A Place of Execution (1999)

by Val McDermid

  Catherine ceremoniously handed George the thick padded envelope. ‘The first draft,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be kind, George. I need to know what you really think.’

  She followed him into the living room, where Paul and Helen were sitting on the sofa. ‘Here’s a cause for celebration,’ George said. ‘Catherine’s delivered her book.’

  Helen grinned. ‘Well done, Catherine. You’ve not wasted any time.’ Catherine shrugged. ‘I’m due back at work in three weeks. I didn’t have any time to waste. That’s the beauty of a journalistic training—writing expands or contracts to fill the time available.’ Before they could discuss it further, Anne came through with a tray of glasses and a bottle of champagne. ‘Hello, Catherine.

  George said you had something to celebrate, so we thought we’d crack open the bubbly.’

  Paul grinned. ‘Not for the first time this week. Helen’s divorce finally came through, and we’ve decided we’re going to get married. So we had a couple of bottles the other night to set the seal on it.’ Catherine crossed the room and leaned forward to kiss Helen on both cheeks. ‘That’s great news,’ she enthused. She turned to Paul and kissed him too. ‘I’m thrilled for both of you.’

  George took the tray and put it down. ‘We’re pretty pleased, too. This has turned into a vintage week.’ George opened the champagne and filled their glasses. ‘A toast,’ he said, handing the drinks round. ‘To the book.’

  ‘And the happy couple,’ Catherine added.

  ‘No, the book, the book,’ Paul protested. ‘That way we’ll have to open another bottle so you can toast me and Helen. And you’ll have to come to the wedding,’ he added. ‘After all, if it wasn’t for you, we’d never have got Dad to come to Scardale to meet Helen’s sister.’

  ‘You’ve been to Scardale?’ Catherine couldn’t hide her astonishment. The one failure she regretted in her research was that she had been unable to persuade George to return to the village and go over the physical ground with her.

  George looked faintly sheepish. ‘We’ve not been yet. But we’re going to lunch with Helen’s sister Janis on Monday.’

  Catherine raised her glass to Paul. ‘You’ve pulled it off again. I tried everything short of kidnapping to get him to come there with me.’ Paul grinned. ‘You did the groundwork.’

  ‘Well, whoever’s responsible, I’m glad you’re going,’ Catherine said. ‘And I don’t think you’ll find any memories lingering in Scardale Manor, George.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, leaning forward.

  ‘It’s been gutted. According to Kathy Lomas, who gave me the tour, there’s not a single room that’s anything like it was back in 1963. It’s not just decorated differently—there’s even been a bit of structural work, knocking a couple of small rooms into one bigger one, turning a bedroom into a bathroom, that sort of thing. If you closed your eyes all the way down the Scardale road and didn’t open them till you were inside the manor, I guarantee you wouldn’t feel a single memory stirring,’ she added with a smile.

  George shook his head. ‘I wish I could believe you,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a feeling that I won’t be able to escape the past that easily.’

  ‘I don’t know, George,’ Helen chipped in. ‘You know how houses have an atmosphere? Some places you just walk in and know it’s a friendly, welcoming place? And other times, no matter how much money’s been spent on it, the house feels cold and hostile? Well, Scardale Manor’s one of those houses that feels like home from the moment you cross the threshold. That’s what Jan said when she first went to look at the place after we inherited it. She rang me up to tell me she’d known as soon as she walked in that this was the house for her.

  And I can sense exactly what she means. Whenever I’ve stayed there, I’ve always slept like a log and felt totally at home. So if there ever were any ghosts, they moved out a long time ago.’

  ‘So you might be in for a pleasant surprise, love,’ Anne said reassuringly.

  Still the doubt remained on George’s face. ‘I hope so,’ he said.

  ‘Never mind being worried about memories lying in ambush for you, George. If the remaining Carters, Crowthers and Lomases get wind that you’re coming back to the dale, they’ll probably roll out the red carpet and decorate their houses with bunting,’ Catherine said. ‘The only threat to your health and wellbeing might come from an excess of hospitality.’

