"Doctor, I hear voices..." - Communicating through Consciousness Part 2

It's hard to tell a psychiatrist that you hear voices. It's even harder to admit that fact to a new partner. But how can you possibly tell police that those voices guide you to the precise locations of where the bodies of murder victims can be found - without becoming a prime suspect yourself?

Daniel Caine is the author of the science fiction crime thriller Matter of Time.

For more information visit www.danielcaine.com

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:07

This is Stranger Than Fiction with Daniel Caine. Doctor, I Hear Voices. Communicating Through Consciousness, Part 2 of Episode 3. While it is hard to admit to a psychiatrist that you hear voices, it is even harder to admit that fact to a new friend or partner. In fact, it is sensible not to share that information at all, if possible. But there comes a time when this universe does demand open and honest contact between individuals, especially when their distant, independent trajectories inevitably end in unavoidable collision.

Speaker 1 0:56

Tonight, a psychic solves a murder mystery that has baffled police authorities for years. The barely audible voice, steeped in cleverly directed sensationalism, had done its job, and my new girlfriend, adrift on a sea of cushions strewn across the lounge room floor of her apartment, reached over for the TV remote and raised the volume. It was one of the usual shows. A psychic medium, unaided, accurately leads a production crew to the scene of an unsolved murder, where they incredibly unearth facts known only to the police, while retired detectives interject, fleetingly reliving their glory days in just twenty seconds of screen time. My girlfriend and I ended up watching the entire episode with barely a comment while picking at a takeaway meal. An hour or so later, though, over a dangerous second bottle of wine, I was to be caught completely off guard when the topic of our alcohol fuelled conversation was suddenly redirected to that earlier show. My new girlfriend, Den, asking if I thought the program had been for real, especially the way in which the medium had correctly written down the deceased victim's name and personal details in the lead up to tracking down the actual location of the murder. I just wasn't prepared for the question. Our involvement until recently had been strictly on a professional basis, and now I only had enough time to suck in another mouthful of wine, allowing the liquid to swirl over my tongue and palate and then slowly swallowing before finding some kind of response. I finally opted for a safe and circumspect approach, saying that it was likely everyone is innately sensitive and capable of finding locations in the same way as the TV psychic, likening it to how dogs lost on a family holiday have been known to traverse hundreds of kilometres of unknown terrain before faithfully arriving home months later. “Huh, I think you're conveniently ignoring a lot of roadkill,” was Den's stark, provocative response, and she reached for a notepad on the wooden cabinet, behind her. “Okay, if anyone can do it, write down my err great grandmother's old address." And fuelled by one glass of wine too many, she pitched the notepad at my chest, probably a little harder than intended. I definitely got the impression that things had moved on from a discussion about psychics with a light hearted test of how this new man in her life would react to being put firmly in his place. And having no choice but to gather up the notepad that had slammed into my torso, I removed the pen stuffed inside the spiral binding and opened up the pad. I'm not exactly sure what was going through her mind over the next minute as I scribbled away in silence, but when I finally threw the pad back to her with an equal force as it had arrived, it wasn't surprising that it took her a good few moments to focus fully on the map I'd drawn, detailing the streets surrounding a small municipal park, very close to her great grandmother's old home. I'd even drawn the location of three entrances to the park, and marked one of the streets bordering the park with a possible name. "Holy shit," was Den's precise reaction on realising the location depicted. At that point, if there had been any intentions of steering the evening into one of shameless intoxication, it was sobered instantly, and the questions began. I had no say in the matter. The following morning I was driven to the park detailed on the map, and left to wander sketch in hand while Den shadowed my every movement. My singular instruction was to find the exact house where her great grandmother had lived fifty years prior. A daunting task, as there were at least two hundred dwellings in the immediate vicinity surrounding the neatly manicured public space, a space that had undoubtedly been laid out in Victorian times, evidenced by the weathered bronze water feature positioned just inside the main entrance. But on venturing just a little further into the park, a glaring discrepancy between my map and the actual location became immediately apparent. Only two entrances were visible. Granted, I'd managed to grasp the elongated shape of the parkland, and the two entrances were marked in their correct positions, but a third entrance, which I'd assumed would open up close to the house, was absent. Confused, I walked over to the eastern boundary and followed its line for about two-thirds of the length of the park to where I thought the other entrance should be. It struck me that the layout could well have changed several times over a century, and the foundations of the elusive gate might now be buried under paths and flower beds. I spent minutes silently pacing around a particular stretch of path, trying to picture a formidable looking long since demolished iron gate through which Victorian prams were pushed by stern looking women carrying parasols. But there was no trace of any such structure to be seen. The house, located where I had drawn the entrance though, did capture my attention, and I decided to exit the park and head for the adjacent side street to get a better look from the building's front aspect. I glanced at the map. "Out of the southern exit. Turn left. First left." But as I walked along the main road and approached that side street, I soon came to understand the expletive reaction of my girlfriend that previous evening. With each of my steps, the letters on the street sign up ahead slowly revealed themselves from behind the overhanging foliage. Trinian Street, it read. My own effort, evidenced by the scribbled handwriting on the paper clutched in my hand, read a very close Trillian Street. All the pen strokes were there. Angle the tail of the first L and lose the tail of the second L. And a double L does become an N. To read Trinian, as on the street sign. I turned to Den, who was beaming back at me with a smile that released the excitement she had somehow contained for the last twelve hours. "I just can't believe it. You even got the street name." But there was no opportunity to share in the moment. And it must have been challenging for her when I simply walked off dismissively in a preoccupied state. I just couldn't linger at the street corner any longer. On my approach to the junction, I became increasingly aware of a sickening feeling building in the atmosphere that clearly emanated from a very well-defined area of the pavement, and I just had to move away from the location by turning into Trinian Street and continuing on. Halfway along the street, my pace slowed, and with a sideways glance to my left, I saw the house that I had viewed from the park only minutes earlier. My arm rose to point at the house, and I turned to see Den nodding tearfully in confirmation. "The energy back there at the corner was sickening," I said, finally able to speak. "It's as though someone died there." Den held my gaze and shook her head. "That's where she died, Daniel," she said in a faltering voice. "She was hit by a car." And I looked back at the house, fighting an emotion that was not my own. But resolution for me was not complete. I now knew that the information about a third park gate had to be correct. So I returned to the park and the rear of the house, where I continued to pace around, looking for some clue. Then, full resolution did hit, and it was now Den facing my beaming smile. The eastern boundary of the park, comprised of a tall red brick perimeter wall, and built into the brickwork there was a maroon wooden door, almost completely hidden from view by bushes and dense vegetation. The door was the only entrance to the park on that entire stretch of boundary wall, and it opened into the rear garden of the great grandmother's house. She'd had her own personal park entrance, and its location corresponded exactly to that third entrance indicated on the map I'd drawn: information which does seem very personal and relevant only to the lady who lived there; personal information that some aspect of her consciousness might have conveyed to guide me there. It's not unusual for a newly dating couple to take a walk in the park. It's perhaps more unusual for them to be in the park tracking down deceased family members. Fortunately, the girl, who was to become my wife, was more intrigued than shaken at those events. But there were some experiences that I chose not to share until years later.

