Rookwood Asylum: Asylum Series Book 1

Chapter 6

“How wide would you say the gravel driveway was, sir?” asked Detective Sergeant Farson.

Paul shrugged irritably, not seeing the point of the question. Farson had gone over his statement several times already, apparently not satisfied with some of its aspects. Paul was still shocked by the violent death he had witnessed. They were standing in his apartment, looking out at the scene below. The body had just been bagged up and taken off in an ambulance. Now, Paul could see a uniformed officer recovering and bagging fragments of glass.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s about ten feet wide, something like that. Why?”

Farson opened Paul’s window a little wider, gestured down at the damp turf. The rain had stopped a few minutes earlier. The contorted outline of the body was clearly discernible.

“Jeff Bowman landed on the grass, not the gravel,” he said. “Which means we can reasonably conclude he didn’t fall out of the window, nor was he simply pushed. No, he was hurled, thrown, flung. Doesn’t that strike you as a little—peculiar?”

Paul stared at the detective, then joined him at the window. Farson was right. It had been right in front of Paul but had not registered properly, presumably thanks to the mental trauma.

“You’re right,” he said, wonderingly. “The guy flew out there, he didn’t just fall. Like he’d been shot from a catapult. Jesus!”

Farson snapped his black notebook closed, slipped it back into his pocket.

“Yes, sir,” he said evenly. “And the only other people in the room were one frightened woman, and an even more frightened ten-year-old girl. No sign of the Incredible Hulk or similar characters. So officially, it’s an annoying detail we can’t really explain and will, therefore, play down.”

Paul felt confused.

“Will you classify it as an accident, then?”

“I won’t classify it as anything,” Farson said briskly. “Not my job, I just gather facts and interview witnesses. But the guy attacked his former partner and her daughter—that much is undoubtedly true. It could be argued that he fell out of the window in a struggle. Which is plausible if you’re not actually looking at the scene. If I were a gambling man, I’d put money on the coroner reaching that conclusion.”

Paul nodded, still confused.

“That’s all for now, Mister Mahan,” said Farson. “I’ll be in touch if we need to talk to you again.”

Paul nodded, walked the officer over to the door. As Farson stepped out into the hallway he stopped, turned, and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, just one more thing,” he said. “Did the little girl say anything to you? When you entered the flat?”

Paul hesitated, and Farson reached into his lightweight jacket, took out his notebook again.

“I think she said something about—about a bad man,” Paul said finally. “I can’t be sure.”

Farson held his notebook for a moment without opening it, then put it away again. He smiled, nodded.

“This is a weird one, isn’t it?”

Before Paul could think of a reply, the detective headed down the stairs. Back inside his apartment, Paul watched as a cab drew up outside the police perimeter. Neve Cotter appeared, weighted with baggage, followed by Ella, then by Declan Mooney carrying more bags. The little girl looked up as the cab driver helped stow their things in the trunk. Ella gave a little wave, and Paul raised his hand in farewell. He knew the Cotters were going to stay with Neve’s mother, ostensibly until the smashed window was fixed. But he wondered if they would ever be back.

Should I move out? But where would I go? Back to Mike’s?

He ruled out leaving for now and tried to make sense of what Ella had said to him. On the face of it, it was crazy. Liz had not been in the apartment, and even if she had been, a teenage girl could not throw a grown man out of a window. Paul had not been wholly honest with Farson because he did not want to appear crazy or subject Ella to any more police attention.

Maybe she imagined Liz somehow rescuing her? Kids have made up weirder things. But why?

Suspicions about what Liz might be had grown impossible to ignore. Paul did not believe in ghosts. But when he pondered his experiences since moving in, he found he was afraid of them, despite his disbelief. Yet, Liz had seemed as real as anyone else. Merely a strange human being, not a conventional idea of a spook.

A ghost that puts a drunken academic to bed, he thought. British tabloids would pay good money for that one.