A Ghost in the Machine (20 page)

Just as she had three evenings ago Benny made her way into the house via the garage. No warmth from the cooker tonight, no fragrant smells of turbot in white wine. Benny reprised her “Cooee?” but without much confidence. For no reason she could name she felt sure the flat was empty. But she checked the other rooms, just in case. Finally she approached the war room. The door was shut but Benny, emboldened by her previous successful sortie, opened it and stepped briskly inside.

 

When Benny came back Kate and Mallory were still on the terrace, relaxing in the amber haze of the setting sun. They had been drifting idly in and out of conversation, talking of nothing special while shadows from the giant cedar slowly spread across the lawn, finally disappearing into the long grass.

Mallory said, “Here she is.”

Benny had appeared at the corner of the house and was making her way towards the terrace. She was walking slowly in an odd sort of shuffle. Then, as she came closer, Kate saw that her whole body was stiff and unnaturally straight, the arms held up at a sharp angle before her, poised to return an embrace. Like a bad actor playing a zombie.

Kate sprang up, knocking over her glass of Pimm's. Her welcoming smile vanished as she cried out Benny's name and ran towards her.

“Benny – what is it? What's wrong?” She took Benny in her arms and embraced a column of stone. “Tell me.
Tell me.
”

Benny made an unintelligible sound.

“Oh God—Mallory—” He was already by her side. “What shall we do?
Benny
…”

“She must have had some sort of stroke.”

“Let's get her inside.”

“Rook.”

“What?” Now, in the glow from the terrace lamps, Kate experienced fully the stamp of horror on Benny's ghastly countenance, the disturbed violent agony in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I'll find a doctor.”

“At this hour?”

“There's always someone for emergencies.”

“It'll take too long. Ring for an ambulance.” Kate put her arm around Benny and tried to persuade her into the house. “And then,” she called after Mallory, “go round to Kinders.”

“
Aahhhhh
…”

“All right, Ben. It's all right.” Kate, knocked off balance by the scream blasting directly into her face, could hardly get the words out. “Come…come and lie down, darling.”

“…rook…rook…”

“That's right – lean on me. Lean on Kate…”

Mallory ran, first to the telephone and then from the house. He passed a little knot of people at the gate, their faces avid with the happy curiosity of the uninvolved. No doubt Benny had been spotted by someone making her blind journey, her dreadful sleepwalk back along the High Street. Pushing past them, sensing them snuffling and sniffing behind him like hounds, Mallory wondered if he was, after all, cut out for life in a small village.

At Appleby House Kate was trying to make Benny comfortable. An impossible task, which anyway didn't signify, for whatever she did or said seemed not to be understood in any recognisable way.

When the ambulance arrived the paramedics very gently, even tenderly, carried out the necessary checks. Benny spoke once more – “Just like the rook” – but the words were addressed to the night air and her eyes stared blankly through them all.

Kate found a nightdress and toothbrush, took the duck, black and shiny now, from the oven, threw it in the bin and put her coat on. Just before she left, the telephone rang. It was Mallory to say that something terrible had happened at Kinders and that he had notified the police.

 

By the time the patrol car arrived a group of forty or so people had gathered outside Dennis's house. Most were on the little green by the pond opposite, but a few crowded round the gate. As the uniformed officers pushed by they were questioned, unsuccessfully, as to what was going on. Denied any solid description of events, people felt obliged to make up a free-wheeling scenario of their own.

“They'll be putting that blue and white tape round next.”

“What for?”

“Protect the scene of crime.”

“How do you know there's been a crime?”

“Yeah – maybe he's just had an accident.”

“You don't call the old Bill out for an accident.”

“True. Could be a burglary?”

“Look who's letting them in.”

“Him from Appleby House.”

“One thing I do know—it'll be something to do with them machines.”

“Terrible things.”

“Doris Crudge – she reckons there's an iron cage in there. For roasting people.”

A concerted gasp of horrified satisfaction.

“Sounds like he got what he deserved then,” said the man with the hot tip about the tape.

