Naomi's Room

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  Well, I was lucky – but I’ll come to that in due course. One thing at a time.

  I contacted Lewis when I thought I had enough to report. He asked me to come up to London. We had lunch in the Basil Street Hotel. It was my idea, it was where I always stayed if I had to be in Town overnight, but I regretted it the moment he arrived. He seemed so out of place, a rugby-playing Welshman with a florid face and stains on his tie. But it wasn’t really that, of course, it wasn’t the out-of-placeness: it was just that he had deteriorated in the Weeks since I had last seen him.

  He seemed cowed over lunch. We sat by a window, watching the traffic on Brompton Road, turning at the Scotch House on to Knightsbridge. Lewis kept looking out, almost as though he were waiting for someone.

  ‘You seem brighter,’ he said.

  ‘I am.’ I told him what I had found, showed him my sheaf of photocopies. He looked through them dutifully, expressed interest, but I could see that he was not really there. His mind was elsewhere, or perhaps nowhere at all.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  He would not answer me at first. On his plate, a large sliver of roast beef was growing cold. At the table next to us, the first Americans of the season were talking about their latest shopping marathon. For some tourists, London is a short walk between the Basil and Harrods.

  ‘Here,’ he said finally, passing something across the table to me.

  It was another photograph. I had grown tired of photographs by now, and outrageously confident since my move into college.

  ‘Not another one,’ I mouthed.

  ‘Look at it,’ he said.

  The photograph was not what I had expected. It showed Superintendent Ruthven, seated at a long table, wearing his dress uniform, flanked by two more senior policemen.

  ‘I took that during the press conference he held the day they found your daughter’s coat in St Botolph’s. The day before he was killed. Now, tell me if you recognize anyone besides the Inspector.’

  The figure I had at first taken for an aide in uniform, standing just behind Ruthven and slightly to his left, was none other than Liddley. He had his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes fixed on the Inspector. A chill ran through me. The malice in the doctor’s gaze was bright, like a steel edge.

  ‘This was taken afterwards, when he was leaving,’ said Lewis, passing a second photograph to me across the table. The edge of the photograph knocked a small vase of flowers, toppling it. Water ran across the tablecloth. I rescued the photograph while Lewis mopped up the water with his napkin. A waiter walked past wheeling the huge domed trolley on which the roast beef rested.

  Lewis had taken the shot at the front entrance to City Police Headquarters. Ruthven was alone this time and dressed in the dull fawn raincoat I had seen him in more than once. A fine rain was falling. The light was fading from the sky. The tiredness, the sorrow in Ruthven’s face were more marked than usual. He seemed curiously unaware of the camera.

  ‘I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,’ I said.

  ‘See those little specks?’ Lewis asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They look like rain.’

  He nodded.

  ‘That’s right, they do. Ask any photographer and he’ll say the same. I’ve been over the negative, looked through all the shots on the roll this came from. It has to be rain. But it didn’t rain in London all that day. You can ask the Meteorological Office if you like. It was raining the next day, though – the day Ruthven was murdered. And there’s something else. Ruthven’s coat is wet. I wondered about that for a long time before I remembered.’

  ‘Remembered what?’

  ‘He wasn’t wearing the coat that day, not when he came out of the press conference. He was carrying it over his arm. I’m sure of that. And another thing: he was wearing the coat when they found him in the church.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maybe you’re mistaken. Maybe this photograph was taken on a different occasion.’

  For answer, Lewis pointed to a spot just behind Ruthven. A newsstand could be made out, and part of the figure of the newspaper-seller. Lewis handed me the little magnifying glass.

  ‘You can just make out the Evening Standard headline on the board,’ he said.

  I read it. CAR CRASH ON M1: THREE KILLED.

  ‘That was the day of the press conference,’ Lewis said. ‘The day it didn’t rain.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s just another anomaly. Once you accept . . .’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not just that,’ he said. ‘Not just an anomaly. There’s this as well.’

