Dead and Gone

by Dorothy Simpson

  A glance at Mintar’s stricken face confirmed the truth of it and Thanet looked in disbelief from the QC now avoiding his eye to the woman standing triumphantly with arms akimbo. Impossible to imagine a coupling between these two, but then there was no telling what Marah had looked like all those years ago. Difficult as it might be to believe, perhaps in her youth she had simply been a buxom country girl, as fresh as a daisy and with all that flower’s innocent charm.

  But of course the worst of it was that this meant Dick and Caroline were brother and sister. Which explained so much – why Mintar had been so dead against Caroline’s association with Swain, why he had been so devastated by her elopement, why he had refused to take more than the most cursory steps to find her, why he had preferred to try to pretend she had never existed rather than confess the truth to his family and face up to the fact that it was he who was really responsible for the disastrous consequences of that liaison long ago.

  Thanet’s sympathy for the man dissolved like snow in summer. The truth was that loss of face had been more important to Mintar than his daughter’s welfare and Thanet found that unforgivable. If the QC had only had the courage to tell Caroline the truth as soon as she started to show a serious interest in Swain, then none of this would have happened. She would never have left home and Virginia would have been saved from the worst of her excesses and might even still be alive.

  Thanet stared at Mintar in horrified disbelief. How could you have allowed this to happen?

  After one shamefaced glance at Thanet Mintar rallied and retaliated, evidently feeling that there was now nothing to be gained by keeping his promise not to interfere. ‘You’re lying about Caroline, Marah,’ he said harshly. ‘Tell us what really happened that night.’

  ‘I did. I have. I never saw hide nor hair of her. Believe me or not, as you choose.’

  ‘We choose not to,’ said Thanet grimly. And then, to Lineham. ‘Get four more officers in here, Sergeant. We’re going to take this place apart.’

  ‘Carry on!’ she said, folding her arms again and shifting slightly to firm up her stance, as if to indicate that nothing was going to make her budge, physically or mentally. ‘Search away! I don’t know what you think you’re going to find!’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ said Thanet as the officers, three men and a woman, came in. He wasn’t sure himself what he was looking for. Just some indication that Caroline had been here that night, he supposed, though how realistic an expectation that was after the passage of four years, he had no idea. He only knew that the woman standing there like an immovable obstacle was not going to defeat him if he could possibly help it. ‘And turn that wretched radio off!’ he said to Lineham, as the presenter launched into an interview with a local celebrity. ‘I can’t hear myself think!’

  ‘Now,’ he said into the ensuing silence. And paused. Surely he had heard something? What? He cocked his head, listening intently.

  The others looked at each other, puzzled, and Lineham opened his mouth to speak.

  Thanet put up his hand. ‘Shh!’

  But there was nothing, only a tense, expectant silence as they all waited for they knew not what. Thanet relaxed, shook his head and was about to go on speaking when the sound came again, just the faintest metallic chink. Glancing around, he saw that this time they had heard it too.

  And then, in a flash, he remembered. Understood.

  He looked at Marah Swain, standing as if carved in stone in the centre of the room and she read the knowledge in his eyes, raised her head slightly and gave him a defiant stare. His gaze moved down to her feet, squarely planted on a thick, multicoloured rag rug of the type once common in poorer country households. He advanced upon her. ‘Move aside,’ he said.

  She stood her ground and he gestured to his men, who seized her by the arms. She went limp and they were forced to drag her back, a dead weight, her heels rucking up the rag mat. Now they could all see what he had suspected: there was a trapdoor beneath it.

  Thanet went down on his knees and shoved the rug aside. He seized the iron ring folded down into a recess at one side of the door and lifted, swung it back and almost gagged as an even more powerful, suffocating stench gushed up to meet him, filling his nose, his mouth, his lungs. Wooden steps fell away into the darkness. ‘A torch,’ he gasped, looking up at Lineham. ‘I need a torch!’

