Death Notes (A Phineas Fox Mystery)

by Sarah Rayne

  Tormod was gripping the arms of his chair with clenched hands, and he was not looking at Jessica. It was as if he could no longer bear to see her.

  ‘She must go,’ he said, directly to Morna and Nuala. ‘I won’t have her in the house.’

  ‘Go? Go where? Tormod, you can’t—’

  ‘You’ll arrange something. But I won’t have the results of a fornication in the house.’ His eyes were wild and his lips were working as if he might be whispering prayers to himself. ‘As for any child – a child of sin and shame, an abomination before the Lord – I can’t have it in my house.’

  ‘Tormod, Jessica was attacked – the poor girl was violated—’

  ‘We want to ask the doctor for help—’ began Nuala.

  ‘You are not to consult any doctor,’ said Tormod, speaking with such cold fury that Nuala flinched. The flesh seemed to have fallen back from his face, throwing into prominence the jutting nose. He was hunched forward, his bony shoulders making him resemble a massive bird of prey as he sat in the wing-chair and glared hatred at them. Almost to himself, he said, ‘It’s Catriona’s evil all over again,’ and then he slumped back in his chair.

  It was not until later that evening that Morna said, ‘We’ll ask Donal to help us.’

  Nothing Jess could do or say would change their minds. They insisted that Donal must know anyway – dear goodness, did Jessica think a thing like this could be hidden from him? Of course he must be told, and no call for embarrassment or being ashamed, because Donal would have encountered this problem in his parish, and he would tell them what to do. Jess saw that the habit of asking Donal what to do had become so ingrained in them, that even the thought of telling him was making them feel better.

  She was helpless. Morna telephoned Donal that night, and he arrived in Kilcarne two days later.

  It was the false, deceitful Donal who came, of course, and who sat with Jessica and the aunts, listening as the aunts stumblingly and awkwardly explained what had happened.

  He made shocked sounds of sympathy. When Aunt Nuala dissolved into tears, he gave her a clean handkerchief, and when Aunt Morna wanted to string up the man responsible and leave him to die slowly, Donal said this was an understandable reaction, but they must be charitable and try to forgive.

  Only once did he look directly at Jessica through all this and, meeting his eyes, Jessica shivered and cowered back in her chair, so that Nuala was instantly concerned, asking did she feel sick, or had she a pain anywhere?

  ‘I’m all right. Don’t fuss. I don’t want to be here, that’s all. I don’t want to be anywhere.’

  ‘I wondered about one of those places where unmarried girls are taken in and the babies sent for adoption,’ said Morna, tentatively. ‘Hostels. The nuns might know of somewhere.’

  ‘But if we talk to the nuns it would get back to Tormod,’ said Nuala. ‘You know it would.’

  ‘I’ve heard bad reports of some of those places,’ said Donal. ‘They can be quite severe.’ He made a rueful gesture. ‘Even these days, they can be very spartan. We want somewhere nearby, so we can look after Jess ourselves. Keep an eye on her.’

  ‘But without Tormod knowing where she is.’

  It seemed to Jess that the aunts exchanged worried looks at this. Then Morna said, ‘But we should be putting Jessica first. We should, Jess, it’s no use crying all over again. You should be having tests. Scans and things to make sure you’re all right. Well, and to make sure the – um – the child’s all right. Only at the moment I can’t see how we can manage that without it getting out. Getting back to Tormod.’

  Again the look passed between them.

  Donal said, lightly, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about scans and tests. Not for the time being. Very overrated, so I’m told in my parish.’

  The aunts accepted this at once. Donal would know about these things – his work would have brought him into contact with many young mothers.

  ‘But, Jess, you’ll have to be away from school for quite a time,’ said Donal. ‘Have any of you thought how to cope with that?’

  The aunts had. They thought they could tell the nuns that Jessica was visiting relatives for a long stay, and that she would be going to school there for the rest of the current term, and perhaps part of the next.

  ‘We can let it be thought she hasn’t really recovered from witnessing the car crash,’ explained Nuala, eagerly. ‘We think they’ll accept that. Oh dear, though, it’s a terrible thing that we’ll be lying to the sisters and Mother Superior.’

