Watching the Ghosts (31 page)

He reached the foot of the steps and shone the beam around, standing quite still and holding his breath. He could feel something in there, something unpleasant, a cold, clammy feeling of dread. But he told himself it was probably his imagination. There was no sound in that place. Just a thick, impenetrable silence. He could sense the suffering that had gone on in that room like a physical ache in his heart. What terrible things had those patients endured at Dr Pennell's hands – if it had been Dr Pennell? Maybe Brockmeister had supervised proceedings himself. Maybe he had had them all in his power. Maybe he still did.

He was about to climb the steps again when he heard something. A muffled, high pitched sound like a scream of pain. Then a female voice. He couldn't make out what it said but he heard the desperation, like a plea for mercy. Then another cry, distant and muffled as if it came from somewhere behind thick walls. He used his torch beam to make another search but the place was empty. Hawkes had assured them that the basement didn't extend beneath the whole building. But what if he'd been wrong . . . or lying?

He ran back up the steps and made for the front entrance. He stood there for a while, wondering whether to begin his own search or to wait for Creeny's return. He decided to wait. With the correct knowledge, it might be quicker in the long run.

It seemed a long time before he saw Creeny's BMW sweep into the drive, its tyres crunching on the gravel. He rushed over and opened the driver's door, hand outstretched. ‘Have you got the plans? I think the basement extends further and I think there's someone down there. I need to find out if there's another entrance.'

Creeny said nothing as he got out of the car and spread the plans out on the bonnet. Joe looked over his shoulder as he studied them and shook his head.

‘The only place we haven't covered is the roof space,' Creeny said.

‘It's definitely not the roof. It's the basement.'

Again Creeny shook his head. ‘According to these plans, that's the full extent of the cellar area.'

This was getting them nowhere. He left Creeny standing there and began to run round the side of the building, his eyes focused on the base of the wall. He was aware of the sad little graveyard to his left as he carried on, increasingly desperate. There was nothing that resembled an entrance inside the building so this was his last desperate attempt to find a way in. But as he searched he began to wonder whether the sound he'd heard had been in his head. The atmosphere in that basement had been likely to conjure all sorts of strange imaginings.

But in spite of these growing doubts he carried on. Just one more check. He had to be certain.

‘Bloody hell.' Joe swung round and saw that Creeny was a few feet behind him. He looked a little embarrassed, like a man who'd tripped up on a pavement, and was brushing down his beige trousers.

‘What's the matter?' Joe asked, more out of politeness than anything else.

Creeny didn't answer for a few moments. Instead he studied the ground, tapping his foot. Just a drain cover, that's all.'

Joe retraced his steps and stood beside him. At his feet was a rectangle of rusty metal which looked like a drain cover. But there was a ring let into its centre. When he squatted down and grabbed the ring the cover came up smoothly and he heard Creeny gasp.

When he saw the lights and the stone steps he knew he'd found what he was looking for. He turned to Creeny. ‘Did you know about this?'

‘No. I bloody didn't.' He sounded indignant that Joe should think otherwise.

‘But Hawkes is the architect. He would have done.'

‘He never mentioned it and it's not on the plans,' said Creeny as though he was trying to defend his colleague. But Joe knew that Hawkes must have examined every inch of the place. Unless he was lazy or incompetent he must have known.

‘Stay there,' Joe ordered, staring down at the steps. This was a cellar. And the lights told him it was in use. He hesitated and took out his phone. He couldn't get a signal at first so he rushed to the front of the building and made a call to Emily. He needed backup. And he needed someone to make sure Daisy was all right. She had been returned to Hawkes when Paul Scorer and his partner, Una, were arrested. And now Joe had an ominous feeling that the child might be in danger.

He gave Emily the bare facts then dashed back to the cellar entrance where Creeny was standing, shifting from foot to foot, unsure what to do.

