Property of a Lady (22 page)

I said, in a low mutter, ‘There’s no one there, of course,’ and turned back to Miss Lee.

She had begun to sing the macabre verse she so often sang when the madness visited her, and even though I had heard it so many times, it still chilled me.

‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .

Fly bolt, and bar, and band . . .

Nor move, nor swerve, joint, muscle or nerve,

At the spell of the dead man’s hand.’

As she began the second part of the song, a curious little echo picked up her voice, and the chant seemed to trickle in and out of the corners, a half-second behind her, almost as if a second voice was trying to join in. I saw Dr Manville, the younger of the two, shiver and glance nervously round the chapel.

I said, ‘Miss Lee – Elvira – who is it you think comes to find you?’

A great shudder shook her body, and she said, ‘The man who murdered my mother. I saw him do it, and that’s why he has to find me.’

This time it was Dr Chaddock who spoke. ‘Elvira,’ he said, ‘the man who killed your mother is dead.’

‘Is he?’ she said, in a dreadful, harsh whisper. ‘Can you be sure? Because I hear him singing to himself – I hear him chanting the rhyme I heard the night my mother died. If he is dead, how do you explain that? And,’ she said, ‘if he is dead, then who is it who creeps through the dark, searching for me?’

Nell was unable to go on reading. She put the book aside, saw it was almost half-past seven, and chased Beth up to bed, grateful for an interlude of normality. Back downstairs, she sat by the fire with a glass of wine, trying to persuade herself to read the rest of the chapter. When the phone rang at twenty-past eight, she was not prepared for the leap of delight at the sound of Michael’s voice.

He said he had not heard from Jack Harper yet, but had left messages on both phones.

‘I found out a bit about Brank Asylum,’ said Nell, pleased to have something definite to report.

‘Did you?’ His voice seemed to fill with light when his interest was caught. ‘What is it? Did you find Elvira?’

‘Yes, I did. How did you know I would?’

‘I didn’t know, but I hoped,’ he said.

‘You found her as well,’ said Nell, making it a statement.

‘Yes. When I was in Charect House – oh hell, I was going to confess to you sooner or later. The builders were demolishing part of the attic wall. I found a second set of papers.’

‘Really? To find one set of papers is surprising; to find two looks like a fake,’ said Nell, deadpan, and he laughed softly.

‘I don’t think they’re fake, Nell. I haven’t read them all yet though; in fact, the last few pages are very nearly illegible – I might have to get someone here to help me decipher them.’ He paused, and Nell waited. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about them yesterday,’ he said.

‘If I’d found something like that I think I’d want to savour it on my own,’ said Nell. ‘After everything that’s been happening here, I mean.’

‘I did want to savour it,’ said Michael, sounding grateful. ‘But I’d like to tell you about it now – at least, as far as I’ve read. I’ve made a bit of a precis as I’ve gone along. Or are you in the middle of something?’

‘I’m not in the middle of anything, and I’ve got all the time in the world,’ said Nell. ‘Beth’s in bed, and I’m curled up by the fire with a glass of wine.’

‘That sounds nice. I’m having a glass of wine here, as well. I’ve got a stack of second-year essays I should be reading and marking, but I’ll do them later. Oh, and Wilberforce is here too – he’s asleep in front of the fire.’

When he said this, Nell had a sudden image of him in a deep armchair, surrounded by books, the firelight bringing out lights in his hair, the cat contentedly asleep at his feet.

‘Can I hear what you found first?’ said Michael.

‘I haven’t read the whole chapter yet,’ said Nell, reaching for the book. ‘But it doesn’t look as if there’s much more – and what there is doesn’t look particularly relevant to our search. What I have read, though, is an extract from some case notes – a kind of healing ceremony they attempted for Elvira. Could you listen now if I read it out? It’s not very long.’

‘Yes, of course. Hold on while I get a pen and paper. All right, the floor’s yours.’

She read the chaplain’s account to him, strongly conscious that he was listening very intently. Several times she heard the faint rustle of paper as he made a note, but he did not interrupt.

