Tower of Silence (7 page)

Joanna Savile was neither frumpy nor elaborate, of course. Her hair was great, but although she was quite nice-looking you would probably not have crossed the road to look at her a second time. Her clothes were great, as well. She wore jackets like velvet patchwork quilts and she had a Chinese-red silk skirt you would die to own. Emily wondered whether, if she saved up her Teind House and Inchcape School wages for about six months, she would be able to afford a skirt like that. It made the idea she had had about having a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder seem a bit tacky.

Joanna–she had told Emily to call her that, because she said breakfast-time was not a time for being formal–was going to Moy to get some background for a new book. She was meeting Patrick Irvine: she asked if Emily knew him, and Emily said, carefully, that she did. She thought it would be better not to say that most of the female staff at Moy fancied Dr Irvine rotten. If he had not been so old Emily might have fancied him herself, but he was at least forty so it was out of the question.

‘Is he good-looking?’ asked Joanna. ‘I could do with seeing a good-looking man at the moment; my husband’s working abroad.’ She grinned when she said this,
and quite suddenly she was not merely vaguely nice-looking, she was absolutely beautiful. Emily stared at her.

‘He’s in Spain,’ Joanna went on, eating toast and honey with industrious pleasure. She could probably scoff food all day and never put on an ounce. ‘He’s in the northern part, near the Pyrenees. The people he works for are mounting a display of western versus eastern religion, which means northern Spain and then across to the Czech Republic and as far east as possible. I don’t think they’ve got much further than chasing Inquisition thumbscrews in Spain yet, but Krzystof’s probably having a wonderful time, the rat. Have you ever been to that part of Spain, Emily?’

But Emily had only been to a couple of eastern Spanish resorts on package holidays and they had not been all that different from Blackpool except the weather was better and the food unfamiliar. And although the Spanish boys she had met talked a lot about making beautiful love all night, the one she had finally gone to bed with had suffered from premature ejaculation, which had been embarrassing for both Emily and the boy. But clearly she could not say any of this to Joanna Savile, so she said, ‘Um, no, I haven’t,’ and asked should she bring fresh toast or more coffee.

She wondered what sort of man somebody like Joanna would have married. People married the most surprising partners. Emily hoped Joanna’s husband matched her. The name Krzystof sounded Romanian or Russian, or something equally dark and romantic and passionate.
Emily hoped Krzystof was drop-dead gorgeous and nice into the bargain.

Patrick Irvine was not really surprised when the governor asked him to talk to Joanna Savile.

‘You deal with her, will you, Patrick?’ the governor had said. ‘It’s more your territory than mine, this business of creative writing workshops.’ He added that in any case Patrick had more experience at handling women, and took himself off to a finance meeting to consider orderly reports and quarterly budget reviews, which were the things he understood best.

Patrick, in fact, was perfectly agreeable to setting up some kind of gathering so that Ms Savile could study a few of the more intelligent of Moy’s inmates. It often worked both ways, that kind of arrangement: the inmates liked to see a new face, especially a nice-looking one, Moy got an outside speaker without having to trawl the lists, and on this occasion their image might be boosted by having an acknowledgement in whatever work was in the melting pot. Joanna Savile was not a bestseller, but she wrote good mystery books that you saw in libraries and bookshops, usually with the sub-heading ‘A Jack Tallent Mystery’. Patrick was always curious to see the effect that visitors had on the patients, and he would be intrigued to see how they coped with a writer of popular thrillers.

His first impression of Joanna Savile was very similar to Emily’s: nice-looking, but not outstanding. She explained about wanting to study a handful of Moy’s more seriously disturbed inmates, and said it did not matter which ones;
she simply wanted an all-round view of life inside a mental institution if that was possible.

‘I’d make sure there was a proper acknowledgement to Moy in the preface when the book comes out, of course,’ she said, seated in Patrick’s office, her face alight with enthusiasm. ‘And one to you as well, Dr Irvine, if medical etiquette doesn’t ban it–I’m never sure about things like that.’

She smiled, and Patrick instantly revised his first opinion. It was the smile that did it. It was extraordinary. In the space of a single heartbeat, Joanna Savile switched from being an unremarkable young woman to a confiding and rather sexy gamine. Patrick said, ‘If it turns out that I’ve been of any help, I’d be rather honoured to be acknowledged, Ms Savile.’

‘Joanna.’

‘Joanna. Good. I’m Patrick.’

‘Irish?’ she said, putting her head on one side as if assessing him.

