The Death Chamber (59 page)

‘If Phin’s Caroline is the right one,’ said Georgina, ‘and I think she is, I might have the explanation I wanted.’

‘About the money?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think McNulty really did blackmail him?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I think you’re right. Because if Walter did help Elizabeth Molland – Meade – to get out of Calvary, it would have laid him wide open,’ said Jude, thoughtfully.
‘We’ll probably never find out what kind of amount was involved or where the money came from—’

‘Maybe it was an inheritance or something,’ said Georgina. ‘I’m only speculating, though.’

‘Speculating’s half the fun of research,’ said Jude. ‘So let’s say that did happen. And for most of his life he thought he had no family – no one to leave
money to. And then quite suddenly there was a daughter—’

‘And he probably wanted to make a will in her favour – there was the house in Lucerne, wasn’t there? – but he died before he did so. He might have died without any
warning, as well, of course.’

‘Or been too ill to even think about it.’

‘Yes. I might be fitting the facts into a pattern I want,’ said Georgina. ‘But it seems credible to me.’

‘It seems credible to me, as well,’ said Jude.

‘They’ve got a buyer for Caradoc House – did I tell you that? Some geological society who’ll use it as their headquarters. Quite a good price, according to Huxley
Small.’

‘Shall you be disgustingly rich as a result?’

‘No,’ said Georgina and smiled. ‘But a bit more solvent than I’ve been lately.’

‘Enough to keep the design business going on your own?’

‘I think so.’ Georgina had not yet dared to look at this possibility in detail, but she thought it was very hopeful. Especially if Drusilla had meant it about freelance television
work.

‘I’m glad,’ said Jude. ‘Will you come and see my flat quite soon and fling all kinds of dramatic colours around? Carpets and curtains and whatnot?’

‘I’d love to. Lots of vivid emerald greens and peacock blues,’ said Georgina.

‘Good God, is that how you see me?’

‘I think it’s how you see yourself.’

‘You’re too perceptive for my comfort.’

The restaurant was small and attractive. Georgina had held Jude’s arm as they went to their table, but from there he had simply said to the waiter, ‘Would you read the menu out to
me?’ listened carefully, and appeared to have committed it to memory. When the wine was brought, he said, ‘I’ll have to leave it to you to pour it out; I’d better not risk
sloshing it over the tablecloth. I’ll bet it’s white damask, isn’t it? Yes, I thought as much. But we’ve got candlelight, haven’t we?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t smile like that – I know you’re smiling because it’s in your voice. I wanted candlelight for some reason I can’t logically explain. I just like to
think of you in that light. It’s the grey eyes; I’m rather keen on grey eyes.’

‘The candlelight’s lovely,’ said Georgina. ‘And I’ve worn black to emphasize the grey eyes.’

‘I like that as well,’ he said. He held out his hand and Georgina took it.

December 1960

Walter thought that after all there were different kinds of happiness, and that this was a happiness he would never have expected.

After Caroline went back to England, he was aware of an almost overwhelming fatigue, but in a curious way it was a very restful fatigue, as if he had finally ceased to struggle with a task that
had been almost more than he could bear. He had not yet got used to the knowledge that he had a daughter – that a part of Catherine lived on.

A daughter. Caroline. She was being married next spring to a man called Alaric Grey – he was something to do with the Slade, something to do with fabric design. Caroline had shown Walter a
photograph of him, and Walter had seen that Alaric Grey was good-looking and had kind eyes and a generous mouth, and he had looked at Catherine’s girl and thought: they will have such
attractive children, these two. Will they have Catherine’s beautiful grey eyes? Will I see them, I wonder?

He was still on leave from the clinic, although there was a list of patients waiting for his return. For the moment he could not focus his mind on them; he could only focus his mind on the past.
That’s an old man’s habit, he thought sharply. You’re barely fifty. You’ve got years ahead of you. Good years.

But he did not think he had so very many years. The menacing lurching within his heart had happened a number of times now; he supposed he would take the tests to see what was going on there, but
he did not really need to take any tests. He thought he knew.

Not so many years left. Yes, there was the pain again. A vicious tightening around the chest. Unmistakable. Ah well.

Until it came again, it was good to sit in this well of deep happiness and of lassitude, and to think of the children that might be born in the future. Children who might have Catherine’s
grey eyes and who might hear about the notorious mass murderer, Neville Fremlin, but who would not know he was their ancestor. It did not really matter, not now. After all, what did ancestors
matter?

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

‘I know ancestors don’t matter, not really,’ said Georgina, opening the door in Calvary’s outer wall. ‘And I know I’m being impossibly
romantic. But I just feel it’s a place that has a link to Walter. And it’s something I want to do.’

‘It’s remarkable how different this place feels in the middle of the afternoon,’ said Jude. ‘I can tell it’s sunless and a bit neglected, but I’ll bet if you
put a stone seat in and a couple of statues—’

‘And an oriole window in the mortuary wall?’ said Georgina.

‘Don’t laugh at me, you heartless wench. I was trying to conjure up an Oxford quadrangle.’

‘Jude, it’s a dank dismal graveyard, and I shouldn’t think anyone comes here except Mr Small on his yearly inspection.’

‘In that case why did you bring the laurel bushes?’

‘Well, because I think there’s just about enough light here for them to take,’ said Georgina.

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘I know it isn’t. I can’t explain. I just feel I’d like to mark Neville Fremlin’s grave. Just to show he’s remembered.’