Mallory closed the front door behind the two officers and leaned back on it, legs trembling. His face was salt white, clammy and beaded with sweat. He had been very sick and still felt extremely nauseous.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked the younger policeman. “I think you'd better sit—”

“What we've been given,” cut in the other, a Sergeant Gresham, “is a fatal accident which you – Mr. Lawson? – discovered this evening. You then made a call to the emergency services at eight seventeen. Is that correct?”

“Yes…that is, no.” Mallory stumbled, somehow groped his way into the sitting room and fell into a chair. “I made the call but I didn't discover it – him.”

“So who did?”

“Her name's Benny Frayle. But she's in deep shock. They've taken her to hospital.”

“That Stoke Mandeville?”

“No idea.”

“Right. Now—if you'll just show me—”

“I'm not going in there again.” Memory brought more drowning waves of nausea. The sergeant loomed suddenly closer, then swam out of Mallory's vision. A hand on the back of his neck eased his head down between his knees.

“Don't overdo it, Palmer. You'll be running him a bath next.”

“Sergeant.”

“And try and get hold of the dead bloke's doctor.”

Gresham disappeared. He checked out the kitchen and tiny bedroom. Then opened the door at the end of the hall and stood on the threshold of the vast awful space, his jaws agape with sheer astonishment.

The sergeant had not the slightest interest in history. He had never been to a museum in his life and so, confronted with these astonishing weapons of destruction, had no idea what they were. At first he thought they might be some wonky form of modern art, sculptures or suchlike. Then he noticed the huge crossbow. A weapons freak, then. A weirdo. They were up to all sorts, these survivalists.

The body lay face downwards, huddled against the apparatus that looked like a giant's catapult. It was wearing men's clothes, very light tweed but still heavy going, the sergeant would have thought, in this weather. Even then you'd have to take them off to prove he was a man 'cause there was not much left of his head. Spread all over the place, it was. Red stuff both runny and jellified, grey stuff, white stuff and pounded bits of bone.

None of this fazed Sergeant Gresham. He was a veteran. Thirty years of examining evidence following the discovery of murder victims. Or suicides. Not to mention trying to sort out the unspeakable carnage resulting from the worst traffic accidents. Gresham had been there. And he had done all that.

Now he noticed a large slick of vomit just a few feet from the corpse and was glad he hadn't brought young Palmer into the room with him. One person chucking up was more than ample.

He walked round the area of the big machine carefully. It was easy to see what had happened. There was a wooden rack set up on a frame around twelve feet square standing directly alongside the catapult. Six huge wooden balls were secured there. A seventh, heavily stained, was lying a short distance from the dead man's head.

Gresham called into the station to ask for a photographer. This looked to him like an accidental but it was always advisable to have a record of the scene. Then he went back to the sitting room to find the guy who had called them out, looking slightly less green and drinking a cup of tea. Palmer had already produced his notebook.

“Got the medic sorted, Palmer?”

“Yes, Sergeant. Dr. Cornwell. He's been notified.”

“My aunt's doctor,” offered Mallory. “He'll be so—”

“Could you tell me how Miss Frayle came to find the body, Mr. Lawson?”

“He – Dennis – was expected for dinner at Appleby House – which is where I live – and Benny too. But he didn't turn up.”

“You were on social terms then?”

“He was a family friend,” replied Mallory quietly. “I'd known him all my life.”

“Surname?”

“Brinkley.”

“Did he live here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea who his next of kin might be?”

“I'm afraid not. His parents are both dead—thank heavens. I believe he had a cousin somewhere in Wales but I don't think they've been in touch for years.”

“Right,” said Sergeant Gresham. “Now, this person you reckon found the body…”

“Benny Frayle,” supplied Palmer.

“She seems to have been sick, by the way—”

“That was me. Sorry.”

“I presume she rang you from here?”

“No. She made her way back…somehow…to Appleby House.”

“Somehow?”

How was Mallory to describe Benny's terrible perambulation? Her blind stare and lumbering mechanical stride. The screwed-up blinking eyes and gaping mouth.