‘His report ends there,’ she said. ‘With Elvira asking that question about who was creeping through the dark. Either the chaplain didn’t want to write any more, or there was nothing more to say. Or, if there was more, the editor of the book decided not to include it.’

‘It’s remarkable,’ he said. ‘You have a very good reading voice, by the way.’ Before she could think how to respond to this, he said, ‘Whoever that chaplain was, he had a vivid way with words, didn’t he? I wonder how much we can take as actual fact.’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ said Nell eagerly. ‘And although some of what he says is a bit off-the-wall, there is one thing that can be checked.’

‘Whether Elvira Lee’s mother really was murdered,’ he said promptly.

‘Yes. There’d be police records – most likely newspaper reports. And if the chaplain’s report is genuine – and if Elvira herself can be believed – she saw the murder take place. That could be true.’

‘Yes, certainly it could.’

‘Which means,’ said Nell, encouraged, ‘that Elvira would have known the killer’s identity.’

‘But would she?’ said Michael, a shade doubtfully. ‘She was only seven at the time.’

‘She would have recognized somebody she already knew.’

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘But that doctor – what was his name?’

‘Chaddock.’

‘Chaddock says the killer was dead. Hanged for the murder, would you think?’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it? Not definite, though. Because Elvira believed he was still searching for her – even after she was in Brank Asylum, even after all those years. It sounded as if she thought he wanted to silence her.’

‘Maybe he did. Maybe they hanged the wrong man. But that account was written twelve years after it happened. That’s a long time for someone to go on searching. Elvira had been in the asylum all that time, remember. Easy enough for him to find her, one would think.’

‘Yes. And it’s a long time to go on being terrified, as well. I’m not sure we can trust Elvira’s story. Twelve years in a mental institution would dent anyone’s sanity. And if she really had seen her mother murdered when she was seven, her mind might already have been damaged beyond help. Oh, Michael, that poor little girl . . .’

‘It happened a long time ago, whatever the truth of it,’ said Michael.

‘I keep trying to remember that. But how about the incidents that came later? Beth’s abduction. Ellie’s nightmares. Those don’t come from Elvira. And—’

She broke off, and Michael said, ‘There’s something else?’

‘I’m not sure. But that day when we were in the old graveyard – you went back for an umbrella, you remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought I heard someone while you were away,’ said Nell. ‘A sort of soft singing.’

‘
Ingoldsby Legends
among the graves? That macabre verse again?’

‘That’s what I thought at the time. But now I’m not so sure. My judgement probably wasn’t very reliable that day.’

‘Understandable,’ said Michael. ‘But let’s remember two more girls were taken like Beth was taken. That one in the nineteen sixties – the one who was found in St Paul’s Churchyard – and the earlier one in the nineteen thirties.’

‘Could it be some kind of copycat crime?’ said Nell, rather doubtfully. ‘I know it’s an awfully long time-span in-between, but—’

‘Elizabeth Lee’s murder would have been remembered in the nineteen thirties,’ said Michael. ‘Marston Lacy’s a very small place, and it sounds as if the Lee family were quite prominent people. If there was a murder in their house, I’ll bet it was talked about for years.’

‘Could the nineteen thirties’ case even have been Elizabeth’s killer?’ said Nell. ‘No, it’s a fifty-year gap. And what would be the motive?’

‘Some local weirdo might have become obsessed by the original case. Or fixated on the Hand of Glory superstition. He might have believed he was the reincarnation of the killer, or thought he had to complete the killer’s task.’

‘You shouldn’t be teaching fiction, you should be writing it,’ said Nell, smiling. ‘I can just about accept the obsession theory once – for the child taken in the nineteen thirties. But I can’t accept there was a second weirdo in the nineteen sixties with the same obsession, and then a third one again this week. And it can’t be the same person – the gaps are too long.’

‘It’s not as far-fetched as believing in ghosts,’ said Michael, sounding defensive.

