeth went downstairs to fill and switch on the kettle as she attempted to think of an explanation to the conundrum. How could she believe that the soaking figure had been a product of her sleeping mind, when she had woken to find a pool of water at the exact spot where the young woman had been standing? And if some lunatic had broken in and stood over her as she slept, then surely there would have been some sign of forced entry. The nineteenth-century detached house was constructed of solid Yorkstone, and the windows were all double glazed. Being alone for a few days, she had been sure to check that they were locked before going to bed. And the front and back doors were not only dead bolted, but had security chains in place. No one had entered by conventional means, of that she was certain. What other explanation could there be? Had a ghost made an appearance? Perhaps stepped out from the depths of the lake, where its southernmost shore terminated at the bottom of the long back garden, to then approach the house and pass through solid stone.

  Shaking her head, perplexed and unnerved, Elizabeth made a pot of tea, poured a cup and headed for a small reception room at the front of the house that she had begun to transform into a studio.

  Elizabeth Gallagher was an artist, specialising in illustrating children’s books. She was presently racing to meet a deadline, producing work for the ‘Samantha and the Magic Chalice’ series by Shirley Peterson. It gave her the opportunity to create living trees and gargoyles, trolls and dragons, and all sorts of strange and wonderful characters that the author had ‘imagineered’.

  Switching on the radio, Elizabeth settled into her new swivel chair,
positioned a blank sheet of thick watercolour paper on the desk in front of her, and with no predisposition to do so, picked up a pencil and began sketching the phantom that had appeared before her. The resulting likeness to the face she had dreamed of was uncannily accurate. And the haunting, baleful expression in the eyes seemed almost hypnotic. This was a portrait of someone real, she thought. There was no way that she could have captured such a depth of personality and fine detail without a living...or dead subject. At least that was what she chose to believe.

  Richard phoned at ten p.m. that evening, which made it five p.m. in New York. He was excited. It appeared that the Americans loved the plans and were going to commission Richard and Donald to commence work that might make them extremely wealthy, and would no doubt elevate their reputation on both sides of the Atlantic.

  “I’m going to have to stay over here for another three or four days, Beth,” Richard said. “Can you bear to be without me for so long?”

  “I’ll manage, somehow,” she said with a wry grin. “I have my work, and there’s still a lot of unpacking and sorting out to do. I expect you to buy me something very special on Fifth Avenue though, to make up for swanning off and leaving me in such a mess.”

  “I’m sure I can find an ‘I LOVE NEW YORK’ fridge magnet, or some tacky Statue of Liberty souvenir that you’ll like.”

  Elizabeth did not mention the strange and unexplainable episode. Richard was too far away to do anything, and might think it a ploy to cajole him into cutting short his trip. And in any case, he had no time for anything that his five senses did not encompass. After some small talk, he told her that he loved and missed her and said goodnight.

  Elizabeth indulged herself by moping for a few minutes, before regrouping and going through to the kitchen. She determined to have a glass or two of cabernet, curl up on the settee in the lounge, and watch an old movie on TV.

  The kitchen door to the garden was wide open. How could that be? She had checked it twice. The sensation of ice crystallising along the full length of her spine rooted her to the spot as she noticed the small foot-shaped pools of water that led from the door and across the quarry-tiled floor to the hallway. When able to free her locked muscles, Elizabeth followed the trail along the hall and into her studio.

  Hands fisted and knuckles pressed to her mouth, she stared in fear, revulsion and confusion at the dramatic alterations that had been made to the portrait she had drawn earlier in the day. The face was now unrecognisable; a shocking, emaciated countenance of death. The skin was missing in parts, revealing gleaming, chalk-white bone beneath it. And a purplish, swollen and impossibly long tongue poked out from the frozen, open-mouthed, toothy grimace. Worse, if that were possible, was the milky caul that robbed once beautiful eyes of all expression. And below the chin, the throat hung open in a gaping crescent smile.

  Elizabeth was transfixed. She could not understand what was happening. Was she going completely mad? Was this her own doing, or just an illusion produced by a disturbed mind?

  No! She would not accept that she was hallucinating, or worse, that she had gone insane. So what other explanation was there to consider? That the ghost of a beautiful young woman was trying to make contact with her? Had some tormented soul selected her to convey past events? Yes. She had been murdered by way of her throat being savagely cut. And why the water and plastered down hair? Was that from rain? No…the lake.

  As she watched, the drawing reformed to its previous configuration, with the subtle addition of a faint and enigmatic smile, no more expressive than that which Da Vinci had blessed the Mona Lisa with.

  As if in a fugue state, Elizabeth walked woodenly back through the house, out into the still night and down to the edge of the lake. Fifty feet from shore, as if on cue, she watched as a rowing boat slid out from a bank of fog. The spectral figure of a man hefted a bulky shape over the side, and the scene then dissolved. There had been absolutely no sound; not of oars against rowlocks, or the expected splash as the body, as Elizabeth was positive it was, hit the water.

