I relaxed the pressure on the door and turned. Ruby bent over a large
filing box. A sticker on the side read Armidale Sanatorium. Ruby held up a
page for me to see. It was some kind of form. I couldn’t read the writing in
the poor light, but the photograph paperclipped to the sheet showed a familiar
face. Dark, resentful eyes looked out from under a mess of black hair.
The wheelbarrow creaked as I warily climbed down from it. “She was
admitted?”
“Yeah, in 1944.”
I moved closer to read over Ruby’s shoulders. Her hands were shaking,
making the paper tremble in turn.
“Psychiatric wards weren’t kind to women back then.” A flush of colour
spread over Ruby’s pale skin. “Raul would… he would sometimes try to
scare me by telling me stories about what happened to women in them. He’d
make it sound like it still happened. Like he could put me in one if I stepped
out of line.”
I put an arm around her. “He was a jerk.”
“Hah, understatement.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “Anyway, back then, a
husband basically had control over whether his wife went into one or not. All
he had to do was tell the doctor she was acting irrationally, and she’d be put
away. She couldn’t try to argue that she was sane because that’s exactly what
a crazy person would try to tell you.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense, though. Shreya didn’t die in a
sanatorium. She died at home. ”“What if…” Ruby ran her finger down the patient notes. Phrases jumped
out at me such as paranoia, mood swings, violent tendencies, hysteria .
“What if the opposite happened? What if she was actually, really mentally
unwell, but her husband didn’t want to leave her in an institute? What if he
knew she’d be mistreated there, so he looked after her at home, instead?”
“Huh.” I remembered the chain in the upstairs bedroom. If Ruby’s theory
was true, it wouldn’t have been a way to trap Shreya, but a way to keep her
safe. “Penny across the road said Shreya would disappear for days or weeks at
a time, and when she came back, she’d be covered with bruises. What if her
husband was hiding her away whenever she relapsed, and the injuries were
self-inflicted?”
“That would make sense. If she was paranoid—maybe some kind of
schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder—she could be fine one day
and then violently dangerous the next.”
The song ended with a heavy, crashing clang, like someone had slammed
their hands on the piano keys.
Ruby’s eyes flitted over the paper. “And what if, during one of her
psychotic episodes, she pulled her chain out of the wall, believed her husband
was trying to hurt not just herself but also her secret child, and threw herself
out of the window?”
My mind was spinning. “What if she never had a child?” I glanced
towards the ceiling. Long-forgotten cobwebs clustered along the support
beams. “Penny never mentioned anything about an unborn baby. But one
would have been found if there’d been an autopsy… and there must have
been an autopsy because it was such a sensational crime story. Besides,
Shreya and Ray had been married for nearly seven years before her death.
What if she desperately wanted to have a baby but wasn’t able to?”
“If we’re right, that means Ray killed himself from grief, not guilt.” Ruby
frowned at me. “I almost don’t want to believe it… but it fits together
perfectly.”
A floorboard above us groaned. Small streams of dust rained from
between the support beams. I bumped Ruby’s shoulder. “Whatever happened
back then, Shreya is dangerous. We need to get out. I’ve almost got the
trapdoor open.”
“Okay. I’ll put these back.” Ruby began shuffling the papers back into the
box. I thought I saw unshed tears shining in her eyes. “I don’t feel right
leaving them out in the open.”