The Death Chamber

by Sarah Rayne

  Could the lime still be slaked? Made to fizz up into a hissing corrosive mass? Vincent was prepared to make a small and careful experiment, but if it succeeded, how would he then manage things out here? How could he carry enough water all the way out here, and how would he activate the lime without getting burned? How? It was unlikely that the water supply was still connected to Calvary, although he could try the taps in the stone sink in the mortuary.

  He would not need to try any taps! There, just a few feet away, was an old rain-water butt, three quarters full! Vincent stared at it, his mind working. Water. Water all ready to hand. There was a tap near the bottom – it looked very corroded, but it might still turn. He studied the courtyard afresh, seeing with a tiny thump of excitement that the surface of the courtyard was not entirely level: it dipped slightly near the row of outbuildings. Was there a gap at the bottom of the lime store’s door? Yes. After heavy rain, surely the water butt would overflow and flood beneath the door? Ah, no, there was a small drain about a foot away; that would take the overflow. But what if that drain were to be blocked or covered? An ordinary plastic bag, a supermarket carrier held down by a stone, would do it.

  Stepping cautiously inside the store, avoiding the powdery heaps which might cloud upwards into his face, he took from his pocket the small metal box he had brought. It had belonged to the Bournemouth Major who had used it to store the cigars he was not supposed to smoke. The box was barely six inches square, but it was big enough to hold a small piece of rock on which to experiment in the privacy of Vincent’s garden shed. In his other pocket were tongs from his kitchen, and, using these, he picked up two chippings and dropped them in the box. Then he closed the lid tightly and wrapped the whole thing in several folds of a garden refuse bag.

  As he walked back down the slope, not troubling to be furtive, simply being a local man out for an innocent walk, the thump of excitement was still with him because all the details of his plan were coming together beautifully. A corroded tap that had finally broken away from its moorings and caused an old courtyard to flood . . . a drain that had not dealt with the flood because a plastic carrier bag had blown into the courtyard and stuck across the grid . . . and as a result, water trickling across the old stones and seeping under the door of the lime store . . . all he needed to do now was make sure the lime could still be activated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Georgina had recklessly bought Camembert and Brie and some sinfully rich pâté, together with ruinously expensive avocados and olives for the salad. She had set it all out on the little gateleg table by the window with the breathtaking sweep of Torven beyond. There would not be room at the table for everyone, but they could have their lunch buffet-style, which would be easier anyway.

  She had expected to feel slightly disconcerted by the presence of Chad Ingram and the other three in the tiny Caradoc House flat, because although she was perfectly used to talking to people about how they could furnish their houses or offices or showrooms, she was not at all used to talking about disinterred fragments of her family’s past. She was certainly not used to television presenters or journalists who had been spectacularly blinded in the Middle East. David would have said, ‘Oh dear, George, this isn’t your kind of thing at all, is it?’ and Georgina would instantly have thought that David was quite right, concluded she was going to make a fool of herself, and abandoned the whole project.

  But so far nobody had said anything disagreeable or confidence-shrivelling: on the contrary, they were all completely friendly and seemed genuinely interested.

  She saw what Drusilla meant about Jude not making any concessions. He treated the blindness as an inconvenience, only occasionally displaying a flash of anger if he had to be helped to do anything. Georgina had gone downstairs to unlock the street door to let them in, relieved Vincent did not seem to be around to muscle in on the party, and the eager young Phin Farrell had guided Jude up the narrow staircase in a very understated way. When they sat down to eat, Georgina simply put Jude’s hand on one of the chairs by the table and left him to sit down. It ought to have been a completely detached manoeuvre but, incredibly, she felt a brief prickle of electricity spark between them. This was disconcerting and startling, and she had no idea if he had felt it as well.

  She said, ‘The food’s on the table and the papers are on the floor in the middle of the room. It’s mostly articles about the Caradoc Society – psychic research journals from when the Caradoc Society came into being as far as I can see. Walter took over as Calvary’s doctor from a Dr McNulty—’

  ‘McNulty was the Caradoc Society’s first chairman, I think,’ said Chad. He was eyeing the papers with a light in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, he was,’ said Georgina.

