This Haunted World Book One: The Venetian: A Chilling New Supernatural Thriller (12 page)

You’ve been living too long in a mental asylum!
Despite her despair, the thought made her laugh. She most certainly had! She was getting jumpy about everything. About to close the drawer, something else stood out. One of the letters lying amidst so many others at the bottom of the filing cabinet looked familiar. The more she stared at it, the more recognisable it became. Stooping, she grabbed it. No wonder – it was her handwriting! This was the first letter she’d written on Poveglia, the one informing Albert and her parents of her new address. What was it doing here? Why hadn’t it been sent? Holding it in one hand, she sifted through more of the drawer’s contents, her hands seizing upon another of her letters, then a third and a fourth – none had been sent!

Snatching them up in a bundle she stood, swaying with a mixture of emotions – anger but something else too, the first real stirrings of fear. Had Dr Gritti intercepted them? If so, why? Enrico would be horrified when she told him. She’d take them with her, thrust them under his nose, and then he’d have no choice but to agree that they leave. His uncle couldn’t be trusted, not if he could do this: withhold correspondence. That was why Albert or her parents hadn’t written to her, they didn’t know where she was! But surely they’d have written to Enrico’s home address in Venice, why hadn’t Stefania forwarded them? Or had she, and they’d been intercepted too, in which case they’d be here. She’d have more evidence to condemn him with.

Placing the letters on top of the filing cabinet she started working her way through the drawers again, this time more carefully, determined to find them. There
were
more letters, but who’d written them or whom they were addressed to remained a mystery, she could barely speak Italian, let alone read it. And notes, there was a copious amount of loose notes, some with diagrams attached to them, hand-crafted, crude drawings – the head, the brain, the torso, arrows pointing to various points, the writing beneath each arrow not neat but barely legible; a scrawl only discernible to its owner. Dr Gritti? It had to be.

She could find nothing more that related to her, nothing she could understand anyway. Straightening, she looked in the top drawer again; here there were notebooks in amongst papers and news articles, all it seemed, medically inclined. The limitations of her linguistic ability frustrated her but at least she’d found her own property – it was enough to start building a case with. There was no way the letters had been ‘accidentally’ detained. Dr Gritti had stolen them. Or he’d given someone the order to steal them.

“Damn him!”

How dare he do such a thing! Her parents must be worried sick, her brother too. And the feeling was reciprocal. God, she hoped they were safe.

Not knowing whether to scream or cry, she resolved to get out of his office and find her husband. As she took deep breaths to calm herself, she noticed she still had one of the notebooks in her hand. Not a notebook as such, it was more of a ledger, thin with a dark blue cover. Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened it. Inside, words were scrawled in a series of columns, of which there were four to a page. Delaying her plan to take flight, she tried to decipher the words in front of her. Each column looked to contain a name and beside each name, in the second column, was more detailed writing comprising at least three or four sentences. The third column contained a date – the ledger was first started on 23rd October 1936 – and in the fourth column there was a single word only –
morto
.

Her eyes ran down the length of the fourth column where that word was repeated over and over –
morto
– dead. That’s what that word meant, that the person named in the first column had died. She turned the pages, not all of them were filled in the same way. Some pages had notes scrawled all over them before the user returned to its intended use – diligently filling out the columns again – one page even had a huge black X marked on it, the paper torn slightly as if it had been drawn in temper. Again there were columns filled out, again the word ‘
morto
’. Her eyes flicked to the names of the people who’d died – tried to decipher them – Renata Cantu, Violetta Fabbri, Agnolo Piovene. Dispensing with their surnames, she continued – Adaline, Guido, Domenica, Jacopo, Marzia, Stefano… So many people, such lyrical names, all dead, but how, and by whose hand?

Her heart pounding, she flicked to the back pages, to more recent dates, and ran her gaze down the length of the columns – searching. When she found what she was looking for, what she suspected, her heart seemed to stop. Luigina Morosini, the date 24th December 1938. There were some words in the third column and then a word in the fourth column –
morto
. She was dead, had died the day before Christmas, Luigina, who, although disturbed, appeared well enough physically.
Murdered
– at the doctor’s hand, and perhaps… she could barely bring herself to think it, at her husband’s too. That’s why he hadn’t come to help her; he and his uncle had been dealing with Luigina, treating her ‘appropriately’. She was no longer subdued and they were taking further action.

Catarina!

She was no longer subdued either, and the ward nurse had noticed. Had she gone running to Dr Gritti, informed him?

