By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘I don’t fancy tangling with a man like that,’ I said, ‘but we don’t have to discard it out of hand. Call it number three option.’

  ‘Number three?’

  ‘I can see two other ways of going at it. One of them is the left-handedness. It might be possible to show that one of them was left-handed. If so, we apply it to the pair of near duplicates we’ve got, and it’d tell us who painted which.’

  ‘Small chance there.’ She nodded. ‘What else?’

  ‘My gran said Grace had told her it’d been the Ashe painting that went in the fire. It was from that set that mine was rescued. Right? We thought Grace could have made a mistake, or even have been lying. So she’s obviously the first one to tackle. Ask her, and see what comes from it.’

  Interest sparked in her eyes. She thrust back her chair. ‘I’ll take a shower. We’ll use my car.’

  ‘No. I intended to do it alone.’ I smiled at her, taking the edge off it. But all the same it was a challenge. Was she going to take charge again, now that I’d made my suggestions? Or try to.

  ‘I’d like to hear what she says.’ Then she made a gesture of dismissal. ‘All right. If that’s how you want it.’

  ‘I’ve got an excuse—a reason. It will be natural to call and offer my condolences. They were together for more than sixty years.’

  ‘Of course. I’m being thoughtless. You must go alone. But it’ll be awkward for you.’

  ‘Perhaps.”

  More than awkward, embarrassing. She had fed the police with information that had virtually led to a murder charge against me. She was certainly going to make trouble over the paintings. No, awkward was a pallid word for it.

  When I was ready to leave I put my head inside Margaret’s laboratory, where she’d once more plunged into her work. I’d suggested that things would look better in the morning, but this was artificial daylight, and everything looked the same. Had I realized it, the solution was already there for the taking, but at that time we hadn’t run out of options, and neither of us looked closely enough.

  I drove away to see Grace.

  The day was sunny, and I’d hoped it would make the place look less devastatingly gloomy. But it did not. The trees had grown wildly with their freedom, and no sun penetrated. Pessimistic, then, as to my welcome, I was not surprised when Grace tried to slam the door in my face.

  I put my foot inside, and used my shoulder as a buffer. ‘We’ve got to talk, Grace.’

  ‘Thief!’ she shouted.

  ‘We ought to discuss the paintings.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about. You stole them. Go away.’

  ‘We are talking about them. Now wouldn’t it be more sensible to do it sitting down? Like civilized human beings.’

  She would not like it to be suggested that she was uncivilized. She had been the companion to a lady. Didn’t that make her a lady, too? The pressure eased at my shoulder, an eye appeared at the gap.

  ‘You’re a thieving swine,’ she said temperately, ‘but I suppose you’d better come in. Never let it be said I wasn’t polite.’

  I entered. The emptiness of the house was overpowering, with an atmosphere of aching loneliness that was Grace’s own. Could she bear to live with it here alone? Would she wish to? The house would certainly be hers. She could sell it. She would not be derelict. Or so I told myself.

  She led me into the drawing-room where we had first waited. It was full of whispering stillness and of chill rejection. Grace seemed unaware of any inhibition. She took one of the four remaining Regency dining chairs and sat primly on it, leaving me to do the same, or to stand. I chose to stand, to give myself room to move around. At least I could disturb the air, my clothes making rustling sounds to which the room listened hungrily. Grace waited. She’d made her opinion known. She sat still. There was no indication of mourning. The curtains were as wide as they’d been before. The room itself mourned, though it hadn’t seen Angelina for ... how many years?

  I went straight to the attack, though gently. She was not a fragile woman, as my grandmother had been, but she was not young.

  ‘I’ve been told,’ I said, ‘that you’re making a claim to the paintings.’

  ‘They’re mine. Everything that was in this house when she died. Mine. You can’t get round that.’

  ‘Then surely it all rests on exactly when she did die,’ I suggested.

  Her head snapped up and her eyes gleamed. ‘I saw you leaving. The car pulled out of the drive. I recognized it. I drove up to the front door. A minute, perhaps. I went straight up to her. Ran. I didn’t trust you. Another minute. And she was dead then. She died before you got them out of the house. So there.’

