by Ray Connolly
"They were arriving as I got back. I went in with them when they broke the door down. The boy was trying to protect her, not making a sound, kicking and struggling. He'd only be four or five, but it took three of us to hold him and get him off her and out of there. He was caked in filth and covered in lice."
"And the mother?"
The old lady shook her head. "The poor soul had been dead for days. The child mustn't have understood, because he'd been sleeping with her. You could see the indentation where his little body had tried to cuddle up to her. He'd been trying to feed her, too, to push biscuits into her dead mouth, though he must have been starving to death himself because there wasn't another morsel of food in the entire place."
"What kind of programme did you say this was for?" The young carer, who'd been listening with increasing apprehension, interrupted.
Kate ignored her. She was thinking of a little boy cuddling up alongside a dead mother, and a night in Cornwall with Jesse Gadden and the ghosts of Owoso.
Mary hadn't finished her story. "It was a terrible sight. I think he must have passed his time by putting on the records. There was a pile of them there by the bed. Afterwards people said they'd heard the music as they'd passed by and assumed the mother had been playing them herself."
"Do you know what illness the mother died of?" Kate asked. She knew how she'd died, but she wanted to hear Mary say it on film.
“I’ll never forget it. Reich’s Disease. Huntington's Chorea. I looked it up when they told me. Her mother had gone mad and died the same way, but it was kept quiet. This poor woman had had to suffer alone. She was a traveller, but she'd lost touch with whatever family she might once have had, what with the drink and the illness. Not even the useless man who got her pregnant, whoever he was, was there to help her."
Kate kept her voice steady. "And the little boy? What happened to him?"
"Oh, the nuns took him, I expect. I never heard him utter a sound. I can still see the way he looked at us when they put his mother's body into the ambulance to take her away. Those eyes...as big and black as old saucepans. It was frightening."
"You wouldn't know who that little boy, Jesse Monaghan, turned out to be, would you, Mary?" Kate said, deciding not to correct the nurse’s memory of Gadden with dark eyes.
Half a dozen other old people had now gathered around to listen, and Mary began to play to her audience. "Well, I've certainly never heard of anyone called Jesse Monaghan doing anything special, I don't think. Should I have done?"
Kate shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
Tea-time was already nearly over. The carer was looking at her watch, unsure of whether she should have stopped the interview earlier. "Mary, it's nearly time. We're waiting." She turned to Kate. "Have you finished?"
Kate switched off the camera. "Yes. That's fine. Thank you very much, Mary."
Mary Murray smiled. "Thank you, dear. It's been very nice meeting you. Come and see us again some time? Bring your boy friend next time and have a dance. He'd love it." And she turned back to the piano.
Around the room ham sandwiches were being quickly swallowed as Kate put her camera away. The carer watched her suspiciously. Then a sequence of piano chords summoned everyone's attention. "And now, ladies and gentlemen," Mary was saying, "will you all please take your partners for the Tea For Two Cha Cha. One and two and three and four..." And pumping the keys she began to play.
Kate crept from the room.
The phone began ringing as she was hanging up her coat and car keys. It was her sister-in-law Helen asking her over for a family supper, and wondering, very delicately, how she was.
Kate told her she was fine, though she knew her mother would have put out a quite different story. She also lied and said she’d arranged to go to dinner with a colleague.
She could tell from Helen’s voice that she wasn’t believed. “Ah, that’s such a shame because Catherine…well, all of us…we were hoping to see you. We don’t see enough of you, Kate, and we’ve been worried…”
“Ah, sorry. Ask me another time. Please.”
“Yes. I’ll call again.”
The conversation had just about reached that moment for polite ringing off when a thought struck her. “Helen, you wouldn’t be able to put me in touch with one of your psychologist colleagues who are doing research on music and schizophrenia, would you? You mentioned them at that family Sunday lunch we had. I need someone who knows a lot about music...and maybe a little bit about hypnosis, too, for a programme I’m working on.”
“Music and hypnosis! That might be a tall order. I’ll ask around and get back.”
“Thank you. And don’t forget. Ask me over again some time.”
“The child is father of the man,” she mused sitting at her desk watching her Mary Cleary interview on her computer. But, true though that might be, it didn’t help. Nothing she’d discovered was enough. There had to be a link to Seb and Beverly, a connection to Greg, possibly even one to Donna Hallsden. But, if there was, she hadn’t found it.
Chapter Thirty Seven
October 31:
She went to Tesco’s on the Sunday morning. There was rarely much in her fridge in normal times, now it was practically empty. She was, she knew, so preoccupied, she was forgetting to eat. People would be worrying soon that she was losing weight. Crazy people did that.
Basically she was just stocking up, filling her trolley with packets of pasta, vegetables, fruit and comfort foods, moving along the aisles in a semi-distraction. Normally she didn’t read the tabloid newspapers, but as she approached the checkout a Sunday Mirror headline demanded that she bought this one: “50 MILLION TO WATCH JESSE INTERNET SHOW”.
She stopped. Fifty million! So many!
