2.
The room resembled more of a tiny kitchen than a medical room. I remembered that this room may have been the original kitchen that served the Hancock’s back in the day. There was an old oven, the old timber box now empty, sitting beside it. It seemed a strange room to have Lightman wait while we were engaged in conversation with Levinson in the adjoining room, considering the facility. I had no doubt that there were a lot of questionable practices occurring here thanks to the good doc.
The low thudding began again, once, twice, three times then ceased. It sounded like it was coming through the walls. I looked at Steph but she shrugged her shoulders. I pointed to the exit and was about to head back out when I stopped and froze. The room only had the one door that led in, no windows and no visible ventilation. It had a small walk in pantry to the left, empty shelves lining both its walls. The far wall had a timber trellis wedged against it that had been used to hang fresh produce and jars of herbs from. The hooks, now a rusty brown, were still jutting out looking like greedy fingers. What stopped me in my tracks was a breeze that was coming from the pantry. I turned, walked towards the pantry door and stopped, closing my eyes.
“Jim?” Steph asked. I held up one finger, feeling the breeze on my face. I opened my eyes and waved for her to come to me. I pushed her into place and watched as she felt the breeze, her face peering into the darkness. She took a step into the pantry, feeling her way forward. The low light that lit the kitchen wasn’t quite bright enough to light the pantry, its rays fading about halfway into the small room. Steph held out her hands and felt along the trellis. As she touched it, feeling the breeze come through from beyond it, we heard the low, slow thumping start again. Only this time, it wasn’t coming through the walls. This time, the thudding came from directly ahead.
She looked at me over her shoulder, saw me point at the trellis and then watched as she slipped her fingers through it, grasping it tightly. The trellis acted like a door, old hinges creaking as it swung back into the pantry. Steph took a step back to allow it passage then looked at me, holding it open. My temples were throbbing so hard that for a moment, I thought that the thumping we heard had in fact been me.
3.
There were bluestone steps leading down into a dark passage. Steph and I waited for our eyes to adjust as much as possible before we slowly made our way down, each step taking a few seconds to navigate. When we finally reached the bottom, a dozen or so steps behind us, we were confronted with a low-roofed tunnel. I had to duck a little to prevent smacking my head on some of the rocks that were jutting out from the ceiling. The tunnel was pitch black, the light from the pantry all but faded out, and for a brief moment, Steph and I had to feel our way along the rocky wall. But after about 40 yards, a new light source was fading in from somewhere ahead of us. There was another bend a few yards ahead and as we edged our way forward, we could make out a larger cavity, something like an underground cave. The thumping began again, coming from somewhere directly in front of us now.
The cave resembled a small room, an electric light hanging from the ceiling. The tunnel continued on the other side of this opening, disappearing into more darkness further along. There were a couple of chairs, one lying on its side, and a small table against one wall. We heard groaning coming from somewhere on the other side of the table and could see movement. It was the doctor, lying face-up, the handle of a knife protruding from his chest. I ran over to him and lifted his head up a little, blood leaking from the left side of his mouth. He gargled something, then spat a large wad of blood to his right. There was a piece of timber in his hand with which he had been trying to raise the alarm.
“What happened?” I cried.
“Please, you have to find him,” he whispered.
“I’ll get help,” Steph said from behind me but the doctor spoke up, begging her to wait.
“No, please, you have to hear me out first.” His voice was quiet and laboured, his lungs gargling with every strained breath. I took off my jacket and folded it then placed it beneath his head. Steph tried to open his shirt to see his wound but his face contorted in pain and she stopped. She saw the piece of paper that had been pinned to the doctor’s chest with the knife and pointed at it. I saw it, noticing writing on it, blood smeared across the five letters.
JAMES
I couldn’t pull the paper free without tearing it apart and thought it better just to leave it be for the time being. The doctor took a couple of garbled breaths then began to speak, almost whispering most of his words.
“I’m so sorry. I was blinded by my own need for glory. My research took me to places I should never have gone,” he coughed, more blood trickling down his chin, “but Harry was such a perfect specimen.”
“Who is Loui?” I asked. He raised his eyes to mine, realising that I knew some or maybe even all of what he had been trying to hide.
“Loui is Harry’s brother. Only, he IS Harry. You see, Harry has three distinct personalities. Harry is the oldest, the one you speak to most of the time. The second personality,
