Thorn

by Sarah Rayne

  The man who was both owner and manager of the cinema was at first incredulous and then suspicious. This looked as if it might be one of those potentially awkward situations where the customer wanted to poach the settings and use other actors, and then flog the whole thing under a different packaging. He embarked on his customary explanation-cum-apology, which was liberally sprinkled with the words ‘copyright’ and ‘performing rights’.

  Leo said impatiently, ‘God Almighty, man, I’m not interested in how many laws you’re breaking. And I certainly don’t want to buy pornographic films. Or steal your ideas and flog them on the black market in Amsterdam. All I’m interested in is the backgrounds you use. Those whirling kaleidoscopes and all that violent raw colour. I want them to try to jolt coma patients back into life. I’ll pay the going rate, whatever it is, and you can put in as many write-protect gadgets as you like.’

  ‘And you don’t want the actors?’

  ‘I don’t want the actors. Oh, and that music that went with the first one you showed me, the one with the females dressed as cats –yes, that’s it. Yes, that I do want.’

  ‘You like the music?’

  ‘It’s dreadful,’ said Leo. ‘It’s like a throbbing migraine. But I want it. Was it chosen for its erotic qualities?’

  The manager was understood to say that it had been shown that certain types of music reached the erogenous zones of people’s minds.

  ‘Yes, you’ve only got to walk into a disco these days to know that,’ said Leo.

  ‘We do have others that are not so . . .’

  ‘Abrasive? Arousing? Erectile?’

  ‘Exactly. Slower, more sensual. Voluptuous rather than actually lusty. Would you wish to see one of the romantic sequences?’

  ‘No, I want it abrasive. I want the whole thing as violent and as raw as possible. Well? Can you do it?’

  The manager did not say that in this business people would do anything if they were paid enough. He said, ‘Certainly. In view of the unusual nature there would need to be an extra charge, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Leo coldly.

  He was aware that he was treading an unconventional path with the videos, but he knew it was not really much more than unconventional. It was common enough practice these days to try to reach even persistent vegetative patients with favourite pop music or videos of football matches. New methods had to be tried and uncharted areas had to be explored. Physicians had to experiment. What about Dr Knox sending Burke and Hare to disinter fresh corpses for dissecting rooms? What about Freud delving yeastily into the dreams and sexual repressions of disturbed minds? Or even the Old Testament Joseph donning his dream cloak and sitting at Pharaoh’s feet to interpret visions? Spiking into the erogenous zones with framework pornography was small stuff by comparison.

  Six hours later, the videos in his briefcase on the seat beside him, Leo drove through the rose and gold dawn that was painting the eastern skies, and turned off the dual carriageway.

  He had driven through the night after leaving London, and although he was not conscious of fatigue he knew he would need to sleep for a time. He would have argued that fatigue was something he had long since learned to overcome, but he was stiff from the long drive and if he was to make any impression on the unyielding blackness of Imogen’s mind, he would have to rest and re-charge his mental strength.

  Imogen . . . It suddenly seemed entirely right that he should be driving through this mistily beautiful autumn morning towards Imogen. Leo felt his heart quicken. He had believed himself to have long since grown the physician’s necessary armour, but he knew that Imogen had slid under it, almost from the start. He had not been able to forget the sight of her backing away from her mother’s grave on that terrible night, holding her hands out in front of her as if to push away what she had seen. It was the classic retreat, rare but unmistakable. An abrupt hysterical withdrawal into a stupor state. An interesting case, the A and E registrar had called it.

  As he took the narrow turning that led to Thornacre, Leo remembered that the Porter woman would probably be in residence by now, and that common courtesy would require him to spend a little time with her during the next few days. This was a nuisance, because he wanted to concentrate on Imogen’s treatment.

  He considered Freda’s appointment. ‘Have you any strong objections?’ Professor Rackham had asked before making it.

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s not the world’s finest nurse, but as far as I know she’s ruled Briar House efficiently enough. She’s a bit long in the tooth, although that sometimes works to advantage, of course. She’s rather vulgar although she tries not to be.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were a snob, Leo,’ said Rackham, amused.