‘I'm going down to have a look.' Joe didn't wait for a reply. He walked down the stairs slowly and found himself in a corridor lit by a row of dusty metal lights that hung from the ceiling. He held his breath, listening for any sound that would tell him who or what was down there. Then he heard a faint moan, like an animal close to death, and carried on towards the source of the noise.

‘Is someone down here? What's going on?' Creeny asked. Joe had forgotten that he was following behind. He knew he shouldn't allow him to be there but he was comforted by the presence of another human being.

‘Stay back and keep quiet,' he hissed as they came to a wooden door. It was closed but Joe put his hand on the rusty handle and pushed. He could smell cigarette smoke from somewhere. Somehow he hadn't imagined the killer as a smoker.

When the door opened the first thing he saw was Lydia. She was lying on an operating table underneath a brilliant surgical light that left everything else in the room in gloomy shadows. Her arms and ankles were restrained by leather straps and her eyes were closed. She shifted her head a little which told Joe she was alive. Instinctively he rushed over to her and tried to unbuckle the restraints with clumsy fingers. Then he heard a shocked cry of pain behind him and when he twisted round he saw that Patrick Creeny had collapsed to the floor, a small circle of blood spreading out on his white shirt, just above his heart.

A figure was standing over Creeny's prone body. And the thing in its hand looked like a scalpel, sharpened and lethal.

‘Put it down,' he said softly. ‘You're under arrest.'

The killer looked him in the eye and laughed.

B
everley stood over Creeny's body like some triumphant tribal queen, and her large form, clad in a loose, blood-spattered white dress, seemed to dwarf everything else in that room. She still held the bloodstained weapon and Joe knew that if he approached her she would use it again. And he knew that if he made a wrong move she would kill Lydia too.

‘Let me help Patrick,' he said reasonably. ‘Please.'

Beverley shook her head.

‘There's backup coming. They know where I am.'

‘Liar,' she hissed, rearing up in front of him, suddenly monstrous with her pitiless eyes and mouth set in a grimace of hatred.

‘Why are you doing this? What harm had Melanie Hawkes and Judith Dodds ever done you?'

She lowered the weapon and Joe could see that his first impression had been correct: it was a scalpel, horribly clinical, and probably the instrument that had cut deep into Melanie Hawkes' and Judith Dodds' flesh.

‘They were poking their noses into things that didn't concern them.'

‘What do you mean?'

He saw her hesitate.

‘If you're going to kill me what's the harm in telling me?'

The smile she gave was smug and knowing. ‘The Hawkes woman was going round asking questions and I couldn't allow her to put my parents in danger. I had to protect them. They're elderly.'

‘Your parents?'

‘My mother was matron here . . . and my father was famous once.'

‘Peter Brockmeister is your father?'

‘He recently came back to us from abroad because he wanted to spend his final years near his family. We'd been down in the Midlands but Mother had wanted to move back up here . . . to her roots. I knew all about Father of course because Mother had an interesting line in bedtime stories. She told me what he'd done . . . and what they did together here. I had to protect their secret.'

‘Your father stole the chaplain's identity?'

‘Mother saw him in Eborby one day and when Father came back we thought it would be rather fun if he took over his blameless life. Rattenbury had just come back to Eborby from somewhere in Wales and I found out his wife had died and he had no family. It was perfect . . . as though it was meant. Father moved everything out of his rented flat and bought a nice little house with Rattenbury's life savings so it worked out very well.'

‘Did you kill him?'

‘It was my first time. Mother was so proud of me.' Her eyes glowed with the memory.

‘Where is the Reverend Rattenbury now?'

‘In the graveyard here. Where else would he be?'

‘You do know your mother's dead?'

The smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of anguish. ‘Father said she was suffering and it was the kindest thing. He said it would just be the two of us and we had to depend on each other. He told me to do it so I took the pillow and . . . I gave her an easy death,' she added softly.

‘Where is your father now?'

She frowned. ‘He's on his way here. He likes watching them die. Dr Pennell was conducting research into pain thresholds and he used the patients who were . . .' She hesitated. ‘Who were on the death list. They were going to die anyway so why not make some use of them, he said.' She seemed to shrink before Joe's eyes and she suddenly looked frightened, as though the memory of Dr Pennell disturbed her.

