The Death Chamber (34 page)

‘As entries go, it isn’t very informative,’ said Georgina, half apologetically as they pounced on the book and pored over it. She saw that Drusilla and Chad
both did exactly what she had been doing herself: they touched the surface of the paper lightly as if to draw out the story inside the faded writing and the brittle paper.

‘It’s primary source stuff,’ said Chad. ‘What a find!’

‘Violette was executed under her real name, which was apparently Violet Parsons,’ said Georgina. ‘But you can see where Walter wrote in “also known as Violette
Partridge”, and that’s what I recognized when I was flipping through.’

Chad studied the photograph intently. ‘It’s an extraordinary feeling to see her,’ he said. ‘She’s not quite as I visualized. But she probably looked a lot different
when she was younger and cavorting around at all those seances.’ For Jude’s benefit, he said, ‘She’s plump-faced, with piebald greying hair, and probably in her early
fifties. My God, I wish I’d known about this when I was writing
Talismans.
What did she do that finally brought her to the condemned cell, I wonder? I’ll have to find
out.’

‘He’s already drafting out another book on the strength of this, Georgina, so make sure you get due acknowledgement, never mind a hefty share of the royalties.’

‘You don’t need to pay any attention to Jude, Georgina,’ said Chad, looking up. ‘He makes a career out of being rude to people.’

‘Yes, but I’m not going to be rude to Georgina,’ said Jude promptly. ‘Because she’s given us a delicious lunch and she has a beautiful voice.’ And then,
before Georgina could think how to respond to this, or even whether she ought to respond to it, he said, ‘Did somebody say I had some wine somewhere? Oh, thanks Phin.’ He located his
wine glass which Georgina had put on a side table by his chair.

‘Is Neville Fremlin in here?’ said Drusilla suddenly.

‘He is.’ Georgina reached over to turn the pages back.

‘Oh yes. Neville Fremlin,’ said Drusilla. ‘Nine a.m. on 17 October 1938.’

‘He’s a bit older than I imagined,’ said Phin, reading over Drusilla’s shoulder. ‘Born in 1889, it says. Hanged in 1938. So he was forty-nine when that was
taken.’

‘In his prime,’ murmured Chad.

‘Whatever he was in, I don’t mind admitting that if he’d said to me, “Come into my chemist’s laboratory, my dear,” I’d have gone like a shot,’
said Drusilla, still staring at the photograph. ‘He’s very attractive.’

‘You get weirder by the hour.’

‘It’s the company I keep.’

Phin bent over the book again, looking absurdly young. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult to find out what Violette’s crime was,’ he said. ‘There’ll be court records
and stuff, won’t there?’

‘I’ll bet she bumped off Bartlam,’ said Drusilla. ‘And serve him right, nasty old lecher. He’d be the kind who stands too close to you on the Tube.’

‘A real ass-pincher. Excuse me, Georgina.’

‘There’s an added grisliness about the date of Violette’s execution, isn’t there?’ said Georgina. ‘Having to die on the first day of a new year and a new
decade.’

‘I lost her altogether after 1920 or so,’ said Chad. ‘There simply weren’t any threads to pick up – no death certificate or marriage certificate, although that
probably means Partridge wasn’t their real name. It’s remarkable, isn’t it, how the different name changes the entire image? You can imagine a Violet Parsons being a very
ordinary, rather colourless lady.’

‘Good works, and never married,’ said Jude at once. ‘Whereas Violette Partridge fits beautifully with seances and table-turning. Plump as to build and gushing as to
manner.’

‘And don’t forget the tea-gowns and the scent,’ said Chad. ‘If you knew the trouble I went to to track down shop records for that part of London – Oh, yes, please,
Georgina, I’d love coffee. No, I couldn’t eat another crumb.’

‘If,’ said Jude getting out of his chair, ‘you would like to take me by the hand and lead me to the sink, Georgina, I’ll help with the washing-up and the coffee while
they delve into the past.’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Georgina, slightly startled.

‘I don’t promise not to break anything, though,’ he said.

He did not, in the event, break anything at all. He simply washed the cutlery and crockery Georgina put in the sink, located the draining board, and stacked everything on it. He did this
offhandedly, telling her a bit more about the night inside Calvary as he did so. Georgina, listening and enjoying the story, laughing at the concept of Tommy the Turnkey, could not help wondering
how hard won this unfussed smoothness had been.

