The Death Chamber (47 page)

‘In any other circumstances she’d be told very sharply that this isn’t the Savoy,’ said Edgar Higneth who was watching snow cover the whole of Torven, and worriedly
tuning in to every available weather forecast on the wireless. But he authorized the order for plain turkey with potatoes, parsnips and a small helping of sprouts.

The following day Violet Parsons said she would prefer not to wear the prison garb if they did not mind, although if it was an inflexible requirement she supposed she could do so.

‘Let her wear what she wants,’ said Edgar Higneth, impatiently. ‘Check everything for pins or sharp ends, and for strings or belts, of course. And take away shoe laces and
stockings, unless they’re those cotton affairs. Don’t let her have silk stockings.’

‘None of us can get silk stockings at the moment, sir,’ said the wardress to whom this was addressed. ‘She’s brought lisle ones with her. There’s a lot of stretch
in them; I shouldn’t think they could be used for any suicide bids.’

‘Well, make sure.’ Higneth, a confirmed bachelor, was not very well informed about ladies’ under garments, although he had been known to admire a well-turned ankle and a rumour
had once circulated that he had a weakness for chestnut hair. One of the younger wardresses had offered to prove this by dying her hair chestnut and trying to vamp him, but since the war you could
not get chestnut hair dye any more than you could get silk stockings, and the wardress had then left to join the Wrens so the plan had to be shelved until the war should end. By which time nobody
would care, because they would all be too busy celebrating the downfall of that evil man in Germany.

‘All you have to do,’ said Denzil McNulty, seated in Walter’s surgery, ‘is request an extra weighing of the prisoner – a very precise weighing
– immediately before the execution. And then a second weighing within minutes of death.’

‘And that will prove or disprove the existence of the soul?’ said Walter, who had listened in disbelief to the details of McNulty’s proposed experiment and the reasons for
it.

‘It could go a long way to proving it.’

‘I don’t care how long it goes, I won’t do it. In any case, the second weighing would be impossible,’ said Walter, glad to have found an unarguable reason for blocking
McNulty’s bizarre demand. ‘You know that as well as I do,’ he said. ‘The body is always left for an hour before it’s touched, and even then Pierrepoint will be there
with his assistant.’

‘But it’s not looking as if Pierrepoint will manage to get here,’ said McNulty. ‘Hasn’t Edgar Higneth already said this may have to be a makeshift affair. All you
have to do, Walter, is order the first weighing. I’ll see to the second one, providing you request my presence at the hanging. Since I know the lady that won’t be thought so very odd.
It’ll look as if I’m there to comfort a friend in her last moments.’

Bloody hypocrite, thought Walter angrily. One day I’ll see him hanged in that cell himself for this.

He said, ‘I didn’t know you knew Parsons.’

‘Oh yes. Rather a curious thing, isn’t it? She was something of a stalwart within the Caradoc Society. A very worthy member of the group. A great friend of Lady Caradoc, as a matter
of fact.’

‘I didn’t know she was involved in the Caradoc Society,’ said Walter, who had not taken much notice of the Caradoc Society, beyond assuming it had been Lady Caradoc who had
instigated it and bestowed the name on it, rather than Sir Lewis. Lewis, in fact, never mentioned it.

‘No matter,’ said McNulty. ‘Well? Is our little arrangement confirmed?’

‘No,’ said Walter. ‘You’ll have to do your worst over the Elizabeth Molland business. I daresay it will reflect very badly on me even though I had nothing to do with it,
but I can’t help that. Tell whoever you like.’

‘Yes, it will reflect badly on you,’ said McNulty. He swung the absurdly affected eyeglass he wore, as if, thought Walter, it was a monstrous single eye on the end of a black
twitching nerve. ‘But have you thought who else it will reflect badly on, Walter? Elizabeth’s father, remember?’ And then, as Walter hesitated, he said, ‘And talking of
fathers.’ He stopped and smiled.

There was something in that smile and in McNulty’s tone that caused a tremor of apprehension to slide down Walter’s spine. Nicholas, he thought. He knows about Nicholas, and
he’s going to use it against me in some way. Son of a traitor – something like that. It’s a good weapon for him, as well – the whole country’s gripped by anti-German
fever. If the army medical corps got to hear about Nicholas they might refuse my request to join them and go out to France.

Denzil McNulty said, ‘Nicholas O’Kane.’

