The Death Chamber (29 page)

When McNulty returned, and said, without preamble, ‘Well, Sir Lewis, have you come to a decision?’ Lewis smiled and said, with perfect politeness, ‘I believe so. But first of
all, doctor, I should like you to tell me about the blackmail network you’ve been operating in Thornbeck.’

The extraordinary thing was that McNulty did not deny any of it. He said, quite frankly, that he had made use of two or three warders to gather snippets of information in Thornbeck and a few of
the surrounding villages. Yes, Calvary was part of the hunting ground as well, he said. Why not? When Lewis used the word scavengers he nodded and said, Yes, that described it well enough. He
displayed no contrition and appeared to feel no guilt.

‘The remuneration for a prison doctor is pitiful, Sir Lewis.’

‘So you extorted money from people.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said McNulty impatiently. ‘It’s for my work. My research on the soul – the existence of life after death. That can’t be done
without money, Sir Lewis. The truth must be uncovered, no matter the cost. And if I can be the one to uncover it – to make the discovery—’ He broke off, breathing as if he had
been running hard, and Lewis said, in his coolest voice, ‘The discovery of the existence of the soul?’

‘Yes.’ A shrug. ‘As for the extortion charge – well, we all take the pickings from our work. What were your pickings, Sir Lewis? The likes of Belinda Skelton?’

Lewis did not dare let this jibe touch him or he would have been across the desk throttling McNulty there and then. He said, ‘You blackmailed people.’

‘I merely suggested payments to safeguard people’s secrets. Things they would prefer to keep private. Adulterous liaisons, illegitimate children, a liking for bed partners of the
same sex. People pay for keeping those things quiet.’

‘You haven’t asked me for a payment.’

‘Not in money. But you can provide the one thing no one else can.’

‘The soul experiment,’ said Lewis softly.

‘Yes.’ The hunger was in McNulty’s voice again.

‘You do realize I can’t ignore this,’ said Lewis. ‘Quite apart from the criminal nature of blackmail, there’s your medical standing. As well as the police, I must
report you to the General Medical Council.’

‘Must you?’ said McNulty softly. ‘I don’t think you’d better, Sir Lewis. I’ve already got you in a cleft stick with Skelton. If you really do tell your
masters what I’ve been doing, it would be easy for me to say you had been part of it. That you had controlled it, even. I could say that faced with exposure you were trying to shift the blame
onto me.’

‘I don’t think that would be believed,’ said Lewis after a moment. ‘I’m not immensely rich but I have sufficient money for my needs.’

‘Do you? Does any man ever have sufficient? And if Lady Caradoc should decide to sever the marital tie because of your fondness for other women mightn’t that sever a large part of
your income as well?’

‘You’d never do it,’ said Lewis.

‘Believe me, I would. If I go down, you’ll go down with me,’ said McNulty, and there was an edge to his voice Lewis had not heard before. ‘It would be my word against
yours, and even if you were cleared, people would look at you sideways for a very long time. Mud sticks. And I will do anything to further my work,
anything
—’ He broke off, and
then in his normal tone said, ‘Is my request so very bad? We weigh a condemned prisoner each day anyway. Let me make one extra weighing tomorrow morning. Let me record Nick
O’Kane’s weight immediately before the execution and again after it, and then report my findings to my colleagues. Your name need never come into it, not now and not ever. And then,
next week or next month, I’ll leave Calvary and you need never hear from me again.’

‘Have you really no ties to keep you here?’

‘Oh no. As you know I’m unmarried and I have no close family. I’m free to roam where I wish,’ said McNulty.

Lewis said slowly, ‘If I could be sure you mean that about leaving . . .’

The smile that Clara Caradoc had found reassuring, but Lewis thought sly, showed briefly. ‘You can’t be absolutely sure, of course, can you?’ said McNulty.

‘No.’

‘But between gentlemen . . .’

Lewis thought, You’re no bloody gentleman, in fact I almost think I prefer Saul Ketch. At least he’s honest about his villainy.

