Thorn (7 page)

Within John Shilling's slightly sottish, slightly self-indulgent soul, an impulse reared up that was almost entirely selfless, and very nearly akin to medieval knight-errantry. He would do it. If he could not risk a bit of discomfort for Eloise, it made his devotion seem a very threadbare emotion indeed. His mind began riffling through acceptable causes of unexpected death. Pericarditis? Viral pneumonia? No, there had been that massive effusion of blood, that ought to be taken into account; it ought almost to be made use of. What about perforation of a stomach ulcer?

Clearing his throat to get their attention, he said, ‘I'll do what you want. I think I see a way.'

Every head turned to him. ‘You will?' This was Flora.

‘What will you do?' asked Rosa.

‘How will you do it?' demanded George.

John said, ‘If I were to give the cause of death as a perforated stomach ulcer—'

‘But Eloise never had a twinge even of indigestion in her life!' exclaimed Rosa.

‘Do be quiet, Rosa,' said Thalia. ‘Let him finish. Go on, Dr Shilling.'

John said, ‘It will mean making several fictitious entries on Eloise's medical records.' The word ‘fictitious' pleased him; it sounded better than false. He went on more easily, ‘There would have to be several entries, some history of pain after eating. Even bouts of vomiting.' He paused, thinking hard. A trial prescription for something like Lo-Sec would have to show on the records as well, and maybe a note to consider a gastroscopy.

‘Would you make such entries?' asked Thalia.

‘Yes,' said John, surprised to hear his voice sounding so positive.

Cousin Elspeth wanted to know if that in itself mightn't look suspicious to somebody somewhere. ‘Things written in or crossed out on a card—'

‘Elspeth, darling, everything's on computer these days,' said Juliette. And then, suddenly doubtful, ‘Isn't it?'

‘Oh yes.' This had been in John's mind while forming the plan. ‘Yes, I would only have to call up Eloise's file and key in several extra entries. A couple of consultations, backdated, of course. I don't think anyone could possibly tell that they had been added later.'

‘Or if they could, you would only have to say you were updating the disk from a handwritten memo,' said George.

‘Exactly.'

‘And you're prepared to do that?' asked Rosa.

‘Yes. Yes, I am.' And he thought: for you, my lady, my love, I'm prepared to do it.

Rosa said, ‘Why a stomach ulcer? Why not a heart attack, like Royston?'

John took a moment to reply, and then said, carefully, as if sorting his own thoughts, ‘Because of the blood. Several of you saw it. And it's possible that however scrupulous the cleaning-up process, traces will remain. We should allow for the possibility of an inquiry – a thorough police search that might pick those traces up. Also, if the truth did get out, it would be better if I had given you a credible reason for Eloise's sudden death, taking the haemorrhage into account.' He paused, and then said, ‘Supposing I told you here and now that Eloise had a stomach ulcer that perforated and caused the haemorrhage, would you find it believable?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘There you are then. If the worst happened, you could all appear entirely innocent.'

‘You couldn't, though,' Rosa said bluntly.

‘No, but I could say I believed that Eloise had committed suicide and that I falsified the certificate to save the family further distress.'

‘You could say she stabbed herself?'

‘I think so. I could say the knife was found by her bed, and that suicide was the only believable explanation.'

There was a silence while the suggestion was considered.

Rosa said, ‘I don't much like the idea of a suicide, but—'

‘But that's only if it ever comes out, Rosa,' Thalia pointed out, ‘which it won't. We're covering all the pitfalls.'

‘But supposing it did come out,' persisted Rosa, ‘what reason would Eloise have had for suicide?'

John said, ‘Oh, Royston's death.'

‘Ah. Yes, of course.' Elspeth's husband George felt it was time that the family took back the reins on this. He said, ‘Shilling, I wonder if you'd give us a minute, just to discuss . . .'

‘Of course.'

As John went out, the family went into little huddles. George said to Elspeth that it was a credible plan; there was the business of the blood, after all, you could not escape that, and Elspeth shuddered and wished George would not talk about blood when people were still feeling sick. ‘The fellow's covering his back, of course,' added George, ‘in case the thing goes wrong.'