  ‘Neither did I.’ Leo frowned, and then said, ‘I don’t think I am, in fact. But she’s false. One voice – one face come to that – for people she thinks are important and something quite different for the rest of the world.’

  ‘Aren’t most of us guilty of that to one degree or another?’

  ‘Yes, but not to excess. She’s – there used to be a word, genteel.’

  ‘Well, can you work with her or can’t you?’ demanded Rackham. ‘We’ll keep interviewing if necessary. I have to say we thought her methods were a bit old-fashioned when we interviewed her, and her qualifications aren’t very good by some of today’s reckoning.’

  ‘That isn’t necessarily a bad thing,’ said Leo. ‘Some of the best psychiatric nurses I’ve known never passed an exam in their lives. And I do want to start with a clean slate.’

  ‘True. The reference from Thalia Caudle was very good indeed,’ said Rackham.

  ‘Oh, appoint her,’ said Leo. ‘Providing she does what I tell her when she’s on duty and keeps out of my way when she’s not I don’t care whether she’s the Grand Cham of Tartary or a Piccadilly hooker. In fact on balance I’d prefer the hooker – they’re more in touch with ordinary people’s problems. I don’t suppose I’ll need to see much of her anyway. We really only want an overseer for the nurses.’

  ‘They call them managers these days,’ said Rackham, rather drily, and Leo had grinned.

  The marvellous dawn was giving way to a grey-streaked November morning when he drew up before the huge iron gates and wound the window down to punch his number into the electronic intercom. The company who had helped tighten up and modernise the security arrangements had issued most of the senior staff with individual numbers, so that the small intercom system only needed to be manned during office hours. Leo waited for the gates to open and drove through, engaging second gear for the steep rutted drive that had been the old carriageway.

  He liked this part of Thornacre. He liked it for the ghosts that lingered here, the imprints of things that had happened before Sybilla Campbell had bequeathed her dark legacy of murder and madness –the carriages that would have driven up here, and the sound of the horses’ hooves on frost-hardened ground. Box lanterns would have cast a warm light across the snow in winter, and the house would have been lit by dozens of candles, the long windows welcoming and bright. In spring the garth would have been starred with bluebells and primroses and windflowers, and in summer the lilac would have scented the air for miles and the liquid notes of wood pigeons would have poured softly into the long, drowsy afternoons. The lilac was long since dead, the garth was overgrown and forlorn, and the house had lost any grandeur and any attraction it might once have possessed. But driving towards it, Leo felt, as he always did, Thornacre’s romance. It was a dark romance, a cobwebby Gothic thing of midnight shadows and tanglewood gardens with crumbling old stone archways and lichen-crusted ruins . . .

  He frowned and shook his head to chase away the ghosts, and parked his car in the old stable block which had been sketchily converted to garages. But as he entered Thornacre’s central hall, the ghosts entered it with him. Leo could feel them clustering around him, and he thought they would never quite go from Thornacre; their sad presence would linger on, just as other sad presences
lingered, for there were parts of Thornacre and secrets inside the place that Leo and Professor Rackham had agreed they would never dare to make public . . .

  Even with Thornacre beginning to emerge from its grim years, too much of the darkness was still here.

  The news that Thalia was leaving London for a while created a mild stir within the family but no one was very surprised because everyone had known, in a vague way, about the plan to collect folk songs and old ballads for the proposed new Ingram imprint. Everyone had known that Thalia was taking on the project as a kind of memorial to Royston and Eloise.

  The aunts thought it was very nice indeed that Thalia was finding solace in work. A roving commission, she had called it, and she had told Rosa that she thought of starting off in Warwickshire – all those associations with Elizabethan England: the ballads of Shakespeare and his troupe of players; Richard of Warwick and Charles Stuart’s armies fighting at Edgehill. All very interesting. From there she would work gradually northwards. The Midlands: Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire where the thousand-year-old Horn Dance originated. She would delve in the old bookshops and she would talk to historical societies and librarians, and even old residents of villages.

