by Kate Ellis
He looked around the faces again, his expression blank, his face deadly pale, and Carmel suddenly realised that he was wearing make-up in an attempt to look more cadaverous. But even though he stayed in character, the effect was slightly marred when he announced that he would come amongst them to collect the four-pound fee for the tour. It was difficult for the charging of hard cash to have a sinister edge. The collection was made with discreet good humour and Carmel slowly began to realise this man was partly playing it for laughs. Now she saw him close up, she recognised him for what he was – a young actor playing a part. If she met him without his make-up and costume – in jeans and sweatshirt, for instance – he would look quite mundane. When Maddy gave her an ‘I told you so’ look, she began to feel a little foolish.
The tour began and their guide fired stories at them with confusing rapidity. A grey lady was seen wailing outside the cathedral, crying because some eighteenth-century clergyman had refused to baptise her baby which had died a month after birth. A man in the dress of a cavalier was seen walking through the front wall of the Dean’s house behind the cathedral, just in the place where the old front door used to be until the house was remodelled in Victorian times. They moved on to a nearby alley where two children had been horribly murdered in 1886 – their cries could be heard on a still night. As could the howling of a ghostly dog outside the Georgian residence of the cathedral organist – but no explanation was offered for the phantom hound’s anti-social behaviour.
It was all very much as Carmel had expected. Grey ladies, ghostly cavaliers, howling spectral canines. She was impatient to move on to Vicars Green to hear what their guide had to say about her house. If it was as silly as the rest of the stories, she had little to worry about. But why had he been watching the building? What was his interest? Perhaps she would ask him if she could summon up the courage. Or maybe it was best to stay in the background and leave well alone.
He led the party on without glancing back to see whether his flock was following; rather he stayed in character all the time, marching purposefully ahead. When he reached Vicars Green he climbed on to the bottom plinth of the Roman column that stood in the centre of the grass – a remnant of Eborby’s legionary headquarters – and waited for his audience to gather around him.
Carmel stood at the back of the party and held her breath. This was it. She was about to find out why the man she could no longer think of as Jack the Ripper now that she’d seen him in the flesh found her flat so interesting.
He flung out an arm, pointing in the direction of the house. ‘Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, being locked in a small room with no way out. Your companions are lying dead beside you, their bodies beginning to decompose.’
Carmel detected a tremor in his previously sonorous voice. This story was different. This one moved him.
‘You have seen them die horribly of the plague,’ he continued. ‘You have heard their cries and been unable to do anything about it. You are helpless. The authorities have decreed that, because you are living there and are likely to spread the infection, you can’t be allowed out of the house. They have boarded up the doors and larger windows so you can’t escape, leaving only that small window on the first floor for you to look out of.’
Her heart beating fast, Carmel looked up and saw the small window of her bedroom. It wasn’t true, she thought. It was all made up like those grey ladies and phantom dogs. It was just a bit of fun to send a thrill of terror down the spines of the tourists. That’s what they paid for. Surely.
‘That’s what happened to a young girl when the plague struck Eborby in 1603, in the last year of Good Queen Bess’s reign. People saw her looking out of that window up there, staring out, her eyes pleading for release. Until one day she wasn’t there any more and the boards were taken from the windows and doors. The first people to enter the house were the Seekers of the Dead. These were women whose job it was to discover whether or not people had succumbed to the plague. It was a risky job and it was usually poor women who had to do it.’
He paused for a moment, the air heavy with disapproval. In spite of his role, this man was displaying twenty-first-century sensibilities and Carmel found this rather comforting.
‘When they reached the small room upstairs, a horrific sight met their eyes. The family who lived there had perished. Mother, father, their son and their servants, all bearing the unmistakable marks of the bubonic plague which was spreading around Eborby like wildfire that year. But the daughter – the girl by the window – bore no such marks. Instead of catching the plague, she had starved to death, locked in with the corpses of her family.’ He paused, this time for effect. ‘She was buried with all the other plague victims on the grassy embankments below the city walls – you can see them as you approach the city – and they lie there undisturbed to this day. The girl, however, does not rest. It is said that as you look up at that window, you can sometimes see her staring out, pleading for help.’
He bowed his head and the assembled crowd stared up at the window of Carmel’s room. She found herself staring with them. She had just discovered the cause of her inexplicable feelings of sadness when she slept in that room.
As they moved on to the Fleshambles to hear tales of grisly murders and executions, she noticed that their guide glanced back at her window. Perhaps the story had fascinated and affected him and he was eager to see the ghostly girl for himself. That was probably it. That was why she had seen him standing there alone at night staring up.
‘Are you OK?’ Maddy asked. She had been so quiet that Carmel had almost forgotten she was there.
‘I’m fine,’ she answered bravely.
‘It’s all nonsense, you know.’
‘I know,’ she said but she found it hard to concentrate on the remainder of the tour. Her mind was on the story of the girl, the story of her flat. She felt reluctant to go home that night. But she had little choice. Besides, even if she had gone on a solitary crawl of the city’s three hundred and odd pubs, she’d still have to go back there sooner or later. It was better to get it over with.
