Chapter 10: The Locked Ward
I. The Institutional Ghost
Declan didn't go to a prison cell. Because of Dr. Sterling's expert testimony regarding "acute dissociative trauma," Declan was remanded to the secure psychiatric unit of a hospital in Castlebar. It was a clean, modern facility, but to Declan, it was merely St. Jude's with better lighting.
The Metallic Scent had followed him. It was in the floor wax, the industrial laundry detergent, and the scent of the crushed pills the nurses insisted he swallow. He hid the medication under his tongue, spitting it into the sink once the heavy steel door clicked shut. He needed his mind sharp. He needed the noise.
Superintendent O'Malley visited him three days in. He looked ten years older. He sat across from Declan in the glass-walled interview room, a manila folder between them.
"The laptop was encrypted, Declan," O'Malley said, his voice a low rumble of disappointment. "Our tech boys in Dublin can't get past the BIOS. Sterling says it's a private medical database protected by international privacy laws. He's filed an injunction to keep us from poking around in it."
"He's hiding the lineage, Frank," Declan rasped. He hadn't slept; his eyes were mapped with red veins. "Check the birth records in Dublin from 1963. Look for 'Julian Sterling' and any mention of a 'Caitriona O'Connell.'"
"We looked," O'Malley sighed. "There's nothing. No records, no baptismal certificates, nothing linking the Director to those kids. It's a dead end, son. And the forensics team... they searched the floor of the Children's Wing."
Declan leaned forward, his heart hammering a rhythmic Clang against his ribs. "And?"
"Nothing. The concrete is solid. No signs of disturbance in decades. No bodies."
II. The Gaslight Protocol
Declan felt the world tilt. No bodies? He had seen the confession on the screen. He had felt the weight of the history in that building.
"Sterling is playing us," Declan whispered. "He moved them. Or he never put them there. He knew I'd go for the floorboards. He's leading us in circles."
"Or," O'Malley said, leaning in, "you're seeing things that aren't there. You found a key in a bog because you put it there, Declan. You confessed to it in your own journal. You wrote about the 'White Stone' before you ever 'hallucinated' it. It's all in your handwriting."
This was the masterstroke of the Black Journal. Every entry Declan made to "investigate" himself was being read as a literal confession of guilt. By documenting his madness, he had authored his own conviction.
O'Malley stood up. "The Board is meeting tomorrow. Sterling is recommending permanent commitment. He says you're a danger to yourself. He's even offered to oversee your care personally back at a private wing in St. Jude's."
The horror of it was cold and absolute. Sterling didn't want Declan dead yet. He wanted him back in the laboratory. He wanted to finish the work.
III. The Counter-Investigation
That night, Declan sat in the dark of his room. He had no journal, no pen, no weapon. He only had his memory.
He began to reconstruct the map of St. Jude's in his mind. He went back to the Founder's Archive. If the bodies weren't under the floorboards of the Children's Wing, where would a man like Julian Sterling—a man obsessed with his own legacy—hide his "mistakes"?
He remembered the Tick-Tock of the great clock. The vibration hadn't just been in the walls; it had been in the floor of the Archive.
The Archive was directly beneath the clock, but what was beneath the Archive?
In the Victorian era, large institutional clocks required a Weight Well—a deep, vertical shaft that allowed the massive lead weights to drop over a week's time to keep the mechanism turning.
The weights for a clock that size would be hundreds of pounds. The shaft would go deep into the foundation, far below the water table of the bog.
The bodies aren't under the wing, Declan realized, his eyes snapping open in the dark. They're in the well. Beneath the heart of the clock. Julian didn't bury them; he dropped them into the machine.
IV. The Breakout Strategy
He couldn't wait for O'Malley to believe him. He couldn't wait for a trial. If he was moved back to St. Jude's under Sterling's care, he would be "suicided" within forty-eight hours.
He needed an ally. He thought of Seán Brady.
Seán was the only other person who had seen the "shadow" in the bog. Seán knew about the key. And most importantly, Seán was currently in a low-security ward in the same hospital.
Declan began to observe the ward's routine with the cold, detached eye of a predator. He noted the shift changes, the blind spots in the security cameras, and the exact frequency of the electronic locks. He didn't need a key this time; he needed a distraction.
He began to hum. A low, rhythmic sound that mimicked the Clang of the gate. He was leaning into the madness now, using the hypnotic triggers as a source of energy rather than a source of fear.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
He spent the next six hours inducing a controlled "episode." He paced, he raved, he triggered the alarms. When the orderlies rushed in to sedate him, he didn't fight. He let them take him to the "Quiet Room"—a padded isolation cell.
He knew the Quiet Room shared a ventilation duct with the ward's common area. And he knew Seán Brady spent his nights there, staring at the walls.