The Death Chamber

by Sarah Rayne

  He stopped, because they had both heard someone moving outside. Jude banged hard on the door and Georgina shouted, but there was no response. There was a loud crack that might have been anything, and then running footsteps.

  ‘Your attacker I should think,’ said Jude.

  ‘Yes. It sounds as if he’s running away, but—’ She broke off and grabbed his arm.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Georgina said, ‘There’s water coming in under the door.’

  In the dimness of the store the water looked like black ink. It came in thick spider-leg rivulets, and it trickled across the ground.

  ‘If it reaches the lime blocks,’ began Georgina. ‘Oh God, what will happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I can’t believe it will be harmful after all these years,’ said Jude. ‘I really can’t. But—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just in case there isn’t an opportunity again,’ he said and, pulling her against him, he kissed her hard.

  ‘Oh, I do hope there is an opportunity,’ said Georgina involuntarily, and saw him smile.

  ‘You’ve given me an irresistible reason for getting us out of this,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Georgina darling, we’ll be all right.’

  ‘Will we?’

  ‘Of course. In fact—’ He broke off, and tilted his head, listening. ‘In fact, that sounds like the cavalry now,’ said Jude. ‘I wonder what kept them?’

  Only then did Georgina hear the sound of a car coming very fast up the hillside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘What I can’t work out,’ said Drusilla, ‘is how you were able to phone us for help, Jude. Didn’t you say that when you were attacked the phone was knocked out of your hand.’

  ‘I can’t work that one out either,’ said Chad. ‘Or are you going to sell us some off the wall idea about sleight of hand or legerdemain?’

  ‘Much simpler. The phone never was knocked out of my hand,’ said Jude. ‘It was in an inner pocket.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ said Drusilla.

  They were in the coffee room of the King’s Head. Drusilla had fetched most of Georgina’s things from Caradoc House and booked her into the one remaining room.

  ‘You can’t possibly climb all those stairs with that ankle,’ she had said. ‘In any case, you won’t want to be on your own after tonight.’

  Georgina, still battered and dazed, had given in. They had all made statements to the police – they had been asked to call at the police station the following day to check their statements and sign them – and the police doctor had strapped up her ankle, which was starting to feel much less painful. The police, summoned by Chad, had made a thorough search of Calvary, and they had posted a couple of officers out there for the rest of the night.

  ‘But of course,’ said Jude, ‘whoever made those bizarre attacks has long since gone. Probably miles away by now.’

  For the moment Calvary and its mysterious darknesses had receded. For Georgina the world had shrunk to Thornbeck and this warm room, and to Chad, Drusilla and Phin. And Jude. He was sitting next to her, and although he was pale and dishevelled he did not appear in the least discomposed.

  He was explaining about the phone. ‘When I got out of that noisome tunnel, I stood for a moment, trying to make a mental image of where I was. I’d tried the phone once by then but there was still no signal so I’d put it back in my pocket. I was just thinking I’d try it again when I realized someone was standing in front of me.’ He frowned. ‘It was a bloody eerie sensation, I’ll have you know. Whoever it was just stood there, and I had absolutely no idea who it was or what was going to happen. So I thought I’d help things along. I reasoned that if he thought I was going to make a phone call, he’d do something to stop me. So I pretended to do just that.’

  ‘To make a call?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You took a hell of a risk,’ said Chad, angrily.

  ‘I know. I was actually quite frightened, although I was more frightened for Georgina because I couldn’t think how to reach her. But I thought if the prowler made an actual attack,’ said Jude, ‘I’d be able to put up a fight and bring the thing to a head. Then I’d get outside and phone you, Professor. But I was blowed if I was going to risk losing the phone in the process.’

  He paused, and Phin said, ‘Oh! You used the dictaphone!’ And beamed with delight at having worked out what Jude had done.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jude and smiled. ‘I used the dictaphone. I was fairly sure the room would be dark.’