As the tour dispersed, leaving their guide at the Fleshambles, Carmel looked at her watch. Quarter to nine. It was still light … just. But the doorways and alleys were in deep shadow.
‘Do you want to come for a drink?’ Maddy asked.
‘No thanks. I’d better have an early night.’ There was no way she could face going back into that empty flat in the dark but she was loath to say this to Maddy – it sounded so feeble.
‘Are you sure you’re all right? Do you want me to come up with you?’ Maddy asked, concerned.
‘No. I’m fine.’
‘Do you still think that guide was the man who was watching the flat?’
Carmel nodded. ‘He was probably just rehearsing or something. I’m sure there was no harm in it.’
Maddy looked concerned. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘Yeah. I’ll be fine.’
They parted in Vicars Green, Carmel telling Maddy to take care going home. Maddy shot off in the direction of the cathedral, walking at a cracking pace. Perhaps, Carmel thought, she was more nervous than she was letting on. Everyone was with the Resurrection Man about.
Carmel opened the front door and crept past Conrad Peace’s flat, listening for sounds of human habitation. She could still hear the faint chatter of the TV and the noise seemed somehow comforting. She hesitated before making her way up the stairs. Mustering all her courage she turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
She walked into the flat, listening for noises in the still air. She could hear the sounds of the old house breathing and settling. A creak of a board, the scrabbling of a bird in the eaves. She bustled round turning on all the lights to banish the grey dusk that had begun to fall but she left the bedroom till last: there was definitely an atmosphere in there; she had sensed it from the start. A cold sadness. She would sleep with the bedside light on tonight. Or perhaps she’d brave the sofa.
She was about to swi
tch the TV on for company when she noticed the light on the answerphone flashing. She had a message. Eager to hear another human voice, she pressed the switch.
‘Janna,’ a voice said slowly. ‘This is your final warning. You can’t escape. Wherever you are, we’ll find you. And when we do, you’re dead.’
She stood there, frozen to the spot. The voice had been disguised and it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman.
But one thing was certain. The caller had sounded as if they meant every word.
Joe Plantagenet had never found it easy to bring up the subject of souls, even though, for one brief year, they were to have been his chief concern. He wondered how to approach his imminent meeting with John Wendal’s wife. How was he to tell her about the woman’s claim that her husband was after her soul? Was it just a figure of speech, a way of indicating that they were having a passionate affair? Or was Wendal involved in some sort of Satanic activity? Or perhaps the as-yet-unidentified woman was mentally ill in some way. Something had triggered her strange behaviour and Joe wanted to find out what that something was and clear the matter up so he could concentrate on the Resurrection Man investigation.
Emily Thwaite had expressed a desire to meet Mrs Wendal for herself and when Joe reached her office, he found her standing in front of the small mirror that hung on the wall above the filing cabinet, running a brush through her thick fair curls with a despairing expression on her face. As soon as she was aware of his presence she thrust the brush out of sight.
‘I’m ready,’ she said briskly.
‘Sure you want to come?’
‘Try and stop me. I want to get to the bottom of this,’ she said with determination, picking up her handbag – a huge, saggy brown leather model, designed to take enough for a week’s holiday. ‘Nothing new’s come in on the Resurrection Man murders. I’ve got Sunny and Jamilla going through all the witness statements again in case there’s something we missed.’
‘There must be something. Some link between Carla Yates and Harold Uckley. Unless the killings were random. Anything come in yet from HOLMES?’
‘Nothing.’ All the data had been put into the national computer system known as HOLMES in the hope that, if their man had struck elsewhere in the country, they would find out about it. Joe and his colleagues found it hard to believe that anyone capable of carrying out these killings wouldn’t have some history of violence.
‘I was looking at the Forensic reports. There’s very little apart from the wood shavings and they could come from any number of places. I don’t expect the victims received any unexplained phone calls or …?’
‘We’ve been through all their mobile phone records. Nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary on their home phones either. We’re still looking at incoming work calls.’
Emily sighed. ‘Surely he’s made some mistake.’ She hesitated. ‘If he carries on killing he’s bound to get careless. He’ll get cocky … think he’s invincible.’
Joe didn’t reply. The thought of a serial killer in Eborby was a bit much for him to contemplate at present.
‘You do realise that our car crash man, John Wendal, works at the same place as the second victim, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Harold Uckley worked at the Eborby Permanent Building Society too.’
‘Yes. I had noticed. But then so do about two thousand other people. The Eborby operation’s the national headquarters. It’s a big employer.’
‘Still worth looking at though. I don’t believe in coincidences.’
Joe said nothing. Somehow he couldn’t share his new boss’s optimism. Coincidences happened all too frequently in his experience.
As the traffic was unusually light, it didn’t take long to reach the suburb of Hasledon, which lay some two miles out from the city centre. The first houses had been built there in the days of Georgian elegance. Then came a brief housing boom in the late nineteenth century but from the 1930s onwards speculative builders had busied themselves, filling former fields with new homes. Creating suburbia.
