by F. R. Tallis
When Laura had discovered Chris listening to Faye’s cries and screams, he had been seated in front of a tape machine positioned above the mixing desk. Moreover, it was big, not small. Clearly, the inspector was referring to a different recording. How many recordings of Faye were there? She raised both hands to her head and massaged her temples. And what would the police conclude when they worked out how to operate the big machine above the mixing desk? What then?
She thought of the chains again, the chilling clink-clink-clink of their collision.
‘Mrs Norton?’ The assistant spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘It was your daughter we heard on the tape, wasn’t it?’
The silence that followed was long and unforgiving. Suddenly, the task of concealing the truth felt impossibly arduous. Her distress was so profound, so prodigious in its extremity, that she was only dimly conscious of her surroundings. Why not tell them everything? If she told them the truth, they might release her and then she could book herself into a hotel and sleep. The prospect of oblivion seemed enormously attractive.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the inspector, ‘but I really must press you for an answer.’
Laura closed her eyes. ‘There’s a lot I haven’t told you, Inspector.’ Her voice sounded distant and alien. The flickering light penetrated her eyelids and destabilized the darkness.
‘Go on.’
‘I was worried that you’d think me mad. But what you’re thinking now is much, much worse.’ Laura opened her eyes again. The two men – the bulky, misshapen inspector and his death’s-head familiar – were hunched forward, eager to hear more. They reminded her of gargoyles perched on a cathedral.
‘Please continue, Mrs Norton,’ said the inspector, unable to hide his impatience. His expression was almost salacious. She watched as the red, pointed tip of his tongue appeared and travelled slowly from left to right, moistening his upper lip.
‘Faye wasn’t taken by a person, as such.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the inspector, ‘I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.’
‘She was taken by a spirit – an evil spirit.’
Thirty minutes later the inspector and his assistant rose from their chairs and left the room. In the corridor the assistant asked, ‘What are you going to do now, sir?’
‘I’m going to call a psychiatrist,’ the inspector replied. The rubber soles of his shoes made a high-pitched squeaking sound as he lumbered to his office. ‘Make sure she doesn’t go wandering off anywhere, will you? I won’t be long.’
Laura guessed what was happening. When the assistant came back she said, ‘I’m not mad.’
‘No one’s saying that you are.’
‘But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’ The assistant swallowed and loosened the large tie knot below his prominent Adam’s apple. ‘I know what I just said sounds crazy. I’m perfectly aware of that.’
‘Don’t get agitated, Mrs Norton. There’s no need.’
‘Listen to my husband’s tapes.’
‘We intend to.’
‘All of them. He had become obsessed with making recordings of the dead.’
‘That must have been very upsetting for you.’
‘Please don’t patronize me.’ Laura pulled her hair back with both hands. ‘There’s something bad in that house.’
The assistant bared his teeth in lieu of a smile. ‘I understand.’ He made a cigarette lighter revolve with his spidery fingers.
‘No!’ Laura stood up abruptly, slapped her palms on the tabletop and shouted, ‘You don’t understand! You don’t understand at all!’
Simon was working on a new piece: Three Lamentations for countertenor, strings, and celesta. He had completed the introduction to the second lamentation and was pencilling in the voice part when the telephone rang. He waited for Amanda to answer it, but when she didn’t, he swore and dashed out of the music room and into the hallway, grumbling under his breath. He snatched the receiver up and said, rather brusquely, ‘Yes.’
‘Is that Mr Ogilvy speaking?’ It was a woman’s voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Good evening, Mr Ogilvy. My name is Dr Fiona Castle. I’m a consultant psychiatrist. I’m calling you on behalf of one of the patients in my care, Mrs Laura Norton. Have the police been in touch with you?’
‘The police? No.’
‘I see. Mr Ogilvy, I’m afraid I have some bad news. She’s currently on remand in Holloway prison.’