  ‘Your great-grandfather probably inherited a lot of material from him. It’s how things often happen. Really useful bits of history get stuffed into cupboards for decades. Are any of the articles illustrated at all?’ He sat on the floor and immediately began to sort through the nearest pile. Phin sat opposite to him, cross-legged, a notebook open on his knee, the quiff of hair tumbling forward.

  ‘There are one or two photos of McNulty,’ said Georgina. ‘I’ve only just identified him, actually. I’d have to say he looks very earnest and humourless, although that might just be the photographic techniques of the day. Dr Ingram—’

  ‘Chad.’

  ‘Chad, I told Drusilla to copy anything that might be useful.’

  ‘We’ll probably want to copy quite a lot of it,’ said Chad, in an absorbed voice.

  ‘And then make use of it,’ said Jude.

  ‘The thing I thought you’d want to see above the rest,’ said Georgina, scooping up portions of salad and pâté, and handing the plates round, ‘is something my great-grandfather seems to have called an Execution Book. It’s a record of everyone who was executed while he was there. Dates, names, times, and so on. Height and weight. Amazingly, there are photographs for most of them.’

  ‘Mug shots,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘I read up on that,’ said Phin. ‘You had an Act of Parliament passed – uh, I think it was about 1870 – that ordered the gaols to keep registers of all the inmates. Some of the prison governors saw that as meaning photographs as well, although I guess that varied a good deal. By Walter’s time it would have been standard procedure.’

  ‘The book’s a bit battered,’ said Georgina, producing it. She glanced uncertainly at Jude, and then said, ‘And the binding’s come loose all down the spine. It’s got a sort of suede leather cover, and the photographs are just pasted onto thickish paper inside, with names and dates handwritten underneath, but it’s perfectly legible.’

  ‘I don’t know about legible, it looks impossibly grisly.’

  ‘Other people have ancestors who leave jewellery or photographs or medals,’ said Georgina. ‘My great-grandfather left me a record of all the hanged murderers he attended. But the thing is that there’s a name in the Execution Book that jumped straight up off the page – partly because of Talismans of the Mind,’ said Georgina, and looked at Chad. ‘I’m hugely enjoying reading it, by the way. You wrote quite a lot about a couple who held fake seances during the First World War.’

  ‘Bartlam and Violette Partridge,’ said Chad, smiling.

  ‘Yes. But did you know that one of them ended up in Calvary Gaol?’

  ‘Good God, no, I didn’t. Which one?’

  ‘Bartlam,’ said Drusilla at once. ‘I knew he’d come to a bad end, the old goat.’

  ‘No,’ said Georgina, ‘it wasn’t Bartlam. It was his wife, Violette. She was hanged in Calvary on the first day of 1940.’

  ‘As entries go, it isn’t very informative,’ said Georgina, half apologetically as they pounced on the book and pored over it. She saw that Drusilla and Chad both did exactly what she had been doing herself: they touched the surface of the paper lightly as if to draw out the story inside the faded writing and the brittle paper.

  ‘It’s primary source stuff,’ said C
had. ‘What a find!’

  ‘Violette was executed under her real name, which was apparently Violet Parsons,’ said Georgina. ‘But you can see where Walter wrote in “also known as Violette Partridge”, and that’s what I recognized when I was flipping through.’

  Chad studied the photograph intently. ‘It’s an extraordinary feeling to see her,’ he said. ‘She’s not quite as I visualized. But she probably looked a lot different when she was younger and cavorting around at all those seances.’ For Jude’s benefit, he said, ‘She’s plump-faced, with piebald greying hair, and probably in her early fifties. My God, I wish I’d known about this when I was writing Talismans. What did she do that finally brought her to the condemned cell, I wonder? I’ll have to find out.’

  ‘He’s already drafting out another book on the strength of this, Georgina, so make sure you get due acknowledgement, never mind a hefty share of the royalties.’