‘True.’ Nell did not know if she would rather think Beth had been taken by a madman obsessed with a Victorian murder and hell-bent on child mutilation, or by a ghost. She said, ‘Tell me about the papers you found. Wait a bit; I’ll top up my wine first. I don’t normally slosh vino at this rate—’

‘But it’s a three-glass problem, isn’t it? I’ll join you.’ There was a faint chink of bottle against glass. ‘Here goes with my findings,’ he said. ‘I’m condensing it a fair bit, and you can read the complete text when I’ve got it deciphered if you want – well, the photocopies. But this is the gist.’

He had a clear, concise way with words which Nell would have expected. She listened intently and with deep interest to Harriet Anstey’s story – he had, as he said, written a precis, but he read sections of the actual journal to her. Nell found herself strongly drawn to Harriet.

‘I wonder if we could find out what happened to her,’ she said, when Michael finished.

‘Well, Anstey isn’t a very common name, and we know she lived in Cheshire. But it was only a few weeks before the outbreak of WWII, remember, and a lot of records were lost in the bombing.’

‘I’d like to think of her meeting someone to take Harry’s place,’ said Nell, thoughtfully. ‘And helping with the war that was coming – maybe running a canteen in the middle of Coventry while it burned or helping bombed out people in the East End. But I know that’s being ridiculously romantic.’

‘Actually, I thought the same,’ said Michael. ‘So I’m as bad as you.’

‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that she and Alice Wilson were about the same age, isn’t it?’ said Nell. ‘And they both lost someone to a war.’

‘Yes. Nell, I’ve just seen that we’ve been on the phone for an hour and a half – I’ve taken up your whole evening.’

‘That’s fine.’ Nell did not want to say she had not had anything else to do with her evening. She said, ‘Will you let me know about hearing from Jack?’

‘Yes, certainly. If I can’t catch up with them, they’ll be arriving here, though. I’ve booked them into the Black Boar – at least that might keep them clear of Charect House. I’ve booked a room there for myself as well.’

‘You’ll be here over Christmas?’ Nell had not expected this.

‘It seems like it. Most of the Oxford people go to families, so college is pretty dismal. My father’s lived in Manilla for the last five years – he works for the World Health Organization. It’s a nice place for him to live, but it’s a hell of a journey for me, specially at Christmas. Marston Lacy’s a walk to the end of the garden in comparison. So maybe we can meet for a drink or a meal over the holiday? We’ll hunt ghosts between eating plum pudding and scoffing turkey.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Nell. ‘I’m hoping to have a sort of Open Day at the shop on Christmas Eve – mulled wine and mince pies and music.’ It was part of a Chamber of Commerce project – most of the local businesses were participating, and she was going to have Victorian Christmas decorations in the shop. ‘If you’re around, you could look in,’ she said, hoping this sounded casual. ‘And the Harpers as well, if they’re here.’

‘That sounds nice,’ he said. ‘I will. Thank you. Goodnight, Nell.’

‘Goodnight.’

After he rang off, the flat felt annoyingly silent and lonely. Nell stirred the fire, which had become desultory, washed up the wine glass, and sat down again. It was ten o’clock. She switched on the television news, found everything too gloomy for words, and switched it off again. The book about Marston Lacy lay where she had left it, and she supposed she might as well finish reading the chapter. It had not looked as if there was much more of any interest about Brank Asylum, but she would make sure.

The semi-religious ceremony focusing on Elvira Lee was followed by a short paragraph introducing the next set of case notes. The author explained it was a mixture of material taken from the records of someone who had been Brank’s final patient and a written account provided by that patient. ‘She was the last patient to walk out through those doors,’ he said, sounding pleased at having hit on this phrase. ‘Everything in this account is reproduced with her full permission.’

Nell rearranged the cushions in her chair, and began to read.

‘They said, two years ago, that I was mad. I can no longer judge if that’s true. But if mad means seeing things that aren’t visible to other people, and hearing things not audible to anyone – such as a fleshless voice, chanting a grisly old rhyme . . . Yes, if those things made for madness, then I certainly was mad for a time – possibly for all of the time I was in Charect House.’