Song of the Damned

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘Sister Cecilia remarked earlier that you are a very unusual gardener. And so you are,’ said Chimaera. ‘You are constantly surprising me with your knowledge.’

  ‘Never mind knowledge, just get the man in there. Good,’ said Dan, presently.

  ‘And now we have to brick up the wall, yes?’

  ‘Yes. Layer by layer, the mortar between each layer to stick the bricks together – you understand?’

  ‘It is not difficult,’ said Chimaera, dryly. As he reached for the tub of mortar left by Joachim earlier, the lines of the Lemurrer jabbed spitefully into his mind.

  ‘Brick by careful brick with murderer’s hands …

  I make the layers of death …’

  Neither of them spoke as they worked, and when they finally finished the macabre task, they were both covered in sweat and their hands were scraped and raw.

  ‘I think it looks all right,’ said Dan, lifting the oil lamp and moving its light over the wall’s surface with critical attention. ‘If anyone does come down here, they aren’t likely to notice anything out of place. And there’s no reason why anyone would come down here. John Chandos’s body will be found on his own land, and it will be assumed he died there. There won’t be a search for Joachim – people will think he left with the nuns. There’s no reason why anyone would connect anything to this cottage.’

  ‘We should arrange Sir John in a place where he can be found quite soon – and we should do that now,’ said Chimaera. ‘Before anyone is around. And later it will be up to you, my friend, to spread those tales about poachers and gypsies.’ He paused, then said, in a different voice, ‘And also to make sure Gina Chandos is safe and well.’ He hesitated before starting again. ‘You will be better for her than I ever could have been. I should not have—’

  ‘No,’ said Dan. ‘You should not.’

  ‘I know it. And not often do I admit that. But you will look after her?’

  Their eyes met. ‘I shall do that,’ said Dan. ‘You have my word.’

  Chimaera had not wanted to return to the Black Boar but, as Dan pointed out, they could not do anything that might link Chimaera to the nuns’ disappearance in two days’ time.

  ‘You’ve only got tonight and tomorrow to get through,’ he said. ‘Stay on, and let it be known you’re leaving on that early morning post coach. Oh, and pay your reckoning.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Chimaera, shocked that Dan should think he would have done otherwise.

  He got himself to bed, and spent much of the next day committing to paper a description of the forest and Infanger Cottage, and the gloomy trees and shrivelled ivy. It would all look very well as a setting for some of the scenes of his opera. Perhaps it could be used in the one where the young heroine was imprisoned. He had still to write this, but he knew how it should look. There was a very talented artist called Bertrando, living in Milan, whom Chimaera might have engaged for the designing of the settings and scenery, had it not been for a small misunderstanding between them regarding Bertrando’s wife.

  That evening, after supper, he joined the company in the taproom and drank sharp, strong cider in company with some of the locals. He flattered himself that he blended in very well.

  Towards the end of the evening, Alberic Firkin came in, looking very pleased with himself, offering drinks to anyone who cared to accept, and calling for some of the Black Boar’s cheese and onion pasties for everyone, to help the beer along.

  A general murmur of appreciation greeted this, and as the pasties were brought out, Alberic was asked to what they all owed this sudden generosity.

  ‘Come into money, have you, Alberic?’ demanded the aged carter.

  Alberic said he might have done. ‘Matter of fact, I was given a job up at the convent,’ he said. ‘Broken door on that derelict old cottage between the convent and Chandos House. Mother Superior wanted it putting right as soon as maybe.’

  Chimaera immediately donned an air of nonchalance, while listening intently.

  ‘You’d think they wouldn’t bother about that old wreck,’ observed the Black Boar’s landlord. ‘Let it fall down, I say.’

  ‘Ah, but they’re worried about gypsies,’ said Alberic, with an air of triumph. ‘Dan – him as gardens up at Chandos House – told me himself. “I’m charged with asking you to fit a good stout lock”, that’s what he said. “Mother Superior sent me down with the order, and here’s a fee for the work.” Well,’ said Alberic, ‘a body ain’t going to refuse good money, no matter it comes from a gardener or a duke, that’s what I say.’

