by Sarah Rayne
At intervals she pulled against the leather camera strap for all she was worth, but it held firm and all that happened was that she rubbed what felt like yards of skin off her wrists and made her bruised shoulder hurt even more fiercely. Then she tried to shout through the gag, but all that came out were strangled grunts, which sounded so eerie in the silent room she gave up.
After this she tried to dislodge the gag, but it was tied too tightly and after several attempts shreds of silk got between her teeth and made her splutter. Spluttering against the gag made her feel sick so Amy gave that up as well.
She sat down on the ground, her back to the barred window, and looked about her. The room was a large one and it looked as if the police had been in here as well. A modern torch lay on top of a big old-fashioned desk, and in one corner was an open case containing what Amy thought were forensic brushes and tweezers. Hope surged up, because if police equipment had been left behind, surely someone would come back to get it? But when would that be? It might be days.
The room looked as if it had been comfortably furnished. There were pictures and mirrors on the wall, a large deep settee, a bed with cushions, and several easy chairs. Beneath the other window – which was as firmly barred – was a drop-leaf table. On one side of the fireplace were shelves with books, and on the other side was a neat stack of old vinyl records. Amy began to get a picture of someone living here, someone who had liked books and music – yes, there was the old wind-up gramophone – and who had eaten meals at the table, perhaps looking out over the drive. But why the bars and the bolt on the door? Was this where the body had lain all these years? That was a pretty spooky idea. It was even spookier to think Amy’s body might soon lie here as well. But it would not happen, of course. Gran was just trying to frighten her into keeping quiet about finding the bloodstained sweater. This last thought sounded so ridiculously like the title of a 1930s crime book, Amy tried to put it out of her mind.
The camera strap stretched far enough for her to stand up, lean over the deep window sill and see down into the ruined grounds. Would she be able to attract the attention of anyone who came along? She was just wondering if she could reach the desk and somehow hurl something through the window, when there was a movement beyond the bushes, and with a massive rush of relief she saw Jan coming out of the manor. For a wild moment she did not think; he’ll get me out of here, but: he’s not dead.
Shouting was impossible, but she might bang against the bars to attract his attention. She tried to reach the sill with her foot, but it was quite a high sill and she only got her foot partway up. In any case she was wearing trainers, which would not make much sound against the iron bars. But there must be something she could do that he would hear, there must . . .
Her eyes fell on the old gramophone lying near to her feet. Could it possibly be wound up? Could she manage to do it with her hands tied behind her back? Incredibly, there was a record on it. Amy could see the label, and although it was faded and age-spotted, it was still readable: ‘The Deserted Village by John William Glover’. John William, thought Amy, I think you might be about to save my life.
Jan had gone about thirty yards along the road when, from within the tanglewood grounds of the old manor, he heard a sound so uncanny his skin prickled with horror.
Music. Elusive and blurred, as if it was struggling to make itself heard, or as if it was coming from a very long way off. It was as if cobweb strands of the past were trying to weave themselves into a pattern, and Jan stood very still, an icy finger seeming to trace a pattern down his spine. Somewhere in this sad lonely place, someone was summoning up the echoes of music written more than a hundred years ago – music that was now virtually forgotten and almost lost. The Deserted Village.
Then his mind snapped back on track, and he realized the music was coming from the lodge, and that it was cracked and difficult because it was being played on an old gramophone. But by who? His attacker? Jan was still light-headed from being half strangled: he was not sure he was in any shape to cope with those strangler’s hands a second time. But supposing the strangler had got Amy in there? How long would it take him to get to the church and his phone, and to summon the police. Ten minutes? Perhaps another ten for the police to get here? Much too long.
He went doggedly back through the gates, and into the lodge. He was starting to feel as if he might have fallen into a nightmare without noticing. The music was louder now, and there was a banging from upstairs, as if somebody might be kicking a piece of furniture. It was then that he saw Amy’s tote bag looped over the banister. He forgot about being lightheaded and went up the stairs two at a time.