There was a small mêlée outside her house when she got back. The Motts, in their Sunday track suits and just back from their weekly run, had become involved with someone on her doorstep. It was Harry, Greg's boy friend. He was sobbing.
Climbing from her car she took over. “It’s all right. Come on, Harry, let’s go inside,” she said, putting an arm around him and drawing him away from the couple. “Thank you,” she said to the Motts. “He’ll be okay now.”
The Motts stared at her. “Ah, you know him…right!” “We weren’t sure,” they chimed in turn, their usually bland expressions arched in puzzlement.
Opening her basement kitchen door she pushed Harry inside and then went back for her shopping. Her neighbours watched from their front door. Living next to Kate Merrimac must have become quite eventful.
Sitting Harry down, she made him a cup of tea. He looked terrible. His cheeky, pink sheen had faded with grief. When he finally gathered himself, he had a favour to ask. He wanted to go to Danton's. "Just to be where Greg was. To see what he saw on that last night."
She didn’t like the idea, but she understood.
As they drove across London he told her about life at home with his parents. They'd liked Greg, while never understanding why their son was gay. Now they were embarrassed because the newspapers had hinted that Greg had been murdered after picking up a psychopath in a gay bar.
"You know that wasn't what happened, Kate. That's why I had to see you. To be with someone who believes me. You knew him. Greg wasn't like that. He wasn't promiscuous."
Kate had known Greg. But she had no idea as to whether he'd been promiscuous.
Even on a Sunday lunchtime Danton's was a slightly spooky place, with a shaft of sunlight falling on a framed lithograph of Danton at the guillotine that was wedged on a shelf behind the bar. Kate stared at it. Had Overmars seen it that night, and noticed the blood of the guillotine's previous victim dripping from the blade?
Harry chose a table at the front. "Greg always sat here," he explained, "with his back in the angle of the window and the wall so that he could see who was coming through the door and who was down at the other end of the bar." He sat in Greg's place.
Kate faced the street. Was this where Overmars had sat? Had someone seen him fro
m outside: been keeping an eye on him?
She ordered camomile tea: Harry had peppermint. She thought about her last conversation with Greg, and guilt rose like a lump in her throat as she explained how she'd been unable to be present on the night he met Overmars. Harry didn't comment. Nor did he enquire about the story Greg had been pursuing. Greg had often joked about Harry's lack of curiosity.
She asked about the police. Harry’s eyes went wet again. There hadn't been much sympathy. There was always a risk when you took a stranger home, had been the attitude.
They went silent. But as they drank their tea, Harry again became agitated, saying that the place gave him the creeps. Then, getting up, he hurried out.
Paying the bill, she followed. She found him by the car, crying again.
"What is it, Harry?” she asked as they got into the Citroën.
"I did a really stupid thing," he sobbed.
She waited.
"Listen to this." And pulling a small digital recorder from his pocket he pressed PLAY.
Greg’s voice cut through the car. "What do you mean, there's a chamber of horrors?" he was asking.
"A chamber of video horrors, I'm telling you. Down in Cornwall," a voice answered.
Kate took the recorder and pressed the STOP button. "Where did you get this?"
Harry was shaking, trying to control his breathing. "On the night we found Greg...while we were waiting for the police and ambulance...I was sitting on the sofa. His bag was there with his recorder inside. I just wanted to hear his voice again, one last time..."
She frowned. Removing evidence was an offence.
"What is it, Kate? I've played it, but it doesn't make much sense."
She stared at the recorder. "I think you'll find it's Greg's last conversation," she said. "He must have recorded his interview with Overmars for me to listen to. Let’s go home."
"You've seen these videos?" Greg was asking above the sounds of a late night bar.
"One or two."
"And what was on them?"
"You wouldn't believe it." The answer was playful, almost flirty.
"Why wouldn't I believe it?"
This time there was no answer.
They were in Kate's study, listening to the interview as she copied it to her computer. The quality wasn't always good, no more than fifty per cent audible. Harry was sitting in a chair close to a speaker, his head in his hands.
Greg repeated the question. "What's on them that I wouldn't believe?"
"Only death incorporated, that's all."
"I don't understand what you mean."
Again there was no answer.
Kate waited as Greg had suddenly changed direction, the way good interviewers do with difficult subjects. "You and the people around Jesse are called the Glee Club by the newspapers. Why do you think Jesse has you around? What are you for?"
“We do the jobs. Make everything work for Jesse. Petra gets us in.”
"And you say people who try to leave are bullied and threatened. Who does that?”
“That’s Stefano and that bastard Kish. They’re the enforcers. And Petra, too. She’s in control. Then everyone else gangs up.”
"Including Jesse?"
"No. No. Not Jesse. Jesse wouldn't do that.”
"You don't think they could be acting on Jesse's orders?"
"Jesse wouldn't hurt a fly."
The voice of a man in denial, Kate thought, as the sound of someone shouting in the bar covered the conversation for a moment? She leant forward to listen as the voices became more distinct.
"If it were possible would you want to stay with Jesse?”
“I do want to be with him. But all the hangers-on keep getting in the way."
