Evil Never Dies

by S M Hardy

  ‘And how did he behave?’ I asked.

  She didn’t even hesitate. ‘Like a man possessed, Mr Cummings. Like a man possessed.’

  The shock must have shown on our faces. Her face softened and she leant forward towards us, no doubt like she would have to a patient who needed her reassurance.

  ‘Edward is the sweetest man alive when he’s medicated, but if not he is …’ She sighed. ‘I don’t want to offend or upset you, Mr Pomeroy, but he’s a danger to everyone around him.’

  Simon and I glanced at each other. I could tell by his expression that he was just as surprised as me.

  ‘A danger?’ I repeated.

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t a textbook name or explanation for Edward’s condition. Something happened to him when he was a teenager, as far as we can make out. We don’t know what, but whatever it was drove him over the edge. I understand he spent years in various institutions more or less in isolation until an experimental course of treatment worked for him and gave him a semblance of a normal life.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Emma said.

  ‘I know,’ Ms Barnard said. ‘It’s sad because once he started taking the right cocktail of meds he became a different man. A gentle soul. A real sweetie, in fact.’

  ‘Without the drugs, would he be able to function like a normal person?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s the scary part,’ Ms Barnard said, and I must admit I could see fear in her eyes. ‘If unmedicated, I doubt you would have any idea until it was too late.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, not at all thinking I would want to know the answer.

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ she said, fiddling with the pearls around her neck. ‘Edward when medicated is Dr Jekyll. When not, he is far, far worse than Mr Hyde.’

  ‘He’s schizophrenic?’ Simon asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No, no. As I told you, his condition is undiagnosed.’

  ‘He’s violent?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘This is why I’m so worried. If he’s no longer with your brother, where is he? Without his medication there’s no telling what he would be capable of.’

  Simon leant back in his chair lost in thought, a frown wrinkling his forehead. We had been prepared for most things but not this.

  ‘Ms Barnard,’ Simon said, breaking the silence. ‘You said Edward could be violent − what exactly did you mean? Can you give us an example?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said and began to worry her pearls with such intensity I was sure they would end up scattered across the floor before long. ‘I can only tell you what I’ve heard,’ she said. ‘There has never been an incident here. Never.’

  She waited as if expecting something from us.

  Emma gave her an encouraging smile and it apparently eased her dilemma, as her hand dropped from the pearls to her lap where she grasped it tightly with her other.

  ‘Edward came here a very long time ago. Well before I took up my position. I think Goldsmere was the last resort before the poor man ended up in a secure public facility.’

  ‘Like an asylum?’ I asked.

  She shuddered. ‘I do hate that word, but yes. Edward would have been destined to living in a drugged stupor and, in the circumstances, probably in solitary confinement. He came here after an incident at the previous facility.’ She glanced up from the papers. ‘Apparently Edward had charmed a member of the female staff at his last care home, and believe me he can be very charming.’

  ‘A real “sweetie”,’ I said.

  ‘Quite so. He was so charming the girl got careless. She didn’t check he was swallowing his meds.’ She consulted the papers on her lap. ‘They found about three days’ worth hidden in his room. Why he didn’t wash them down the sink was a mystery, but anyway, after three days he was back to his normal self, which to say the least was dangerous.’

  ‘What happened?’ I hardly dared to ask.

  ‘I suppose no one will ever know what he was planning as on the fourth day the girl called in sick, so it was a male orderly who was sent to give Edward his final meds of the day. Edward flew into a rage and if it hadn’t been for another nurse and a doctor being just along the corridor when it happened the orderly wouldn’t have got out of the room alive.’

  ‘He was seriously hurt?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Cummings, very seriously.’

  I wasn’t about to let her off the hook, we needed to know. ‘How seriously?’

  Her hand went to her pearls. ‘His injuries were life-changing.’

  I gave her a look. ‘Life-changing?’

  She went to pick up her coffee cup and then thought better of it, her hand was shaking so badly. ‘By the time they reached him, Edward had torn out the man’s tongue and gouged out one eye.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was the light, but when I glanced at Emma and Simon they both had a sickly green pallor.

  ‘I’m surprised he was allowed a transfer to another private facility after such an incident,’ I said.

  She pursed her lips, giving me a direct look. ‘I understand the orderly involved was very comfortably looked after by Edward’s family.’

  I sank back in my chair. It figured – Oliver obviously hadn’t been a lot different to his younger brother when it came to getting his own way. Simon used his power and connections, while Oliver threw money at his problems.

  We sat there for a bit sipping our tea; eventually Simon stood. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ he said to Ms Barnard. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But what about Edward?’ the poor woman asked. I could tell she was anxious because she was hanging onto her pearls as though her life depended on it.

  ‘He’s not your responsibility any more. You handed him over to his family in good faith and you’ve alerted us to how dangerous he can be. I don’t think anyone can blame you or Goldsmere House for his actions since he left your care,’ Simon said.

  To say she looked relieved would be an understatement.

