The Death Chamber

by Sarah Rayne

  Condemned cell, thought Phin, remembering the layout plan. He wondered if it would be locked.

  It was not locked, but when Chad tried to open the door it groaned and seemed to be stuck. Phin went to help and under their combined pressure it yielded slightly.

  ‘Harder,’ said Chad, and they tried again. This time a shriek of hinges tore through the dimness like a hundred souls in torment. There was a splintering noise and the door fell inwards, crashing onto the floor of the cell, sending clouds of dust and debris billowing upwards. Drusilla and the other two jumped back.

  ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us,’ said Jude, removing his earpieces. ‘What in the name of heaven was that?’

  ‘A door collapsed,’ said Chad shortly. ‘Phin, are you all right?’

  Phin had been at the forefront and had consequently received the entire dust cloud in the face. His eyes were streaming and he would probably never stop coughing from the ancient dust that had gone down his lungs, but he said, a bit gaspingly, that he was fine.

  ‘Have some coffee from the flask,’ said Jude, and Phin gulped it down gratefully and managed to stop coughing.

  ‘Are you sure it was only a door that fell in?’ demanded Jude. ‘It sounded as if the roof had collapsed at the very least. I suppose this isn’t a wild elaborate joke? You haven’t brought me to a film set where they’re remaking Dracula, have you? Because between rotting doors and groaning locks this is starting to be almost too good to be true.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Mozart’s Twenty-first too much,’ said Chad. ‘But no, it isn’t a film set and it isn’t an elaborate joke.’

  Drusilla suddenly said, ‘What’s that?’ and Phin’s heart leapt all over again.

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘That sound. It’s like something vibrating somewhere.’

  Phin started to say he could not hear anything and then stopped, because Drusilla was right – there was a faint thrumming sound coming from somewhere quite close to them.

  ‘It’s not exactly machinery, I don’t think,’ said Jude. ‘But something’s been disturbed by the door crashing in. Like when you pluck the strings of something and it goes on resonating all by itself.’

  The thought of something resonating all by itself somewhere in the darkness of Calvary was almost more than Phin could bear. He saw Dr Ingram’s expression and realized with horror that the sound was coming from the execution chamber. It’s something to do with the gallows, he thought.

  ‘It’s stopping,’ said Chad after a moment, and shone the torch inside the condemned cell.

  It was larger than the other cells, perhaps twelve by fifteen feet, and incredibly some furniture remained in place. There was a square table in one corner, with a couple of chairs drawn up to it. That’s where the prisoner would have sat, thought Phin. He’d have turned his head to this door if anyone came in. There’d have been two warders with him and they would have played cards or chess or chequers. Would they pretend to care who won?

  ‘Is this where I’m spending the night?’ demanded Jude. ‘In the room where the door fell off? Because if so . . .’

  ‘No, this isn’t it,’ said Chad. ‘But wait here with Drusilla, will you? Phin, come with me. Bring the other torch and your notebook, will you? Oh, and the camcorder.’

  In American prisons there was, Phin thought, a macabre procession across courtyards and along corridors, but in Calvary the execution shed was just along the corridor from the condemned cell. Phin, the camcorder slung around his neck, counted the paces as they went. A dozen. Twelve steps between cell and scaffold. He tried not to wonder if the rats might have got into the execution chamber.

  ‘This will be it,’ said Chad, and opened the door.

  The thrumming of the machinery had not completely died away and with the opening of the door it seemed to shiver under their feet. Phin stopped dead on the threshold, because if the condemned cell had been bad this was like stepping into a huge suffocating blackness. Waves of anger and fear came at him like invisible smoke. We’re not wanted here, he thought. Whatever ghosts – whatever memories – are trapped in here, they’re boiling with hatred and resentment and they’re trying to beat us back. But he set his teeth and forced himself to go inside and examine the room objectively so he could make suitable notes. Size of room, objects in it, condition, construction. The camcorder would pick up a lot of it, but it was as well to have notes in addition.

  The room was approximately the same size as the condemned cell. Chad shone the torch around, showing up the bleak decay. There was a small window high up in one corner, the glass thick with the grime of years. The brickwork directly beneath it was leprous with damp.