"Why do you think that is?"
"They're jealous, because Jesse likes me best.”
"How do you know he likes you best?"
"I just know. I can tell by the way he looks at me when we’re alone, the way he talks to me. I know he thinks I'm special."
The recording ran on. Sometimes it was interesting as Greg had managed to get Overmars to focus on some detail of life in the inner circle, such as the giddy excitement when Gadden would spend a day with them; but mostly the sheer, boring, drudgery of the Glee Club’s lives was disappointing, and the Dutch boy had become increasingly cautious at Greg's prompting. This interview was already labouring when the sound of a mobile phone interrupted.
"Just a minute," Overmars could be heard saying. Then, "Hello", a hesitation, followed by a surprised and slightly breathless, "Oh, hello!"
Kate pushed up the recorder’s volume, but the after-midnight camaraderie in the bar had become more boisterous and Overmars’ voice less distinct as he must have turned away to speak into the phone.
"I'm just sitting here with a friend, talking..." Overmars was saying, sounding slightly guilty. There was some more indistinct conversation and then: "Yes, I can hear it. I like that one, too."
Kate waited.
There was a long pause, and more muffled talk, before: "No, I didn't know that. Yes...yes...I see."
For another couple of minutes the conversation continued, but Overmars' voice was now inaudible against the background noise. Then suddenly the recorder went dead. Overmars must have remembered that it was still running and switched it off.
"That's it," Harry said. "They didn't record any more."
She pressed the STOP button.
Harry left in the early evening, the recorder in his pocket. It must, Kate had impressed upon him, be sent immediately to the Kentish Town CID with a note of explanation. "They'll shout," Kate had warned him. "But hopefully nothing more."
With the entire interview now on her computer, Kate had made three copies on CDs, one for Harry to keep and one for her. Then, calling Frank Teischer at home, she slipped the third into a jiffy bag with a note: “Is there any way of filtering out some of the extraneous background noise on this, do you think? We need more of the phone conversation, less of the bar. See you tomorrow. K". And calling her courier service, she sent it to him by motorcycle.
It was twenty four hours since she’d phoned Kevin O’Brien in Maine, and, having had no response to her message, she tried again. Once more Bing and Satchmo told her he’d gone fishing.
This time she was worried. She left another message.
Then, collecting her overnight bag with its usual change of clothes already waiting, her laptop and camera equipment, and a complete set of Jesse Gadden CDs, she went to her roll-top desk and retrieved the Haverhill keys she'd forgotten to return. Leaving the house, she drove quickly to Waterstones in Chelsea, where she bought an Ordnance Survey map of Cornwall.
Back in her car, she headed west. It was another long drive, but she wouldn't have slept, anyway.
Chapter Thirty Eight
November 1:
Once again she drove through the early hours. At around two in the morning she stopped at a service station near Taunton for some coffee. Then, after Exeter, she ran out of motorway and the road got slower. That made her anxious. She had to be there before it got light.
At five thirty she paused in a lay-by and studied her map. Haverhill House had been built in a valley; and, peering carefully, she managed to make out the route she and Gadden had ridden that Saturday afternoon, noting where they'd crossed the shallow river and then trotted their horses up on to the beach.
Setting off again she drove down a maze of high banked lanes. On the local radio station pop records were already playing on the early show.
Since leaving London she'd been worrying about where she would hide her car, but in the event it could hardly have been easier. Expecting the stone walls of the Haverhill estate to appear at any moment, she found herself passing a plantation of firs on the opposite side of the lane. Easing the car off the road, she followed a track through the woods to emerge, after about a hundred yards, not far from the edge of the cliffs. It would be visible here only to passing ships.
Pulling her camera bag fro
m the back seat, she made her way back through the trees, crossed the road and set off along the hedgerow. At the estate wall she recognised her surroundings. She and Gadden had come back this way. The rear gate was about fifty yards further along.
“Okay, rock trivia time if you want to get home tonight?” he’d teased as they’d reached the arched gateway. “In what year was Sergeant Pepper released?”
She’d failed the test then, but she knew the answer now. She’d looked it up. Carefully she tapped four numbers into the digital entry system embedded in the wall, praying that the code hadn’t been changed. “1-9-6-7.”
With a metallic clunk the gate swung open.
Looking around for security cameras, she slipped into the estate. It was likely that she was already being filmed, but it was, she hoped, also likely that the security monitors were not manned twenty four hours a day. So long as she didn't set off any alarms she had a chance.
Taking out her camera she primed it ready for shooting, and then made a cautious way down the bridle path towards the back of the house. No light showed: no curtain stirred. The floodlights, which had washed the house when she’d been staying, were switched off, perhaps an indication that the master was not at home.
Rounding the back of the stables, from where she could hear the impatient breakfast stamps and snorts of horses, she stayed away from the kitchen area by dropping down into the rose garden which ran behind the west wing of the main house.
The door she'd entered after her Saturday morning walk was at the end of the building. The keys she'd taken were already in her hand: the third she tried fitted. The lock, well oiled, turned easily. With a quick look back she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