McNulty eyed him for a moment, then said, ‘Well, Sir Lewis? Have we an arrangement? Are we making the soul experiment on Nicholas O’Kane?’

Lewis said slowly, ‘It looks as if we are, Doctor.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lewis finally went to bed at one a.m.

McNulty had remained in the governor’s room for over an hour, discussing the exact details of the experiment, considering how they should deal with the actual weighing of
O’Kane’s body. There was an unhealthy excitement in his voice as he talked about body weight and about allowing for the evacuation of the body’s fluids at the moment of death.
Lewis had thought himself hardened to the sometimes messy spasms of a hanged body, but he found it repellent to be discussing this when it was Nicholas O’Kane.

Around midnight he conducted a brief interview with the senior warder, Arthur Millichip, saying he had found cause to dismiss Saul Ketch, and that Ketch had left Calvary and was not to be
allowed back under any circumstances.

Millichip did not ask about the cause for dismissal and he did not seem particularly surprised. He said Ketch had always been a bit unsatisfactory, although there had not been anything you could
actually get hold of, if Sir Lewis took his meaning? A bit of a slippery customer, was Millichip’s opinion of Ketch, and it would not surprise him if the man came back to Calvary one day as
an inmate. In any event, it was good riddance to bad rubbish as far as he, Millichip, was concerned.

‘Did you want me for anything else, Sir Lewis, because with Ketch gone I’ll need to re-arrange my rotas?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Lewis. ‘But there’s nothing else. Thank you, Millichip.’ He watched the man go out. He was reasonably sure Millichip was not one of
McNulty’s scavengers but he was not sufficiently sure of it to ask for his help in tracing the others. It flickered in his mind that he might ask Belinda to help on that score, but then he
wondered how far he could trust Belinda and how far he could trust anyone at all. He wondered where Belinda was tonight. Was she asleep somewhere – in her own bed or someone else’s? He
did not know if she was on duty tonight, and he realized he did not know where or how she lived. Did she have a house of her own, or did she live with family?

When at last he went to bed, he dreamed about Cas. He dreamed Cas was laughing at the idea of being dubbed a hero and saying that far from being any such thing, he had betrayed his country and
sold naval secrets to the Kaiser’s armies. There was nothing wrong with doing that, said Cas, not if you believed in your cause. He had believed passionately in what he did, but because of
it, in a few hours he would die for a dream. That was what all traitors did, said the shadow who had Cas’s voice but Nicholas O’Kane’s eyes. Traitors died not for flag, nor king,
nor emperor, but for a dream born in a herdsman’s shed . . .

Lewis came fully and abruptly awake, the lines of the Irish poem still ringing in his ears. He stared up at the ceiling, the dream still strongly with him. To die for a dream, a dream born in a
herdsman’s shed. O’Kane had read the poem to him shortly after coming to Calvary; he had a good voice for reading, soft and just very slightly touched with an Irish accent, and Lewis,
listening, had instantly had a picture of the poverty-stricken Irish crofters, gathering round their peat fires, planning how to overturn English domination and rule their own land. The Irish were
the dreamers and the rebels of the world, of course. Irresponsible and erratic, but filled with such charm.

O’Kane had said that if possible he would like the poem to be incorporated into his funeral service. Could that be done? Lewis had seen no reason why not.

In accordance with custom, the kitchen staff set out a light breakfast in the governor’s rooms for McNulty, the chaplain and Mr Pierrepoint and his assistant. McNulty
arrived punctually, and Lewis, who could never eat on such mornings, saw with faint nausea that the man piled his plate with eggs and toast. Their eyes met briefly and there was the sly glint of
the conspirator in the doctor’s expression; Lewis was glad that the chaplain and Pierrepoint came in almost at once. He managed to drink a cup of coffee and felt slightly better for its
warmth.

Then he said, ‘Gentlemen, because of the nature of this prisoner’s conviction, I have decided that Dr McNulty and I will prepare him for execution in the condemned cell.’ He
glanced at the chaplain. ‘Mr Pilbeam I should like you to be outside while we do so.’

