The Death Chamber

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘Not by any man,’ said Molland firmly, and Walter thought: well, if she didn’t have her head turned once or twice, she was probably the first girl of nineteen who didn’t.

  ‘She’d wrap her dad round her little finger,’ said Mrs Molland indulgently. ‘She had such pretty ways, Dr Kane.’

  ‘It’s a sad man who can’t let his daughter coax him,’ said Molland.

  This is dreadful, thought Walter, but he set himself to go on, and choosing his words with care, he said, ‘Had she a young man?’

  ‘Oh no,’ they both said at once.

  ‘One or two young men had admired her, of course.’ This was Mrs Molland, displaying an eager pride that cut through Walter like a knife. ‘What with her being so pretty and dainty. I have a photograph here if you’d like to see . . .’

  The photograph, predictably, was in a silver frame and had pride of place on the mantelpiece. Walter studied it with interest. Elizabeth Molland had been a very pretty girl indeed. Masses of fair hair and dark, slightly upward-slanting eyes. Yes, she would have coaxed her doting father into doing anything she wanted. He would have known he was being coaxed, but not minded.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, carefully replacing the photograph. ‘She’s very lovely indeed. Beautiful eyes.’ He was glad he could say this with complete truth; he did not want to lie to these people and he thought they would have known if he had done so.

  ‘I make no doubt there was a bit of giggling with her friends about the young men they met at various little parties and social gatherings,’ said Molland, studying the photo fondly. ‘That’s natural at nineteen, Dr Kane. But we always knew where she was. She never spent an hour out of our sight but what we knew where she was and who she was with.’

  ‘You hear such dreadful things, these days,’ put in his wife. ‘Girls getting themselves into trouble— But we’d brought her up right, you see. We made sure she had friends of her own age – daughters of our own friends they’d be in the main. Or Mr Molland’s business acquaintances and the like.’ Again there was the note of pride.

  ‘Church every Sunday, of course,’ said Molland. ‘And I made no objection to Elizabeth joining one or two of the groups attached to St Luke’s.’

  A picture was forming in Walter’s mind of an ordinary lively nineteen-year-old girl, perhaps a bit rebellious at her elderly, old-fashioned parents, possibly occasionally telling a harmless fib or two to escape their protection. Laughing with other girls, and exchanging secrets about young men – possibly meeting one young man in particular and permitting a few guilty embraces. All entirely normal and harmless. A girl who, in a year or two’s time, would have married some nice, suitable young man, and had children of her own.

  He said, ‘That last evening . . .’

  ‘Dr Kane, I shall never forgive myself,’ said Mrs Molland. ‘A musical evening it was – such as we often used to attend, being so fond of music. And Elizabeth enjoyed coming with us. A grown-up night, that’s what she used to say. And she’d dress up in one of her best frocks, and wear her jewellery and we’d be so proud of her.’

  ‘The police believed it was the jewellery that attracted him,’ said Molland. ‘That man, I mean.’

  They can’t bring themselves to say Fremlin’s name, thought Walter, torn with pity all over again. He asked if the jewellery had been valuable.

  ‘Not especially. Trinkets we’d given her over the years – birthdays and Christmases, you know. Seed pearls and turquoise. But they made her look – prosperous. Cared for.’

  ‘He liked the rich ones,’ said Mrs Molland simply. ‘He liked to go where there was money.

  ‘Yes.’ Walter remembered how Fremlin had talked about attending first nights at the theatre and concerts, enjoying drinks at the interval and supper afterwards.

  ‘The police notified jewellers in the area, thinking the pieces might be offered for sale, but they got no information,’ Molland was saying. ‘Not surprising though, when you think of the number of jewellers even in this county.’

  ‘Not surprising at all,’ said Walter. ‘Mr Molland – you’ve both been very frank with me and I’m grateful. If I can find out anything at all that would bring you a little comfort, I promise I’ll let you know. I talk to Fremlin each day.’

  ‘If we could just know what happened to her,’ said Mrs Molland, twisting her handkerchief between her hands. ‘If we knew for sure she was dead. We’d cope with that after so long. We’d have a little memorial tablet in St Luke’s, wouldn’t we, Joe?’