Speaker 1 11:04

Maybe it was the faintest smell of leather wafting through the air that would always alert the animals, for no matter how quietly I opened the cupboard door or how deeply they appeared to be sleeping, both dogs would unfailingly come bounding along the hallway and bowl over my seventeen-year-old frame before my hand had even reached for the leashes hanging inside. The hounds shouldered each other at the front door as they jostled for position. They strained against my one-handed effort to control them while my free hand motioned to open the latch, and I braced myself for the usual morning sprint down the street. But as I turned the latch, I was struck by a visual flash of a nondescript patch of seemingly vacant land near a fence. I stood motionless for a few seconds, devoid of all thought, my hand still resting on the latch, before the insistent pulling and pitiful high pitched whimpers from such large male dogs brought me fully back to the moment with a smile. The inconsequential vision was instantly forgotten, and on pulling the front door shut with a slam, I was propelled along the driveway in the usual display of morning madness. Seconds later, though, on reaching the open double gates, I inexplicably came to a sudden jarring halt and braced against the forceful pull of the two dogs as they veered their usual left out onto the street. They were stopped dead in their tracks, and I simply turned right instead and walked on in a preoccupied silence. The dogs were shocked into compliance, and they trotted confusedly alongside me, manoeuvring themselves to untangle their own leashes. In that automaton state, I zigzagged through the streets of the housing estate in a succession of left then right turns, maintaining the general northeasterly direction until I reached the main road, which was deserted except for sparse Sunday morning traffic, and I tracked alongside the perimeter wall of the cemetery there. Up ahead was a large roundabout at the intersection with the main drag into the city, a road that was fed by motorways from all parts of the country. I had no idea where I was walking to or why, and can give no reason why I turned left heading towards the city, instead of right, which could have taken me on a wide sweep back home. The dog's gait had by now become a lumbering pad, and I walked on for another eight hundred metres before some semblance of awareness swept across me with a sickening wave of nausea, accompanied by another visual flash of that fence in the vacant land that I'd glimpsed earlier. To my immediate left, a boundary of thick hawthorn hedging was interrupted by an entrance framed by a very tall open gateway crowned with an ornamental lintel, guarding a dead straight track that disappeared into an area of vacant land. And on stepping inside, the land to the left carried on as far as I could see, while to the right I could see the fence line to some allotments around seventy-five metres away. The automaton in me would have compliantly left the main road and tracked along the dense hawthorn hedging to the allotment fence, but my rousing conscious awareness had already begun to regain control. But it was that lingering sense of sickening nausea that guided me to step back onto the main road and hesitantly walk on past the land's forbidding perimeter. A hundred metres or so further along, just after crossing a railway bridge, I finally came to a large area of unenclosed playing fields adjacent to the road where I could unleash the dogs, and with a newfound energy, they bounded off. But I was still troubled by the trance-like state that had descended upon me. I was obviously unconsciously looking for something near the allotments, and wondered if someone had perhaps dropped a purse or handbag or something of value. It was then that my attention was drawn back across the old rail track that was hidden at the bottom of steep embankments, and I again caught sight of the allotments. In an act that was completely out of character, I skipped a flimsy wire fence and was drawn down the steep embankment, crossed the disused tracks, and climbed up the other side to make my way over to the back fence of the allotments. I knew I was getting closer, I just didn't know what I was getting closer to. The eldest dog, ever vigilant in his duty of care, had already negotiated all obstacles to follow me. But the younger, less savvy dog, was barking and whining in helpless frustration from behind the first fence in the playing fields. I surveyed the tapestry of allotments stretching out in front of me, still without a clue as to what was troubling me, and I looked over at the vacant land beyond, torn between going back there and keeping away. I called the older dog to heel and returned to the playing fields, trying to put all thoughts of lost purses and handbags out of my mind.