Oh, be damned to you, thought Walter furiously. He said, ‘Yes, Nicholas O’Kane was my father. You obviously know that. You also obviously know he was a traitor to his country and he
was hanged in this prison in 1917. The debt was paid.’

‘Was it?’ said McNulty softly, leaning forward. ‘Are you sure about that? Are you sure your father died?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I know the date – my mother brought me to see him two days before the execution.’

‘Supposing I were to tell you that the execution never took place,’ said McNulty. ‘That he escaped?’

‘I shouldn’t believe you,’ said Walter after a moment. ‘This is a trick. It’s some twisty plan you’ve cooked up to make me give in to your
blackmail.’

‘It’s no trick, I assure you. I was present that morning,’ said McNulty. ‘You can look up the records – you’ll find it’s perfectly true. Or you can ask
Lewis Caradoc – he was there.’

‘I certainly don’t believe that.’

McNulty leaned forward, his pale eyes fixed on Walter. He said, ‘Lewis Caradoc was the governor here. On that morning in 1917, he and I arranged for Nicholas O’Kane’s escape.
Your father went out of this prison, back into the world.’

Somehow Walter fought back to a semblance of composure, but when at last he managed to speak his voice sounded to him distant and a bit blurred.

‘That’s an extraordinary claim, Dr McNulty. But I don’t normally listen to fantastical tittle-tattle.’

‘It’s fantastical all right, but it’s certainly not tittle-tattle.’ McNulty was watching him closely. ‘Ask Lewis Caradoc if you don’t believe me?’

‘That’s exactly what I shall do,’ said Walter furiously. ‘Now get out of my surgery.’

He sat in the familiar low-ceilinged room, and heard his own voice repeating Denzil McNulty’s extraordinary claim, and waited to hear Lewis Caradoc say it was a complete
fabrication, and that McNulty was a twisted liar.

Lewis said, ‘Walter, I’m so sorry you had to find out.’

‘It’s true?’ said Walter, staring at him.

‘Yes, it’s true. I should have foreseen McNulty couldn’t be trusted – I should have found a way of telling you. But you and I didn’t meet until so many years
afterwards, and then it seemed better not to . . .’ He frowned. ‘Did McNulty tell you the details?’

‘No.’

‘Well, perhaps details don’t matter so very much now. Your father was foolish and reckless as a young man, although it was always my opinion that in those years – I’m
talking about the Great War now – he came under unfortunate influences. Because of it, he betrayed this country and sold secrets to Germany, and on that morning in 1917 by all the rules of
man and God he deserved to be hanged. Young men died because of what your father did, Walter,’ he said, and his voice lost some of its colour. Walter knew Lewis was remembering his own son,
Cas. ‘But Nick O’Kane believed in what he did,’ said Lewis. ‘I sat in the execution chamber of Calvary with him and listened to him talking and saw the passion in his eyes.
It was the wrong passion – and I think he knew by then that it was wrong – but he had fought wholeheartedly for a cause he believed in. He had fought for his own country.’

‘Ireland,’ said Walter, half to himself.

‘Yes.’ The shadow was still in Lewis’s eyes, and Walter thought: was it because of Cas that he helped my father? Did he see some kind of link between them? Two reckless young
men, fighting a war – prepared to kill or be killed? He was not sure if he could ever ask Lewis about that, and he was not sure if Lewis would tell him.

From out of the tumbling confusion, he said, ‘Is he still alive? Could I trace him?’

‘He changed his identity after that night – name, religion, everything. He changed his entire way of life,’ said Lewis. ‘I don’t think you should try to trace
him.’

‘Why not?’ There’s something else, thought Walter suddenly. There’s something he hasn’t told me – he’s trying to decide whether to do so now – I
can
feel
him struggling to decide. When Lewis spoke again, he was sure of it.

‘I think you should let the past go,’ said Lewis.

‘No. I can’t let it go. I need to find him – to understand why he did all those things. What is it you aren’t telling me? For God’s sake, Lewis.’

Lewis made a curious gesture as if bracing himself to lift a heavy weight or withstand a blow. He said, ‘Walter, the name that Nick O’Kane took – the name he lived under for
the rest of his life—’ He stopped, and Walter suddenly knew what was coming. Oh God, no, he thought. Oh God, no, not that.

Lewis said, ‘The name your father took was Neville Fremlin.’