  ‘Speaking of which, I think it’s time for that second bottle,’ Paul said, jumping to his feet.

  ‘There is one small thing, George,’ Catherine said, smiling as charmingly as she knew how. ‘If you manage to survive your return to Scardale, would you consider going back again with me?’

  ‘I thought you’d finished the book,’ he said, looking for an excuse to refuse.

  ‘Only the first draft. There’s still plenty of time to add to what I’ve already written.’

  George sighed. ‘I suppose I owe you that much. All right, Catherine. If I make it out of Scardale alive, I’ll go back with you. That’s a promise.’

  48

  August 1998

  Catherine stared at the letter in utter disbelief. Her first thought was that it was a joke. But she rejected that idea before it was even fully formed. She knew George Bennett was far too much the gentleman and the gentle man—to make this kind of savage joke. She read the letter again and wondered if he was having some kind of breakdown. Perhaps visiting Scardale on top of reliving the Alison Carter case might have caused the crack-up some people would have experienced at the time. She dismissed that too; George Bennett was far too sane a man to lose his marbles thirty-five years on, no matter how traumatic the memories. And he himself had remarked more than once that going over the case had been less disturbing than he had feared.

  That recognition left Catherine without a straw to clutch at. Outrage began to burn inside her like indigestion. She had been halfway through a late breakfast when the post had arrived. She’d been expecting a letter from her editor with her comments and requests for any rewrites, not this catastrophe. Her first impulse was to pick up the phone, but before she’d got three digits into George’s number, she slammed it down again. Years of journalism had taught her exactly how easy it was to fob somebody off on the phone. This was one she had to deal with face to face. She left the half-drunk coffee and half-eaten toast on the table. Forty minutes later, she was turning right by the millpond. For every minute of those forty, Catherine had seethed with frustration. All she could see was George’s high-handedness and she couldn’t understand what had provoked it. He’d never shown the slightest sign that he was capable of such overbearing behaviour. She’d thought they’d become friends, but she couldn’t understand how a friend could treat her like this.

  In her heart, Catherine knew the book was more hers than it was his, and that he had no right to take it from her. She wasn’t daunted by his threat of legal action, knowing what the book contract said. But she was disturbed by the effect his opposition could have on both her sales and her reputation. To have the book repudiated by the one person who knew the case inside out could damage her beyond repair. And that was something Catherine wouldn’t accept without a fight. If George had set aside their friendship, then she would have to find it in her heart to do the same, however difficult she might find it.

  She edged the car up the narrow road. Both the Bennetts’ cars were in the drive, so she had to carry on past their limestone villa and leave the car in a lay-by halfway up the hill. She strode back down to the house and stormed up the drive.

  The doorbell echoed, as it does in an empty house. But surely even if George had gone to the village on foot, Anne should be at home. Her arthritis meant that any journey required a car.

  Catherine stepped away from the front door and walked round the side of the house, thinking they might be in the garden, enjoying the sunshine before it grew too warm for comfort. But she drew a blank there too. There was nothing in sight but manicured lawn and colour-coded flow
er beds like some miniature Sissinghurst.

  It was as she returned to the front of the house that a possible solution came to her. If Paul and Helen had hired a car, it was possible they had taken George and Anne out for the day. The thought simply increased her determination to have it out with George. If she had to wait till bedtime to speak to him, so be it. She was standing in the drive, wondering whether to stake the house out from the car or to browse the bookshop by the millpond for an hour when she heard her name.

  The next-door neighbour was standing on her doorstep, looking surprised.

  ‘Catherine?’ she repeated.

  ‘Hello, Sandra,’ Catherine said, finding a purely professional smile from deep inside. ‘I don’t suppose you know where George and Anne have gone off to?’

  She gaped at her. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ she eventually said, unable to keep a note of glee out of her voice because she knew something Catherine didn’t.

