by Neil Spring
‘That woman ought to be committed!’
‘What if she falls?’
‘Marie, for the love of God, please come down!’ Hartwell bellowed, his voice shaking. ‘We can try to talk about what’s happened with a doctor, or an expert. Someone who understands better than me.’
I turned to look at Hartwell beside me, saw his agonised face as he circled the bell tower, looking up. ‘Why don’t you go after her?’ I asked quickly.
Hartwell shook his head hopelessly. ‘I’d only make it worse. God knows what she’d do.’ He threw a desperate, pleading look at Price.
‘Come on!’ Price said to Sidewinder.
The two men flew to the staircase, but it took them less than a second to realise they was never going to reach the top. Bits of rotten floorboards were clattering down all around us now, as if she was purposefully stamping her heels up there to smash the platform they’d have to cross to reach her.
Grabbing Hartwell by the shoulders, I spun him round. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘I fear she’s gone mad from grief. I’ve tried my best for her, but she’s obsessed with this notion of seeing our son again,’ he explained, his face both agonised and wondering, ‘in the next world.’
The full impact of those words hit me just as a voice stopped Price in his tracks. Gripping the banister, he peered up into the gloom.
At first, we couldn’t hear her, the deep clamour of the bells drowning out her voice. But then the shouts became screams. For a moment, I thought I heard her saying, ‘No more, please, no more,’ but then I realised that was wrong. She was saying, ‘He won’t be alone any more.’
We were all exchanging wild looks. With incredible swiftness, Price started up the stairs again, but his right foot plunged through a rotten board. ‘For God’s sake,’ he yelled, ‘just get down, before you—’
And that was when Marie Hartwell jumped.
I’ve had too many years to think about that moment. So it’s possible – more than possible, it’s likely – that the images and sounds have been blurred. But I’ll describe what happened as I remember it.
What I remember most about the instant Marie Hartwell dropped was the sudden snap. I know I can’t have heard it, or the crack of her spinal cord, because the bell ringing at that moment was just far too loud, but my first thought was that her neck must have snapped, because it seemed so far to fall.
Price was looking up, eyes bulging, and my gaze was riveted on him, because, quite frankly, I’d never seen such a profound expression of total horror.
Afterwards, he would tell me he had looked up and witnessed the nauseating moment Marie’s body had bounced on the end of that rope, the jolt violently jerking her head back and pulling her face into an awful grimace.
‘Don’t look, Sarah,’ Price said fiercely.
Oscar Hartwell was staring madly upwards with an agonised expression, as desperation and denial broke over him in a colossal tidal wave.
‘Get her down,’ he bellowed. ‘QUICKLY!’
There was a horrible jerking and struggling sound above us – probably her legs kicking the air.
And then, finally, I did look.
Something – perhaps the same morbid curiosity that tempts us into peeking at tangled road accidents – made me look, if only to confirm to myself that such an atrocious thing had happened. At first I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing, even as I felt hot tears coursing down my face.
But an instant later I was forced to acknowledge the fact. My legs went weak as I wiped away a tear, looked down at my finger and saw dark red.
Beside me, Sidewinder made a gargling noise of horror. Blood had splashed his face too.
Marie Hartwell was hanging above us, twitching and trembling.
She’s not dead, I thought. Christ, how can she not be dead?
The rope looked rough and old. She hadn’t dropped so far – maybe eight feet. I saw now that the force of the fall had ripped her neck clean open, and blood – more black than red – was haemorrhaging out of her neck, her nose, her mouth.
Oh my God, oh my God . . .
Dimly, I could hear the frightened cries of those in the congregation who had strained to see what was happening, and would now wish forever that they hadn’t. Perhaps they thought every death by hanging was swift, or maybe they just didn’t know that sometimes, when suicide victims are in a hurry, when they misjudge the height of the drop, death isn’t instant; that sometimes hangings can go wrong. Devastatingly.
It’s the drop, I thought. The drop wasn’t high enough to snap her neck.
Her body was thrashing around on the rope; she was gagging and gasping for air. The low gurgling sound coming from her throat made me feel so sick that my hand flew to my mouth. Unless we could get to her, either she was going to die by asphyxiation or she would bleed out.
‘CUT HER DOWN!’ her husband bellowed.
Sidewinder lurched to his side, but there was nothing for them to stand on. For a moment, I thought they were going to slip on the blackish puddle that was slowly expanding on the floor, immediately beneath the dying woman. One tried to lift the other up, reaching helplessly. She was too high. Her legs kicked, out of control, and with a violent spasm her shoes came off.
‘Someone do something!’ came a frantic yell from behind me.
That I could move at all was a wonder, but the adrenaline must have kicked in.
Darting for the bell tower door, I pushed back two or three of the onlookers. One of them tried to lunge past me but I gripped his wrist and almost dragged him to the exit with the sharp instruction ‘Out, out, out!’ Then I slammed the door shut.
When I turned round, I dragged my eyes away from the woman’s ruptured neck, her bulging, glazed eyes, to the rope on which she was jittering and twisting. And then I faced Price and said, ‘The rope!’