‘To show he was innocent of all those murders – and that the only thing he was really guilty of was trying to cover up for Elizabeth?’

‘Yes, that, as well.’

‘The grave will make a good photograph for a book jacket,’ observed Jude.

‘Are you really going to write a book about him? About the whole Fremlin/Molland thing?’

‘Yes, I am. It needs writing. I’d like to have it ready to coincide with Chad’s programme – they’re mounting quite a good publicity campaign on that, he says.
Masses of trailers, and hopefully some of those viewers’ choice teasers in the TV listings. But I don’t think it’ll be possible, not if I’m going to do the subject
justice.’

‘I’m glad about the book,’ said Georgina. ‘I think you’ll do it well.’

‘I hope so. It’s odd, but I feel a – a sort of obligation to put the record straight for Fremlin.’

He paused, and Georgina said, very carefully, ‘The image you saw in the execution chamber—’

She stopped, and Jude said, ‘Say it.’

‘You think it was Fremlin, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know. It’d be a bit too neat, wouldn’t it? The restless ghost haunting the place where he was wrongly killed – I’m not that much of a romantic,
Georgina.’

But you’d like to think it was Fremlin, she thought. And you’d like to think your book will clear his name. I’d like to think it as well.

In a deliberately casual voice, she said, ‘All this – the book, the TV programme – it’ll all stir Vincent N. up a bit, won’t it? Because it will mean the truth
coming out about his mother.’

‘I’ll be very discreet about that,’ said Jude, ‘and so will Chad. It might be possible to keep her just as Molland, without bringing the Meade name in at all. But from
the sound of it, Vincent’s a very tough person – he was just about prepared to kill to keep his secrets, remember? That takes huge toughness. How are you getting on with the
plants?’

‘It’s done,’ said Georgina, setting down the small trowel. ‘It looks quite good. I wish you could see it, Jude.’

‘I wish I could as well. But I know it’s there.’

‘Shall we walk round the walls?’ said Georgina standing up and depositing the trowel in her haversack. ‘The car’s around the front. But the sun’s gorgeous, even
though it is nearly December.’

‘Yes, let’s. D’you mind taking my arm? I left the stick in the car.’

‘I don’t mind at all.’

‘To guide my steps,’ he said. ‘Is that a nuisance? Would it ever be a nuisance?’

‘It might be at times,’ said Georgina. ‘I might lose my temper – you’re not the only one who does that. But in a general sense, no it wouldn’t be a nuisance
at all.’

He drew her hand through his arm, and closed his free hand over it. ‘I hate the fact that I shan’t ever see you. But I can just about tolerate that if you can.’

‘I can,’ said Georgina.

‘You’re smiling again,’ said Jude after a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a very happy smile, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina. ‘Yes, it’s very happy indeed.’

Vincent had made a huge decision. He was going to leave Thornbeck, and he was going to do so quickly. He had not liked the sly questions of the police, and he had not liked the
way people glanced sideways at him as he went about his day. Inquisitive. Even a bit jealous. The more he noticed it, the less he liked it.

Oddly, the prospect of leaving Thornbeck was not as daunting or as unhappy as it might once have been. Places ran their course for you in your life, he knew that from Mother. Thornbeck had run a
very long course for him – the best part of forty years it had been – but he thought he had a good few years still ahead of him. He would make a niche for himself wherever he went.
There would be all kinds of opportunities for an unattached gentleman, who was not rich but who had a modest private income left to him by his mother.

He had come to Thornbeck because of Mother, of course, but somehow she was no longer here. So he would sell his house and go somewhere he was quite unknown. He toyed pleasurably with all the
things he might still do, and all the people he might still meet. He would look for somewhere peaceful, perhaps in the south of England this time. A small community was best; a nice village with a
lively social life. He would look out the maps presently. And he would go quietly and without telling anyone, so people would be surprised and wonder what had happened.

‘Vincent Meade,’ they might say. ‘Bit of a mystery man in the end. Always thought there were hidden depths there. Daresay we’ll never find out what happened.’ They
might even say, ‘Didn’t the police try to trump up some kind of charge against him? Whatever the charge was, it was dropped. Shouldn’t think anyone believed it. And that
television chap seems to have got his knife into him as well – something to do with that programme about Calvary; bit of jealousy there, if you want my opinion . . . Interesting chap, though.
My word, he’ll be missed around here.’

The police had not precisely dropped the charges – they had left them on file, whatever that meant. But Vincent was not going to worry about it.

He was not going to worry about anything Dr Ingram and the rest might have turned up about Mother, either. He thought he could be pretty sure the programme on Calvary would not be made –
not after the spanners he himself had put in the works! People becoming trapped in the lime store, and only being rescued by sheer good fortune! For a while he had been worried his plan had failed,
but now he looked at things calmly, he could see he had very subtly put a stop to their activities.

Vincent was as sure as he could be that Calvary, with all its secrets, would be allowed to slip back into obscurity. And it was not very likely that Mother’s name and her legend would
surface in any other part of England; it was not as if people were going to be publicizing any of it or writing books or anything of that kind.

But it was not out of the question that someday, somewhere in the future, Vincent would find himself confronted with Mother’s ghost again. If so, he might find himself once again working
out a plan to keep her memory sweet and good and untainted.

He would do so, of course. He had made that promise to her. He would do whatever it took.