‘You can't blame him for that.'

‘And if it does go wrong, he's the one who'll suffer most,' said Juliette sagely. ‘I think he's being rather heroic.'

Aunt Dilys did not think a stomach ulcer was the kind of thing Eloise would have wanted to die from. ‘Indelicate, you know.'

Aunt Rosa said it could hardly make any difference and the important thing here was protecting Imogen. ‘I say we agree to Dr Shilling's proposal,' she said, raising her voice. ‘If he'll be good enough to do it, I think we should trust his judgement on the medical details. Thalia? Flora?'

Thalia nodded. ‘I agree.'

‘Yes,' said Flora after a moment.

‘Everyone? Good. Then we'll call him back and tell him—'

‘Before we do,' Thalia said, ‘there's the question of Imogen. I think we should settle that between ourselves.'

‘Quite right, keep it in the family.' This was George.

‘Somebody suggested a nursing home,' remembered Aunt Dilys. ‘Flora, wasn't it you?'

‘Yes, but I haven't got as far as thinking of an actual place.'

‘I have,' said Thalia. ‘I believe I know someone who might help. Someone I met through one of the committees. He's actually on the Rackham Commission, but I think he has a connection with Briar House.'

The relief at not hearing the terrible name Thornacre again was so great that people relaxed for the first time for several hours, and Aunt Dilys, voluble with relief, leaned forward and asked was that the place on the outskirts of Hampstead to the north. ‘A huge grey Victorian building, rather ugly, but with very nice grounds?'

‘Yes, that's it. I think it's the kind of place Royston meant.'

‘Well, that doesn't sound too bad,' said Dilys, looking round the room for approval, and several people nodded cautiously. Cousin Elspeth knew someone who knew someone whose brother – or perhaps it had been an uncle . . . Anyway, Briar House had certainly been spoken of with approval. Expressions like ‘nervous exhaustion' and ‘emotional fatigue' began to be bandied about, and Dilys's voice rose above the rest, insisting that it was important that Imogen was put somewhere
kind
.

Thalia said drily, ‘Did you think I meant us to shut the child away in some bleak Victorian institution? Do you think Royston and Eloise would have wanted that?'

‘Dear me,
no,
' chorused the aunts, shocked to their toes. Juliette wanted to know how they were to silence Mrs Scullion. Were they simply going to hope for a devoted family retainer, or should something be worked out?

They went into little huddles all over again, working out details of this aspect, reminding one another that Mrs Scullion had left the house before the appalling discovery was made, and Juliette was heard to say it was rather like constructing a country house murder mystery. Flora took the opportunity to ask about Thalia's connection with Briar House.

‘I heard of it through someone I met on the fund-raising committee for the Students' Counselling Service,' said Thalia, and several people nodded, because this was the kind of thing that Thalia, dear, hard-working creature, had been involved with for several years. She had met some interesting people through her work and she was kindness itself to the younger people with problems. She had even been known to take one or two of the young men out to dinner at quite expensive places. She could easily afford it, but that was not the point.

Flora asked bluntly, ‘Who is the person you know?'

‘I don't suppose you've met him, but you might have heard of him.' Thalia paused. ‘It's Leo Sterne.'

There was an abrupt silence; even Juliette was halted in her dissertation on how Mrs Scullion could be coped with.

At last Aunt Dilys, stammering a bit, said, ‘But . . . Oh, Thalia, you surely aren't suggesting that someone like that would be the right kind of person . . .'

‘He was in all the papers last year,' said Aunt Rosa. ‘I remember it very well. A patient accused Dr Sterne of – dear me, well, of seduction while under hypnosis. There was a very public case about it.'

A murmur of unease, in which the words ‘malpractice' and ‘charlatan' were discernible, went through the room. Cousin Elspeth's husband said crossly that it was all nonsense, Sterne had been completely exonerated, and it had plainly been a case of wishful thinking on the part of some silly hysterical female and sensationalism on the part of the tabloid press.

Juliette remembered that Dr Sterne had looked rather intriguing, but nobody paid this much attention because Juliette often considered the most unsuitable people intriguing.

