The Death Chamber (27 page)

The room felt cold and unfriendly and Walter shivered as he washed in the basin of cold water. But he felt better now that the hour was almost here and as he stepped out of the small room he was
grateful to think he would be in the company of Higneth. (And Fremlin? Who would Fremlin have for company on this final morning? Which of the warders were on death watch?)

A cup of tea was brought to him. He could not drink it, but he curled his hands around the cup to derive some warmth from the hot liquid. There were not many windows on Calvary’s ground
floor, but there was a small one in this room. Walter stood looking down the hillside, seeing everywhere still shrouded in early-morning mist and the moisture dripping from the trees.

Fremlin would be given breakfast at seven o’clock. Would he eat it? Was there any point in him doing so? Walter remembered, and wished he had not, the stories of men vomiting or losing
control of their bowels and bladders on the scaffold, and wondered if he ought to have put an anti-emetic in last night’s sedative. Was it too late to do it now? What about one of the ergot
compounds? His mind automatically went to the side-effects but then he saw the absurdity of this. Still, he would make sure that Fremlin had a second, stronger, sedative in the next fifteen
minutes.

Everywhere was unnaturally quiet as he went along to his small surgery, to mix a hefty dose of bromide in the little dispensary cubicle, and when he went into the condemned block he saw that
strips of thick coconut matting had been laid along the passage between the condemned cell and the execution chamber. Walter had not known about this procedure, which was obviously meant to muffle
the footsteps on that final walk to the execution chamber and prevent the other prisoners from hearing anything. It probably would not make any difference to them if they heard or not: they knew
what was happening anyway.

Fremlin was wearing the regulation prison shirt and trousers – Walter noticed the shoelaces had been removed from his shoes and that there was no belt on the trousers. He proffered the
bromide and Fremlin nodded slightly as if he had expected this and was grateful for it. But it’s all right, thought Walter, studying him. He’s perfectly composed. There aren’t
going to be any embarrassing scenes. He’ll go like a gentleman – he might even take Byron’s poems, as he said on our first meeting.

He supposed he ought to have known Fremlin would disconcert him in some way. He drank the bromide in one go, and setting down the empty glass said, ‘I’m glad you’ll stay with
me, Walter. One day—’

‘Yes?’

‘One day,’ said Fremlin, ‘you might understand me a little better.’ And then, before Walter could think how to respond to this, he turned away.

‘I’ll be back very soon,’ Walter said, and remembering what the executioner had said yesterday, hesitated, then said, ‘They tell me it will be very quick and very
clean.’

Again Fremlin gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

At twenty minutes to eight Walter, still feeling as if he was separated from everything by a sheet of thick glass, went along to Edgar Higneth’s room.

The under-sheriff of the county had arrived, and Higneth introduced Walter to him. From behind his glass wall, Walter made polite conversation, agreeing that it was a distressing business and
saying the prisoner seemed fairly calm. No, he did not anticipate any problems. The under-sheriff had brought the notice of death to post on the gates; he made a great play of showing it to Higneth
– Walter thought this was to hide his own nervousness.

He had thought this would be a difficult part of the proceedings: standing around trying to find something to say, watching the clock tick away the last minutes, but time, having been erratic,
suddenly speeded up, and almost before he knew it they were walking along to the condemned block and Higneth was unlocking the outer door. In the sunless morning the thick slabs of matting looked
like pieces of dead animal hide; Walter thought he would never be able to look at pale brown mats or carpets again without remembering today.

Fremlin’s words went through and through his mind. ‘I’m glad you’ll be there, Walter.’ ‘One day you might understand me a little better.’ Had that been
an admission of something? But of what? Innocence? Guilt? Did Fremlin expect Walter to do something about it?

He had expected disturbance from the other prisoners – he knew the legends about them rioting or banging trays on their cell doors when there was a hanging – but there was
nothing.

