Archive

Department 18
 

Case D18 – 2004 – 3672/AciP/2296

This case – as with so many others – is recorded as a piece of fiction by L H MAYNARD & M P N SIMS (see www.maynard-sims.com).

DANCERS the story is in the hardcover collection FALLING INTO HEAVEN published in limited edition by SAROB PRESS of Wales (this speciality press has published several books that are under investigation by the Authorities)

• This case concerns an ex-convict, JOHN CROWE.
• He is released from prison – files pertaining to the court case, the sentence and the time spent in prison are available under separate reference to those with the appropriate clearance.
• Upon release he is met by his daughter.

The prison gate shut with a whisper behind him and he took his first lungful of free air in four years. Across the street Diana was getting out of the car. ‘Dad!’ she called.

            He was relieved to see there was nobody else in the car. He met her halfway across the street and they embraced, stopping the trickle of traffic and eliciting several angry horn blasts, but they were oblivious to the noise.

            ‘You’ve had your hair cut since I last saw you.’

            She ran her hand through her auburn crop self-consciously.

            ‘It suits you short.’

            She looked at him askance. She knew he hated short hair on women.

            ‘No, really, I mean it. It looks good. Brings out your eyes.’

            ‘That’s enough. Come on,’ Diana said. ‘Let’s get you home.’

• It is obvious from the outset that something is haunting Crowe.

He was staring back at the prison, taking one last long look at the place. As he looked the wall rippled as a shock wave passed through it, and then the bricks began to bulge outwards as if made of rubber. The brickwork stretched, ballooning, splitting, and a black shape pushed out from inside the wall, forming on the pavement outside the prison into an uneven cloud of shadow. It took the human form of a man, but was ill defined around the edges, as if incomplete.

            Crowe gasped and spun round in his seat. ‘Drive!’ he said to his daughter.

            Diana turned to him, confused by the panic in his voice. She followed his gaze but saw nothing but the prison wall, solid, iron-grey brickwork, intimidating and unbreachable.

• A welcome home party is organised, but Crowe has no feelings of relief at his release. He is scared.

It was a problem meeting his old friends, and when they sang, For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow, he started to feel nauseous. He certainly was not a jolly good fellow at all. He was a man who had committed a crime, who had been caught and punished. He was a man so neglectful of his wife that she ran off with the first man to pay her serious attention. He was a man who had let himself down. He didn’t deserve, or want, their cheers.

• Refuge comes in the form of an old friend, the wife of his best friend, Phil Taylor.

He and Helen had been friends for years, since before she married his best friend, Phil Taylor. She had been Helen Nolan then and he had nurtured a major crush on her, but at the time he was committed to Carol. ‘You shouldn’t smoke, Helen. It’s bad for your health.’

• Helen takes Crowe to his old place of work, a workshop,

It was just as he remembered it. His hammer and staple gun still lying on the bench where he’d left them the morning the police came to arrest him. Even the material he was using to re-upholster the couch was still there on its roll, leaning against the wall.

• Even here the haunting pursues him.

A small movement attracted his attention. There were black shadows moving among some rolls of material in the corner. Vague and indistinct they weaved in and out of the rolls. He walked across to the corner and crouched down, pulling the rolls aside. The shadows had vanished but the movement, vague and diaphanous remained, like an echo after a loud noise.

• Meeting with Phil Taylor the story that has haunted Crowe is shared and the danger they all face is revealed.

‘Leon Ellis was a killer. ‘He called them dancers,’ Crowe said. ‘He described them as living shadows, and said he could see them, and hear them, and they were marking all those people for death, telling him who the next victim would be. He had been in prison for most of his life, and he had got to learn how to control them, and use them.’

• Helen is affected, as is Phil. Crowe comes to realise that he is the catalyst. Only he can change events.

1. What we learn from this ‘fiction’ is that the phenomenon we know as ********* is here given the name ‘Dancers’.
2. The description is acutely accurate (Investigate how the authors have access to this information)
3. The final scene, though portrayed as drama in this story, is fact.
4. The death is recorded and the cause remains shrouded in some doubt.
5. Carter was ordered to investigate the prison cell.
6. The initial request to interview Ellis was accepted but the man died (cause of death unknown)

Case remains OPEN – status yellow.

See www.maynard-sims.com