by Val McDermid
Just as she reached that conclusion, Ellie’s eye was caught by the improperly closed cabinet. She crossed the room and went to shut it. ‘I’ve got a confession to make,’ Cat said. ‘I searched the rest of the cabinet and that bottom drawer stuck when I was closing it.’ She held her breath, expecting a horrified reaction.
Ellie just grinned. ‘I’ll get Calman to fix it. He’s a good handyman. Don’t worry about it.’
But Cat was not reassured. Either Calman was in on the secret, in which case he would be suspicious of what she had noticed. Or he wasn’t, and then he’d wonder why she’d said nothing about a strange bloodstain. Mentally, Cat shook herself. There was nothing she could do to avert either possibility so there was no point in worrying. Better to concentrate on keeping things right between her and Ellie.
Until it was time for lunch, they sat cross-legged on Cat’s bed and read to each other their favourite passages from the Hebridean Harpies books. In spite of the daylight streaming through the high windows, they managed to generate equal amounts of fear and laughter. On their way down to lunch, Ellie took the quilt to her room, then they girded their loins for the General again.
Lunch featured a lecture on the landscaping of the park and the creation of the walled garden. Just when Cat thought she would pass out with the tedium of it all, the General wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up. ‘Time for the house,’ he said briskly, looking over his shoulder on his way to the door as if he expected them to fall in behind him in single file. Cat was not taken in. However grand his gait, however dignified his bearing, her reading had opened her eyes to the possibility that it was all a pretence.
They processed through the hall, through the drawing room they’d already used before and after meals, through a small room that had once been a smoking room but now lacked purpose, into a grand drawing room that was a match for the one in Ainslie Place. Again, the furniture was surprisingly modern, and although the General gave her a blow-by-blow account of each piece and its designer, Cat could not have been less interested. If he was trying to put her off the scent, he’d failed. She’d seen the Twilight films and she knew you could have the latest in designer clothes and furniture and still be a vampire. You didn’t have to wear period costume and live in a museum.
The next room was the library, where Cat’s interest was genuinely aroused. As the General boasted his way round the shelves, she hung back and tried to gain a sense of what was stored in this warehouse of knowledge. History, natural history, political economy, travel writing and scientific treatises were what caught her eye, but as they progressed, she was inevitably drawn to fiction shelves that contained dozens of leather-bound editions of the great Scottish writers, from Burns and Henryson through Sir Walter Scott to more recent titles that had clearly come from the bespoke bookbinder. She didn’t imagine for a moment that the novels of Muriel Spark and Ali Smith had been originally published in matching soft pale leather. ‘These books are, like, wow,’ she said to Ellie, robbed of her articulacy by their desirability.
‘I’ve never begrudged a penny spent on books,’ the General said. ‘A book is the means by which a man can better himself.’
‘Or a woman,’ Cat said.
He gave her a condescending smile. ‘Indeed. But we have to press on, or we’ll never get through the place. Feel free to come in here any time you want to borrow a book,’ he added, magnanimous to the last.
To Cat’s surprise, there was rather less of the abbey than she’d expected. The central courtyard, whose extent had been unsuspected until she’d seen the view from the hill above, constrained the available living quarters. They moved through a kitchen in a blur of modern appliances, where Ellie paused only to ask Mrs Calman to provide Cat with another blanket. The rest of the third side of the courtyard held more promise for Cat’s fantasies. It was a maze of narrow passages and small rooms, dismissed by the General as storerooms, utility rooms, mud rooms, a gun room, and larders. ‘This was the cloister, you see,’ he informed her. ‘These small rooms were the monks’ cells. We’ve never needed them for accommodation, so they’re the closest thing to original you’ll find here in the abbey.’
The fourth side of the cloister was a surprise. Inside the ancient exterior stone walls, almost everything had been demolished, leaving a vast billiard room, a fully equipped gym and the General’s office. Cat barely had time to glance inside the room, stuffed with state-of-the-art technology, before he closed it, the lock clicking firmly into place. ‘The interior was a disgrace,’ the General said. ‘The best thing for it was to knock it down and start again.’ Cat regretted the loss of mysterious antiquity, but even she had to admit the rooms had been well constructed.
