Naomi's Room

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  The chains fastened by means of a simple clasp, with heavy iron cuffs for wrists and ankles. I slipped them on Carol and snapped them shut. Poor thing, she was beyond protesting, she scarcely knew where she was. I wanted her to stay that way. I remember crying while I did it, I don’t know why, pity perhaps. I guessed what she was going through, I had a good idea of what was to come.

  I was just finishing my work when I heard a faint voice calling from the direction of the stairs. Laura had been growing anxious. She had heard the cries, held back, then mustered the courage to climb the stairs. She was carrying the little reading torch I kept by my side of the bed. It gave very little light, barely enough to see by. I heard her stumble as she came into the attic.

  ‘Charles? Carol? Where are you? What’s been going on?’ The fear in her voice was naked.

  ‘Over here, Laura,’ I called out.

  ‘Charles? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I called, keeping my voice even and reassuring.

  She came up to me out of the darkness, as Liddley had done, but so much less dramatically. He seemed to have vanished. I stood in front of Jessica, blocking Laura’s view.

  ‘I heard voices, Charles. Somebody shouting. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done, Laura. Nothing to be done.’

  She looked towards the hidden room.

  ‘It was like this in my dreams,’ she whispered. ‘The attic. That room.’

  ‘Your dreams?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The ones I told you about. The first time you opened up the wall and found the room.’

  I nodded. I remembered now.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘In the dreams.’

  But she did not answer me. Her eyes were fixed on my face. Frightened eyes, eyes that did not understand.

  ‘What’s wrong, Charles? Where’s Carol?’

  ‘She’s over there,’ I said.

  ‘Did you find Jessica?’

  I nodded. Liddley was standing behind her now. She was unaware of him. He was smiling at me conspiratorially, smiling and nodding. I could feel the dampness of sweat on my brow. He still terrified me.

  I must have stepped aside. Laura froze. I knew she had caught sight of Jessica. It took her several moments to make sense of what she saw, in the half-light, in the tangle of blood and white skin. Then she screamed, a long, piercing scream that cut like a blade through my scalp. I silenced her with a single blow.

  When they were both peaceful in their chains, I stripped them, using the long scalpel with which I had killed Jessica, cutting the clothes away from their bodies like a fishmonger skinning fish. Liddley was with me all the time. I could feel his excitement, his reawakened lust. He told me later that sex had been his only consolation after the deaths of his wife and mistress, that he had tried to drown himself in it as though in a river.

  I had sex with them both several times that night. It was not my potency but his that kept me roused. After all, I was not doing it for myself but for him. He had some sort of purpose in it, though I never fathomed what it was. It was something to do with his liberation, the liberation he was always seeking. That was his problem: he wanted to be free, but he kept tying himself in tighter and tighter knots.

  Afterwards, I slept the heaviest, purest, most refreshing sleep of my life. There were no nightmares.

  26

  The following morning I slept late. No one came to the door, no one telephoned. I awoke naked in my own room, and for some minutes it all seemed like a terrible dream. Then I looked at the table beside me and saw the long scalpel, still flecked with traces of Jessica’s blood.

  They were still in the attic where I had left them. Liddley had been careful to ensure that the two sets of chains were far enough apart to prevent one person helping another escape. Carol seemed to be in a lot of pain from the blows I had inflicted. Her nose especially seemed to give her almost unbearable torment. I left them a little food and water, and told them I would be back later. Neither of them spoke to me, as though I were a stranger, not a husband or a brother. They were uninterested in the food.

  There were several things I had to attend to. First, there was the problem of control. The chains would hold: I had reassured myself on that point. But I could not have them crying or screaming indiscriminately at all times of day or night. I had to think hard before arriving at the solution, but when it came it was so simple I could have wept. All things were playing into my hands.

  I had tutored an undergraduate two years earlier, a young man called Simpson, likeable but feckless. Simpson had got himself into trouble, first with the college authorities, then with the police. His problem had been drugs, beginning with cannabis and progressing to harder substances. In the end, he had been sent down, but for some reason had stayed on in Cambridge. There was a woman, I think, and a circle of fellow dropouts who lived in a commune off Mill Road.

  It didn’t take me long to find him. The house was filthy. So, for that matter, was Simpson. He had deteriorated since our last meeting. His eyes were blank, the pupils almost the size of pinpricks, and he was hollow-cheeked and pallid. Strangely, he still possessed a perfect coherence of speech. He quoted a passage of Beowulf to me without fault, but could not translate it.

  We spent a little time talking, but there were few reminiscences. I was a successful don, he was an academic and social failure. I had my life ahead of me, his was as good as over. I was using him and he knew it.

  I don’t know if he resented any of that, or if it ever occurred to him to ask why I wanted the stuff. He called it ‘gear’ and referred to the hypodermic as a ‘spike’. The jargon fascinated me, I could have talked with him for hours, but I had work to do. He explained all I needed to know about dosage and frequency, and told me how to inject – to ‘crank up’ as he put it. I gave him money and told him there would be more if he could obtain larger amounts. I did not think it would be difficult to get rid of him afterwards.