  ‘A torch,’ repeated the sergeant, looking at Marah Swain, but she simply turned her head away, refusing to answer. A quick glance around failed to reveal one and on a bright summer’s day like this no one had thought to bring one along. An officer was dispatched to fetch as many as he could muster from the cars on the road but Thanet couldn’t wait for his return. Tying his handkerchief over nose and mouth he automatically dug into a pocket for the matchbox which of course wasn’t there. Since he had stopped smoking he never bothered to carry one. ‘Anyone got a match?’

  One of the men fumbled in his pocket and produced a lighter.

  Thanet snatched it from him and then, taking a deep breath of the relatively fresh air in the room, he descended half a dozen steps before lighting it. Holding it at arm’s length he peered into the blackness surrounding him.

  The hairs at the back of his neck prickled as in the far corner of the cellar, where the darkness was most profound, something moved. There was that sound again, but louder this time and now he could identify it: the clink of metal on stone.

  Then, so faintly as to be almost inaudible, there came a whisper. ‘Please, help me,’ it said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘You ought to have seen the state she was in . . .’ Thanet shuddered, remembering.

  It was late that same evening and he and Joan were sitting in the garden, enjoying the cool of the day. Thanet was savouring the pleasure of a case brought to a satisfactory conclusion and the opportunity to relax without feeling the unremitting pressure of a serious investigation hanging over his head. If it weren’t for the anxiety over Bridget his happiness would have been unalloyed, but she was now well advanced in labour and the portable telephone lay to hand on the table between their coffee cups, a constant reminder of the all-important event that was taking place some sixty miles away.

  Over supper Thanet had been telling Joan about the events of the day and had just reached their dramatic conclusion. Now he shook his head in pity at the memory of Caroline’s plight. ‘Honestly, Joan, she was barely recognisable as a human being. She was chained to the wall like a criminal in a medieval dungeon, lying on this disgustingly filthy mattress. I shouldn’t think she’d seen soap and water since the day she left home, and her clothes were in tatters – I imagine they were the same ones she was wearing that evening. Her hair was so matted I should think it will probably all have to be cut off, and when I picked her up she was so thin it felt as though she might just fall apart in my arms. It was like lifting a bundle of bones. We’ve all seen photographs of the survivors of the Nazi prison camps but believe me, when you are faced by the reality . . . And that smell . . . I don’t think I shall ever forget it.’ Even now, despite the fact that the minute he got home he had stripped off, consigned his clothes to the dustbin and taken as hot a shower as he could bear, that cloying, noxious odour still seemed to clog his nostrils, obstruct his breathing and surround him like a miasma.

  ‘The chain was long enough to enable her to move a few feet away from the mattress but no further, and she was surrounded by piles of excrement. Everywhere you moved, you stepped in it, and she was caked in it – she was too weak to stand up so if she got out of bed I imagine she had to crawl.’

  Joan had been listening in horrified fascination. ‘I’ve come across some pretty awful behaviour in my clients, but nothing quite as horrendous as this. How can anyone treat another human being like that? It’s beyond belief!’

  ‘But sadly, this kind of thing does occasionally happen. Over the years I’ve read of such cases from time to time and presumably there are many more that never come to light.’

  ‘But why do
people do it?’

  Thanet shrugged. ‘For various reasons, apparently. I remember reading of two separate instances in the United States when women had been locked up for years in bomb shelters because jealous husbands convinced them that there had been a nuclear war. And there have been some pretty dreadful cases in remote country areas when people – men as well as women – have been locked away for as long as thirty or forty years.’

  ‘You’re right, I’d forgotten. It’s coming back to me now. I remember reading ages ago about the case of an Italian woman in her sixties who had been kept locked up by her relations since she was a young woman because, they said, she was “different” after an illness and they had decided to keep her hidden – to preserve “family dignity and honour”, was the way they put it, as I recall!’

  ‘It’s virtually impossible to understand the mentality of people like that, isn’t it, especially when there’s collusion and more than one person is involved.’

  ‘But in this case it was just Marah Swain.’

  ‘Yes. She’s such a strange woman. In many ways she’s a relic of a past age, a throw-back, if you like, and as such quite outside the normal parameters of acceptable behaviour today.’

  ‘But that’s no excuse, surely!’

