The Drowning Ground

by James Marrison

  ‘She kept copies?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Graves said. ‘Every page. Photocopied and in two files. Rebecca’s handwriting.’

  Lang looked up. ‘I’d like a glass of water, please.’

  I nodded. Graves went out of the room and came back with a plastic cup. Lang took a large gulp.

  Both of us waited and watched him, neither of us daring to say a word. Incredibly, Lang managed a half-laugh and I knew right then that it was over. ‘That damned diary,’ he said. ‘It was about the only bloody thing I told Rebecca to do that she actually went ahead and did. Ever. In everything else she just ignored me. But that diary … So Nancy kept a copy, then?’

  I nodded and, without giving him time to think, said, almost sympathetically, ‘Must have been a bit of a shock. When you found out that Nancy had it. Nancy had found it when she was cleaning Rebecca’s room. She had it with her when you were supposed to meet her in Cheltenham. You took the chance that she would have it with her and that you could trust her. Am I right?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t take the chance she’d tell.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘You already know, I suppose,’ Lang said. ‘If you’ve read the diary you know everything already.’

  I nodded. ‘We know. But I want to hear it from you. You got a call from Nancy. Or she came to see you, right?’

  Lang took a deep breath. After another long moment he seemed to make up his mind. He took off his glasses, looked at his own reflection briefly in the lenses and then said, ‘All right. Yes. She came to see me one afternoon. After Hurst’s funeral. She told me she had the diary.’

  ‘And she wanted cash for it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds. I told her it would take me some time to get that.’

  ‘And she hadn’t read it before? It was only after Hurst was murdered that she read it?’

  ‘Yes, she thought there might have been something in it.’

  ‘She found it in Rebecca’s room?’

  Lang nodded. ‘Yes. Rebecca had hidden it behind some old tiles in the bathroom. And one day, when Nancy was cleaning, it fell out.’

  ‘So she took the diary and the money but forgot about the diary?’

  ‘Yes. She told me that she put the diary in an old bookcase and forgot all about it.’

  ‘Until she heard about what happened to Hurst?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So she had a look through it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did she ever mention taking it to the police?’

  ‘She said that she needed the money. That things weren’t going well for her in Brighton, and if she hadn’t needed the money she would have taken it straight to the police.’

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money,’ Graves said.

  ‘It was more than my life savings,’ Lang said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘My wife would have noticed that it was missing straightaway. I didn’t really know what to do. Told her I needed time to think. We arranged to meet in town before she left for Brighton, and I told her that I would bring her the money then.’

  ‘So you knew she was living in Brighton and you took the chance that she was heading home by train after she met you?’

  Lang nodded. ‘I checked the train times. Knew that there were trains to London. If I didn’t show up she’d probably take the shortcut and then try to phone me again once she was back home. I waited for her in that lane and suddenly there she was. Well, you know what happened next. You must have seen her.’

  ‘Yes, we saw her,’ Graves said.

  ‘I didn’t have long after that.’

  ‘You searched her?’

  ‘It was in her bag.’

  ‘So you thought she had lived up to her side of the bargain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you killed her?’ I said. ‘You are saying that you killed her, Dr Lang?’

  Lang looked up and put his glasses back on. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘You hit her with something,’ Graves said.

  Lang nodded.

  ‘With what? What did you hit her with?’

  ‘A bar. It was in the back of the car. In the boot.’

  ‘A tyre iron,’ Graves said coldly. ‘Is that what you used?’

  ‘Yes. I put it in a plastic bag and took it with me to Cheltenham.’

  ‘What did you do with it afterwards?’ Graves said.

  ‘I took it home, washed it and threw it away in an old skip.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Tewkesbury. Early the next morning.’

  There was a pause. ‘And the diary?’ I said. ‘You read it?’

  ‘Later, when I got home.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll come back to Nancy and the diary later. Because it was really all about Rebecca. Everything has been about her right from the beginning.’

  Lang bit down on his lip. Then he looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  52

  ‘Let’s go back to her, then. What was it about Rebecca?’ I said. ‘When did you start to notice that there was something wrong with her?’

  ‘Actually, I might not have identified it at all if it hadn’t been for one of her teachers.’

  ‘At the boarding school?’

  ‘Yes. Her housemistress.’

  ‘Ms Walker?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lang pulled on the creases of his trousers. Perhaps because he was on professional ground, he seemed a little calmer now, almost as if he were simply recounting a case history of one of his patients.

  ‘She had noticed something herself?’

  ‘She called me aside before one of my sessions with Rebecca one evening,’ he said. ‘I needed somebody else to see it too – for the idea really to take hold.’

  ‘How long had she been there by then – at the school?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … not long, I think. I used to see Rebecca in a classroom over in the quad while the girls were in their houses doing their prep. Not very often. Once a month. I felt that we needed to see each other much more, but Rebecca wouldn’t hear of it. She didn’t want the other girls to know, you see.’

  ‘But why? Why did you need to see more of her?’

  ‘Because nothing seemed to be working. At school she was still essentially isolated. And, to be perfectly frank, the school didn’t seem to be helping her either.’

