The Death Chamber

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘That’s inhuman,’ said Walter angrily, ‘and totally unnecessary.’

  All right, said the driver, if there were not to be handcuffs, he wanted another guard in the van – preferably somebody as could provide a bit of muscle if so needed. His disparaging glance at Walter when he said this suggested he did not reckon much to Walter if it came to a fight.

  ‘Ketch,’ said Edgar Higneth resignedly, ‘sign yourself out for outside duties for the next two hours. And get yourself a heavy coat – whatever else the driver’s said, he’s right about the rain. I’ll see you when you get back, Walter.’

  It was raining even harder by the time they carried the stretcher out to the ambulance. Walter shivered and turned his coat collar up against it, but it seeped coldly into his bones and clung to his hair. Behind them, Calvary was dark and lowering with only the guardhouse lights showing, and below them the countryside was black and impenetrable.

  Walter was starting to feel light-headed. He reminded himself that he had hardly slept for the past week and had missed supper tonight and that neither of these things were conducive to clear thinking or well-being. But seated in the jolting ambulance with Saul Ketch, Elizabeth on the shelf-bed covered by blankets, he began to feel as if he had entered a strange dark world where nothing was entirely real. The whole world seemed to have shrunk to this creaking metal box jolting its way along the rutted lanes, with the sound of the rain pattering down on the roof and the drugged breathing of the semi-conscious girl under the blanket. His headache had returned, and he wished he had taken a couple of aspirin before setting out.

  ‘You all right, Doctor?’ said Ketch’s voice, and Walter looked up.

  ‘Just a bit tired.’

  ‘Hellish journey to have to make, ain’t it?’ said Ketch.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Old bone-shaker of an ambulance, as well. Reminds me of the old line they used to tell us about going to hell in a handcart.’ He jabbed a finger at the figure on the stretcher-bed. ‘You reckon that’s where she’s going? Hell?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Walter leaned his aching head against the ambulance’s sides and as they jolted through the night Ketch’s words repeated themselves in his mind, over and over again, forming a maddening little rhythm. Going to hell in a handcart. That’s where she’s going. Hell in a handcart. That’s where we’re all going, sooner or later.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ said Ketch, breaking into this.

  ‘What? Oh yes, I should think so. It should be straightforward.’

  All straightforward, but when you’re going to hell in a handcart you can never be sure, can you? said a little voice inside his mind. You can never be sure what might happen on the road to hell. It’s a very smooth road, but there are often some surprises along the way, remember that, Walter and watch out for the surprises on the way . . .

  The ambulance had tiny slitlike windows in the rear but when Walter wiped the condensation away with his coat cuff there was nothing to be seen but dense blackness. He tried to see over the driver’s shoulder. Surely they were nearing the junction with the main Kendal road? Their headlights were cutting a swathe of light through fields and hedges; once a little scurrying animal dashed across their path and they swerved to avoid it and went on as before, but for a second Walter’s stomach had tightened with nervousness. Surprises on the way to hell, Walter, remember?

  He thought they were just coming up to the main thoroughfare that wound across to Kendal proper, which was about the halfway mark of the journey. No sooner had he reached this conclusion when headlights coming from the other direction suddenly appeared. The driver swore and Walter’s heart skipped several beats.

  ‘Christ Almighty, the idiot’s driving straight at us!’ shouted the driver. ‘He’s on the wrong side of the road – is he mad or drunk?’

  He swung the ambulance sharply over to the right to avoid the oncoming vehicle, and it bounced and skidded. The headlights of the other car flooded the interior: Walter saw Ketch throw up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare, but he had no time to spare for Ketch; he was concerned that Elizabeth, semi-comatose from the morphia, was not thrown from the bed. He dived forwards, trying to wrap his arms round her as the ambulance bounced off the road.

  The ambulance tipped violently to one side as the wheels sagged into a pothole or a ditch and this time Ketch was flung hard against the sides, his head banging against the metal with a dull crunch.

  The headlights skewed crazily upwards, and there was a crackle of brilliance on Walter’s vision that might have been lights or might be something exploding behind his eyes.