Back in the hall, they climbed the stairs and the General led the way down the guest wing. There were three other suites of rooms apart from her lodgings. They had all been handsomely fitted out, with no expense spared in furnishings, décor or bathrooms. Cat could imagine nothing that would improve the rooms and she said so. The General took this as his cue to list the distinguished visitors they had entertained at the abbey. When it came to the dropping of names, Cat recalled Shakespeare’s description of mercy dropping like the gentle rain from above. Though there was nothing gentle about the persistence of the General’s listing of notable visitors. Politicians, generals, political commentators, Lord This and the Earl of That. They had all been made welcome at Northanger. ‘And of course,’ he added magnanimously, ‘we look forward to receiving our new friends, the Allens, before too long.’ It was a generous invitation, and Cat almost regretted the impossibility of thinking well of this cruel man who seemed better disposed towards her and her friends than his own family.
They returned to the main landing and the General nodded down the central corridor. Ellie had gone ahead of them and threw wide the modern-looking double doors that closed off the far part of the hallway. ‘What are you doing?’ the General shouted at her. ‘There’s nothing to be shown off down there.’ Mortified, Ellie pulled the doors closed, but not before Cat caught a tantalising glimpse of what lay beyond.
‘Catherine, I’m sure you must be ready for some tea now? Let’s go downstairs and see what Mrs Calman can rustle up.’ The General hustled her downstairs. Once he had them settled in the small drawing room, he strode off towards the kitchens.
Eagerly, Cat drew close to Ellie on the sofa. She’d caught sight of more doorways and, in the distance, a stone stairway climbing and descending one of the massive stone turrets that sat at each corner of the abbey. She was desperate to know what it was that the General wanted kept from her. At that moment, she would rather have been allowed to examine that half-corridor than everything else the General had shown her. ‘Is that where you keep the prisoners?’ she asked Ellie, hiding her curiosity in frivolity.
‘No, they’re all in the dungeons,’ Ellie joked back. ‘It’s more soundproof down there. No, I was going to take you into what was my mother’s room. Where she . . . where she died. Not that there’s any sign of that,’ she added quickly.
No wonder the General had reacted so fiercely. He wouldn’t want to confront his part in the death of his wife, whatever that might have been. Neglect, cruelty or even murder, it didn’t matter in the aftermath. She imagined he’d never been able to re-enter the room since the dreadful scene which released the suffering woman and left him to the stings of his conscience. Unless, of course, there had been no such scene and he’d simply made a prisoner of her elsewhere in the abbey. An even more chilling prospect, somehow.
‘Maybe you could show me another time? Just the two of us?’
Ellie nodded uncertainly. ‘We’ll do it when Father’s out of the house. And Mrs Calman’s busy in the kitchen.’
‘I suppose it’s a kind of shrine to your mother’s memory? Where your father can go to think about her?’ Cat was fishing now, but she didn’t think Ellie would take offence if she noticed.
‘It’s exactly as it was. But I don’t think Father ever goes in. It ha
s such painful memories.’
‘You were with her till the very end, then? All of you?’
‘No,’ Ellie sighed. ‘None of us realised the end was so close. Henry and I were both away at school and Freddie was at Sandhurst. Father sent for us, but by the time we got here, it was all over.’
Cat’s suspicions hardened into certainties. There were only two possibilities. Could it be? Could General Tilney, vampire, also be General Tilney, murderer? Or kidnapper? He was Henry’s father. Could she love a man who was the son of a killer? Could she have a murderer’s daughter for her best friend? It was a terrible thought, but it made complete sense of everything she had observed in his behaviour. She put an arm round her friend and patted Ellie’s knee sympathetically.