  ‘So there was something wrong with her?’ I said. ‘It was worse than you had first thought.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’d realized by then that you might have been wrong? That the behaviour was not to do with her accident on the pond at all?’ I said. ‘You couldn’t let me know that when I saw you. But, as far as she was concerned, it was of no consequence?’

  ‘It was of consequence, but I began to feel that it wasn’t the issue. But I couldn’t understand where I could have gone wrong. In fact, I’d told Frank that we might well have to seek a second opinion. But then her housemistress drew me aside and said she wanted to talk to me about Rebecca. So when the session was over we had a chat in her office.’

  ‘So what did she say?’ I said.

  ‘She seemed a bit upset. It took her a while to actually come out with it. She said there was something about Rebecca – something that she couldn’t quite explain. She found she was avoiding her. Didn’t even want to be in the same room with her. She’d asked one of the other girls to watch her and look after her. And she felt wretched about it, because she felt like she was letting the girl down.’

  ‘Letting her down how?’ I said.

  ‘She told me that Rebecca wore her out. It could be exhausting to be in the same room as her for any extended period of time. And this feeling … well, she found that it could come over her very quickly, and that it wasn’t entirely rational.’

  ‘And she couldn’t remember experiencing anything like it with the other girls?’

  ‘Never.’ Lang res
ted his hands on the table. ‘And that’s what really worried her. To begin with, I didn’t think anything of it. Thought she was probably overreacting. But something had clicked in my mind, though at the time I didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘You mean that the symptoms were familiar? You’d seen something like it before?’

  ‘No, I’d never seen it. Not up close. Not personally. But I’d read about it. As soon as she told me how Rebecca made her feel, I began to realize that she might just be right. There was something … there was something tiring about her, and sometimes when I left her I was pretty damned glad to see the back of her and I didn’t know why. But, like Ms Walker, I didn’t really like admitting it to myself. It seemed … I don’t know, a bit mean-spirited to think of a child in those terms. And so I suppose I’d tried to ignore it. But, as I drove home that night, I couldn’t help thinking about what she had said.’

  ‘And you started to watch her?’

  ‘Yes. And I began to notice other things about her. There was something ever so slightly off-key about her. Gestures made slightly too late or not at all. An emotional emphasis omitted or exaggerated. The right facial expression formed too soon. Her voice rising at the wrong time or not rising at all. I didn’t really know what to make of it. Wasn’t really sure what I was seeing, if anything.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m with you,’ I said. ‘But it was some kind of illness that she had? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Yes, she was ill. Very, very ill. But I didn’t know how ill to begin with. But everything she said seemed rehearsed somehow. And after a while I got the impression that somehow I was being deceived. But I didn’t know how or why, and I didn’t understand what it meant. And then, soon afterwards, over the Christmas holiday, I heard some rather distressing news over at Frank’s house.’

  ‘About Rebecca?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From Frank’s foreman? Sam Griffin?’

  ‘I never knew his name. A farm worker or labourer. Big man. Always wore a cap.’

  ‘That’s him. He came to see you in your house?’

  ‘No. Not at the house. He must have spotted my car parked out front. And so he was waiting for me outside, at the end of the lane by the gate. He came at me from out of the trees and motioned for me to pull over. It was pouring with rain so I let him in the car to dry off.’

  ‘And that’s when he told you?’

  ‘He said he’d seen Rebecca in one of the old barns. Said he’d caught her doing something. He’d caught her drowning animals. Vermin. He didn’t know what it meant, but he didn’t like it, and he thought I should know about it. And by the way he described it to me it sounded like she’d done it before.’

  ‘So what did it mean? It was important, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I was deeply shocked because if true it was extremely serious,’ Lang said. ‘Very serious indeed. And so I confronted her with it straightaway during our next session.’

  ‘And how’d she take it? I don’t suppose she liked it,’ I said.

  ‘She was absolutely furious,’ Lang said. ‘She said he was lying. Said that he’d always had it in for her ever since she was a little girl. She said he was just trying to get her into trouble.’

  ‘And did you believe her?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. Why would he lie about something like that? So we had a fight. She couldn’t understand why I was taking his side. She started shouting. She told me to get out. Said she didn’t want to see me any more. And anyway, so what? So what if she was killing them? They were only vermin on the farm. They had to be got rid of one way or another.’

  ‘So she admitted it in the end?’

  ‘In the end, yes. And the way he described it, she was getting something out of it.’ Lang suddenly appeared a little cautious. ‘So it changed things immediately.’

  ‘But how?’

  Lang ran his hands through his hair. ‘Well, it pointed very clearly to something I hadn’t seen before: sadism. And it was an aspect of her personality that she was clearly extremely adept at hiding. And that was the most worrying part of all. It was the first time I’d ever been given a glimpse of it. And I couldn’t understand how I could have missed it. And he told me something else as well.’ Lang lapsed into silence.

  ‘Told you what?’ I said loudly.

