by Simon Parke
‘There were the usual petitions and demonstrations, demands that it stay open, but the investigation was pretty damning. It famously declared Bybuckle a “human storage dump lacking in either care or stimulation”. There was also the accusation that everything at the asylum – including shift patterns and meal times – was arranged for the benefit of the staff rather than of the patients.’
‘Surprise, surprise.’
‘And with Care in the Community the new “truth on top”, Bybuckle closed, with much acrimony.’
They contemplated the long-neglected space. No acrimony now – just the wind, the rotting lino . . . and murder.
‘Didn’t someone mention a TV documentary?’
It was one of her colleagues at Lewes. She’d ignored him at the time but it seemed more pertinent now.
‘Yes, a film crew was allowed access to the place as the end game unfolded. They interviewed patients, filmed the investigation – well, as much of it as they were allowed – and the cameras continued to roll after the closure order was issued, a very traumatic fight to the death. They called the programme Bleak House.’
‘So Bybuckle Asylum is famous.’
‘Famous for fifteen minutes. No one gets much more than that.’
‘And after the closure?’
‘After the closure the building was left to rot, as one scheme after another fell through, and nothing more was heard of the place until, well – this.’
‘But why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why kill someone here?’
‘Well, maybe as Geoff said, it is a lonely place. It ticks all the boxes for a planned killing.’
They looked at the bed, the particular bed, the one used for murder, still cordoned off with police tape. The forensic sweep had come and gone in a rush of science and protective gear. There was little here un-dabbed, un-brushed or un-sifted.
‘But she wasn’t brought here dead,’ said Peter.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m saying we know she died here. She fell in the hallway, but she didn’t die there.’
‘So?’
‘So we know she came of her own accord.’
‘Obviously.’
‘It made some sort of sense to Rosemary to come here. Why would that make sense?’
‘Coming here makes no sense at all.’
‘So either she knew her attacker . . . or she knew the place.’
‘Or both. And I’m getting cold. Shall we move?’
But the abbot wasn’t allowing cold right now. ‘We have a brothel, an etiquette society and an asylum,’ he said with force, grabbing an old broom handle and lowering himself on to his haunches.
‘An unusual combination, I grant you. What are you doing with the broom?’
‘If we were to make each of those a circle . . .’
‘What?’
‘If we make a Venn diagram of them – you know, the ones with the interlocking circles.’
And in the wet surface dirt, he began to draw. ‘Three interlocking circles: the brothel, the etiquette society and the asylum.’
‘Right.’
‘And Rosemary is in the space where each of them overlaps. There!’ He pointed with the broom. ‘She ran the brothel.’ He was slowly getting used to saying that. ‘She was a member of the etiquette society . . .’
‘And she died in the asylum.’
‘So where’s everybody else in the diagram?’
And then a noise behind them: a slight shuffle, nothing more, but enough to make both turn their heads towards the doorway. A silhouetted figure was watching.
‘Can we help you?’ asked Tamsin.
‘Er . . .’
Tamsin recognized her. ‘Tara Hopesmith, isn’t it?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Well, fancy seeing you here.’
‘Rosemary was my friend.’
‘Right. And I suppose the other headline is: you were the main beneficiary of her death.’
‘I just had to see,’
said Tara, a little flustered.
So she can still blush, thought Tamsin. ‘See what?’
Tara was standing in the doorway of Gladstone Ward, like a new nurse reporting for duty.
‘Well, I’ve never been here before. I just had to see . . .’
‘Where Rosemary died?’ asked Peter.
‘Yes.’
‘So you don’t come here often?’ said Tamsin.
‘No. I mean – never. Why would I? I just saw the door open.’
‘It wasn’t open. We closed the front door behind us.’
‘Well, it looked open. Perhaps it was the wind.’
‘Why don’t we sit on the bench in the entrance hall?’ said Tamsin, eager to be elsewhere, eager for light.
‘Well . . .’
‘It wouldn’t do any harm to have a chat with the new owner of Model Service.’ Tara looked troubled. ‘We were going to drop round later today anyway – you’ve saved us the bother.’
‘I always like to help the police.’ She decided against adding ‘out of their trousers’. She could handle this . . . though she found the DI intimidating. Women were harder than men.
They left Gladstone Ward and walked along the dark corridor to the entrance hall where evidence of Rosemary’s initial fall had been found, both hair and blood. Tamsin and Tara sat, and Peter stood by the entrance, looking out to sea. The idea that she fell here, just where he was standing – without a friend to help, alone – well, he found it almost as upsetting as the murder. This place was like the Stations of the Cross, each a stage in Rosemary’s passion.
‘It’s all turned out rather well, hasn’t it?’ said Tamsin, cheerfully.
‘What has?’
‘For you, I mean – Rosemary’s death.’
‘If you mean the will—?’
‘So what got you into prostitution?’ It wasn’t a kind question; not warm with the presumption that women should do whatever they wish to. The aroma in the air was one of disgust.
‘I was a Roedean girl.’
