“You didn’t notice it when you first arrived?”
“Too busy concentrating on the job. We never think about anything besides getting to the patient quickly, even if we’ve been told they’ve got no chance. Sometimes people are wrong about that.”
Tim nodded.
“Thank you. What about you, Ms Kerensky? Was there anything about this that struck you as different from similar situations you’ve witnessed?”
“I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a patient in a cellar before. I’ve seen fall victims, though. I’d say that the way she fell – awkward, like – wasn’t unusual. Unlucky, but not unusual. My guess is that she broke her neck. Poor woman,” she added. She put her hand to her mouth. Tim hoped that she wouldn’t cry and, in the process, noticed that Jackie Briggs had raised her head and was watching them. She seemed to have mastered her tears. Tim caught her eye and was certain in the split second that elapsed before she looked down that he glimpsed some kind of recognition there.
“Are you OK, Mrs Briggs? Did you want to tell me something?”
“No,” said Jackie Briggs tremulously. “It’s just that cellar. It...”
There was an urgent knock on the kitchen door before Ricky MacFadyen appeared, evidently in a hurry.
“Ms Rook is just arriving, sir,” he said to Tim. “She’ll be coming through the front door any minute now.”
Jackie Briggs scraped back her chair and rose to her feet.
“I’ll go and let her in,” she said.
Five minutes later, Tim and Ricky were seated on the small sofa that faced the fireplace in the drawing-room of Laurieston House. Jean Rook was sitting in one of the fireside chairs. Jackie Briggs had placed a tea-tray on the coffee table that separated them, but no-one had troubled to set out the cups and saucers. Nobody spoke. All were waiting for Kevan de Vries to appear. Jean Rook had tapped out two or three rapid messages on her Smartphone. Tim did not doubt that she was communicating with de Vries, but knew that there was little he could do about it. De Vries was not under arrest, after all.
Jean Rook stood up suddenly and walked across to the door. It opened a minute or so later. Kevan de Vries entered the room, somewhat hesitantly. He was casually dressed in an open-necked blue shirt and pale chinos. His hair clung damply to his forehead, as if he had just taken a shower.
Jean Rook embraced him rather ostentatiously. Tim noted that de Vries accepted the gesture courteously, but quickly disengaged himself from her grip. Ms Rook took hold of his arm and guided him to the armchair at the opposite side of the fireplace from where she had been sitting. He sank into it wearily. Now that Tim could get a proper look at the businessman’s face, he was shocked at de Vries’ harrowed, stricken expression. The man was literally grey with grief.
“Would you like tea?” his lawyer asked, addressing herself only to de Vries.
“No. Thank you, Jean. But do pour some for my guests.”
“Thank you. Not for me, either,” said Tim. “But it is kind of you. Mr de Vries, may we say how sorry we are for your loss?”
Kevan de Vries met his eye. Tim could detect no gleam of the spirited irony that he had registered at their previous meetings, but he thought he could still discern some residual contempt.
“Well, I can’t say that your interference improved the last few days that she had left to her, but you weren’t the direct cause of her death, at any rate.”
“I’m not sure that I understand you, sir.”
“Oh, I think that you do. Hounding me first of all to come back from St Lucia and then digging up the cellar and finding bones there. How do you think that made her feel?”
“I agree that the recent events that have taken place at this house have been unfortunate for someone as ill as your wife was, and I’m sorry for that. I know that this may sound insensitive, but it wasn’t a problem that I could make go away. But I’d like to be able to comprehend what you mean when you say that we weren’t ‘the direct cause of her death’. Do you believe that someone else was involved besides your wife? That there was more to her death than an unlucky accident?”
“I . . . don’t know.” Kevan de Vries shielded his eyes with his hands.
“I’d like you to describe what happened as clearly as you can, sir. Where were you when your wife fell?”
“I was in bed. I’d been in bed for several hours. I left Joanna sitting on the sofa in here. I’d suggested to her that it was time for bed.”
“What time would this have been, sir?”
“It was early – before 10 p.m. Joanna was still exhausted from her flight and the visit that we made yesterday to see Archie. I was tired, too. I thought that if I went up to bed first it would encourage her to go as well.”
“I’m not sure that I follow . . .”
“You don’t have to answer questions about your domestic arrangements if you don’t want to, Kevan,” Jean Rook interceded, her voice metallic with disapproval.
“I’ve got no objection to answering, Jean.” He looked at the floor as he continued. “Joanna was annoyed with me. I knew that she needed to go to bed and I thought it would encourage her if I volunteered to sleep in one of the guest rooms. I told her that was my intention.”
“So you left her down here by herself, despite the severity of her illness?”