She’d seen enough. Throwing the notebook back in the drawer and slamming it shut, Charlotte grabbed her letters and turned towards the door, determined to go to the ward first and make sure that Catarina was all right, that she hadn’t been taken away. She’d be there. She had to be there. And there’d be an explanation for Luigina’s death, one that was tolerable. The man she loved was not a murderer and nor would he collude with one.

About to bolt forward, she stopped. There was movement outside the door! Through the glass panel she could see an outline, small, neat, and feminine. The woman – one of the nurses – had been passing but came to a standstill and was looking towards the office. Had it been the slamming of the cabinet drawer that had alerted her? Charlotte berated herself.
You’ve drawn attention to yourself!
Small mercy that it wasn’t Dr Gritti but even so she’d have to explain why she was in his office, what she had in her hands, and it would get back to him –
everything
got back to him – the man with too much power.

The nurse walked towards the door, slowly, tentatively, began to turn the handle and, as she did, Charlotte could only stand and stare, her mind having gone blank, refusing to even think of a reason. She was caught, as helpless as the patients, as Luigina, as all the names she’d just read, as Catarina. She screwed her eyes shut – a childish ploy she knew: if she couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see her – and waited.

“
Agata, Agata, vieni immediatamente in sala da prarizo, c’e un problema
.”

She opened her eyes; someone was calling the nurse! The handle stopped turning, the door didn’t open and the figure retreated. She hadn’t realised she was holding her breath until it burst from her. She had to get out of here, check on Catarina – and then she’d find her husband, tell him about the letters, ask about Luigina, make plans to leave, to return to her family she loved and missed more than ever. Folding the letters, she stuffed them into her pocket, opened the door, checked the way was clear and then softly closed it behind her.

Impatient, she took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, noticing as she did just how shabby the paintwork was, the cobwebs that had been allowed to gather and the dirt congealing in dark corners. She’d always thought of the wards as sparse but now, as she stood in the doorway to the one she worked in, they seemed cruelly so. Even flowers would have been a gesture, some simple flowers. But then where would they have come from? She’d seen none on the island. Flowers wouldn’t grow here. The scales were dropping from her eyes; it was as though she could see properly for the first time since arriving. She focused on Catarina’s bed – Catarina’s
empty
bed, and her breathing quickened. Catarina rarely left her bed; it was her world, her place of safety – the case with so many patients. Even their ‘business’ was performed on a bedpan. She
should
be in her bed.

She walked over to one of the nurses and asked about her whereabouts.

The nurse didn’t even bother to look at her as she replied. “Gone.”

“
Where
has she gone?”

“Gone,” the nurse repeated before she turned and walked away.

Hurrying from the ward, Charlotte almost knocked another auxiliary down.

“Sorry, so sorry,” she blustered before hurrying onwards. She needed to find the high security wing. That’s where Dr Gritti and Enrico were and where Catarina had been taken.

Weaving in and out of corridors, all identical to one another, venturing deeper into the building, the only thing different was the atmosphere. On her ward it was peaceful, even if it was an enforced peace, here she could feel something in the air: emotions swirled furiously around. There were so many, some she could identify with: confusion, grief, upset, and others that were so dark, so alien, she couldn’t understand them at all –
extreme
emotions. What had happened since her last shift? Had Catarina drawn even more attention to herself, become violent even, like Luigina had? She couldn’t imagine it, not Catarina, not her friend. The night nurse had obviously reported her, but she still couldn’t understand why. What was so wrong with one of the patients having a moment of lucidity? Also, a couple of weeks had passed since the incident. If it concerned them so much, why not take her sooner? Questions, questions, so many reared up in her mind, all demanding answers. She had to find out what had happened, confront Enrico further
and
his uncle.

As she walked, the lighting above failed slightly, began to flicker, like a warning almost –
turn back, turn back
– but she couldn’t, not until she knew her charge was safe.

A sound brought her up short. It was high-pitched, coming from further up. The hair on her arms stood to attention, even the hair on her scalp tingled as she broke into a run again, her feet carrying her along, into the heart of the hospital.
The heart?
No. If Catarina was right, this part of the asylum didn’t have a heart, or if it did, it was rotten to the core.

Almost stumbling she was running so fast, she started calling out Catarina’s name. If they were doing something to her they had to stop. They couldn’t use people in such a way. It didn’t matter that they were ill they were
still
people.

“Catarina! Catarina! Where are you?”