  The gallows trap was near the centre: it was about four feet square.

  ‘Double trapdoors,’ said Chad, shining the torch directly on it. ‘D’you see? They’re sunk into the floor. Not absolutely flush with it, but nearly so. And that’s the mechanism for the trap alongside it.’ The torchlight fell on a heavy iron lever jutting out of a small square aperture in the floor.

  ‘It’s nearer to the trap than I thought it would be,’ said Phin after a moment. ‘You’d think they’d have tried to hide it a bit. Had a screen tucked in a corner, or something. But the – um – the condemned man would have seen it.’

  ‘They nearly always blindfolded them at the end, I think,’ said Chad, walking around the edges of the trap.

  ‘The mechanism’s still humming a bit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. The crash must have disturbed the metal rods under the floor – they’ve probably worked a bit loose over the years. It’s quite a simple mechanism from the look of it – can you see, Phin? The lever works horizontally. When the executioner slid it across, it pulled the metal rods back, and that removed the plugs holding the doors in place.’

  ‘And the doors would have dropped,’ said Phin.

  ‘Yes. The plan shows a vault directly beneath the trap. There’s a stairway from this level, leading down to it.’ He shone the torch onto a second, much smaller trapdoor in a corner of the room. ‘It won’t move,’ he said ‘I tried it when I checked everywhere. There’s a ring handle, but I can’t budge it.’

  Phin knelt down to try, but he could not open the flap either. ‘I don’t think it’s locked or bolted,’ he said. ‘It’s just warped.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But it doesn’t materially affect tonight’s shooting, although I’d still like to know what’s down there. We’ll see if we can force it tomorrow.’

  Phin looked up at the thick crossbeam directly over the trap. There was a massive metal bracket clamped to it and a thick iron chain hung down, clearly for the rope itself. The end of the chain was just over his head; if he reached up he could grasp the last few links. They felt harsh and cold and he let go at once. It was difficult to decide if the crossbeam and chain were more grisly than the trapdoor mechanism.

  ‘Should I try for some stills?’ he said. ‘The light won’t be good though, and flash isn’t ideal for this kind of thing, is it?’

  ‘We’ll get the stills tomorrow,’ said Chad. ‘But we’ll take some footage now, just to get the flavour and scale of the place, and then some of Jude actually entering. It’ll be shadowy but it’d certainly indicate the atmosphere. Will you do that, Phin? Get as much as you can. Both sets of trapdoors and the levers, of course. Once Jude’s in here we’ll leave the camcorder running.’

  ‘Shooting the ghosts,’ Phin could not help saying.

  ‘Yes.’ Chad waited until Phin had recorded the room from all possible angles, and then went across to the edge of the gallows trap and knelt down to examine it more closely. ‘Switch the camera off for a moment,’ he said. ‘I want to double-check these doors are safe. Because if they aren’t, and if Jude walks onto them without realizing it— Close the door first. I don’t want him to hear what we’re doing and pick up any clues.’

  Phin closed the door and at once felt the room’s atmosphere jump up at him again. Don’t shut u
s in this place, said the memories and the ghosts.

  They tested the trap, cautiously stepping on it one at a time, and then both together. The wood creaked loudly and sagged a bit, but both trapdoors appeared to be sound and firm, even when Phin jumped up and down a few times as an extra test.

  ‘They may be lined with something on the underside,’ said Chad, studying them critically, ‘but we’d need to operate the lever to see, and we’d better not do that. I think they’re all right though, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Nothing about any of this was really all right, of course. The room was seething with terrible memories; the shadows moved and slithered with the play of the torchlight so it was dreadfully easy to imagine bowed-over shapes swinging to and fro on the end of a rope.

  ‘What about the lever?’ said Phin, speaking a bit too loudly in order to thrust the images away. ‘How moveable is it? Because if Jude were to explore he might activate it without realizing what it is. And if the mechanism’s still working, the trap would open and he might – uh – fall into it. Or should we tell him to stay put in one place?’