‘On my mother’s side.’

‘I thought you might be. It’s the eyes. And there’s a trace of accent as well.’

‘My father was Scottish, though. Hence the Irvine part. Not the easiest of mixes, Scots and Irish.’

‘My husband’s half Hungarian. But mostly the English half has the upper hand.’ The smile showed again, briefly. ‘But the Hungarian’s there just often enough to keep people on their toes. You’re not very happy about one-to-one interviews with inmates, are you?’

‘I’m not.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t be. Well then, how about this for a deal? I could give a talk to your more literate people–any of them you think might be interested in creative writing. I could even set up a couple of workshops for them, if that would be allowed–say three or four sessions, giving them some writing projects. I don’t mean “What I did in the hols”, or “My pet parrot”, but things they might find interesting, or even helpful. I’d discuss it with you first, of course, in case I was trespassing on any therapy.’

‘Most forms of writing are therapy anyway,’ said Patrick.

‘That’s true.’ Her eyes flickered as if something–some unpleasant memory perhaps?–had stirred. But she only said, ‘You see, simply by meeting some of the inmates and talking to them I’d get a fair idea of their lives in here and the routines of their days.’ Before he could break in, she went on, ‘I do know I could get that from your warders, but it’s the prisoners’ point of view I want. Working it this way would give me that, and it would also give you an outside speaker. I’m not the world’s greatest lecturer, but I’ve talked to quite a number of writers’ groups and adult learning set-ups over the years, and I’m not bad.’

‘It sounds a reasonable
quid pro quo
,’ said Patrick. He studied her. ‘Tell me how you’d approach it when the audience was a clutch of mentally disturbed murderers and rapists.’

He had used these words deliberately to see if she could be thrown off balance. But she was not. She leaned forward, her thin hands moving expressively, and
said, ‘I don’t know that I’d approach it very differently. Presumably they aren’t murdering or raping twenty-four hours a day. And what I’ve done with potentially awkward groups before is to start them off with music. Play a few pieces to them, and then see what word-pictures they conjure up.’ Again the grin. ‘I expect that’s first-year psychiatry-course stuff, isn’t it?’

‘We do use music in therapy, sometimes,’ said Patrick.

‘Are you being tactful?’

‘Not really. I’m interested. Go on.’

Joanna paused, frowning slightly as if assembling her thoughts. She said, ‘Do they watch much television, your patients?’

‘Yes. Too much, most of them.’

‘I’ve got a tape of some of the great classic pieces used in TV commercials. The Bach
Air in G
for Hamlet cigars, of course, and Delibes’
Flower Duet
for British Airways. Dvorak’s
New World Symphony
—’

‘Hovis bread?’

‘Yes.
Yes
. Well, all right, I know it’s probably a bit obvious, but it works quite well. To start with–mostly to break the ice–I’d make a little quiz for them. Playing the pieces and seeing if they could match the TV advert to them. It needn’t be very competitive–just a fun thing. After that we’d discuss why which music was chosen for which product: what emotions did the ad-makers hope to inspire? And from there, with luck, it’d be a fairly easy step to playing other pieces–deeper stuff–and asking them to write down their reactions. Some of them might want to drop out at that point, but there might be enough
who’d want to go on to a second or even a third session, perhaps with a bit more advanced stuff. Then I could set them exercises to write on specific subjects, or ask for suggestions for short stories, and have group criticism.’ She regarded him. ‘What do you think? Any good?’

‘Yes, certainly.’ Patrick thought about it for a moment, and then said, ‘I’d have to choose the participants carefully. Off the top of my head I can think of about six or eight who would be genuinely interested, and whom you’d probably find very worthwhile.’ He glanced up at her. ‘The thing is that with any kind of outside speaker we always have the problem of time-wasters. Life in here gets monotonous for most of them, and there’s an element that will sign up for anything going, regardless of whether they’re interested in it.’ He did not say that there was an element that might get a sexual kick out of sitting in Moy’s small lecture room with a female talking to them.

‘I wouldn’t necessarily mind opportunists being in the group,’ said Joanna.

‘No, but I would. It might lead to a difficult situation,’ said Patrick. ‘They might start barracking–they aren’t here purely because they’re mentally sick, these people; they’re also here because they’ve committed serious crimes. Moy isn’t a place for charming rogues or Ealing-film bank robbers. You’d be in amongst the murderers and the child-molesters. It’d be important that you didn’t forget that, not for a minute.’

