Death Trance

by Graham Masterton

  ‘It’s being repaired. That was the reason it didn’t show up on Tuesday. It was involved in an accident.’

  ‘You ought to fire your driver. Hey, you want a new driver? I’ve always wanted to drive a limo.’

  ‘It wasn’t my driver’s fault.’

  ‘Oh, well… if it ever is his fault, you know my number.’

  They drove in silence for a while. Then Stanley said, ‘That was too bad about your family. That really shocked me when I heard about it. I guess that’s why you was in that clinic, huh?’

  ‘You know about it?’ asked Randolph defensively.

  Tell me who don’t. It was on the TV, it was in the paper. Front-page news.

  Cottonseed tycoon’s wife, children, in brutal slaying.’

  ‘You’re the first person who’s talked to me about it. I mean the first person who’s talked to me about it and hasn’t treated me like a freak or an invalid.’

  Stanley took a left onto Old Getwell Road. ‘I lost my younger brother in an auto smash. He died right in front of me, staring at me. Death don’t hold no mysteries as far as I’m concerned. It’s a part of life. I couldn’t stand the way folks whispered about it then and I can’t stand the way folks whisper about it now. What can you do? It’s a part of life, death.’

  They said nothing while they drove past the airport but then Stanley added, ‘Do the cops know who might have done it? And why?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. The Canadian police are coming to see me this afternoon.’

  ‘That was just one of the thoughts that kind of crossed my mind,’ Stanley said. He reached across to the front-passenger seat and picked up a Mars bar. He tugged off the wrapper with his teeth and began to devour the candy with audible relish. ‘What I thought to myself was, one day Mr Clare has this factory fire, the next day his family gets totalled. I mean to say, could there be some kind of a connection? Take your law of averages. How often do two things as bad as that happen to one person in one week?

  Randolph stared at the back of Stanley’s neck. Blond bristles and crimson spots, seasoned with a few freckles and basted with sweat. A similar thought had occurred to him, too, in the depths of the night when he had been all cried out and his mind had been racing over the fire and the murder and the limousine wreck … over and over again. ‘You haven’t heard anything that might substantiate what you’re thinking, have you?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s only what you might call a theory,’ Stanley said with his mouth full, driving one-handedly. ‘But I heard one young executive type from Brooks talking about it; he was saying that you would probably take the loss of your family pretty hard and that you may decide that staying independent would be too much of a strain. He said you may decide to quit altogether, that was the feeling at Brooks.’

  Randolph said, ‘Do me a favour, would you, Stanley? Keep your ears open really wide. If there’s even the slightest suggestion that what happened to my family might have had anything to do with Brooks or Graceworthy or any other Association company, you let me know. I’ll make it worth your while.’

  ‘Will you let me drive your limo?’

  ‘I might even do that.’

  ‘Okay, Mr Clare, you’re on.’

  The taxi swept into the gates of Clare Castle and along the gravelled driveway until it reached the pillared porch, where one of the maintenance men was up on a stepladder, painting the carriage lamp in black and gold enamel.

  Stanley opened the taxi door and Randolph wearily climbed out. The maintenance man set down his brushes and hurried down the ladder.

  ‘Mr Clare! Nobody said that you were coming!’

  ‘It’s all right, Michael. I’m fine. Is Charles at home?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And Mrs Wallace.’

  Randolph waved a farewell salute to Stanley and went in the house. The entrance hall was cool and gloomy because the blinds had been drawn. There were vases of flowers everywhere - roses and irises and gladioli - and almost all of them were tagged with black-edged cards. The fragrance was overwhelming: the sweet fragrance of sympathy.

  Mrs Wallace appeared at the top of the curving marble staircase. She was the Castle’s housekeeper: a middle-aged Memphis widow who had once had an elegant home of her own, before her husband lost all his money in a wild real-estate speculation and drowned himself in the Mississippi. She was small, plain and fussy, with colour-rinsed hair curled up like chrysanthemum petals and a way of tweaking at her earrings and talking archly about ‘people of our background.’