  ‘But we’re protecting Jessica,’ said Donal. ‘And we’re avoiding Tormod becoming agitated and risking a second stroke.’ He looked at Morna and Nuala very intently for a moment. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Then what we need,’ said Donal, ‘is a safe place for the next four months or so. It is four, isn’t it? It was January when it happened?’

  He said this as if he had to search his memory for the exact date, but his eyes flickered to Jessica, as if sharing the memory.

  ‘Yes, January.’

  ‘A place of sanctuary,’ said Donal, sitting back in his chair and looking at them. ‘That’s what we want.’

  Sanctuary …

  As soon as he said that word, sanctuary, Jessica knew what he was thinking. She saw that the aunts knew it, as well. Because there was a house, here in Kilcarne, a house set apart from all the others at the end of a remote lane, but easily reachable, barely five minutes’ drive, no more than ten or fifteen minutes’ walk from their own house. A house that would be empty for a long, long time, because its owner had suffered a terrible and double tragedy. Mrs Drury had returned to England and was not thought likely to come back to Tromloy – to the house people said she and her husband had spoken of as serene.

  ‘Tromloy,’ said Nuala, in a whisper. ‘Oh, but we couldn’t put Jess there.’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘And even if we could get in,’ said Nuala, ‘supposing we were seen? Because that poor woman, Mrs Drury, won’t have left the house to itself without having someone to look in from time to time. It could burn down – gypsies could get in.’

  ‘Or tramps,’ said Morna, in an acid tone. ‘But I don’t know that it’s a question that would arise. Mrs Drury always telephoned Dunleary’s shop before coming over – to order in groceries and milk, and to have the electricity switched on at the house. And isn’t Oona Dunleary the biggest gossip in Kilcarne, so if Mrs Drury were to be returning, everyone for miles around would know about it inside five minutes.’

  ‘That’s true. And we’d have enough time to get Jess away.’

  ‘And,’ said Morna, ‘Oona told me she’s been asked to keep an eye on the house – not going inside or even having a key, but just walking or driving out there on a regular basis, to make sure the roof hasn’t fallen in, or the place burned to a crisp.’

  ‘For a fee, I daresay,’ said Nuala, rather caustically.

  ‘Oh, none of the Dunlearys ever do anything unless they’re paid. But what she’s doing, she’s driving up to Tromloy every week, when she visits her sister in Connemara. Wednesday afternoons, when Dunleary’s is closed.’

  ‘So Jessica would need to lie low on Wednesdays,’ said Donal. ‘There’d have to be no signs of activity within the house. But that should be easy enough.’

  ‘It’s not the right thing to do,’ said Morna. ‘It’s wrong, however you look at it.’

  ‘And even if we agreed, how would we get inside Tromloy?’ said Nuala.

  They looked at Donal with the trustful air of children. He smiled at them, and Jess hated him all over again.

  ‘Getting inside will be easy,’ he said. ‘Just before he died, Niall Drury gave me a key.’

  The aunts looked at one another.

  ‘We’ll think about it,’ said Morna, firmly. ‘We won’t make any decision yet, but we’ll think about it.’

  Jessica hated the possibility of returning to Tromloy and living there o
n her own for so long. She was frightened Donal would come out there and she was afraid of what he might do to her. Perhaps the aunts would think of another solution, though.

  It was difficult to sleep that night, knowing Donal was just a few steps along the landing, and that he could creep into her bedroom without her hearing him. She lay awake for a long time, listening to the small sounds of the house, and the occasional scratching of a bird in the eaves. When she did slide down into an uneasy sleep, she could feel Donal’s hands on her body again, pushing beneath her skirt, insistent and hurting. She could hear him gasping and sobbing as he slumped against the sofa afterwards, praying for forgiveness.