‘Another one? You didn’t know Blessings N’Dayo, did you?’ Tamsin thought they must be a similar age, early forties.
‘Blessings?’ Tara laughed in amused shock. ‘Well, I did as it happens.’
‘A happy acquaintance?’
‘It was over twenty years ago.’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t remember. Everyone remembers their school days.’
‘It was happy enough. We were teenagers, you don’t ask whether you’re happy; you just get on with things. It was pretty awful actually.’
‘Did you like her?’
‘I don’t know. You didn’t want to cross her, I remember that. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’
‘She was from somewhere in Africa. She was rather exotic at the time.’
‘Well, I suppose you might meet her one of these days.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s a judge.’
‘Lives in Firle Road,’ added Peter.
‘Very posh,’ said Tara. ‘One of my . . . well, I know someone who lives there.’
‘But you’re quite posh yourself,’ said Tamsin. ‘Roedean isn’t for paupers.’
‘My father was a property developer, so money was never an issue. The logs of human warmth were perhaps in shorter supply – but that’s life, isn’t it? You get on with things.’
‘And you’ve certainly got on with things.’
‘I started sex work at uni in Brighton, yes. I presume you want my history?’
Tamsin nodded.
‘I was working in a bar and hating it so I gave my notice in, and it was then that the landlord suggested sex work, “just to tide you over”.’
“‘To tide you over”?’
‘It’s what he said. And it made sense at the time.’
‘He was your pimp?’
‘For a short while, I suppose. Not for long. He was increasingly gross.’
‘Now there’s
a surprise.’
‘I mean, I never imagined it as a career, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘But I had no interest in joining Daddy in the property trade; nothing could be as immoral or as soulless as that. So I worked for a housing association briefly, but the office politics bored me . . . and by then I was earning around a thousand a week as a sex worker, which twenty years ago was a very decent sum.’
‘It’s a fairly decent sum now,’ said Peter, in awe. He simply couldn’t imagine such riches.
‘And all thanks to a university education,’ said Tamsin.
‘My studies did suffer – but I’ve always believed in apprenticeships.’
Peter smiled. Tara’s story probably wouldn’t feature on government posters – not really the apprenticeships they’re trying to promote.
‘And then I started helping others.’
‘Oh, spare me – a tart with a heart?’
‘No, a human being with organizational skills.’
‘So you were organizing prostitutes?’
Tamsin refused to use the phrase ‘sex worker’ – as if the job was similar to a care worker or a health worker!
‘A lot of the young women needed organizing for their own well-being.’
‘And were the police ever interested?’ she asked, as if the illegality was startling.
‘I found the police very interested, Detective Inspector, but not in the legalities, if you know what I mean. Well, you know men.’ Tamsin had walked into that one and now Tara was animated, stirred from defence into attack. ‘I mean, does the abbot fully appreciate the ridiculous laws around sex work?’
‘Well, I . . .’
‘We could make a quiz of it. I did this at a dinner party recently. Do you like a good quiz, Abbot?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘So question one: is it legal to sell sex?’
Tamsin would allow this to play out. It might be educational for her uncle.
‘I’d say illegal.’
‘Wrong, Abbot. Sorry about that.’
‘It’s legal?’
‘Quite legal, yes. It’s legal to sell sex in your room, but illegal to do it on the street or in public.’
‘I’ll remember that – should funds run low.’
This was not a quiz he’d expected, and certainly not in the hallway of the Bybuckle Asylum. He’d done well in the monastery quizzes on high days and holy days. But they tended to be more theological in tone. He didn’t remember a ‘sex laws’ option.
‘So, question two: is it legal to work in a brothel?’
‘Er, I’d say . . . not legal.’
‘No, it’s quite legal to work in a brothel, Abbot – but illegal to run one.’
‘That does sound a bit odd.’
‘Can I quote you on that? “Abbot says it sounds a bit odd.” Question three: is it legal to advertise sexual services?’
‘Well, I presume it must be, if it’s a legal activity.’
‘Wrong again. It’s legal to pay for sex. But kerb-crawling is illegal, as is advertising sexual services online, in phone boxes or in newspapers . . . anywhere public, in fact.’
‘I’m not doing very well here.’
‘Final question, Abbot: how many sex workers in a house make it illegal?’
Peter’s mind was now a mist of unknowing, as if wandering through a land of cheerful insanity.
‘Ten?’ He had no idea.
‘No, two. One sex worker in a house is legal, but two is illegal.’
‘That’s when it becomes a brothel,’ said Tamsin, offering legal clarity. ‘Which the police may, or may not, choose to be interested in.’
‘And that’s also when it becomes much safer for the women,’ said Tara, with an ace of her own. ‘Strength in numbers. This was always Rosemary’s view. She was very interested in their safety . . . in our safety.’
‘I can see her point,’ said Peter, warming to Rosemary’s vision.
‘A single sex worker is much more vulnerable.’
‘Perhaps she should get a proper job,’ said Tamsin.
‘Like screwing people for money in heartless property deals?’ Her father’s dark exploits had been entirely legal, of course.