  He passed me a third photograph. Black and white. A full-length study of himself. Behind him, a second figure, a man dressed in black. Liddley. The same look, the same malice.

  ‘I took this myself,’ he said. ‘It was to be an up-date for my file, in case anyone needed to use my photograph. I have a new one done every five years.’

  ‘Why . . . ?’ My voice tailed off.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Lewis replied. His hand was trembling. He lifted the wineglass that had been left untouched throughout the meal, drank its entire contents in a single draught.

  ‘You don’t think that just because . . .’

  ‘The weather,’ he said. ‘Just like in Ruthven’s photograph. It’s sunny. Don’t you see? It wasn’t sunny when I had that taken.’

  ‘When . . . ?’

  ‘A week ago. It hasn’t been sunny since. But I wake up every morning in a sweat. It takes all my courage just to look out of the window, to see whether the sun’s shining or not. Jesus, man, I’m scared.’

  ‘But there were photographs of Liddley with me. As far back as Venice. It needn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Needn’t it? What about the ones with your daughter? Last Christmas, just before . . .’

  ‘There must be something we can do,’ I suggested. ‘To stop Liddley, put an end to what’s going on in my house. There must be steps we can take to put them all to rest.’

  ‘An exorcism. You could try an exorcism.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. Nobody performs exorcisms nowadays. It’s just superstition.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s haunting your house? An emanation of Cartesian rationality? For a clever man, you’re a bit of a fool, Dr Hillenbrand.’

  We bickered for a while, but it was pointless, Lewis was overwrought. In the end I agreed to look into his exorcism idea. I said I would speak to my local vicar, Reverend Bingley, sound out his opinions on such medievalism. Privately, I doubted that he would countenance any such proceedings. It was not his style. He was a very modern sort of vicar, more likely to hold an inter-faith service or a collection for Amnesty than stand with bell, book and candle in a nervous parishioner’s front room.

  I wanted to exorcize my ghosts in my own fashion. I wanted to track them down, learn all I could about them, discover how and why they had met their ends. Liddley in particular: I wanted to know where he had been buried, I wanted to visit his grave, satisfy myself that he was indeed ashes.

  ‘I’ve come to a bit of a dead end,’ I said. ‘I know more or less when Liddley killed his wife and daughters, but I don’t know how or why. He lived a long time after that, so he must have had plenty of opportunity for remorse, plenty of time in which to write a diary or speak to a friend. But I’ve got no leads, nothing to go on.’

  Lewis said nothing. We ate our puddings in silence. The restaurant was emptying. Shadows moved on the pale green walls, over the paintings of kings and queens on tinted glass. The head waiter eyed us meaningfully.

  ‘What happened after he died?’ Lewis asked finally.

  ‘Happened?’

  ‘To the house. To his effects. There was no one to inherit, at least not directly. No children. He was – what? – sixty-five, sixty-six years old. His parents must have been dead. Was there a will?’

  I nodded. I had looked it up in the British Record Society’s Index Library and seen a copy at the P
rincipal Registry of the Family Division in Somerset House.

  ‘I’ve never been able to find out much about his parents. There seems to be some mystery: there are no silk merchants of that name registered in London for the years they should have been living there. But they would certainly have been dead by the time Liddley passed away.

  ‘He left everything to a married sister, Beatrice Ransome. She lived in Brighton, had inherited quite a lot from her parents, and her husband was well-to-do. The house was no use to her, so she sold it and its furnishings to people called Le Strange. He had just been appointed Ambrosian Professor of Greek. Before that he had been one of the first teachers at the new University of Durham. He and his wife built the garden, laid it out much as it is now.’

  ‘And Beatrice? She kept nothing? Not even a keepsake?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘She and her brother hadn’t been in touch in over twenty years. If I’m correct, the suspicions about Sarah and the children had greatly damaged her opinion of John. She wouldn’t have taken anything belonging to him, I’m sure of that. Even if she had, I don’t see that it would be at all easy to trace.’