  There was murmured agreement.

  ‘Did you do the work today?’ somebody asked.

  ‘I did. Never let it be said that a Firkin neglects a job as he’s been paid in advance for. And,’ said Alberic, taking a long sup of his ale, ‘I did the other job while I was about it.’ He wiped the edges of his moustaches fastidiously, and took a bite of his own pasty.

  ‘What other job?’

  ‘Bricking up the old cellar window,’ said Alberic, and Chimaera, still covertly listening, was aware of a feeling of relief. It’s all right, he thought. The cottage is sealed and safe. Joachim’s body won’t be found – at least, not until we’re all hundreds of miles away.

  ‘They wanted to make sure no gypsies could get in through it,’ said Alberic. ‘Dan walked down there with me, to point out what was needed – not as I needed it pointing out, for I could see perfectly well with my own eyes. It didn’t take me long,’ he said, then glanced about him. With a slightly shamefaced air, he said, ‘Don’t mind admitting among friends that I made sure it didn’t take long. Eerie old place, that clearing. I was all right while Dan was there, but he went off to fetch a couple of trowels for the bricking part – I’d left mine in the yard. And after he’d gone—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was mighty quiet,’ said Alberic. ‘But in the quiet was – well, I kept thinking I was hearing things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ demanded the landlord, who did not mind people telling a good yarn in his taproom, but did not want anything that might drive folk away.

  ‘Rustlings and scratchings and tappings inside the cottage,’ said Alberic, impressively, and Chimaera stared at him and forgot about being nonchalant and uninterested.

  ‘Tappings?’ said several voices.

  ‘Tappings worst of all. Like this they were.’ Alberic demonstrated, knocking his knuckles against the brick fireplace. ‘Over and over again.’ He tapped against the bricks again, and Chimaera repressed a shiver. ‘As if someone might be knocking on a wall somewhere. I tell you, it gave me the creeps.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked the landlord.

  ‘Never found out. Nor I didn’t wait for Dan to come back. I managed to finish the bricking-up with what I’d got – bit of a rushed job between us, but sound enough. Those bricks’ll hold for a good hundred years or more. I got myself out of that clearing as fast as a scalded cat. And,’ said Alberic, firmly, ‘there’ll be an ordinary explanation for the sounds, mark my words.’

  ‘A trapped bird, most like,’ said the carter.

  ‘Bound to be,’ agreed Alberic. ‘A trapped bird, fluttering to get out. Or mice, or even rats. Still, whatever was in there, it won’t get out now, for that cottage is safe as a fortress. Who’s for another cheese and onion pasty?’

  TWENTY

  The sense of well-being and optimism that Olivia had felt after Phineas’s visit seemed set to increase when he phoned next morning, shortly after breakfast. This time Olivia, recognizing the displayed number from the card he had given her, picked up the phone.

  ‘Miss Tulliver? Olivia? It’s Phin Fox.’

  ‘Oh … good morning.’ It was stupid to feel a sudden lurch of pleasure. He could not have read The Martyrs already, not unless he had sat up all night with it, and in view of Arabella Tallis’s presence, that did not seem likely.

  Phineas Fox said, ‘I’m calling to reassure you in case you heard about the small disaster at the Black Boar last nigh
t.’

  This was not what Olivia had been expecting. She said, ‘What disaster? I don’t know anything about a disaster.’

  ‘It wasn’t very much – a bit of a flood, and Arabella and I had to decamp to the school for the night. But I didn’t want you to hear a jumbled version and worry about the manuscript being damaged or anything. It’s perfectly all right and unscathed and I’ve got it with me.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you to let me know,’ said Olivia, pleased at such consideration. She hesitated, then said, ‘I daresay you haven’t had a chance yet to look at it.’

  ‘I’ve looked at some of the scenes,’ said Phineas. ‘And they’re very interesting.’

  Interesting. That was what people said when they thought something was dreadful, and were trying to be kind. Phineas would not be so two-faced, though.