  ‘He might have had a torch,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘If he did, I don’t think it was switched on,’ said Jude. ‘I’d have felt the light on my face. I’m sorry, I can’t explain that, but there’s a sensation when strong light’s directed at me. Unmistakable.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Chad.

  ‘The dictaphone is much the same size and shape as a modern cellphone. I thought if I kept it in the palm of my hand and appeared to be tapping out a number – Anyway, it did the trick. He did make a move. The trouble was that the move he made was to clump me on the head and drag me into the lime store and wedge the door tightly shut. Fortunately it wasn’t a very hefty clump and I don’t think I was out for more than a few minutes. When I came round, I still had the real phone, of course. There was a bad moment in there when I thought I still couldn’t get a signal, and I had no idea where I was, other than it was somewhere quite small and there was a – a kind of stinging dryness in the air. But I did get a signal and I called Chad and told him to get out there faster than a cat escaping hell. Sorry, Georgina, there wasn’t time to explain all that to you.’

  ‘So that’s how he got to us so quickly,’ said Georgina. ‘That’s what I couldn’t work out – I’d tried to get a call out a few minutes earlier – before I got pounced on as well. I didn’t know if the call had registered, but I did know it would take at least fifteen minutes for Chad to get there. I’m extremely glad you got there when you did, Chad.’

  ‘I’m extremely glad you got us out before the water reached the blocks of lime,’ put in Jude.

  ‘Could the water actually have activated it?’ asked Phin worriedly. ‘Do we know that yet?’

  ‘It looked as if it was fizzing a bit,’ said Chad. ‘And the police doctor said it certainly wouldn’t have done Jude and Georgina much good to be in there for any length of time. I’ve given the police the camcorder, by the way. We’re hoping it picked up the figure who came into the execution chamber and closed the trapdoor on Jude.’

  ‘It should have done,’ said Jude.

  ‘Yes, but it might not be clear enough to identify him. They’ve asked us to view it with them tomorrow, so we can talk them through what we were doing. Half past ten at the police station – OK everyone?’

  ‘We’ve got to go to the station anyway to sign statements,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘Where does all this leave your programme, Professor?’ said Jude. ‘I don’t suppose you bargained for sinister midnight prowlers or murderous tramps, or whoever was on the loose tonight.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Chad. ‘But I don’t see why we can’t stay with the original brief. Showing the experiment, and describing Jude’s mind-image and so on. I suppose the permission to use Calvary might be withdrawn. Somebody somewhere might decide we shouldn’t have been let in because it was dangerous in there, or something like that.’

  ‘It’d be a pity if you had to abandon it,’ said Jude.

  ‘I’m hoping we won’t. I thought we might collect the names of a few people hanged there, to tie in with that image you had, and make that the centrepiece. Georgina, could we use Walter’s Execution Book? I mean, actually show it in close-up?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to speculate on what kind of imprint some of the condemned prisoners might have left on Calvary – it would be good if we could track down a few details about one or two of them.’

  ‘Such as Violet Parsons?’ said Drusilla,
smiling.

  ‘Violet almost warrants a programme all to herself,’ said Chad, thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh God, start working out a new budget, Phin.’ This was Drusilla.

  ‘I’d love to, but you absolutely have to do the thing on Neville Fremlin as well,’ said Phin eagerly. ‘Couldn’t we do two spin-offs of the original – one for Parsons, and one for Fremlin. That’d be really neat.’

  ‘Phin and I have got out some figures for the Fremlin idea,’ said Drusilla. ‘And we’re halfway through the draft of a really good proposal. Black and white shots of his shop in Knaresborough, and the newspaper reports from the trial. Phin’s trying to trace the people who rented the shop after him.’

  ‘It sounds like a pretty classy place,’ put in Phin.

  ‘Fremlin wouldn’t have had a place that wasn’t classy.’

  Georgina, listening with interest to all this, found herself enjoying the enthusiasm they all had for their work, and the way they could suddenly plunge back into it, and put aside the drama of the night.

