The Death Chamber Read online

  Walter had not said he did not want to make money from being a doctor, and he had not said he did not want his father’s money, either. On his twenty-first birthday he had deposited it in a bank, vowing he would have to be in very dire financial straits indeed before he touched it, but he had relented sufficiently to draw out enough to buy the car – a dogged little Austin Seven. It was not really so very spendthrift of him: if he was offered this Calvary appointment a car would be very useful in such a remote place.

  No. Let’s be honest about one thing if about nothing else, he thought. The car is because I don’t want any comparisons between this journey and the one my father took along this road over twenty years ago. I want to arrive at Calvary as my own master, in command of my own life, and I don’t want any ghosts travelling with me.

  But the ghosts were with him anyway and, as he drove along the narrow road towards the prison, he found himself thinking that the landscape could not have changed very much since 1917. There might have been fewer houses then, although the farmhouse across the fields would have existed – to an untrained eye it looked Elizabethan. I don’t suppose you’d have seen it, though, said Walter to the memory of his father. You wouldn’t have seen the lanes or the hedgerows either. Oh damn, in another minute I’ll be conjuring up a reproachful spectre from the past, like something out of Hamlet, doomed to walk the night, forbidden to tell the secrets of the prison-house. That would be just like my father, as well, because from all accounts he was fond of dramatic gestures.

  But there were no such things as ghosts and if this particular prison-house did have secrets it could keep them locked inside its walls, because he did not want to know what they were. He would not think about them. He would think instead that his appointment with the board of prison governors was for three o’clock, and if he did not drive a bit faster he would be late. He had no intention of being late, or of doing anything that might jeopardize his chances of getting this job. He wondered if there would be a house to go with it. It had not been mentioned in the correspondence, but perhaps they would discuss it during the interview.

  He rounded a curve in the lane, and there, looking down from a gentle slope of the English countryside, was Calvary. The place of execution set on the hill.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘It’s one of the original murderers’ prisons,’ said Chad Ingram, studying the photographs spread out on the table in the King’s Head coffee room. ‘It’s two hundred years old and brimful of memories, and its execution shed must be absolutely boiling with despair, terror and hatred.’

  The youngest member of Chad Ingram’s team, who was a final-year student on loan from Harvard University, and who was bowled over by England in general and by Dr Ingram’s glossy British courtesy in particular, studied the photographs with absorption and said it was a sinister-looking place.

  ‘It does look quite sinister but I think that’s partly because it’s built on the top of that sloping ground,’ said Chad. ‘It makes it seem as if it’s staring down at everything.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you want my opinion,’ said the third member of the team.

  ‘But you think it’s a waste of time being here,’ said Chad, smiling.

  ‘Oh God, the ultimate nightmare – a boss who reads minds. But yes, I do think it’s a waste of time,’ said Drusilla. ‘Calvary’s much too well known. You’ll never get objective reactions to it.’

  The Harvard student considered Drusilla’s statement and then diffidently supported it. His name, to his endless annoyance, was Phineas Farrell, although luckily most people settled for calling him Phin. He said, ‘See, what we’re trying to do is prove whether or not buildings might have the imprint of their pasts, or if people just react to what they already know, right?’

  ‘Quite right, Phin. That’s why we’re avoiding places like the Tower of London or Glamis Castle.’

  ‘Family monsters and beheaded queens,’ said Drusilla. ‘Too predictable for words. Unless, of course you want to send your viewers to sleep.’

  ‘But Calvary will almost fall into the same category as those two,’ said Phin, who had secretly been hoping Dr Ingram’s project would take in the Tower and Glamis but would not now have admitted this to save his life. ‘People mightn’t know the actual history of Calvary, but unless they’re – uh – Martians or something they’d know what happened inside a condemned cell.’

  ‘I’d have to agree with Phin on that,’ said Drusilla. ‘People will be halfway to seeing ghosts before you so much as switch on a tape recorder. Actually, Chad, I’m surprised you got permission to film.’