The psychiatrist explained the circumstances surrounding Laura’s incarceration with professional, telegraphic brevity. Christopher Norton was dead, having supposedly fallen down a flight of stairs; forensic evidence suggested foul play; Laura was under suspicion of murder and exhibiting first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia. When Dr Castle had finished speaking Simon could only say, ‘Oh my God.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the psychiatrist, modulating her voice to sound more sympathetic. ‘It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy. Particularly following so soon after the . . .’ She paused before adding, ‘disappearance of Faye Norton. Needless to say . . .’ Again she paused, as if unsure whether to proceed. ‘All of these events are very probably connected in some way.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Simon agreed. ‘Very probably, but, with respect, why are you calling me?’
‘Mrs Norton would like to see you.’
‘Didn’t you say she was suffering from schizophrenia?’
‘She admits to hearing voices and has some very odd beliefs about the alleged abduction of her daughter.’ Why alleged? Simon wondered, but he was too flustered to ask. ‘That said,’ Dr Castle continued, ‘she’s been medicated and her condition is stable.’
‘But is there any point in me coming? I mean, will we be able to have a coherent conversation?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘What does she want to see me for?’
‘I have no idea. You’ll have to ask her that yourself.’
They talked for a few more minutes and the psychiatrist elaborated on her earlier summary, fleshing out a few details, and when Simon put the phone down he could do nothing but stand in stunned silence, listening to the ticking of a clock. He stared into the orange, vertical plane of the wall and somehow seemed to get lost in its featureless infinity. After surfacing from his trance, he went in search of his wife and found her sitting in the kitchen, smoking and reading a copy of the Radio Times. She looked up and said, ‘Are you all right?’
‘No.’
‘Who was that on the phone? You haven’t lost a commission, have you?’
‘No.’ He inhaled deeply and said, ‘It was a psychiatrist.’
‘What?’
Simon sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t believe what’s happened. I just don’t believe it.’
He began telling Amanda about the telephone call, but found it difficult to find the right words. His account was stumbling and disjointed, full of syntactical errors. As he spoke, Amanda’s hand floated off the table, as if suddenly weightless, and in due course it became attached to her mouth. She looked like a mime artist reproducing the studied intensity of slow-motion film.
Tragedy on this scale was something that touched the lives of other people, not them. They shared a common, defensive delusion that their circle of acquaintances was immune from real harm. The abduction of Faye Norton had left them feeling raw and exposed; however, they had just about managed to come to terms with its shocking irregularity. Now, the news of Christopher’s death – or possible murder – and Laura’s descent into madness proved too much. They were both rendered inarticulate and had to resort to a more primitive method of communication – a useless dumb show of exasperated signals and lengthy sighs. A period of mute bewilderment ensued.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Simon repeated.
‘I know,’ said Amanda. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I know, I know.’
They discussed scenarios. Simon paced around the kitchen table
, gesticulating like a fictional detective reconstructing the scene of a crime in his imagination. ‘Faye’s abduction must have put them under so much pressure. Laura must have cracked up, snapped. They were quarrelling, apparently, on the first-floor landing. Although, really, they must have been fighting. The psychiatrist said it was a quarrel, but really it must have been a fight. Chris went over the banisters. That’s some drop. He died instantly. God, how awful . . . Chris and Laura – it’s unthinkable.’
‘How could she have overpowered Chris?’ Amanda asked.
‘Perhaps she took him by surprise, caught him unawares.’
‘But they were supposed to be fighting.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he turned his back on her and . . .’ Simon stopped pacing. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He sat down again and said, ‘When I go to see her, will you come with me?’
‘No!’ Amanda’s response was so forceful that Simon flinched. Observing his reaction, she apologized. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I don’t think I’m up to it.’
‘OK,’ said Simon.
‘You’re going then? You’ve already decided.’
‘I don’t have any choice.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘I don’t think so. Not now. Not now that Laura’s asked for me – specifically. It wouldn’t look very good, would it? If I didn’t go.’
‘What does she want?’
