Blood Atonement (19 page)

desk in front of him.

‘I’m impressed. Thought they’d want a written application.’

‘They

did. But I made it clear there was little time to

waste. They want one sent retrospectively’

Nigel picked the packet up. Closed documents. It was

rare that a researcher like him got his hands on them, and he couldn’t deny the thrill. The front bore Margaret Howell’s name, date of birth and patient number. It was, to his disappointment, surprisingly thin.

He pulled out the records, a sense of rising excitement.

Foster sat down opposite, watching him closely.

The first document was Margaret Howell’s admittance

papers. The date was 29 May 1924. She was just fifteen

years old. ‘Looks like she spent her whole life in an

asylum,’ Nigel murmured to Foster as he scanned down

the document, which covered two pages.

The first part was biographical information. Age, occupation, religion, address, none of which seemed remarkable.

Then it mentioned ‘Age on first attack … 11’ before

going on to state that she had had several more attacks.

In legible hand, under the heading ‘Facts Specified in

Medical Certificate upon which Insanity was Founded’,

the reasons for her being deemed insane were listed.

She says that she and her family are cursed by a past event. She believes they will be hunted down and killed for the deaths of others. She exhibits strong symptoms of paranoid behaviour which often degenerate into seizures and fits. Her next of kin dismiss the idea that they are in any way in danger and deny any knowledge of her misdemeanours that may explain Miss behaviour.

Nigel read it out to Foster, together with another paragraph under ‘Other Facts Indicating Insanity’ in which the doctor, presumably the one who committed her, noted

that her family were frightened by her frequent mood

swings, her delusions and her constant reiteration that

they would all die for their sins. In their view she had become a danger to herself and a nuisance to them.

The second page carried a black and white photograph

of a terrified and bewildered-looking girl. Her eyes were hollow, her cheekbones sharp and her face devoid of any discernible tone. He showed it to Foster.

‘Jesus, that’s a kid. How many people were in this

place?’

‘Back then? Around three thousand people.’

What exactly was wrong with her?’

Nigel scoured the page. Alongside the photo was a line

stating ‘Form of Disorder’. Next to it were written the

words ‘Paranoid Schizophrenia’.

There followed a more detailed physical description.

Her physical condition was ‘feeble’. Her temperament

‘volatile’. Her skin also showed bruises from her latest ‘attack’. There were more details of the history of her condition — a series of attacks between the age of eleven and her admittance, of increasing severity and duration.

No mention was made of any paranoid behaviour. She

was admitted to Ward 4.

The next set of case notes was dated little more than a

year later. It noted the effects of treatment on Margaret.

The handwriting was, even for a physician, almost impossible to decipher despite Nigel’s years of practice in the art. There was one phrase he could make out and it made

his stomach turn. Electroconvulsive therapy.

‘They gave her electroshock treatment,’ he told Foster.

‘When?’

‘It had started by the time these case notes were written, just over a year after she was admitted. The handwriting is difficult to make out. But there’s a sentence here that says she was responding well to the treatment and her delusional episodes were getting more infrequent.’

‘Let’s hope someone made a note of what those episodes

were before they shocked her into becoming a zombie.’

‘She must have retained some lucidity if she was able to scare Edith Chapman.’

‘Do we know when Edith Chapman visited her?’

“I presumed it was over a period of time, and sometime

near the birth of her son. But we have no way of knowing.

I suppose she could have come to see her aunt when

she was younger and whatever she heard and saw stayed

with her.’

‘That would make sense to me,’ Foster said. ‘I can see

why a kid would be scared by the rantings of a mad

woman, particularly if she visited her in some Gothic

madhouse where people screamed and climbed the walls.

But as she grew up, got older, why would she believe the words of a schizophrenic?’

‘There’s a long history of people who suffer from

mental illness being viewed as possessed, either by spirits but more often the Devil. Edith Chapman was a religious woman. Perhaps she believed God was sending

her a message. I don’t know. Maybe her aunt was so

convincing she couldn’t believe it was anything other

than true.’

He ploughed on through the file. Nothing for several

years, until 1947, more than two decades after she was

admitted. A different doctor this time, thankfully one

with decipherable handwriting. Nigel scanned it first, but as he realized its importance he began to read out loud to Foster.

The patient continues to make slow yet gradual progress. Discussion was taken about whether to carry out a surgical operation, but rejected in favour of continued elelectrocompulsive therapy. The patient last experienced a seizure more than a year ago an encouraging sign. A possible discharge has been discussed, but the patient herself states that she would rather stay where she feels safe. It is her delusion that she and members of her family are at risk from persons unnamed for acts perpetrated towards the end of the last century. The patient swears that on her death bed, her Grandmother informed her of a horrible family secret. According to the patient, her grandfather was eventually found and killed by people seaking revenge for the deaths of the inocent, and that they would not stop until every descendant of the family has been dispatched in a similar manner. She is convinced that if she were to return to the outside world she would fall victim, so asks to stay. She can provide no proof of this wild story. She says her Grandmother took the secret to the grave with her.

Very few of the family, apart from her young niece, who comes once or twice a year call in to visit her. When I approach them to test out the veracity of Miss Howell’s claims they insisted there was no truth in them whatsoever. No matter how well she responds to the ECT treatment, her paranoia shows no sign of subsiding. I fear Miss Howell will be in our care for most of her life, unless she dissists in making these wild claims and seaks to live a life in the outside world. Alas, she is showing every sign of becoming institutionalized.

