The Death Chamber (20 page)

After the fire, the Partridges apparently stayed with friends in Chiswick, although the ungrateful pair do not seem to have found this to their taste.

‘I am devoted to dearest Muriel,’ Violette wrote to the unknown ‘Clara’ in December 1917. ‘And I shall be for ever in her debt for allowing us to share her home
when times were so difficult for us.

‘But her house is furnished with Brummagem chinaware and our wine is served to us in thick sixpenny Woolworths glasses. The rooms smell of wet biscuits and of something that Henry rubs
into his hair each night. Every Monday there is the additional smell of washing, for Muriel believes everything in the house must be thoroughly washed each week. Every Tuesday there is the smell of
boiling cabbage which we have to eat with the cold remains of Sunday’s roast. I do not believe Bartlam will be able to stand it for very long – he hankers for London or for some big
city at the very least – and I should not be at all surprised to find one day that he has packed his bags and left.’

And so, of course, he did just that. By the spring of 1918, Bartlam seems to have broken the marital bonds and left Violette.

In the light of his later exploits (see references elsewhere to the Unpleasantness in Brighton in 1924, and also the misunderstanding in Greek Street in 1927), Violette was probably better off
without him, although she doubtless did not take that view.

Whatever else emerges from the tag-ends of gossip, letters and newspapers, it is clear that during those years at any rate, she was firmly under Bartlam’s thumb, and was never able to view
his behaviour objectively.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘I want you to be as objective as possible,’ said Chad Ingram to Jude in the small bedroom of the King’s Head. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Certainly it’s understood,’ said Jude. ‘I will be as an unwritten book, or as a virgin canvas facing a painter. I will clear my mind of all its irritating clutter and I
will be as receptive as an insect’s antenna or a cat’s whiskers. In fact—’ He broke off and half turned his head. ‘Someone’s coming along the corridor
outside,’ he said, and three seconds later there was a knock on the door.

‘It’s probably Drusilla.’

‘It sounds a bit too polite for Drusilla,’ said Jude, as Chad walked across to the door. ‘It’ll be Phin. He’s very clever, isn’t he, underneath all that
breathless enthusiasm.’

‘Yes, we’re lucky to have him. He’s only supposed to be here for a year, but I’m hoping to persuade him to stay longer. Phin – ah, it
is
you. Jude thought
it was. Come in.’

Phin came in a bit warily. He was finding it quite difficult not to give away any clues as to where they were or about Calvary. The trouble was that they had been working on this project so
intensely, they had got used to talking about the place without thinking.

‘We’re all ready downstairs. Drusilla’s putting the dictaphone in the car, and we’ve asked reception to make up a flask of coffee. I thought it would kind of keep you
company, Jude.’

‘That’s extremely thoughtful, Phin. I’ve got a bottle of a wine, and my MP3 player as well. I thought,’ said Jude, with the air of one to whom this was a major concern,
‘that I’d play Mozart as we enter the place, or possibly Mahler. He can be very dark, Mahler, and since I’m fairly sure this is one of Chad’s upmarket ghost hunts I might as
well heighten the atmosphere. While we’re on the subject, Chad, how about breaking into the music industry afterwards and doing one of those compilation CDs as a tie-in? Music for Ghost
Hunting.’

‘Symphonies for Swinging Spooks,’ said Phin with a grin, and then, without thinking, ‘Are you frightened about all this?’

As soon as he said this he wondered if it was a bit too personal, but Jude did not seem to mind. He turned his head thoughtfully towards Phin. He was wearing dark glasses – Phin had not
yet seen him without them – and there was an eerie impression of sight behind the lenses.

‘No, I don’t believe I am frightened,’ said Jude, and for the first time the irony was absent. ‘What I am is intrigued – as much by what I’m going to
experience as by Chad’s off the wall experiment. I’ll even admit there are a few inexplicable things in this world. I’d have to say I’ve never yet met a ghost,
however.’

‘You don’t believe in ghosts?’ Phin could not help saying.