  ‘Is there something I should have heard?’ she asked coolly.

  ‘I thought you’d have known. He’s had a heart attack.’

  Catherine stared in disbelief. ‘A heart attack.

  ‘Rushed to hospital in an ambulance early this morning,’ Sandra said with relish. ‘Of course, Anne went with him in the ambulance. Paul and Helen followed in their car.’

  Appalled, Catherine cleared her throat. ‘Is there any news yet?’

  ‘Paul came back to pick up some of his dad’s things earlier on and we had a word, of course. George is in intensive care. Paul said it’s been touch and go, but the doctors say George is a fighter. Of course, we all knew that.’

  Catherine couldn’t work out why the woman was so smug about what had happened. She didn’t want to think it was because she was hugging to herself the pleasure of knowing something Catherine didn’t, but no other explanation came to mind. ‘Which hospital?’ she asked. ‘They’ve taken him to the specialist cardiac care unit in Derby,’ she said.

  Catherine was already walking back up the hill to the car. ‘They won’t let you in,’ Sandra called after her. ‘You’re not family. They won’t let you in.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Catherine said grimly under her breath. Predictably, her fears for George manifested themselves in unreasonable rage. How dare George deprive her of the satisfaction of finding out what the hell was going on by contriving to be at death’s door? It was only as she drove down to Derby that she simmered down and began to realize what a terrible night it must have been for all of them—Anne, Paul, Helen, and of course, George himself, trapped inside a body that wasn’t functioning the way he demanded it should. She couldn’t imagine anything worse for a man like George. Even at sixty-five, she knew he was trim and fit; his mind too was sharper than most of the serving police officers she’d ever encountered. He could still complete the Guardian crossword three days out of four, which was more than Catherine had ever managed. Working so closely with him had provoked respect, but also affection. She hated to think of him diminished by disease.

  The intensive care unit wasn’t hard to find. Catherine pushed open one of the double doors and found herself in an empty reception area. She pressed the buzzer on the desk and waited. After a couple of minutes, she pressed it again. A nurse in a white overall emerged from one of the three closed doors. ‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘I’m inquiring about George Bennett?’ Catherine said with an anxious half-smile.

  ‘Are you family?’ the nurse asked automatically.

  ‘I’ve been working with George. I’m a friend of the family.’

  ‘I’m afraid we can only allow visits from immediate family,’ she said, her voice entirely empty of regret.

  ‘I appreciate that.’ Catherine smiled again. ‘I wonder, though, if you could tell Anne—Mrs Bennett, that is—that I’m here? Perhaps we could go somewhere for a cup of tea, if that’s all right with her?’

  The nurse smiled for the first time. ‘Of course I’ll tell her. Your name is?’

  ‘Catherine Heathcote. Where would be a good place to meet Mrs Bennett?’

  The nurse pointed her in the direction of the coffee bar, and as she turned away, Catherine called after her, ‘And George? Is there anything you can tell me about George?’

  This time, the nurse’s voice softened. ‘He’s what we call critical but stable. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.’ Catherine walked back to the lifts in a daze. Being in the hospital brought George’s personal catastrophe home to her in a way that Sandra’s words hadn’t. Somewhere behind those closed doors, George was wired up to machines and monitors. Leaving aside what was happening to his body, what was happening to his brain? Would he remember sending the letter to her? Would he have told Anne about it? Should she act as if nothing untoward had happened? Not just in her own interest, she rationalized, but also to keep the family from one extra worry? Catherine found the coffee bar and settled herself at a corner table with a mineral water. She was so preoccupied with her thoughts, she didn’t see Paul until he was practically on top of her. Today, his resemblance to George was spooky. She’d spent so much time staring at a photograph of his father at almost the same age, it was as if the image on her wall had come to life and swapped a mac and trilby for a pair of faded jeans and a polo shirt. He dropped into a chair as if his legs couldn’t hold him up any longer.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Catherine said.