  ‘We can try telling him but he probably won’t take any notice. Let’s see how pliable the lever is.’

  Phin had thought he was coping with the room quite well, so he was annoyed to find that when they tried to move the lever his hands were shaking.

  ‘Is the room getting to you?’ said Dr Ingram, glancing at him.

  ‘Um, yes, a bit.’

  ‘I thought it might be. It’s getting to me, as well,’ he said, and grinned, and Phin instantly felt better. Dr Ingram’s work had taken him to about a zillion places like Calvary and if he was unnerved by the atmosphere it must be really bad.

  ‘I think it’s still moveable,’ said Chad, after a moment. He frowned, and Phin said, ‘Could we stuff something around it? To kind of wedge it a bit more firmly? It might stop Jude catching his foot if he explores.’

  ‘Good idea. That particular danger hadn’t occurred to me. What have we got?’

  In the end they used Phin’s long woollen scarf and Chad’s gloves, wadding them up and pushing them into the square aperture around the lever. ‘I think that’s padded it quite well,’ said Chad, inspecting it critically. ‘It’s as immovable as we can make it. Good. We’d better get back to the others.’

  Phin said, ‘Jude will be all right on his own in here, won’t he? Has he got a cellphone? Should we leave one with him if he hasn’t?’

  ‘Yes, he’s got one,’ said Chad. ‘But I don’t think there’ll be a signal in here.’

  ‘Let me try,’ said Phin, producing his own phone.

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘No. Damn. He really will be cut off, won’t he?’

  They rejoined the other two and Chad said they were all set. ‘It’s just along here, Jude. Phin’s going to film you going in.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jude. He put the earpieces of the player in his pocket. ‘It’s bloody cold, isn’t it?’ he said, as they walked along the passage.

  Phin walked backwards, carefully keeping Jude in the camcorder’s view-finder, trying not to bump into the walls as he went. He was dismayed when Drusilla said, ‘I suppose you have remembered to put a tape in, have you, Phin? Boss, d’you remember that time when we were shooting Talismans of the Mind, and that girl – what was her name? – forgot to wind a new tape back to “Start” and there was only about five minutes on it. It ran out without anyone realizing, and we filmed for two whole hours before we discovered it. We had to re-shoot the entire thing. I’ve never seen you so angry with anyone.’

  Phin would not put it past Drusilla to have said this with the deliberate intention of panicking him. It did panic him. Tonight was not something you could go back and re-shoot and he would never get over it if he screwed up. He sneaked a peek at the counter meter and the battery levels while Drusilla was not looking, and saw that everything was whirring along just as it should. There were times when he absolutely hated Drusilla.

  ‘Personally, I couldn’t give a tuppenny damn if Phin’s filming this or not,’ said Jude. ‘Because I’m going to write up my own account of it anyway and sell it to – well, to whoever will pay the most. You weren’t bargaining for that, Chad, were you? Listen though, if you ever ask me to take part in one of your wild experiments in future, could you make it somewhere with central heating. It’s as cold as a nun’s embrace in here. Phin, if you’re taking sound as well, you’d better edit that last remark out.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about the sound,’ said Chad, ‘because we’re going to do a separate voice-over, so you can curse and blaspheme to your heart’s content.’

  They had reached the doorway of the execution chamber by this time and Phin went in first, still walking backwards so as to get the actual entrance squarely in shot. He was trying not to notice the atmosphere, but Jude stopped dead on the threshold and Dr Ingram and Drusilla exchanged a quick glance as if worried he might change his mind about the entire thing and demand to be taken back to the King’s Head. I wouldn’t blame him if he did just that, thought Phin.

  But Jude did not change his mind. He stood very still for a moment, gripping the silver-topped stick, his head slightly to one side. He’s listening to the room, thought Phin. God knows what it’s telling him. Then in a voice that was very nearly his normal offhand tone, Jude said, ‘Well, wherever this is, it certainly isn’t the Plaza Suite or the Ivy, is it? What a good thing I brought my own food and drink. Where do you want me, Chad?’

  ‘Over here, I think. Halfway along this left-hand wall. I’ll guide you.’

