Stamford was a desperate man, for what, he hadn't a clue. He had spent so long in his cell, constantly under the influence of narcotics, that over the years, he had forgotten who he was and where he had come from. All he could do was to repeat his name over and over.

Slowly, he sounded out the word, and listened to the voice that bounced back from off the cell walls.

'Stam......ford' the name sounded familiar. Yet the voice seemed alien to him.

Stamford. Yes, that's it, that's my name. Stamford. He paused uncertain. Wasn't it?

He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. His mind was too dull. Like the mists of an autumn morning that had settled down over the land in a thick blanket of water laden air, dense, impenetrable, above all, disorientating.

He was a thin, emaciated wretch of a man. In his thirties, he had a mane of dirty, lice infested brown hair and a tangled beard. Both of which framed a sharp nose and thin lips. His dark green eyes- still bright- frantically flicked back and forth from one dark corner to the shadows of the others. Confused and uncertain of his surroundings, he rocked on the balls of his feet, leaning the full weight of his starved body onto his fingertips. He had smeared the floor of his tiny cell many times with his own feces. The stench was so thick that the taste settled in the back of his throat. His head craned towards the ceiling. His mouth hung open and his tongue lolled out. A steady stream of drool ran down his chin and onto his filthy ragged shirt.

He tried his best to think past the constant screaming in his head. His mind drowned any thoughts out. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. So, after much consideration he decided to spit out the head of the bird. He had sat their rocking for hours with it in his mouth. Flicking and poking the gruesome ball with his tongue. He made squawking noises as he cried.

A low, disquieting chuckle bounced off the walls of the cold cell, echoes that in his own ears deafened his every thought. In silence, with clouded eyes, he stared far off through the brick wall and into the distance of his drug addled mind. Grey light that had snuck into the cell between the metal bars grew darker and the shadows spread and crawled across the cell floor, until all fell into darkness. A glint of light flared in the corners of Stamford's rage filled eyes. His confused mind tried to remember the reasons for his ever present anger, and who had dared to anger him. The part of his mind that resembled thought, wanted to strike out violently and hurt something or someone.

The itch had started again. He could feel it crawling across his skin, under his skin. His arms felt as if they were on fire, his damaged mind had convinced him that large white pustules had blistered and spread across his body and were about to rupture and drench him in the stink of sickness. His body unscathed, his mind twisted, Stamford remained unmoving. The stench of his cell flowed out into the corridor and down its length, permeating throughout the dead and empty wing of the prison. Stamford bent his finger and flicked the sparrow's head back and forth. He could still taste the coppery tang of the bird's blood on his lips. Tears of unrealized frustration ran down his face. He flicked the sparrow's head over at the cell door, giggling with a crazed humorlessness as the head ricocheted under his soiled solitary blanket.

The sound of metal striking metal rang down the hallway outside Stamford's cell as the spy hole of the door slammed shut. In the cold dull corridor of the soon to be demolished cell block B, Governor Henry turned to Victor, the prison's doctor, a smile of satisfaction curling his lips, he asked, 'Well, Victor, how's our experiment performing?'

The doctor removed the pipe from his mouth and pointed with its stem at the cell door and tapped. Arat-atat-tat. Puckering his lips, he blew a cloud of old Virginia into the air.

'I believe that there is something in the notion of drug induced psychosis.' he replied. 'I've found that a mixture of opiates and narcotics, combined with sleep deprivation and fatigue make the prisoner open to suggestion, extreme suggestion that is. With just a little extra push I can make him do almost about anything you want, Henry.'

Henry's eyes narrowed, he cocked his head towards the doctor saying just one word.

'Almost'

Victor raised his pipe in submission and shrugged his shoulders.

'Yes, almost, I can't make him do anything he finds fundamentally wrong. If deep in his subconscious he doesn't wish to do a thing, there's not a lot I can do to make him act otherwise.'

Henry barked 'Nothing' disappointment furrowing his brow.

