The Death Chamber (52 page)

‘So do I.’

He moved to the door, reaching for the frame with one hand and Georgina said, ‘Can you get back to your room all right?’

‘Turn right out of here, five paces along, left-hand dog-leg, second door on the right,’ said Jude promptly. ‘Sleep well.’

Vincent could not believe it. After all his planning and care – after the way he had adapted his original plan, going with the flow as people said – the whole thing
had misfired!

It had all been working out so well although he had had a few anxious moments wondering if Georgina would find the panel in the condemned cell, but she had done it in the end. Clever, you see. A
really intelligent, worthy opponent.

He had not hit the man very hard with the sandbag – just enough to stun him for five or ten minutes – and he had shut Georgina and the man in the lime store, as planned, and placed
the plastic bag over the grid of the drain, weighting it with a stone. Then he had kicked away the corroded tap from the water butt. He had jumped well clear as the water gushed across the
courtyard, but he had seen it was already running down to the door of the lime store. Exactly as he had wanted!

He was just making his way around the side of the building, when car headlights suddenly sliced through the darkness. For a dreadful moment Vincent thought he was about to be caught, but he was
sufficiently quick-witted to dodge back into the deep shadows cast by the old walls and to stand there unseen. He didn’t succumb to panic but his mind was in tumult. Chad Ingram was not due
back here until two a.m. – Vincent had based his plan on that.

But it
was
Ingram. From where he stood, Vincent could see him in the driving seat with the American boy next to him. They stopped the car in front of the main door, and tumbled out. Dr
Ingram said something and the American pointed, and then they set off around the side of the building. Vincent could hear them talking – he could hear the anxious breathless voice of the
American boy saying that Georgina had mentioned a door in the wall at lunch.

It sounded as if Georgina had been out here on her own, the bitch! But did these two know Georgina and the man were trapped? How could they? Had a phone call been made? Vincent had himself
knocked the man’s phone out of his hands, and Georgina had been in the enclosed rooms of Calvary where phone signals were impossible – he was certain about this because it was one of
the things he had tested over the years. But something had brought them racing out here. Black, bitter fury rose up in Vincent, because none of this should be happening. None of this had been
intended. He waited until Dr Ingram and Phin were out of sight and earshot, and then went quickly down to his car and drove home. Once in the safety of his own house he poured a whisky and soda and
sat drinking it, staring ahead of him for a very long time.

Mother would not have been pleased at the failure of his plan, although it was difficult to know how she could have done any better. Or was it? Wouldn’t she have said Vincent had tried to
be too clever? Luring people into an old store, and trying to slake ancient lime, she would have said, scathingly. Could he not have used some simpler method?

Ah, but the plan might not have failed completely. They might all be so alarmed by what had happened that they would abandon all these ideas of television programmes, and great-grandfathers. The
Home Office or the Prisons Authority – or somebody – might forbid them to use Calvary as a subject in the film – yes, that was a promising line of thought. In fact, Vincent would
make it his business to ensure the Home Office got to hear what had happened. Tomorrow, he would find out which government department to contact. There might be headings in Yellow Pages, or under
local council phone numbers. And then, once the incident was general knowledge in Thornbeck – as it would soon be – he could write a letter. A concerned local resident, he would be, and
the letter would be well written and efficient so people would take notice of it.

The one redeeming factor was that Vincent himself could not possibly be suspected of involvement in tonight’s attacks. Georgina certainly had not seen him – even when he made that
quick sprint out of the condemned cell where he had been hiding behind the door – nor when he had run across the courtyard to push her into the lime store. And the man was not able to see at
all.

Georgina and Dr Ingram would report what had happened to the police, of course. Vincent thought he would have to be prepared for that. As a respected, responsible resident of the town he would
be as shocked as everyone else when the news got around.

Most likely the attacks would be put down to a vagrant. As Vincent went up to bed, he felt safe in the certainty that no one had seen him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘It’s Vincent Meade,’ said Georgina, staring in disbelief at the shadowy footage on the police monitor, and the figure frozen into immobility.

‘She’s right,’ said Drusilla, leaning forward. ‘It really is Vincent.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Georgina.

‘I’m sure as well,’ said Mr Huxley Small, who was apparently present in the dual capacities of police solicitor and managing agent of Calvary. ‘Sergeant, don’t you
agree? You know Mr Meade, don’t you?’

‘Not really,’ said the detective sergeant, who had been taking notes, and who was studying the screen closely. ‘Not enough to positively identify him from that.’

‘But why would Vincent be in Calvary?’ demanded Georgina. ‘Why would he close the gallows trap on Jude and – and shut us both in the lime store, and all the rest of
it?’

‘I don’t know, Miss Grey. Let’s have a look at the shot again.’

The young constable who was operating the camcorder, wound the film back a bit and they watched the man come into the execution chamber a second time.

‘It’s definitely Vincent Meade,’ said Mr Small. ‘I’ve known him for years, I couldn’t mistake him.’

‘But how would he have got in?’ said Drusilla. ‘We were so careful about locking up and so on.’

‘We’ll need to question him,’ said the sergeant. ‘But I’m not sure if this is enough for us to actually charge him with anything. All we’ve got is a shot of
him inside Calvary Gaol, closing the gallows trap. That’s peculiar behaviour, but it’s not firm evidence of him shutting Mr Stratton and Miss Grey in the lime store. It’s
suggestive, but it’s not proof positive, right, Mr Small?’

‘Quite right.’

‘Mr Stratton, you hadn’t met Mr Meade, I think?’

‘No,’ said Jude. ‘So I can’t help you.’

‘Miss Grey, was there anything about your attacker that would tie him to Mr Meade? Build – voice – body scent.’