‘I do know that,’ said Joanna, after a moment. ‘You’ve just had Mary Maskelyne transferred here, haven’t you?’

There was an odd little silence. Patrick, no slouch when it came to gauging another’s emotion, thought: you’ve been waiting to plant that, my girl. Now why, I wonder? Is it Maskelyne you’re really after? Is all this stuff about background just a blind? But he said, equably, ‘Yes, Maskelyne is one of my people. I’m still assessing her, but I think she might be included in your group. She’s an intelligent girl.’

‘“Girl”? She must be well over forty by now.’

‘She’s forty-five, in fact. According to her file, she’s kept a diary at various times. That indicates a fair degree of literacy. Yes, I think we could include her.’ He made a note, and added a few other names.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Joanna. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time: I expect you’re fiendishly busy. But–would you phone me at Teind House with a possible day? Here’s the number. Teind House, care of Miss March. I’m in Inchcape for at least two weeks and I could fit in with any day you wanted.’

‘I’ll sound out the wing governors,’ said Patrick. ‘But let’s provisionally say Thursday afternoon, shall we? At two o’clock? That would mean their lunch would be over and the half-hour recreation would just have finished.’ He considered briefly the idea of inviting her to lunch beforehand. No, she would probably be too taken up with the preparations.

‘Thursday at two would be fine,’ said Joanna, standing up and holding out her hand. As Patrick Irvine took it, he thought it was rather a pity about the Hungarian husband.

Mary did not especially want to attend some crappy talk by some even crappier female writer, but Dr Irvine had sounded as if he would like her to go, and for the moment it was probably a good idea to play along with him. They had had several discussions now: it was actually quite stimulating to find ways to dodge Dr Irvine’s calculatedly worded questions. Mary could see through most of them, of course, because she knew by this time how these doctors worked. They tried to set snares for you, and sometimes they placed depth-charges deep inside your mind, so that you would find yourself reacting or responding when you least expected it. Mary was not going to fall into any stupid doctor’s traps.

At best, being at the talk might give her a chance to spy out Moy’s possibilities. So far, these had been non-existent. Moy was famous for its extremely high
security: the word had even passed into the language. ‘As safe as Moy,’ people said, in the same way that they said, ‘As impenetrable as Fort Knox.’ But that meant that it was going to be extremely difficult to find a chink in Moy’s armour and burrow beneath it, and turn things to her advantage.

The years inside the different prisons had melted into one another, and time had sometimes blurred a bit. Mary often felt there were huge gaps in her life–black pits of incredible tedium in which she had become trapped and during which absolutely nothing of any interest had happened. The thing to do was to recognise these pits for what they were, and to climb out of them by making something happen. There were any number of ways that could be done–she had tried several–but the result was almost always the same. Public interest in the original double murder was revived, and articles were written by people who thought they understood what had motivated it, sometimes comparing Mary with Myra Hindley or Rosemary West. And practically overnight Mary became a Somebody all over again. A person to be treated with respect. Warders and fellow inmates who had more or less forgotten what she had done looked at her through different eyes, often with awed curiosity. Mary could feel their thoughts clearly. Did she really do those things? they were wondering. She looks quite normal now, but how must she have looked when she committed those murders? She always made a point of looking her best at these times because of everyone’s interest.

And always, after these articles appeared, people began
writing to Mary all over again. New generations of angry teenagers grew up, and wrote to Mary saying they absolutely identified with what she had done all those years ago: they hated their parents who did not understand them, and they wished they had Mary’s courage. Some said they were going to leave home because their parents would not let them go clubbing all night, but some wrote how they had been abused–how fathers or uncles had been secretly screwing them since they were eleven–and how they were one day going to kill them, just as Mary had killed her father. These teenagers–who were not all girls–did not always just use the word ‘screwed’.

Mary would have liked to reply to these letters, especially to the girls, urging them to go ahead, not to be afraid, telling them that their evil selfish fathers and uncles deserved to die writhing in agony. But the first time she tried it, the letters were intercepted, and she was told curtly that they were regarded as incitement to murder and could not be sent. Years later, at Broadacre, when she met Ingrid, she found out that if it had not been for those letters she might have been allowed a phone card so that she could make calls from one of the hooded phone boxes that smelt of stale sweat and halitosis. Mary said, ‘But who would I ring up? I don’t know anybody,’ and Ingrid had laughed and said, You know me. Mary had regarded her, and thought: yes, I do, because you’re easy to know. But you’ll never really know me, not if I can help it…

Some of the letters asked how Mary had managed for so many years without having sex. Mary thought
they were probably try-ons to see if she would start up a titillating correspondence with boys of fifteen and sixteen, who wanted to be turned on by reading about masturbation or lesbianism. She did not bother to reply to these, even though it was a joke for people to think she had to manage without sex. She had not had to manage without sex at all; she had had all the sex she had wanted, and she could probably have had more if she could have been bothered.