  He had no idea how much time had passed before he returned to a full awareness of the scene inside the ambulance.

  It was very quiet. Ketch was lying where he had fallen, but he was groaning slightly and sounded all right. Walter managed to call out to the driver, asking if he was hurt, deeply relieved when he said no he wasn’t bloody hurt, but he had known from the start that something would go wrong with this journey, and hadn’t he been right!

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Some silly bugger drove straight at us, that’s what happened,’ said the driver explosively. ‘Drunk most like. He swerved at the last minute or we’d have done a lot worse than land in a ditch. Bumped my head on the windscreen.’

  ‘Were you knocked out?’

  ‘Bit stunned for a few minutes, but I ain’t seeing double or anything if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Walter was checking Ketch’s vital signs, but the man’s pulse rate was steady, and he seemed to be coming round. ‘Is there any means of having a light here?’

  ‘There is if it hasn’t smashed in the jolt. Wait a bit . . .’

  A rather subdued light came on, and Walter said, ‘Oh God.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said the driver, turning round to look.

  In a voice from which all expression had drained, Walter said, ‘The prisoner’s gone.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Dr Kane,’ said the police inspector, seated in Edgar Higneth’s office. ‘Clearly the journey had to be made and you arranged it in the only way possible.’

  ‘If any blame’s to be apportioned,’ said Higneth, tired and old-looking in the grey dawn, ‘it should be apportioned to me.’

  ‘Well, sir, I can’t see how else you were to get Molland to the infirmary other than in an ambulance,’ said the inspector. ‘You had two people guarding her, which I’d have thought more than enough. I’d have to say, though, that it doesn’t seem very likely she got herself out of the ambulance, not in that condition. You’d definitely given her the morphia, had you, Dr Kane?’

  ‘Yes. You can see the record of it and the dosage. There are a few people who have a high tolerance to morphia, of course,’ said Walter. ‘But she seemed to be drowsy enough. It’s difficult to fake the effects of morphia, Inspector. Pinpoint pupils, for instance.’

  ‘To my mind, there are only two possibilities here,’ said the inspector. ‘The first is that she wasn’t as ill as she seemed.’

  He glanced at Walter as he said this, and Walter said at once, ‘That’s got to be considered. I’m not infallible and my diagnosis was never definite.’

  ‘You might not be infallible, but you’re very good,’ said Higneth.

  Walter shot him a grateful look, and then said, ‘But she seems to have managed to escape from the ambulance while the warder and the driver were knocked out – and while I was dazed.’

  ‘So you think she might have been faking after all?’

  ‘People in here do fake illness,’ said Walter. ‘But by now I’m aware of most of the tricks they pull and I can usually spot them. I thought she was genuine, but . . .’

  ‘But it’s not that difficult to induce vomiting and a fever,’ said the inspector thoughtfully. ‘Had she any opportunity to take anything from the dispensary?’

  ‘No,’ said Walter. ‘And the drugs book balances with th
e drugs in stock – I’ve checked – it was one of the first things I did when I got back.’

  ‘Well, it only needs something as homely as mustard stirred in hot water or a good swig of ipecacuanha, and most households have both those things. What about visitors? Did anyone visit her in the last twenty-four hours? Anyone from outside?’

  ‘No one,’ said Edgar Higneth at once, and Walter glanced at him. He’s not going to tell the police about Sir Lewis’s visit, he thought. Is that because he knows the truth? Or because he thinks Lewis is involved in this? For a moment he wondered whether to mention his own phone call, but that might throw suspicion on Lewis. It might also mean Elizabeth’s paternity coming out, and Walter could not see it would do anyone any good to make that public – not yet, at any rate. Hopefully it would never need to come out at all. So for the moment he would follow Higneth’s lead.

  ‘If Molland genuinely did have appendicitis,’ the inspector was saying, ‘it’s unlikely she could have got out of that ambulance and walked anywhere, that’s right, isn’t it, Dr Kane?’

  ‘Yes, certainly. Especially allowing for the morphia.’

