She took out her door key, and then turned to me. ‘He is not always as you saw him earlier. He can sometimes turn nasty. I’m just warning you.’
Which one of us would he turn on, me or his mother?
Slowly, she turned the key, opened the door and called in a desperately cheerful voice, ‘Jarrod! I’m home!’
Silence.
Together we looked in each of the downstairs rooms.
Mrs Compton left me in the kitchen and went upstairs.
She came back down. ‘Will you come with me into the cellar?’
At that moment, I could not face another cellar. ‘Didn’t you say he went in the shed last time he was here?’
‘Yes, he did.’
The cellar was reached from the kitchen. She called down. No answer.
She opened the back door. Putting on a smiling face, she approached the shed and tapped on the door. I stayed a few steps behind as she called, ‘Are you in there, Jarrod?’
There was a crashing sound. The door was flung open but Jarrod held onto it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He looked puzzled, and afraid. ‘What do you want? What’s she doing here?’
‘Jarrod, please, your manners!’
He slammed the door shut. That glower of mistrust, almost hatred, turned me cold.
Slowly, we walked back to the house. ‘He never used to be like this, Mrs Shackleton. It’s just these past months that he’s changed and it comes and goes. In the old days, I’m sure people went to war and came back and got on with things. That’s the impression I always had. And Jarrod was so much better, for so long.’
‘Has he been seen by anyone recently, a doctor?’
‘He avoids them. And to tell you the truth, I think the doctors in Bridlington, good as they are, don’t know what to make of him.’
‘Have you talked to him about it?’
‘I’ve tried, and so has Selina. We think flashes come back to him and everything goes misty in his brain.’
It was then that I remembered someone I hadn’t thought of for a long time. During my first professional case, when I went to Bridgestead, I met Dr Grainger. He was one of those clever men pioneering talking cures for returned officers. He went to work at the Maudsley Hospital. Last I heard, he was still there.
‘I can suggest a doctor who might be able to help. If he can’t, then he’ll almost certainly recommend a colleague, someone who might give a diagnosis.’
‘Would this doctor come to the house?’
‘That’s unlikely. He is based at the Maudsley. You would need to take Jarrod to London.’
‘I’ve heard about that place. I’ve heard some terrible things about it too.’
‘Dr Grainger is trustworthy. He wouldn’t suggest any treatment that would be dangerous.’
‘None of them do. It’s only afterwards they find out something they’ve done is harmful and irreversible.’
‘That’s true up to a point, but we have such good doctors. There’s been massive progress in all sorts of areas.’
‘I’m not saying there hasn’t.’
‘What else do you think you might do? Do you have a doctor that you do trust?’
‘I don’t know what to do. There’s no one nearby that I know of.’
‘Then it may be worth considering.’
‘How would I get him to London? You saw him. He won’t come in the house.’
‘Tell Selina that Jarrod is here. She might persuade him.’
‘I suppose it’s worth a try. Will you telephone her?’
‘No! Mrs Compton, you and Selina need to act together, for all of your sakes.’
She flung her knitted coat on the kitchen chair. ‘Beryl put a great deal of effort into knitting this for me. I was wrong to dislike the poor girl in the beginning. I wish he’d married her instead of Selina. But of course Selina was all smiles and sparkle. Beryl was the sensible one. She’s too loyal and kind for her own good.’
‘Will you telephone Selina?’
‘I suppose so. When Harry came back up to the dressing room with me, he said he would let Mr Brockett know that Beryl had gone in the ambulance, so I expect Selina will already know that she will have to dress herself tonight.’
‘And now she needs to know that Jarrod is here and that he is ill, ill in his mind.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. You’re right.’
She went into the hall and picked up the telephone. ‘Let us see if Miss Fellini deigns to speak. Of course she may still be sleeping, or gargling to protect that throat of hers.’
I followed her into the hall. ‘Mrs Compton, if you don’t mention Dr Grainger at the Maudsley to Selina, I will. Your son is suffering. If he isn’t treated he is likely to be committed to a secure institution and spend his days under sedation. There’ll be no writing songs and stories if that happens.’
Mrs Compton took a deep breath. I saw by the narrowing of her eyes and the twitch of her mouth that Selina had answered the telephone herself. ‘Selina, it’s me. Have you heard about Beryl?’
Mrs Compton raised her eyes at me. ‘She hasn’t heard.’ She spoke again into the mouthpiece, giving an account of what had happened. ‘I hope and pray that Mrs Shackleton and I got to Beryl in time. I have Mrs Shackleton with me, and Jarrod is here. That is my reason for telephoning.’ She paused, listening. ‘He is no better, he is worse. Mrs Shackleton has an idea about a London doctor who may be able to help him.’ There was a pause. ‘Then I won’t say more on the telephone. Come over and see for yourself, if you can spare the time. I can’t make medical arrangements. I’m only his mother.’
