Dark Choir Read online

  Dan rung her from the landline. After a minute or so she picked up.

  “Is it still there?” Beverley said.

  “What? Bev, where are you? Did you come back to the house?”

  “I’m home, thank God. Oh yes, I came back all right. She attacked me, Dan. She was waiting for me in your mother’s bedroom. It was horrible. I didn’t recognize her at first. You told me she couldn’t walk, Dan. Well, she fucking well moved fast enough to get to me.”

  “What are you talking about? Who attacked you?”

  “Your sister, Dan. Lindsey chased me out of the house.”

  Twenty-Two

  Beverly wasn’t answering her phone. Dan had tried the next morning but to no avail. Alison had returned from her father’s early. He’d told her about the strange accusation from his fiancé.

  “But she can’t walk and, even if she could, which she can’t, Lindsey wasn’t here. She’s at Willow House.” Alison was stating the obvious, Dan knew. What she didn’t state, what Alison was thinking, was that perhaps Beverly wasn’t right in the head. “Why was she even here if you were down the pub?”

  “Like you have to ask. After the funeral we had a massive row. She went off in a mood then came back to try to patch things over. Do you think she imagined it?”

  “Perhaps our bald intruder returned and she encountered him?”

  “Right.” Dan sat down at the kitchen table while Alison folded sheets. “So, you believe that I saw someone.”

  “Of course. I saw the footprints. The statement written on the wall. It’s very likely she saw someone. It wasn’t Lindsey, though. If I may say so, that’s a very strange accusation to make.”

  “The man I keep seeing. The word ‘choir’ written here and at the asylum. The fact that the man, when he came, got out without opening a window. As for that graffiti, he must have flown up and written that word above Lindsey’s bed. It’s weird. My mate, Karl, reckons there’s something else going on. Something supernatural.”

  “Perhaps your mate is right.”

  Dan frowned. “You think so? Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “When all rational explanations have been exhausted then that only leaves the irrational, the supernatural.”

  “So, that means you do?”

  “If I were you, I’d start looking beyond how it could happen and ask why. Like you said, that word ‘choir’ was seen by us at St. Vincent’s, was seen by your ghost hunter mate one night written in talcum powder, now it’s here. If you think someone or something is trying to tell you something, I’d start looking at St. Vincent’s, look into its history. There’s a museum in Scarsdale. Behind the library. I’d start there. They’ve got tons of local history stuff, and they could do with a visitor.”

  The penny dropped. There was no internet here, so he couldn’t look up the history of the asylum on the web. Local historians would be far more fastidious, he reckoned.

  “Why not go this afternoon?” suggested Alison. “I’m going to clean this house from top to bottom, and I don’t really want you lounging about.”

  “Why bother? Let Widdowson’s cronies do it.”

  “We still have to live here for the next few days, maybe weeks,” she said, walking out with armfuls of sheets. “And I don’t know how long Lindsey and me will be here, so off you go. You can pick up the Morris from Morrison’s before the manager rings up again and complains.”

  He rambled though the hills into town and found the Morris still in the same spot where he’d parked it yesterday with an angry note from the supermarket manager pinned to the windshield wipers. He went into the supermarket and apologized to the manager before heading to the museum behind the library.

  In a tiny street of granite cottages stood what once must have been an old mill. A faded wooden sign hung to the left of a narrow door.

  SCARSDALE MUSEUM

  The door stood open and led to a set of narrow wooden stairs. He went up the stairs and entered a wide brightly-lit room with display cases around the sides and ancient farming implements displayed in the centre of the room. It wasn’t much to look at, but there was another room to the side. To his immediate left was a blown-up picture of Scarsdale high street from the start of the last century, all women in bonnets and horse and carts.

  There was a table, papers scattered across the surface, and a chair. He assumed this is where you paid to look around the museum. There was no one here. To the right, he noticed an open door then heard the sound of a kettle boiling and someone whistling.