When they entered the condemned cell Neville Fremlin stood up. He looked at Higneth for a moment, then his eyes went to Walter, and although he did not move, it was as if he put out a grateful
hand. (‘One day you might understand me a little better, Walter.’)

‘Mr Fremlin,’ said Higneth, and Walter was absurdly glad that Higneth had given the man this last small courtesy.

‘Mr Higneth,’ said Fremlin, his tone faintly ironic. It’s all right, thought Walter suddenly. He didn’t mean anything – he didn’t mean me to do anything.

‘You are ready?’ said Higneth, and Fremlin at once said, ‘Never readier.’ His eyes went past Higneth to the chaplain. ‘Are you going to read from the Book of
Lamentations, Padre? “He hath led me and brought me into dark places but not into light.” That would seem appropriate, wouldn’t it? How does it go on? Something about, “He
hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood, and removed my soul from peace.” There’s nothing to match the rodomontade of the Old Testament, is there? But I
suppose it has to be the burial service, doesn’t it?’

Walter saw Higneth’s brows go up and the chaplain’s lips draw together as if uncertain how to handle this. Neville Fremlin saw it as well, because a faint smile curved his lips.

‘These things are set out to give us comfort,’ said the chaplain after a moment.

‘They’re not giving
me
any comfort,’ said Fremlin. ‘Given the choice I’d have preferred a paean of praise to one of the livelier pagan gods. Bacchus would
do nicely. No? I thought not. Then the good old Church of England let it be.’

He won’t keep it up, thought Walter as the solemn grisly walk began. He’ll break down before the end. Oh God, it’s three minutes to eight. ‘I am the resurrection and the
life . . . he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live . . .’ Don’t let him break down.

Would the other prisoners be watching the time ticking away the final minutes? As far as Walter could remember only a few of them had clocks or watches, but he thought that in some way he could
not understand, they were here with Neville Fremlin now. So strong was this impression that for a second Walter almost thought he could see them, indistinct forms in the winter greyness, prison
garbed and prison pale, but walking alongside the man who was healthy and whole, but who, in three minutes’ time would be dead. Or were they present-day prisoners he was seeing?
Mightn’t they be those other prisoners who had been here eighteen years ago? ‘Say goodbye, Walter . . .’ How much of an imprint did people leave on buildings? How much of an
imprint had Walter’s father left? How much would Neville Fremlin leave?

‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery . . .’ It had been misery for Elizabeth Molland’s parents, and it must have been misery for the
families of all the other victims.

Here was the door of the execution shed – Higneth pushed it wide and as they went in, the executioner, who had been waiting quietly in the corner stepped forward. His hands were gloved and
in them he held the leather straps and pinions, and the white canvas hood. Fremlin glanced at these with distaste.

‘I believe a blindfold is part of the ritual,’ he said. ‘But I should prefer to look death in the eye, if you don’t mind. I suppose the straps are obligatory,
though.’

He stood on the trapdoor, on the chalked mark as neatly as if he had rehearsed it. He’s almost there, thought Walter. It’s almost over. The assistant bent to loop the ankle straps in
place, and it was only then that Walter saw that the executioner’s hand was already on the lever. It’ll happen before he realizes it, he thought, his eyes never leaving Fremlin’s
still figure.

‘I’m glad you’ll stay with me, Walter.’

There was the faintest shiver of the wooden floorboards, and the trapdoors fell abruptly downwards. Neville Fremlin jerked violently, and then sagged.

The shadowy prisoners who had walked alongside the grim little procession, had vanished. From the cells came the ordinary sounds of the morning: men being taken to the shower
blocks in groups of four and five; others being herded along to the exercise yards. It’s an ordinary day at the gaol after all, thought Walter. Except that no day will be ordinary to me for a
very long time.