  She was in no way senile. She knew how things stood. I smiled at her. ‘It’s almost as thought you’re saying I killed her, Grace.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past you.’

  ‘Come now. That’s a serious accusation. Why should I? What would I gain?’

  ‘The paintings from the loft, that’s obvious. They’re mine. You bring them back here, or I’ll have the law on you.’

  ‘But she said she wanted me to have—’

  ‘Said,’ she jerked out, her face quivering with the triumph. ‘Only said. She’d said to me she’d take it all back. In writing.’

  ‘I see.’ The pen being mightier than the word. ‘But how could I have known she’d promised you that, Grace? If I didn’t know, I’d have no reason. Surely you can see that.’

  ‘You woke her up. Got it out of her.’

  I paced a little, trying to make my feet disturb the silence beyond our voices, but the carpet was heavy.

  ‘You’ve worked all this out,’ I conceded. She nodded, jowls quivering. ‘You’re not getting one over on me.’

  ‘I’m not trying to.’

  ‘It sounds like you are to me. But you can be sure of one thing—I’m having them back. Or I’ll want to know the reason why.’

  ‘The reason why,’ I said, though the remark had been rhetorical, ‘is that I’m satisfied I’ve got a legal and moral right to them.’

  Her feet stamped so hard on the carpet that she nearly shot herself out of the chair. ‘We’ll see about that. Just you wait.’

  ‘What can they mean to you, Grace? A bunch of old paintings, that’s all they are. It’s not as though they’re valuable.’

  She leaned back, crossing her arms as though she’d said the lot. ‘It’s the principle of the thing.’

  ‘Unless you believe they are valuable, Grace.’ She glanced away. ‘Is that it?’

  She sniffed, and her lips sucked in, then prodded out again.

  ‘Do you believe they could be valuable?’ I persisted.

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Well now. That’s the point. There was a bonfire. Do you remember the bonfire, Grace? But of course you do. Mr Hine threw a batch of paintings down from the loft, and they were burned. He thought he was throwing down the set painted by Frederick Ashe. You know who he was, I suppose?’

  I waited. Her eyes were fixed on a patch of mould in the far corner of the room. They flickered back to me, and away again. ‘Her lover.’ It was delivered with contempt.

  ‘But Angelina thought she’d fooled him—fooled her husband—and believed she’d burned her own paintings. Though perhaps he was too smart for her, and threw down the canvases painted by Grannie’s lover.’

  ‘He wasn’t stupid, Arthur wasn’t. She called him a shopkeeper. To her, that was an insult. But he was a clever man. Owned six shops. A clever man.’

  ‘I’m sure he was.’

  ‘And don’t tell me he married her for money,’ she said violently, once more facing me fully, her hands free and gesturing. ‘He never made any secret of it. I heard him tell her that. Arthur always called a spade a spade. He said she was like spoiled goods, that they had to pay him to take her off their hands.’ She smirked. She’d memorized the exact phrase.

  ‘So,’ I said, after a small interval during which this endearment was allow
ed to settle, ‘so, he was possibly clever enough to double-guess her, and he threw down the Frederick Ashe paintings he knew she treasured.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pride in the inclination of her head.

  ‘Do you know he did that?’

  ‘Not know.’ She was cautious. ‘Not really know.’

  ‘And yet—and my grandmother told me this, Grace—and yet, she said that you went up into the loft for her, because she couldn’t manage it herself, and you came down and said the Frederick Ashe ones had gone.’

  ‘How would I know that?’

  ‘Because she’d told you that his had a cross on the tea chests.’

  She pouted sullenly. ‘As like as not.’

  ‘Did you tell her those were the ones that’d gone?’

  ‘I seem to remember I did.’

  ‘Come now, Grace. It’s something you wouldn’t forget. Did you go into the loft and check if the chests still there had a cross on them? Or not?’

  ‘I went into the loft, yes.’

  ‘And did they—at that time—have a cross on them?’ It was now becoming difficult to moderate my voice.