She hung up the receiver.
‘So Selina is coming?’
‘She’s on her way, and believe it or not she needs to tell her brother. She always has to bring that family of hers into whatever is going on.’
‘If you will let me use the telephone, I will try to contact Dr Grainger and see what he says. If it’s a yes, perhaps we could book the de Havilland again.’
‘Is that absolutely necessary?’
Afterwards, I realised that she was shilly-shallying about the need for a London doctor, but at that moment I simply thought her misgivings were to do with hiring an aeroplane. ‘Can you imagine Jarrod being comfortable in a railway carriage on a four-hour journey to King’s Cross? There’s also the small matter of how soon it will take for the police to want to interview him. If he’s not here, they can’t.’
‘Why should they want to interview him?’
‘Think about it.’
She did, and quickly. The implications sank in. Billy Moffatt had died under unexplained circumstances, and Jarrod had reason to be jealous. Beryl was in hospital, fighting for her life. Jarrod had found his way into the theatre unannounced. Her eyes widened, her hand went to her mouth. ‘No!’
‘So I may use the telephone?’
She nodded.
It took some time for me to be connected to a nurse who knew Dr Grainger’s whereabouts, and an even longer time for him to telephone back to me. I told him about Jarrod, without mentioning his name for prying operators to hear. Yet he needed to know his symptoms.
Mrs Compton took over the conversation. I could see how much it pained her to describe the changes in her son, his increasing aggression and the sudden outbursts of anger. During the moments when she was silent and listening, her look changed. She became more hopeful. She said that she was sure Jarrod could be brought to London very soon. On the pad by the telephone, she made a note of an address and telephone numbers.
‘He wants to see Jarrod. He didn’t seem at all surprised by the symptoms. There is a doctor visiting from America, Harvey Cushing. He wants Jarrod to meet him. He says not everything can be put down to the war. Sometimes there are other factors that are overlooked because we are too ready to say some condition is due to shell shock or bullet wounds.’
*
We heard the motorcycle engine. Mrs Compton went to the window. ‘It’s Marco Fellini.’ She watched, and then waved. ‘H
e’s bringing his cycle onto the path. I’ll let him in.’
Marco was the brother I had met at Selina’s party, the one who played the accordion and sang ‘Has Anybody Seen My Gal?’. Perhaps the whole family had fine voices. I imagined them growing up in the back-to-back house on Grimston Street, creating concerts in the kitchen, singing duets as they squeezed by each other on the stairs.
His voice carried along the hall. ‘Mrs Compton, Selina telephoned me at work.’
‘Thank you for coming, Marco. You’re like the cavalry riding over the hill to relieve the besieged.’
She led Marco into the drawing room. Whatever he did for the family business, he did not need overalls. He was dressed in a smart dark grey suit, white shirt and red tie. He flashed a broad smile. ‘Kate, hello.’
‘Hello, Marco.’ Mrs Compton looked from him to me. ‘We met at Selina’s party.’ I went to sit in the chair by the window, watching the exchange between the two of them.
‘Where’s Jarrod?’ Marco asked.
Mrs Compton lit a cigarette. ‘He’s in the shed.’
‘You could let him stay there till he chooses to come out.’
‘Marco, if you’d seen how tired he looked you wouldn’t say that. There’s no air in the shed and it gets so warm on a day like this. Try and bring him out.’
‘What would he do if he comes out?’
I felt sorry for Mrs Compton. She clearly wanted to tuck her little boy up in bed and give him a cup of Ovaltine.
I reminded her. ‘He came here because he wanted to type a manuscript, with some songs for Selina.’
Marco showed interest. ‘That might bring him out. Where’s he going to do this typing?’
‘In what was his father’s study, upstairs.’
‘Right. I’ll see what I can do.’ He paused by the door. ‘Selina seems to think he might be in trouble.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘If he’s in trouble, we could take him to Napoli. If he’s in big trouble, we could take him soon.’
What did they suspect that might necessitate Jarrod being shipped out of the country?
Mrs Compton walked Marco into the hall. She beckoned me to follow.
After Marco had gone through the kitchen door, we watched through the dining room window. ‘Be ready to duck back. I don’t want Jarrod to think we are spying on him.’
Marco was at the shed door.
‘So this is the family you believe might want to murder Jarrod.’
‘Oh, not Marco, it’s the others.’
‘Why are you so confident that Marco will be able to persuade Jarrod inside?’
‘They served together, Jarrod, Billy and Marco.’ She sighed. ‘How is it that some men came back unscathed?’
‘No one came through unscathed, Mrs Compton, not them, and not us.’
*
Selina arrived in a taxi. She stood in the hall and spoke from there. ‘I’ve brought vinegar and brown paper.’