  I gave them their first shots soon after getting back to the house. They remained conscious but cooperative. I spent the afternoon with them. On one occasion, the attic shifted. Liddley was there with his wife and daughters. He smiled at me, then turned away as he went about his business. That was when Laura went completely to pieces.

  A little before dark, I set off in the car for Northampton. The key to Carol’s house had been left in her handbag, I knew I would have no difficulty getting in. I stopped at a Sainsbury’s on the outskirts of town in order to buy provisions and a pair of thin rubber gloves. I knew it was the supermarket where Carol did her weekly shopping: I had been there with her a couple of times.

  It was dark when I arrived. No one saw me enter the house. I made sure to park the car a couple of streets away. Inside, I cooked several meals for three people, laid the table for three, and served up three portions of everything. I ate a little, put some scrapings into the kitchen bin along with the wrappers, and flushed what was left down the toilet. The remainder of the shopping I put into the fridge. All the time I wore my rubber gloves.

  I had already wiped my fingerprints off all the items I had handled in the supermarket. But just to be sure, I put Carol’s, Laura’s, and Jessica’s fingerprints on the food wrappers, the crockery, and the cutlery. I had brought three sets of fingers in separate plastic bags. Later, I buried them deeply in a field outside Grantchester, not far from Byron’s Pool.

  A final touch was needed. I had found Carol’s car-keys in her handbag. It did not take me long to find her passport in a drawer of her desk: Jessica was included on it, as I had expected. I had already taken Laura’s passport from home. Carol’s little Renault was in the garage, with almost a full tank of petrol. It was nearly ten o’clock by now, dark enough and quiet enough to leave unseen, not too late to draw undue attention. I drove straight to Birmingham down the M6. It was just after eleven when I got there. I left the car in the long-stay park at the airport. Before leaving, I had prepared some chocolate and crisp wrappers with Ca
rol’s and Jessica’s fingerprints. These I left on the rear seat, along with an empty pop bottle. I locked the car and threw the keys into the nearest drain.

  I caught a late train back to Northampton, went straight to my car, and drove quickly back to Cambridge. Before going to bed, I checked that Laura and Carol were still as I had left them. I bound their wounds and kissed them. Laura spat at me. The house was full of the most terrible silence. I could hear a wind outside, whistling through the trees in the garden.

  I woke the next day just after noon, feeling tired and irritable. At about three o’clock, the telephone rang. It was Inspector Allison. He was on his way to Cambridge and wanted to see me urgently. Would I be at home? I thought quickly. There would be enough time to give each of them an extra dose. Just to be on the safe side.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll be at home. Come whenever you like.’

  He arrived half an hour later. A uniformed policeman waited for him in the car outside. I had cleared all traces of Carol and Jessica away. I planned to burn their clothes and luggage later, in the boiler room at college. When he asked how Laura was, I merely observed that she was still in Northampton. I had spoken to her yesterday afternoon. He nodded and followed me into the study.

  ‘How did you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Know? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.’

  ‘About De la Mere. How did you know about him?’

  So I had been right. I felt a thrill of satisfaction pass through me. How perfect the world was. How very like an engine, in which all parts meshed in unity and synchronicity.

  ‘Guesswork,’ I said.

  He was silent for a while, his eyes fixed on my face. When he spoke again, his voice was less patient.

  ‘Why are you lying to me, Dr Hillenbrand?’

  ‘Suppose you tell me exactly what you’ve found. Then we can decide whether or not I’m lying.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Very well. Early this morning, I arrested a man called De la Mere. Jeremy De la Mere. He lives in Spitalfields, in a house less than three hundred yards from where we found your daughter. In his possession, we discovered Naomi’s shoes and several knives. The knives fit the description of the weapons thought to have been used in her killing. Our forensic lab is working on them now.

  ‘But that is largely academic. He has confessed to Naomi’s murder. He has also confessed to the murders of Superintendent Ruthven and Dafydd Lewis. He says he was acting on orders, that someone called Liddley told him to carry out the killings.’

  Allison leaned back in his chair.

  ‘You’re an intelligent man, Dr Hillenbrand. Do I have to tell you just how suspicious it is that you knew this man’s name and whereabouts, that you were able to lead me to him with so little difficulty?’

  I said nothing. Allison went on.

  ‘I have to tell you, Doctor, that I think you are Liddley. I think you visited De la Mere under that name, and that somehow or other you persuaded him to carry out these murders under your orders. I would like you to come back with me in order to meet De la Mere for the purposes of identification.’

  ‘I see.’ I looked through the study window, at the play of light and shade on the trees. ‘You think I arranged for the murder of my own daughter?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Dr Hillenbrand. I would hate to think so. But it seems to me the only possible explanation for the connection.’

  ‘And you have a motive?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Only you know that.’

  ‘And Ruthven and Lewis – you think I had a motive for those killings too?’

  ‘Possibly. Ruthven may have been about to uncover something. Lewis as well. That’s quite plausible.’

  ‘You would not believe the truth,’ I said.

  ‘Try me,’ he replied.

  What could I do? What could I say? I got out the photographs, went through them one by one. He was sceptical at first – who would not have been? – but when we got to the shots Lewis had taken of the attic and its inhabitants, above all those of Caroline and Victoria in their less-than-pretty, less-than-lovable guise, I saw him wince and grow pale.