Up ahead there was a pair of double doors, the only doors on an otherwise blank wall. Was that where the scream had come from? She hurled herself towards them, expecting them to be locked but they yielded easily to her touch. Standing still, she found herself in a large sterile looking room, the walls covered in light blue tiles. There were shelves too, rows and rows of them, filled with all manner of medical equipment. In one corner a wheelchair lay abandoned, whilst overhead the light flickered as it had done in the corridor, as if it too was agitated. The room wasn’t as sterile as she first thought; there was blood on the floor, not a huge amount but spots of it, trailing into a room beyond, which was hidden from view by a curtain. From behind it she could hear the shuffling of feet, more cries but muffled this time, dying out.

She moved forwards, determined to see what was happening, but, as she did, the curtains parted and Dr Gritti appeared, Enrico behind him, both wearing surgical gowns and masks covering the lower half of their faces. Her eyes travelling to Dr Gritti’s gloved hands, she saw there was blood on them too. This was a theatre, an operating theatre – a silent, secret place, hidden in the centre of that rotten heart.

“I… I heard someone screaming. Who is it?”

“You should not be here.” It was Dr Gritti who replied, Enrico seemed unable to speak – he just stared at her in disbelief – either that or horror, she couldn’t quite tell.

“I won’t leave, not until you tell me who is behind that curtain.”

“Turn around and go.” There was a definite threat in his voice.

“Where is Catarina Castelli? Have you taken her?”

“It is not your business.”

“She
is
my business!” Anger was rising in her now, not just because of Dr Gritti but because of Enrico, who was standing by him, not saying a word, just as he’d stood when his mother had burst in on them – doing nothing. She trained her gaze on him instead of his uncle, tried to provoke some sort of reaction. His eyes were glittering still, feverish – the same feverishness that was in Dr Gritti’s eyes. Not the result of illness, could it be excitement?

She strived to keep her voice steady. “I heard someone screaming, a woman I think. The sound came from here. Catarina isn’t in her bed. Is she behind the curtains? Let me see her.”

Even though she couldn’t see Dr Gritti’s face behind his mask, she had a feeling he was smiling. “Ah, Catarina has been talking, filling your head with nonsense. Delusions and hysterics are all part of Catarina’s condition. A condition I will try and eliminate.”

“Eliminate?” What a strange choice of word to use. “Eliminate
her
you mean?”

Dr Gritti growled, glanced at Enrico. “Like Catarina, your wife is becoming a danger.”

A danger?
Why was Enrico standing by, accepting what his uncle was saying? Why wasn’t he defending her? Now would be the perfect time for him to step up. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore; he was looking away, staring at the ground. Instead,
she
was the one defending a woman that she barely knew.

“I believe that Catarina is through there, Dr Gritti. She was screaming just a short while ago but now she is silent, probably because you’ve sedated her. Are you planning to operate too, to
experiment?
”

As she said the words she made to dart round them but they easily blocked her. Fuming, she turned to her husband, “Enrico, what is wrong with you? It feels like you’re siding with your uncle against me. Surely that isn’t true.”

“There is no side to take,” Enrico said, his voice muffled, his gaze still averted.

“There is… this man… your uncle, there is something wrong with him.” She had to come clean and tell him what she knew. “I went to his office, Enrico, to use the telephone. I wanted to try and contact someone at home, I was tired of being fobbed off.”

“You went to my office?” Dr Gritti raised an eyebrow.

Charlotte nodded defiantly. “I failed to make a connection but nonetheless my time there proved fruitful. I found things.” Retrieving the letters from her pocket, she waved them in front of them both. “These are letters I wrote to my parents, to my brother. They were never sent; they were in a filing cabinet instead, just tossed in there. And,” she had difficulty swallowing, her throat was so dry, “in that same cabinet, I found a ledger, a list of people, I have no idea if they were all patients of Poveglia but they had one thing in common, they’re dead. That is what it was you see, a ledger of the dead and Luigina was in it – her death recorded as the 24th December 1938, Christmas Eve. The day,” – oh, God, she could hardly bring herself to say it – “the day that you didn’t come to help me, the day you and your uncle were busy,” she glanced at the hidden room, “operating.”

Beneath his mask, Enrico was breathing heavily. “You failed to make a connection?”

“Yes… I just said that.” Why had he singled out that fact, hadn’t he heard what else she’d said. What she’d
implied?
“Enrico, we need to make sure Catarina is safe and then leave, your uncle might have stopped my letters from leaving the island but he can’t stop me, stop
us
.”

“Your parents don’t know you are here,” Enrico continued to mutter, his eyes darting between her and his uncle. “No one knows you are here.”