  ‘If we do use the Execution Book,’ Chad said, ‘we’ll give Walter a credit, of course, Georgina. And you. Has any of this got you any nearer to him?’

  ‘No,’ said Georgina. ‘I keep thinking I’m going to find him – I mean, that I’ll find out why he left that socking great legacy to the Caradoc Society and ignored his wife and daughter for the rest of his life. But every time I think I’ve found a clue it sort of slithers out of my grasp.’

  ‘Keep at it, though,’ said Chad. ‘Because that’s usually the exact point when the missing bit of jigsaw suddenly turns up. Is anyone having any more coffee? Or a drink? Because if not, I think I’m for bed.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Drusilla. ‘I feel as if I’ve lived about a hundred years in the last twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Georgina and I should be the ones saying that,’ said Jude. He stood up. ‘I’ll walk Georgina to her room.’

  ‘Shall I come with you and walk you back?’ said Phin, and yelped as Drusilla trod on his foot.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you need bother to do that,’ said Jude vaguely. ‘I daresay I’ll find my own way.’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re really all right,’ he said, five minutes later in the tiny bedroom the King’s Head had allotted Georgina. ‘There hasn’t been much chance to ask you, what with police and statements and all the rest of it.’

  ‘I’m sort of all right,’ said Georgina. ‘At least, I’m not absolutely all right, but I will be.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘The same. I was frantic when I realized that madman had trapped me and was probably going after you next.’ His hand came out to her, palm upwards, not fumbling, simply offering it to her if she wanted to take it. Georgina took it immediately.

  ‘How will you get back to London?’ said Jude. ‘You won’t be able to drive, will you?’

  ‘Drusilla’s going to drive my car with me as passenger. That will leave more room for you in Chad’s car.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. How depressing.’

  ‘Why is it depressing?’

  ‘Because,’ said Jude angrily, ‘I ought to be able to scoop you up and put you in a fast car and drive you back to London myself!’

  ‘There’s no need to be so prickly about it,’ said Georgina. ‘There’s no need to be chauvinistic about driving, either.’

  ‘I’ve been called many things,’ said Jude, ‘but never a chauvinist. I can see I shall have to re-think my whole approach. There’s no need to smile, I mean it.’

  ‘How did you know I was smiling?’

  ‘The atmosphere changes when you smile. I wish I knew what you looked like. Do you match your voice? Not everyone does.’

  For a moment Georgina was thrown, and then without pausing to think about it, she took both his hands and brought them up to her face.

  He understood at once. She thought he had probably been taught this method of ‘seeing’ people when he was first blinded. She stood very still as his fingertips lightly traced the bones of her face. He had cool hands with sensitive fingers but his touch was entirely impersonal.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jude at last, taking his hands away. ‘I think I’ve got it quite well. The only thing I can’t tell is the colouring.’

  ‘Brown hair. Fairly light brown,’ said Georgina. ‘And grey eyes.’

  ‘Real grey? That pure colour like silk?’

  (‘Tap-water eyes,’ David used to say.)

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Georgina.

  ‘Good. They turn luminous if they’re pleased or happy, those kind of eyes,’ he said. ‘You’re not pretty, but I suspect you might be beautiful.’

  (‘You aren’t one of the real stunners, are you?’ David had said. ‘But you scrub up quite well.’)

  ‘It’s not a modern face, I don’t think,’ went on Jude, ‘but that’s your good luck. You could hop on a time-travel machine and pass unchallenged in fourteenth-century Florence, or Czarist Russia.’

  ‘Or a Victorian slum,’ said Georgina. ‘Thanks. I’ll remember all that next time a time-travel machine comes along.’

  ‘Why the slum?’

  Georgina had a sudden ridiculous desire to say, Because it’s where I might end up if the police can’t track down David and my money. She said, ‘No particular reason.’