  This morning, however, she came down the stairs distraught. She took Randolph’s hands between hers and trembled with sorrow. ‘Oh, Mr Clare, your poor family! Oh, Mr Clare, I’m devastated!’

  Randolph put his arm around her shoulders and held her until she stopped sobbing.

  ‘It’s going to take us a long time to get used to an empty house,’ he told her, ‘but I guess we’ll manage it somehow, won’t we? What do you think?’

  His own heart was breaking as he stood in the house he had redecorated and refurbished entirely for Marmie, but he knew that if he did not appear to be strong in the presence of those who depended on him, their lives would fall to pieces, as well as his.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you can do for me, Mrs Wallace,’ he said. ‘You can empty all of Mrs Clare’s closets and pack her clothes in trunks. Take away all of her cosmetics before I go upstairs, everything personal. Tomorrow perhaps you can start on the children’s rooms.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Clare,’ wept Mrs Wallace, her eyes blind with grief.

  Randolph hugged her. She felt as fragile as a small bird. ‘I know, Mrs Wallace, I know. But if you can do that one thing for me, you’ll save me a great deal of unnecessary pain.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Clare,’ she whispered.

  Randolph walked through to the library. This was his sanctuary, the one room in the house that contained nothing to remind him of Marmie and the children. There were rows and rows of leather-bound books, most of them scientific and historical, framed eighteenth-century prints of cotton plants on the walls. High windows looked out across the gardens, the curving lawns and the flowering azaleas.

  Randolph picked out his favourite pipe, a meerschaum that Marmie had given him two years ago for Christmas, and then lifted the lid of the red and white porcelain tobacco jar. He filled his pipe simply and ritualistically and then lit it. Sitting back in his favourite leather-upholstered chair, he idly watched the clouds of smoke rise and fall.

  He was still sitting there, his eyes closed and thinking about Marmie, when the telephone rang. He let it ring for a while before reaching over and picking it up.

  ‘Mr Clare? I’m sorry to trouble you. It’s Suzie.’

  He took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Suzie?’

  ‘Your nurse from Mount Moriah Clinic.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Suzie. I’m sorry. I’m still a little erratic, I’m afraid. How can I help you?’

  ‘I hope that / can help you. I heard you talking to Dr Linklater and I know you wanted to get in touch with Dr Ambara.’

  ‘That’s right. Dr Linklater asked that he be taken off my case. That was the reason I discharged myself.’

  ‘I heard all about it. Dr Ambara was very upset. He tried to talk to you about it, but you were already gone.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ Randolph told her, ‘Dr Ambara is the only doctor at Mount Moriah who has any idea of what people go through when they lose somebody close. I know that his ideas about souls and spirits are -well, what could you call them? - kind of unorthodox. Very mystical, very Oriental. But he made me feel better.

  He made me believe that Marmie and the kids hadn’t been just wiped out as if they’d never even lived.’

  Suddenly, without warning, grief began to surge up within him again and he found his throat so tight that he was unable to speak. He sat up straight and put down his pipe, pressing his hand hard against his mouth and hoping that Suzie would understand why he was silent.

  ‘Mr Clare,’ she said after a mo
ment, ‘I can give you Dr Ambara’s home telephone number. He’s too reserved to call you himself, and besides, it wouldn’t be ethical. He lives in German town, so he isn’t very far from you.’

  Randolph managed to say, ‘Thank you,’ as he jotted down the number on his desk blotter in bright blue ink.

  ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for,’ Suzie said.

  ‘I hope so too,’ Randolph replied. ‘I appreciate your calling me.’

  Suzie said simply, ‘You’ve just lost everything, haven’t you? Your wife, your children, your whole life. Nobody seemed to understand that except Dr Ambara.’

  ‘And you,’ Randolph told her. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘A little,’ she said and hung up.

  Randolph picked up his pipe again but did not relight it. Instead, he went to the window and stared out over the gardens. After a while Charles came in and sadly and respectfully stood by the door. He was wearing a black armband and his face was wet with tears.

  ‘Hello, Charles,’ Randolph said.

