Before the Poison (20 page)
Authors: Peter Robinson
‘So? There’s nothing odd about that. The daughter got married and left home, and her mother and father converted the house into a guest house rather than move to somewhere smaller. Makes sense. Scarborough attracts a lot of visitors.’
‘Yes. Only that wasn’t quite the way it happened.’
‘Oh?’
‘No. The daughter had a few problems. She was a highly strung girl. She got jilted by her fiancé, a soldier, and she . . . well, she hanged herself in that room. Naturally, Mrs Gooch would hardly tell her guests such a thing, but as I said, she was so upset by the mirror incident that she did let it slip to Dad. The wardrobe door was open at the time, and she saw the reflection of her daughter’s body in the mirror first, before she saw her actual daughter hanging there. What happened to you just brought it all back, that’s all.’
I could think of nothing to say. An icy sensation flooded through me. ‘So you believe that events leave traces?’
‘I never said that. I admit the whole thing puzzles me, and it would be very easy to grasp on to a supernatural explanation.’
‘Couldn’t I have heard about what happened before? Imagined it?’
‘It’s possible, but I don’t see how. You were only four. Even I didn’t really understand what I overheard, but it stuck in my memory. Years later, when I was at grammar school, I tracked down the story in the newspaper archive. It happened in 1945. It would appear, reading between the lines, that an American GI had got the girl pregnant, promised to marry her and take her back to Kansas or wherever with him, then he just abandoned her. She couldn’t face the shame, life without him . . . whatever, and she snapped.’
‘And that’s who you think I saw in the mirror? Her?’
‘There’s no way of knowing that,’ said Graham. ‘Maybe you imagined the whole thing in the half-darkness. Maybe it was the carry-over from a bad dream.’
‘Or places have memories and I can read them?’
‘Now you
are
being fanciful. I just don’t want all this Grace Fox business to drive you over the edge, that’s all I’m saying. You’re fragile enough already after the grief you’ve been through over Laura.’
That was exactly what Bernie Wilkins had said, and it annoyed me. ‘It’s not about the noises or the shadowy figures I sometimes think I glimpse,’ I said. ‘Or the piano I hear. They’re all exactly what you say they are, phantoms of an overworked imagination playing on the natural sounds and shadows in an old house. Special effects. It just happens that the house has a history and they heighten it, or vice versa. They don’t bother me at all. They just keep me awake sometimes. I’m not sleeping well.’
‘Most old houses have a history.’
‘Who knows? Maybe I
am
seeking something to distract me, a mystery to lose myself in. Maybe I am getting a bit obsessed. If I stand back and take stock of myself honestly, I find it hard to know how I got so drawn in, what my motives are, or how deeply I
am
in. I don’t know where it’s all heading, but I do want to know what happened. I’m not at all convinced, through what I’ve heard from Wilf Pelham and Sam Porter, that Grace Fox really did murder her husband. And even if she did, I want to
know
it for myself. Does that sound so weird?’
Graham sat up and put his empty glass down on the small round table beside his chair. ‘No, as long as that’s how it stays. You’ve got time on your hands. I wish you luck, little brother. Just don’t get too carried away with it, that’s all. I wouldn’t want you running amok and smashing up Kilnsgate House. Or this place, for that matter.’ He looked around at the farmhouse I knew he and Siobhan loved dearly. ‘This place has its history, too, you know, its memories. Not to mention its night noises.’
I smiled and stood up. ‘I’ll try not to let them drive me to destruction,’ I said. ‘Goodnight, Graham, and thanks for the cognac. And the story.’
Graham nodded. ‘See you in the morning.’
I was definitely feeling a little drunk as I made my way over the uneven stone flags to the creaky wooden stairs. Graham was right; this was an old house, and it no doubt had a few stories to tell of its own. I wasn’t in the mood for them tonight, though; all I wanted was sleep.
But, of course, sleep wouldn’t come. The room I was in was the one where I slept with Laura when we visited. The same bed. It felt much lonelier than the bed at Kilnsgate, in which I had never slept with anyone. Thoughts like this spiralled in my mind, the way they do when you’re a bit drunk, and began to turn into thoughts about the conversation I had just had with Graham.
