The Death Chamber (53 page)

‘You knew her?’ said Jude.

‘I met her in 1958,’ said Mr Small. ‘I was in my early twenties – newly qualified. My father was unwell and looking to retire, so when Lewis Caradoc needed help, I was
the one assigned to him.’

‘Help?’ said Jude.

‘Legal help,’ said Mr Small, ‘with a prisoner who had been recently admitted to Holloway Prison.’

‘Elizabeth Molland.’

‘Yes.’

‘Neville Fremlin’s cat’s paw,’ said Jude thoughtfully. ‘The sorcerer’s apprentice.’

‘Oh no,’ said Mr Small at once. ‘Elizabeth never played apprentice to anybody, and certainly not to Neville Fremlin. It was the other way round. But it was not until more than
twenty years after Fremlin was hanged that the truth came out.’

August 1958

A great many years had passed since Lewis Caradoc had driven through that rain-swept night with Elizabeth in the car, but there were times when he could almost imagine it had
been last week.

This, of course, was one of the tricks that extreme age played. Time altered its dimensions; it made the events of the past seem more vivid than what you had just had for lunch. Even so, he was
fairly sure his mind was as sharp as it had ever been. He could still enjoy his books and his music, and he was interested in what went on in the world: sputniks and beatniks and atomic power, the
new dance from America they called rock and roll. Lewis had a suspicion that if it had been around in his youth he might have considered it rather attractive and exciting. When you were approaching
your ninth decade you no longer had the feelings you had in your youth, but he could still admire the brightly dressed modern girls with their flouncy skirts and the spiky heels that made their
ankles look so very trim. But it was the last bastion of age to dislike modern fashions and tastes, so he usually agreed with his contemporaries that the music was discordant and the hairstyles
outrageous.

There were not so many of his contemporaries left nowadays, of course, but there were enough. He was still invited to people’s houses for lunches and sometimes for whole weekends. The
weekends were becoming a bit tiring, although he always accepted the invitations and dressed as sprucely as ever for them. Over the last few years he had taken to wearing a small goatee beard; a
number of people said it made him look rather donnish. Scholarly. Clara would have liked that. A pity she had not lived to see it. And Caspar would have been proud of his distinguished father.

If Caspar had lived, he would have been married with children – by now the children would probably have children of their own. I’d be a great-grandfather, thought Lewis rather wryly.
It was sixty years since his son died in the mud and terror of the war to end all wars. It was twenty years since he had snatched his daughter away from Calvary, and got her onto the ferry from
Holyhead to Ireland. It seemed wrong that Elizabeth, whom he had only known for those few hours, should be more vivid to him than Caspar was. Was that because he and Elizabeth had shared those
frantic few hours as they made that desperate drive through the night, with Lewis watching for roadblocks and constantly looking in the driving mirror for signs of pursuit?

When first he put her in the car, she had seemed unaware of what was happening. Lewis had expected this; he had known Walter would give her something for the pain he believed her to be
suffering. They had driven for almost an hour before she roused, enough to take note of her surroundings and of Lewis himself.

‘You’re my rescuer,’ she said. ‘Thank you for getting me away from that place.’

It had stopped raining by then, and a watery moonlight shone into the car. It showed up the pure delicacy of her face – beautiful bones, thought Lewis – and he saw her eyes were
filled with tears.

‘We’re not out the woods yet, I’m afraid,’ he said gently.

‘Aren’t we? But the further we get, the safer we’ll be, won’t we? Where are you taking me?’

‘To Holyhead to the ferry for Dún Laoghaire. You should be in Dublin this time tomorrow.’

‘Safe?’

‘I think so.’

‘Shall I live there? I haven’t any money.’

‘I know that. I’ve brought money for you. It’s in an envelope in the glove compartment.’

‘How much money?’

The question struck an odd note, but Lewis said, ‘Enough, I promise you. You’ll probably have to buy Irish punts with it – you could do that in a bank. Can you manage that by
yourself?’ He had no idea how much she understood about currency and finance and travelling.

‘Yes, of course I can manage that,’ she said. ‘I like the idea of Ireland. Neville lived in Ireland for a time – he told me that. He made it sound so beautiful.
You’re giving me the chance to make a completely new life, aren’t you, Lewis? You’re being very kind to me. Why is that? Why are you risking so much for me, Lewis?’

Lewis . . . It was the first time she had used his name, and incredibly Lewis heard the caress in her voice – a caress that was so nearly sexual in quality that in other circumstances he
would probably have felt a tug of physical desire. She did not know who he really was, of course – she had absolutely no idea he was her real father – so perhaps it was understandable
she should use a little feminine charm on him. Innocent, he thought. She’s so very innocent.

‘Oh, old-fashioned gallantry,’ he said, as lightly as he could. ‘You’re too young to die, and I think you were under Neville Fremlin’s spell.’

‘Mr Higneth thought that as well, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘He was just as kind to me. He gave me the stuff you told me about – to make me sick.’ She thought for
a moment. ‘That doctor – Dr Kane. Did he know all about this?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘He didn’t know anything,’ said Lewis.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ she said, consideringly. ‘He’s very clever. Although he wasn’t clever enough to know I was a virgin.’

The words struck a discordant note in the car. Lewis looked at her, but she was watching the road. ‘Dr Kane got it all wrong about me,’ she said. ‘He was so surprised when he
found out I hadn’t been to bed with Neville Fremlin.’