‘Very well, Sir Lewis. I shall commence reading the order of service when you bring the prisoner out. Is that agreeable to you?’

‘Perfectly. You’ve got the verse of the Irish poem, haven’t you?’

‘I have.’

‘Good. Dr McNulty, are you all right?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘I thought you sounded as if you had a cold. Perhaps not, though. Mr Pierrepoint, may I have a word before you go?’

Pierrepoint had been at the door with the others, but he turned and came back. ‘Yes, Sir Lewis?’

Lewis said, ‘Can you trust McNulty and me to pinion O’Kane’s hands and ankles before he’s brought out?’

It was many years since a condemned man had had to make the slow, shambling walk to the scaffold with his wrists already pinioned, the leather strap binding his elbows against his body, and his
ankles loosely fettered, so Pierrepoint looked a bit surprised. Before he could speak, Lewis said, ‘I realize it’s not the custom any longer, but this is an awkward case and there have
been whispers of trouble.’

Would Pierrepoint assume this meant Lewis had received information that O’Kane’s Irish companions or his German masters might be planning a rescue attempt and that there had to be
extra security as a result? Yes, he seemed to have done. He still looked dubious but he was nodding his agreement.

‘Although we’ll need to check the straps and the pinions at the last moment, Sir Lewis.’

‘Yes, of course. That needn’t take more than a few seconds, though. In strict confidence, we have definite word of trouble brewing over this execution. We may need to seal off the
prison at least until after the funeral. You’re booked into the King’s Head, I think? Ah, good. Then I’m going to arrange for you and your assistant to be taken straight back
there after the execution. I don’t want you caught up in any violence – you could be a target. Dr McNulty or I can bring the death certificate down to you later today.’

‘It’s not according to regulations, Sir Lewis.’

‘The Home Office were quite clear on the point,’ said Lewis smoothly.

‘Good enough.’

At twenty past seven the under-sheriff of the county was admitted, and five minutes later, McNulty and the chaplain returned. Lewis felt his heart start to beat faster. This is it, he thought,
and picking up the leather straps the assistant had brought, he said, ‘Gentlemen, if you’re ready, shall we go?’ He was immeasurably relieved to hear that his voice held its usual
cool note of polite authority, but when the under-sheriff glanced questioningly at the straps he ignored him.

As they walked towards the condemned block Lewis heard the other prisoners banging their tin mugs against the doors or the barred windows of their cells. It was strong and rhythmic as if a giant
iron heart was beating at Calvary’s centre. They would keep it up until the clock had finished striking eight, and then, as if a command had been given, they would stop abruptly. Just as the
condemned man’s heart would stop.

Lewis glanced at McNulty. The doctor was silent and apparently composed, but his eyes darted this way and that like a watchful snake’s, as if they were the only part he could not keep
suppressed. The few mouthfuls of coffee Lewis had managed to drink stirred uneasily and he had to take several deep breaths to steady himself.

Millichip, solemn and hushed-faced, met them at the entrance to the condemned block, and touched his cap respectfully before turning to unlock the door. He would have been with O’Kane all
night; he was not precisely the man with whom Lewis would have wanted to share his own final night on earth but at least he was better than Saul Ketch. Keeping the leather straps out of sight
behind his back, Lewis stepped inside, leaving the chaplain and under-sheriff in the passageway.

O’Kane’s chair was facing the door and Lewis saw that there was still a trace of light in his eyes. But as he looked at Lewis and McNulty, he gave a small nod and the thread of light
was quenched. It almost always happened like that and it was one of the things Lewis hated so much; it was as if the condemned man had been valiantly clinging to the last shreds of hope but, with
the unlocking of the cell door, had finally accepted that hope must be relinquished.

McNulty must have arranged for the weighing machine to be brought here earlier on, which angered Lewis because it had not been part of the arrangement. But it was pointless to protest now, and
he stood aside as Millichip, obedient to Lewis’s brief order, went out.