  Moving forward, Elizabeth hunkered down on the age and water-smoothed pebbles and stared out at the place where she was now totally convinced that a young woman had been committed to the deep. What to do? Did she possess the courage necessary to phone the authorities, to risk being thought of as unbalanced, and to no doubt be ridiculed unmercifully?

  The following evening, having spent the day convincing herself that her story would be at best laughed at, Elizabeth determined to put the episode behind her, and not even tell Richard of her experience.

  As she approached the kitchen door to double-check that it was securely locked, wet footprints once more materialised on the tiled floor, to advance and then stop directly in front of her. A blast of air as cold as an Arctic wind blew her backwards, almost knocking her over. Elizabeth felt a presence, and spoke to the unseen spirit. “Okay, I’ll do something,” she said.

  The temperature rose, and the footprints faded and disappeared.

  The police divers took less than an hour to recover the corpse. Elizabeth had reported that she had seen a body being dumped in the lake, but was astute enough to omit the fact that what she had witnessed was an event that had not just taken place.

  “Her name is, or should I say was, Veronica Bryce,” Detective Sergeant John Fuller said to Elizabeth and Richard, a week after the gruesome discovery. “She and her husband, Colin, once lived in the house you have just moved into. When they left the area, there was no reason to believe that there had been foul play. We now know that Colin Bryce turned up in London, alone.”

  “He murdered her,” Elizabeth stated.

  “Yes. When faced with the evidence, he admitted everything. Confirmed that he had cut her throat and dumped her in the lake. He had weighted her down with scrap iron. What is bothering me, Mrs. Gallagher, is that you could not have witnessed the disposal of the poor woman’s body. What we found was a skeleton. She had been at the bottom of the lake for over twenty years.”

  Elizabeth looked over to where Richard was listening in shocked silence. She hiked her shoulders and sighed. “What can I say, Sergeant? Do you believe in ghosts?”

  9

  THE MAJESTIC

  The hundred yard stretch of private beach fronting the Majestic Hotel was a preserve for guests only, and Ronnie Harper policed it with the tenacity of a pit bull terrier guarding a leg of mutton.

  Ronnie had been employed as a porter, back in the fifties, when the old hotel was the stomping ground of the rich and famous, and top bands had appeared nightly to play the popular standards of the day in the regal environs of the art deco ballroom.

  The Majestic had truly lived up to its name, and Ronnie had been, and still was, proud to be an employee. He was the last of the old brigade, carrying the banner – so to speak – for all the maids, porters, lift attendants, catering staff and legions of low paid workers that had taken enormous pride in ensuring the smooth running of what was a grand and prestigious establishment.

  Now, at the age of seventy-five, Ronnie was still there. Not that he hefted luggage about these days, or had much contact with guests or management. Truth being, he was like a forgotten attic or cellar in a castle. His duties as caretaker-come-handyman were very light, and he spent much of his time on the beach, or in the small office next to the boiler-room in the bowels of the hotel.

  Ambling along one of the pipe-lined tunnels, which were lit dimly by begrimed light bulbs set so far apart that dark shadow encroached in the spaces between them, Ronnie succumbed to a bout of melancholia. It was the twelfth of July, a date forever etched in his mind. He paused to watch two large humpbacked rats scurry along a water pipe above his head, claws clicking on the gelid, dripping metal as they followed a well-used route to where there was access up into the kitchens’ storerooms. Non paying guests, Ronnie thought. Freeloaders, whose ancestors had probably taken up residence even before the grand opening of the hotel had taken place. What stories this old building could tell, of c
landestine affairs of the heart, and of suicides, murders and all manner of intrigue.

  Ronnie sighed. One incident that he had been personally involved in sprang to mind, making all else that had occurred at the Majestic pale before it. He stood in place, lost in reverie, his shoulders slumped and his head hung between them as he remembered back to the red-hot summer of seventy-six. As always on this date, he let his mind drift back through time, back to that horrific day…

  …At the age of thirty-eight, Ronnie was still as slim, fit, and as eager to please as he had been in his late teens and twenties. He enjoyed meeting people, and carried out his duties with good humour and a warm smile. Although on this sizzling July day he was sweating profusely in his thick, maroon serge tunic, praying for the end of his shift so that he could go home, strip down to his underwear and sit in front of the old fan, to listen to its blades creaking; turning so slowly that they seemed to be trying to cut through water, not thin air. What he would give at that moment to hold a can of chilled beer to his forehead, before chugging it down without pause.

  “Hey, Bellhop!” an American guest shouted from the front desk. “Get your scrawny butt over here.”

  Ronnie went across, fixing a practised smile on his face, and pushed the trolley heaped with the Yank’s suitcases and clothing to the nearest lift...or elevator, as the overbearing New Yorker would no doubt call it.