  ‘You don’t need to pay any attention to Jude, Georgina,’ said Chad, looking up. ‘He makes a career out of being rude to people.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not going to be rude to Georgina,’ said Jude promptly. ‘Because she’s given us a delicious lunch and she has a beautiful voice.’ And then, before Georgina could think how to respond to this, or even whether she ought to respond to it, he said, ‘Did somebody say I had some wine somewhere? Oh, thanks Phin.’ He located his wine glass which Georgina had put on a side table by his chair.

  ‘Is Neville Fremlin in here?’ said Drusilla suddenly.

  ‘He is.’ Georgina reached over to turn the pages back.

  ‘Oh yes. Neville Fremlin,’ said Drusilla. ‘Nine a.m. on 17 October 1938.’

  ‘He’s a bit older than I imagined,’ said Phin, reading over Drusilla’s shoulder. ‘Born in 1889, it says. Hanged in 1938. So he was forty-nine when that was taken.’

  ‘In his prime,’ murmured Chad.

  ‘Whatever he was in, I don’t mind admitting that if he’d said to me, “Come into my chemist’s laboratory, my dear,” I’d have gone like a shot,’ said Drusilla, still staring at the photograph. ‘He’s very attractive.’

  ‘You get weirder by the hour.’

  ‘It’s the company I keep.’

  Phin bent over the book again, looking absurdly young. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult to find out what Violette’s crime was,’ he said. ‘There’ll be court records and stuff, won’t there?’

  ‘I’ll bet she bumped off Bartlam,’ said Drusilla. ‘And serve him right, nasty old lecher. He’d be the kind who stands too close to you on the Tube.’

  ‘A real ass-pincher. Excuse me, Georgina.’

  ‘There’s an added grisliness about the date of Violette’s execution, isn’t there?’ said Georgina. ‘Having to die on the first day of a new year and a new decade.’

  ‘I lost her altogether after 1920 or so,’ said Chad. ‘There simply weren’t any threads to pick up – no death certificate or marriage certificate, although that probably means Partridge wasn’t their real name. It’s remarkable, isn’t it, how the different name changes the entire image? You can imagine a Violet Parsons being a very ordinary, rather colourless lady.’

  ‘Good works, and never married,’ said Jude at once. ‘Whereas Violette Partridge fits beautifully with seances and table-turning. Plump as to build and gushing as to manner.’

  ‘And don’t forget the tea-gowns and the scent,’ said Chad. ‘If you knew the trouble I went to to track down shop records for that part of London – Oh, yes, please, Georgina, I’d love coffee. No, I couldn’t eat another crumb.’

  ‘If,’ said Jude getting out of his chair, ‘you would like to take me by the hand and lead me to the sink, Georgina, I’ll help with the washing-up and the coffee while they delve into the past.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Georgina, slightly startled.

  ‘I don’t promise not to break anything, though,’ he said.

  He did not, in the event, break anything at all. He simply washed the cutlery and crockery Georgina put in the sink, located the draining board, and stacked everything on it. He did this offhandedly, telling her a bit more about the night inside Calvary as he did so. Georgina, listening and enjoying the story, laughing at the concept of Tommy the Turnkey, could not help wondering how hard won this unfussed smoothness had been.

  It was when they were seated around the little coffee table, with papers strewn over the floor and Phin enthusiastically making reams of notes and explaining how he would go about tracking down Violette and her trial, that Jude suddenly said, ‘Professor, I’ve got a suggestion.’

  ‘Yes?’ Chad was still studying the Execution Book.

  ‘It occurred to me while I was talking to Georgina over the washing-up,’ said Jude. ‘I’d like to spend a second night in Calvary. Only this time I’d like to be actually down in the gallows pit.’

  There was an abrupt silence, then Drusilla said, ‘That’s the maddest idea I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Chad. He had put the book down and was staring at Jude. ‘I’m not so sure. What’s your reason, Jude?’

  ‘Last night,’ said Jude, ‘I was observing without knowing anything. If I went in there again I’d be observing with knowledge. It’d be very interesting to see if the reactions are at all similar.’

  ‘Difficult to find fault with that, boss,’ murmured Drusilla.

  ‘Can we keep the keys for any longer, though?’ asked Phin anxiously.

