The Unquiet Dead

by Gay Longworth

  Jessie walked around the chair to see what the Virgin Mary’s glazed gaze was fixed upon. Nancy Scott-Somers; a little girl lost inside thirty stone of flesh. She was wearing a huge sleeveless dress that dropped almost to the floor. The thick, lumpy skin of her arms flopped over the edge of the armrests and hung like stretched-out pizza dough. They fell away from her body as if offering up a prayer to Mary. Roped between each broad, mottled finger on her left hand was a Rosary. Unblinking, Nancy stared back at the Blessed Mother, her bottom eyelids pulled down by the weight of her jowls to reveal the yellowing whites of her eyes. A filament of drool had slipped out of the side of her partially open mouth and dried. Around her neck was a gold chain with a cross, a Star of David and an Ohm. Nancy Scott-Somers was taking no chances.

  Unable to detect any sign of life in the thirty-stone body, Jessie reached forward to close Nancy’s eyes, then withdrew her hand, surprised.

  ‘Is she dead?’ asked Burrows from the window.

  ‘She’s warm.’

  Jessie reached under Nancy’s flabby chin and tried to feel for a pulse. Nothing. She raised one of the thick wrists and pressed two fingers down hard into the flesh.

  ‘I’ve found a pulse, but it’s very faint.’

  ‘Is she conscious?’

  Jessie took the slim black torch out of her bag and twisted it until a bright white beam shot forward into Nancy’s face. Her head jerked to the left. ‘Yes.’

  I told her she’d kill herself if she didn’t stop eating.

  ‘Burrows, we need medical assistance here. Fast.’

  Nancy let out a guttural moan of protest.

  ‘Don’t keep her alive for your own satisfaction.’

  Jessie looked up. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I think she has suffered enough. What would a prison sentence do now?’

  ‘Look at her, she’s already in prison.’ Someone in here needs forgiveness. ‘She needs help.’

  ‘Forgiveness isn’t yours to give, boss.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Then leave her be.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Boss –’

  ‘Get the paramedics down here, insist on a bike so they can come right to the door. She needs oxygen.’

  ‘She’s been through enough,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Now, Burrows. She’s holding on by a thread.’

  ‘So let her go.’

  ‘No,’ she said again. Not yet, not like this.

  The paramedic’s report was bleak.

  ‘It’s all that weight on her lungs – they can’t cope. Basically, she’ll suffocate if we don’t insert a tube and link her up to a respirator. Then we need to deal with getting her out of that chair. She’s been sitting in her own urine and faeces for God knows how long, hence the smell. Infected sores. The sweat gets trapped and the skin begins to rot.’

  ‘How will you move her?’ asked Jessie, cutting him off, minimising the details.

  ‘By winch.’

  ‘No,’ said Burrows. ‘She’s dying. Save her that humiliation at least.’

  ‘There’s a chance we can save her,’ said the paramedic, pulling breathing apparatus out of the bike’s side-box.

  ‘It isn’t for us mere mortals to save her any more,’ protested Burrows.

  ‘But we do what we can,’ said the paramedic, carrying the life-saving equipment into the house.

  Jessie watched from the doorway as the emergency nurse knelt down at Nancy’s side. Burrows didn’t believe Nancy could be saved, not by anyone in this life, but if the Marshall Street Baths and the Scott-Somers case had taught Jessie anything, it was that belief in the afterlife was inconsequential. The afterlife was exactly that. After life. While we were here, living this one, it had to be faced full on. Nancy had been living in limbo for too long. At first afraid to live and now too afraid to die. One look at the religious artefacts had confirmed what the nanny, Clementine Colbert, had said: Nancy believed. Hell was all too real a prospect for a person who had committed the number one sin on God’s not-to-do list. Jessie turned away as Nancy was intubated.

  ‘I don’t know what you expect to get out of this,’ said Burrows in disgust.

  ‘Time,’ replied Jessie.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To talk.’

  ‘She can’t talk. Thanks to you, she has a pipe down her throat forcing oxygen into her lungs,’ said Burrows angrily.

  ‘But she can listen,’ said Jessie, walking back into the house.