The rope was frayed – old and rotten and twisting. Price looked back at me with a sort of stunned understanding. The rope was not going to hold.
Grimly determined, Price and the commander started forward at once. Either they just weren’t quick enough, or the rope wasn’t strong enough, because just then it did snap – and Marie dropped, striking the ground with a wet thud.
There was a sickening splatter of blood.
Reeling back, one hand clapped over my mouth, I glanced at Price on the staircase. He was frozen. Shaking. Staring wildly like a petrified child.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Jesus . . .’
And for a long, long moment, that was all anyone said.
– 18 –
WARDEN SIDEWINDER’S CONFESSION
For a long, horrible moment, all I could see were dull grey spots, blurring my vision. The shock had made me numb.
When my vision did clear, the first thing I saw was the rope. Dangling above us, twisting emptily on itself.
In stunned silence, we formed a circle around the body.
Maria Hartwell was on her left side, head slumped down into her neck, pupils dilated, blood tricking from the corner of her mouth. The poor woman’s tongue was swollen and blue, protruding between her teeth.
I went slowly to Oscar Hartwell, who had crumpled to the ground and was now doubled over, weeping convulsively. Gently, I laid my hand upon his shoulder.
Hartwell let out of a howl of soul-wrenching anguish. That cry seemed to galvanise Price into action, as he whipped off his frock coat and draped it over Marie’s body. As he did so, there came from behind us a pounding on the bell tower door.
‘Hey!’ yelled a man. ‘What’s happening in there? Let us in!’
‘Keep them out!’ the commander ordered Sidewinder.
More hammering. Fists thudding on the door.
‘We have to tell them something,’ Sidewinder said. But if soothing words of reassurance were needed, the range warden clearly wasn’t the m
an for the job; he was trembling almost uncontrollably, struggling to get his words out. Without missing a beat, the commander threw open the bell tower door. People were crowding around, soldiers and members of the congregation. With nervous tension on his face, the commander stepped out to confront them. As he closed the door behind him, he glanced back and I thought for a moment he looked more than nervous; he looked riddled with guilt.
Remembering what Marie Hartwell had said in the church, I switched my attention back to Sidewinder. There was a question I needed answering and at this moment, with his defences down, I might finally get a straight answer.
‘What did she mean?’ I asked Sidewinder. ‘About some people seeing her boy? She was looking at you when she said that.’
Silence.
‘Warden, did you know her son?’
He shook his head, avoiding eye contact, and hurried out to assist the commander.
On the other side of the door, the commander was explaining to the civilians that everything was under control and the emergency army response team were already on their way. I wanted to believe him; but creeping towards my feet was the puddle of dark blood.
I had to swallow my disgust, turning away in revulsion as Price came up to me and said quietly, ‘Your mother won’t thank me for this. Now it is imperative that we get back to London.’
‘Excuse me?’ I wet my lips, hearing my voice little more than a dry croak. ‘You’re suggesting we just leave?’
‘You’ve just witnessed an extremely traumatising event, Sarah. You’ll need to talk to someone. Or at the very least get some rest, far away from here.’
There was a look of such naked concern on his face that I almost acquiesced. But then I glanced sadly at Hartwell, who was still crouched on the floor, his tear-slicked face dazed and paper-white – it would have been utterly wrong to walk away.
‘This isn’t about our feelings, Harry,’ I whispered. ‘For God’s sake, look at him. That poor man has lost his entire family.’
‘We don’t have to fix this, Sarah. It’s not our respons—’
‘We’re staying. We’re helping.’
‘But if the newspapers find out, what then? We’ll be exposed.’
I matched him with a hard stare. ‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take.’
I could see the gears grinding behind Price’s eyes and knew I was still a long way from persuading him to stay. To do that, I thought, I would have to extract from Sidewinder whatever he was holding back, and make Price acknowledge that there was still a mystery to be solved.
The door opened and the commander entered the bell tower. He glanced towards the hunched shape under Price’s coat and I saw him swallow hard before he looked up at Price and me. ‘My men will secure the bell tower,’ he said. ‘The rest of you should return to Westdown Camp. Immediately.’
He moved swiftly to Hartwell’s side; the broken-hearted man was sobbing into his hands, shoulders heaving.
‘Sir, please, come with us now. You’re in our care.’
Part of me worried Hartwell was going to lash out at the commander’s proffered hand, perhaps even strike him. During the church service, the commander had shown him such contempt that I certainly wouldn’t have blamed Hartwell for landing a punch.
Instead, the once-privileged landowner tilted his head up, his jaw set, and gave the commander a poisonous look.
I stepped in. ‘Commander, please, allow me,’ I said, before crouching down beside Hartwell.
He turned to look at me, tearful, with a bereft and terrible despair on his face. Then he nodded and allowed me to gently help him to his feet.
Allowing Price, Sidewinder and the commander to go ahead, I slowly led Hartwell into the church. It was as silent as death in there now. He staggered slightly and I supported him with my arm.
