Chapter 33
Lack of Evidence
The atmosphere in the hospital room was almost too much for Tanzi to bear. Nathan Furrow sat across from her, sitting in a straight-backed seat, his hands clasped in front of him. His face was a mask that she couldn't read and his eyes just stared at her. Tanzi had just finished telling him everything she knew and the man hadn't spoken once during the whole thing. Now she had nothing more to say.
"What you say could indeed be the truth," Nathan finally said. "The evidence would support it, in fact. What you say is beyond strange yet…" Nathan slowly stood up. "Over the course of my career in the police force I have come across strange coincidences. I am a man of numbers, a man of evidence. If I have a gut feeling I go out of my way to prove it. I have been on three cases over the last fifteen years in Sussex that rings strangely true to what you say. My superiors merely say it is coincidence and as I had no evidence to prove it I left it at that."
"Three cases?" Tanzi asked. "You mean… There were others like me?"
"I do not know if there were others who could… take the personality… of others. But certainly there was an accident where there were a number of survivors and then those survivors would pass away in accidents over the course of the next few weeks."
"If you encountered this before why have you not doing anything to prevent it?"
"What would you have us do?" Nathan asked. "How do you expect me to prove that the accidents of the survivors were linked with the survival of a previous event? How could we say it any more than simple, tragic accidents? No one ever came to us like you did, claiming to have visions. Often we would have eye-witness account of the same person in different scenes of the accidents but there was nothing concrete. We could only conclude that it was tragic happenstance."
"So you believe me?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I believe you. However, I understand that it is a possibility. At least as far as survivors of an accident perishing after the fact. You talk of a List, of Death, of fighting to prevent it… Without evidence I cannot possibly accept such a thing."
"You saw what happened to me, though, when I took on… took on Jade's personality," Tanzi replied. "You know that is not natural. You know I wasn't putting on an act."
"I suspect you weren't putting on an act," Nathan corrected. "I have a talent for knowing when someone is lying and I don't believe anything you have told me thus far is a lie. It doesn't mean it's not true, it's just that you believe it is." Nathan paced over to the window and peered out into the storm-filled sky. "It is clear I must talk to William Bludworth. He has always been a strange fellow but I try not to pry into people's histories if they are not suspect. You say he has a room with investigations… then this would be the evidence I require that would allow me to believe your story, no matter how strange it may sound."
Tanzi hoped that William Bludworth wouldn't hate her for telling Nathan about him and the words he said but she needed to tell the whole truth. The moment she hesitated, lied, or held something back from the Inspector then she knew he would cast her story to the side. So she had told him everything about William Bludworth's story as well as his documentation.
"The world has become a strange place…" Nathan continued as he looked at the storm. "Many have forgotten about the sky above London but I remember what I saw. I remember what I felt. I remember feeling that there is so much we do not know, so much we cannot fathom. Over the last four years I have wondered how it was possible for so many people to see so many different things all in the same place, all at the same time, even if it was recorded. I knew something was wrong… I allowed myself to open my mind. Tanzi, if William can provide me proof then I will be willing to take it up with my superiors and see if we can open a case on the events surrounding you and, I suspect, many others."
Nathan turned for a response but found Tanzi sitting wide-eyed on the hospital bed, her pupils unfocused. It was like she was staring all the way through the hospital room walls and to somewhere far, far away.
She was standing on a doorstep, a little girl, not knowing why She was here. The stars twinkled above Her and two adults stood beside Her. One was a man wearing black. The other was a woman in a police uniform. Another adult stood in the doorway of the building, a friendly old lady with a smile on her face.
"Welcome to Greenwood," the old woman smiled. She wasn't certain what to make of her but at least she seemed friendly enough. She crouched down to look Her in the face. "What is your name?"
"P-Paige…" She responded, full of trepidation and fear. She looked to the man in black and tugged at his coat. "I want my parents. Where are they?"
The man exchanged a glance with the police officer before looking back down at Her. "Paige… We spoke about this."
"You said they'd gone away… I want them back! I want to go home."
"This is your home now," the man continued. "Greenwood is the best orphanage in Sussex. You might get new parents—"
"Isaac!" The police officer scolded but the damage was done.
"I don't want new parents!" She cried out, tugging harder on the man's coat. "I want MY parents... Take me to where they've gone; take me away from here, I don't WANT to be here!"
"Paige…" The old woman sat down on the doorstep and patted a spot next to her. She reluctantly sat down and crossed Her arms over Her legs. "What Isaac here means when he says that your parents are gone is that they've… they've passed from our world. Do you know what that means?"
"I-I know…" She sniffed. She knew what happened but She just didn't want to accept it. It just wasn't fair and perhaps if She refused that the crash had happened then She wouldn't feel quite so sad. "I j-just want… I just want them back…"
"I know you do, honey, I know you do…" The old lady wrapped her arms around Her and pulled Her in. Before She knew it, She was weeping into this lady's sweater, Her whole body rattling with the sobs. "I can't promise the pain will go away but I promise that you will have a home here… It won't be the same, Paige, and it won't be easy. You'll have to be strong and wise. Can you do that?"
She pulled away and nodded hesitantly. "The voice says that she'll watch over me."
"The voice?" The old woman looked at the man. The man looked down at Her sternly.