The doctor pondered a moment, 'Well, I suppose I could try substitution. I've been toying around with the idea for a while. The premise goes thus. You wish him to kill a person, but deep down he doesn't want to do it. He doesn't wish harm to come to the subject in question. I would have to convince his subconscious that the victim was someone completely different, someone evil, substituting the victim's identity for that of another, more undesirable one. Then I would instruct him to kill that person instead. I believe that would work, possibly.'

The doctor tapped out his pipe against the wall. The embers falling in a snowy flurry, settled on the floor. With the heel of his shoe Victor snuffed out their life.

Henry demanded 'OK, do it. Convince the wretch that the victim I have chosen for our first experiment is a woman he finds morally repulsive and his only option is to kill her. And Victor, please ask him the whereabouts of the item we talked about, yes?'

The doctor said 'All these years Henry, and not once has he ever mentioned it. Why do you continue to ask him? He obviously knows nothing. And if he ever did, his mind has long since gone, along with all that was in it.'

Seeing anger building in Henry's eyes, Victor capitulated, 'Yes Henry, I will ask him, again. Remember our deal though. I get the corpses. My work needs fresh bodies. My papers depend on it.'

Henry sighed, 'Yes, Victor, I remember. You do your job, and I'll give you all the body parts you will ever need.'

Henry also remembered the time he had walked into the prison's mortuary to find the doctor performing, what could only described as a dubious experiment on a large male corpse. The chest had been cut open, the rib cage spread apart to reveal the heart. Victor was deep in the chest, and in concentration. He had attached a clockwork device to the heart with copper wire and spring clips, and was cranking a handle that turned cogs and gears to send short bursts of electric charge into the dead muscle. With each shock, the heart beat several times, and then came to rest. Victor hadn't heard the swing doors creak back and forth as the Deputy Governor entered the frigid room. Standing by Victor's side, Henry waited for him to stop and explain himself.

Victor admitted that he had been experimenting on the bodies of executed prisoners for a while now. He had always waited until he had an unclaimed body on the slab before he would conduct his experiments. When he had finished he would tidy up the bodies, making them presentable- ish, for burial. The doctor's activities were strictly illegal, but he seemed unaware of how much trouble he would be in if Henry had a mind to report him. On further conversation with Victor, Henry could see that the doctor had little or no conscience. Henry had leverage. He could make the doctor comply with any requests that he made of him. Henry had found that as long as the doctor had material to work with, he would happily carry out any demands. And there would be demands, plenty of demands.

Victor looked at the preoccupied Governor and asked 'Your Wife must be wondering where you are, Henry.'

Coming back to the present, Henry dismissed the idea. 'Jessica can wait. She is no use to me here. She is no use to me anymore.' Pulling a folded piece of card from his jacket pocket, Henry said 'Use this in the experiment, Victor, just as we discussed.'

Making his way out of the prison block, Henry stepped through the Iron Gate and strolled towards the waiting coach.

Exhausted and stunned, Jessica sat uncomfortably in the coach and waited for Henry to finish his dealings with the execution. Having witnessed an hour earlier the hanging of her attacker, Jessica had been deeply shocked by the unpleasant surprise. She had kept her attack secret and would continue to keep it that way, no matter what. To let it be known that the wife of Governor Newhart had been attacked and raped would have brought embarrassment and shame down upon him. Jessica couldn't live with such shame and wanted nothing more than to forget that it had ever happened. The ghastly man was dead, hanged, his neck broken. Now all she wanted was to get away from the prison as fast as possible and back to the safety and quiet of their country estate. Jessica fidgeted, uneasy, and nervous. Leaning out the coach window, she desperately wished that Henry would emerge from the small wooden door that hung like a framed painting within the vastly larger iron studded gate. This in turn was enclosed by a stone archway that led the way into the prison's cobbled courtyard.