As Joe drove he was struck by the thought that there was nothing so unglamorous as suburbia. Films are never set there; neither are great novels. Nobody has ever written songs in praise of suburbia … or a great symphony. It is a place for living rather than dreaming. A place of reality. And now they were about to come face to face with the reality of John Wendal’s life.
His address turned out to be a small semi-detached house in a 1930s cul-de-sac. It was about as far from the Eborby that drew the tourists as it was possible to get. Nobody would go out of their way to see Yarmton Close.
Emily rang the doorbell, having arranged her features into a suitably concerned and sympathetic expression. Dealing with Wendal’s wife would require a delicate touch.
The door opened to reveal a plain, thin woman with lank brown hair streaked with grey. She was probably in her fifties but looked older.
‘Mrs Wendal?’
The woman nodded warily.
As soon as Emily had recited their names and held up her warrant card for inspection, the woman’s grey eyes widened and flared into panic. ‘Jack … he’s not …’
‘No, there’s no change in his condition as far as we know. We’d just like a chat, that’s all.’ She sounded friendly and unthreatening. There were some who’d lean hard on the wife of a suspected attacker, Joe thought to himself, but Emily Thwaite knew instinctively that pressure like that would probably make Mrs Wendal clam up altogether. She had to think that she was amongst friends if they were to get anywhere.
They were led into a generously sized living room. The furnishings looked new … as though someone had been splashing out. The wall was hung with photographs of a girl: a posed studio baby portrait; the inevitable array of school photos; a formal graduation picture and lastly a wedding picture of the subject with a smiling, handsome husband. An entire life story.
‘Your daughter?’ Emily asked, sounding genuinely interested.
‘Yes, that’s our Jennifer.’ The woman’s strained expression softened as she glowed with tentative pride.
‘Does she live near by?’
‘Leeds.’
‘That’s not too far. It must be awful if they go miles away. I’ve got three – nine, seven and five. Two boys and a girl.’ It was Emily’s turn to sound proud. Joe, who had never experienced the joys of fatherhood, looked on. Emily had clearly struck up a rapport with the woman so he’d leave the talking to her.
‘I presume Jennifer knows about her father’s … er, accident?’
‘Yes. She’s coming over to stay with me for a few days. She insisted.’
‘Good.’
‘Shall I make us a cup of tea?’ Joe offered. He might as well make himself useful. Emily gave a discreet nod and he disappeared into the kitchen.
‘I’m afraid I have to ask you some questions, Sue,’ Emily said as Joe returned with three mugs of tea. She had obviously learned the woman’s Christian name while he’d been away. Things were going well. ‘We need to get to the bottom of your husband’s accident.’
Sue Wendal nodded. ‘I don’t understand it myself. That woman … who is she?’
‘You’ve no idea?’
‘Of course not.’
Emily leaned forward and touched her arm. ‘Look, I don’t like to ask you this but …’
‘You want to know if Jack could have been having an affair. Well, the answer’s no. He’s always come straight home from work. Except on the night he goes to the Railway Society. That’s where he’d been. They meet at the Railway Museum every Tuesday. He helps out there as a volunteer every other Saturday as well. I think it’s good for a man to have an interest.’ She glanced at Joe. ‘He’s never been one for pubs and football.’
‘Is it possible he was meeting a woman?’ Joe asked gently. The question was tactless but it had to be asked.
‘No. I go to the Society socials with him. And one of our neighbours is in the Society too … goes to the museum with him every week – although they’re on
holiday at the moment so he didn’t go this week. If he had been …’ Her eyes began to fill with tears.
Joe and Emily looked at each other. Had both the men been up to something together … meeting call girls while their unsuspecting wives assumed they were playing with trains? Such things weren’t unknown.
‘Do you know someone called Harold Uckley? He worked in the same place as your husband. Did John … er, Jack, ever mention him?’
Sue Wendal’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Isn’t that the man who was murdered? Jack said he worked at the Eborby Permanent but he didn’t know him. Different department. Look, I’ve got to get to the hospital. The doctor said if I keep talking to him, it might help.’
‘Of course. We’ll give you a lift if you like,’ Emily offered. Joe knew she was playing the woman’s friend – hoping for confidences. And she was playing the part well.
‘No. It’s all right. I’ve got my own car.’
‘The woman who was in the car with your husband seemed terrified of him,’ Emily said gently. ‘She tried to attack him. Said she knew who he was and that he wanted her soul. She was behaving very strangely … even accused my officers of being in league with him. Can you throw any light on any of this?’
A small tear began to crawl down Sue Wendal’s left cheek. ‘There’s only one explanation. She must be mad. Jack wouldn’t hurt a fly. Ask anyone who knows him. Ask Jennifer. That woman must have escaped from somewhere. That’s the trouble nowadays … they let them wander the streets.’
Emily gave Joe an almost imperceptible nod. It was time to go. They thanked Sue Wendal and made a quick getaway.
‘I’m inclined to agree with her, you know,’ Emily said as they climbed into the car. ‘She talked about him while you were out making the tea and he doesn’t sound the type to go round attacking women. Mind you, the wife’s often the last to know.’
‘True. And if he’s so pure and innocent, what was she doing in his car?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he gave her a lift. Perhaps she was hitch-hiking.’