The Death Chamber (28 page)

Divorce was not the disgrace it had once been but there was still considerable stigma attached to it. And there was a tacit understanding that people in certain positions in life should lead
unblemished private lives. People such as churchmen and ministers of the Crown. And governors of His Majesty’s Prisons. Clara might want to keep things quiet and discreet, but McNulty would
not. McNulty was set on achieving a bizarre fame, and cheated of it he would be bitter and angry. Lewis would not put it past McNulty to give the story to the newspapers, and the newspapers would
seize gleefully on such a juicy titbit. ‘Sir Lewis’s adulterous liaison with twenty-four-year-old prison wardress . . .’ ‘Love nest in governor’s office . . .’
‘Eminent governor of Calvary Gaol sued for divorce . . .’

Lewis did not consider himself eminent but the newspapers would like the word. They would drag in his involvement in the Home Office inquiry for rehabilitation of long-term prisoners, and he
would be forced to step down.

Would the papers unearth Clara’s attendance at seances? If they did, they would wring every shred of pathos from it. They would talk about a bereaved mother, desperate for a last glimpse
of her dead hero son – Cas would have laughed at that and said, What nonsense, he had not been a hero, he had only been helping a few friends out of a tight spot. A stab of pain sliced
through Lewis, and he thought he would give everything he possessed to hear Cas laughing at the idea of himself as a hero.

But there was the other side of the coin. What if he gave in to McNulty and the truth about that got out? Mightn’t the headlines be even worse? ‘Calvary’s governor presides
over bizarre experiment in execution shed . . .’ ‘Baronet in quest for the soul’s origins . . .’

It was a bastard choice. On the one hand he would be made out to be a faithless husband who indulged in bed games with a bouncing trollop, and on the other he would be a fanatic who abused his
position and inflicted unnecessary mental torment on a condemned man. Either way he would lose the work that meant so much to him.

A tiny treacherous voice in his mind said, But you wouldn’t really be inflicting mental torment on O’Kane, would you? It would be simply a question of O’Kane stepping onto a
weighing machine, that’s all. Two minutes at most, McNulty said. You wouldn’t even need to give O’Kane a reason: he’s been weighed by Pierrepoint once already; he would
think this second weighing was simply a confirmation of the first. And you’d be in the clear with Denzil McNulty. But would I? thought Lewis. Don’t blackmailers always come back for
more? And the thought of lying to Nicholas O’Kane was deeply distasteful. O’Kane’s idealism might be misplaced but he had believed in his cause with the same passion that had
ultimately sent Cas to his death.

O’Kane deserved to die – he had been indirectly responsible for the deaths of a great many English sailors whose ships the German navy had torpedoed, but he did not deserve to be
deceived on the threshold of death.

Lewis frowned, reached for the whisky he kept in a locked cupboard, poured a hefty measure and went on thinking very deeply.

Saul Ketch had also been thinking very deeply. He had been thinking ever since he had found out about the Skelton tart and the governor, and he was now feeling mightily
disgruntled.

You might have considered that a man taking a juicy bit of information along to the doctor – all according to their arrangement – would have been welcomed and given money there and
then. You might also have thought you could trust a doctor not to rook you.

Ketch had trusted the doctor and what had it got him? Bugger all, that was what it had got him. ‘Sorry, Ketch,’ he had said, swinging that stupid eyeglass that made him look like a
lopsided toad. ‘This information is not worth anything. It’s unusable.’

Ketch, stung, had demanded to know why. The doctor had proof of it, hadn’t he? Well, Ketch knew he had proof, because the doctor had gone capering along to Sir Lewis’s office to see
for himself there and then. That made this a prime morsel of information, worth at least half a sovereign of anybody’s money, and Ketch would bet the doctor would get a lot more than half a
sovereign out of Lewis Bloody Caradoc for keeping quiet.

‘It’s worth nothing,’ the doctor said when Ketch put forward this point of view, turned on his heel and went away to his own room, leaving Ketch staring after him.

Well! Well, if Doctor Toadface McNulty was not going to use this prize snippet, then Ketch was going to do so on his own account. That would just serve Toadface right, the spidery old miser that
he was, not even giving a man his proper name, calling him ‘Ketch’ as if he had been no more than the sweepings of the gutter.

