The Voice

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 In my long and distinguished career, I have had the displeasure of dealing with some truly difficult cases. The big problem about the criminally insane is that very often they seem to be entirely normal. They are believable, credible. Some are even likeable. People you might meet at the pub and think ‘well, he/she is a decent sort.’ But, of course you would be entirely wrong. Behind the civilised facade, they are dangerous ravening monsters and belong firmly beyond the poorly lighted hallways of the criminally insane asylum. Let us recall Case 439 and let us call our patient Michael. Michael’s shadow cast deeper than most. His tale was one of gory horror and a spiral into insanity brought on by the unceasing summons of an inner voice that only he could hear. For the most part he seemed an entirely reasonable person, one might wonder why he was incarcerated at all. Save for his story.


Every night at precisely 3:33 a.m., Michael would wake to hear a faint murmur that started as a whisper and eventually became a voice. The voice would get louder and more forceful until it filled every crevice in his shattered mind, and he would lie awake in the oppressive darkness, sweating, afraid and immobilised.


Initially, Michael attempted to muffle the voice by self medicating. Drink, drugs, whatever he could get hold of. But that didn't help—the voice continued. And the voice insisted that Michael do unspeakable things. Violent, murderous, terrible things. The voice promised that if only he would do as he was asked it would leave him in peace. Michael resisted and resisted. He held out but the voice was relentless. On and on. Do it. Do it. DO IT!


So, in the end, Michael resorted to violence in an attempt to put an end to the perpetual misery. The voice commanded him in a menacing whisper to embrace his worst tendencies and let out the anger that had been simmering under the skin of his awareness. Michael always maintained that it was his anger. He said the anger belonged to the voice. It is odd how the insane mind can rationalise things.


The initial casualty was an anonymous stranger whose life was taken in an instant of crazed aggression. However, the voice had lied and it didn’t stop. Every morning the same pattern. Every deed the voice demanded was worse than the one before, which meant that Michael's spiral into lunacy deepened with each murder, as did the depravity of his acts.


He was very meticulous in his work. He said that the voice insisted on this. He approached his targets with deliberate accuracy, picking out each victim with a cold, detached frame of mind. It was chilling, the way he finally went through every detail with me. He was detached, cold, almost clinical in his descriptions.


But the voice grew bold, demanding ever more overt acts. Michael stabbed the young woman in the chest, causing her blood to soak the footpath of a city thoroughfare in a macabre display of savagery, and her screams resounded throughout the night. There were many people about, but nobody saw him. But his shadowy figure was glimpsed on CCTV.


Then there was the elderly couple, their bodies discovered days later, mutilated beyond recognition. No witnesses, but some tiny fragment of DNA was matched.


With persistent encouragement and endearing assurances of freedom and atonement, the voice, ever devious, ever hungry  prodded him forward. And Michael experienced a brief reprieve from the overwhelming emptiness with every life he took, a perverse sort of happiness until the next morning at 3.33 am.


But the voice didn't get any quieter as the number of dead increased. More bloodshed and destruction were required until finally Michael realised he was a puppet in a nightmare he had created. I believe he wanted to be caught. He was more and more overt in his acts until after what the police believe was probably in the region of 50 dreadful killings, the net finally closed around him and he found himself in my care.


I spoke to him every day, the clinical team try every therapy, but none could silence the voice. The best we ever managed was to stun him into immobility with drugs, but the voice never stilled. Over the long years Michael told me of every act the voice had made him do. Eventually though the picture was clear to me. The voice was him. His voice. His justification, his reason to be. It never changed or varied. He was never released, of course and was eventually killed by another inmate in an argument over a cup of apple juice.


I look back over my career and wonder. I wonder if the voice that wakes me every morning at 3.33 am will ever stop this side of the grave.

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