  ‘And you said something about your uncle drawing on local sources, I think,’ he said. ‘I’d be interested to know if you’ve got any more details about that,’ he said. ‘Any notes he might have made, or any books he might have used, for instance.’

  ‘I’ve still got most of his books,’ said Olivia, and wondered whether to suggest Phineas walk down to the cottage for a cup of coffee so that they could go into this in more detail. They could look along Gustav’s bookshelves in case there was anything that might interest him. It would be a very companionable thing to do, just the two of them. She tried to remember if she had any filter coffee. ‘There are certainly several that he used to consult,’ she said. ‘Is there anything in particular?’

  ‘There’s an aria he’s composed that seems to link up to something I found in the school library here,’ he said. ‘A book of old memoirs – a kind of published journal – left by one of the nuns from the school’s convent era. Late 1790s. The words of your uncle’s aria are quoted in it.’

  He’s talking about Ginevra’s song, thought Olivia. Of course he is. She beat down a spiral of apprehension, and said, ‘That sounds intriguing.’

  ‘What’s really interesting me is that I believe the words are part of a very old ritual,’ said Phineas.

  ‘What kind of ritual?’

  ‘It’s French – medieval, or possibly even earlier. It was known as the Lemurrer. That translates as immuring.’

  ‘Immuring—?’

  ‘Walling up. I’m afraid that, specifically, it meant walling up alive.’

  His words spun Olivia’s mind back to that night in the lamplit cellar. Walling up. That’s what we did, she thought. I watched. I helped. And as we laid the bricks in place, Gustav was humming Ginevra’s song. Step by measured step the murderers came to me … Murderers. That’s what I was, that night. But we didn’t wall her up alive, we didn’t. Those faint sounds I heard later were just old timbers creaking, birds in the eaves. Water hammer.

  ‘It’s very rare to find traces of the Lemurrer in this country,’ Phin was saying. ‘But this chant is almost certainly a fragment of it – which suggests the Lemurrer found its way to Cresacre. That’s likely to be of great interest to a number of people.’

  ‘But just finding a couple of verses in an old book—’

  ‘It’s not only the book,’ he said. ‘There’s a carving in the church. It’s almost an exact copy of an old engraving, and it depicts someone being walled up, with people chanting or singing while they watch. The carving is repeated here in the school as well – in the apartments at the top of the building. Would your uncle have lived in those rooms? When he was headteacher?’

  ‘He did have a set of rooms at the school, of course,’ said Olivia. ‘And I had a bedroom there as well. So I suppose I’ve seen both carvings. They wouldn’t have meant anything, though. And I never heard my uncle mention them. Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Reasonably sure. I believe people in Cresacre have known about the Lemurrer.’ He paused, then said, ‘I think it’s very likely that not only was it known about, it was actually practised here.’

  Olivia felt horror wash over her. If only you knew, she thought, it was most certainly practised here. More than two hundred years ago in this very cottage, and then again just a few years ago. Ginevra and Imogen. But Phineas can’t possibly know that. He wants Gustav’s research, though, and he said that finding the old ritual would be interesting to people. Does that mean people would want to come here? Pry into things? Into this cottage? Panic welled up.

  Phin said, ‘Your uncle used what I think was called the victim’s chant in The Martyrs. But there’s a second part – the murderer’s chant. It’s here in the old journal, if you ever want to see it.’

  Olivia said, ‘Have you got it there now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you … can you read it to me?’

  She felt his hesitation, then he said, ‘It’s very macabre.’

  ‘The chant my uncle used in The Martyrs was macabre. But if you read this second part, I might recognize something we could link into his research,’ said Olivia.

  ‘All right.’ There was the sound of pages being turned, then Phin’s voice came again, and the words, read quietly and unemotionally, poured into Olivia’s mind, illuminating dark corners – showing up things she had thought safely buried. Murderer’s tread … Murderer’s brain …

  When Phin finally reached the end of the chant, Olivia did not speak, and after a moment, he said, ‘I did tell you it was macabre.’