  ‘Of course not. There is no excuse for treating another human being like that. Reasons, perhaps; excuses, no.’

  ‘Her reason being that she blamed Caroline for leading her son astray and ultimately driving him away?’

  ‘Partly, yes. But I did wonder, from something she said . . . Though I don’t know, perhaps I’m attributing too civilised a motive to her.’

  ‘Civilised? I’d have thought that was the last word you’d ever apply to her, from what you’ve been saying. What can you mean?’

  ‘Well, after we found Caroline, Marah said very little, in fact. But as Mintar carried the girl out she did call after him, “They had to be stopped, see. Not natural, was it?”’

  ‘Oh, I see. You’re talking about the incest. Though we don’t actually know that there ever was any, do we?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘Not know. Suspect, perhaps.’

  ‘Still, you think she might have felt she couldn’t allow it either to go on or to happen, whichever the case may be?’

  Another shrug. ‘I can’t think what else she meant.’

  ‘But she needn’t have kept Caroline locked up, surely?’

  ‘I don’t know. You think about it. When would she have let her go? There would never have been a right time. Besides, I think her desire for revenge was and still is just as strong a reason for keeping Caroline there, if not stronger. She showed absolutely no shame or remorse for what she had done, or pity for Caroline’s condition. Just imagine what that poor girl must have gone through! It takes a pretty tough person to survive intact four years of straightforward solitary confinement, let alone under the conditions of filth, near-starvation and total darkness that Caroline had to put up with . . .’

  Joan shivered. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about. I suppose it’s too early to have any idea how well she’ll recover?’

  ‘Physically, do you mean? Or mentally?’

  ‘Both, I suppose.’

  ‘I was talking to Doc Mallard about that this afternoon. He heard what had happened and called in at the hospital to see how Caroline was. According to him the human body has an amazing ability to adapt to food deprivation and survive, which is why, during the war, so many prisoners of war did just that. After initial loss of weight the metabolism stabilises, apparently.’

  ‘But aren’t there possible long-term effects – like infertility, for instance?’

  ‘Sadly, yes.’

  Reminded of Bridget they both glanced at the telephone. When would it ring?

  ‘Doc Mallard mentioned that, but he didn’t go into it. I suppose in Caroline’s case they’ll just have to wait and see. But he does think her eyes will gradually get back to normal.’

  ‘I suppose she couldn’t stand the light, after so long in darkness.’

  ‘She couldn’t bear to open them at all. We had to cover them, to protect them.’

  ‘Poor girl. What a dreadful, dreadful ordeal.’

  ‘At least she’s in good hands now.’ Caroline had been taken straight off to hospital. ‘I’m sure her father will make certain she gets every care. But as for her mental state, well, who can tell? In any case, it’s bound to take time.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how she could ever forget an experience like that. And her father was there when you brought her up, you say? How did he react, when he saw the state she was in?’

  ‘He was absolutely shattered, as you can imagine.’ Thanet could remember only too vividly the shock, horror, disbelief in Mintar’s face as he looked at the stinking, filthy, skeletal figure lying limply in Thanet’s arms and whispered his daughter’s name. ‘Caroline? He remembered too the way Mintar had without hesitation or repugnance taken her from him and after one piercing glance of accusation and reproach at Marah Swain, borne his pathetic burden tenderly away. He had sat down to wait for the ambulance in the shade of the trees at the far side of the clearing, cradling his daughter with the gentleness of a mother nursing her newborn baby.

  ‘But what made you guess, about Caroline being in the cellar?’

  Thanet considered, shrugged. ‘Pure luck, really.’

  ‘Oh come on, Luke! You’re being modest again.’

  ‘No, really. Marah Swain had the radio on, you see, and it was getting on my nerves so I asked Mike to turn it off. If I hadn’t . . . Well, I don’t know. Perhaps one of us would have remembered a cellar being mentioned, eventually. Tanya heard about it during routine questioning of someone in the village whose husband had been friendly with Dick Swain as a boy.

  ‘Anyway, when the radio was turned off I thought I heard something. No one else had, but we all listened. Then it came again and this time they all heard it. And then I did remember the cellar, and suddenly realised why it was that Marah had planted herself bang in the middle of the room and hadn’t budged ever since we came in.’