The more he thought about using the information himself, the better he liked the idea. He would go along now, this very night, and he would say what he had seen and heard to Sir Lewis Cocksure
Caradoc. The small bawdiness of this pleased him. Cocksure. Sir Lewis would soon be very cock
un
sure if Ketch handled this right.

He thought very carefully about what he should say, and then went along to Old Muttonchops and said he had a bellyache, and please could he be excused duty in the condemned cell for a while.

Muttonchops was not best pleased, what with it being death watch. They were always busy on death-watch nights, what with so much to be done, and what with having to make sure the prisoner did
not top himself beforehand and cheat the hangman.

But however much Muttonchops disliked it, he could not very well refuse permission. He said, Oh, very well, Ketch had better go off and deal with whatever his problem was, and there was no need
to tell the details either, thank you very much. But he was to be back on duty at midnight or they would ask Dr McNulty to take a look at him. He reminded Ketch that his spell of duty took him
through to nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and added a remark about Ketch’s unwise consumption of onion broth, which annoyed Ketch because it was nothing to do with anybody what he ate
and drank. But he said, quite meekly, Thank you, Mr Millichip, and promised to be back on duty at midnight and to be there to take the prisoner to the execution shed. Ketch had, in fact, bullied
another warder into switching duties with him, because there would be O’Kane’s clothes to be got hold of. These were presently folded in a locker in the condemned cell, and very nice
clothes they were too: Ketch had looked through them when O’Kane was being exercised. He had marked out some shirts to sell in the King’s Head four-ale bar, and there were trousers and
underthings as well. Three pairs of shoes – good leather ones. Muttonchops would have marked those for himself, the sneaky old greed-bug, but Ketch was going to get in ahead of him. You could
get at least five shillings for a pair of good leather shoes. There were no flies on Saul Ketch, not if there was money to be made.

There might very well be money to be made in the governor’s office tonight, and Ketch smiled to himself as he went along the corridors. He liked the feel of Calvary on an execution night
and he liked the feeling of what he was about to do.

Sir Lewis was in his office. He looked pale and his eyes were darker than usual. Ketch had a little inward snigger at that, because he knew why Sir Lewis was looking pale and dark-eyed,
didn’t he just!

He said politely, ‘Begging pardon, sir, but there’s a matter I need to discuss with you.’

‘Yes?’ Caradoc did not quite say, make it quick, but he nearly did.

‘It’s a bit difficult, really,’ said Ketch. ‘It’s about Dr McNulty, sir. It’s a bit – like – delicate.’ Aha! That had made Sir Lewis look up
and take notice!

‘In what way delicate? Is McNulty ill?’

‘Oh no, not ill, sir. But I thought – well, several of us thought – as how you ought to know what’s been going on.’

‘What do you mean?’

Ketch had decided that at this stage, worried innocence was best. He said, ‘Well, sir, he’s been – I hardly like to say it – but he’s been trying to get a few of us
to spy.’

‘Spy?’

The word came out so sharply, so much like a gunshot, that Ketch flinched, and then he realized Caradoc thought he meant spy in the way O’Kane had spied. He said firmly, ‘Spying on
the people here, sir. In Calvary.’

‘On the prisoners?’

‘Not the prisoners, sir. The people working here.’

‘The warders? D’you mean Dr McNulty has asked you to spy on the warders?’

‘Well, yes, sir. And,’ said Ketch, looking Caradoc straight in the eye, ‘others as well.’

The governor frowned. ‘You’re making this up, Ketch. Have you been drinking?’

Ketch was stung by the injustice of this. A liar and a drunk, that was what he was being called, which was rich coming from a man who not an hour since had been ramming away between
Skelton’s thighs!

He said indignantly, ‘I haven’t touched a drop. And it’s all the truth. The doctor tells us to watch and listen and find out things. We have to let him know what we’ve
found, and he gives us money.’ Too late he saw he had made it sound as if he had gone along with the arrangement. But he could not take the words back and so he plunged on. ‘Tonight I
told the doctor what I heard in this room an hour ago.’ He stopped and waited.

The governor’s expression did not alter, but when he spoke again his voice held a new note. ‘And what did you think you heard, Ketch?’ he said, and although the words were
soft, for the first time Ketch wondered if he had been altogether wise to come here.