  Lang seemed to snap out of it. ‘He couldn’t explain it, but he said that for a moment he felt as if he were looking at someone else. “Looking at someone else.” Those were his words. And I started thinking that maybe he was right. And after that I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I told myself that I was being a damned fool.’

  ‘So that’s when you started to suspect,’ I said slowly. ‘But you didn’t want to admit it to yourself because she was so young. But you had an idea. And you kept on watching her after that?’

  ‘Yes, far more closely. And then one day I saw what he meant.’

  ‘So you two made up after the argument?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lang sat back in his chair. He folded his arms.

  ‘Come on, Lang, let’s get this over with. When was it? When did you see it?’ Graves said.

  ‘It was near the end of the summer term,’ Lang said. ‘We met where we always did, in the classroom at the top of the school, overlooking the quad. The rest of the classrooms were deserted, so we had the whole place to ourselves.

  ‘I asked her to sit down. We talked for a while. She was looking forward to the summer holidays. Her father had promised to take her away to France or Spain for a few weeks. I can’t remember where. I asked her how she was getting on with the other girls at school, and she said much better. After we’d talked about that, I asked her to please talk it through with me again. I asked her to tell me what had happened. I hadn’t planned on asking her. It just kind of came out. It would be the last time, I promised her.’

  ‘Go through what again?’

  ‘What had happened to her on the pond.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘Yes. Her voice, as she described the incident, was strangely toneless. Monotonous and even. I’d noticed that before. It meant something, I was sure of it.

  ‘They had met on the green. Got there on their bikes. It was Ned’s idea to go to the pond. They’d discussed it during the lunchtime break at school. They left the bikes in the trees. They didn’t want anyone else to see them.

  ‘But she didn’t want to go on the ice. The other two had teased her, but she didn’t care. She was cold and she wanted to go home. The ice looked dangerous. The boys went on first. Ned, the elder brother, and then Owen. She watched them. She called for them to come back, but quietly, because she didn’t want to get them into trouble. They ignored her. She took a few steps on to the ice. And it began to crack. Then, suddenly, there it was. I sensed it. The faintest edge of something else in her voice. There was another emotion buried deep beneath the horror. Her eyes were bright. I sat very still, watching her. It had been like glimpsing a figure that was very far off. She kept on talking about Ned and Owen in that low, flat voice of hers.

  ‘She managed to scramble to the bank and she had tried to help them. But they went under so quickly. The noise of the breaking ice had seemed quiet at first, but now the ice was breaking all over the pond. She was sure they must have woken the entire village and that someone would come to help them. But no one came. The two boys had been there, and then suddenly they weren’t any more. She couldn’t understand what had happened. But now she could see them. Struggling in the water. She didn’t know what to do.

  ‘She thought I was looking out of the window. But I was watching her reflection very closely. For a moment the tone of her voice changed. And her face had changed too. A look of, I don’t know, slyness appeared as she stared at my back, and then she looked away into the distance. I gazed at her reflection, and suddenly all the thousands of little lies and half-truths she had told me over the years merged into one big and continuous deception so huge that it seemed to suck the very air out o
f the room. And I very much wanted her to just shut up, because being there – being anywhere near her – was unbearable. Because nothing that she had said was real.’

  ‘But did you say anything to her at the time?’ I said. ‘Did you confront her with it?’

  ‘No. Not then. I pretended that I hadn’t seen it.’

  ‘But why?’ Graves said.

  ‘I’m not sure. It was over so quickly. Her expression had gone back to one of neutrality. She was still talking about Ned and Owen. I turned around and cut her off in mid-sentence. I made some excuse, I think. Said I was sorry but we had to finish the session early. We walked down the stairs without saying a word, and then I watched her take the path across the grass. A pretty girl wearing a pretty dress. Then she stopped and waved goodbye. And I remember thinking, it just can’t be. The whole thing suddenly seemed impossible. Monstrous and unthinkable. I didn’t even want to think about it. I tried to forget it.’

  ‘But of course you couldn’t,’ I said.

  ‘No, I couldn’t sleep that night,’ Lang said. ‘Couldn’t concentrate on my other patients the next day either. The days on which I had to see her again were the worst. I started avoiding her,’ Lang said. ‘Cancelled a few appointments. Tried to get someone else for her, but Frank wouldn’t hear of it. And it didn’t get any better. Every night, as soon as I closed my eyes, I seemed to see those two boys on the ice and I saw Rebecca watching from the bank. And sometimes, when I finally did fall asleep, in my dreams I became the one struggling in the icy water, unable to get out.’

  53

  ‘But there was no real way of knowing,’ I said. ‘No way you could be sure. That’s why you waited.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t see her after she was expelled from school, and I had my other patients, so I tried my best to forget her. Then I heard something. It was completely by chance – just an overheard conversation in a pub. I heard that those two brothers hadn’t been the first. Another boy had drowned in the pond a long time ago and in exactly the same way. Fell through the ice. I’m not from Quinton, but apparently it’s common knowledge round there.’

  ‘But really you still had nothing,’ I said. ‘No proof. And then you started to think of someone else. You started thinking about Sarah Hurst.’