Mrs Compton stayed in the drawing room. ‘It’ll take more than vinegar and brown paper to mend his head.’
Marco came down the stairs, and tried to usher his sister into the room. She put her head round the door. ‘I can’t come in here, Mother. It’s a smoke room. I’m going up to see Jarrod.’
Marco would have been an asset at the League of Nations. ‘Let Jarrod sleep, I’ll see to the vinegar and brown paper when he wakes. Look at the beautiful day. Nothing seems so bad when you sit outside.’
So there we were, moments later, on the paved area outside the dining room window, seated around a wrought-iron table. A red admiral landed on the hollyhocks. Bees buzzed around the buddleia. Selina wanted to know more about our morning, and details of how we found Beryl.
She and Marco listened as Mrs Compton and I gave her an account of events.
‘I’m devastated about Beryl. She’s been so selfless and kind and my best friend. I telephoned to the infirmary. They wouldn’t say anything, but at least that means she’s still alive.’ Selina slumped a little in the chair. ‘How did Jarrod seem, when you first saw him?’
Mrs Compton was quick to put a good gloss on our coming across Jarrod in the cellar. ‘He was calm enough and he certainly would not have harmed Beryl, never in a million years.’
Selina bit her lip. ‘No, of course he wouldn’t. It’s just that when I told Trotter about Beryl, after you rang me, he immediately asked where was Jarrod when Beryl was found. I’ll give him an earful when I see him. He shouldn’t have said that on the telephone, linking Jarrod’s name to such an… accident.’ She gave me a meaningful look on the word accident.
‘Something stank and it wasn’t just gas,’ Mrs Compton said. ‘But you are being sensitive. Trotter would never suspect Jarrod.’
‘I suppose not. He had intended to go to Giggleswick, to make arrangements for Billy, but it’s too soon apparently. He said he will go to the infirmary and try and see Beryl.’
Mrs Compton had brought out the sherry. Selina and Marco declined. She poured a glass for me and one for herself, making her own a double. ‘Trotter’s a good man. He looks after his people.’
Selina smiled. ‘Yes he does. That’s why we like to work with him. In these days of sackings and wage cuts he never terminates a contract. He prides himself on that.’
Marco was silent. He was listening for any noise from within. We all were. Eventually, Marco asked, ‘How did you persuade Jarrod to leave the cellar?’
Mrs Compton looked at me. ‘It was Mrs Shackleton’s idea. She suggested that Jarrod might want to type up his manuscript, with songs for Selina.’
‘He’s writing a moving picture for me,’ Selina said, ‘but the whole piece is too English for America.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Mrs Compton took out a cigarette, and then changed her mind. ‘Jarrod has been writing to Rodney about it. Rodney says there’ll be sound added to talking pictures this year.’
Marco smiled. ‘Jarrod loves his pictures.’
There was a long pause, the kind where someone should have offered to make a pot of tea. No one did, thanks to the sherry.
When would they come round to the difficult topic of what to do about Jarrod?
A window opened upstairs.
Around the garden table, the quality of the silence changed. A crow came to rest on the apple tree.
Marco stood.
Selina looked at him.
He shook his head. ‘Give him time. He thinks he has failed you, but he just needs time.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll take him to see Buster Keaton in The General. He’s seen it before. He might fall asleep.’
Selina took the Oxford Pencil Box from her bag, the one that contained the needle and, presumably, morphine. ‘You may need this when you come back.’
He nodded. ‘And the vinegar and brown paper. I’ll tell him you brought it.’
When they had gone, Selina decided she would have a sherry after all. ‘What sort of men are these London doctors, Kate?’
‘Tops in their field. Grainger worked with officers who came back badly disturbed. He achieved good outcomes with his talking cures. I don’t know Harvey Cushing. He is American and highly regarded. He’s a neurosurgeon.’
‘A neurosurgeon?’ She closed her eyes but that did not stop the tears. ‘I won’t let anyone cut holes in Jarrod’s head.’
Mrs Compton took a deep breath with the result that she suddenly looked brittle enough to break. Her next sip of sherry went down the wrong way.
I waited until Mrs Compton’s choking fit ended. ‘If you take him to the Maudsley, at least you’ll elicit sound opinions. That’s half the battle. When you don’t know, you feel so helpless.’
Selina stood. ‘Give me the number for the airmen. I’ll speak to them myself and see how soon they’re available. If they’re not, there’ll be someone else can take us.’
I took out my notebook where I still had the aviators’ card, and handed it to her.
‘When will yo
u arrange to go?’ Mrs Compton asked.
‘As soon as possible. It’s likely that after tonight’s performance I’ll feel a sore throat coming on.’ She stood to go to the telephone. ‘Mother, if I’m in London, will you visit Beryl when it’s allowed?’
Death in the Stars Page 26