  After that she might go north. She might even drive up to the border; there were dozens of border legends and folk songs and she would see what could be garnered. She might cross the border into Scotland and go across to Skye. Over the sea to Skye . . . Didn’t everyone want to visit Skye at some time in their lives? But she was going to look on this project as a working holiday; they were not to expect too much contact with her. She would phone in from time to time, but she would have a little time by herself as well.

  The aunts thought it all sounded very interesting indeed, although Dilys maintained that what Thalia was really doing was leaving London to escape the memories, and Rosa talked about delayed reaction and said mark her words, this was the reckoning. Cousin Elspeth said the mercy was that Thalia had held up as long as she had. ‘But thankfully for long enough to see us through that terrible time. Yes, I know we said we would never refer to it again, and I haven’t, truly I haven’t, Rosa. George will tell you that. But now with poor Dr Shilling’s trial – well, who knows what might come out? I think it’s very sensible of Thalia to leave London, in fact I think we all ought to do the same. I mean, if one’s in the Grand Canaries or somewhere, one can’t be reached by Scotland Yard. Or can one?’

  ‘Yes, one can,’ said Rosa grimly. ‘Stay put, Elspeth, unless you want to stir up Inspector Mackenzie’s suspicions. No, it isn’t wicked of us, none of us has actually committed any crime. Shilling was the one who did that.’ She put the phone down and went off to tell Dilys that they should have put Elspeth out of the room when all this started. She was only annoyed with herself for not thinking of it at the time, said Rosa, and repeated this to Flora who had been invited to Battersea for Sunday lunch.

  ‘Elspeth won’t let us down,’ said Flora, eating the very good roast beef that Dilys had cooked because dearest Flora always enjoyed her food. ‘George will see to that. He’ll be thinking about the scandal for Ingram’s – he won’t want any publicity there, I’ll be bound. He likes his creature comforts too much, does George. Did you know he’s got a woman in Maida Vale?’

  ‘So would I have in George’s place,’ observed Rosa.

  ‘That’s what Juliette says. But he’s quite discreet, which is more than you can say for Juliette. She’s been dining at Langan’s with that good-looking writer who was at Edmund’s funeral, in fact I think she did more than dine with him, because Diana Lorrimer saw them going off in a taxi to Juliette’s flat afterwards.’

  ‘How did she know where they were going?’

  ‘She heard Juliette give the address.’

  ‘Naughty girl,’ said Dilys indulgently. She and Rosa loved hearing about Juliette’s adventures. Juliette would tell them all about this new development when next she visited Battersea.

  ‘John Shilling won’t stir up any scandal either,’ said Flora. ‘He’s definitely going to plead guilty to the manslaughter charge, you know.’

  ‘So I should hope,’ rejoined Rosa. ‘No one else would have given Eloise chloral hydrate – well, I don’t imagine anyone else could have got hold of the stuff. Even if we knew what it was, which I don’t suppose we do.’

  ‘I’ve never even heard of it,’ said Dilys.

  ‘Of course it was Shilling,’ said Rosa, firmly. ‘The tragedy is that Imogen’s been so damaged because of it.’

  ‘Oh yes, but she’ll recover, Rosa. You know we agreed that she’d recover. And you quite took to Dr Sterne when we went along to meet him that afternoon.’

  Rosa said tartly that Dilys had always been gullibility itself when a handsome face was involved. ‘Handsome is as handsome does, Mother always said.’

  ‘But you said yourself you thought we could trust him to look after Imogen,’ responded Dilys with spirit.

  Flora said, ‘Never mind Leo Sterne. Listen, if Shilling’s the villain of the piece how did he stage the fake blood?’

  ‘They said at the inquest it was sheep’s blood.’ Dilys shuddered, because this was not a nice thing to discuss while people were eating their lunch.

  ‘That’s precisely my point,’ said Flora at once. ‘Sheep’s blood – any kind of blood – surely isn’t something you just happen to have lying in your medical bag in case it might come in handy. Anyway, what was his motive?’

  ‘Revenge? Because Eloise – hum – turned him down?’ suggested the romantically inclined Dilys.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Dilys. And carve Flora some more beef.’