‘There are other jobs.’
‘All I’m saying is that we need to define “proper” – but don’t worry, I won’t be asking the Etiquette Society for advice.’ They sat in silence for a moment. Tara suddenly looked weary, tired of the battle. ‘I simply note the abbot scored nought in the quiz, which confirms what a madness it all is.’
Peter remained at the door, looking out to sea, but offered words of support.
‘It is a nonsense, as you say, Tara – but then morality tends to be so when the law gets involved. Sheep and goats aren’t easily separated, in my experience. Life is a speckled thing.’
‘But what we do know is this,’ said Tamsin, determined to have the last word, the knock-out blow here in the asylum. She didn’t find the abbot’s intervention helpful. ‘Amid all the uncertainties, the madam is always illegal. Women can legally sell sex, men can legally buy sex – but the madam, the organizer of it all, is always illegal.’
She looked at Tara. ‘My girls all pay their taxes, work in a safe and health-conscious environment, are all legal citizens of this country and are in no way coerced labour. Where really is the problem?’
‘Well, how about this: why does the main beneficiary of the murdered woman’s will now return to the scene of the crime?’
‘Who said I’m returning?’
‘So your lodger is an arsonist?’
said Tamsin. They were back in the large dwelling of Judge Blessings N’Dayo.
‘He was an arsonist,’ said Blessings, correcting her. ‘There’s a difference.’
‘Really?’
‘You were once a baby, Inspector, but you are no longer a baby.’
‘She still has her tantrums,’ said Peter. Perhaps a jest would ease the tension between these two upholders of the law. It didn’t.
‘Is the rehabilitation of arsonists quite so inevitable?’ asked Tamsin.
Not in her book it wasn’t . . . and her question was aggressive. She’d refused the offer of tea precisely because she wished to attack. You can’t attack holding a cup of tea; you can discuss but you can’t attack.
And Peter realized that he must allow things to be, just as they were. Both these women operated through aggression, through conflict. So maybe Tamsin and Blessings were destined only to clash, drawn together like warring armies, with hopes of partnership a dream that could never be. Or maybe conflict was the partnership; they would work together, but through hostility. They were both women who liked to lead. So who, wondered the abbot, would get to wear the crown?
‘I wouldn’t want us to give up on the principle of rehabilitation, Detective Inspector. Give up on that principle and things really do look bleak.’
‘You can’t give up on something you’ve never believed in; and I’ve never believed in it.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Prison is about punishment. Why do we insist on making it more complicated?’
Minimalist elegance ruled their surroundings in Blessings’ home – a triumph of style over life, with all clutter banished. There were vistas of shiny surfaces and clear space everywhere, interrupted occasionally by Ghanaian objets d’art. Martin had been rather rude about these, calling her ‘a plastic African’.
‘Her African furniture makes up for the absence of black names in her contacts list. All very white,’ he said.
But they sat here now because of Francisco, the mystery man in the kitchen, as Martin called him. ‘He floats in and out of view at Black Cap – now you see him, now you don’t!’
So what did Blessings really know about him?
‘Francisco does interest us,’ said Tamsin.
‘He interests many people, I’m sure,’ said Blessings, with disdain. ‘I can see their little minds whirring. But their interes
t doesn’t interest me, if you see what I mean.’
‘We just need to establish how he came to be here.’
‘He’s here because I sentenced him to three years in prison.’
That explained the criminal record.
‘You sentenced him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were the judge at his trial?’
Blessings’ expression said, ‘Keep up.’
‘I was, yes. And we seem to be running a little ahead of your research, Detective Inspector. Don’t ever become a barrister – you’d seriously struggle.’ A low blow which found soft flesh.
‘What was his crime?’ asked Tamsin, raging inside.
‘I think you know – or at least I hope you do.’ She patronized Tamsin with her smile. ‘He lit a fire in a church hall.’
‘As you do.’
‘And I’ll always remember his reason.’
‘Which was?’
‘He said he didn’t like his Sunday school teacher – which was rather sweet, but hardly a worthy reason. Otherwise, which church hall across the land would be safe? Certainly none in Ghana.’
‘So you sentenced him.’
‘Of course, he had to go down. Arson is not popular with the law-makers. It damages property, which is demonstrably more important than people.’ She enjoyed her showy sarcasm. ‘But I was struck by his remorse at the time. He did seem genuinely sad.’
‘Perhaps he was just sad he’d been caught. That’s the only time I see remorse kicking in.’
‘And then I was impressed by his use of the rehabilitation programme offered in prison,’ said Blessings.
‘You stayed in contact with him while he was behind bars?’
‘Yes, I did actually.’
‘Is that normal?’
‘What is normal, Detective Inspector?’
‘Judges are always staying in contact with those they send down, are they?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not nosy enough to know. And I’m not sure there are any Home Office figures to help us.’
‘How did you stay in contact?’
‘Letters . . . and such like.’
‘And such like?’
‘I did visit him on one occasion.’
‘Out of uniform?’