Jessica closed her aching eyes and tried to relax, but her mind kept returning to thoughts and memories of all that had gone so terribly wrong in her life over the past six years. There had been so much death, and so much sorrow, she found it difficult to breathe, the disappearance and death of her first and only true love, quickly followed by the tragic and horrific death of her mother. Overjoyed by the return of her alive, but injured father, Jessica had felt that the ills that had blighted her life so far had finally lifted and some good had returned to give her and her father some hope for the future. But all was to be short lived. News of her father's apparent suicide had ended her hope. Everyone whom she loved was dead and gone. Jessica slowly sank into depression, and soon, she simply stopped. She would lay alone in bed for days on end, refusing to see people. She would not leave her room. She was unwilling to continue, but was also unable to end her own suffering as her father had done. Jessica's ever faithful butler, Oliver, anxiously summoned the family doctor. On examination he had diagnosed depression and prescribed mild sedatives. Jessica had used the medication to send her troubled mind into a state of mental oblivion, rather than their intended purpose of dulling the mental anguish that she suffered.

Henry had arrived not a moment too soon. He comforted her, gave her understanding, as well as a shoulder to cry on. He helped saved her and find a new purpose in life for her. He was a lifeline, thrown to her as she struggled to swim against the overwhelming tide. Jessica had grasped hold of the line by the very tips of her fingers. As her sanity faded away to nothing but pain, Henry lifted her clear of the maelstrom, and set her down on firmer ground. His proposal, and their marriage the following year helped put all of Jessica's woes firmly behind her, and a new and brighter future stretched out ahead. Too soon though, Jessica's life was to be turned upside down by a lone and vicious attacker. This sad chapter in her life, she had managed to keep secret from all but her trusted housekeeper.

Jessica remembered little of the attack, only the face of the monster that had forced himself upon her. She had stumbled with the help of a scruffy young man out of the passage. He had left her there on the pavement in the sunshine and disappeared. Dazed and in pain Jessica had staggered into the road, trying to make her way home. Without warning a horse and carriage flew around the corner and gave her a glancing blow, sending her down into the muddied gutter. On her discovery, she had been rushed home and to bed. The doctor arrived within minutes and tended her cuts and bruises. Mrs Jenkins her housekeeper bathed her and dressed her and helped her back into bed. Everyone had assumed that Jessica had been run down by a horse and cart on her daily stroll around Crown Park and as far as anyone would ever know that would be the case.

The following day the doctor had returned to check on the, lucky lady, as he put it. 'My dear, most would not have survived being run over by a one ton beast. You are lucky to be alive.' Finished, Henry walked the doctor to the front door, unwittingly giving the head housekeeper her chance. Entering the bedchamber Mrs Jenkins quietly closed the door. Turning to face her mistress, she approached slowly and spoke tenderly.

'Ma'am, maybe it's not my place to speak, but as there is no one else to raise such a sensitive subject with you, I implore you to listen. If you think me to forward then dismiss me if you must. But please let me help you.'

Jessica opened her eyes and looked at the concerned woman and nodded 'What is it you wish to say Mrs Jenkins?'

Stepping closer to the bed, she checked over her shoulder, making sure the door was still tightly shut. And said, 'It was I who helped you undress, and ran you a bath last evening, ma'am. I washed away the dirt and bathed your wounds. Mostly scrapes and bruises. The doctor took care of the deeper cuts. But they will heal quickly.' Mrs Jenkins could see Jessica trembling and wished she could hold the poor lass.

She continued 'There was bruising on your legs. Four small bruises in a row on each thigh and one larger bruise further in. Bruising I think may have been made by angry hands. Also, I couldn't help but notice a stale muskiness on both you and your clothing as I undressed you. I've smelled that before. It was the smell of a spent man.' Unable to keep her respectful distance she sat on the edge of Jessica's bed and took hold of her trembling hand.