  Father forgive me for what I cannot help … No, that was not right, the words were, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’

  I am sorry and beg pardon for all my sins, I detest them above all things …

  Jessica half woke, gasping and hitting out at the dreadful hands, then came up out of sleep properly, sitting bolt upright in the bed, her heart pounding, clutching the sheets around her. It had been a bad dream, that was all. The sobbing had vanished with the dream, so it was quite all right—

  It was not all right, though. There was someone in the bedroom – someone was standing close to her bed, half leaning over her … Watching her and reaching out with thin mutton-bone fingers … No, of course there was not anyone, it was only a shadow cast by her dressing gown hanging behind the door. She leaned back on the pillows, the sheets still pulled round her. The shadow moved, and Jessica gasped, because he was here, in her bedroom – Donal was here. His eyes were glinting in the darkness, and his hands were gripping the bedrail. His shoulders were hunched over, and just for a moment he resembled a crouching bird of prey. Tormod had looked exactly like that earlier on—

  Tormod.

  It was not Donal who was in her room. It was Tormod. And he was sobbing and gabbling the Act of Contrition, even as his thin hands were reaching for her. Jess began to scream.

  ‘It’s the stroke turned his brain,’ said Morna, after Donal had come running in and helped them get Tormod back to bed. ‘It made him start sleep-walking,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to be frightened, Jess.’

  ‘It’s very common after a stroke, sleep-walking,’ said Morna, firmly.

  ‘I never heard that.’ Donal had poured himself a glass of brandy, and he was sitting in the kitchen with them. Jess pulled her dressing gown more tightly around her.

  ‘Oh, yes, they told us about it at the time,’ said Nuala, quickly. ‘Night terrors, they said.’

  ‘It seems to me that it’s Jessica who’s having those,’ said Donal, with unusual sharpness, and Jessica was aware of a faint stir of gratitude to him.

  ‘So there’s no need to be frightened, Jess. Not of Tormod.’

  But Jessica knew the aunts were just as frightened of Tormod as she was. She finished her milk and said she was all right now, and she would go back to bed. She thought she would drag a chair across her door, so that if Uncle Tormod came back he would fall over it and wake everybody up.

  ‘We’ll be nearby if you want us,’ said Morna.

  ‘And I’m just at the end of the landing,’ said Donal. He put down his brandy. ‘I’ll go up now. I’ll look in on Tormod to make sure he’s all right.’

  ‘And you go up as well, Jess, dear. Take the milk with you.’

  Jess nodded, and made a slow way out of the room.

  ‘He’ll do it again,’ said Donal the next morning. ‘You do know he’ll probably do it again.’

  ‘He doesn’t know he’s doing it.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It makes it even more vital to get Jessica away from him. And,’ said Donal, ‘to make sure we keep this whole thing very quiet indeed.’

  ‘Do we need to tell anyone about Tormod?’ said Nuala, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He’s a sick man, Donal.’

  Donal hesitated, and Jessica saw that he was thinking that to have enquiries made into the family – even medical enquiries – could blow the whole thing about the child wide open. When he spoke, she knew she had been right.

  ‘I think it was a single incident,’ he said. ‘Finding out what had happened to Jessica disturbed him very deeply, you know. If we can just get Jessica out of his way, he’ll settle down. Then, afterwards, we’ll think what to do.’

  They went out to Tromloy later that same day, choosing the early afternoon when Tormod would be having his nap, and when no one was likely to be around. They took Jessica with them – Jess supposed they were afraid to leave her on her own with Tormod. She was afraid of being on her own with him, anyway.

  ‘We won’t take the car,’ said Donal, ‘because it might be noticed. If anyone sees us it’ll just look like an afternoon stroll.’

  ‘If we’re ever found out—’ began Nuala, then stopped.

  ‘We won’t be found out.’

  ‘I’m hating it, though,’ said Nuala. ‘We’re lying and pretending, and it’s wrong.’

  ‘Not to mention all the laws we’ll be breaking.’

  ‘It’s on my conscience, dears,’ said Donal, and there, again, was the faint echo of memory.

  It’ll be my sin, Jessica, my sin not yours, and I’ll do penance for it … I’ll take it on my soul …

  And last night, in a darkened bedroom, Tormod had whispered the ritual words of penance. I am sorry and beg pardon for all my sins …

  ‘I’m hating it as well,’ said Donal, in answer to Nuala. ‘It’s only for a short while, though. And I told you that afterwards we’ll decide what to do on a long-term basis.’