He shook his head. ‘God knows.’
They fell silent and bowed their heads, both withdrawing into private, inaccessible worlds of reflection. Suddenly, Amanda began to cry. ‘Poor Chris.’ Once again, Simon was discomfited by the rare spectacle of his wife’s tears. Amanda, anticipating a maladroit attempt to provide consolation, stood up, made an uncontrolled fending-off gesture and departed from the kitchen in a hurry. Simon felt obliged to follow even though he supposed that her gesture (like a starlet thrusting the palm of her hand at a flashing camera) implied that she wanted to be alone. He waited for what he judged to be a respectful interval before mounting the stairs and entering their bedroom. Amanda was prostrate on the eiderdown, her head buried in a pillow. Simon crept across the rug, sat down by her side and rested a solicitous hand on her convulsing shoulder.
Later, he found Amanda sitting in the lounge reading a volume of Stevie Smith poetry. She had washed the spoiled make-up from her face and tied her hair back with a ribbon. There was a hint of renewal in her scrubbed appearance and it made her look unusually childlike. Simon went to the music room, sat at the piano, and tried to complete the vocal line he had been working on just before the telephone had rung. Occasionally, he heard Amanda sniffing, and the sound of a paper tissue being pulled from a cardboard box. He was unhappy with the music he was composing because it was too derivative, too reminiscent of Benjamin Britten. He rubbed an arc of quavers and crochets from the score and tried to think of something more original. A door opened and closed. The stairs creaked as Amanda ascended them. He glanced at his wristwatch and guessed that she was going to bed. Simon wasn’t tired and he persevered with his melody, repeatedly failing to find a satisfactory combination of notes. Frustration mounted, and he abandoned composition and drifted around the ground floor, eventually settling on the sofa in the lounge. Amanda had left the volume of Stevie Smith poetry on the coffee table. Without much thought, Simon picked up the book and flicked through its pages until he came to ‘Not Waving but Drowning’. He began reading but couldn’t get beyond the line about the poor chap who always loved ‘larking’ having died.
It was not merely the pertinence of the words that made Simon stop reading, but something less tangible, a marginal perception that made him uneasy without obvious cause. He became alert, his nostrils flared, and he raised the open book to his nose. Was he imagining it? The pages smelt very faintly of Christopher’s aftershave. His first thoughts were panicky and irrational: he was reminded of phantom fragrances in ghost stories, communications from beyond the grave. And hadn’t Christopher become extremely interested in recording spirit messages? Simon lowered the book and gazed around the room, even straining to look behind the sofa. He studied Amanda’s collection of Indian deities: Shiva dancing in a ring of fire, four-armed Vishnu, and a miniature elephant god. Gradually, his initial panic subsided and he began to think more rationally. Connections were made, memories were cross-referenced, and he found himself considering alternative possibilities.
He remembered the marks on Amanda’s skin. No, he thought, surely not.
His mind travelled back in time: a holiday in the south of France with Chris and Laura. He hadn’t known Amanda for very long and he had convinced himself that their relationship was going to work, that he had found a woman who would cure him of his public-school vices, the bad habits he had picked up as a boarder during his unhappy adolescence. Yet he had become uneasy towards the end of that holiday, mistrustful, suspicious. He had detected exquisitely subtle changes in the way Amanda and Chris related to each other. By that stage, Simon had already made a significant emotional investment in Amanda and he couldn’t bring himself to challenge her. Besides, a simple denial on her part would have left him looking insecure and foolish. What evidence did he have? So, on their return to London he had dismissed his suspicions, chastised himself for being paranoid, and focused his energies on preserving Amanda’s romantic perception of him as a ‘serious artist’.
Simon raised the book to his nose again. The fragrance was faint but distinct.
‘No,’ he said aloud, ‘surely not.’
