The Death Chamber (26 page)

He crossed the dusty floor, his footsteps echoing. Any furniture that might have been here had been removed, but a built-in cupboard remained and a long marble-topped slab was affixed to one
wall. At the back was another door, partly open, with two deep steps leading down. After a moment he went down the steps. His heart was beating fast and he felt as if he was prising open a dark and
bloodied fragment of the past.

This is it, said his mind. This is where he brought them after he killed them. There’s the long table where he must have laid them out and removed everything that might identify them.
Clothes, engraved wedding rings or lockets that he didn’t dare try to sell. That’s the range where he burned their clothes. Did he work by night? Putting up the shutters and lighting
oil lamps? Walter glanced back up to the front of the shop. Yes, the windows did have shutters.

He was suddenly aware of self-disgust. I’m behaving like a voyeur, he thought, or like one of those characters in Dickens who went jauntily along to Newgate to watch a public hanging. Or
the crones that Fremlin himself talked about, the ghoulish women who had sat knitting at the foot of the guillotine.

The feeling was so strong that he went quickly from the shop, closing the door as well as he could, and drove back to Calvary.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Walter sat at the table in the condemned cell. It was late; the gaslights were flaring and popping in the corridor outside, and there was a faint sound of rain beating against
a windowpane somewhere. Walter liked night rain; as a child he had always liked to lie in bed and hear the rain outside and know himself safe, warm and secure. But how would it feel to lie in this
room and listen to night rain?

He said, ‘I was in Knaresborough earlier today.’

‘Were you?’ Neville Fremlin had been reading the poems of Wilfred Owen which Walter had managed to get for him, but had politely put the book aside when Walter came in.

‘As a matter of fact I went past your old shop.’

‘Oh, did you? I was meaning to have it freshly painted. I daresay it’s looking a bit sorry for itself by now.’

‘It wasn’t looking so bad,’ said Walter who had not expected this response.

‘Nevertheless, the lease specified . . .’ Fremlin paused as if considering whether he had given too much away, and then seemed to shrug as if to say, What does it matter? He said,
‘The lease specified it should be repainted every three years. I always kept to that.’

‘Because you like to have things orderly?’ said Walter.

‘Bright and clean, anyway.’

Having got Fremlin onto the subject of Knaresborough, Walter said, ‘I also saw Mr and Mrs Molland while I was in the town. Elizabeth’s parents.’

Fremlin did not move a muscle, but something seemed to shift behind his eyes and a stillness crept over him.

Watching him, Walter said, ‘They showed me a photograph of her – she was an outstandingly pretty girl, I thought.’

‘All girls of nineteen are pretty, Dr Kane, or are you not yet old enough to appreciate that?’

‘How did you know her age?’ said Walter at once.

‘I read the newspapers.’ The tone had returned to its former carelessness. But I’ve shaken him, thought Walter. He wasn’t expecting me to mention her and there was
definitely a reaction at her name. ‘And,’ said Fremlin, ‘she came into the shop once or twice. I remember her fairly well.’ He studied Walter thoughtfully. ‘That was a
curious visit for you to make, Dr Kane.’

‘I was interested,’ said Walter.

‘Ah.’ It was so non-committal a sound that Walter wondered if he had been mistaken about the reaction to Elizabeth’s name a moment ago. He let the silence lengthen but Fremlin
appeared to have withdrawn again. Quite suddenly, he said, ‘You’d like to get me out of this, wouldn’t you, Dr Kane?’

Walter felt as if a hand had squeezed itself around his heart. This is it, he thought. This is the moment he’s going to propose some wild escape scheme. At a purely superficial level he
was aware of being thankful that neither of the warders was in the cell, although he supposed Fremlin would not have said it if anyone else had been there. ‘You’d like to get me out of
this . . .’ Walter’s mind whirled chaotically for a moment but finally a vestige of professionalism returned to him and he was able to say, ‘I have mixed feelings about the death
penalty. I do admit that.’