‘Oh,’ said Jude vaguely, ‘I didn’t say that. Are we ready to leave?’

Jude hoped he was striking the right note with Chad and Phin Farrell, and he thought neither of them had realized how deeply apprehensive he was. I must be mad to be doing
this, he thought as they left the bedroom. I’m going to be on my own in an unfamiliar place and I’ll be stuck there for much of the night.

As they set off, he reached for the Edwardian walking cane he had bought in a junk shop in the Portobello Road some years ago, liking it as much for its silver top as for its air of belonging to
an era where gentlemen had used such things as an accessory. It had been useful on more than one occasion when he was travelling; suspicious customs officials in uneasy parts of the world had not
regarded it as a weapon of menace, and once or twice it had extricated Jude and his team from a threatening situation. The village just outside Syria where a couple of mercenaries had thought it
would be a great joke against these foreign journalists to disable the camera team’s equipment. And the Afghanistan border where they had been attacked by soldiers whose nationality and
loyalties had been ambiguous but whose enmity had been unmistakable. Since the bomb blast it had been useful for gauging the whereabouts of doors, walls and kerbs.

As they went down the stairs there was the buzz of people talking, and the warm scents of food, wood smoke and beer. ‘The stairs are narrow and they wind around to the left,’ Chad
said. ‘Remember?’

‘Since it’s only three hours since I went up these same stairs, I remember perfectly well, thank you,’ said Jude. ‘This is quite an old place, isn’t it? I can smell
the timbers. I do hope it isn’t chintz and self-conscious about being ye olde.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Chad. ‘In fact it’s rather attractive, and— Oh, blast it.’

‘What’s the matter? Were you about to say something that would give the whole thing away or have you stubbed your toe?’

‘Neither. I’ve just seen someone I want to avoid, that’s all. No, it’s all right, I don’t think he saw me. We’re at the door now. Straight through, and the
car’s over to your left.’

‘Who were you trying to avoid?’ demanded Jude when they were outside. It was sharply cold; he turned up his coat collar and imagined how everyone’s breath would be vapourizing
on the air.

‘One of the locals who’s been trying to muscle in on the programme. Harmless, but a bit of a know-all,’ said Chad shortly.‘I don’t think he saw us – he almost
certainly didn’t you see you, anyway. The car’s here.’

‘I hope,’ said Jude, as Chad opened the car door, ‘you’ve stowed the wine away safely.’

‘It’s in the boot.’

‘Have you remembered the corkscrew and the glass? Because I’m damned if I’m going to drink wine out of the bottle or from a paper cup.’

‘I’ve remembered the corkscrew and Drusilla’s wrapped the glass in tissues so it won’t break. For pity’s sake get into the car and let’s get going,’
said Chad sounding exasperated, and Jude smiled.

‘Dear me, Professor, I might almost think you were agitated.’

‘I am
not
agitated,’ said Chad.

Oh yes, you are, thought Jude, getting into the car, moving slowly and deliberately so he did not miss his footing or bang his head on the car roof. It was something he had been taught to do
early on. ‘Unless you’re absolutely sure of your surroundings do everything slowly,’ the specialist nurse had said. ‘Make a quick mental check of each move before you
actually make it. Especially in an unknown place. If you don’t, you’ll fumble and probably get it wrong.’

Be blowed to mental checks, thought Jude, but he got into Chad’s car slowly because he was damned if he was going to miss the seat, and then feel waves of silent sympathy from Chad and the
other two as a result.

As Chad got into the back, Jude said, ‘Aren’t you driving us?’

‘Phin’s driving us.’

‘Well, thank God for small mercies.’

‘Don’t you like the boss’s driving?’ said Drusilla, sounding amused.

‘It’s something no one should have to suffer more than once in a lifetime,’ said Jude.

Jude was not like anyone Phin had ever met. For most of the time he was ironic and offhand – Phin had not yet decided how much this was a defence mechanism against
unwanted sympathy – but he was also almost abnormally perceptive. There was no way of knowing if this was something the blindness had triggered or if it had been part of his personality
anyway. Drusilla had said privately to Phin that Jude must have been a knockout with the women before he was blinded, and then had said, ‘No, scrub the part about before he was blinded
– he’s still a knockout.’