  ‘Nancy,’ said Jessie. ‘We haven’t got long, do you understand? Blink once for yes. Twice for no.’

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Jessie Driver and I believe you killed Malcolm Hoare. Is that correct?’

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘Is this necessary, boss?’ interrupted Burrows, looking crossly at Jessie.

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘I said, is this necessary?’

  Nancy blinked once, again. The quiet undead. Jessie continued.

  ‘In 1986 you applied for a job as a volunteer assistant carer. Thanks to some creative writing from Dr Turnball, you got that job and you were excellent at it. Kind, considerate and caring. Everyone who has ever met you confirms these characteristics. You began to lose weight. You grew your hair back but dyed it darker to be on the safe side. You never wanted your identity to be found out. At the baths you met a man who’d suffered from childhood polio that had left him with a limp. A limp that got progressively worse with age. He was older than you, but that didn’t seem to matter. There was a pain common to you both, and over the weekly visits to the pool, you became friends. You may not have had a friend like this for years.’

  Nancy blinked once.

  Jessie walked over to the shelf. Alongside the Virgin Mary was an assortment of things quite out of place with their surroundings. A silver photo frame; in it a young, dark-haired little girl smiled back mischievously. Charlotte, before she lost herself in becoming Nancy and Nancy lost herself in becoming no one.

  ‘Your sister thinks you’re a poltergeist,’ said Jessie, picking up a set of keys. ‘They never did lock you out, did they?’

  Nancy closed her eyes for a while.

  ‘You went back to tell Charlotte that you were coming home because you’d met someone. You had found happiness at last. But Charlotte didn’t believe you; you’d promised to come home before, and you’d reneged every time. She only said those hurtful things to you to protect herself. She would never admit how much she needed you back. She believes you didn’t return because of what she said to you that night. I think the real reason you never came back was because something went horribly wrong at Marshall Street Baths …’

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘Jonny Romano drowned. A mob chased your friend into the boiler room. He protested his innocence and, under siege, he told them who he really was: Malcolm Hoare. Your nemesis. You heard his plea and, in a fit of rage, you killed him.’

  Nancy blinked twice.

  Jessie felt the Virgin Mary’s gaze shift.

  Nancy blinked twice again, slowly moving her head from side to side as a tear escaped over her sagging eyelid and ran down her heavy cheek.

  ‘You planned it then? You lured him down there?’

  Nancy continued to protest silently. Jessie looked to Burrows for guidance.

  ‘But you knew who he was?’ Burrows asked.

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘Did he tell you of his own free will?’

  Nancy fixed her sights on Burrows and blinked again.

  ‘Did he go down to the basement with you, of his own free will?’ he asked.

  Nancy blinked once. Another tear rinsed another clean track over her soiled cheek.

  Jessie was still frowning. Why would Malcolm Hoare go into the derelict basement? Why would she …? Burrows placed the newspaper cutting into Jessie’s hand. His fingers closed over hers, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. It was a soft, gentle motion. It wasn’t a frie
ndly gesture. It was a romantic gesture.

  ‘Do you see?’ he said quietly.

  Jessie looked from Burrows to the newspaper cutting. Malcolm and Nancy standing at the back, laughing, half-hidden behind their hands – not just looking away from the camera, but looking at each other. Friend or foe? Or lover?

  One glaring fact had troubled Jessie from the beginning: Malcolm Hoare had not committed a single crime since he’d walked out of court a free man. Peter Boateng had read Hoare’s file looking for the sign of the devil, but all he had found was another disappointed man. Had the breakdown of a little girl shown Malcolm the error of his ways? Did he believe he’d been given a chance to change? Had her ruin been his redemption?

  ‘You loved him?’

  Nancy blinked once. She had found something in that redeemed man to love.

  ‘And he loved you too?’

  Nancy didn’t move. The respirator continued to suck in air with a sharp, regular hiss. Finally, she closed her eyes. They stayed closed for a full minute. When they opened again, Jessie saw in them the full horror of regret. If Nancy’s ruin had been Malcolm Hoare’s redemption, then his redemption had been her ruin. She was trapped here, grotesquely overweight, because she had loved him.