When he went past the condemned cell, the door was open and he glanced inside. The table and chairs were still where they had always been. The bed was in its corner; the sheets were pushed back,
and a pair of pyjamas was still lying by the pillow. On the wooden locker at the side of the bed was a mug. All those ordinary things, thought Walter. Wearing pyjamas in bed, getting up, getting
dressed, drinking a cup of tea.

And then walking twelve paces along a corridor to die.

Walter dined at Lewis Caradoc’s house that evening. He was grateful for the invitation, and when Sir Lewis asked him about the execution – not prying, thought
Walter, but interested and concerned – he found that for the first time he was able to speak of the curious little conversations he had had with Fremlin.

‘What did you make of them?’ asked Lewis.

‘I still can’t decide,’ said Walter. ‘“You’d like to get me out of this, wouldn’t you?” that was what he said last night. I don’t know if it
was a subtle approach to help him escape or whether I should just have taken it at face value. And then this morning. “One day you might understand me a little better.” I haven’t
been able to get either of those things out of my mind.’

‘They could have meant several things.’

‘I know.’ Walter frowned, and said, with difficulty, ‘He used my first name. He called me Walter – two or three times. I can’t get that out of my mind,
either.’

They had finished dinner and were having coffee in the low-ceilinged drawing room. A fire burned in the hearth and there was a faint scent of wood smoke and good furniture polish. The curtains
were drawn against the night but in the summer there was a view towards Calvary’s lane. Walter loved this room and he loved the house.

Lewis was drinking his coffee, clearly thinking over what Walter had just told him. He said, ‘Fremlin could have been trying to find out if you’d be prepared to help him
escape.’

‘From the condemned cell?’ said Walter, staring at Lewis. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘It’s been known. He had nothing to lose by trying.’

‘I think he was simply turning on the charm,’ said Walter. ‘It didn’t matter to him that he was about to die; charming people was just something he did
automatically.’

‘Would you have helped him escape, d’you think? No, I’m not testing you, I’m just curious.’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t,’ said Walter after a moment. ‘But I can’t help wondering what would have happened if I had said, “Yes, I would like to get you
out.” I wonder if he had a plan ready to put to me.’

And if he had? thought Lewis. But he did not say it, instead he said, ‘Walter, what you’re going through is something I went through every time a man was hanged. When I was
Calvary’s governor, I questioned the guilt of every single man who was executed. Even today I sometimes look back and question it all over again for some of them. You don’t come out of
it unscathed. But you can only accept the court’s decision and do the job you’re there to do.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t find anything out about that girl,’ said Lewis thoughtfully. ‘I do feel for her parents, you know.’ He glanced at Walter, wondering if
the boy was going to talk about the execution any more, guessing how it would have dredged up the memories of his father.

But the only other reference Walter made was to the executioner, Albert Pierrepoint. He had been surprised, he said, to find him such a quiet-mannered man.

‘I believe he is,’ said Lewis.

He did not say that it had been a Pierrepoint who had come to Calvary to hang Nick O’Kane all those years ago – Thomas Pierrepoint, uncle of the man Walter had met earlier today. He
did not let Walter see that their discussion had brought the memories painfully to the surface all over again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

November 1917

After McNulty went out, Lewis had no idea what to do. It was as clear as a curse that McNulty was in the grip of an obsession about this macabre soul-weighing theory, and that
he would do anything to further it. Including telling Clara about seeing Lewis in bed with Belinda Skelton? Lewis thought McNulty would not hesitate.

What would Clara do in that situation? Lewis was fairly sure she would leave him – probably she would go back to live with her parents. It would not be a particular sadness; there had
never been a great deal of fire between them although he thought they had rubbed along tolerably well. Would she sue for divorce? Yes, almost certainly. She had most likely known about his other
occasional affairs and had turned an indifferent eye to them, but she would regard this business with Belinda as sordid and disgusting. A girl of that class, she would say, not understanding that
the war was sweeping away such differences, that class was starting to matter less to people, and that Belinda had a bright intelligent mind and humour and sensitivity.