  ‘Welcome back home, Mr Clare.’

  ‘It’s not a very happy time, Charles.’

  ‘No, sir. We’re all real sorry for what happened. We don’t even have the words.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Would you care for a little luncheon, sir? You really ought to eat something.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll have something light,’ Randolph answered. Suzie’s telephone call had made him feel optimistic again, raised his spirits in the same way that Dr Ambara’s explanation of death and reincarnation had. There was a rational part of Randolph’s mind that told him that Dr Ambara’s beliefs about souls and spirits might be utter nonsense and that even if they were not, they might not apply to Western people.

  Did the Hindu gods answer Christian prayers? Dr Ambara could well be nothing more than a religious eccentric, a mischievous charlatan or an out-and-out fanatic.

  But Randolph’s wife and children had been snatched away from him so abruptly and so violently that he was prepared to accept any means of getting in touch with them, if only to bid them good-bye.

  Dr Ambara had assured him that spirits pass out of the body and into heaven, in preparation for being born again. Dr Ambara had said that it was possible to contact these spirits, even possible to see them and talk to them; and because Randolph could not bring himself to believe that Marmie and the children had been totally eliminated, he had to believe - wanted to believe - in Dr Ambara.

  He ate his lunch on the patio outside the library where a warm May breeze played with the fringes of the awnings. A little smoked chicken cut into thin, appetizing slices, a little green salad, a glass of dry white wine.

  Charles came out to pour him some more wine and said, ‘Whatever you want, Mr Clare, all you have to do is ask.’

  Randolph smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Charles, that’s appreciated.’ Had Charles been less reserved, Randolph would have taken his hand.

  But Charles believed in formality and the proper observance of social distances, and Randolph knew he would have only succeeded in embarrassing him.

  At two o’clock that afternoon, two officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived at Clare Castle in a rented Ford Granada. Charles showed them through to the garden and they came out onto the patio shading their eyes against the sun, awkwardly holding their hats and their briefcases. Charles said to Randolph, ‘Police officers, Mr Clare, from Quebec.’

  The older of the two policemen came forward and held out his hand. ‘Inspector Dulac, sir. We were told by the Mount Moriah Clinic that you were here. The clinical director explained that you had decided to discharge yourself. This is my colleague.

  Sergeant Allinson.’

  ‘Please sit down,’ Randolph said, aware that he sounded vague.

  The two policemen sat uncomfortably in the striped canvas chairs Randolph offered them. Inspector Dulac was well into his fifties, with silver hair that was short and severely cut and a heavy, square face, very French. Sergeant Allinson had a narrow head, wavy brown hair and a large Roman nose beaded with perspiration. Both men wore grey suits, long-sleeved shirts, and neckties. Neither had come dressed for a humid Mississippi summer.

  ‘You will forgive us for calling on you without a proper appointment,’ said Inspector Dulac with a strong Que-becois accent. ‘We had expected you to be lying in your hospital bed, you see, a captive audience.’

  Sergeant Allinson nodded in agreement, lifted his brown leather briefcase to his knees and began to poke around inside it.

  ‘First of all, it is my duty to offer you the condolences of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,’ Inspector Dulac said. ‘What happened to your wife and children was terrible and tragic, and I want to reassure you that we are making extraordinary efforts to capture the perpetrators. You will understand, I hope, the painful necessity for this visit. We need all the information we can possibly procure.’

  ‘I understand,’ Randolph said hoarsely. Then, noticing Charles standing on the other side of the patio, he asked, ‘Would you care for a drink? Fruit punch maybe, or lemonade? It’s pretty damned hot.’

  ‘I think a lemonade would be welcome,’ said Inspector Dulac. Sergeant Allinson nodded. ‘Yes, a lemonade.’

  Inspector Dulac held out his left hand and Sergeant Allinson passed him a thick sheaf of papers. ‘From experience,’ he said, ‘I am anticipating that you will wish to know in considerable detail how your family died. If you do not, please tell me, but usually the process of healing the mind cannot begin until the event is fully understood.’

