The Death Chamber (18 page)

At half past three he went home to change for the appointment with the accountant. He decided to be classy with a touch of flamboyance in a dark overcoat with an astrakhan collar. The coat was
pleasingly similar to those favoured by the more ornate actors of the Edwardian era, and Vincent was considering buying a very wide-brimmed homburg to wear with it. He thought this would cut quite
a dash, although he was having a little difficulty in finding such a hat because the local gentlemen’s outfitters did not deal much in flamboyance or dash.

He got out his car to drive the short distance to the accountant’s office. He did not actually drive very much and it was not really necessary for him to have a car at all – his
house was just off Thornbeck’s main street in a little cul-de-sac. It took him exactly five minutes to walk to Caradoc House, and he bought all his groceries and provisions in Thornbeck and
rarely went any further afield. But he had a car because Mother had thought it important. In her day it had been a mark of success and wealth. ‘I never learned to drive,’ she used to
say. ‘Girls didn’t when I was young. They expected to be driven. And I should not understand the mechanics. But a car will show people that we are comfortably placed, and now you are
seventeen we will see about driving lessons for you, Vincent, and ask about buying a little car – although
not
a Mini car, I don’t think. Undignified and unladylike. They will
turn out to be nothing more than a fad, mark my words. But a car will be very useful. You could take me for little drives on the days when I am up to it.’ She had, in fact, quite often been
up to it, and Vincent had become a very competent driver.

He was competent at the meeting with the accountant as well, although the accountant was a glum sort of person, who spread balance sheets all over the desk and said they did not make very happy
reading, did they? Quite a bit of mismanagement had gone on, he fancied. This was said rather severely and anyone else might almost have thought the accountant was chastising Vincent himself.
Vincent knew he was not, however, and so he settled himself cosily in the chair, put on the spectacles he always fancied made him look rather donnish, and frowned over the figures for several
minutes, finally agreeing that, Oh my word yes, they were very depressing indeed, weren’t they?

Georgina had deliberately not told Vincent Meade she was going out to Calvary that afternoon in case he offered to accompany her. It would be a perfectly natural thing for him
to do and it would be difficult to refuse, but Georgina did not want anyone with her the first time she saw the place where Walter had worked.

But Vincent had said he had a dull afternoon ahead of him with accountants, so at half past twelve Georgina made herself a sandwich and a cup of coffee, read a bit more of Dr Ingram’s
Talismans of the Mind
while she ate, and by half past one was driving out of Thornbeck. As she went past the King’s Head she remembered with pleasure the lunch she had arranged for
Friday with Drusilla and Phin. She would enjoy that, and it would be interesting to hear about the proposed TV programme on Calvary.

Calvary . . .

She turned into the lane she had seen on her way into Thornbeck. It was narrow and winding, and although vehicle-passing places had been cut into the bank at intervals if another car came
hurtling around one of the blind bends there could still be a head-on collision. Georgina slowed to a snail’s pace and hoped for the best. Walter must often have come along here, either going
to Calvary or leaving it. Had the possibility of a prang worried him or had there not been very much traffic then? Or had he not driven a car anyway?

‘After all we went through together I should be devastated to lose you,’ Lewis Caradoc had written in 1940, and the words had burrowed into Georgina’s mind. Had something
really big – really life-changing – happened, or was it just that the two had shared the stresses of having worked at Calvary?

She had expected to see the prison from the lane because she had assumed it would be set on high ground – Calvary, the place of execution on the hill – but the lane’s left-hand
bank was high, and even at this time of year the hedges were so thick it was impossible to see over them. It was only when she rounded a curve that the bank fell away and without warning she could
see it across the fields.

She slowed down and then stopped altogether, staring across the countryside. Calvary did indeed stand on a hill – a small hill as hills went in this part of the world, but a hill for all
that.

The building was four-square and constructed from what Georgina supposed was local stone – grey and bleak-looking. It was a bit smaller than she had expected but it was unpleasantly easy
to visualize a jolting cart going up the steep track, pausing in front of the massive central doors while they were unlocked, and then going inside. Had the prisoners in those carts been
handcuffed? Manacled?

After a moment she drove on. Was it possible to get up to the place from here? Yes, there was a narrow track, not much more than a footpath, but wide enough to take a car. She would not, of
course, be able to get inside, even if she had wanted to, but she would like to take a closer look.