‘That’s not what I asked you.’

This time it was not Walter’s professionalism that came to his aid, it was the thought of how Lewis Caradoc would handle this situation. He’d play it by the rules, thought Walter
gratefully, and he said, ‘Fremlin, you know I can’t possibly comment on your case. You’re here to answer for crimes. I’m here to help you through the last few days of your
life.’

Fremlin regarded him for what seemed to be a very long time. Then he said, softly, ‘Is that all it is, Walter? Just part of the job to you? Am I just a – just a statistic? A name on
Calvary’s death register?’

Walter struggled for a moment, and then said, ‘Of course it’s more than just a job. You must know that. I have compassion for you and I hope I’m helping you. But I
haven’t sufficient knowledge of the facts to make any kind of judgement.’

‘And yet,’ said Fremlin in the same soft voice, ‘you drove out to see Elizabeth Molland’s parents today.’ He leaned forward, his eyes glowing. ‘You would like
to get me out of this, wouldn’t you, Walter? Because—’ He stopped and seemed to be searching Walter’s eyes. Then he said, ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I
misread you.’ He leaned back, and in a completely different voice, said, ‘Did I thank you for getting Wilfred Owen’s poems for me? I’ve been enjoying rereading them. I
always admired the idealism of those young men who fought in the Great War.’ Then, without missing a beat, he said, ‘If you go into Kendal before Monday, d’you think you could
bring me a bottle of wine? A good claret for preference.’

‘I don’t think the governor would allow it,’ said Walter, managing to match Fremlin’s lightness of tone.

‘No? Ah well, it was worth a try,’ said the man who was going to die on Monday morning. As Walter got up to leave, he said, very casually, ‘You’re ready for Monday, are
you, Dr Kane?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

He was not ready, of course, and he would not be ready if he had ten years to prepare.

The day after his visit he sent a careful note to Mr and Mrs Molland, thanking them for their courtesy, and saying he feared there would not be any information from Fremlin about Elizabeth. If,
however, there was anything that either of them remembered – anything that might help him – he hoped they would get in touch. He did not really expect very much, and when he received a
rather flowery little note from Mrs Molland, expressing their appreciation of his thoughtfulness but saying nothing more, he was not surprised.

Time seemed to have become uneven and unreliable. At first, after the visit to Knaresborough, it went with such dragging slowness that Walter wished there was a way to shunt it along and get to
Monday morning so that the appalling thing waiting there could be faced. But then it seemed to double and triple its pace, flying like a weaver’s shuttle, like a runner racing to reach a
finishing post, wastefully spilling the last hours of a man’s life.

During those days a great deal of Walter’s time was taken up with prisoners whose health had to be regularly checked – two had heart conditions and three had the miners’ lung
disease from working in the Yorkshire collieries. The oldest of these was becoming quite seriously ill, and although Walter was making the man as comfortable as he could, he knew and the man knew,
that the condition would inexorably worsen.

The day before the execution was one of the lowering days in which this part of England seemed to specialize. Clouds scudded across Mount Torven and flurries of rain spattered down.

Walter attended morning service in the small chapel. The prisoners were brought in as usual; Sunday attendance was compulsory for them, but Walter thought they would have been there anyway
because it made a change in the strict routine of their lives. They liked Sunday services even if it was for the wrong reasons; they liked to sing loudly to the hymns and some of them would
furtively ogle the female warders. But today they were quiet and watchful; several of them looked as if it would not take much to make them erupt into rebellion. Walter had known there would be
things he had not expected, and this odd unease among the other prisoners was one of them.

He had lunch with Edgar Higneth and the chaplain. It had been an invitation he could not refuse although he would have preferred to drive to the King’s Head in Thornbeck where the landlady
roasted an enormous side of beef each Sunday and served it pink and tender with home-grown vegetables. Several of the local people who did not have families usually came in to eat in the small
dining room and Walter had made one or two cautious friendships among them. Men who did have families often looked in for a half-guilty glass of beer before their own dinner, reluctantly returning
to obligatory domesticity for the afternoon.