  ‘The government’s trying to sell the entire building,’ said Chad. ‘I think they’re hoping a TV programme will help – it sounded as if they were having a bit of difficulty getting a buyer.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Drusilla at once. ‘There isn’t, actually, a great deal you can do with a defunct gaol, is there?’

  ‘There must be all kinds of things. You could, um, convert it to something, or you could just mow it down and rebuild on the site.’

  ‘It’s a Grade II listed building,’ said Chad.

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘And they think getting it on TV will help them to flog it? Phooey,’ said Drusilla. ‘But listen, if they pay me enough to retire to the Bahamas I’ll wait for a moonless night and burn the place down so they can claim on the insurance. Phin, you can help me, it’ll add some excitement to your life.’

  Phin, who felt he was having more than enough excitement in his life as it was but who was beginning to understand British irony, said gravely that he would carry the matches.

  ‘Before you get involved in your arson plot, could we hear what you’ve unearthed about Calvary, Phin?’

  Phin put on his glasses and reached for his notes. He had taken a great deal of care over his research, and had smoothed his cowlick of hair into place for this meeting so as to look serious and scholarly – he hated the way it tumbled down when he got enthusiastic over things. Drusilla said it made him look like an eager yak, but Phin had tried having it cut before he left home and his father had told him he looked like a convict. Phin would rather look like a yak than a convict, so he had let it grow.

  He read his notes aloud. Calvary Gaol had been built in 1790, and was credited with an average of eight hangings a year. ‘That sounds kind of a high figure because it’s quite a small gaol, but in its day it served a wide area. And it’s not so high when you compare it with Newgate or Tyburn. It dealt with a lot more than eight executions in the early years, but then they stopped hanging people for sheep stealing or poaching, or for . . .’ He frowned, then said, ‘This one’s a little flaky, but it seems that it used to be a capital offence to lie in wait for victims with the aim of disabling their tongues or slitting their noses.’ The other two appeared to accept this without comment and Phin supposed the British were used to the eccentricities of their laws. ‘And then from around the early 1800s the death sentence was often commuted to transportation so the figures go right down. Calvary still gets an impressive total, though.’

  He turned a page, losing his place in the process, and Drusilla said, ‘The suspense is killing me.’

  ‘Anyhow, overall it’s had about eight hundred executions.’

  ‘I knew it would be some frightfully grisly quantity.’

  ‘Was the execution shed in use all the way through?’ asked Chad. ‘Or did they trundle one of those scaffold carts out and prop it against the wall for the occasion?’

  ‘They built an entire death block right at the start, and they used the same execution chamber all the way back from 1790,’ said Phin, thankful he had anticipated this question and had the answer ready.

  ‘Oh, wonderful. Two hundred years of concentrated despair in one place. We’ll all be positively wallowing in melancholy and Weltschmerz by the time we get the cameras in.’

  ‘Did you pick up any individual cases?’ asked Chad, ignoring this. ‘Neville Fremlin was executed at Calvary,
wasn’t he?’

  ‘Wait a bit and I’ll find . . . Yes. Neville Fremlin, hanged in October 1938.’

  ‘Oh well, then I rest my case,’ said Drusilla. ‘I shouldn’t think there’s anyone in existence – except possibly your Martians, Phin – who hasn’t heard of Neville Fremlin, even seventy or so years on. Even I’ve heard of him.’

  ‘The press of the day called him the Silver-Tongued Murderer,’ said Chad thoughtfully. ‘All his victims were women, weren’t they? But Fremlin’s secondary to our project. You might almost call him a bonus.’

  ‘Whatever you call him, he reinforces my point,’ said Drusilla. ‘Fremlin was one of the better-known murderers of the twentieth century, which means that the place where he was hanged is nearly as famous. Anyone we put in there will know its history. It wouldn’t be a clean slate.’