It was when they were seated around the little coffee table, with papers strewn over the floor and Phin enthusiastically making reams of notes and explaining how he would go about tracking down
Violette and her trial, that Jude suddenly said, ‘Professor, I’ve got a suggestion.’

‘Yes?’ Chad was still studying the Execution Book.

‘It occurred to me while I was talking to Georgina over the washing-up,’ said Jude. ‘I’d like to spend a second night in Calvary. Only this time I’d like to be
actually down in the gallows pit.’

There was an abrupt silence, then Drusilla said, ‘That’s the maddest idea I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is it?’ said Chad. He had put the book down and was staring at Jude. ‘I’m not so sure. What’s your reason, Jude?’

‘Last night,’ said Jude, ‘I was observing without knowing anything. If I went in there again I’d be observing with knowledge. It’d be very interesting to see if the
reactions are at all similar.’

‘Difficult to find fault with that, boss,’ murmured Drusilla.

‘Can we keep the keys for any longer, though?’ asked Phin anxiously.

‘I’d have to check with the solicitor, but I don’t see why not. Although I’d better make sure that wretched trapdoor wasn’t damaged,’ said Chad. ‘Jude,
you do realize that if it is, you’ve probably used up the whole of our professional indemnity?’

‘You’re so mercenary,’ complained Jude. ‘Now me, I have a soul above money and property. But if I must descend to the mundane, I’d have to say it didn’t feel
as if the trapdoor was damaged.’

‘It didn’t look damaged when we collected you,’ said Phin hopefully.

‘No, but we didn’t make a very close examination,’ said Chad, ‘and we must.’

‘If,’ said Jude, ‘I do make a second foray, I’d like to have someone with me this time. But it needs to be someone completely objective.’

‘Why?’

‘To observe the observer. So if I think I’m hearing Tommy the Turnkey yomping up and down the corridors, there’d be someone there who could either confirm it, or say I’ve
flipped and am hearing things.’ He paused, clearly listening for reactions, and when no one spoke, said, ‘Chad, you obviously can’t do it because you’re supposed to be
masterminding everything. So how about the rest of you? Any takers?’

To Georgina’s utter horror, she heard herself saying, ‘If you feel like drafting me in as a temporary part of the team I’d do it.’

For what felt like several minutes nobody said anything, but Jude’s head turned towards her and Georgina had the impression she had disconcerted him. ‘Would you really? Do you mean
it?’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina, although she had no idea if this was true.

‘Well,’ said Jude lightly, ‘at least I’m still able to persuade a lady to spend the night with me.’ And before Georgina could think how to answer this, he went on,
‘What about it, Professor?’

Chad said slowly, ‘I can’t see anything against it in principle. We’d better talk about it a bit more, but Georgina, if we do go for it, you’d be perfectly safe. At worst
you’d have an uncomfortable few hours – the worst part of that would be Jude’s undiluted company. There’s also the possibility you might stop him from smashing up any more
of the place.’

‘We could do it tonight,’ said Jude, ignoring this. ‘We can leave about ten as we did last night – Georgina, would that be all right?’

‘Fine.’ I’m clearly mad, thought Georgina. I’ve just offered to spend the night in that spooky old prison with a man I’ve only just met, who’s blind. But
Calvary was Walter’s place. And something happened to him while he was there – something that caused him to leave his money to the Caradoc Society, and I want to find out as much as I
can about why he did that.

‘Have an early dinner with me at the King’s Head beforehand,’ Jude was saying to her. ‘Seven o’clock? We can plan the campaign and apportion the ghosts. Because
that’s what this is, really: a massive ghost hunt. You’re looking for Walter, Chad is probably looking for Violette, Drusilla’s looking for Neville Fremlin. And so on.’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Georgina, and caught herself being glad that when she was packing in London, at the last minute she had put one reasonably decent outfit into her case –
a jade-green silk skirt and a black silky sweater. She had brought the jade necklace that went with it as well. Then she remembered that Jude would not see any of this which was annoying because
the outfit was one that always made her feel good. Then she thought she would wear it anyway. She could take jeans, a sweater, jacket and trainers to the King’s Head with her; Drusilla would
not mind if she changed in her bedroom before they set off for Calvary.