  ‘And that had struck you as odd?’

  ‘Yes, it had. Everything about her body language said, whatever happens you are not going to make me move from this particular spot. She was standing on one of those thick rag mats people used to make out of old clothes.’

  ‘I know the sort you mean. They were made with a fat metal hook, from strips of material. I saw someone demonstrating how to make them once at a country fair.’

  ‘Anyway, it was there to cover the trapdoor, of course, and, together with the radio which was invariably playing, it would have been pretty effective at muffling sounds from below. Poor Caroline’s voice is so weak now that she would never have been able to make herself heard anyway and I imagine in the early days Marah would have had no compunction about gagging her if anyone came. I should think that apart from those who want to buy one of Marah’s home-made remedies very few visitors ever go to that house. In any case, we actually had to manhandle her, to drag her away from that trapdoor.’

  They were both silent for a while, thinking, then Thanet said, ‘You know, before we found Caroline, when it dawned on me what Marah was saying, that Mintar was Dick’s father, I couldn’t feel any sympathy for the man, but when I saw the way he looked at Caroline, the tenderness with which he took and handled her despite that terrible smell . . .’

  ‘Imagine how he must have felt, seeing his daughter in that state!’

  Once again they both looked at the telephone lying on the table before them, willing it to bring an end to the interminable waiting.

  ‘So what did you mean, you couldn’t feel any sympathy for him?’

  ‘It’s obvious, surely. If you think about it, he was the one who was really responsible for the whole disastrous sequence of events.’

  ‘By seducing Marah in the first place, you mean?’

  ‘Partly that, yes. Though looking at her now, I must confess I find it virtually imposs
ible to imagine them as lovers.’

  ‘He didn’t deny it, though?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all.’

  ‘Well, there was nothing very unusual about what he did. I’m not condoning it, of course, but throughout the ages young men have sown their wild oats and usually done their best to avoid the consequences. What I don’t understand is why it didn’t come out in the first place – and why it’s remained a secret all these years.’

  ‘Ah, well, I can answer that. Lineham and I followed the ambulance to the hospital.’ Thanet was recalling now the horrified expressions on the faces of the nurses when they had seen the state Caroline was in. Caroline herself had uttered not a single word since the moment of her discovery; indeed, but for the tears which oozed from beneath her closed eyelids, had appeared incapable of showing any emotion either. Her father had remained equally silent and it wasn’t until she had been delivered into expert hands that Mintar had finally collapsed on to a chair in the relatives’ room and, burying his head in his hands, had groaned, ‘It’s all my fault, Thanet, isn’t it? Oh God, I can’t bear it . . . Caroline . . .’ And then, his defences eroded by distress, fear and guilt and driven, evidently, by the need to tell someone, anyone, the true facts of the story which he had kept bottled up for more than twenty-five years, he had poured out the whole sorry tale.

  Thanet realised that Joan was patiently waiting for him to go on. ‘I had a long talk with Mintar while Caroline was being examined and those were two of the questions I asked him. Apparently this affair with Marah – if it could be called that – took place just after he had passed his bar finals. He blames his euphoric mood for what happened. He’d been sharing a flat in London while he was studying and had come down to spend a few weeks at home before taking up his pupillage in Chambers in the Middle Temple. I suspect that after keeping his nose to the grindstone for so long he was ready for a bit of fun before launching into the next stage of his career. I’m surprised he didn’t take off and do some travelling, but of course it wasn’t as much the done thing then as it is now. And apparently his mother was just back from a trip and had indicated she expected him to spend some time with her. Anyway, the fact of the matter was that entertainment was a little thin on the ground in Paxton, so he spent a lot of time walking. So, apparently, did Marah. She inherited her interest in herbs from her mother. She and Marah used to scour the fields and hedgerows most days for the ones she wanted and after she died Marah continued the habit. Mintar had known Marah for years, her father was the Mintars’ gardener, and now one thing led to another. I imagine the truth is he was bored and she was just, well, available, I suppose. He doesn’t try to excuse his behaviour.