Death Notes (A Phineas Fox Mystery)

by Sarah Rayne

  As the consultant had said, the Sexton’s House was small and very basic indeed, but it was weatherproof, and there was some furniture in it. The heating was antiquated, but it appeared to work and, even if it did not, there was a brick fireplace, where a peat fire could be kindled. It was unexpectedly attractive to imagine the leaping flames on the old walls. The wiring and plumbing both looked and sounded as if they dated to World War II, but they seemed to work as well. And old-fashioned plumbing and heating and worn furniture did not matter. What mattered – what would continue to matter – were the vast empty chasms where memories should have been.

  Then, a few weeks after leaving the hospital, had come the first intrusion into the house called Tromloy.

  It had been unforgiveable as well as illegal, of course, and it was prompted by a strange compulsion to see the place where that dead girl, Abigail Drury, had spent her holidays with her parents. What had Abigail’s life been? Had she been happy in that house? Had she been loved and cherished? And why was I walking along that road on that day?

  Tromloy was on the other side of Kilcarne, at the end of its own unmade road, and it possessed an extraordinary air of beckoning. A feeling that it might be saying, Come inside, because you’ll be safe here. Come inside, because there’s something in here that will help you. Come inside – there’s a way to get in and you’ll find it.

  There had been a way to get in, although there had been guilt in levering up a loose window catch and climbing through the window. Had Niall Drury meant to have that window catch replaced? Had he been so much in a rush of preparations to get back to his London life and his wife that he had forgotten it?

  Once inside, the scents of the house had been strong – peat fires and books and old timbers, all printed on the atmosphere. Had happiness left a print here as well?

  Tromloy was empty, but the ghosts of the people who had lived in it and the echoes of their lives lingered. They were in the shadow-outlines on walls where large pieces of furniture had stood, but had been removed. They were in a faint splashy stain on the kitchen table, and they were in the scatter of papers left out on the small dining table, as if somebody had wanted them handy for the next visit.

  The ghosts were in the upstairs bedroom as well – in a room with bronze and green cushions piled on a single bed, and with a rocking chair that might still rock if the right person sat in it. And where a benign-looking, slightly portly Victorian performer smiled down from a frame.

  Abigail Drury’s room. Of course it was. And there was her photograph on the bookshelf. Oh, God, she had been a lovely girl. Bright, intelligent, that wide, generous mouth that would have laughed easily and smiled at the world … The pity of it slammed home all over again, and the guilt increased a hundred, a thousandfold. I tried to save you, Abigail, I truly did. But the fire – the blisteringly hot metal—

  And yet, despite the deep sense of remorse, there was the feeling that if Abigail Drury’s ghost walked here, it did so peacefully. Further along the landing was a big double bedroom, light and clean, a patchwork quilt still lying on the bed, the colours faded and dim, but beautiful. Sunshine would trickle through the small windows and deepen the colours, and glint on the brass bedframe.

  There was another bedroom at the back of the house, which looked as if it was used for storage. An old rolltop desk stood by the window, and there were several pieces of old furniture – probably not wanted in the main rooms, but considered too good to throw out.

  The feeling of intrusion returned as the burned hands pulled a chair over to the desk, and opened it. There were small drawers inside, and pigeonholes. Were there papers here that would relate to Tromloy’s occupants? Even papers that could be used to establish an identity, and that nobody would miss, because Abigail’s mother would probably never come here again. Most likely Tromloy would be sold to strangers who would never know anything had been taken.

  It was a bit risky to make a light, but the curtains could be closed, and the bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking open ground. There were candles and matches in a kitchen cupboard.

  The guilt had vanished by this time, and the feeling of something beckoning had returned a hundredfold. I think there’s something here that will help me. Not anything that will fill in those massive blanks of memory, but something that might give me an identity I can use in the world.