After they had all left, it occurred to her that the small working lunch she had originally intended seemed to have progressed from being a casual snack, to a slightly more distinguished party
which, in its turn, had ended in creating an offbeat ghost hunt in Calvary Gaol.

As Georgina tidied Walter’s papers back into the box, she thought that at times life took some rather unexpected turns.

July 1939

‘The Fremlin case has taken a rather unexpected turn,’ said Edgar Higneth coming into Walter’s surgery just after lunch. ‘I’ve just been told that
the police have found Elizabeth Molland.’

Walter had been rather abstractedly writing up his notes on that morning’s patients and wondering what he was going to do about offering his services for the war that was undoubtedly
coming. People were not saying, as they had said in the last war, that it would all be over by Christmas; no one thought Hitler could be defeated in a few weeks. This was going to be a long haul
once it got going, said everyone, although please God it would not be a four-year haul this time.

Walter had been thinking about this, and about when and how he would join the medical corps, and Higneth’s entry into his room had startled him, his words had startled him even more.

‘Elizabeth Molland? You mean they’ve found her body?’

‘I don’t mean that at all,’ said Higneth drily. ‘The lady is still very much alive. She was living not far out of Knaresborough – a few miles west of Keighley in
fact – and she was seen wearing a piece of jewellery that had belonged to one of Neville Fremlin’s victims – a local girl. That was what tripped her up. Odd how they do that,
murderers, isn’t it? They take the most painstaking care to conceal their crimes, and then overlook some small detail that betrays them.’

‘Someone recognized the jewellery?’ asked Walter.

‘Yes. A friend of the dead girl was in a teashop and Molland was there as well. Taking afternoon tea. The friend recognized the locket Molland was wearing – apparently it had been a
family heirloom and quite distinctive. She told the parents of the dead girl, and they kept watch on the teashop for the next few days, hoping Molland would go back there. She did go back, and,
very sensibly, the parents didn’t approach her, but followed her at a distance to find out where she lived. Then they alerted the police.’

‘And?’ said Walter.

‘At that stage they had no idea of Molland’s identity,’ said Higneth. ‘They just knew that this was a girl who was wearing their dead daughter’s jewellery, and they
thought it was suspicious.’

‘She might have bought it quite innocently from a jeweller’s shop,’ said Walter. ‘Fremlin presumably sold his victims’ things.’

‘Oh yes, and that was why they treated it so cautiously for a while. But then the police realized who it was they were watching, and that Elizabeth Molland, far from being dead at Neville
Fremlin’s hands, was living in furnished rooms – quite smart and expensive furnished rooms from the sound of it. Normally they would probably have just gone along and tried to persuade
her to return to her family, but—’

‘But the locket made them suspicious,’ said Walter.

‘Exactly. It was all too much of a coincidence. But at that point there was nothing definite they could fasten on, so they kept watch for a few more days, to see what she did. And sure
enough, on the afternoon of the fourth day she took an omnibus out to Becks Forest – but this time the east side, rather than the north side where Fremlin had buried the victims. She led them
straight to the cache of jewellery from the victims.’

‘The other burial ground,’ said Walter, half to himself. ‘So there really was one.’

‘Yes. There’s a bit of a lake there and there was an old boathouse. Very ramshackle – no one had bothered about it for years. The jewellery was under the
floorboards.’

‘She must have known about the murders,’ said Walter, remembering the wide-eyed stare of the girl in the silver-framed photograph.

‘She more than knew about them,’ said Higneth. ‘They’ve just charged her with being an accomplice to them and with a murder on her own account in Lancaster in May.
They’re still preparing the evidence, but it’s likely the trial will come on early in September.’

‘But she’s only a child,’ said Walter. ‘Nineteen or twenty.’

‘Walter, some of history’s most lethal killers have been under twenty-one. If Molland’s found guilty we’ll probably see her here.’

‘She’ll hang?’

‘Don’t sound so appalled. Yes, she’ll hang unless she can bat her eyelashes at the jury and the judge to let her off,’ said Higneth caustically and Walter thought,
It’s all very well for you to sound critical; you didn’t see her photograph. ‘I’m not making any predictions about that, however,’ said Higneth. ‘I shan’t
like it one bit if she does get the death sentence. I’ve never had to oversee the hanging of a woman.’