The door opened and Mrs Calman wheeled in a trolley loaded with tea and home baking. The two girls moved swiftly apart. The housekeeper was followed by the General, who seemed preoccupied. While the girls drank tea and made short work of scones and pancakes, he paced up and down, holding his teacup and saucer delicately as he walked.
Eventually, he paused and gave Cat a rueful smile. ‘You must think me the rudest host,’ he said. ‘But Mrs Calman has just passed on a message that has given me a great deal to consider. I’m going to leave you girls to it and get to work. I’ve got papers to read and a response to prepare for the ministry. I’ll have supper in my office, so you might want to have a dinner tray up in your own sitting room? I’ll organise it with Mrs Calman.’ And abruptly he left them.
‘Wow,’ Cat said. ‘Is he usually so intense?’
Ellie nodded. ‘God, yes. He stays up till all hours in his office, reading whatever top secret stuff they send him and writing reports.’
It didn’t feel very likely to Cat. Why would a retired general be in so much demand? Surely there were plenty of guys still running around in uniform who were up to speed on present-day conditions and weapons? What was so special about somebody whose war had been thirty years ago? But what if Mrs Tilney was indeed a prisoner in one of the towers? His supposed work for the ministry would be the perfect cover. What if the General waited till everyone was asleep and the Calmans in their own house, then crept up the stairs to feed his supposedly dead wife and enact his terrible cruelties on her? Now, more than ever, she wanted to explore the corridor that stretched behind those double doors. Because, now she thought about it, the forbidden gallery must turn a corner and stretch above the General’s very office. Perhaps there was a secret passage. A house like Northanger should be riddled with them.
Cat wanted to leap to her feet and uncover the truth of the hidden rooms at once, but she had the good sense to know she must be patient. She would wait till Ellie had taken her to see Mrs Tilney’s room, using that as a sort of reconnaissance trip for her own secret exploration. She could wait, couldn’t she?
The young women passed a pleasant evening in their sitting room. When Ellie discovered at tea that Cat had never seen Sex and the City, she insisted her friend couldn’t live another day without it. And as she predicted, Cat was gripped from the first episode. They watched the whole six hours of the first series, finishing practically on the stroke of midnight.
Revved up by the delights of the TV series, Cat’s mind was still active as she prepared for bed. What if Mrs Tilney really was a prisoner? Cat might have been within feet of the poor woman’s cell as the General showed her round the house. Those massive stone walls would muffle any sound of captivity. She recalled those arched passages of the maze of small rooms beyond the kitchen. Who knew what was going on there?
Her imagination conjured up a vision of the General carrying his unconscious wife through concealed doors and secret stairways to her new lodging, away from the eyes of her children, where he could use her as he pleased. Perhaps she was his secret source of blood, the one he could slake his thirst on so he was able to be safe around other humans.
Her father had often told Cat that she allowed her imagination to carry her away. But how else was she supposed to react when such powerful evidence was laid out before her? Something odd was going on at Northanger Abbey, and she was determined to find out what it was. Tomorrow, her quest would continue.
25
Cat’s eagerness to turn detective next morning was unintentionally thwarted by the General. At breakfast, he informed the young women that he would be unavailable to escort them anywhere since he was hosting an important meeting of key strategists. ‘We will be using the main drawing room all day, I’m afraid.’ He glanced out of the window, where the sun was vainly trying to make its way through thin cloud. ‘The forecast is for a cool day without rain. I suggest you have Mrs Calman make you up a packed lunch, Eleanor, and take Catherine on a hike up the Devil’s Hump.’
‘The Devil’s Hump?’ Cat was startled and it showed. The General grinned as widely as she’d ever seen, his teeth glittering.
‘The hill you can see from the grounds,’ Ellie explained. ‘There’s a local legend. Apparently the Devil came down to Kelso to steal some cattle. But a brave young cowherd raised the alarm and they chased him back to the cleft of hell he’d carved into the hillside. Just as he was about to disappear, the brave young cowherd jumped on his back. And the cleft closed behind the Devil, leaving his hump and the cowherd behind.’