So nauseating was the coppery smell behind us, it was a relief to step out into the chill October air. A light snow drifted down and the wind was really getting up, whipping at the coats and hats of the civilians who were now heading, shaken, to their cars. Some weren’t even moving, just standing around in bewilderment, whispering speculations. Their faces turned to us as we emerged from the church, Hartwell on my arm. He stopped to gaze at his son’s memorial stone, the marble carving of the lamb, and out of respect I looked away, beyond the wire fence, to the once cobbled road, now concealed by a fine dusting of snow.
Hartwell began to sob, then squeezed my hand. I took that as a gesture that he was ready to go.
‘I am here to help,’ I said, in my most soothing voice.
‘Thank you,’ he said, with honest appreciation, then nodded at the military trucks beyond the churchyard gate; Price was waiting there, with Commander Williams and Sidewinder.
Car doors thudded closed, engines rumbled. In the distance, I could just make out the approaching wail of the ambulance. ‘Let’s get you somewhere warm,’ I said to Hartwell in the same soothing voice. I was gently leading him along the path when the hair on the back of my neck felt suddenly electrified.
I snapped a look back over my shoulder, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and put the experience down to nerves. But as I took another step forward, an unnerving sound that wasn’t our feet crunching in the fresh snow rose behind me.
A choking, sobbing.
Crying.
I spun round, feeling a little shiver run down my back.
I looked, and I looked hard, but in vain. There was no one there.
*
So uncertain was Hartwell on his feet, it took two soldiers to assist him into the military ambulance. After that he was driven to Westdown Camp under the supervision of guards. Price and I travelled separately, with the commander and Sidewinder.
We had barely made it out of the wrecked village when Williams said, ‘The newspapers will be calling before the day is out. No one is to speak to them except for me. Understood?’
‘A woman dead – the wife of the wealthiest landowner in these parts. You are thoroughly at the mercy of the newspapers,’ Price said, and Sidewinder, in the passenger seat, bowed his head in uneasy silence.
He certainly knows something, I thought, and I’m going to make him tell us.
The question now, however, was how to do that.
I contemplated the matter as I looked out over the snow-dusted downs, and by the time our jeep rumbled into Westdown Camp, passing a group of anxious-looking young soldiers, I thought I might have come up with a possible solution. But as we climbed down out of the vehicle, I felt a dark cloud descending upon me, an immense sadness, and an urgent need to be alone and calm myself, to gather my thoughts.
‘Will you join us in my office?’ the commander asked, looking at both Price and me. ‘We need to make a plan.’
‘You need to make a plan,’ Price answered. ‘We need to rest, and then pack.’
He won’t leave, I thought. He won’t just leave me here.
But I couldn’t be sure about that.
Excusing myself, I returned to my hut, feeling agitated. Leaving was definitely not the right thing to do, not now, but I had to admit I was tempted to go.
Having shrugged off my coat, I began pacing; then I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the washbasin and felt a sharp jolt of horror. The sight of the blood – dried flecks of it on my cheeks – made me retch into the sink. I recalled Price’s words: ‘Now it is imperative that we get back to London . . . You’ve just witnessed an extremely traumatising event.’
I scrubbed my face until it was raw. Then I stared into the mirror, listening to a loose sheet of corrugated iron on the roof clanging in the breeze. I was strong; I could cope. I just needed some rest.
But there was little rest for me that afternoon. With waves of shock and sadness and anger crashing through me, I lay down on my bed, tucked my legs up to my chest and hugged myself like a frightened child. And I cried a
nd prayed and shook.
Afterwards, I would look back on this as the turning point, the moment when our quest for answers began in earnest.
It was approaching four o’clock and I sensed the beginning of a tension headache when I forced myself out of bed, out of my cabin, to go in search of Price. I found him in the first place I looked: at the end of the long, sterile corridor in Central Security Control.
Behind the door, I could hear the commander and Sidewinder talking in muted voices. Something about the newspapers, prying journalists and escalating tensions.
I didn’t bother to knock, just grasped the door handle.
The commander, sitting behind his desk, eyed me as I entered the room. He had the telephone pressed against one ear, his free hand covering the mouthpiece. Standing behind his left shoulder was Sidewinder. Behind his coin-like spectacles, his eyes tracked me as I dropped into the nearest chair and locked my gaze on the black and white picture hanging on the wall. There was my father, standing rigidly with some other uniformed men. One of them looked very much like Sidewinder.
‘Sarah, you should be resting.’
I ignored Price as he crossed the room to sit next to me.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
The fact that Price was in here and not packing to leave made me deeply curious. ‘To whom is he talking?’ I asked, gesturing to the commander.
‘His superior officer.’
Sidewinder was still looking icily at me. He said nothing, but in my mind, I heard his voice: I never forget a face.
He followed the line of my gaze to the photograph of my father, then looked back at me. Directly into my eyes. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he was making the connection. It seemed likely he had known my father during his service here at the beginning of the last war, but how well? Discovering more about Father’s work here in Wiltshire wasn’t the reason I had come here, but I already knew that learning about it had taken on an importance. Perhaps it was partly the reason why I felt unable to leave. But even that wasn’t enough to explain the bizarre visions I had experienced in Imber, and the oppressive, almost overwhelming sense of sadness and secrets.