  ‘It’d be a comfort,’ said Molland briefly.

  ‘Yes, I understand that.’ Walter’s mind slipped back over the years to his mother saying, ‘I can’t even have a memorial stone for your father, Walter. I wish I could; it would be such a comfort.’ But there could be no memorial stone to a man hanged for betraying his country.

  He got up to go. ‘There’s nothing you can think of that would help me to – to find a way into Fremlin’s mind? Anything about her friends, her life? Her childhood, even?’

  He felt, rather than saw, a response to this last question. Like the flicker of an electrical current before it springs into life in a dark room. Like the faint quiver of a pulse in an unconscious man’s body. Unmistakable. The silence stretched out, and Walter tried to think of something to say that might encourage them, but he could not and the moment passed.

  Molland saw him politely to the door, shaking hands. ‘We’re grateful for your concern, Dr Kane.’

  ‘The execution is in four days’ time,’ said Walter. ‘I expect you know that, though.’

  ‘We do.’

  Of course they would know. They would be counting the days away until the man they thought had killed their daughter himself died.

  ‘I’m only sorry we couldn’t tell you anything to help,’ said Molland.

  Walter drove back into the town centre, and parked his car. There was one more thing he wanted to do while he was here, and there was plenty of time. Had he got the directions right? Yes, here was the street, quite near to the centre. It was a lively little part of the town – there were a number of smartly painted shops selling a variety of goods: a ladies’ dress shop with costumes and svelte evening dresses, labelled ‘Paris Fashion, Latest Mode’. Next to it was a milliner’s. Then a leather goods shop with handbags and dressing-cases. After that a draper’s, with a discreet display of silk stockings and wisp-like underwear. Several doors along was a rather fussy-looking teashop with potted palms and wicker basket chairs, advertising ‘Morning Coffee and Cream Teas’. It was exactly the kind of little street that ladies would enjoy visiting: there would be an inspection of the frocks, hats and bags, and then a cup of coffee or tea to discuss purchases made or being considered.

  The bow-windowed shop beyond the draper’s was like a dark blemish on the street. The windows were boarded up and a tattered fly poster hung from one pane. It was unkempt and uncared for, and the paint was already peeling from the once-scarlet shop door. Someone had tried to paint out the legend over the door itself, but the letters were still readable and they proclaimed the little shop as the place that had been splashed across the national newspapers.

  N. FREMLIN PHARMACIST AND DISPENSER

  This is where he worked, thought Walter staring up at the words. This is where he mixed his potions and prepared his draughts. This is the place the police examined over and over again for clues – for tattered fragments of humanity, for bloodstains or gold rings or fingernails or shoe buckles. In the end they had found nothing to add to the evidence already gathered, but it had not mattered because the evidence they had was more than enough to send a man to the gallows in five days’ time.

  Walter had expected to find the place firmly secured, and probably it had been until recently. But time or neglect, or both, had rusted the door lock from its hinges and when Walter put out a cautious hand, it swung inwards with an unpleasant scrape against the wooden floor. He glanced up and down the street, but the afternoon was already sliding into evening an
d most shoppers had long since gone home. Into the murderer’s den, then . . .

  It was larger than he had thought: reading the newspaper reports he had visualized a mean poky little place. But of course, the man who had enjoyed London first nights and who had requested poetry to read in the condemned cell, would not have associated himself with anything second rate or down at heel. The interior of the shop was spacious and even with the accumulated dust everywhere, it was plain that this had been a very classy establishment. There was a counter for the business of selling and buying, but there was also a section devoted to cosmetics and lotions – the ‘fripperies’ that Elizabeth Molland’s father had referred to. The remains of display cabinets stood against one wall, and there was a small area furnished with several comfortable chairs and a low table, where, Walter supposed, customers might have been invited to wait for their prescriptions to be dispensed.

  He crossed the dusty floor, his footsteps echoing. Any furniture that might have been here had been removed, but a built-in cupboard remained and a long marble-topped slab was affixed to one wall. At the back was another door, partly open, with two deep steps leading down. After a moment he went down the steps. His heart was beating fast and he felt as if he was prising open a dark and bloodied fragment of the past.