  ‘What did you think re-enacting your kidnapping was going to do? Purge yourselves?’ asked Jessie.

  Nancy hung her head.

  Jessie could see the whole tragedy unfurl.

  … They chose the date specifically. February 23rd, the day on which all their misery hinged. Nancy needed to atone for loving the man she believed had ripped her family apart. He needed to purge himself of the sins he’d committed against the woman he now loved. They saw it as an act of cleansing. A baptism of sorts. Mad? Possibly. But they were desperate to be free. Delivered. He would suffer as she had suffered, and together they would be reborn. Innocent. Able to love without regret. To live. To forgive. Nancy knew about the derelict basement, she worked in the building. She was able to locate the keys, find the chains. The ash-pit would be the well. The steel girder, the beam. They said prayers. They kissed. She bound his feet, chained him up and lowered him into the pit so his toes barely touched the ground. She promised to return once a day to give him food and water, as he had done for her as a ten-year-old. But something went horribly wrong at Marshall Street Baths that day …

  ‘You left him in the boiler room, entirely unaware of the other tragedy that was taking place upstairs?’

  Nancy blinked once.

  Jessie knew the rest.

  Jonny Romano drowned in an epileptic fit brought on by ingesting his father’s ill-gotten drugs. Mr Romano, at that point believing Peter Boateng’s story about an evil drug pusher, immediately began searching the baths and asking everyone if they’d seen the man Peter described. He had recorded their answers in his book: Fat Lady, too upset to talk. Mr Romano hadn’t found Malcolm, nor had he found Ian. The drug dealer was no more than he’d ever been: a figment of the imagination.

  ‘They locked the doors of the baths while the investigation into Jonny’s death was underway?’

  Nancy blinked once.

  ‘You were part of the vigil outside?’

  Nancy blinked once.

  She must have stood in the rain for three days and three nights. Knowing Malcolm was tied up inside, but too ashamed to tell anyone. It wouldn’t have killed him. Unless …

  Friend or foe? Goodwill or trap?

  ‘Did you know about the flooding?’

  Nancy blinked twice, again and again, the tears seeping out of her. Jessie believed her. Nancy would have been frantic but paralysed. Desperate but embarrassed. She could not have known about the rats and what they’d do to Malcolm as the water rose inch by inch, filling the empty pit while the man she loved twisted and turned. She couldn’t have known about the sewage pipes backing up with the rainwater and drawing into the disused boiler room all that filthy effluent. Neither of them could have known that an act of salvation would end in a slow and vile death that neither could escape from. Nancy had saved Malcolm once in court, again when they’d met in Marshall Street Baths, but she couldn’t save him a third time. She’d tied him up, she’d left him there. It didn’t matter to her that he had been a willing participant. As far as Nancy was concerned, she had his blood on her hands.

  ‘Murder requires intent to kill, Nancy. You didn’t murder him.’

  She continued to weep.

  ‘There was no malice aforethought; you couldn’t have foreseen the events that led to his drowning. It wouldn’t even hold up as manslaughter.’

  That wasn’t necessarily true, Jessie knew. It was Nancy’s word against a dead man’s. But Nancy was dying, and even the most cold-hearted killers repent to some degree at the end. God may not be all-seeing, but death was.

  ‘That makes it accidental,’ continued Jessie. ‘A tragic accident,’ she said softly.

  Nancy’s teeth trembled against the plastic tube.

  He drowned. It was an accident.

  ‘He drowned,’ said Jessie. ‘It was an accident.’

  The paramedic slipped a needle into the back of Nancy’s hand and taped it there. Saline solution and a mild sedative. He feared she was going into shock. Jessie stared out of the window while he worked. She’d sent Burrows off to fetch Charlotte with instructions to tell her everything they knew, including the truth about the nanny and Mr Scott-Somers. It would be up to Charlotte to decide what she wanted Nancy to know. There wasn’t a lot of time. Nancy wasn’t leaving that chair alive. Jessie didn’t want her to die confused, angry or scared. The little girl hadn’t had a lot of peace in her life, she deserved a peaceful passing. But Nancy seemed more distressed than before. She was agitated and pulling at the tube. Then she began to cough uncontrollably.