Walter had come to enjoy this pleasant Sunday ritual, but today he had to eat the peppery soup and overcooked meat which was Calvary’s idea of a Sunday roast, and to forgo any kind of
drink since the regulations did not permit alcohol inside the gaol. Edgar Higneth would not have been above smuggling in a couple of bottles of wine for his guests, but the chaplain had strict
views on temperance and probably would have reported the smallest glass of sherry to Higneth’s masters at Whitehall, so they drank barley water.

After lunch Walter spent some time in the small infirmary where a couple of patients were recovering from operations that had been performed in Kendal Hospital – neither were serious but
both were suffering some pain and Walter was administering morphia. As the afternoon wore on, one of them said, ‘No more of that stuff, Doc.’

‘But a hernia operation is very painful.’

‘I know, but they’re topping Fremlin in the morning. I need to stay awake.’

‘For the – topping?’

‘They think we don’t know,’ said the man. ‘They have all these tricks for keeping it a secret. But of course it never is a secret and we always do know. It’s as if
something creeps into the place.’

Walter sat with Fremlin for an hour during the early evening, but Fremlin seemed to be withdrawing into some private world of his own and for the first time scarcely seemed to care who was in
the cell with him. Is this the start of the disintegration? thought Walter, and in the deepest part of his mind knew that he did not want Fremlin to disintegrate; he wanted him to go to his death
with the same ironic courtesy he had displayed all along. That’s because it’s the first hanging I’ve dealt with, thought Walter, that’s why I’m so deeply affected.

As darkness fell the gas jets were turned up and soft-footed steps stole along the dim corridors. A spiteful little wind crept into the gaol and whispered up and down the halls, as if it wanted
to join in the low-voiced discussions that went on in corners. ‘Is the hangman here?’ ‘Will the prisoner die quietly – or will he die hard?’ ‘Have they put the
rope in place?’ ‘Have they dug the grave?’ As the hours went by Walter could no longer tell which were the furtive conversations of the warders and which was the sighing of the
wind. The impression that something invisible and implacable was stirring Calvary’s bones grew on him. Something creeps into the place, the prisoner had said in the infirmary. Something
creeps in . . .

Shortly after nine o’clock he was called to Edgar Higneth’s office to meet the executioner and his assistant who had arrived that afternoon. The executioner obviously sensed
Walter’s apprehension, because he said it would all be done very swiftly and cleanly. He had a Yorkshire burr which was oddly reassuring, and although he did not quite pat Walter’s
shoulder or call him ‘lad’, he nearly did. There was a discussion as to the weight and height of the prisoner, which had a direct bearing on the length of the drop. Tables were produced
with columns of weights and heights. By this time Walter felt oddly distant from it all, as if he was encased in glass. He felt as if he was seeing and hearing everything from a distance, but he
thought he managed to take a reasonably intelligent part in the conversation.

He looked in on Fremlin, who appeared to be asleep from the sedative Walter had given him after supper, and then went back to the room near the infirmary, which was used as a temporary bedroom
for Calvary’s doctor. He lay down on the bed although he did not expect to sleep. Calvary seemed alive all around him – three times he heard footsteps go past his door but when he
looked outside the corridors were empty and he went back to the bed. But Fremlin’s words danced endlessly through his mind. ‘You’d like to get me out this, wouldn’t you, Dr
Kane, wouldn’t you,
wouldn’t you
. . .’

‘No!’ cried Walter and came abruptly awake, his heart racing, the sounds of his own cry still echoing in his mind. He saw he had slept after all and for longer than he would have
thought possible, because a cold dawn light was trickling into the room through the small, high window. The little bedside clock said six a.m. The day of execution. And whatever had crept into
Calvary last night was still here.