  Flora accepted the beef and then said, ‘I’ve been wondering—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You don’t suppose Imogen really did kill Eloise after all, and John Shilling’s been trying to protect her?’

  The three ladies considered this, and Dilys said doubtfully that Dr Shilling was going to rather extreme lengths if so.

  ‘Yes, but he might be doing it for Eloise’s sake. You know how dotty he was about Eloise.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Dilys helped everyone to more potatoes, and Rosa said, ‘Then why didn’t he hide the knife we found in Imogen’s room?’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t see it,’ said Dilys. ‘If he thought Imogen had stolen his chloral hydrate and poisoned Eloise with it, he wouldn’t be looking for knives at all. He wouldn’t be thinking about knives.’

  ‘Juliette thinks he’s mad – I mean clinically mad,’ said Flora. ‘She thinks that explains the whole thing. But I’m not so sure it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not so sure that it was Shilling. There’s a – a calculated feel about all this. As if someone’s plotting in secret somewhere. The knife planted by Imogen’s bed, and the false blood – that was premeditated.’

  There was a silence. ‘That’s rather an unpleasant idea,’ said Rosa at last.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ put in Dilys. ‘Flora, I really don’t believe anyone’s plotting in secret or premeditating murders. It was Dr Shilling who did it – either because he was mad or because he was drinking too much. And it’s all dreadful and tragic, but Imogen will recover – I refuse to think anything else – and Shilling will go to prison, or be rehabilitated or something, and everything will be all right.’

  ‘George says Shilling ought to be strung up,’ remarked Rosa.

  ‘Yes, but then he offered to help with the legal fees when Shilling was arrested,’ said Flora. ‘And he stood bail. He’s as soft as butter really, George.’

  ‘Did Shilling accept?’ Rosa wanted to know.

  ‘He accepted the bail but he said he’d better pay his own legal fees, and anyway they wouldn’t be very high because he wasn’t offering any defence. But he said it mustn’t appear as if there’d been any jiggery-pokery. Collusion, that’s the word I want.’

  Dilys opened her mouth to say that there had been quite a lot of jiggery-pokery,
and then thought better of it.

  Rosa asked if anyone knew where Thalia was going. ‘And Dilys, pass Flora the horseradish sauce.’

  ‘She thought of starting in the Midlands, I think,’ said Flora. ‘Somebody said something about Warwickshire. But I daresay she’ll move about a good deal. Is that some of your homemade horseradish sauce, Dilys? In that case I’ll certainly have some.’

  ‘If Thalia’s going to Warwickshire, she could have borrowed George and Elspeth’s house in Stratford,’ said Dilys. ‘Couldn’t she, Rosa? It’s in a very nice part, and she could have used it as a base. I’m sure George and Elspeth wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘George probably said it wasn’t available because he wanted to take his floozie there.’

  ‘Where do you get your expressions, Flora?’

  ‘Don’t they call them floozies any more?’

  ‘Not since about nineteen twenty, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘What a pity,’ said Dilys. ‘Such a lovely word. Treacle pudding, everyone?’

  It had amused Thalia to lay a false trail and it had pleased her to see them all accept what she told them without question.

  They had all nodded solemnly, their sheep faces heavy and serious with sympathy, and Thalia had wanted to laugh aloud because it was so easy to fool them.

  She had laid her plans with infinite care and everything was working out as if she was being given divine guidance.

  She was not going to Thornacre itself, but she was going very near to it. There were a number of corollary villages spidering out from Thornacre, and it had been simplicity itself to phone the two or three house agents listed in the directory and inquire about the leasing of a house for a while. Perhaps six months, was that possible? she had asked. She was not familiar with these procedures. Her husband had always dealt with business matters, and since he and her son had died . . . But she had in mind somewhere secluded and peaceful, and somewhere with a garden where she could enjoy pottering. She liked to dabble a little in photography, so if there could be some kind of outbuilding, or even better a good, dry cellar that might be used as a studio and dark-room? She gave the impression of a bewildered widow, rather charmingly helpless, bravely trying to piece together a shattered life.