  The desk contained old bills and receipts for work and maintenance to the house. A few Christmas cards which had been kept for some reason, and a couple of concert programmes for local events, and for theatres in Galway City. The night wore on, and Tromloy sank into silence, seeming to seal itself off from the rest of the world. Once there was the soft hoot of an owl, and once faint chimes from a distant church clock rippled the quiet. Other than that, there was only the flickering candlelight and the faint rustling of papers.

  The faraway church clock had chimed one, then two, and fresh candles had been lit, when the large thick envelope, lying at the very back of a drawer, was uncovered. In a modern-looking hand were the written words, Old Tromloy. It was easy to visualize Niall or Bea Drury finding a few old papers relating to the house they had bought, and putting them aside to one day investigate more fully.

  The envelope was old, and the flap, once sealed down, had dried and lifted away. There was no longer a sense of intrusion, and the contents of the envelope were removed and spread out on the desk.

  And there it was. In the torch’s light, there was the thing sought for, hoped for. The identity of a real person. Two things. The first, a letter from The Genesius Theatre in Galway City. Do I know that place? A faint memory of having walked past a tall, stone-fronted building flickered briefly. The letter was short, and confirmed, ‘with deepest thanks’, receipt of the ‘generous donation’. It had been written on an old typewriter, and some of the characters were slightly blurred, making it impossible to tell if the date at the head was 1920 or 1930 or even 1950.

  The second scrap was also a printed acknowledgement, this time from a bank in Galway, of a sum of money deposited with them. It was not dated and no amount was shown. An official receipt had apparently been enclosed with the letter, but of this there was no sign.

  But even with the smudged old typeface of The Genesius’s letter and the somewhat faceless bank communication, the recipient’s name on both was clear. Maxim Volf.

  Maxim Volf. A man who apparently had had a bank account and who had made a donation to a Galway theatre.

  If he had been around in 1930, and sufficiently adult – and sufficiently well off – to be making donations, it was unlikely he was alive now. Dare I take his name? How safe would it be? Might the Garda or the English police – or anyone else – check some kind of database for Maxim Volf? But why would they bother? The inquest was over, Niall and Abigail Drury were buried, and the Garda simply wanted a name for the man who had witnessed the car crash. Just for their records, they had said. And if pressed, wouldn’t it be possible to offer a version of the truth? To say, ‘I found these, and I think he was my father – or grandfather. So I’m adopting the name.’

  It was a name the Garda wanted. And if I’m going to live a life with any degree of normality, it’s what I want as well. I can’t bear being this nameless, stateless, anonymous being. I want a name, an identity, something to hold on to. Taking this name could not hurt the real Maxim Volf, who was surely long since dead.

  But before leaving, it might be as well to make sure there was nothing else in this room, in this house, that could link the newly created persona to Tromloy and therefore give the lie to the fraud. Hunting through the candelit rooms, the guilt and the feeling of intruding returned, but it was something that must be done.

  It was not until the church clock had chimed three, and was approaching four, that it felt safe to leave Tromloy, and walk back along the deserted lanes to the Sexton’s House.

  I am Maxim Volf. I can become a real person again.

  It had been a couple of weeks after that night, wo
rking in the windswept cemetery on Kilcarne’s edge, when a strange discovery had been made. One of the sexton’s tasks was to sweep leaves and keep graves tidy. It ought to have been a melancholy job, but the graveyard had a serenity about it; it was even possible to recall fragments of poetry written by the metaphysical poets – the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century young men who had liked to send their heroes and heroines wandering wispily through crumbling churchyards, murmuring elegies and lamenting lost loves. Men who had decorated their desks with skulls and succumbed to romantic deaths from consumption. How do I know any of that? How do I know about that poetry? Was I a teacher? Even a writer on my own account? Working quietly in the cemetery, these thoughts ran back and forth.