  She lifted her chin. The wattles fell back. ‘I didn’t trouble to look.’

  I took that in, letting my mind juggle with it a little, but it came out again unblemished.

  ‘And yet you told Angelina that it was the batch of Frederick Ashe paintings that she’d burned.’ I made that a statement.

  She answered with impatient definition. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why did she say it?’

  I had the feeling that it was not I who’d led her gently to that point, but she who had teased me along to the question. She smiled. I’d got to it at last. But there was such secret malice in the smile that I nearly recoiled.

  ‘Because I knew it would hurt her,’ she replied, nodding in emphasis. ‘And I knew she’d never be able to get up there and check for herself.’

  ‘But why in heaven’s name should you want to hurt her?’

  ‘Because I loved Arthur, and he loved me, and Angelina killed him.’

  ‘Figuratively speaking, of ...’ I stopped and stared at her. The hard buttons of her eyes challenged me. ‘You did say killed?’

  ‘If pushing him down a staircase is killing, that’s what she did. I saw her do it. She killed him.’

  I had to turn away. She had led me into a uncharted realm of conjecture, and I was afraid to go ahead. It was something I didn’t want to know.

  ‘You don’t want to believe it, do you?’ she jeered at my back. ‘Your precious grannie, the angel. Just because of her name. Angelina!’ she cried in disgust. ‘She was no angel, I’ll have you know.’

  I turned back to her. Her name was Grace, but there was no grace here. She leaned forward, tightly embracing the venom. Spittle decorated the corners of her lips.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said quietly, facing it full on.

  ‘Why d’you think there’s no carpet on the stairs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His blood. It wouldn’t wash out. She had it taken away.’

  ‘His blood.’

  ‘He was carrying a drinks tray glasses, bottles, everything. She was just behind him at the top of the stairs, at his shoulder. He’d never let her walk in front of him. A lady always goes first, he used to say. You follow, my angel. He called her his angel. That was a laugh, but Arthur always had a sense of humour, you can say that for him. There’ve been times—’

  ‘Grace!’ I cut in, and for the first time I was unable to control my voice. ‘For God’s sake keep to the point.’

  ‘There’s no need for blasphemy.’ Then she gave a bitter laugh. ‘I want you to understand.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Arthur had hated his angel all their married life. Or loved her, in spite of himself. If he’d not, why the corroding jealousy for a man long dead? I decided not to probe that matter with Grace. ‘The stairs,’ I said more quietly. ‘Arthur and his tray.’

  She nodded, her lower lip loose. ‘He’d got no spare hand for the banister. He was a big man, heavy. I was behind, along the corridor. I saw her take his elbow. He glanced round. She twisted him, and put all her weight into his back, and he was gone. She shouted at him all the way down.’ She stopped abruptly, then whispered: ‘Shouted at him. Hatred. Yes.’

  ‘He broke his neck?’

  ‘What?’ She tore herself from the memory. ‘No. It was the glass. The jugular. You know the jugular?’

  ‘Not exactly, Grace, but I’m sure you do.’

  ‘I might have saved him,’ she said in a dead voice, ‘but Angelina was having hysterics and grabbed hold of me, and wouldn’t let me go. Hysterics! Not her! It was on purpose. Hard as nails, she was. I couldn’t get to him, she hung on so, and his life ran away down the carpet.’

  ‘You mentioned the carpet,’ I put in quickly. ‘When was this, Grace? Roughly.’

  ‘On the sixth of May, 1934.’

  ‘Your memory is very clear, I must say.’

  ‘It was the day after your father’s sixteenth birthday. The day after he went away.’

  ‘I see.’ I caught at the tide of it, hoping to get as much as possible before the ebb of tears. ‘So the batch of paintings, the ones remaining after the bonfire, had been in the loft for how many years ... fifteen? Sixteen?’

  ‘All of that.’

  ‘The bonfire was soon after my father’s birth, I understand.’

  Again I had the impression she was encouraging me, leading me on. She was leaning forward like a crumpled gnome, her face bright with intentness.

  ‘That would be the time,’ she agreed.