He had no idea what he was going to find in the bolted room, and he was totally unprepared for the sight of Amy in an awkward huddle by an ancient gramophone, her hands tied behind her back, a scarf wound over her mouth. He was even more unprepared for the wave of emotion that swamped him.
The record came to the end and the needle scratched against nothing, maddeningly and rhythmically. Jan did not even notice it. He was tearing the scarf away from Amy’s mouth, and dragging at the leather strap binding her wrists.
Gasping explanations showered over him. ‘I couldn’t think how else to make you hear,’ said Amy. ‘I think I might have pulled both shoulders out of their sockets, but I managed to wind the thing up. And—’
It was at this point that Jan pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her shoulders did not appear to be out of their sockets at all, because her arms came round him and she clung to him as if she would never let him go.
Chapter 43
‘I’m afraid,’ said the CID inspector, facing Amy, Jan and Derek Haywood in the warm, safe sitting room, ‘I’m very much afraid that your wife, sir, was responsible for Veronica Campion’s death.’
Amy had known someone was going to say this sooner or later, and she thought she was prepared for it. She was not, of course. The words were like blows. But if it was bad for her, it must be agony for Gramps. She looked anxiously at him, and thought that although he had looked pale when he was brought home from the police station, now he looked grey.
But he said, ‘I do realize that, Inspector. Was it because . . .’ he glanced at Amy, then said, ‘because Veronica and I had been such close friends?’
‘Not entirely,’ said the inspector, and Amy was deeply grateful to him because Gramps instantly looked better. ‘It’s difficult to piece it all together,’ he said, ‘but going on what Miss Haywood told us . . .’ he looked across at Amy as if checking she was happy for him to go on. Amy nodded, and he said, ‘We think your wife was somehow involved in the death of one – perhaps both – of the bodies at Cadence Manor. And that she was afraid of something coming out about it that would incriminate her.’
‘But those bodies had been down there for fifty years, hadn’t they?’ said Jan. ‘She’d only have been a child.’
‘She was ten when the village was closed,’ said Gramps unexpectedly. ‘That’s not so very young.’
‘Indeed not,’ said the inspector. ‘And if Mrs Campion knew something – was threatening to talk . . . They were old schoolfriends, remember.’
‘Did you ever find evidence to identify either of the bodies?’ asked Amy.
‘Nothing to speak of. We did find a watch that looks relatively modern, but there’s no means of knowing who it belonged to. Forensics think it was gold-plated but the gold’s almost entirely worn away, so any surface marks have gone.’
‘Will my wife be charged with any of this?’ asked Gramps. ‘With Veronica’s death or the attack on Amy or Dr Malik?’
‘We’re still compiling medical reports, psychiatric assessments, but – I’d say it’s out of the question.’
‘She’s not fit – not mentally fit to stand trial?’ Again Gramps seemed able to face these dreadful facts.
The inspector said, ‘She has no memory of what happened. The psychiatrists don’t think she’s faking that. They think she’s somehow closed off all those acts. I don’t pretend to under
stand their terms of reference, but they’ve talked about denial of something traumatic – something in her childhood, they think.’
Something in her childhood. I know what it was, thought Amy. Serena Cadence, staring with dead eyes out of a diseased face . . . She shuddered, then said, ‘Gran talked about a man who had seen her mother commit a murder – well, not commit it exactly, but cause a death. She thought her mother might go to prison or even hang, so she killed him to stop him talking about it. But when she heard the music in the old church—’
‘That was me,’ said Jan.
‘Yes, when she heard that, she thought that man wasn’t dead after all.’
‘And tried to kill him again,’ said the inspector, nodding. ‘Yes, that’s what we’ve put together. But when I tried to question her, she seems to shut down.’
‘What will happen?’ asked Amy.
‘I don’t know. But it’s unlikely she’ll be allowed into the world again.’
Broadmoor, thought Amy, in horror. Or a place like Broadmoor. An asylum for the criminally insane. Gramps will never bear it.