  She saw us out into the reception, talking quietly to Simon as we went. I wasn’t listening; in fact, I was finding it hard to think straight. As we had waited to be shown into Ms Barnard’s office I had managed, for the most part, to block out the chorus of voices infiltrating my head and, once inside her room, it was almost as though a barricade had been thrown up between me and them. Outside in the reception I was again subjected to a barrage of cries, screams and the incessant ramblings of the one-time occupants of the building surrounding me. And there were images. Images so deranged I was finding it hard to focus on the real world and I could feel reality slipping away from me.

  I must have staggered, as Emma’s arm abruptly linked through mine and, walking at speed, she almost hauled me towards the entrance and outside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked as the doors slid shut behind us.

  I winced. ‘Let’s get in the car,’ I managed to say, though I could barely hear my own voice.

  She marched me to the Jag as fast as she could, but by the time we reached it she was sagging under my weight as my legs began to crumple beneath me. As she unlocked the car, I slumped against the passenger door, pressing my hands over my ears and screwing my eyes tight shut. It made no difference – now they had found me they weren’t about to let me be.

  ‘Jed?’ I heard a voice say.

  ‘Help me get him inside the car.’

  Somehow between the two of them, Emma and Simon manoeuvred me into the front passenger seat and then with a solid clunk the door shut behind me. The voices didn’t stop. Instead they became more frantic, some begging me to help them, others just wanting me to share their pain.

  I felt rather than heard the Jag roar into life and then we were pulling away and, for a few terrible moments as we headed along the drive to the exit, I thought the late inmates of Goldsmere House were going to come with me. Then with howls of impotent rage we drove out through the gates and they faded away and were gone.

  I slumped back in my seat, massaging my temples.

  ‘Jed,
are you OK?’ Emma asked.

  I opened my eyes and let out a shaky breath. ‘Don’t ever let me go back in there again,’ was all I said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The car journey was rather sober. With Simon listening I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t want to. The inside of my head felt like it had been shaken very hard with a handful of loose stones inside it. I was surprised I didn’t have blood coming out of my eyes, ears and nose. He was easily satisfied as he had other things on his mind, like a psychotic brother on the loose. Emma didn’t say a thing, though I knew once we were alone she would want a blow-by-blow account of what had happened to me.

  As Emma drove, Simon leant forward between the two front seats from where he was perched in the back. ‘Where do you think Edward can be?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I can hardly believe it – he’s been alive all this time and Ollie knew, but never told me.’

  I sat there quietly until my brain slipped back into gear and, while the pounding in my head faded away, my thoughts became coherent again. And with clarity returning, I pondered on what we had learnt from Ms Barnard.

  Simon wasn’t stupid, far from it, and it occurred to me that he must surely be wondering along the same lines as me. Both Oliver and the orderly had similar injuries; could Edward have been one of Oliver’s assailants? I still hadn’t mentioned these injuries to Emma; even so, it was she who broached the subject before I had worked out how to.

  ‘Simon, I hate to even ask,’ she hesitated, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror, ‘but do you think Edward could have had something to do with Oliver’s death? It was a particularly violent way he died.’

  It went very quiet and, as Simon didn’t immediately refute the possibility, it made me think he had been considering it.

  ‘I have to tell the police,’ he said eventually. ‘Then at least they’ll be on the lookout for Edward. If he’s as bad as they’re saying …’

  ‘I suspect Ms Barnard will notify them,’ I said. ‘You might have said it was all down to the family, but she’s going to want to cover herself and Goldsmere.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and it’s probably for the best if I report it sooner rather than later.’

  For the next ten minutes or so he was on his mobile; first to the detective in charge of the murder investigation, he apparently would be calling to speak to Simon in the morning, and then some nameless person, who listened a lot and spoke very little judging from what I could hear. I had the impression it could possibly be a member of his staff at the ministry. I wouldn’t be surprised: if the shit did hit the fan Simon would want to make sure none of the stinky stuff came his way.

  When we arrived back at Kingsmead House Simon disappeared after saying he would see us for pre-dinner drinks at seven and left us to our own devices. It was a relief. I was in no mood for small talk and I could tell Emma was itching to hear about what had happened to me at Goldsmere.

  She managed to hold out until the door to our room closed behind us. ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  I sank down onto the bed. Even thinking about it made me tense and agitated. She sat down next to me and took my hand. ‘What is it, Jed?’

  ‘That place,’ I said, thoroughly miserable. ‘I’ve never been in a place that has had as many lost souls. It was dreadful.’

  ‘What happened, love?’

  So, I told her – everything. At least everything I could bear to talk about. There were some things she didn’t need to know. It was bad enough one of us not being able to sleep at night. ‘What makes it worse is there isn’t a thing I can do for them. They’re lost and afraid, tortured spirits and even in death their madness and isolation goes on and on. I want to help them, but there’s nothing I can do to save them.’

  Emma squeezed my hand ‘Even you can’t save the world, Jed – no one man can.’

  I had to take a shower. I needed to wash away the disturbed feelings of the tormented and insane, which not only filled my head, but had somehow wrapped themselves around me. I cranked the thermostat to as hot as it would go and let the water pound down upon me until my skin was lobster pink and I couldn’t see for the steam. I wasn’t sure it was helping.