  This is it, said his mind. This is where he brought them after he killed them. There’s the long table where he must have laid them out and removed everything that might identify them. Clothes, engraved wedding rings or lockets that he didn’t dare try to sell. That’s the range where he burned their clothes. Did he work by night? Putting up the shutters and lighting oil lamps? Walter glanced back up to the front of the shop. Yes, the windows did have shutters.

  He was suddenly aware of self-disgust. I’m behaving like a voyeur, he thought, or like one of those characters in Dickens who went jauntily along to Newgate to watch a public hanging. Or the crones that Fremlin himself talked about, the ghoulish women who had sat knitting at the foot of the guillotine.

  The feeling was so strong that he went quickly from the shop, closing the door as well as he could, and drove back to Calvary.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Walter sat at the table in the condemned cell. It was late; the gaslights were flaring and popping in the corridor outside, and there was a faint sound of rain beating against a windowpane somewhere. Walter liked night rain; as a child he had always liked to lie in bed and hear the rain outside and know himself safe, warm and secure. But how would it feel to lie in this room and listen to night rain?

  He said, ‘I was in Knaresborough earlier today.’

  ‘Were you?’ Neville Fremlin had been reading the poems of Wilfred Owen which Walter had managed to get for him, but had politely put the book aside when Walter came in.

  ‘As a matter of fact I went past your old shop.’

  ‘Oh, did you? I was meaning to have it freshly painted. I daresay it’s looking a bit sorry for itself by now.’

  ‘It wasn’t looking so bad,’ said Walter who had not expected this response.

  ‘Nevertheless, the lease specified . . .’ Fremlin paused as if considering whether he had given too much away, and then seemed to shrug as if to say, What does it matter? He said, ‘The lease specified it should be repainted every three years. I always kept to that.’

  ‘Because you like to have things orderly?’ said Walter.

  ‘Bright and clean, anyway.’

  Having got Fremlin onto the subject of Knaresborough, Walter said, ‘I also saw Mr and Mrs Molland while I was in the town. Elizabeth’s parents.’

  Fremlin did not move a muscle, but something seemed to shift behind his eyes and a stillness crept over him.

  Watching him, Walter said, ‘They showed me a photograph of her – she was an outstandingly pretty girl, I thought.’

  ‘All girls of nineteen are pretty, Dr Kane, or are you not yet old enough to appreciate that?’

  ‘How did you know her age?’ said Walter at once.

  ‘I read the newspapers.’ The tone had returned to its former carelessness. But I’ve shaken him, thought Walter. He wasn’t expecting me to mention her and there was definitely a reaction at her name. ‘And,’ said Fremlin, ‘she came into the shop once or twice. I remember her fairly well.’ He studied Walter thoughtfully. ‘That was a curious visit for you to make, Dr Kane.’

  ‘I was interested,’ said Walter.

  ‘Ah.’ It was so non-committal a sound that Walter wondered if he had been mistaken about the reaction to Elizabeth’s name a moment ago. He let the silence lengthen but Fremlin appeared to have withdrawn again. Quite suddenly, he said, ‘You’d like to get me out of this, wouldn’t you, Dr Kane?’

  Walter felt as if a hand had squeezed itself around his heart. This is it, he thought. This is the moment he’s going to propose some wild escape scheme. At a purely superficial level he was aware of being thankful that neither of the warders was in the cell, although he supposed Fremlin would not have said it if anyone else had been there. ‘You’d like to get me out of this . . .’ Walter’s mind whirled chaotically for a moment but finally a vestige of professionalism returned to him and he was able to say, ‘I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. I do admit that.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked you.’

  This time it was not Walter’s professionalism that came to his aid, it was the thought of how Lewis Caradoc would handle this situation. He’d play it by the rules, thought Walter gratefully, and he said, ‘Fremlin, you know I can’t possibly comment on your case. You’re here to answer for crimes. I’m here to help you through the last few days of your life.’