  Dan was struck by the realization that whomever he spoke to here, the curator or person running the museum, would want to know why he was looking into the history of the asylum and why he would be looking, particularly, for any historical evidence of a bald man in a robe and a choir.

  Sod it. He’d be out of here in a week. Lindsey had her place at Willow House; Social Services had agreed to fund it. Widdowson would have the house and he’d be in London. Perhaps all this wouldn’t matter then, would just be an unsolved curiosity. He had more pressing things to think about. Dan was on the verge of walking out when Karl exited the kitchen carrying a steaming coffee and a folder in the other hand.

  He looked surprised to see Dan standing there. “Hello, mate. How did you know I worked here? Mooey and Billy didn’t mention it to you, did they?”

  “I didn’t know you worked here?”

  “Well, I volunteer actually. When I can. Can I help?”

  “I…well…is there someone here in charge? A curator?”

  Karl sat down. “You’re looking at him. I’m the curator.”

  Dan fully expected to be spending the afternoon with some stuffy old local historian wearing tweed, trying not to give too much away about why he was here and sound insane. As Karl knew half the story already, Dan realised this would be a lot easier than he’d thought.

  Twenty-Three

  “So, since these incidents, I’ve done quite a bit or research.” Karl pushed his glasses up onto his nose.

  He and Dan sat at the table with sheets of paper and photographs spread across it. He’d made Dan a coffee and they’d delved straight into the research. Karl had amassed records and photographs pertaining to the history of St. Vincent’s and the St. Brendan’s site. He’d got hold of ancient medical notes, letters (official and unofficial) diaries, and photographs. He’d tracked down old staff members and, with permission, raided their lofts and sheds in the pretense of making a display for the museum. He thought it best not to tell them the real reason he was so interested in the old asylum.

  Karl was almost fanatical in his work, and Dan wondered what compelled him to pick through all this information. Surely not just that lone ghost sighting.

  “So, I wanted to find anything to do with a choir at St. Vincent’s. I tracked down a nurse who’d worked there when she was young and she relayed a story to me which seemed a bit far-fetched. I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, I dug through all the medical notes, going back to the forties, and uncovered this man.”

  Karl held up a picture of a black-haired individual in tweed wearing round glasses. The lens frames appeared forced into the creases of his pudgy face. The photo was black and white, obviously had been taken in the forties or fifties.

  “This is Doctor Henry Proctor. Total bastard by all accounts.”

  Karl held up another picture of the same man standing beside a grey-haired priest on the grounds of St. Vincent. Dan assumed him to be a priest as he had a clerical collar and long vestments. In the background, apple trees hung laden with fruit and the tower of the asylum rose up from behind them. Karl showed another picture of the vicar surrounded by a group of girls. He counted them and there were ten.

  “This is Father Fergal Fallon,” Karl explained. “He was chaplain to the hospital. The girls behind him were patients. The old lady I spoke to remembered these kids from when she worked there. They were incarcerated for a number of reasons. I found them mentioned in patient
files. She,” he pointed to a dark-haired girl on the left, “was locked up for wetting the bed. She had Down syndrome but was pretty high-functioning. The rest were all locked up for having sex before marriage or refusing to eat. Apart from two boys. George Simmonds and Frank Abbot. George was locked up for being ‘backward.’ Frank, because he stole things. Some of the girls had babies which were taken into care. Others, well, didn’t get pregnant but were incarcerated for improper conduct, anyway.”

  “Harsh. When was this?”

  “The forties. See her,” he pointed to a girl just to the right of the Father. “This is Marianne Moore, aged fifteen. This,” he pulled out large, blown up picture of a woman in middle age, “is Marianne Moore in 1944.”

  Dan studied the photograph. The woman had no hair and a gaunt look in her eyes.

  “This was taken by a guy who worked at St. Vincent’s just before it closed down. He was a nurse there.”