  ‘And in all those years my grandmother, who must have been uncertain which paintings she’d destroyed, didn’t go up and check?’

  ‘How could she?’ She raised both palms and slapped her cheeks in an ecstasy of revelation. ‘Arthur had a padlock put on the trapdoor—right after the fire, that was.’

  ‘Yes. He would. That sounds like his line of thinking. So that, after his death, when Grandmother had the key ... that was when she tried to get up there?’

  ‘So stupid. She couldn’t wait.’

  ‘And she fell?’

  ‘Yes. She fell. It seemed like a judgement on her.’

  ‘Very true. You saw that one, too?’

  ‘I was right behind her.’

  ‘Right behind? On the steps, d’you mean? And she didn’t take you down with her?’

  Her face was so solemn it must have hurt. ‘She was reaching up with both hands to the padlock. I could see—her feet were six inches from my nose, so don’t say I couldn’t see—her left foot was slipping off the tread. I shouted, but I was too late, and she went. I sort of, you know, flattened myself against the steps and hung on. She went right over me.’ She waited, challenging me to criticize her own role in this, to mention how close her own hands must have been to my grand-mother’s ankles. I said nothing. She sighed. ‘It was her spine. She was paralysed all down one side.’

  Thus making her completely dependent on Grace. Why had she not dismissed her, and taken on a more amenable and amicable companion? Fear? Fear of what Grace had seen when her husband died? And Grace—she had stayed because of the power she could wield, the taunts, subtle and outspoken, she could throw around, the misery she could inflict by telling my grandmother that she had, with her own hand, destroyed her lover’s life-work in a bonfire. And Grace had not even bothered to check the truth of this!

  No wonder the house held an atmosphere of doom. The two women had lived with this between them, holding them in its grip for over fifty years. Hatred is a stronger emotion than love. Hatred feeds on itself; love needs replenishing.

  And yet ...

  ‘You told me you loved him,’ I said, trying to discover something in this house that hadn’t gone sour. ‘And he you. Were you lovers?’

  ‘Sometimes he visited her. They slept in separate rooms.’

  ‘An
d when he was not with her ...’

  ‘He was with me.’

  ‘A passionate man—’

  ‘Don’t throw your fancy words at me, young man,’ she cut in fiercely. ‘We were young, and we were in love. Sex, that’s what all you young people look for and think about. We could not have gone on, in this house together, if we’d not had each other. Oh I know, you got your dear Angelina’s story, her grand passion, like a story book. And that you approve. Don’t deny it. I can see it in your face. Why should it have been any different for us? We loved each other. I think ... if it hadn’t been for me ... he’d have gone insane in this house. We laughed and we cried together, and we whispered our secrets to each other. And I watched him die on that staircase.’

  For the first time there was life in her face. Suddenly I could see that she would have been pretty, with that mobile, chunky face, pretty in a joyful, outgoing way, generous in her giving and in her enjoyment of life. It was a fleeting glimpse, the most painful moment of my visit. Then it was gone. I took out my pipe and stared at it, not daring even to consider lighting it.

  ‘And when you were whispering together, Grace, laughing together, didn’t he tell you how he’d tricked Angelina, and thrown down from the loft the ones she didn’t want to burn?’

  Her mouth fell open and she gobbled, positively gobbled in an attempt to control her tongue. ‘No!’ she managed to get out at last. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘But that’s the sort of thing he would talk to you about, Grace. It’s the exact type of intimate joke you’d exchange.’

  Then she was on her feet, both arms raised, her scarred and arthritic hands clenched, and she flew at me. Not in the way Margaret had flown at me. This was furious outrage. She had trusted me with her intimate thoughts, and I’d seized on them and used them against her. But I had to know. The damned thing was becoming an obsession. I wanted to help Margaret. Yes. But there was something more important than that now. The paintings, in one way or another, had been the cause of one death and a crippling accident—even a second possible murder. All these thoughts flitted through my head in the couple of seconds it took me to capture her flying wrists, to find myself inches from her distorted face, feeling the spittle from her fury spattering me, and then to try to shout her down.