  ‘It is, rather. And I don’t recognize anything about it. I do see how it fits with the aria in The Martyrs, though.’

  ‘That’s why I’m keen to follow all this up,’ he said. ‘To try to bring your uncle’s work and this piece of the past together. Maybe even get to something about the Cresacre legend. I wondered if there might be any of his books I could look at – anything he used for source material?’

  ‘There might be.’ Olivia walked over to the bookshelves and scanned the rows of titles. ‘Yes – there is something here that he used a good deal. It’s about the executions in the French Revolution.’

  ‘What is it?’ There was no mistaking the interest – even eagerness – in his voice.

  ‘It’s called … hold on a minute …’ She reached up for the book. Dust clung to it, and when she opened it, the scent of age and damp came to her. ‘It’s called Curious Legends from the Guillotine. Would it be of any help?’

  ‘It sounds as if it might,’ said Phin.

  ‘I think Gustav found it in an old bookshop. Or maybe it was the local library – one of those shelves they have, selling old books for a few pence.’

  ‘It’s remarkable how genuinely useful facts can turn up in forgotten old books – often books that were privately printed, or only had a small print run. I’d like to borrow it, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll almost certainly finish reading the opera by tomorrow, so I’ll give you a call and arrange to bring it back, and perhaps I could borrow the book at the same time. Will that be all right?’

  It would be very far from all right. If Phineas Fox was looking into this old ritual, this Lemurrer, he could not be allowed to enter the cottage again, in case he became interested in the cottage’s history. But this book might divert his attention to a different area of research, and when he phoned, Olivia could say she would go along to the Black Boar to collect The Martyrs from him there, and that she would take the book about guillotine legends. He might ask her to have a drink or even lunch with him.

  She said, ‘Yes, do ring me, and we’ll see what time would fit.’

  It was all friendly and civilized but, as Olivia put down the phone, her stomach was clenching with panic. Phineas could not know – or even suspect – what had happened that night in this cottage. Or could he? What if there had been whispers about Imogen – whispers that Olivia had never known about? And if so, supposing Arabella had heard and remembered them? Since coming here, mightn’t she have told Phineas? Olivia had a sudden image of the two of them in bed after making love, falling into what people called pillow talk. She was not really familiar with that; in her experienc
e, men who took you to bed usually collapsed into a snoring stupor afterwards, or got up and got dressed to go home.

  But it was suddenly startlingly easy to imagine Phin with Arabella, her hair untidily spread across the pillow, Phin telling her about his work and his research – about the Lemurrer and how it seemed to have found its way to Cresacre. Arabella would seize on it, saying well, now, it was an odd thing and it might only be coincidence, but there had been a few wild rumours about the disappearance of someone who had been in her year at school – rumours that might chime with that old ritual.

  Would Phin’s interest be caught by that – would he start to see connections? Or would he be so enrapt with his companion, so awash with sexual gratification that he would not be interested? Olivia did not want to think about Phin being awash with sexual gratification, or not as a result of Arabella anyway.

  But providing she kept Phin Fox – and any colleagues he might bring to Cresacre – out of this cottage, everything would be perfectly all right. She hoped she was about to do that with the loan of the book about the guillotine legends. But as she went out to the hall, there was a loud rat-a-tat at the front door, causing the panic to come rushing back. It could not be Phineas, though, because he would not have had time to walk down to the cottage. It might be some sneaky council official or surveyor trying to get in, or here to hand over a compulsory purchase order. Olivia was not sure how such things worked, but she was not taking any chances.

  She would have ignored the knock, but whoever was out there would have glimpsed movement from the hall, through the little glass pane of the door. So she unlocked the door, but she was prepared to give short shrift to all surveyors and council officials who might be outside.

  But it was not a surveyor or a council official. It was Arabella Tallis.

  She came into the hall in a flurry of energy, talking as she did so, glowing with pleasure at seeing her old schoolfriend after so long – or was she glowing because she had spent the night in Phin’s bed and in his arms?