  ‘I know it won’t,’ said Chad. ‘That’s why we’re going to use someone who won’t know Calvary’s history.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be kind of difficult?’ asked Phin.

  ‘Only if he really has got a Martian lined up and I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  Chad leaned forward, his face alight with enthusiasm, and Phin stared at him and thought Dr Ingram must be at least forty but when he became keen on a thing – like he was keen now – he looked at least fifteen years younger and you felt as if a magnet had suddenly sparked into life.

  ‘An uninfluenced subject isn’t so difficult,’ he was saying. ‘And it wouldn’t need to be a Martian, either. There’s a colleague of mine – his name’s Jude Stratton, and . . . Yes, Drusilla? D’you know Jude?’

  ‘I know of him,’ said Drusilla, who had looked up at the sound of the name. ‘He was a freelance journalist, wasn’t he? Foreign affairs mostly. He used to do a lot of stuff for documentaries and programmes like Newsnight.’

  ‘Yes, but two years ago he turned to full-time writing.’

  ‘You mean after he was in the bomb blast in the Middle East.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chad, looking at her very levelly. ‘I did mean that.’

  ‘The blast blinded him,’ said Drusilla slowly. ‘Permanently. I remember the news reports.’ She looked at Chad. ‘Have I got this right? You’re going to put a blind man into Calvary without telling him where he is – and see how it affects him? Watch his reactions to the atmosphere of the place?’

  ‘And then make a television programme from it?’ said Phin.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ said Chad. ‘Jude Stratton is going to spend a night in Calvary’s execution shed without knowing where he is.’

  ‘You can’t do it,’ said Drusilla, and from her tone Phin realized that for once she had forgotten about being languid. ‘I know you’re my boss, and I know I’m not always entirely respectful—’

  ‘You’re hardly ever respectful.’

  ‘But you simply can’t do it. It’s – it’s inhumane.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Chad. ‘I’ve already talked to Jude – he’s intrigued and curious and he’ll do it. He’ll be a good subject, as well – he’s certainly got his fair share of imagination, but he’s also extremely analytical. I’m driving back to London tonight to collect him. I’ll stay at his flat overnight and, traffic permitting, we’ll be back here late tomorrow afternoon. We’ll make the experiment tomorrow evening.’

  ‘You’ll never manage the practicalities,’ said Drusilla. ‘He’ll realize where he is.’

  ‘He won’t know precisely. He’ll probably get the sense of travelling north, but that’ll be all.’

  ‘At the very least he’ll pick up regional accents and know which part of the country he’s in.’

  ‘I don’t know that it matters if he does. But we can minimize that risk. If he doesn’t come into the bar he won’t hear many people. I’ll arrange for him to have a meal in his room, and we’ll drive him to Calvary about nine. He says he’ll bring a Walkman or an MP3 player, and listen to Mozart as we go in. That way he won’t get any clues until he’s where we want him. Did you get the keys, Drusilla?’

  ‘Yes, the solicitor – what’s his name? Huxley Small – left them at reception. I picked them up and got cornered by that man from the Caradoc Society at the same time.’

  ‘Vincent Meade,’ said Phin. ‘He’s very eager to help us.’

  ‘I don’t know about eager, I thought he was bloody pushy,’ said Drusilla. ‘He’s already written an intro script for us – he pressed it into my hand and closed my fingers over it.’

  ‘Have you looked at it? Is it any good?’

  ‘Flowery,’ said Drusilla. ‘In fact he’s rather flowery himself. I have to admit he knows quite a bit about Calvary, though.’

  ‘Then he might be useful at some point.’ Chad stood up. ‘If I’m going to get to London by tonight I’d better set off. Phin, I’d suggest you came with me – there’d be room at Jude’s flat for you and you’d be perfectly welcome – but I don’t think there’d be room for you in the car.’