‘Tell me about Dr Pennell,' he said.

She pouted like a petulant child. ‘I think even Mother was a little afraid of him. But Father wasn't. Father wasn't scared of anyone. People were scared of him,' she added proudly.

He glanced at Lydia. She was lying quite still now and he fought the temptation to rush over and undo her bonds. He could see the patch of blood on Creeny's shirt was widening a little which gave him the hope that he was still alive. But it was impossible to help him while Beverley was standing there between them, alert and murderous. He knew Emily was on her way and he prayed that she wouldn't waste time.

His best hope was to keep Beverley talking.

‘Did you kill Karl Dremmer?'

‘He was scraping away at the wall. He must have known there was something here and I couldn't allow him to find this room, could I? I came to the basement door and beckoned him upstairs. I knew I couldn't speak because he had recording equipment down there.' She grinned at her own cleverness. ‘Once he was in the hall I told him I'd seen something outside in the graveyard. He was such a gullible man.'

Joe knew that this was the last epitaph the academic would have wanted. But he said nothing. ‘Did you intend to kill George Merryweather? He knew Rattenbury so there was a chance he might have given the game away.'

‘I tried to get him to stay the night like Dr Dremmer but he wouldn't.' She looked disappointed. ‘If he'd cooperated . . .'

Her words made Joe shudder. ‘Does Jack Hawkes have anything to do with all this? He didn't put this part of the basement on the plans and, as an experienced architect, I can't see how he could have missed it.'

Beverley's expression became secretive. She knew something all right.

‘His father worked on your father's case. He must have known him.'

‘Maybe he did.'

‘A woman called Jane Hawkes died here – she was on Dr Pennell's death list. We've discovered that she was Jack's mother and when she died his father married again soon after. Did Jack's father, Sergeant Hawkes, pay Dr Pennell to dispose of his first wife?'

‘My parents and Dr Pennell got rid of a lot of unwanted relatives.' She gave a little giggle.

‘Is that what you meant by the death list?' She nodded. ‘What was in it for them?'

‘A cut of the profits. They used to ask for ten per cent . . . then when the deed was done they'd up it to ninety per cent – nobody argued.'

Joe suddenly recalled how the heirs of those who'd died unexpectedly in Havenby Hall had become inexplicably poor.

‘They told them it was a contribution to the work of Havenby Hall.'

‘And if the heirs said anything they would have been incriminating themselves. Clever.'

Another small giggle. Suddenly she looked like an overgrown and unpredictable schoolgirl with her smooth, puffy flesh and long hair hanging lank around her shoulders.

‘Did your father have some sort of hold over Jack Hawkes' father?'

No answer.

‘Did Hawkes' father find out what was going on and write it down? Did Jack Hawkes find out and pay you to kill his wife too? Like father like son? How did he get in touch with you . . . or did you get in touch with him?'

‘You'll never prove anything.'

‘You'll be amazed what we can do, Miss Newson.'

She straightened her back. ‘I'm taking my father's name from now on.' She straightened her back. ‘Beverley Brockmeister.'

She took a step towards Joe, the scalpel pointing straight at his heart. He could hear the blood pumping in his head. If the backup didn't arrive soon, he was in trouble. And so were Lydia and Creeny . . . if they were still alive.

‘Why did you kill Judith Dodds? She was Dr Pennell's daughter.'

‘Her mother had brought her up to disapprove of everything Pennell stood for. When Mother realized that when he died she must have inherited his records, she knew it was a time bomb. Pennell was a meticulous man, a scientist, so he wrote everything down, you see. Mother said we needed to find his notebook. When we . . . when we questioned the daughter before she died she admitted that she'd sold his clock and Father remembered that he sometimes hid things in there.'

‘You tortured her to find out what she knew?'

‘Why not?'

‘And you killed her and Melanie Hawkes in the same way your father killed his victims.'