‘Pretty standard nonsense,’ the General said. ‘People will make up any old rubbish when they come across things they can’t explain, from a peculiarly shaped hill to a meteor shower.’
Whether it was nothing more than legend, the story of the Devil’s Hump was sufficiently exciting for Cat to be more sanguine about not having the chance to explore the abbey’s mysteries. She had no walking boots with her, but she and Ellie had the same size feet and her host was able to kit her out with an old pair of hiking shoes. ‘There’s not much ankle support,’ she apologised. ‘But they’ll protect your feet better than trainers.’
They hung around the kitchen while Mrs Calman packed substantial picnics, and Cat marvelled at the array of appliances. There was everything from a breadmaker to an ice-cream machine, including three different coffee makers. Some of the devices were incomprehensible to her and she was too shy of Mrs Calman to ask their purpose. It was hard to believe this temple to the preparation of food sheltered under the same label as Annie Morland’s domain back in Dorset. Cat couldn’t imagine sitting round the table here with a tumbler of squash, talking about the latest book she’d read.
With the picnics stowed in a couple of daypacks, the two young women set out, leaving by the kitchen door. Cat couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder at the turret with the stair she’d glimpsed the day before. ‘Do you ever go up the turrets?’
‘Three of them are sealed off because the stairs aren’t safe and Father says there’s no point in spending what it would cost to repair or replace them. It’s not as if there are lots of rooms you could use. They only ever had one proper room, right at the top.’ Ellie struck off across the park at a steady pace.
‘What about the fourth one?’
‘You can only climb up another twenty feet or so, then it’s closed off with a gate. We used to play up there when we were kids, but Father had the gate put in because he thought the stairs were too dodgy and he didn’t want some visitor falling down and killing themselves.’
Her words only fuelled Cat’s curiosity. But there was nothing to be gained until she could see the secret corridor for herself. Instead, she concentrated on enjoying the scenery as they climbed steadily through the park. Soon they entered a dark stand of conifers that scarcely let through enough light to trace their path. It was strange and even spooky; when they occasionally emerged into a clearing, Cat couldn’t help wondering what macabre rituals it might have seen. At length they cleared the trees and reached a deer fence. Cat paused to catch her breath while Ellie undid the combination lock that held the tall gate fast.
Once through the gate, they were in open moorland. Ellie led the way along a faint path which climbed the Devil’s Hump in
a gentle spiral. As they rounded the hill, Cat caught sight of a pitched roof. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Ellie said, turning into a narrow cleft in the hillside. Cat followed her and found herself staring at a tiny red sandstone church surrounded by weathered gravestones.
‘What is it?’ she asked again.
‘It’s the Tilney family chapel. The path we’ve just been walking on, it’s called a lyke-wake walk. It’s the route the coffin is carried from the house to the chapel so it can be laid to rest here in the graveyard.’
‘You’re using the present tense,’ Cat said.
‘That’s because we still do it. This is where we brought my mother. Father and Henry and Freddie and Calman carried the coffin.’
‘Doesn’t it freak you out, coming here?’ Cat hung back as Ellie set off for the chapel.
Ellie looked back. ‘Why should it? It’s where we come to remember our dead. You’re a vicar’s daughter, you should understand the importance of memorials.’ She gestured for Cat to follow. Reluctantly, she caught up and entered the chapel just behind Ellie.
It was a small, plain place with narrow wooden pews and frosted-glass windows. On the wall were several memorial plaques to various Tilney ancestors, dating back to the fifteenth century. Ellie was right, it wasn’t freaking her out at all. Cat approached the freshest-looking plaque, an ornately carved memorial to Margaret Johanna Tilney. It gave her dates and beneath them, a single line of chiselled lettering: Taken from us too soon.
No wonder General Tilney had wanted Ellie to bring her here without him. This was no proof of his wife’s demise, but being in the presence of her memorial would surely provoke a guilty reaction, whether he had had a hand in her death or her continued captivity. No man could fail to react in such circumstances. ‘It’s very moving,’ she said.