But he surprised again. ‘Can I see her?’ he said.
‘Better not, sir. Not for a while, at any rate.’
After the inspector had gone, Jan got up to follow him, but Gramps, glancing at Amy, said, ‘Would you like to stay to supper, Dr Malik?’
‘I’d be intruding,’ said Jan. ‘You’ve got all kinds of family things to cope with and talk about.’
‘I don’t know about intrude,’ said Gramps. ‘You seem to have been pulled into most of it already. You’d be very welcome,’ he added, and Amy thought he sounded a bit wistful. ‘It’ll only be something simple, of course.’
‘Simple is fine,’ said Jan. ‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble I’d like to stay a bit longer. Thank you.’
‘No,’ said Gramps, leaning forward. ‘Thank you.’
‘For staying to supper?’
‘For saving Amy.’
There was a sudden silence. Then Jan reached out to take Amy’s hand. ‘She’s worth saving,’ he said.
After Jan had gone, Gramps came into the kitchen to help Amy with the washing up. Amy could not ever remember him doing this before.
As they put the plates away, she said, ‘I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it’ll have been a nightmare.’
‘So do I,’ he said. ‘Is that everything done now? Good. Let’s have a brandy.’
When the brandy was poured, he said, ‘Amy, I’m sorry you had to find out about Veronica. I was trying to regain my vanishing youth, I suppose. Silly old fool, aren’t I?’
‘No,’ said Amy at once.
‘I’ve only got a few years to go at the office, you see. I’d been dreading retiring.’
‘Did Gran know you were dreading it?’
‘Oh, no,’ he said at once. ‘She thought retirement was something people should look forward to. She didn’t understand about the loss of the companionship you get in an office, or the loss of – of purpose and usefulness.’ There was a faint rueful smile, a ghost of his usual one. ‘To call my work useful is glossing it,’ said Gramps. ‘A local authority auditor doesn’t exactly save the world or make people’s lives easier. Not like the kind of work your father does, for instance. But it provides a service, you know. It makes sure things are being run honestly and fairly.’
‘I know that,’ said Amy. ‘And you’ll find other things to do when you retire.’ She had half expected him to add something like: ‘Your grandmother was always a bit odd.’ Or, ‘I saw the signs of something wrong years ago.’ But he did not. He was loyal to her in his way, dear Gramps. Amy thought one day they would be able to talk about Gran properly, but for the moment Gramps seemed to find it easier to focus on the practicalities.
He drank some more of the brandy, then suddenly said, ‘I like your academic.’
‘He’s not mine.’
‘I think he’d like to be.’
‘He’s probably got a wife back in Oxford,’ mumbled Amy.
‘He hasn’t.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘I asked him.’
Oh God, Gramps had done the Victorian what-are-your-intentions thing with Jan, and Jan would have been hugely embarrassed, just as Amy was now hugely embarrassed, although it did not matter because now she would never see Jan again.
‘I was very tactful,’ Gramps said. ‘I just asked if he would have to go back to Oxford soon, to be with his family.’
‘You said that?’ This did not sound so bad after all. ‘What did he say?’
‘That he only had a sister and some nephews. And that he had no intention of going back until he was sure you were all right. That’s your Cheshire-cat smile,’ he said as a grin broke on Amy’s face.
‘I shouldn’t be smiling at anything at the moment, what with Gran and all. Gramps, about that – she’ll be in some kind of – um – institution, won’t she?’
He had been staring into his brandy, but he looked up. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I think we can be sure about that.’
‘It’s awful,’ said Amy.
‘Yes, but it’s not Ella any longer, you know. Not my Ella, the girl I married.’
This was so unbearably sad that Amy had to fight back tears. She stared into her own brandy, and eventually managed to say, ‘But an institution – an asylum . . . Gramps, it’ll be dreadful for her.’
‘She killed at least two people,’ he said. ‘She was probably going to kill you.’