  I turned the temperature down to a more bearable level and leant forward, my hands flat against the wall, closing my eyes and allowing the water to spray down upon the back of my head. My mind turned to Oliver and Edward. What on earth had Oliver been playing at? Bringing home a psychopath was never going to end well. And the way he had died – had Edward wanted to punish the brother who, in his mind, had been having him held prisoner at Goldsmere? And who were the others? Yet another mystery. There had been masked figures running Oliver down.

  Oliver was not a fool, I knew that much about him, and yet he had ignored the professionals’ advice and brought home a brother everyone believed dead. If it was such a big family secret, with even Simon not knowing Edward was alive, the man being terminally sick surely wouldn’t be a good enough reason to bring it out into the open. It made no sense at all.

  Simon was barking at someone on the phone when we went down for drinks. He was clearly not happy, though this was hardly surprising in view of all we’d learnt at Goldsmere House.

  By the time he’d finished the call his cheekbones were flushed red, which made his waxy complexion even more obvious. He dropped his mobile into his jacket pocket with an irritated twist of his lips and, upon seeing us, gave a rueful smile.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just sorting some things out at the office. I’ve been away longer than I was expecting and as usual everything has gone to pot.’

  ‘Are you never going to retire?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘No, they’ll have to carry me out in a box. Now, what can I get you to drink?’

  We gave our orders and waited until he had poured them into heavy crystal glasses before broaching the inevitable topic.

  ‘Do you think it might be a good idea to put off Laura for a few days?’ Emma asked.

  He gave a sniff. ‘How can I? This is all hers now.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Emma said, giving me a look.

  ‘If she knew she could possibly be in danger …?’ I said.

  ‘Why should she be? She didn’t know Ollie or Ed.’

  It might have sounded logical to Simon, to me it was irresponsible. ‘Simon, we are talking about someone who has more or less absconded from a mental institution.’

  He gave an irritable flap of his hand. ‘He didn’t abscond, he was released to Ollie.’

  ‘Who is now dead? Possibly killed by his own brother.’

  He took a swig of his drink. ‘It is a bit of a mess,’ he admitted.

  We sat without speaking for a few minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts. ‘Why do you think Oliver never told you Edward was still alive?’

  Simon slowly shook his head. ‘I have no idea. None of it makes any sense.’

  We lapsed into silence. It was a conundrum. Then something else occurred to me. ‘Alice Barnard said Oliver used to take Edward out of Goldsmere once a month. Could he really have brought him here, do you think? Surely the police would have considered him a suspect if he had.’

  Simon glanced across at me. ‘No − at least, if he did, the servants didn’t know anything about it. I spoke to Mrs Walters earlier and she was quite shocked when I told her Edward had been alive all along.’

  I leant back in my chair unconvinced. Servants were good at keeping secrets; they had to be if they wanted to keep their jobs. Simon had been the one to tell me this. ‘A servant’s job is to serve, and part of that service is to know when to be discreet and hold one’s tongue.’ Oliver must have taken Edward somewhere and, I’d bet my Jag on it, Edward had been here.

  All through dinner we batted the subject of Edward and his ‘death’ back and forth, falling silent whenever a member of staff appeared. It might have been my imagination, but they were unusually attentive. One maid in particular didn’t appear to want to leave us unattended for more than a few minutes.r />
  ‘That will be all, Maddy,’ Simon eventually said, clearly frustrated by her constant ministrations. ‘I’ll ring when we’ve finished.’

  She bobbed something halfway between a bow and a curtsy and trotted off out of the room, though she didn’t look very happy about it.

  ‘So, what are you going to tell Laura about all this when she arrives?’ Emma asked.

  Simon sat back in his seat. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to tell her some of it, but it isn’t exactly the best introduction to her long-lost family. Lovely to meet you, Laura. Oh, and by the way, your criminally insane granduncle, who we all thought dead, is on the loose. And, would you believe, your grandfather, who knew he was alive all this time, was the one who had him let out of the secure facility where he’d been locked up for the past forty years?’ His lips curled in distaste. ‘God alone knows what she’ll think of us.’

  ‘Maybe this is a good enough reason to put her off for a week or so,’ I said. ‘Until this is all sorted out.’

  Simon took a swig of his wine. ‘And there lies another problem.’

  Emma and I exchanged a glance. ‘What sort of problem is worth possibly risking her life?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, there’s no risk to her life,’ Simon said with an irritable flap of his hand. ‘But there is a risk to her inheritance.’

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. This was giving me a headache. ‘How?’ I asked, Simon wasn’t the only one who was feeling a little irritable.

  ‘Brandon gave me the impression that Laura was going to be an extremely rich young lady even after death duties, provided she fulfils the terms of the will.’

  My ears pricked up. ‘Terms of the will?’

  He dropped his knife and fork onto his plate with a clatter, the majority of his meal untouched. ‘Brandon said there’s nothing too onerous. But she does have to move into Kingsmead by the end of this month and live here for at least two years. And, as the end of the month is fast approaching, she has no choice. She either moves in within the next few days or forfeits her fortune. I, for one, am not going to let her forgo what is rightfully hers without a very good reason.’