  For Jess, the journey to Tromloy had a dreamlike quality. Here was the chunk of stone with the house’s name engraved on it, and here was the sharp curve that brought the house so suddenly into view. As they went towards it, Donal produced the key.

  The door swung open easily and smoothly, and although it should have felt wrong to be going into somebody else’s house without it being known, it did not. Jess had the curious feeling that the girl she had seen die in the car crash – Abigail, her name had been – did not mind her being here.

  She had been afraid she would relive that dreadful day when she had fought against Donal before the deep old fireplace, but she did not. Walking cautiously around the rooms, she thought she would not in the least mind being on her own here for large parts of each day. She could dream and read and draw. She would be away from Tormod. How about Donal? Might he come out here to visit her?

  But the aunts were already working out the plan. They would call into Dunleary’s at least every other day, because if Mrs Drury was coming to Kilcarne, Oona Dunleary would be telling everyone. They could not have the electricity switched on at Tromloy, of course, but it was the summer, so very little heating would be needed. If it did happen to turn cold they might risk lighting a fire in the hearth. A kettle could be boiled across it, in fact – there was an old trivet in the woodshed at home which could be brought along. They would try to get a battery-operated radio for Jessica as well.

  Food and milk could be brought here every day, and they would buy large thermos flasks. Good, nourishing stews could be made and put into a flask. Jessica, listening to them telling each other – telling Donal – how one of them would be coming out here every day, began to feel a bit safer. Donal would not try to do anything to her with Morna or Nuala likely to turn up any minute.

  In one of the bedrooms – the girl’s bedroom almost certainly – there was a photograph of Abigail Drury. Morna and Nuala examined it with interest and sadness. Such a lovely, unusual-looking girl, with that chestnut hair, and those bright, intelligent eyes, they said. Morna thought they should offer up a special intention for Abigail at Mass on Sunday. And for her father who had died with her, of course.

  There was a rocking chair in the room, and a deep padded window-seat with soft cushions. The shelves had books and sketching things. Nuala said it was easy to imagine that poor child curled up here, reading or sketching, listening to her music
on the stereo player by the window.

  ‘It’s a wide mixture of books,’ said Morna, inspecting the shelves. ‘Even some poetry. You don’t get many girls of that age reading poetry.’

  Jessica, installed in Tromloy, sometimes wondered if she had fallen into a dream – not necessarily her own dream. She slept in Abigail Drury’s bed and tried not to feel like Goldilocks in the three bears’ cottage. The bed was very comfortable, and from the pillow she could look straight at an old photograph of a man standing on a stage. She liked the photo, and she would like to have met that man. Sometimes she thought up little conversations between them – pretending he was her grandfather or her great-grandfather. The books on Abigail’s shelves had marvellous stories and poems in them. Several had inscriptions written inside.

  In the bedroom was an old fire screen with photographs and old papers and newspaper cuttings pasted on to it. The faces in the photos were interesting – Jess liked looking at them and thinking who the people might have been. On the second night she moved the screen to beneath the theatre photo, so she could look at all the people together.

  It was Donal who asked about the birth itself. How would that be dealt with?

  ‘We’ve thought of that,’ said Aunt Nuala, eagerly. ‘We’ll hope we don’t have to call an ambulance, and once it – um – starts to happen, Morna will drive Jess as fast as ever possible to University Hospital in Galway. I’ll go with them, of course.’

  ‘I’ve practised the drive twice,’ said Morna. ‘So I know about one-way streets and the car park at the Emergency Wing and the like. It won’t take us long to get you there, Jess, and it’s big and anonymous – far enough away from Kilcarne for no one to find out. You’ll be an emergency case, so they won’t waste time asking questions. Not at first, anyway.’

  ‘And afterwards we’ll ask them to arrange an adoption,’ said Nuala, eagerly. ‘They’ll tell us how we do that, won’t they? They’ll know about forms and legalities and things. But until then—’