The prospect of the talk by this Joanna Savile started Mary wondering about writing a book: the story of her life it would be, telling about the years in the Young Offenders’ Hostel, and then, later, in Broadacre. (And Ingrid? said her mind. Would you tell what really happened between you and Ingrid in Broadacre? How Ingrid seduced you…? How you let Ingrid do all those things to you…?) She might not tell everything about Ingrid, but she would tell how her parents’ murder had been the fault of the child in Alwar who had escaped instead of Christabel.

Dr Irvine would be pleased if Mary said she wanted to write a book. She would not tell them it was to be a sensational book, an exposé, in case they forbade her to write it; she would say it was a confession–what Roman Catholics called an absolving. Yes, she would use that very word; it was a good one. Dr Irvine would think she was repenting or finding Jesus or something, and she might even be allowed to use a computer–Moy had quite good education facilities. There was a computer room here where you could learn about word-processing.

Broadacre and the Young Offenders’ Hostel had had neither word-processing classes nor a computer room. Mary had had to attend lessons at the Young Offenders place, because she was still not quite fifteen, and they said that schooling was important. So there had been English and history and maths; later there had been current affairs and social economics. Most of it had been useless, and nearly all of it had been boring, except occasionally the English lessons. But she had learned how to compose letters and talk politely on the telephone, and how to operate a typewriter and prepare a CV. All these things would be necessary when she went back into the world.

And then in the end the bastards had not let her go; when she was eighteen she had been reassessed and even though she had been confidently expecting to be released, she was not. She was talked to by a great many doctors, and in the end they told her that they were transferring her to Broadacre. They pretended to be sad about it, but Mary had known they were not sad at all, only triumphant because their stupid tests and their childish traps had caught her. The matron at the YOH had folded her lips like a drawstring purse and looked pleased at the decision.

That was when Mary had screamed at them: not just a single angry scream, but long, furious screechings that went on and on, bouncing off the walls of her room, letting all of the pent-up agony and bitterness stream out, because it was not fair, it was
not fair
that they should do this to her, not when she had allowed them to shut her away for all these years, not when killing her parents had
been the logical culmination of years and years of neglect and disinterest.

After a while one of the doctors had come, and there had been the jabbing needle of a hypodermic, and she had sunk, spinning and helpless, into a stupor that might have lasted for an hour or for days, she had never known which.

When she came out of the stupor she felt sick and blurry, and for a while her mind felt as if it was wrapped in cotton wool, so that when she tried to think–really, properly think–the thoughts all went skittering away from her. Her sight did not seem to be working in step with her mind, either; it was as if she was seeing things a second after they happened. That had been when she had known that there was a conspiracy to keep her locked away, and that she would have to be very clever and very cunning, and never trust anybody.

Once or twice she had tried screaming again, banging her fists against the harsh rough stone of the infirmary walls with frustration, because it was not to be borne that she should be shut away like this–‘At Her Majesty’s pleasure’, as if Her Majesty bloody gave a farthing fuck what happened to Mary! But as soon as she started screaming, they came running with the needles or the pills. You could spit out pills, but you could not spit out the hypodermic.

Leila had screamed in the dank wash-house all those years ago. She had screamed until her throat was bleeding and raw, and Mary had finally had to stop up her mouth to prevent people from finding her. Anyone would have
agreed that this had been the action of a sensible, logical person.

Leila had taken several hours to come round from the large dose of sleeping stuff Mary had tipped into her tea–Mary could still remember how her wristwatch had ticked those hours away–and during those hours William’s body had begun to grow stiff and doll-like.
Rigor mortis
. It had been rather strange to find out that the school biology lessons and the whodunnit novels had been right about
rigor mortis
. Mary had watched the process for herself, sitting on a blanket in the corner of the wash-house, a torch at her hand to switch on if she needed it, and a sharply-honed bread knife to hand as well, in case Leila did manage to break free.

As dawn started to lighten the skies, Mary saw that her father’s face was taking on a mask-look, and setting down the knife she approached him and cautiously put out a hand to touch his skin. It felt exactly like a lump of dead meat. Revolting. But
rigor
was unmistakably happening. It was five hours after he had died, and the smaller muscles in his face and jaw were perceptibly stiffening.