‘Hadn’t you?’ This was one of the most bizarre conversations Lewis had ever had. He concentrated on the dark ribbon of road unwinding in front of them.

‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever want to go to bed with anyone.’

‘You’ll think differently in a year or two,’ said Lewis after a moment.

‘Will I? I suppose I’d like a baby of my own some day.’ Again she sent him the sidelong glance. ‘You’re thinking this is a strange conversation for us to be having,
aren’t you? I suppose it’s because we’re together like this. Danger brings people closer together, doesn’t it?’

‘Sometimes.’ Had it brought her close to the man she had known as Neville Fremlin?

‘It’s so odd,’ she said, ‘but I feel that I can tell you all these things. About me. About Neville.’

Lewis thought: but I don’t want to hear them. I don’t want your confidences, Elizabeth – not when they concern Fremlin.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that Neville saw me as a – a goddess. That’s what he said, anyway. So I don’t think he ever even wanted to be in bed with me – you
don’t go to bed with goddesses, do you? He said I was the most perfect thing he had seen – like a china figure. And he used to read poetry to me, can you imagine that?’

‘It’s sometimes considered very romantic,’ said Lewis. ‘What kind of poetry?’

‘Dull stuff. Something about not dying for flag nor king, but for a dream. Something about a dream that had been born in a cowshed or something and because of it Ireland had got to be
free.’

So Nicholas had still had that dream, thought Lewis. He never lost sight of that, not even at the end of his life.

‘My papa would have said it was a lot of sloppy sentimentality,’ said Elizabeth.

My papa. Lewis said carefully, ‘Didn’t he – your father – like poetry?’

‘Oh no, he was always too busy making money and being on councils and things. I used to tease him about it.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Is that the road to
Holyhead?’

‘Yes.’ Lewis swung the car left, and thanked whatever powers might be appropriate that so far they had been unchallenged. ‘We’re not far away now,’ he said.
‘The ferry leaves at six – I’ll see you safely onto it, of course. We can have some breakfast somewhere beforehand, if you like.’

‘Oh, yes, please. Do I let you know how I get on in Ireland?’ she said. ‘Do you want me to do that? To write to you or something?’ And then, before Lewis could even start
to sort out his emotions, she said, ‘No, it would be better not. If I got into your life I’d be a great risk, wouldn’t I?’

‘Yes. But if you’re ever in trouble,’ said Lewis slowly, ‘you must write to me at once.’

‘Can I? That makes me feel very safe,’ she said. ‘Don’t give me your address though. If I ever need you, I’ll find you.’

Lewis slowed the car down, and turned to look at her properly. ‘Do you think you ever will need me, Elizabeth?’

‘I might,’ she said, returning his steady regard. ‘Yes, I might need you one day, Lewis.’

I might need you one day, Lewis.

But it had been nearly twenty years before she did need him.

The letter that startled him out of his uneventful days arrived on a summer morning, just after breakfast. The posts were inclined to be a bit relaxed in this small Cotswold
village, because there were so many retired people living here, and the postal services either thought retired people did not need the immediacy of letters at the crack of dawn or that they could
not cope with them until after breakfast. Lewis was drinking a second cup of coffee and filling in
The Times
crossword – it was one of his small vanities that he could still complete
it inside his own time limit – when the letters dropped onto the mat; he went along to pick them up at once.

And there it was. Unfamiliar handwriting, but unmistakably feminine. It could have been from anyone of a dozen people. Lewis opened it ahead of the others, curious to find out. It was dated
three days earlier and the address was Holloway Gaol for Women.

There were tasks in life that could not be shirked. Lewis finished his coffee, tucked the letter in his pocket, and went in search of a train timetable.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

May 1958

Saul Ketch had thought for some months that it was high time he retired. He was no longer a young man – he had not been a young man for many years – and when he
looked back over his life, he resented having served the doctor for almost all that time.

He had done some bloody risky things for Dr McNulty, and what had he finally got for it all? Bloody servant’s work, that was what he had got! Sodding kitchen work in the doctor’s
posh retirement house – the house he, Ketch, had helped buy. They both knew, didn’t they, that without Ketch’s little snippets of information – a juicy titbit here, a
tag-end of spicy gossip there – Doctor bleeding McNulty would not have had the money he had now. He said it was all in order to further his work, as if chasing spooks was work! Ketch did not
believe a word of it.

And then there was the travelling! Ketch would never have thought he would have to make so many journeys! Following this one, spying on that one. He had, in fact, rather enjoyed the spying
– one or two ladies, there’d been, and Ketch was never averse to peering through a window if a tart was undressing or getting tupped by somebody else’s husband. Although
wasn’t it just like old mean-guts, to insist Ketch travelled third class on those jaunts, doling out money as sparingly as if he minted it himself.

You might have thought the doctor, being a man of advancing years (he must be seventy at the very least, dried-out old herring gut), would be slowing down by now, but not a bit of it. No sooner
had he handed over the running of that unnatural Society of his, than they were off on a whole new series of ideas. Ketch was, on balance, inclined to be relieved they had done with the Caradoc
Society. To his mind souls and suchlike were best left alone. He’d had an aunt, potty old gowk, she’d been, Ketch had never been able to make head nor tail of half she said. She
reckoned to see things other folks did not, and she told how spirits used to come and knock on her door of nights. Ketch’s family laughed raucously at this every time they heard it, and said
the only things to knock on Aunt Nan’s door were the bailiffs.