  ‘I’d have to check with the solicitor, but I don’t see why not. Although I’d better make sure that wretched trapdoor wasn’t damaged,’ said Chad. ‘Jude, you do realize that if it is, you’ve probably used up the whole of our professional indemnity?’

  ‘You’re so mercenary,’ complained Jude. ‘Now me, I have a soul above money and property. But if I must descend to the mundane, I’d have to say it didn’t feel as if the trapdoor was damaged.’

  ‘It didn’t look damaged when we collected you,’ said Phin hopefully.

  ‘No, but we didn’t make a very close examination,’ said Chad, ‘and we must.’

  ‘If,’ said Jude, ‘I do make a second foray, I’d like to have someone with me this time. But it needs to be someone completely objective.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To observe the observer. So if I think I’m hearing Tommy the Turnkey yomping up and down the corridors, there’d be someone there who could either confirm it, or say I’ve flipped and am hearing things.’ He paused, clearly listening for reactions, and when no one spoke, said, ‘Chad, you obviously can’t do it because you’re supposed to be masterminding everything. So how about the rest of you? Any takers?’

  To Georgina’s utter horror, she heard herself saying, ‘If you feel like drafting me in as a temporary part of the team I’d do it.’

  For what felt like several minutes nobody said anything, but Jude’s head turned towards her and Georgina had the impression she had disconcerted him. ‘Would you really? Do you mean it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgina, although she had no idea if this was true.

  ‘Well,’ said Jude lightly, ‘at least I’m still able to persuade a lady to spend the night with me.’ And before Georgina could think how to answer this, he went on, ‘What about it, Professor?’

  Chad said slowly, ‘I can’t see anything against it in principle. We’d better talk about it a bit more, but Georgina, if we do go for it, you’d be perfectly safe. At worst you’d have an uncomfortable few hours – the worst part of that would be Jude’s undiluted company. There’s also the possibility you might stop him from smashing up any more of the place.’

  ‘We could do it tonight,’ said Jude, ignoring this. ‘We can leave about ten as we did last night – Georgina, would that be all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ I’m clearly mad, thought Georgina. I’ve just offered to spend the night in that spooky old prison with a man I’ve only just met, who’s blind. But Calvary was Walter’s place. And something happened to him while he was there – something that caused him to
leave his money to the Caradoc Society, and I want to find out as much as I can about why he did that.

  ‘Have an early dinner with me at the King’s Head beforehand,’ Jude was saying to her. ‘Seven o’clock? We can plan the campaign and apportion the ghosts. Because that’s what this is, really: a massive ghost hunt. You’re looking for Walter, Chad is probably looking for Violette, Drusilla’s looking for Neville Fremlin. And so on.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Georgina, and caught herself being glad that when she was packing in London, at the last minute she had put one reasonably decent outfit into her case – a jade-green silk skirt and a black silky sweater. She had brought the jade necklace that went with it as well. Then she remembered that Jude would not see any of this which was annoying because the outfit was one that always made her feel good. Then she thought she would wear it anyway. She could take jeans, a sweater, jacket and trainers to the King’s Head with her; Drusilla would not mind if she changed in her bedroom before they set off for Calvary.

  After they had all left, it occurred to her that the small working lunch she had originally intended seemed to have progressed from being a casual snack, to a slightly more distinguished party which, in its turn, had ended in creating an offbeat ghost hunt in Calvary Gaol.

  As Georgina tidied Walter’s papers back into the box, she thought that at times life took some rather unexpected turns.

  July 1939

  ‘The Fremlin case has taken a rather unexpected turn,’ said Edgar Higneth coming into Walter’s surgery just after lunch. ‘I’ve just been told that the police have found Elizabeth Molland.’

  Walter had been rather abstractedly writing up his notes on that morning’s patients and wondering what he was going to do about offering his services for the war that was undoubtedly coming. People were not saying, as they had said in the last war, that it would all be over by Christmas; no one thought Hitler could be defeated in a few weeks. This was going to be a long haul once it got going, said everyone, although please God it would not be a four-year haul this time.