  “So, she’d been there all that time?”

  “Yes. Look closely at her head, above the eyes.”

  Dan squinted. He could see healed scar tissue in four pronounced streaks above her thin eyebrows. “What are these scars?”

  “She was lobotomized at the age of sixteen. They all were. By Doctor Proctor. They were in the children’s wing until the age of sixteen, then they were brought up to the adult wards. I found this letter written by Proctor advising that they all have brain surgery to remove the malfunctioning brain tissue. Great, isn’t it. While British troops were fighting Nazis in the rest of Europe, back home, in Britain, we had our own concentration camps, cutting lumps out of people’s brains.”

  “What did he hope to achieve?” Dan was beginning to feel quite queasy seeing this.

  “A cure. He failed. He performed the same operation on all of them but with varying degrees of success. Or damage, I should say. According to his reports from 1942, some of them could still speak but others had lost that ability. He’d poked about in the frontal lobes so their ability to remember was fucked, but they behaved themselves. The frontal lobe manages the personality of a person. He annihilated their personalities. These girls and boys lived the rest of their lives in St. Vincent’s. The guy who took that photo of Marianne also took a picture of Frank.”

  Karl handed Dan a picture of a man with deep set eyes and a wide bald head, also scarred.

  “Martin, the nurse who took this picture, said Frank could only say two things. His own name and ‘Lloyd George,’ apparently. He called these two names out randomly, Martin said. He couldn’t wash or dress himself, was incontinent. He died in 2000. He was locked up in 1941 for stealing a tractor and driving it around. So, before Proctor had got hold of him, he’d been just a normal guy.”

  “This is all really fucked up,” said Dan, staring at the picture. “How does the father fit into it?”

  “Oh, he was the good guy. He was nice to them. Now we get to the relevant part.”

  “Right,” said Dan, creasing his brow.

  Karl leaned over the table. “He took these ten young people when they arrived and formed them into a choir.”

  “Okay.”

  “The old nurse I spoke to said they had beautiful voices. They’d put on concerts in the big hall and villagers would come to listen. Father Fallon even took them out to churches to sing, to Lincoln Cathedral once. I can imagine it, messed up patients finding purpose and talent in singing. It’s the sort of thing they make feel good films about now. The father really brought them out of themselves. He protested vigorously to Proctor’s plans to operate on them.”

  “So that was the end of the choir, then.”

  “Not quite.” Karl reached for a battered looking journal. “I was lucky to get hold of this. A journal kept by Father Fallon. He got them to perform after the operations. He wrote about it here.”

  “My fears about Doctor Proctor’s interventions were realised today when I saw my St. Vincent’s young people’s choir perform for the last time. I know his butchery had rendered them insensible. Nicola cannot remember me now. Martha cannot speak at all, and Frank can only say a few words now. Vera and Joan remain conversant but have flattened, emotionless expressions. Vera used to laugh, even in the most dire of circumstances, but can now barely raise a smile. Proctor, in his arrogance, assures me these deficits are only temporary and thinks that engagement in their usual activities will heal the damaged parts of the brain, or rather, other parts of the brain will take over the roles that permanently damaged parts of the brain can no longer perform. He wants me to reassemble the choir and have them perform before the hospital staff and villagers of Scarsdale to prove the operation has not affected them in their innate abilities. Half of them can hardly speak let alone sing the ‘Ubi Caritas.’”

  “It goes on a bit.” Karl flicked through the pages. “Here, this is the bit where they sing for the last time. The hall is full of hospital staff, villagers, and doctors.”

  “With no time to rehearse, they took to the stage. Even their Sunday best clothes couldn’t disguise the dead eyes and life-robbed faces. I conducted them and as one they vocalized. I say vocalized as what came out of their mouths could not be described as singing. Off key wailing and screaming. Some memory of our time singing had remained as they were trying, but the awful noises were both horrific and tragic. Most of the audience sat there awkwardly, clearly wanting it to end and, to my shame and disgust, some even laughed. Some of the people actually laughed. Not just villagers but orderlies and even some doctors. The one laughing most at this tragic scene was Proctor himself.