I thought of taking out my iPod and listening to some soothing music, or to a story. I had an unabridged audio book of
Far From the Madding Crowd
that I was very much enjoying. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. Graham’s story haunted me, though it still sounded very much like something that had happened to someone else. Still, the scar was there, on my hand, and sometimes it itched.
Had I really seen a young woman’s figure in the mirror and smashed the glass out of fear? Had it really been the image of a woman who had hanged herself in that very room several years earlier, or had I simply awoken from a bad dream and imagined it all? I didn’t know. And how could I ever know? It was the same with the figure I’d glimpsed in the wardrobe mirror at Kilnsgate. I’d put it down to a trick of the moonlight, but was it something else? Was it Grace? I hadn’t told Graham about it. I hadn’t told anyone. Why? Because I couldn’t explain it rationally? Because it would make them think I was going mad?
I trusted Graham. He had no reason to lie to me about something as momentous as this, but nobody could really know what happened in that room except me, and I couldn’t remember. My father was dead, so he couldn’t help me, and Mrs Gooch was no doubt long since departed, too. I supposed I could ask Mother and check the newspaper archives, as Graham himself had done later, but what was the point of that, if I believed him? It would only confirm the truth about the suicide,
not
that I had seen anything unusual in the mirror. Graham had told me everything I needed to know. Only through remembering could I be certain what happened that night.
All these questions circled in my mind like birds of prey while I tried to get to sleep. What did it all have to do with Grace Fox and Kilnsgate House? I wondered. I had thought it was
my
choice to become interested in Grace’s story, but was it? I remembered the sense I had had on first approaching Kilnsgate that the house was somehow
waiting
for me. Had I been pushed into my investigation by forces I didn’t understand? I found it hard to accept that powers beyond my own will were playing me like a puppet. It all seemed a bit too
Don’t Look Now
. Donald Sutherland thinks he sees his wife on the prow of a funeral boat in Venice when she’s supposed to be out of town, and it turns out to be his own funeral. He was psychic but he didn’t know it. Music by Pino Donaggio.
I heard creaking noises outside in the corridor, then realised that it was probably just Graham going to the toilet. A few moments later, I heard a flush and more creaking as he went back to his room. His story had got me edgy, and I found myself jumping at every little thing.
I pictured Grace again, and this time her image was calming. She appeared just as she did in one of Sam’s best portraits: pensive, distant, but still sensual and alluring, her mouth downturned slightly at the edges, eyes like midnight lakes you just wanted to plunge into and drown in, the tangle of waves framing her oval face, her shoulders pale and naked. I felt myself drifting towards sleep. Grace opened her arms to me. Then the image changed into Laura, the snowflakes melting on her cheeks, in her golden hair as she took off the fur hat, then it became someone else, someone I didn’t recognise. Perhaps the girl from the mirror. I could smell cocoa and hear the wind outside scraping some fallen leaves across the courtyard. The image in my mind started to say something to me but, mercifully, oblivion came at last.
10
Famous Trials: Grace Elizabeth Fox, April 1953, by Sir Charles Hamilton Morley
A pale Grace Fox appeared in the dock wearing a simple grey cardigan over a high-buttoned pearl blouse, her face free of make-up, her hair tied back in a tight bun. The austerity and severity of her appearance would be in marked contrast to the picture that Sir Archibald Yorke, QC, was about to paint of her for the jury. Grace also seemed remarkably composed, or resigned, for a woman on trial for her life, and her expression, though drained of all colour and joy by the dim and airless character of the prison cell, rarely showed any signs of emotion.
Sir Archibald Yorke, QC, hitched his gown with a flourish, adjusted his wig, and set about his opening remarks, depicting Grace Fox in no uncertain terms as the deceitful, sexually profligate wife of an elderly unsuspecting country doctor. Finding her relationship with a penniless artist young enough to be her son threatened by a potential move out of the area, Grace took the dramatic step of putting an end to her husband’s life. This, Sir Archibald argued, she did with a great degree of cold-blooded cunning and premeditation. Not only did she have the necessary means at hand, but she also made certain that she had a house full of captive witnesses who, she hoped, would all be willing and able to appear in her defence, having participated to varying degrees in the charade she had planned for the night of 1st January, 1953. In his words, Grace Fox was ‘a very clever, manipulative, resourceful and evil woman’.