  ‘And even if she had managed to crawl a few hundred yards, my men would have found her by now. Which brings us to the other possibility.’

  ‘The driver of the car who forced the ambulance off the road,’ said Walter.

  ‘Bit of a coincidence, wasn’t it, that car?’ said the inspector. ‘Coming along that stretch of road just at that time. You’re sure you couldn’t make a stab at identifying it, Dr Kane?’

  ‘No, I told you. It was pouring with rain and dark. I think it was a black car, but it could have been any make.’

  ‘Pity,’ said the inspector. ‘Still, we’ll work on it being black. There wouldn’t be too many cars on the road at that time of night, in those conditions. And it does sound as if the driver could have got her out while you were all unconscious.’

  ‘I wasn’t out for long,’ said Walter. ‘I don’t think the ambulance driver was, either. I think we were more dazed than anything.’

  ‘Yes, but look here, Inspector, if the car driver did get her out, that argues pre-knowledge,’ put in Higneth. ‘And hardly anyone knew Dr Kane was making the journey. In any case, who would take such a massive risk? Friends? It’s a lonely business being a murderer and from all the accounts Elizabeth – and Fremlin – lived very much withdrawn from the world for all those months they were together.’

  ‘Everyone inside Calvary knew she was being taken to Kendal though,’ said the inspector. ‘Her parents knew it.’

  Her parents. Walter said, ‘Yes, but would her parents have had time to set things up? I only phoned Molland an hour earlier, if that. And if Elizabeth was taken, she had to be taken somewhere safe. That couldn’t have been arranged so quickly, could it?’

  ‘Whoever took her could just have driven her as far away as possible and booked into an hotel or a guest house,’ said the inspector. ‘There’re hundreds of them for miles around. We’ll check as many as we can, but that’s a long-winded process.’

  ‘They’d say they were father and daughter, I suppose,’ said Walter.

  ‘Or mother and daughter.’

  ‘You think a woman could have been driving that car?’

  ‘It’s not out of the question. Whoever it was could say the daughter was unwell – recovering from flu or something of the kind, but they had a family commitment to attend. A funeral or a wedding. But I don’t think it was the parents. We’ve talked to them, and we’re watching the house, of course, in case she goes there, but I don’t think that’s likely.’

  ‘You think the car driver really was part of it?’

  ‘If not, it means Molland got away under her own steam with no means of transport, presumably no money, and wearing just night things. Drowsy from the morphia, as well. All a bit unlikely, I’d say. We’ll keep searching, but if she was taken in a car it’s a pointless exercise; by lunchtime she could be in another country.’

  ‘With this war?’ asked Higneth.

  ‘Not impossible, sir. There’s a lot of confusion over travel at the moment; she could have been taken to Scotland and from there to Norway. Or she could have gone across to Ireland on the ferry and be on the west coast by tonight.’

  ‘But that brings us back to the idea of it being pre-planned,’ objected Walter.

  ‘There have been madder escapes than this, and some of those people who escaped were never caught,’ said the inspector. He stood up. ‘We’ve alerted all the ports – also the hospitals, because if your diagnosis of appendicitis was right, Dr Kane, she’ll need treatment in the next few hours.’ He frowned. ‘In that situation, how long would you give her?’

  ‘It’s difficult to be precise because her youth and general good health would be fighting the infection for her. But if the intestine were to rupture peritonitis could set in. Without medical attention that could be fatal.’

  If Ketch had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed it. But it had been plain as plain. Dr Walter Kane, that correct, saint-like doctor everyone said was wonderful, so dedicated and kind, had deceived everyone. And if he, Ketch, had not been as cunning as a fox, he would never have known it.

  To start with, he had not wanted to form part of the stupid guard on the Molland female when they took her off to Kendal infirmary. It was a filthy night, and Ketch had taken a very sour view of the entire expedition, in fact if he had had any say in the matter, the murderous bitch would have been left to die and saved old Pierrepoint a job! But it had not been possible to get out of it, so Ketch had gloomily put on a heavy topcoat, and gone sulkily out to help load the stretcher. The Molland tart was rolling her eyes like a demented thing on account of something Dr Kane had given her but they had got her onto the ambulance, and he and Dr Kane had got in after her and off they had driven.