“Do you remember what Miss Frayle actually said when she arrived?”

“No.” He saw no point in mentioning Benny's strange repetition of the word “rook.” “She was…well, she seemed to have no grasp at all of what was going on.”

“Understandable,” said Gresham. “And you came straight round here?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get in?”

“The kitchen door was unlocked.”

Here the volume of sound outside the house became suddenly louder. There was knocking at the front door and Palmer disappeared to return almost immediately murmuring, “Photographer.”

“How did you let him in?”

“Key in the lock, Sarge.”

Gresham's questions continued, all entirely off the beam as far as Mallory could comprehend. At one point he was asked why he had called the police in the first place.

“I don't understand.”

“Most people under such circumstances, having dialled nine, nine, nine, would have asked for an ambulance.”

“What on earth for?”

“There are procedures to be followed, Mr. Lawson. The body has to be pronounced dead. It has to be removed.”

“You don't think of…I was all over the place. Christ—you've been in that room. How would you have felt?”

Cool as a Cornetto, thought Palmer, giving his note-taking wrist a break. That's how the sarge would've felt. Palmer thought he'd like to be as detached, as laid-back as Gresham one day. That is, sometimes he thought he would. Other times he wasn't so sure.

“So you didn't feel there was anything…out of order?”

“Out of order?” Mallory frowned at the sergeant, puzzled. Then the puzzlement became incredulity. “You can't mean—”

“Suspicious, sir, yes.”

“Of course not. That's…ridiculous. Unbelievable.”

That was the sergeant's opinion too but it didn't hurt to stir the pot. All sorts of things had been known to float to the surface on these occasions. Not necessarily relevant to the case in point but often very interesting.

At this stage in his reflections the doorbell rang again. Once more Palmer jumped to it and shortly afterwards Jimmy Cornwell came into the room. He went straight across to Mallory.

“God, Mallory. This is just appalling, Dennis. What actually happened?”

Mallory described what had happened. Cornwell listened, occasionally compelled to interrupt. He said, “Christ! Not Benny,” and, “That terrible place.” Then he went with Gresham to identify the body. Cornwell rolled Dennis over, glanced briefly at what was left of his face, nodded and walked quickly away. In the kitchen he filled a glass with tap water and, once more in the sitting room, opened his case.

“Look, Mallory – I'm going to give you these tablets. And I want you—”

“I'm all right.”

“Believe me, you are not all right.” He turned to Sergeant Gresham.

“How soon can he leave?”

“Presumably Mr. Lawson will want to wait until the body has been removed. And the house secured.”

“Of course, yes,” blurted out Mallory. The thought had never occurred to him, though he hoped it would have done when the time came.

“What would be helpful is for us to talk to the last person to see Mr. Brinkley alive. Do you have any ideas in that direction at all, sir?”

“Not really. It could have been someone in his office. Or maybe a neighbour saw him coming home.”

Palmer noted Dennis Brinkley's business address. Dr. Cornwell stood over Mallory until he had taken two of the tablets. Then he scribbled on the bottle and placed it next to Mallory's nearly full tumbler before leaving. Meanwhile Sergeant Gresham, after having checked over the sitting room, could be heard moving about in the rest of the house.

“What's he doing?” Mallory asked Constable Palmer.

“Checking for a note, Mr. Lawson.”

“A note!” It took Mallory a moment to work out the connection. Then a manic desire to laugh seized him. The idea that Dennis,
Dennis
of all people, would decide to end his life at all, let alone by releasing a cannon ball, then laying his head in its path, was utter lunacy. Surreal, in fact. Uncontrollable like hiccups, the laughter forced its way out of Mallory's mouth in little moaning shouts.

Palmer watched helplessly. The usual method of dealing with hysterics was out of the question here. There was no way he was going to risk being up on an assault charge with only six months' probation under his belt. Sergeant Gresham came in, summed up the situation, threw the remaining water at Mallory and sent Palmer for a towel.