'My dear, if you were attacked, I'm so sorry. But if you were, then sometime in the months to come fruit may blossom from that seed. You must lay with your husband soon as you're able. For your sake you must do this. It's the only way to protect yourself and your reputation.'

Holding the sobbing girl tight in her embrace, Mrs Jenkins continued. 'If fruit does come to bear, you must not blame the child for its creation. A wicked seed does not mean a wicked fruit. Be a loving mother to your child. Most important is to give your child a loving, doting father. Sir Henry must be that father, and he must believe that to be the case. Do you see? Do you understand?' She asked Jessica as she held her at arm's length. Jessica nodded, 'Yes.'

After several minutes Jessica dried her eyes and managed a brief smile. 'Let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we? Thank you, dear lady. You're a Godsend.'

Just then, Henry entered the room. Mrs Jenkins picked up the breakfast dishes with the uneaten food and excused herself. Henry watched the housekeeper leave and wondered what their hushed tones had been all about. Suspicion had always been his way. And suspicious he was. He too had seen Jessica's bruising.

'I will have to take closer notice of them from now on.' he decided.

 He sat by her side and held her hand 'how do you feel my dear?' He forced a smile and squeezed her hand, a little too tightly. Jessica winced and pulled away.

Within the year, happiness was to brighten the Newhart residence. News of the birth of their baby son, Jeremiah, was announced. A small and demanding baby, Jeremiah gave Jessica a new lease of life, and a reason to put the past firmly behind her. But no matter what changed in her life, Jessica rarely felt anything other than lonely solitude. In a room full of friends, Jessica would still feel missed, unseen, forgotten even, alone in her depression, alone in her sorrow. And yet again, here she was, alone, sat waiting for her cold and aloof husband to appear.

After an eternity of waiting, Jessica watched Henry stepped through the prison gates, and out into the bright morning light. Henry smiled at his wife as he approached the coach. Opening its small black door, he jumped up and in.

'Aah! I always feel a sense of fulfillment after a good morning of executions, nothing quite like doing one's duties to make you feel that the world is a little better, don't you think, my dear?'

Looking at her for a response he noted her appearance.

'Are you feeling alright, my dear? You look a little pale.'

Jessica smiled weakly 'I'm fine. Thank you for asking Henry. Shall we be off? I'm looking forward to the peace and quiet of the countryside.' She kissed his cheek, 'But I will miss sweet little Jeremiah. I hope Alice takes good care of him.'

Henry patted her hand reassuringly 'She's the best nanny money can buy, my dear. He will be fine, don't worry so.'

Little made Jessica feel content or reassured these days. Even with Henry by her side all these years, she hadn't felt safe or loved, not really. Not like she had with Humboldt. It wasn't Henry's fault, she knew that. He had never been the loving type. He had comforted her through the terrible times. But he was a solitary figure who liked his own company to the extreme. This had cooled their relationship, which had never been passionate to begin with. Jessica had been left alone within their marriage to raise their only child. Lately though, Henry had become increasingly cold and angry. Short tempered. He had drawn her into petty arguments that had no real substance. She thought it was almost as if he needed an excuse to shout and be abusive towards her. Jessica had become weary of his intentions. She had walked in on him with Jeremiah- he had hold of his son at arm's length, studying him. He seemed to be deciding something. Jessica was worried at what Henry was thinking.

Henry mused 'He has your beautiful green eyes, my dear, and your slight frame. Where he gets his coarse mousy hair, I do not know. The more I look upon him the less I see of myself. My dear, it's almost as if he isn't.........'

Henry's eyes flashed in her direction briefly before returning to his son. Jessica had been scared of Henry ever since the day, months earlier, when Mrs Jenkins, her trusted housekeeper came to her pale, and distressed. She told of how Sir Henry had called for her. How he had questioned her of Jessica's comings and goings, and of any chance meetings his wife may of had with Gentlemen without his knowledge. Mrs Jenkins had promised Jessica that she had said nothing. But she was terribly afraid of Mr Newhart's cold, and threatening behavior and would no longer be able to keep the house. Apologizing and begging for forgiveness, Mrs Jenkins had rushed from the Newhart's Town house and didn't stop until she had reached home.