The process was more advanced by the time Mary’s mother started to wake from the drugged slumber: it was beginning to lock most of William’s body into hard rigidity. But just as Mary had hoped, the first thing Leila saw when she opened her eyes was her husband’s dead face, inches from her own. That had been when Mary had known that everything was all going to happen as she had planned it. She could still remember how she had felt at that moment, how she had sat forward eagerly, her
hands tightly clasped, not wanting to miss a second of anything.

Leila had gasped in horror and had instinctively tried to pull back, only to come up against the thin strong rope that held her in place and the unyielding embrace of William’s arms. Mary saw her blink and shake her head as if denying what she was seeing or trying to shake off an unpleasant dream, and then look blurrily about her, bewildered and confused. And then realisation slowly dawned in her face, and with it had come panic and revulsion, and that had been the best moment of all. Mary had laughed once again to see those emotions on her mother’s face, although she had instantly put her hand over her mouth to push the laughter back down. But it had been a moment to store away and remember, and she could still recall it even now, even after so many years.

When Leila Maskelyne had realised that she was tightly bound to the body of her dead husband she had called out for help, managing to twist her head round until she saw Mary, seated quietly in the corner.

‘Please–help me…’

‘No,’ said Mary, very quietly. ‘There’s no help to be had.’

‘But–he’s dead. William–your father—He’s
dead
.’

‘Yes, he is,’ said Mary, and in case Leila should be in any doubt, she said, ‘He’s been dead for several hours. I killed him last night. There’s a hole through the base of his skull into his brains.’

‘But I don’t understand—Mary what are you doing?’

‘Killing both of you,’ said Mary, and despite her control
another of the little laughs bubbled out. She waited for it to die away, and then said, ‘I’m killing you for all the years you ignored me and didn’t love me. And for all the years you fucked together to get my sister back.’ She pushed her face closer to Leila’s. ‘I used to hear you,’ she said. ‘All those nights–I heard everything you did. You put Christabel above me all those years, and you tried to get her reborn. And all the time you had me, and I could have been just as good as she was.’

‘This is mad,’ said Leila helplessly, and this time the laugh that broke out from Mary’s mouth had been not so much a laugh as a scream of anger.

‘Don’t say I’m mad! I’m not mad! You’re the mad ones! You’re the stupid mad things who have to die!’ She had paused then, surprised to find that she was breathing hard, as if she had been running very fast.

‘Mary, untie me. We’ll go into the house and talk about this—My dear, of course your father and I loved you—Of course we didn’t put Christabel above you—’

‘Oh, yes you did,’ said Mary. ‘And you aren’t going to be untied until you’re dead as well. You’re going to die, you selfish bitch, and you’re going to die here, with
him
. Tied to him. It’s good, isn’t it? It’ll be like the widows in India who threw themselves onto their husbands’ funeral pyres. You’d know about that, wouldn’t you? Because you never really left India, did you? I don’t know how long it’s going to take for you to die–it might be three or four days. But you will die, and I’m going to watch it happen.’ The laughing came up by itself again, like
vomiting, and Mary saw a look of the utmost horror in her mother’s eyes.

That had been when Leila began to scream, throwing her head back, the muscles of her neck standing out like cords with the screaming. The sounds bounced off the stone walls and repeated themselves over and over, spinning around Mary’s head, piercing and shrill. Dreadful. Not to be borne. Mary got up and stood over Leila, holding up the knife. ‘If you don’t shut up I’ll have to make you,’ she said. ‘I’ll cut your tongue out if you scream again. I’ll really do it.’

‘I won’t scream,’ said Leila at once, subsiding to a frightened whisper. Her face was smeary with tears and sweat and her eyes were huge with terror. ‘I promise I won’t scream again, Mary.’

But the bitch did scream again. She was cunning, that sly-faced Leila. She waited until Mary went into the house to get herself something to eat and use the bathroom, and until the outside world might be judged to be awake and about its lawful occasions. Postmen and newspaper boys, and people walking their dogs or taking their children to school. She screamed at the top of her lungs, and when Mary dropped the sandwich she had made herself and ran at top speed back to the wash-house she was still screaming, her head flung back, her lips flecked with blood and spittle. Her eyes were bolting from her head. She looked ridiculous and ugly, but someone might hear her, so she would have to be silenced, which was a nuisance.