‘Nothing,’ said Georgina. ‘Whoever attacked me didn’t speak and I only got a fleeting glimpse of a figure in the execution suite. The man I saw was the right sort of
build for Vincent, though. But look here – this is all absurd. Vincent doesn’t know Jude and he hardly knows me. He invited me here.’

‘The Caradoc Society invited you here, Miss Grey,’ said Mr Small. ‘Vincent Meade merely wrote the letter in his capacity as secretary.’ He frowned, and then said,
‘I dislike gossip and in my profession it’s strongly discouraged, of course. But I do feel a certain responsibility in this case.’ He glanced at the sergeant, and then said,
‘If you’ve finished with Miss Grey and the others?’

‘Yes, for the moment.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Small, ‘perhaps we might walk along to my office for a little more discussion. Miss Grey, are you able to manage that? It is only a few steps along the main
street.’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Dr Ingram? Mr Stratton?’

‘D’you want all of us?’ said Chad.

‘Yes, if you would.’

Georgina liked being in Mr Small’s office again; she saw herself describing it to Jude afterwards, and Jude’s appreciation of the blending of the Victorian era and
the twenty-first century.

‘None of this is your fault,’ said Chad, as they were gestured to seats facing the large mahogany desk, behind which Mr Small looked even wispier.

‘No, but I think you are owed some explanation.’ He regarded them, and then said, ‘Vincent Meade.’

‘Yes?’

‘If he is proved to have been your attacker, he will, of course, have to answer for the consequences. I make no excuse for violence of any kind. But I would like you to know that Vincent
is a man with a very unfortunate childhood. His mother’s name before her marriage was Elizabeth Molland. That doesn’t convey anything to you?’

‘No,’ said Chad, having glanced at the others.

‘I thought it probably wouldn’t. It’s a long time ago. Elizabeth Molland was originally thought to have been one of Neville Fremlin’s victims.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Drusilla, leaning forward eagerly. ‘Mr Small, we’ve been researching Neville Fremlin a bit, along with the programme on
Calvary.’

‘Ah. Indeed? Well, Elizabeth vanished at the start of his killings,’ said Mr Small. ‘And she was known to have frequented his shop in Knaresborough, so it was a reasonable
assumption. But the police didn’t find a body, so there was always a question mark over what had happened to her. Fremlin would never talk, so they say. He went to the gallows without
confessing to a single one of the murders with which he was charged.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Drusilla.

‘Very gentlemanly behaviour, according to all the accounts,’ said Mr Small rather drily. ‘The police tried very hard to get the truth about Elizabeth from him – in fact,
Miss Grey, when he was in the condemned cell they asked your great-grandfather to talk to him about her.’

Georgina felt a sudden spiral of anticipation. Was this to be the link that would take her back to Walter? ‘And – did he do so?’

‘According to the reports, he did,’ said Mr Small, ‘but he couldn’t get anything out of Fremlin any more than the police could. It was only after the hanging they found
that far from being a victim, Elizabeth was alive and well. Moreover, she had acted as Neville Fremlin’s accomplice.’

‘His accomplice? That’s a twist to the tale,’ said Chad. ‘And she was caught?’

‘Yes, eventually. She was tried and taken to Calvary in 1939. It ought to have been something of a cause célèbre of course – Fremlin had been – but war had just
been declared, and the newspapers were full of that.’

‘But how does any of this explain Vincent getting into Calvary and attacking Jude and Georgina?’ said Chad.

Phin, who had listened in respectful silence to everything so far, said eagerly, ‘I can see how it might. Uh – excuse me, for butting in. But how about Vincent wanting to – um
– protect Elizabeth’s memory? To stop anyone knowing she’d been found guilty of murder – especially murder alongside Neville Fremlin, what with him being notorious and
all?’

‘I don’t see how shutting Jude and Georgina in the lime store would stop people finding out about his mother,’ objected Drusilla.

‘Well, see, there are two ways it could go. One is that it could make it seem as if there were hobos or druggies up there. Two is that if nobody believed Jude and Georgina about being
attacked and locked in, it would make us all look irresponsible. Careless. We’d seem like people who got shut up in dangerous parts of the building. Either way we’d probably be ordered
off the premises.’

‘That’s very astute of you,’ said Small, looking at Phin with approval.

‘He is astute,’ said Chad, and Phin was covered in such delighted confusion that he could not speak for a moment.

‘And Vincent could have wanted to protect his mother’s memory,’ said Georgina. ‘That’s perfectly credible, you know.’

‘What happened to her?’ asked Drusilla. ‘Because obviously she was let out in the end, and married and had a son. Did they reprieve her or did she serve her sentence, or
what?’

‘She was not reprieved and she did not serve a sentence,’ said Mr Small. ‘She was condemned to death, but she escaped.’

‘
Escaped?
’

‘Yes. She was got out of Calvary just before the execution. I don’t know the details of the escape itself, and I don’t know if your great-grandfather was part of that escape,
Miss Grey. But he was certainly Calvary’s doctor at the time.’

‘Then he might have helped Elizabeth to escape,’ said Phin. ‘That’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Especially if he thought she was innocent,’ said Jude.

‘Oh, she was not innocent,’ said Mr Small at once.

‘You can’t know that,’ said Chad.

‘I do know it, Dr Ingram. I have it on very good authority.’

‘Whose authority?’ asked Jude, and Georgina glanced at him, because for the first time she had heard an incisive note in his voice and she remembered he was a journalist, used to
interviewing all kinds of people, used to chipping away until the truth emerged.

‘The authority of my own ears, Mr Stratton,’ said Small. He paused, and then said, ‘I don’t think I’m betraying client confidentiality over this – the people
concerned are all dead. But I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that no one who ever met Elizabeth Molland ever forgot her. I was still very young when I met her, and I have
certainly never forgotten her.