  ‘I know.’ He sighed.

  ‘How is he?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘He’s not good. They’re saying he had a massive heart attack. He hasn’t recovered consciousness yet, but they seem to think he’ll come round. Oh God…’ He covered his face with his hands, obviously overcome. Anxiously, Catherine watched his shoulders heave with deep breaths as he struggled to regain control. Eventually, he recovered enough to continue. ‘His heart stopped in the ambulance, and I think they’re concerned there might be some brain damage.

  They’re talking about doing a scan, but they’re being very noncommittal about the prognosis.’ He stared down at the table. Catherine covered his hand with hers in a simple gesture of sympathy.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked gently.

  He sighed again. ‘I can’t help feeling it’s our fault. Mine and Helen’s, that is—’ He broke off. ‘Do you mind if we go outside? It’s so oppressive, this hospital atmosphere. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool. I could do with some fresh air.’

  They were silent in the lift down. Catherine pointed out a row of benches on the far side of the car park. They sat down and stared unseeingly at a regimented square of rose bushes. Paul tilted his head back and breathed deeply. ‘Why would your father’s heart attack be your fault?’ Catherine asked eventually.

  Paul ran a hand through his hair. ‘When we went to Scardale, something happened that made him really agitated. I don’t really know what it was, exactly…He didn’t say anything, but I could see he was getting really wound up when we arrived at Jan’s. Then when we went indoors, I almost thought he was going to faint. He went pale and sweaty, the way people do when they’ve got a terrible headache. He seemed distracted. He hardly said a word to Jan, he just kept looking around him as if he expected ghosts to start coming out of the woodwork.’

  ‘Did he say anything about what had upset him?’ Paul rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger.

  ‘I think it was just the trauma of going back to Scardale again. It’s been on his mind so much, obviously, with all the work the two of you have been doing on this book.’ His shoulders drooped.

  ‘This is all my fault. I should have realized he wasn’t making a fuss over nothing when he said he really didn’t want to go to Scardale.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you should have thought it would make him ill, though,’ Catherine said gently. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. Heart attacks don’t just happen overnight—it takes a lifetime for the conditions to build up. In your dad’s case, years of irregular hours, too many cigarettes, too many greasy-spoon meals eaten on the hoo
f. It’s not your fault this has happened.’

  Paul’s face was bitter. ‘Taking him to Scardale was the trigger.’

  ‘Not necessarily. You’ve already told me you didn’t notice anything in particular that made him especially upset.’

  ‘I know. And I’ve been through it again and again in my head. We all had lunch out in the garden.

  He hardly ate anything, which isn’t like Dad at all. He blamed the heat, and to be fair, it was warm.

  After lunch, Jan took Mum round the garden. They were ages, comparing notes, arranging to swap cuttings, all that sort of thing. Dad went for a stroll round the village green, but he was only gone about ten minutes. Then he just sat there under the chestnut tree, staring into space. We left around three because Mum wanted to drop in on the craft fair down in Buxton, and we were home again by six.’

  ‘And George didn’t say whether anything special was bothering him?’ Paul shook his head.

  ‘Nothing. He said he had a letter to write and he went upstairs. Helen and Mum put a salad together for the tea and I mowed the lawn. He came downstairs after about half an hour and said he was going to the main post office in Matlock because he wanted to be sure of this letter catching the post and there’s no local collection in the evening. I thought it was a bit strange, but he’s never been one for putting things off.’

  Catherine took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair to leave Paul guessing about the letter that had been so important to his father. ‘The letter was to me,’ she said.

  ‘To you? What on earth was he writing to you about?’ Paul was clearly baffled.

  ‘I don’t think he wanted to deal with me face to face,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he was up for the argument he knew he’d get.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ Paul frowned. ‘Your father wanted me to cancel the publication of the book. With no explanation at all,’ Catherine said.

  ‘What? But that doesn’t make any sense.’