  Ketch had not liked the journey. He had not liked the way Dr Kane seemed to be in a dream: staring out of the window every five minutes and hardly hearing when Ketch spoke to him. He wondered if the girl had got to him, although he would not have expected Dr Kane to be taken in by this doe-eyed tart. To Ketch’s mind Molland was nothing but a cheap little whore who had let Neville Fremlin tup her for all he was worth, and had then gone on killing after he was dead.

  And then that other car had come swooping down on them, and the ambulance had swerved violently and they had rolled into the ditch. Ketch had rapped his head smartly against the metal sides – a bad bang it had been and he had a lump on his head like an egg, not that anybody cared, or even asked if he was all right. All anyone had been worried about was that tart and her stupid belly-ache.

  And then – just as Ketch had suspected – the whole belly-ache business was a sham! A put-up job! Ketch knew this because when he banged his head he had not really been knocked out, but he had pretended to be. This was so the others would have to deal with getting the ambulance out of the ditch: Ketch was buggered if he was going to do himself a damage pushing the great heavy thing back on the road, never mind being out in the pouring rain which could cause a man to catch his death. So he lay still and quiet, but after the first couple of minutes he opened his eyes to narrow slits to see what was going on.

  He saw a lot more than he had bargained for. The other car came alongside and a figure got out. He – Ketch thought it was a ‘he’ although he was not absolutely sure – came up to the back of the ambulance, opened the doors, climbed inside, and began to help Molland off the narrow shelf-bed. Ketch went on being deeply unconscious, but he managed to dart a quick look at Dr Kane.

  And Kane was watching them! He was lying half-against the side of the ambulance, much as Ketch himself was doing, but Ketch saw him open his eyes and look straight at Molland and the stranger. Dr Kane knew exactly what was going on, but he shut his eyes again and let them get on with it!

  Molland had got off the shelf-bed by this time, although she was clinging to her rescuer’s arm – Ketch still could not tell who it was beca
use of the deep-collared coat and the hat with the brim pulled well down. But when they got down onto the road they left the ambulance doors open, and he saw, very clearly indeed, that Molland was not so knocked out by Dr Kane’s medicines that she could not walk almost unaided to the waiting car and get herself into the front seat. Well! If that was a girl with ’pendicitis then Ketch was Winston Churchill!

  He watched and waited and presently the other car drove away into the night, and Dr Kane sat up as if he had recovered from the effects of the crash, and came over to Ketch, so that Ketch decided to recover consciousness. Then Dr Kane called out to the driver to put on some lights in the back, and when the lights were switched on he pretended to be shocked and horrified to find the prisoner had gone.

  That was when Ketch knew he had something really valuable to carry to Dr McNulty. He did not think Dr Kane had had anything to do with the escape plan; what he thought was that Dr Kane had guessed it might happen and that he had deliberately pretended to be unconscious and let them get on with it. But who had it been in that car? Who?

  When they got back, Calvary was in an uproar, policemen crawling all over the building, everyone talking about what had happened. Old Hedgehog was scuttling to and fro with a face the colour of porridge, saying they had never before had an escape from Calvary and it was terrible, catastrophic, and the head governor of prisons would have his balls on a plate. Ketch thought Old Hedgehog must be in a real stew to use such an expression because normally he never swore at all. Ketch was going to enjoy watching Hedgehog being brought to book for all this. He liked other people’s misfortunes.

  When he thought about it all a bit more, he thought Dr McNulty would probably want evidence, so he set himself to look for it. He knew what he needed to find; you did not grow up in Ketch’s family without learning a few ways to dodge unpleasant things or to get out of a punishment; his father had had a quick hand for the leather belt. Ketch did not grudge that; if he had ever had a son of his own, he would have given him a belting when it was necessary. He had not had a son, as it happened, in fact he had not had a wife. He did not mind that. Women pried and fussed; Ketch could not be doing with either.