  He was silent after that for several minutes. His eyes strayed to the window. His fingers strayed over the scattered photographs, playing with their edges, then recoiling. They were strong, capable fingers, fingers that could break a man’s arm against a fulcrum. I waited patiently.

  ‘This is too much for me to take in all at once, Dr Hillenbrand. I don’t know what to make of it, or of you. I find it hard to believe you could be so elaborate, that you could go to such lengths merely to concoct such an implausible story.’

  ‘You can check Lewis’s film,’ I said. ‘He kept all the negatives. I’m sure you have people who can check a photograph for fraud.’

  ‘For fraud, yes. But phantoms? Conjurations out of someone’s worst nightmare?’ He paused. ‘I’d like to see this attic of yours, Doctor. If you have a torch, perhaps we can go up now.’

  I felt the breath catch in my throat like treacle. Why had I been so blasé, why had I allowed Allison here in the house where so much could go wrong? I looked round desperately for Liddley. My head was spinning, I felt straitjacketed. Where are you? I wanted to cry.

  ‘Are you all right, Doctor?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t like to go there,’ I said. ‘After what happened. That last time, Lewis and I only just managed to get out unharmed. If we’d stayed . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to come. Just show me where to go, lend me your torch.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be safe.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’ He was on his feet now.

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Is something the matter, Dr Hillenbrand?’

  I stood as well, shaking my head, playing for time.

  ‘No, I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘But I warn you, he may be there. You haven’t seen him, you can’t . . .’

  He was already through the door, heading for the stairs. I followed him, thinking madly. He had to be stopped, stopped at any cost. I was going out of my mind: to have been so close, to have seen the levers rise and fall with such precision . . .

  We got to the door of the attic. I had left the torch on the floor outside. Allison picked it up and opened the door – I had not bothered locking it.

  ‘This way?’

  I nodded. He set off up the stairs with me close behind, my heart pounding, still unable to decide what course of action to take. Why didn’t Liddley do something? Why didn’t he intervene?

  At the spot where the staircase ended and the floor began, Allison turned to me, shivering.

  ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘It’s freezing up here. Enough to freeze your balls off.’

  He was not an unintelligent man, not lacking in sophistication of a certain low order, but that sudden descent into coarseness hardened me towards him. I was grateful for it, grateful for the justification I knew it would give me for what I had to do. I was thinking of the bricks, the ones I had helped Lewis knock out of the wall, thinking how edged and sharp they were, how easy it would be to pick one up, to lift it, to bring it down . . .

  Far below, the doorbell rang. We both froze. I realized that, in spite of everything, Allison was nervous of coming up here. The bell rang again, a longer burst.

  ‘It must be Sergeant Arkless,’ Allison said. ‘I told him to ring if any messages came through for me.’

  Another ring, accompanied by three loud knocks.

  When we got downstairs, I opened the door to find Allison’s driver standing on the step. I stepped aside to let Allison past.

  ‘What is it, Sergeant?’

  ‘London on the radio, sir. You’ve got to get back straight away. There’s been a cock-up with our man, with De la Mere, sir.’

  ‘What sort of cock-up?’

  Arkless hesitated, glancing at me.

  ‘Go on, man.’

  ‘Done himself in, sir. So it s
eems. But it could be . . . Trubshaw was in charge at the time, sir.’

  ‘I see. All right, Arkless. Get on the blower, tell them I’m coming back straight away.’

  Arkless nodded and went back to the car. Allison turned to me. His face was working, the eyes especially. They were full of the let-down he was feeling, the disappointment, the anger, the impotence. Anger and impotence go well together.

  ‘It looks as if there won’t be any point in your accompanying me to London after all, Dr Hillenbrand. Take care of yourself. I’ll be back tomorrow. And I’d be grateful if you could ring your wife and ask her to join us. There are some questions I’d like to ask her.’

  27

  I had to act quickly. There was no time to waste. Liddley would be disappointed, of course, he would have to forgo the fun he had waited for all this time. But Allison had given me no choice. However short-lived, the reprieve had renewed my conviction that all things were running to my pleasure.

  I found a heavy broom and a smaller dustbrush in the cupboard beneath the stairs and carried them up to the attic. The late afternoon sun had laid a bed of red and yellow coals all along the wooden floor. I crossed to the shutters and closed them firmly against the light. The room was cold with a dark coldness, the air in it monstrously raw and aching. The smell still lay on everything, tinging the cold with sadness and a premonition of impermanence. There was no sign of Liddley, but I could hear a voice nearby, a child’s voice, singing softly. It made my flesh creep, but I knew I had to go through with what I had started.

  At the gap in the partition wall I paused and looked into the inner room. The oil-lamp was lit, casting its flat light on cobwebs and ugly faded wallpaper. Naomi was crouched on the floor near her mother, crooning to her gently. It was a song I had taught her, the haunting melody little Pearl sings in Night of the Hunter.

  Once upon a time, there was a pretty fly,

  He had a pretty wife, who could not fly,

  But one day she flew away, flew away.

  She had two pretty children