  Fremlin regarded him for what seemed to be a very long time. Then he said, softly, ‘Is that all it is, Walter? Just part of the job to you? Am I just a – just a statistic? A name on Calvary’s death register?’

  Walter struggled for a moment, and then said, ‘Of course it’s more than just a job. You must know that. I have compassion for you and I hope I’m helping you. But I haven’t sufficient knowledge of the facts to make any kind of judgement.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Fremlin in the same soft voice, ‘you drove out to see Elizabeth Molland’s parents today.’ He leaned forward, his eyes glowing. ‘You would like to get me out of this, wouldn’t you, Walter? Because—’ He stopped and seemed to be searching Walter’s eyes. Then he said, ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I misread you.’ He leaned back, and in a completely different voice, said, ‘Did I thank you for getting Wilfred Owen’s poems for me? I’ve been enjoying rereading them. I always admired the idealism of those young men who fought in the Great War.’ Then, without missing a beat, he said, ‘If you go into Kendal before Monday, d’you think you could bring me a bottle of wine? A good claret for preference.’

  ‘I don’t think the governor would allow it,’ said Walter, managing to match Fremlin’s lightness of tone.

  ‘No? Ah well, it was worth a try,’ said the man who was going to die on Monday morning. As Walter got up to leave, he said, very casually, ‘You’re ready for Monday, are you, Dr Kane?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

  He was not ready, of course, and he would not be ready if he had ten years to prepare.

  The day after his visit he sent a careful note to Mr and Mrs Molland, thanking them for their courtesy, and saying he feared there would not be any information from Fremlin about Elizabeth. If, however, there was anything that either of them remembered – anything that might help him – he hoped they would get in touch. He did not really expect very much, and when he received a rather flowery little note from Mrs Molland, expressing their appreciation of his thoughtfulness but saying nothing more, he was not surprised.

  Time seemed to have become uneven and unreliable. At first, after the visit to Knaresborough, it went with such dragging slowness that Walter wished there was a way to shunt it along and get to Monday morning so that the appalling thing waiting there could be faced. But then it seemed to double and tripl
e its pace, flying like a weaver’s shuttle, like a runner racing to reach a finishing post, wastefully spilling the last hours of a man’s life.

  During those days a great deal of Walter’s time was taken up with prisoners whose health had to be regularly checked – two had heart conditions and three had the miners’ lung disease from working in the Yorkshire collieries. The oldest of these was becoming quite seriously ill, and although Walter was making the man as comfortable as he could, he knew and the man knew, that the condition would inexorably worsen.

  The day before the execution was one of the lowering days in which this part of England seemed to specialize. Clouds scudded across Mount Torven and flurries of rain spattered down.

  Walter attended morning service in the small chapel. The prisoners were brought in as usual; Sunday attendance was compulsory for them, but Walter thought they would have been there anyway because it made a change in the strict routine of their lives. They liked Sunday services even if it was for the wrong reasons; they liked to sing loudly to the hymns and some of them would furtively ogle the female warders. But today they were quiet and watchful; several of them looked as if it would not take much to make them erupt into rebellion. Walter had known there would be things he had not expected, and this odd unease among the other prisoners was one of them.

  He had lunch with Edgar Higneth and the chaplain. It had been an invitation he could not refuse although he would have preferred to drive to the King’s Head in Thornbeck where the landlady roasted an enormous side of beef each Sunday and served it pink and tender with home-grown vegetables. Several of the local people who did not have families usually came in to eat in the small dining room and Walter had made one or two cautious friendships among them. Men who did have families often looked in for a half-guilty glass of beer before their own dinner, reluctantly returning to obligatory domesticity for the afternoon.

  Walter had come to enjoy this pleasant Sunday ritual, but today he had to eat the peppery soup and overcooked meat which was Calvary’s idea of a Sunday roast, and to forgo any kind of drink since the regulations did not permit alcohol inside the gaol. Edgar Higneth would not have been above smuggling in a couple of bottles of wine for his guests, but the chaplain had strict views on temperance and probably would have reported the smallest glass of sherry to Higneth’s masters at Whitehall, so they drank barley water.