But he was not backing down now. He thrust out his jaw and said, ‘We both know what I heard, don’t we, sir? You and Belinda Skelton.’ Artfully he let his eyes stray to the
closed door that led to the little bedroom leading off the room.

‘Scurrilous lies,’ said Sir Lewis at once. ‘Did you think McNulty would pay you for your mad lies?’

Ketch did not know what that word – scurry-something – meant, but he knew that was twice the governor had called him a liar. He said, ‘The doctor pays for knowing things like
that. I told you – he’s got a whole string of people he gets to listen at keyholes and the like.’

‘Why would he pay you for that?’

‘He makes money out of knowing things that go on,’ said Ketch.

‘Blackmail,’ said Sir Lewis slowly. ‘Yes, I see. And tonight you thought you’d try your hand at a little blackmail on your own account, did you?’

‘I supposed you’d like to know what the doctor was up to,’ said Ketch righteously. ‘That’s why I come here, for to tell you.’ He edged nearer to the desk.
‘Also, sir, I thought you wouldn’t want people knowing what you’d been up to.’

‘What you thought,’ said Sir Lewis, his words like chips of ice, ‘was that I’d give you money to shut you up.’ He eyed Ketch with dislike. ‘You’re a
disgusting little weasel, Ketch, and you’re dismissed from your post here and now. I’m not having liars and blackmailers working in Calvary. Collect your things and go straight away. If
you’re still in the gaol in half an hour’s time I’ll have you thrown out.’

‘You can’t dismiss me!’ blustered Ketch.

‘I most certainly can. I’ve just done it. Think yourself lucky I’m not turning you over to the police.’

Ketch was not worried about the police. What he was worried about was the prospect of penury, which was suddenly opening up before him. And he was even more worried that if he had no job they
might send him into the army – conscription or some such word they used nowadays. Ketch was not going off to fight the Hun, not for Lewis Caradoc, nor King George nor nobody. That was why,
once he was seventeen, he had come up to Calvary. Reserved occupation they called it.

He gripped the edges of the desk and said angrily that Sir Lewis could not throw him out. There was his week’s money. He was owed a week’s money, he said pugnaciously.

‘You’re owed nothing. Now get out before I break your neck.’

There was nothing for it but to go. But as Ketch walked along the corridors to the warder’s room and his locker, he was already planning how he would be revenged on that cool-as-a-cat
Lewis Caradoc and that whore Belinda.

So, thought Lewis, as the door closed, I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. No, I’m not, I’m between the devil, Denzil McNulty, and that unwholesome
slug, Saul Ketch. And an unholier trinity I never wish to meet.

He considered how far he should believe Saul Ketch. Denzil McNulty operating a sly little spy network inside Calvary? Gathering information and making use of it? Making people pay for his
silence? Was that likely? Oh yes, thought Lewis, pouring a second drink and making it a stiffer one this time. Oh yes, it’s more than likely.

He did not think Ketch had the wits to make up such a tale, and it was plain that Ketch had been McNulty’s scavenger, carrying unwholesome pieces of information to his master. But tonight,
it seemed as if there had been a falling-out between the two, and Ketch had taken the initiative. He could not have known that McNulty had been here before him, or that McNulty’s price was
not money but something infinitely more macabre.

Lewis was not particularly concerned about Saul Ketch. He did not have the intelligence to do any real harm, nor would he be able to tell his tale in quarters where it would do harm. If he
talked in Thornbeck, people would think it the pique of a man dismissed for some squalid little misdemeanour. Lewis thought he must make sure the senior warders knew he had dismissed Ketch
for— What? Stealing? No, better not be specific; better just say he had caught the man in a flagrant flouting of the rules, and leave it at that.

But McNulty? Oh, Dr McNulty, thought Lewis, what a deeply unpleasant creature you are. Of all the crimes blackmail’s one of the most vicious.

He would have to do something about Clara’s association with McNulty, but for the moment he could not think how he would grapple with that. If he forbade her to have anything to do with
him, she would want to know why. And Lewis could not tell her why; he could not tell her about any of this. My God, he thought bitterly, this twisted little slug has really got me tied up. I
can’t see any way out of this situation. Or can I? The speck of an idea had dropped into his mind, and he sat very still, the minutes ticking away.