Unhappy and lonely, Jessica had spent less and less time outside in public. Instead she devoted her time secluded away with Jeremiah. Weeks passed by. Jessica couldn't remember the last time she had seen the daylight sky, later that night Henry had insisted that she make herself available and join him at the prison in the morning. That would be all the affection he would show her, just a command for her to appear on his arm in public. That was all she was to him now, a show thing, a beautiful bauble, his prize.

The following morning, the execution now finished with, Henry banged his silver tipped cane on the underside of the coach's roof. Without explanation or guidance, Oliver, the butler and coach driver, flicked up the rim of his hat, took hold of the reins and geed up the horse. Taking the whip, he tapped the horse's flank and steered them towards the gates.

Jessica sat quietly as the coach rolled out of the prison and into the busy morning traffic, heading towards Borden high street. There they would pick up Henry's new suit and other essentials for their long weekend away at their country estate. She sighed, relieved to be free of the brick hell hole. She prayed that she could get at least some peace and rest in the country.

That night, mentally exhausted, Jessica retired to the master bedroom of their country house. Her mind dulled with depression, she eventually fell into a restless dark sleep. Her heart beating heavily in her chest, Jessica pulled herself hand over hand along the brick wall of the dark passage. Panic was keeping her company. Every doorway had become a pool of black shadows, every heap of rubbish an attacker ready to pounce. She ran towards the far end of the passage, towards the light and the welcome opening. Both, just out of her reach. Hidden in the shadows of a recess a tall menacing figure breathing loudly, stepped out between her and the sanctuary that she so desperately wished to reach. Where once arms had been, the brooding man now had large grey fins, his mouth, a slash of razor sharp teeth. He moved towards her effortlessly through the thick cloying air. His breath grew louder, its reek unbearable. Jessica froze in horror, she recognized the twisted apparition in front of her. Her eyes wide, her teeth chattering, Jessica felt as if she was drowning in the black pools of her father's dead eyes. His menacing figure continued to move closer. Within reach, he brushed against her, his fins stroking her arm. The sensation sent a shiver of revulsion rippling across her skin. Like a spark of electricity, the shock of contact sent urgency flooding through her body and into her legs. Breaking free of his stare, Jessica forced herself to run. With frightening speed he moved to block her escape. Ducking under his grasp, she bolted past his flailing fins.

Leaving her father behind, she could hear him scream, 'ONLY HALF AN HOUR, THATS ALL IT TOOK, JUST HALF AN HOUR!'

Running wildly, cold sweat blinded her. The warmth of sunlight was within her reach. Suddenly out of the darkness lurched a second menacing figure. Reaching out an arm, the rotting corpse, its neck broken and circled in rope, took hold of her hair, lifting her off of her feet. The monstrous creature roared a foul stinking breath into her face as it shook her like a rag doll. Desperately clawing at its grasp, Jessica fought for her life. As she struggled frantically against an impossibly strong grip, a ray of light fell across the foul monster's face. The breath and fight drained out of her body, she screamed.

'NOoooooooo!'

Her throat raw, she could scream no more. The monster's eyes bore menacingly into hers. It smiled wickedly. The rotting face of her attacker, her rapist, inched closer to hers. The putrid flesh peeled away from his face and fell around his feet. Frank Gregory's lipless mouth opened and shut.

'Hello, little lady, did you miss me? This is going to be so good!' he rasped.

Frank slapped her hard across the face, leaving behind a bloody hand print flecked with rotted skin. Throwing her violently to the ground, he stood over her trembling body. Thick black blood oozed from his ruined mouth. Frank fell to his knees, and then onto all fours on top of her. Terrified, Jessica retreated into the sanctuary of her darkened and brittle mind.

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