Grace knew full well that her husband suffered from stomach problems and was prone to heartburn and indigestion, especially after so rich and hearty a meal as they enjoyed on the evening in question. She also knew that this had never curbed his enthusiasm for food and drink, which she supplied in plenty. Though Hetty Larkin had prepared the dishes, she had done so under the full supervision and instructions of Mrs. Fox, who had provided her with both the menu and the receipts. Mrs. Fox knew that she needed witnesses in order to ensure that no blame fell on her, that her husband’s death appeared as if it had occurred from natural causes, and that it appeared as if she, as a trained nurse, had done everything within her powers to save him.
What Grace had, in fact, done, Sir Archibald contended, was adulterate her husband’s stomach powder with chloral hydrate, thereby sedating him, then returned to the dinner party and rejoined the unsuspecting convivial gaiety of the Lamberts. Later, when her guests and her servant had all retired for the night, Grace entered her husband’s room – they had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for some time now, Sir Archibald stressed – and injected Dr. Ernest Fox with enough potassium chloride to cause cardiac arrest.
When her husband had begun to show symptoms, Grace Fox had raised the hue and cry, thereby ensuring that the eminently sensible and light-sleeping Alice Lambert would be present to watch over Grace’s desperate ministrations to her dying husband, the very husband she had poisoned in the first place. But Ernest Fox died even faster than Grace had imagined, and Alice Lambert arrived on the scene only
after
Grace had administered the final, futile injection of digitalis. Could ever a crime be so heinous in its machinations? Sir Archibald demanded of the jury at this point.
Afterwards, in the hours and days during which the four people were snowbound and out of communication with the rest of the world, Grace Fox had plenty of opportunity to get rid of the evidence. The paper that had contained the contaminated stomach powder could easily have been destroyed in the fire downstairs, which was burning constantly owing to the excessive cold, and the syringe was thoroughly sterilised and replaced alongside its companion in Dr. Fox’s medical bag. Any traces of potassium chloride or of chloral hydrate that remained in the house could also have been easily destroyed, as none was found.
It was a shrewd but simple plan, Sir Archibald concluded. Afterwards, all Grace had to do was clear up after herself, keep quiet, play the grieving widow, and forbear secret meetings with her lover for some months. They had been careful and discreet in their adulterous meetings, but then they had not bargained for Sir Archibald’s first witness, Mrs. Patricia Compton of Leyburn.
October 2010
I stayed with Graham and Siobhan for another few days, as I had no urgent business back in Richmond, and perhaps also because I wanted to convince Graham that I wasn’t obsessed with Grace Fox, that I could relax and enjoy the scenery. It was the end of October, and though the days seemed longer in the south, at night there was a distinct autumn chill in the air. Both days started with an early mist through which the sun had usually burned by mid-morning, and the afternoons were comfortably warm, usually somewhere in the mid-teens, rather like Santa Monica in January. At least, I didn’t find it cold.
The three of us went for long walks by the river and in the woods, and we spent one day exploring the old buildings of Angoulême, lingering for dinner in one of Graham’s favourite restaurants. We played boules in the village, and the old men laughed at us. The first evening was unexpectedly mild, and we ate outside at the café, talking and drinking wine under the stars until it was obvious that the owner wanted to put up the shutters. We didn’t talk any more about Grace Fox or the mirror incident in Scarborough, and nor did Graham tell me the history of the farmhouse, though he did mention that the family who lived there during the war gave shelter to Jews and were eventually discovered and shot on the village green.
Mostly we talked about my film work – Siobhan was always keen to know the latest star gossip, and I tried not to disappoint her – and about the state of the European Union, which seemed pretty dismal, with more and more members needing to be bailed out. I slept well. If there were ghostly echoes of guns shooting and frightened Jewish children whimpering in the attic, I didn’t hear them.
Then, on the fourth morning, I knew it was time to go home. Much as I loved Graham and Siobhan, I realised that I missed Kilnsgate House and the life I was beginning to forge there. I missed working on the piano sonata, too, and had one or two intriguing variations I wanted to work out drifting around in my mind. Graham let me use his piano one evening, but it wasn’t quite the same.