‘But it wasn’t the real Gran,’ said Amy a bit desperately. ‘You’ve just said that. Or didn’t you mean it?’
‘I did mean it.’ He reached out to take her hand. ‘Amy, I think she’ll cope in a way you and I can’t understand,’ he said. ‘When I look back, I can see all the times when she twisted situations so that they looked how she wanted them to look.’
‘Lied to herself about them?’
‘No, she doesn’t lie, exactly. But she twists things around and forces them into a shape that’s satisfactory to her. She’ll do that with this place where they’ve put her. She’ll mould it into some form she can accept.’
Ella quite understood she had to stay in this hospital place for a while. They had explained it all to her. A sickness, they had said, and she rather had the impression that they regarded her as an unusual case. That meant it was important to give them all the help she could. One heard of case studies being done, research, articles in the Lancet.
When they questioned her, she admitted to headaches and some confusion. It was a curious confusion, though; almost as if she lost long spells of time – hours and hours or even as much as a whole day. When she tried to remember what had happened during these lost times, there was only a jumble, a messy darkness threaded with faint echoes of music, and with people who stared out of dead, open eyes . . .
She told them all this, because if they were studying her case they would need to know everything. They wrote things down and nodded, and occasionally gave her pills.
What she did not say to them – although she might do so later – was that although the staff seemed excellent, she was not overly impressed with the actual hospital. Several times she wondered why Derek had paid all those private-patient-plan subscriptions over the years if it was not to make use of them now. She would ask about that when Derek came to see her.
But she had to say this was a somewhat old-fashioned set-up, what with the faded curtains and old-fashioned bathrooms. A few coats of emulsion would not have hurt the walls, either. Even so, Ella slept very soundly each night, and during the day it was remarkably easy to blot out the bleak rooms and echoing corridors, and the sound of doors being locked.
‘We have to lock the doors,’ they told her. ‘To keep everyone safe.’
Ella said she quite understood that; there were so many wild people about today. It was the parents’ fault. Young people were not taught standards, not like she had been.
One of the doctors talked to her about Priors Bramley.
He seemed very interested in it. She had been there recently, hadn’t she? he said. Ella said, no, she had not been to Priors Bramley since she was ten years old. She had gone there with her friends, Veronica and Clement, and the three of them had walked along the village street on the day it was to be closed.
He was interested in Veronica and Clem, so Ella told him all about them. How they were good friends, all three of them; they had been so from their schooldays, in fact. They would certainly be coming to visit her, she said. Veronica would no doubt try to flirt with the doctors a bit, but that was just her way. She would be very smart, they would all admire her clothes and jewellery. Clem would be interested in the old building and ask about its history. He liked history.
Ella told the doctors and nurses to be sure to let her know the minute Veronica and Clem arrived. And her family, of course. Her son was working abroad, but Derek would come and probably their granddaughter, Amy. They would all like Amy, said Ella proudly. She was a lovely girl, so intelligent. She and Ella were very close.
She took the pills they gave her and looked forward happily to the visits of Derek and Amy, and her dear good friends, Veronica and Clem.
Final Entry in Jamie Cadence’s Journal
I don’t think I can write much more. There’s a dreadful searing pain over most of my body, and I can feel it eating down and down into my flesh. Oh God, this is dreadful . . .
But I’ll manage to finish this last page, I think. I shall sign it, then put the papers in the desk drawer. I don’t know if they’ll ever be found. I don’t know if one day – years ahead in the future – people might walk through Priors Bramley again, and see the ruined old manor house and perhaps wonder about its history and the people who lived here.
The people who lived here . . .
They’re all gone now. Serena and Julius, Crispian and Gil. Colm and old Dr Martlet and the Flaggs. They’re all entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. Who wrote or said that? I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew. I think it must have been somebody who mourned the passing of England’s great houses. Cadence Manor wasn’t a great house, but in the main it was a good one. Except for that seed of disease that came into the family with my mother and destroyed us all.