  ‘Because of the equipment?’ Phin was by now used to the jumble of cameras and recording machines which usually littered Dr Ingram’s car. It made for an uncomfortable journey but at least it took your mind off Dr Ingram’s driving which was just about the worst Phin had ever encountered.

  Chad grinned. ‘No, not equipment. Jude’s bringing a few bottles of wine with him and some caviar and smoked salmon. He says if he’s taking part in one of my wild experiments he’ll do so in civilized comfort.’

  Phin thought it would take a certain amount of style to walk into an unknown building you could not see, suspecting there was something sinister about it but listening to Mozart as you went and eating caviar while you camped out. He was starting to look forward to meeting Jude Stratton.

  Jude Stratton had tided his flat in readiness for Chad Ingram’s visit, doing so in the impatient, but organized way which had become a habit over the last two years. The necessary enforcement of routines and systems had not come naturally to him, and there were still times when, in bitter fury against the stifling black wall perpetually before his eyes, he flung things about, not caring where they landed or what they hit. The specialist nurse who had tried to teach him the ways of the blind – the little practical tricks designed to make life easier – had said severely that this was simply a waste of time and energy; since he insisted on continuing to live on his own, at some point he would have to pick up whatever he had thrown, and if he broke a mirror or a window he would very likely walk into the splintered glass in bare feet and end up in hospital.

  Jude had not cared and had said so. But in the end he started to adopt the ways he had been taught, although there were still too many times when anger got the better of him. He supposed those times would get fewer, and he even supposed he might one day become used to being blind, although he would never be resigned.

  Chad Ingram’s project had intrigued him, although he had proposed it in terms so guarded Jude had said that if it turned out to be a plot to overthrow the House of Windsor or infiltrate the White House, he could count him out. ‘And if it involves reality television, I’d rather have the insurrection.’

  ‘It’s not reality television and it’s not insurrection,’ Chad had said. ‘It’s completely seemly and perfectly proper. I just want you to spend a few hours in a building – a building you’ll never have entered before – and see what emotions get dredged up. I can’t tell you what it is, or even where it is, because that might give you a clue.’

  The chances were that it would be a follow-on from one of Chad’s recent projects – that television documentary he had done about the spurious safety net of religion – Talismans of the Mind. It had been vividly presented and the subjects covered controversial and it had caught the public’s imagination. On the strength of the programme a publisher brought out a book which had gone straight into the bestseller lists.

  If Jude had been a betting man he would have put money on there being some kind of ghost legend in Chad’s latest venture. He thought that was
all right; he thought he would not be fazed by other people’s ghosts; it was his own ghosts he could not handle. The ghosts of all those journeys with the camera crews and the interpreters to the war-torn zones of the Middle East, none of them really knowing what they might have to face, most of them frightened but managing to hide the fear under flippancy. And then that last trip, when the bomb had gone off near the Syrian border and the world had exploded in a searing display of sky rockets and comets. When the sky rockets had died away, there had been the appalling realization that there was nothing in front of his eyes but a smothering darkness.

  Still, after the coping with the ravages of rose-red cities with biblical names and histories older than time, and pretending to dodge bombs as if they were no more troublesome than mosquitoes, spending a few hours in a haunted house would be a stroll in the park. So Jude had agreed to Chad’s request, remarking that he had never thought he would find himself taking part in one of Chad’s bizarre experiments.

  ‘It’s very lucrative bizarre-ness, especially if the programme gets made. I’ll even put you on the strength for expenses.’

  ‘Can you afford me?’

  ‘Can anyone afford you?’ said Chad, and on that note had rung off.

  Jude had enjoyed the conversation and he would enjoy being with Chad again. He packed a suitcase, identifying clothes by the small squares of fabric sewn into the hems. This was one of the many things he had been taught, and it was one of the many things he had initially resisted. Who cared what you wore? he had said angrily, but the nurse had said people did care and he did not want to find he had put on a dinner jacket to go shopping in the supermarket or worn an anorak on a hot dinner date.