  ‘That’s it, then? Nothing else?’

  I thought hard.

  ‘There was one thing,’ I said. ‘He left his medical books and papers to his old college, to Downing.’

  ‘Surely that’s what we found in the attic.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you may be right. But I’m not wholly sure. There wasn’t much up there. Liddley was a widely-read man with money at his disposal. In the years between the falling-off of his practice and his death, he got involved with several medical controversies. That old homoeopathic reputation seems to have stayed with him. The homoeopaths were flourishing, and the regular doctors were hitting back hard. Liddley joined them. He wrote letters to the press and published a couple of pamphlets. He even took on Lord Grosvenor, after Grosvenor defended the homoeopaths in the House of Commons.

  ‘The will spoke of a “library”. What we found in the attic wouldn’t qualify. My own library’s ten times that big at least. I think it’s worth checking. There may be something in the college library at Downing.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Lewis. ‘If you find anything, let me know. But speak with this vicar of yours about the other business. There may not be much time.’

  18

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in Portugal Street, in the Census Room of the Public Records Office. Since I had been there before doing preliminary work, I was able to spend over two hours going straight through the Cambridge census records from 1841 to 1871. Those for the decades before that were of little use, since they provided no details of names or families. I found what I wanted in the records for 1841 and 1851.

  It is only five stops on the Underground from Holborn to Bethnal Green, and from there a short walk takes you into Spitalfields. When the Census Room closed, I found a place to eat – a pizzeria or pancake house, I forget which. As I spooned the food into my mouth, my thoughts kept returning to that short journey. I felt a need to see where Naomi had been found, as though something were pulling me towards her death. Leaving the restaurant, my feet led me as if of their own accord to Holborn tube station. The doors opened at Bethnal Green. For a moment I sat staring at the name on the wall. Then, just as the doors began to close, I dashed through them on to the platform.

  The area round Spitalfields market was deserted. It was a market for fruit and vegetables, with a small flower market opposite. In the early morning, between four thirty and ten o’clock, it is a hive of activity; but when the lorries and the fork-lift trucks leave, a stillness descends on the whole neighbourhood.

  I found the alley without difficulty. A short, stinking lane between old houses, rancid with the smell of rotting vegetables. Dustbins and plastic bags stood outside ramshackle back doors. A cat moved silently among the debris, pausing from time to time to sniff at scraps of food. Graffiti covered one wall, words of love and dismay in a foreign language. I whispered her name. ‘Naomi. Naomi.’ The night air shivered. I could see nothing. ‘Naomi,’ I whispered.

  Behind me, someone laughed. A child’s laugh, quick and rippling. I turned. Nothing but shadows. Then I saw the cat. It was standing in the middle of the alleyway, its back towards me. Its fur was on end, its back was arched in a tight bow, and it was hissing softly at something in the darkness.

  I began to walk in that direction. A shadow moved. ‘Naomi?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’ The cat hissed, backing away from whatever it could see or sense. Another laugh. Then a sound of tiny feet running. The cat turned and bolted, disappearing over a wall. Shadows. Then a terrible silence.

  I waited for over an hour, but nothing else happened. The shadows remained still, there was no laughter, no sound of feet. Finally, I turned and headed back to Liverpool Street station, wondering why I had come at all.

  I got the last train back to Cambridge. I sat alone with my briefcase on my lap, like a don returning from a hard day’s labour in the British Library. I had done it so often in the past, this homecoming felt almost routine. But the notes in my briefcase were far from ordinary, the thoughts that swirled through my brain anything but commonplace. There were moments when I almost wept, but I stared through the window and let the darkness and the lights of small stations wipe the tears away.

  I decided to walk from the station into town. It is not particularly far, and I wanted time to myself, time to mull things over. My researches were nearing their end, and yet so much was still unclear, so many pieces would not fit the puzzle.