  Without warning, Jude said, ‘Will you have dinner with me when we get back to London? Properly, I mean, not just a scrappy meal like we’ve had here. Or are you firmly hooked up to some nice man who’s fiercely protective and jealous?’

  ‘I’m not hooked up to anyone and I’d like to have dinner with you very much,’ said Georgina.

  ‘Would you really? Good. I’ll leave you to your chaste couch for what’s left of the night. Don’t think about the ghosts too much. Except Walter. I think Walter might be rather a nice ghost.’

  ‘So do I.’

  He moved to the door, reaching for the frame with one hand and Georgina said, ‘Can you get back to your room all right?’

  ‘Turn right out of here, five paces along, left-hand dog-leg, second door on the right,’ said Jude promptly. ‘Sleep well.’

  Vincent could not believe it. After all his planning and care – after the way he had adapted his original plan, going with the flow as people said – the whole thing had misfired!

  It had all been working out so well although he had had a few anxious moments wondering if Georgina would find the panel in the condemned cell, but she had done it in the end. Clever, you see. A really intelligent, worthy opponent.

  He had not hit the man very hard with the sandbag – just enough to stun him for five or ten minutes – and he had shut Georgina and the man in the lime store, as planned, and placed the plastic bag over the grid of the drain, weighting it with a stone. Then he had kicked away the corroded tap from the water butt. He had jumped well clear as the water gushed across the courtyard, but he had seen it was already running down to the door of the lime store. Exactly as he had wanted!

  He was just making his way around the side of the building, when car headlights suddenly sliced through the darkness. For a dreadful moment Vincent thought he was about to be caught, but he was sufficiently quick-witted to dodge back into the deep shadows cast by the old walls and to stand there unseen. He didn’t succumb to panic but his mind was in tumult. Chad Ingram was not due back here until two a.m. – Vincent had based his plan on that.

  But it was Ingram. From where he stood, Vincent could see him in the driving seat with the American boy next to him. They stopped the car in front of the main door, and tumbled out. Dr Ingram said something and the American pointed, and then they set off around the side of the building. Vincent could hear them talking – he could hear the anxious breathless voice of the American boy saying that Georgina had mentioned a door in the wall at lunch.

  It sounded as if Georgina had been out here on her own, the bitch! But did these two know Georgina and the man
were trapped? How could they? Had a phone call been made? Vincent had himself knocked the man’s phone out of his hands, and Georgina had been in the enclosed rooms of Calvary where phone signals were impossible – he was certain about this because it was one of the things he had tested over the years. But something had brought them racing out here. Black, bitter fury rose up in Vincent, because none of this should be happening. None of this had been intended. He waited until Dr Ingram and Phin were out of sight and earshot, and then went quickly down to his car and drove home. Once in the safety of his own house he poured a whisky and soda and sat drinking it, staring ahead of him for a very long time.

  Mother would not have been pleased at the failure of his plan, although it was difficult to know how she could have done any better. Or was it? Wouldn’t she have said Vincent had tried to be too clever? Luring people into an old store, and trying to slake ancient lime, she would have said, scathingly. Could he not have used some simpler method?

  Ah, but the plan might not have failed completely. They might all be so alarmed by what had happened that they would abandon all these ideas of television programmes, and great-grandfathers. The Home Office or the Prisons Authority – or somebody – might forbid them to use Calvary as a subject in the film – yes, that was a promising line of thought. In fact, Vincent would make it his business to ensure the Home Office got to hear what had happened. Tomorrow, he would find out which government department to contact. There might be headings in Yellow Pages, or under local council phone numbers. And then, once the incident was general knowledge in Thornbeck – as it would soon be – he could write a letter. A concerned local resident, he would be, and the letter would be well written and efficient so people would take notice of it.

  The one redeeming factor was that Vincent himself could not possibly be suspected of involvement in tonight’s attacks. Georgina certainly had not seen him – even when he made that quick sprint out of the condemned cell where he had been hiding behind the door – nor when he had run across the courtyard to push her into the lime store. And the man was not able to see at all.