Speaker 1 16:45

It was the morning of Sunday, October 2nd, 1977, and I could not have known that hidden in the vacant land's thick perimeter hawthorn hedges, close to the allotments lay the freshly slain corpse of a young woman. Serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, returned to Manchester a week later. He had unfinished business to take care of, and was again heading for the vacant block of land he'd visited the previous weekend. The crisp, mint condition five pound note from out of his wage packet that he'd handed over to the prostitute before bludgeoning her to death as she'd tried to climb over the fence into the allotments could easily be traced, and he knew it had to be retrieved. He'd first realised the mistake on his initial journey back home driving along the motorway connecting Manchester to Bradford in Yorkshire. It had been troubling him all week, and since the body had still not been discovered, he now pulled off the main drag that heads into Manchester city centre and entered the vacant land through the tall open gateway. He immediately turned right and made for the allotments and the dense hawthorn hedge where he'd concealed the body - the body was easy to find, but not so the handbag containing the five pound note that he'd hurriedly thrown in with the body on being disturbed by the headlights of another late night punter entering and parking up. After dragging the body out into the open again, he scoured the area in a frenzied search for the bag containing the money, but found nothing. So instead, he set about a vicious attack of post mortem mutilation so that the crime scene would not resemble that of a usual ripper victim, in a deranged attempt to confuse the police. Then he set off along the motorway back home to Yorkshire, empty handed.

Speaker 1 18:54

The horrifying scene was discovered by allotment workers the following morning. It would take a further five days to locate the handbag containing the note, it being found outside the immediate crime scene, in coarse grass, close to a fence that separated the vacant land from the adjacent tapestry of allotments. Curiously, the bag had been found open, as if searched before being hurled away into the night. An act that Sutcliffe himself, perhaps due to his deranged state, could not recall in his graphic confessions to police. For my part, I could only watch events unfold in the flood of newspaper and TV reports, unable to unburden myself of what I knew. The police would have undoubtedly been far more interested in any young male's presence at a murder scene in those hours following the crime, especially one who could have led them to where the victim's handbag had in fact been thrown. More disturbing for me, though, was that the night before the body had been found, a week after the murder, I had found myself in that other mindless automaton walk into the dead of night, through the meadows, across the bridge, and along the access road until I'd reached the roundabout at the motorway overpass. The same motorway that traverses the north of England and connects Manchester to Yorkshire. And as I stood and listened to the cars passing overhead, I heard a voice that made no sense to me at the time. "He's coming back!"

Speaker 20:44

You've been listening to Stranger Than Fiction with Daniel Caine. Join us in the next episode as we continue to investigate why the reality we perceive truly is Stranger Than Fiction. For more information, visit www.danielcaine.com.