The car struggled up the hillside in second gear, its erratic suspension complaining loudly at the uneven terrain. Halfway up, the fold of the land caused the prison to vanish behind some trees
and suddenly reappear, much nearer. Georgina was annoyed to feel a lurch of nervousness at this.

The track stopped abruptly in front of the impressive entrance and she switched off the engine and got out. It was very cold and very quiet. The doors reared up above her. How must it have felt
to see them swing open, and then to hear them close as you were taken through in a windowless van or a cart? What would lie beyond? There was a small door inset on one side which must have been for
gaolers and visitors, and there was the remnant of a thick old bell-pull near to it. Georgina had to resist a sudden desire to pull it to see what happened.

She walked cautiously around the side of the building. There was a paved path of sorts, but most of the slabs had cracked and weeds and rank grass made it necessary to walk close to the walls.
Even so, Georgina almost missed the door halfway round. It was deeply set into the stonework, almost entirely hidden by moss and some kind of grubby creeper, and for a moment it looked so utterly
unreal – so like something out of a child’s storybook – that she was not immediately sure if it was just a pattern of cracks in the stones. But cracks did not form themselves into
a hefty-looking latch, nor did they have hinges. She put out a tentative hand, causing the mat of leaves to rustle drily and rather eerily. Like the fingernails of murderers scratching against a
prison-cell door, trying to get out . . .

If David were here he would laugh at that and say, Too much imagination, George, and suggest they walk briskly back to civilization. Georgina was glad David was not here because she did not want
to walk briskly back to anywhere; she wanted to see if this door would open, and she wanted to find out as much as she could about this place that had been such a part of her enigmatic
great-grandfather’s life.

She glanced about her, but nothing stirred anywhere and her car was comfortingly within sprinting distance. If she saw anything she did not like she could be back at the car in a couple of
minutes.

The door resisted slightly, but more of the ivy mat fell away and with a groan of disused hinges it yielded. Georgina hesitated, then went inside.

The door opened onto a courtyard which was enclosed on three sides by Calvary’s bulk, and on the fourth by the outer wall through which Georgina had just come. It was dark and was not a
place where sunlight ever penetrated. The stone flags were cracked and weeds pushed up everywhere, but at one time it must have been some kind of garden because there were patches of dried-out
soil. Georgina stared about her, aware of a feeling of infinite loneliness.

Quite suddenly she understood where she was. She was in Calvary’s burial yard. The patches of dried-out soil were not the remains of a garden: they were burial plots. The graves of
murderers who had been hanged here. She took a tentative step nearer. Yes, there were tiny squares of stone marking each of the oblong plots, each printed with a name and date. The letters were
faded, but they were still just about readable. She was standing by one that said, ‘
NICHOLAS O
’
KANE
.
NOVEMBER
1917’. What had Nicholas O’Kane done to be hanged in a year when most men were away fighting a war?

She moved along the row, reading the names as she went. None of them meant anything to her until she came to the one nearest the door. It was exactly the same as the others, and bore the legend,
‘
NEVILLE FREMLIN
.
OCTOBER
1938’.

Neville Fremlin. Calvary’s isolation seemed to close down on Georgina and she glanced uneasily over her shoulder, because if ever a place was likely to be haunted . . . What would she do
if Fremlin’s ghost suddenly entered the walled courtyard, smiling the legendary charismatic smile and inviting her to step into the private rooms behind his chemist’s shop. Waste of
time, Neville; I haven’t got nearly enough money to interest you, in fact I haven’t got any money at all.

She went quickly out through the creaking door, closing it on the sad eerie courtyard, and half ran around the sides of Calvary Gaol to her car.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Extract from
Talismans of the Mind
by C. R. Ingram.

It can probably be argued that the downfall of Violette and Bartlam Partridge was inevitable. A cynic might have said that if Violette had even a small part of the psychic
powers she claimed, she ought to have seen it coming and taken steps to avoid it.

The source for the facts is an unusual one: it’s the archives of the Fidelity & Trust Insurance Company. (Motto: You can have perfect faith and complete trust in us.) Bartlam
apparently possessed the Victorian/Edwardian respect for Property – the conviction that a house, once acquired, must be suitably looked after. Having paid his premiums to the Fidelity &
Trust people, he saw no reason why he should not claim his pound of flesh from them when disaster struck.

There are several clues as to what happened in the North London house on that last night. That useful source of information, the
Finchley Recorder
, provides several, but the main
information comes from correspondence between Bartlam and the Fidelity & Trust Company. The Company’s records date back to 1911, and, incredibly, copies of every letter ever sent out by
them are preserved.