Driving up the narrow track to Calvary, Phin was torn between excited anticipation and near panic. He leaned forward over the steering wheel to peer through the windscreen. He had not seen the
gaol yet, only Dr Ingram had seen it, – he had, in fact, made a very careful exploration of the interior to make sure it was in an acceptable condition for Jude to spend the night. Phin had
seen the photographs and the ground plan, but this was not the same.

As part of his research he had checked the origins of the name, partly because it might make a good snippet of information on the programme, but also because he was interested. Most of the books
said the name usually indicated a place of execution and that the word derived from the Latin
calvaria
, meaning skull. According to one reference this lent some credence to the belief that
the contours of the hill on which Christ was crucified resembled a skull. There was, it appeared, a further theory that the hill was the place where Adam’s skull was buried. These were the
kind of quirky details Dr Ingram liked so Phin had made notes, after which he had spent several enjoyable minutes visualizing Dr Ingram’s politely ironic de-bunking of both theories in front
of the camera. Polite irony was what the English were really good at when they put their minds to it.

Cumbria’s Calvary also stood on a hill, but it was a gentle English hill and it bore no resemblance to skulls, biblical, mythological or otherwise. It did not need any legends to give it
an air of the macabre; it did macabre very effectively on its own. On this late autumn night its squat bulk was menacing in the extreme, and as Phin parked in front of the main entrance he had to
repress a strong compulsion to turn and run.

Jude did not appear especially concerned, however. Phin remembered he had spent most of his working life in war-torn parts of the world, dodging bombs and terrorists and the raggle-taggle
mercenary armies of religious fanatics and power-mad dictators, and supposed spending a few hours in a deserted prison cell would be child’s play by comparison.

Jude got out of the car – Phin had already noticed he moved slowly and rather deliberately – and put the MP3 player in a jacket pocket. Only then did he say, ‘I’m ready
when you are. If anyone’s interested, I’m going to walk in to the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number Twenty-one. It’s a prowling kind of music: it makes you
think of walking alone through a dark forest with something malevolent creeping along after you. Classic fear theme, of course, and I daresay it’s been plundered and plagiarized for the
opening to a dozen horror films, but who cares? Mozart certainly wouldn’t. He loved vulgarity.’

‘Mozart notwithstanding,’ said Chad, ‘once we’re inside, I think Phin had better walk alongside you. I know you’ve got that flamboyant walking cane, but I think it
would be a good idea.’

‘In case I fall? I’ve been known to fall into all kinds of things, and sometimes in worse places than this,’ remarked Jude, and Phin saw Dr Ingram smile.

‘Yes, I know you have and I’ve been there when you fell, in fact I picked you up on a couple of occasions if you remember.’

‘On a couple of occasions,’ observed Jude drily, ‘you fell with me. In your wilder youth, of course.’

‘We’d like to hear about his wilder youth sometime,’ said Drusilla.

‘No, you wouldn’t. Jude, the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t want you to end up with a broken ankle in here.’

‘I am silenced.’

‘That’ll be the day,’ observed Chad caustically. He produced the keys – they were large keys on an old-fashioned ring and they clattered a bit.

‘You’ve got all the sound effects, haven’t you?’ remarked Jude. ‘Is this the moment when I switch on the MP3 and let Mozart screen everything out?’

‘It is.’

Massive oak doors sealed Calvary off from the world, but there was a small door inset on one side and it was this which Chad proceeded to unlock. Beyond it was a small inner courtyard with guard
rooms on each side, and straight ahead was another door. Phin felt another bump of apprehension. This is it, he thought.

Chad locked the outer door, and crossed the courtyard to the second one. He glanced at Jude, and then in a low voice said to Phin and Drusilla, ‘There are three ways in. But when I checked
the place the other two were both firmly locked or bolted from the inside. There’s even a padlock on one of the doors.’