Cousin Elspeth thought there must be a grain of truth in the story; you did not get smoke without fire, and newspapers would not dare print things that were not true (even though George said they were the worst liars out), and several of the papers had related how Dr Sterne had seduced somebody he shouldn't – the
Sun
had said there had been several somebodies and had dubbed Dr Sterne a pirate, not that she read the
Sun
, but George liked it for the gardening notes – ‘Well, that's what you always say, George' – and anyhow, there had been a great to-do about it all.

Aunt Dilys, who had been listening to all this in silence, now recovered her equilibrium and with it her voice, and said firmly, ‘Well, wherever Imogen goes, it's clear that she can't go to Thornacre. And I think that Briar House sounds all right.' She glared defiantly round the room.

Thalia felt a deep surge of triumph. Right into my hands! Dilys is playing right into my hands!

But her face gave nothing away, and when she spoke her voice was low and tinged with sadness. She said, ‘Then if we are all agreed?'

‘I suppose we are,' said Flora, slowly.

‘With or without the fascinating Dr Sterne?' demanded Juliette.

‘Without for preference. But that isn't the issue,' said Aunt Rosa, repressively. ‘Don't be frivolous, Juliette.'

‘What does everyone else think?' Thalia looked round the room. ‘Rosa? Elspeth? George – everyone?'

There was a brief pause while people considered, and then one by one, heads were nodded, and murmurs of, ‘best thing in the circumstances', and, ‘not really so very bad', were heard.

Thalia said, ‘Then Briar House it is.'

As she went from the room, the triumph was surging up afresh. She thought: Briar House, my usurping little bitch! And I'll make very sure that you don't come out for a very long time!

T
halia waited until everyone had left before going back to the large double bedroom.

Edmund was with her, as he had been almost all along. There had been a brief time just after the crash when she thought he had left her for good, and it had been the blackest, most bitter time imaginable because without Edmund, there was nothing in the world anywhere, ever.

The thing that had lain inside the coffin in the undertakers' Chapel of Rest had not been Edmund, not properly. The undertakers had done what they could with the torn, mutilated body and with the ruined face, and Edmund had looked beautiful and golden and serene when Thalia went in alone for the final viewing. But it had been a sham, a deliberate deceit, like painting over a decaying old house to give it a spurious appearance of soundness. Edmund had been painted over to give his tattered flesh the appearance of health and life, but beneath it he was mutilated and terrible.

She remembered how she had asked the undertakers if they would allow her a final farewell to Edmund before the funeral. The closing of the coffin . . .? she had said. Would they allow it to be her hands that did that? Was that possible – could they indulge her? It would be her final service to her son; afterwards she would not trouble them again. Put like that, who could have refused?

She had not been refused; she had been permitted her half hour in the Chapel of Rest, and she had knelt to ask Edmund's forgiveness for what she was doing, for the gross thing she was doing to his poor dead body . . . But it was for the great punishment for the pampered creature who had lived on instead of dying in Edmund's place; it was the start of their retribution against Imogen – hers and Edmund's.

Bitter anger engulfed Thalia when she remembered how she had prayed later for Edmund's return, railing at the dark forces that ordered such things to reverse death and give back her boy, even if it was only in dreams. She could pinpoint the exact minute when she knew it had happened; there had been a smudge of movement on the edge of her vision and then a deepening awareness. Her heart had skipped a beat, and the blood had begun to sing in her veins, because he had come back to her, her beloved boy had come back, and even though he trailed with him the stench of the graveyard, to Thalia it was sweeter than all the perfumes of the merchant. But as the blurred silhouette came more sharply into focus – a little more each time she saw him – she had gradually seen that those dark forces she had beseeched and besieged had played the cruellest trick of all on her. They had given her the dreams, but they were waking dreams, terrible living nightmares. Edmund had come back, not as his golden self but as he had been at the end: the torn tortured thing who had died in that twisted mass of metal and bone and blood. When he stood before her his flesh hung in bloody tatters, and his face – oh God, Edmund's sweet, beloved face . . .