A few days later Simon drove to Holloway prison. He was ushered into a room where he was made to wait for some time before a uniformed officer arrived with Laura. He folded his arms around Laura’s frame and he was horrified to discover how thin she was: he could feel bones beneath her clothes. The officer, a plump woman with bad eczema, sat by the door watching them intently. It was obvious that Laura was heavily sedated. Her eyelids were droopy, her speech slurred, and her breath carried an unpleasant, metallic odour. Nevertheless, there was a curious urgency about her manner and she was clearly resisting the effects of her medication in order to remain lucid.
‘Simon, I need to tell you what happened. It all sounds crazy but you must believe me. You knew about Christopher’s project, didn’t you? The new piece of music?’ Simon had been warned about her odd beliefs, but hearing Laura talk about spirit voices coming out of the baby monitor and Faye’s abduction by a supernatural entity was deeply upsetting. It filled him with unbearable sadness. Her eyes sustained a desperate, penetrating appeal for acceptance and vindication. Simon took her dry, papery hand and urged her to remain calm when she became agitated. ‘No, Laura, don’t – you’re upsetting yourself. It’s OK, I understand. I know what you’re saying.’ He rubbed his thumb along the ridge of her knuckles, trying to soothe her with slow oscillations.
‘I didn’t murder Chris,’ she said, lowering her voice as if taking Simon into her confidence. ‘We were arguing at the top of the stairs and he fell. It was an accident. The police say it couldn’t have been an accident, but it was, I swear it.’ She pressed on, forcing the words out, straining to overcome her chemical malaise. ‘I need your help, Simon. You will help, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will. I’ll do everything I can.’
‘Thank you.’
The sound of heavy machinery could be heard outside. Simon had noticed that the prison grounds resembled a building site. Apparently, Holloway was in the process of being completely rebuilt.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to arrange for the sale of the house and its contents. I’m never going to go back there – ever. My solicitor has the keys.’
‘Sure. I can do that.’
‘And there’s something else . . .’ She glanced at the plump officer. Boredom had made the woman’s expression slack and vacant but Laura still lowered her voice. ‘I want you to go up into the attic. There’s a large blue hatbox up there. Inside it you’ll find a hat, but underneath the hat is a
can . . . you know, a film can. I want you to remove the reel and destroy it.’
‘OK,’ said Simon.
‘Please don’t try to view the reel.’
‘I won’t.’
‘And don’t hang around in the house – don’t stay there any longer than is absolutely necessary.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Thank you.’ Her eyes began to moisten. ‘There’s going to be a trial, Simon.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘They think we killed Faye.’
Inspector Barnes was sitting opposite Laura’s GP. They had been drinking tea and the gentlemanly atmosphere was vaguely reminiscent of a club room. Even so, the policeman was aware that the gilt leather inlay of the large desk that stretched between him and the doctor represented a kind of social no-man’s-land, an unbridgeable divide that discouraged overfamiliarity. The doctor dragged his half-moon spectacles down the slope of his nose in order to bring Laura Norton’s medical notes into sharper focus.
‘Yes, the last time she came here for an appointment her behaviour was quite hysterical. She was rude and stormed out of the surgery.’
‘Did you ever consider referring her to a specialist?’
‘It crossed my mind, but you see, Inspector, the NHS has limited resources, and as a GP one is expected to take this into consideration. If every GP in the country referred all of the anxious young mothers on his patient register to departments of psychological medicine, the system would soon break down. Hospitals simply wouldn’t be able to cope with the numbers.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Inspector Barnes agreed.
The doctor pushed a plate of biscuits towards his guest. ‘Thank you,’ said the inspector, taking a sugared shortbread finger.
‘Nowadays,’ said the doctor, ‘it’s standard practice for GPs to treat mild anxiety and depression with drugs. There’s usually no need to trouble the local hospital.’
The inspector bit into the shortbread and caught the crumbs with his free hand. Then, with great care, he tipped the crumbs into his saucer. ‘The psychiatrist says that all this nonsense about ghosts is the way Mrs Norton’s brain deals with guilt.’