  I walked down Hills Road and continued on to St Andrew’s Street. In the evenings, Cambridge grows unnaturally quiet. The university huddles behind its high walls, drinking, dining, falling into academic stupors. The town makes do with a handful of restaurants and pubs. The streets are empty. Footsteps carry a long way, echoing. The past has its moment then, it comes walking into the present, there are no barriers or walls.

  To get to Pembroke, I had to turn into Downing Street, heading down to Trumpington Street. It is a narrow thoroughfare, flanked on each side by high, forbidding walls. Silence. The footsteps of ghosts. Echoes. Stillness returning. I walked quickly, suddenly conscious of the dimness and infrequency of the streetlights, the fact that no one else was abroad, the dark, unlighted windows on every side. Deep within me, I felt a sense of dreadful unease. My lonely vigil in the alleyway in Spitalfields returned to me. A child’s laughter. A cat’s fur standing on end.

  There was a high-pitched scream. A long, horrible scream that raised the hairs on the back of my neck and sent shivers running through me like waves of ice. I stopped. Something was wrong. The streetlights had vanished, leaving only a weak gaslight near where I stood. I could hear no cars, no buses. There was a sudden sound of running footsteps, then the scream sounded once more, thin and full of agony. A child’s scream. I had heard it before, that night in our bedroom at home.

  Surely someone must come, I thought. Surely someone must hear. But no one came. The street remained empty and without sound. No lights went on anywhere.

  And then I saw her. She was only a shadow at first. Then something more substantial, but not yet firm, about five or six yards away from me. The shadow rippled and suddenly I saw her plainly, my daughter, just as she had looked on the day she died. Her eyes were fixed on me. Tears were streaming down her face. I made to move in her direction, but I was rooted to the spot.

  ‘Daddy,’ I heard her say. ‘Help me, Daddy. Please help me.’

  The thin voice wrenched my heart.

  ‘I’m here, darling. I’m here,’ I said.

  ‘Help me, Daddy,’ she repeated, as though she had not heard me. She was taking shape more quickly now, as though speech were giving her substance.

  ‘What’s wrong, Naomi? What do you want me to do?’

  For answer, she turned and started walking away from me. I found I could move. We walked together, the old, familiar walk up Trumpington Street towards Newto
wn. All the way she stayed ahead of me, a small dark shape just discernible among shadows. There were no streetlights. The road and pavements had altered. Nothing was quite as I remembered it.

  We reached the house about twenty minutes later. It seemed to be standing virtually alone, as it must have been when first built. There was a light in the attic window.

  Naomi preceded me to the front door. When I tried my key, I discovered that there was no Chubb lock. I pushed and the door opened slowly. I followed Naomi across the threshold. My heart was beating with the most terrible sense of foreboding. I could see her ahead of me still, her hair pale and faintly shining against the darkness. She headed for the stairs.

  ‘Don’t go up there, Naomi,’ I pleaded. But she did not hear me or did not listen. I followed her. She was my daughter, was she not?

  The house was utterly dark inside. But there was a light coming from the open attic door. A pale, insufficient light within which Naomi became fully visible. She climbed the stairs into the attic. And I followed her.

  The light was coming from the inner room. As I drew closer, I could make out three shapes on the floor. Naomi stopped by them and turned to me.

  ‘Please help me, Daddy.’

  I looked at the immobile shapes. I knew what they were.

  Something caught my eye. A dark figure at the back of the room. I looked up from the bundles on the floor. Someone was moving in the shadows. A man in a black suit.

  At that moment, the light flickered and went out.

  19

  I next remember walking distractedly on the Fen Causeway. When I looked at my watch, it was two o’clock in the morning. Somehow or other, I made my way back to college. I went to bed with the light on.

  At nine o’clock, when I drew back my curtains and looked out on to the grounds, I noticed that the clouds had lifted. It did not strike me until I went down for breakfast just what this might signify. I telephoned Lewis at work, but the secretary said they hadn’t seen him yet. At eleven o’clock, I set out for Downing.