  ‘No thanks, I’d rather make a mental map of the room.’

  Using the stick, he went along the wall on the door’s left, reached the corner and turned down the long wall facing the gallows trap. ‘About here?’

  ‘Yes, good. You’re about halfway along. Drusilla’s brought a couple of cushions and a blanket, so we’ll put those out on the floor for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And the camcorder in that corner I think, please Phin,’ said Chad. ‘Jude, it’ll be on the left of the door.’

  ‘On my right?’

  ‘Yes. From there it’ll take in most of the room and you should be in shot all the time.’

  ‘I’d better make sure not to knock over the wine, then. I’ll submit to a good deal in the cause of research, but I’m damned if I’ll be caught on film sloshing Merlot all over the floor.’ Jude moved to the cushions and sat down, laying the cane beside him. The MP3 was still in his pocket, and the wine and the flask of coffee were next to him. He checked these with his hands, and then said, ‘There should be a box with food in it as well somewhere.’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ said Drusilla. ‘Caviar and water biscuits, I see.’

  ‘And pâté. If I’m going to do this at all, I’m going to do it in style. There should be the dictaphone in there, as well – yes, thank you, that feels like it. Chad, I’ll record what I feel as it occurs to me. All right?’

  ‘Yes. You’re a pro, so I don’t need to tell you how to phrase anything or what to put in or leave out. You know the kind of stuff I want,’ said Chad. He shone his torch onto his wristwatch. ‘It’s just coming up to eleven o’clock. I’d like to give you three hours here. Can you bear that?’

  ‘I thought you’d want the witching hour including,’ said Jude. ‘Yes, I can bear it. You’re going to lock me in, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you want me to?’

  ‘I think you’d better.’

  ‘I’d like to ask you to stay put,’ said Chad. ‘But I know that’s a useless thing to say. So I’ll just say that if you do decide to take a stroll around, be careful.’

  ‘Why? Is there a yawning pit in the centre of the room, or a spiral staircase?’

  ‘No. It’s almost empty,’ said Chad, and Phin recognized that he was choosing his words carefully. ‘But it’s an old place and I’d hate you to trip over any odd bits of uneven floor or bump into anything. You�
�ve got the stick though, haven’t you?’

  ‘I have. And I’ll prod the air with it before every step I take. All right?’

  ‘I suppose that’s as good as I can hope for. We’re going back to the King’s Head,’ said Chad. ‘I want to work on an intro while this is all still fresh in my mind. We’ll probably plan out tomorrow’s schedule as well. Phin and I will drive back at half past one, and we’ll be here at two o’clock.’

  ‘I’ll tell the ghosts to admit you,’ said Jude gravely. ‘But there’s no guarantee that they will. You can’t get staff these days.’

  There was a rather awkward pause, then Chad said, ‘Jude, will you be all right?’

  ‘Not if I can’t find the corkscrew, I won’t. Oh wait though, it’s here, isn’t it?’ The dark head turned to where Chad was standing. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure. Never better.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jude listened to their footsteps receding. It was remarkable how distinctive footsteps could be: he was able to identify Chad’s brisk tread, the light tapping of Drusilla’s heels and Phin Farrell’s eager steps scurrying along. This last made him smile. He liked Phin who reminded Jude of himself at that age – all that enthusiasm.

  The acoustics of this place must be either very powerful or very unusual because the footsteps seemed to go on for a long time. Jude listened, thinking that surely Chad and the other two must have reached the outer doors by now. Or perhaps the corridors doubled back in some way before actually reaching the outer door and the way out was alongside this room. It had felt a bit maze-like in here. He waited for the footsteps to die away, thinking that once he knew he was really on his own he would start dictating his initial impressions.

  There was the sound of a door clanging. Then that’s it, thought Jude, they’ve gone and I’m about to spend a night in the classic haunted house – at least, I’m assuming it’s haunted in some way. Probably nothing at all will happen. I’m certainly not expecting a clutch of spectres to erupt out of the walls on the stroke of midnight. There’s never been conclusive proof that ghosts actually exist anyway. Oh, yeah? Are you sure about that?