  Abigail Drury’s grave was here. It was under an old beech tree that in autumn would be copper bronze. Would she have liked that? Niall Drury’s grave was nearby; a plain stone with nothing more than his name and the dates of his birth and his death. No memorial engraving of any kind. But I’ll remember you, Niall Drury. I’ll remember you and your daughter, and I’ll trim the grass around your graves, and, Niall, I’ll never stop regretting that I didn’t save you or your girl.

  The small inner graveyard was not discovered until the third or fourth visit to the cemetery. It was behind a small iron gate in an old wall – a gate that could easily be overlooked, mainly because it was partly covered with a creeper, almost as if the creeper had deliberately been allowed to grow wild for concealment. But the gate opened easily enough. There was a curious moment when everything seemed to slow down, and there was a sensation of stepping into a different world. Is that my lost memories stirring at last? Or is it simply because I’m about to go through a secret door? Surely all the best fairy stories and fantasies started with a hidden garden gate or a low door in a wall?

  But beyond the old gate was only the older part of the cemetery, and at first there did not seem to be any reason for that strange prickle of awareness. There was nothing here, after all …

  But there was something. A little way along the serried graves was a name that sent the quiet cemetery spinning, and intensified the feeling of having entered a different world.

  ‘Maxim Volf. Died 1955.’

  Maxim Volf. The man whose identity I’ve stolen.

  That night, walking again along the dark lanes, slipping through the faulty window into Tromloy, it was almost possible to forget that life from now on must be lived in darkness, because the pity or the revulsion of people could not be endured. Somewhere along the line would have to be acceptance that there would no longer be women who could be wooed or loved or seduced. How much do I mind that? Did I like the company of ladies, in bed and out of it? Did I have a wife, a girlfriend? I have no idea, but if there was someone, she’s certainly better off without me now.

  Seated in the rocking chair in the bronze and green bedroom, it was easier to put these thoughts aside. Did you sit here, Abigail? Why did you have that old photograph on the wall where you could see it from the bed?

  There was no name on the photo, but with care a corner of the brown-paper backing could be peeled back. Beneath, in letters sepia brown from age, were written the words, ‘Mortimer Quince on stage at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 1910.’

  The name meant nothing. Probably Abigail, or one of her parents, had found the photograph in an antiques shop or a junk shop, had liked the man’s face, and had brought it home to hang here. Or perhaps Mortimer Quince had been an ancestor.

  It did not add anything to the curiosity about the dead Abigail. It did not, either, add anything to the occasional flares of memory that were returning – startling, shutter-flash images of that lost life before the car crash. Memory flares, one of the doctors had called them, with typical Irish lyricism. Like the lights you might see on a marsh through fog, he had said, or the lamp-glow of will-o’-the-wisps in the gloaming. Only the Irish could have described the healing of amnesia in such a fashion, but the expression was pleasing.

  Sometimes, now, it seemed as if the memory flares might belong to someone else. Was it possible to receive memory flares from another person? Even from someone who was dead? Abigail? It was an oddly comforting thought, even for someone who did not believe or trust in any kind of afterlife.

  What was far more disturbing, though, was the suspicion that the flares might belong to – might even be coming from – the dead Niall Drury.

  Which was the wildest and most fantastical idea yet.

  But sitting quietly in the deserted bedroom of Tromloy, staring at the old photograph of the unknown Mortimer Quince, it did not seem in the least fantastical.

  TEN

  Phin’s dreams had been peopled with fantastical images of Roman Volf and that last extraordinary appearance described by Feofil Markov, when Roman had led a defiant procession along the banks of the Catherine Canal with anarchists and rebels streaming along behind. And the imperial Cossacks in pursuit …

  Before going down to breakfast, he checked for any voicemails or emails. There were a few emails that did not need immediate attention, although one was from the Canadian editor who had recommended him to the TV team for the Roman Volf documentary, and who had told his agent he had silver eyes. It was a friendly invitation to have dinner when the editor was in London next month, and Phin typed an immediate acceptance, smiling as he did so. Checking his phone, he found there was a voicemail from his rugby-playing neighbour in London – in fact there were two. They were timed as having been sent the previous day, and Phin listened to them with misgiving.