  ‘Yes,’ Randolph said. He picked up his sunglasses from the wicker table beside him and put them on.

  Inspector Dulac said, ‘What I will tell you about it will be most painful to you because the crime was very brutal and apparently without motive. It is always easier to accept brutality when one knows why it was used; if it was out of rage, perhaps, or for robbery, or for lust, or for revenge. But so far it appears that this was a multiple homicide that was perpetrated for no coherent reason whatever. I will upset you, I have no doubt of that. But you seem to me to be the kind of man who has to know everything before he can come to terms with his distress. It is always the unanswered questions that cause the most pain.’

  He picked up the top sheet of paper and began to recite to Randolph the plain facts of the tragedy as if he were reading his evidence in court. Randolph listened, and as he did, he grew colder and colder; it was as if the sun had died out, the wind had swung around to the northeast and the world had rolled over on its axis.

  ‘On the morning of May tenth, nineteen eighty-four, at approximately six twenty-five, Mr Leonard Dolan was fishing in his boat off the southeast shore of Lac aux Ecorces when his outboard motor failed. He decided to row to shore and seek assistance at the lodging known as Clare Cabin. On reaching the structure, he discovered that the front door had been smashed off its hinges; upon approaching more closely, he found that the living room was in violent disarray and that the walls and the rugs were heavily bloodstained. Entering the living room, he saw the dead bodies of the Clare family: John Clare, fifteen years old, who had been shot in the abdomen at close range with a twelve-gauge shotgun; Mark Clare, eleven years old, who had been decapitated by a woodsman’s axe; Mrs Mar-mie Clare, forty-three, and her daughter Melissa Clare, thirteen, who were bound together with cords and hanging by their necks from the ceiling beams with nooses fashioned of barbed wire. Mr Dolan found that the cabin’s radio telephone had been deliberately put out of action, and so he rowed with some difficulty back to his fishing camp and called the police.

  Upon examination of the scene of the incident, it appeared that whoever had committed the homicides had forcefully gained access to the cabin with the same woodsman’s axe later employed in the killing of Mark Clare. The perpetrators had killed the boys first; the coroner later established that their deaths had occurred between nine and ten o’clock on the evening of May ninth. The two females, however, had be
en taken to the main bedroom, where they had been bound together in the manner in which they were eventually discovered by Mr Dolan, and sexually assaulted. Both of them were raped repeatedly, and later examination of the semen ejaculated by their attackers established that there were four different men involved in the rape. The females had been hung and strangulated early the following morning, probably less than an hour before Mr Dolan approached the cabin. A twenty-two rifle was found in the living room with a jammed magazine, indicating that the members of the Clare family had attempted to protect themselves against assault. Fingerprints and shoe prints, as well as hair, skin, fibre and semen samples, are being forensically examined at the headquarters of the RCMP in Ottawa, and preliminary results have already been forwarded to the FBI in Washington.’

  Inspector Dulac lowered the hand that had been shielding his eyes from the sun. He watched Randolph carefully, as if Randolph might be a young son of his who had just learned to ride a bicycle.

  ‘Do you want any more?’ he asked. ‘That’s just the resume.’

  ‘I think, for the time being, that’s sufficient,’ Randolph told him, with intense self-control.

  ‘Do you wish to ask any questions?’

  Randolph swallowed and thought for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Did nobody see them? The men who did it?’

  ‘There were no witnesses. The footprints suggest that the men landed by boat or dinghy just out of sight of the cabin, around the headland, and then made their way up to the cabin by walking through the woods.’

  Sergeant Allinson put in, ‘This of course suggests that the attack was not spontaneous. The men knew where the cabin was and they approached it with the deliberate intention of breaking in. They were not just passing fishermen who took it into their heads to butcher your family.’

  Inspector Dulac straightened his papers and said to Randolph, ‘You might care to make out a list of all those people you can think of who might dislike you sufficiently to have contemplated such an act.’

  ‘Nobody dislikes me like that,’ Randolph said in a hollow voice. ‘Not like that.’