Neville Fremlin. The name he took was Neville Fremlin,
Neville Fremlin
. The dreadful words drummed into Walter’s brain over and over, and he felt as if all the breath had been
driven from his body. The blood pounded in his head and there was a rushing sound in his ears and a sick darkness pressed down on him. I’m not going to bear this, he thought. I’m not
going to be able to live the rest of my life knowing this.

But after a moment, he heard his voice say in a nearly ordinary tone, ‘I don’t think that can be right. I’d have recognized him. I spent a good deal of time with – with
Neville Fremlin. I’d have realized.’

But he already knew Lewis had told him the truth. Everything was slotting together in his mind: the feeling he had experienced of knowing Fremlin, which he had put down to familiarity because of
the publicity surrounding the trial – the instant liking he had had for Fremlin – Oh God, more than liking! thought Walter wretchedly.

‘How old were you in 1917?’ Lewis was saying. ‘Seven years old, wasn’t it? And how many of those seven years of your life did you actually spend with your father? He was
in Ireland for a lot of the time, wasn’t he? You can’t have spent more than a few weeks at a time with him, Walter. And twenty years later he was so different I doubt anyone would have
recognized him. If I hadn’t known the name, I’m not sure if I would have recognized him from the photographs in the newspapers.’

Walter pounced on this at once. ‘How did you know about the name?’

‘Because one of the things Nick O’Kane needed to establish his new identity was a passport. By 1920 passport regulations were a lot tighter than they had been before the Great War
and a sponsor was required – someone of good professional standing. A prison governor, for instance. I sponsored Nick O’Kane’s passport request,’ said Lewis. ‘He knew
it was safe to ask me because I couldn’t turn him in without giving away my own part in his escape. Equally, he couldn’t turn me in without incriminating himself. Villains’
pact.’

‘Birth certificate,’ said Walter, searching for flaws. ‘He’d have needed a birth certificate – if not for the passport, surely at some time.’

‘Yes, but your father was a very clever man, and he had lived and worked alongside people who knew how to forge things like that. You mustn’t forget he had been a spy,’ said
Lewis gently. ‘He’d know people who could provide such things without awkward questions being asked. And because of the Easter Rising of 1916 certain sections of the Irish people saw
him as one of their minor heroes. He was one of the rebels who fought for Home Rule remember. He was on the steps of the post office building in Dublin when they proclaimed the Irish
Republic.’

Walter’s mind went back to those discussions in the condemned cell. He said slowly, ‘A lot of what Fremlin said is suddenly clearer. About how he was glad I would be with him, and
how one day I might understand.’

Lewis said thoughtfully, ‘I wonder if he was thinking you might find out the truth some day. I wonder if he was trying to ask you to forgive him.’

‘I might have forgiven him for what he did in 1917,’ said Walter bitterly. ‘I might just about have done that. But I can’t forgive him for what he did later – of
course I can’t. All those women he killed. I can’t feel anything other than repulsion for him. Sick disgust. It’d be a hell of a legacy to give any children I might have,
wouldn’t it? A grandfather who was a mass murderer.’

‘Yes,’ said Lewis, half to himself. ‘I understand exactly how you feel. Your father and my daughter.’

When Walter finally returned to Calvary and his work, he found that the thing that stayed uppermost in his mind was not so much that his father had killed five women –
although that was a black anguish in itself – but that he himself had watched his father hang. I walked with him into the death chamber on that last morning and saw it done, he thought. I
listened to his heartbeat falter and then stop, and I pronounced him dead. And afterwards I helped cut his body down, and saw him thrown into that shallow grave, and his body covered with
quicklime.

The images burned into his mind like acid, and he thought he would never be free of them. But with them was the knowledge that his father had kept the truth to himself. He might have used it to
get my sympathy, thought Walter. He might so easily have done that – emotional blackmail to persuade me to help him escape, but he didn’t. He remained as Neville Fremlin right to the
end.

The days immediately prior to Christmas passed in a blur. He managed to carry out his various duties at Calvary, and wondered if he would ever feel anything again other than this sick despair.
The influenza seemed to have blown itself out but there were minor ailments to deal with. A couple of the warders had to be treated for unmistakable hangovers and one of the younger wardresses
confessed weepingly that she feared she was pregnant. Walter examined her and had to confirm her fears. He managed to persuade her to contact a cottage hospital just outside Lancaster where staff
were particularly helpful to girls in this predicament, and could arrange adoptions. She clung to his hands, thanking him and said she had felt like chucking herself in the river, indeed she had,
Dr Kane, but he had given her hope and after all, life went on, didn’t it and you got through these things somehow?