  “I ceased conducting, but they didn’t stop. They carried on, their wails and screams almost expressing a rage, a deep despair. The sound was distressing to behold and they wouldn’t stop. Even when told to by myself or several burly orderlies, they would not stop singing. I shouted at them to cease, but they carried on as if the vocal expressions provided some release. Even when Proctor’s orderlies dragged them back to the wards, they didn’t stop.

  “From my house on the grounds, I sit writing on this warm autumn night with the window open. I can still hear Nicola’s pig-like screeching, Vera wailing in low d notes. The sound seems to carry across the roofs of St. Vincent’s and I feel as if it’s a lament, no, an accusation. A remainder that I have failed each and every one of them.”

  Dan sat back. “Shit. That’s awful.”

  “The old woman I spoke to had been there that day. She said she’d never heard anything so awful in her life,” Karl said, “She said she still hears it some nights.”

  “What? So, you think there’s a ghost choir?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one who’s seen the ghosts.” Karl proffered two pictures towards Dan. The vicar and the doctor. “Do you recognize either of these two as your bridge guy and intruder?”

  “No, the one with the glasses. The vicar? He’s got hair and a friendly face. Baldy hasn’t.”

  Karl sat back in the seat. “I don’t know what it tells us.”

  “Perhaps someone else found out about this and is faking a haunting?”

  “This isn’t common knowledge about the town. The staff were told to keep quiet about this. I had to really dig to get this unearthed. It took a lot of work.”

  “Someone knows about it.”

  “Or something. Do you read ghost stories? M.R. James, for instance?”

  “I read a Stephen King once.”

  “Most ghost stories are about bringing something from the past, some hidden crime or sin, to light. This is what’s happening here, I think. They want us to know about it. They want this to be out in the open after all these years.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Them. The ghost choir.” He collected the cups and stood up. “I’ve still got a few more leads to check out. Have you ever heard of someone named Ann Prendergast? She was a nurse up at St. Vincent’s and then at St. Brendan’s.”

  “No. I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Appa
rently, she’s worked there the longest and knows the place inside out. Martin, the ex-nurse, told me this. She lived up on Belper Road but moved on a few years ago. I can’t find her anywhere. It’s like she’s disappeared from the face of the Earth.”

  “Good luck with finding her. I’ll probably be back in London by the time you track her down. Are you on Facebook? You can message me if you find anything else out.”

  Karl looked momentarily crestfallen. “You’re going back already.”

  “Not for a couple of days. I’ll still come in for a pint.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll appreciate it if you don’t tell Mooey and Billy about this. They’ll take the piss. They know I run the museum but nothing about the ghost stuff. Mooey can be a real dick, and I take this all very seriously. He’ll mouth off to everyone, and I want to keep it quiet. Until we find the truth.”

  Dan had already slipped his coat on ready to leave. “What do you mean?”

  “The singing. The single word message ‘choir’. I reckon if we dig hard enough, we’ll tear the lid off of one rotten stinking shit pile. I just know it. The dead, the ghost choir, won’t rest until it’s all out in the open.”

  “Right.” Dan backed away. “I always said you smoked too much when you were young.”

  Karl didn’t laugh. “What really makes me think we’re onto something is this.” He picked up the picture of the ten kids, pre-lobotomy. He pointed to the one called Marianne. “Her. As soon as I saw the picture, I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. I had. Like I could ever forget.”

  “You know her?”

  “Not exactly. The night we had the first ghost hunt up at St. Vincent’s. She was the one I saw that night in the asylum, the one who’d appeared to me when I was alone in the corridor. She stopped and looked at me. I wondered what that meant. Now I know. She wanted me to help, to uncover the truth.”