  ‘I think she wants the tube to come out,’ said the paramedic. ‘She wants to talk.’

  Jessie returned to her side. ‘Can you put a mask on her?’

  ‘I can, but I don’t know how long her lungs will be able to take the pressure. Even with the extra oxygen.’

  ‘How long?’

  He shrugged. ‘Hours.’

  Jessie turned to the enormous woman, enveloped in her own self-loathing. ‘Do you understand what he is saying, Nancy?’

  Nancy blinked once.

  Jessie hoped Burrows would hurry.

  The tube came out and Nancy began to talk. Syllable by syllable. Word by word. It was arduous and painful to watch as she struggled to get the words out and keep death and her tears at bay. ‘He…Thin…ks…I…A…ban…don…ed…him.’

  ‘No, Nancy,’ said Jessie, replacing the mask on her pale, pasty face. ‘He knows you didn’t abandon him.’

  Nancy’s face creased in pain.

  ‘I promise you.’

  Nancy shook her head a fraction.

  ‘Yes, I can. The sewage system requires only a centimetre of rain to fall before it begins to back up. The boiler room is two floors underground. It started raining at two thirty on the afternoon of 23rd February – I know because I checked with the Met Office. It was torrential for the first hour or so, then rained steadily on and off for three days. You’d know that because you were standing in it. But the first centimetre fell within the first four to six hours. You left the building at twenty to four, according to Mr Romano’s meticulous notes. Malcolm wasn’t expecting you back for twenty-four hours and, Nancy, he would have drowned long before that. It wasn’t a trap. You were his friend. He knew that.’

  The radio on the paramedic’s bike crackled loudly. An indecipherable message skimmed over the airwaves. The nurse hung up the drip and ran out to answer a distress call. Jessie stayed in the house, to answer another.

  ‘A good friend, too, I think.’ Jessie crouched down next to Nancy. When she spoke again it was in a quieter voice. ‘Don Firth says the baths are haunted. He says that someone didn’t like to be disturbed down in the basement. Someone strong enough to stop people going down there, strong enough to stop developers signing
their name on the dotted line, strong enough maybe to shield the person who would be blamed if his body were ever discovered.’

  Nancy pointed at Jessie.

  ‘We found him by accident. Exactly where you had left him, in the dry pit at the back of the boiler room, the one that wasn’t under the flood water, the one with the heavy lid that you somehow managed to shift.’

  Jessie knew also that Nancy had tried to resuscitate him, because she’d seen the bruises, but she figured those details were unnecessary.

  The paramedic returned. ‘False alarm,’ he said. ‘Radio’s playing up.’

  Jessie winked at Nancy, then looked up. ‘Your sister is here. Can I let her come in?’

  Nancy pulled the mask away and smiled at last. The paramedic pointed to the drip. ‘The sedative is working,’ he murmured. Jessie didn’t think it was the sedative. She had seen that same look in the eyes of a girl who died under a train. I’m okay. I don’t hurt any more. Death’s approach bought with it the promise of imminent peace. It was nearly over. Just one more thing.

  Jessie watched Charlotte with admiration. She was sober, for a start. She didn’t balk at the filth surrounding her sister, or her sister’s appearance. She’d brought candles. The first thing she did was light them all, scooping up the rubbish as she went. When she was finished, she brushed Nancy’s hair. Jessie saw the blond roots coming through behind the darker, dyed hair. Like Malcolm, thought Jessie, Nancy’s true colour was at last beginning to show through. When Charlotte was finished she curled up at Nancy’s feet like a miniature piece of porcelain at the base of the Sphinx. She reached up and took Nancy’s hand. Finally she started to talk. Jessie didn’t need to hear the story retold. She knew it by heart. She went out on to the street, inhaling the cold air with relief. What she’d said to Nancy was true: Don did think the baths were haunted, and he wasn’t alone. And it was also true that the water would have risen too fast for Malcolm to expect a rescue. If he needed forgiveness, it was more likely from himself, not Nancy. Jessie stared back at the crumbling façade and wondered whether for fourteen years Malcolm Hoare had been doing what everyone else had failed to do: protect Nancy.