"Paige… You know you've outgrown that…"
"She's not imaginary!" She cried out and stood up. "You just can't accept it because you can't see her!" And with that She ran into the building, wanting more than anything to find somewhere to hole up and listen to the comforting words of that voice in the sky.
"Tanzi?" Nathan asked again as Tanzi suddenly moved, her head looking left and right. Her face seemed confused and Nathan realised that this was all too similar to what had happened before.
"Where am I?" Tanzi demanded, looking around. "Who are you?"
Nathan sat back down on the chair and decided to take this chance to investigate just what happened to Tanzi when she became like this. "My name is Nathan Furrow. May I ask your name?"
"Paige… Why am I here?" Tanzi looked around.
"Paige?" It wasn't Jade this time. Was this some kind of multiple personality disorder? But he had never seen it to this extreme. "You are in a hospital, Paige. You had an accident."
"An accident?" Tanzi narrowed her eyes. "What kind of accident? I was at…" Tanzi put a hand to her head. "I was…" Her eyes widened in worry. "What's going on!?" Tanzi threw off the covers and stood up, ignoring Nathan as she ran over to the window. She wrenched the window open and instantly the sound of the storm outside overcame the room. "What happened to me?" Tanzi listened for a moment. "Hello!?"
Nathan watched with interest, linking his fingers together.
"…She's not there…" Tanzi muttered. "She's never ignores me before…"
"Who, Paige?"
Tanzi turned back to Nathan and folded her arms. "Nobody."
Before Nathan to ask further questions there was a knock on the door. He sighed and stood up, opening the door to find the survivor named Naomi Collado standing in the doorway. "Yes?"
"I am sorry… I was hoping to speak to Tanzi. Some of our friends have come back and I wanted to let her know…" Naomi looked suspiciously at Nathan. "You have been in here an awful long time."
"I've been asking questions of Miss Sakamoto."
"Without a lawyer?" Naomi pushed her way into the room and Nathan allowed it. "I think you are done with your questioning." Naomi looked to Tanzi in the corner and walked over. "Tanzi, how are you feeling?"
Tanzi turned and looked at Naomi with a bemused expression. "What did you call me?"
Naomi looked to Nathan for a moment before looking back to Tanzi. "Are you having one your visions?"
"Excuse me? Visions?" Tanzi cracked a smile. "I've never been accused of that before."
"So you think you are Ruby then…" Naomi muttered but Tanzi caught wind of what she said.
"My name is Paige! Why do you keep calling me strange names?" Tanzi chuckled as she moved to the door. "Look, I think I'm going to get out of here. You can't keep me here against my while so… see you later."
"What do you mean you are Paige?" Naomi grabbed Tanzi's arm tightly. "Ruby is next on the List. Not Paige."
Tanzi faltered for a moment. "Ruby…" She muttered. "I don't know a… a… argh!" Tanzi drew back as if shocked and sat back down on the bed. For a moment she remained with her head in her hands before she looked to Naomi and then back to Nathan. "What did…? I was… I was Paige?"
"That is who you said you were," Nathan confirmed. "So you have the capability of 'becoming' more than one person?"
"No, no, that's not right…" Tanzi shook her head. "Ruby should be next…" She suddenly looked to Naomi. "We need to phone Ruby, warn her that it's Paige next, not her."
"I thought you said that Ruby was hit by the train when saving you and Paige?" Naomi questioned.
"She was! Ruby was undoubtedly killed before Paige or I but that memory I just had, that vision, it was clearly Paige. It was…" Tanzi suddenly let out a cry of pain and clutched at her skull again. "Phone her! Phone Ruby…"
Naomi had already been pressing numbers as Tanzi spoke but as she shook her head. "I have got no signal. This storm must be interfering."
"No, no, we got to get to her. If they think Ruby is next then Paige will be got off-guard… Ah!" Tanzi let out a moan, the pain in her head clearly more than she could handle. "We have to get to the Lighthouse, we must warn them!" Tanzi's face was pale and covered in sweat. She turned to Nathan. "You-You said you were open to believing me… help us, please… Can you get to Belle Tout Lighthouse?"
Nathan crossed his arms. On the one hand Tanzi's reaction was definitely genuine. She was panicking and had somehow managed to take on the personalities of two different people. Yet could that be a reason to blindly help them? As he had said to Tanzi before, he required evidence. He couldn't just act. Yet if a person's life was truly in danger… Nathan frowned. He despised being unsure of anything. As a Detective Inspector, his job required a clear mind, decision making skills as well as investigative ability. As a member of the police it was his duty to help people…
"The Belle Tout Lighthouse?" Nathan repeated.
"Y-Yes… She's there with Paige…"
Nathan took a deep breath. It had been a very long time since he had made a decision with no evidence to back it up. Tanzi clearly believed that this Paige was in danger; there was no doubt about that. Everything was so strange, so peculiar… yet Nathan had to admit there was a part of him that wasn't only open to believing Tanzi's words but rather did believe in them. Whether it was because of the personality's she had taken on or because of the skies opening up four years ago, he knew that the world wasn't as black and white as it seemed.
"Fine," Nathan finally said, standing back up. "I will pick them up and bring them back here." With the decision made and a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, Nathan swept out of the room.
A/N:- Only one more chapter 'till the final Interlude, and then on to the final Act. Things'll be gettin' intense!