  ‘Sorry about this, Phin,’ said the first message, ‘but we had a bit of a calamity just as the party was winding itself down and we were all having breakfast. You’d left for the airport by then, and I suppose you’d switch off your phone during the flight …’

  Oh God, thought Phin.

  ‘… that bloody beer overflowed the bath while we weren’t watching and flooded my flat, then sloshed its way down that little flight of stairs into yours. It’s not a massive disaster, not as disasters go – good thing you’d left a key with Miss Pringle, though. And it’s only the one room of your flat that’s affected – the Pringle has had to decamp to her sister’s while the builders put in a new ceiling. But if you can possibly remember who supplied your carpet we’ll get the fitters in there absolutely first thing tomorrow – we’ll make sure to get the exact same carpet, and by the time you get back you won’t know anything’s even happened …’

  At this point the five-minute limit, which the mobile phone shop had assured Phin would be plenty for most calls, cut in and truncated the rest of the message. Fortunately, the neighbour had redialled.

  ‘… and it’s all covered by my insurance, so you won’t have to shell out a cent. Pringle’s decorators will slosh a tub or two of paint around as well, because beer does soak into walls, doesn’t it? Only part of your walls, though. Well, about halfway up from the skirting board, if we’re going to be exact. But we’ll match the paint up as nearly as possible, and I’ll let you know when you can safely come home. Hope you’re having a good holiday.’

  Phin swore several times, but managed to send a reasonably temperate voicemail back, saying he would be home in about three days, and relaying the name of the carpet store, whose name he fortunately remembered. He added, with as much polite firmness as he could manage, that he hoped everything would have returned to normal by then.

  After breakfast he mentioned to Grania O’Brien that he was taking her advice about Maxim Volf and visiting the Sexton’s House tomorrow, rather than today. ‘This morning I’m going into Galway.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful city,’ she said. ‘Will you be in to dinner tonight?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Well, they’ll look after you from the kitchen. I’m off out to supper at the Cullens’ myself. They’ve their nephew visiting and they like to show him off, so we’re usually invited, Rory and me. Bit of a gloomy affair it’ll be, what with old Cullen banging on about religion and sin, and his two
sisters, poor souls, scared for their lives of him in case he has another stroke and leaves them on their own. Best thing that could happen to them in my opinion, but it doesn’t do to say. Still, a good meal they always put on – Nuala Cullen’s a great cook, and it does their niece good to have a bit of company, for I doubt she has much of a life, cooped up there, poor child. They say she’s not strong enough for ordinary school – lot of rubbish, to my mind, but that’s something else that can’t be said. Her mother ran away before Jessica was born. Couldn’t wait to get away from old Tormod Cullen most like. The Cullen ladies were distraught when they had the news of her death, although thanks be to God, it turned out they were named as guardians for Jess, and it was a great comfort to them when she was brought to Kilcarne. And I’ll see if they remember those old wartime concerts you were wanting to know about.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that,’ said Phin.

  ‘They’d all have been young children in the forties, of course, but they might remember something. I’ll let you know in the morning – unless you’d like me to tap on your door when I get back. We won’t be very late.’

  ‘No, please don’t bother,’ said Phin, hastily.

  ‘Well, if you change your mind, my own room’s just along the corridor.’

  ‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ said Phin, firmly, and set out for Galway.

  It was not a very busy road, and he scanned the houses along the roadside, hoping to identify the Sexton’s House. About a mile out of Kilcarne, Grania had said, and set on its own above the road. He passed a few cottages, then thought he identified it, although after the build-up he would not have been surprised to see a Gothic pile. In fact it was a small, perfectly ordinary grey-stone cottage, without so much as a leering gargoyle or a sinister chimney pot to its name.