“Enrico, listen, what’s happening on the island, the work that your uncle is undertaking, it isn’t right.” Catarina’s words about the plague victims and the shallow graves came flooding back. “There has been so much death here and yet still it continues.” Her voice hardened as she stared back at Dr Gritti. “Being mentally ill does not make a person bad and nor does it make them worthless. There are other ways to help people who suffer,
effective
ways – what I was doing for example, the simple act of communication. How can we even begin to treat the problem if we can’t talk to our patients, if we don’t allow them to talk back? That’s the only way to understand madness, to be able to stand a chance of curing it – we need to find out what’s at the root of it, what caused it in the first place, if it really is madness, or if it’s something else, grief for example, loss. There could be so many reasons. Your way, your methods, all it results in is death.”

There was a groan from behind the curtain. Catarina was still alive! She hadn’t gone the way of other ‘lost’ patients – yet.

Hope surged within Charlotte. “Catarina, I’m coming.”

Dr Gritti closed the gap between them and seized her arms. “You are going nowhere.”

“TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME.”

When he began to laugh, she wanted to cry. He turned his head to Enrico. “She will make an interesting experiment, your wilful wife.”

He couldn’t possibly mean it. “ENRICO!”

“Enrico won’t help you,” Dr Gritti continued to taunt. “He is too ambitious.”

Too ambitious?
Yes, of course he was, but he was good. Ultimately he was good. She wouldn’t have fallen in love with him otherwise.

“Enrico, help me!” When she got no reply, she tried again. “Please!”

“We must get her into another room, Enrico.”

Another room? What other room? “Enrico, we have to go home.”

“Impossible,” Dr Gritti said, abruptly releasing her before walking over to where the shelves were and reaching up to grab something: a syringe. “You know too much.”

Ice-cold beads of moisture began to erupt on her forehead. She had to try a different tack, not scream and shout, not goad him anymore. “I promise, you can continue, Dr Gritti, I won’t breathe a word. Just let my husband and I go. There will be no more fuss.”

The doctor didn’t even deign to reply; he simply carried on doing what he was doing, calmly, casually – such arrogance in his stance. Flying to Enrico, her hands grabbed his face. “Darling, look at me, please. We can go. We can leave. He can’t make us stay.”

Enrico brought his hands up to cover hers. “
Amore
– we are close, so close.”

“Listen to me, please. I am your wife!” It was the second time she’d had to remind him of this.

“I know.”

“Then help me!”

He screwed his eyes shut, looked physically pained.

“Don’t you love me anymore?” she asked.

“I do.”

“Help me,” she repeated. Strangely their voices had lowered, become whispers – two lovers, a husband and wife with words only for each other. “We can put this behind us, we can pretend it never happened. Be happy again. I make you happy, don’t I?”

“
Amore…
”

Dr Gritti returned and, with one hand yanked her away from Enrico; the other hand held a syringe. “You do keep him happy,
amore
, in the bedroom particularly, but any woman can do that. There are many here as loose as you.”

She was more stunned by his words than the sight of the syringe. “As loose as me, I… how dare you! What do you mean?”

Releasing her, Dr Gritti removed his mask, revealing an expression that was wolfish. His nose seemed much longer than before, his eyes more beadlike, his mouth a cavern. “You are a whore,” he said simply. “Enrico tells me how wanton you are. He enjoys it, any man would. You are an attractive girl. But it is the strings attached that I tell him are no good, the demands you make, the attention you crave, how you use sex to manipulate him, to get your own way, to disrupt his career. I have taught Enrico many things since he has been on the island, one of the most important to think with his brain not just his balls.”

At his words, she could only turn to Enrico, a silent question in her eyes.
Is that the way you’ve described me, as wanton, as someone who only wants to manipulate you, to hinder?
He provided no answers, but his shoulders slumped. Dr Gritti had defeated him. No, the truth was worse than that. He’d
allowed
himself to be defeated.

Finding her voice again, she continued to appeal. “My parents will contact Enrico’s parents when they fail to hear from me and insist on a forwarding address.”

“My dear sister and her excuse for a husband will obey my wishes, no one else’s,” Dr Gritti was clearly not concerned with any argument she could raise. “Besides, Europe will soon be a mess because of the war. Communications will break down between countries, between people. It will be hard to find loved ones, impossible in some cases.”

What was he saying? That she’d never see Albert or her parents again? He couldn’t do that, he couldn’t! But, as the dream-like scenario she was caught in continued to unfold, she realised he could. “Enrico, did you know your uncle had intercepted my letters?”

Again, it was Dr Gritti who replied. “Of course he knew. I was honest with him.”

Still she addressed Enrico. “And… did you plan this all along, you and your mother?”

Enrico rallied. “My mother is innocent!”

So he
was
capable of defending someone, although there was cold comfort in it. “Answer me, did you
plan
it?”