Nigel felt like punching the air. A breakthrough. Here was the first mention of a past crime, the ‘deaths of the innocent’, that could provide a motive for the present-day murders. But what was the horrible crime that left so

many dead, if indeed it did exist? Foster was more concerned with a different unsolved crime.

‘What did Horton Rowley’s death certificate say?’

‘Killed beneath an omnibus.’

‘There was no indication of foul play?’

‘None mentioned on the death certificate. They held an

inquest but the coroner must have deemed it was an accident.

I would get the records from the inquest but I know

for a fact that no records exist from 1909. They tended to destroy them when a coroner stood down, or kept many of them for fifteen years afterwards. Not much help to us.

There might be a few newspaper accounts, but omnibus

accidents were not rare occurrences and we’d be lucky to find more than a news item in brief. Might be worth a try, though.’

Foster didn’t respond. He took the records from Nigel

and read the entry again. He put it down. ‘Then we have

absolutely no proof this woman was telling the truth. This isn’t enough. Her words alone won’t help us. We need to corroborate her story if we can. If not, it’s just a mad woman ranting. What else is in here?’

In 1950 Margaret was admitted to the infirmary with a

fractured pelvis incurred when she was being pinned

down during her ECT treatment. Her treatment was

altered in 1952, when a medical note stated that she had been given a leucotomy. Nigel took off his glasses and rubbed his brow wearily.

‘What’s that? Foster asked.

Nigel knew exactly what it was. He remembered tracing

the family history of one client, which had led him to the asylum and the depredations that took place there in the name of treatment. ‘A lobotomy,’ he said.

‘Jesus.’

‘They went into the brain under the eyelid with an

instrument shaped like a small ice pick. Then they cut the nerves at the front. It was very quick. Some surgeons prided themselves on how many they could do in one

shift.’

‘But what good could it possibly do?’ Foster asked.

Who knows? I suppose you might be less inclined to

have a fit or a bout of hysteria with half your frontal lobe severed. It was quite popular for a time. Particularly on women.’

A short note from 1954 described the earlier operation

as a success. Both her anxiety and obsession had been

brought under control. The same doctor mentioned that

from then on she would be prescribed thorazine. Her

discharge had been discussed but as there were no family members wishing to take her in, and there were fears about how she would cope in the outside world after so

long in an institution, it was decided she should stay.

From that point on the notes were infrequent and

terse. In 1959 she was hospitalized with a bout of pneumonia.

No one revisited her case, or commented on her

treatment. She existed until 1964 when a small paragraph noted matter-of-factly that she experienced a seizure, fell and as a result of her injuries was taken to an

infirmary where, Nigel knew from her death certificate,

she later died.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, each lost in their own thoughts. Nigel pictured a frail young woman, terrified by life, scared of what lurked round every corner, strapped down, electrodes attached to her body, in an

attempt to divest her of a mania that may have had a

grounding in truth, before severing the nerves in the

brain that connected her cortex to her thalamus and then anaesthetizing her further with strong medication. Little wonder her condition ‘improved’. In his mind’s eye she sat, childlike and silent in the corner of a crowded ward, ignorant of the wailing and gibbering, a numb, muted life. He only hoped the treatment she’d endured rendered her oblivious to the horror of her situation.

At the same time, he wondered if he would ever be able

to discover where Horton and Sarah Rowley came from

and the truth behind the cataclysmic event that their

granddaughter spoke of, the distant echoes of which were still being felt.

Nigel remembered a programme he once caught on the

radio, about the effects of nuclear fallout. The fusion

products from an air burst are sucked up into the stratosphere, dispersed by the winds, eventually settling across the wide earth in rainfall for years to come, with unpredictable effects that would only later be known.

Much like the past.

The problem appeared insurmountable. As Margaret

Howell told the doctors, her ancestor seemed to have

taken the secret with her when she died.

Then he remembered. He grabbed Foster’s arm, causing

the detective to stiffen.

What?’

‘I think I know where we might find out more about

what Sarah and Horton were running away from.’

Where?’

‘In Sarah Rowley’s grave.’

‘You want us to dig her up?’

Foster thought Nigel was joking at first, but the zealous gleam in his eye indicated otherwise. He was being serious.

‘Do you know how difficult it is to get an exhumation

done? The Home Secretary has to grant it. You need a

very, very good reason.’

Nigel kept on nodding, eyes ablaze.

‘What do you think we’re going to find — a document

that conveniently explains what happened to her, and

therefore what happened to Naomi Buckingham?’

‘I don’t know. But she asked in her will that she be

buried with a metal box. Why would you insist on being

buried with something unless you didn’t want people to

get their hands on it? It might not lead us to Naomi

Buckingham or her mother’s killer, but it might move us

closer.’

Foster rubbed his chin. It wouldn’t be an easy ask. For

a start, the main argument for exhuming the body came

from the mouth of a certified lunatic. The mention of the box in the will altered things slightly, but he knew there was no way Harris would sanction it as part of the investigation.

‘The

will said it was metal?’

Nigel nodded.

‘Well, it may have survived, then.’ He continued to

stroke his chin. ‘Do you know where she’s buried?’

‘East Ham cemetery. I can find the location of the

grave.’

Nigel was still wild-eyed. Hidden secrets in a grave.

Foster could see this must be a genealogist’s wet dream.

That would change if he ever attended an exhumation

and saw that the reality was less romantic. Foster sighed, not quite believing what he was about to do.

‘I might be able to swing this,’ he said. ‘However, if I do, you’ll need to be there with me. She comes out of the ground and goes back in. We have a look in situ.’

He could see the excitement bleed from Nigel’s face,

along with all the colour. Not quite as thrilling now, he thought.