“What else could I do? What would you have recommended, Detective Inspector? That I dragged her to bed against her will, or perhaps called the local police to ask them to make her?”
“Point taken,” said Tim. “Was she taking medication for her illness?”
“Yes, she was taking something called Fludaribine in pill form, and I think some other drugs as well, to help with the pain. They’d stopped giving her blood transfusions. I didn’t get involved with her medication: it was something she kept to herself, but I know that she always followed her doctor’s instructions scrupulously. She was trying to stay alive as long as possible for Archie’s sake.”
“You don’t think she might have become confused, or forgotten to take the medication because she was tired?”
“I think that’s very unlikely. As I say, she was committed to keeping going as long as she could.”
Tim nodded sympathetically.
“So you went to bed in one of the spare rooms. Did you sleep?”
“Yes, after a while. It wasn’t a deep sleep, but I think I was dozing on and off.”
“Did Mrs de Vries in fact go to bed?”
“I don’t think so. When I was awoken I went to our bedroom to see if she was all right, but the bed was empty.”
“It didn’t seem to you that she might have slept in it for a while and then got up again?”
“No. I thought the bed was as Mrs Briggs had left it after she’d changed the sheets yesterday morning.”
“You said just now that you were ‘awoken’ in the night. What was it that woke you?”
“I heard a crashing noise. And what I thought was a scream – or someone crying out.”
“And you were still in bed in the spare room?”
“The Blue Room. Yes.”
“What did you do then?”
“As I’ve just told you, I went to our bedroom to check on Joanna. When she wasn’t there...” Kevan de Vries’ face suddenly contorted horribly. His chest heaved as he failed to suppress a series of deep sobs.
“I think that it’s time that you concluded this interview, Detective Inspector, don’t you?” said Jean Rook viperishly. “You can see that Mr de Vries is very upset and not in a fit state to be questioned.”
“Jean, just leave it, will you?” Kevan de Vries was almost screaming the words. “I’ll tell you when I’m not fit to carry on. Is that understood?”
Jean Rook crossed her legs and gave a curt nod.
“Somehow I knew,” de Vries continued in a voice so low that Tim could barely hear the
words. “I knew when she wasn’t in bed that something must have happened to her. I ran downstairs. At first, it didn’t occur to me that she could be in the cellar. I rushed in here, but she wasn’t here, either. It was when I went out again that I saw that the cellar door was ajar. The police tape that you’d sealed it with had been cut.”
“Do you think that your wife cut it herself?”
“That’s not a question that Mr de Vries can answer, Detective Inspector.” Jean Rook had evidently recovered from her recent humiliation by de Vries and was back on the attack again.
“It’s all right, Jean.” Kevan de Vries raised his head and met Tim’s eyes again, but this time he didn’t look away. “Since you ask, I can’t imagine why she would have done it. Joanna resented your presence in her house, as you know, but in my experience she’s always been pretty law-abiding. Besides, the cellar gave her the creeps, even before all of this happened.”
Tim sat bolt upright. Ricky MacFadyen looked up sharply from the notes he was writing.
“Do you realise what you’re implying, Mr de Vries? If your intuition is correct, and Mrs de Vries did not cut that tape, then you’re saying that, at some point between the time that you went to bed and your wife’s death, someone else must have been in the house besides her and yourself.”
Kevan de Vries shrugged.
“It sounds far-fetched, I know. But you must admit that this whole bloody episode has been surreal. You couldn’t make it up! I have no idea who cut that tape, but of one thing I am certain: Joanna would have had to have had a damned good reason for venturing into the cellar in the middle of the night. And the only one I can think of is that someone either cajoled or threatened her into going down there.”
“Do you have any evidence that supports this theory, besides your own knowledge of how your wife would be likely to behave?”
“No, but . . . Yes, wait a minute. Some time before the scream, I thought I heard the sound of car tyres on the gravel in the drive.”
“But you didn’t get up to investigate? Look out of the window?”
“No, the Blue Room is at the back of the house. But in any case I thought I was dreaming. I was certainly half asleep. I might have been dreaming, for all I know. I couldn’t swear that I heard it.”
“And if you thought you heard someone, that didn’t make you fearful of your wife’s safety – or your own, for that matter?”
“I’ve told you, I was half asleep.” De Vries was defensive now and getting angry.
“You heard what Mr de Vries said, DI Yates. I must ask you not to bully him.”
“I apologise,” said Tim. He paused for a moment. “Mr de Vries, can we go back to the point where you said that you came out of this room, went into the hall and saw that the police tape had been severed. You said that the cellar door was slightly open. Was the light on in the cellar?”
“Yes, I think so. I’m pretty certain that I didn’t turn it on myself.”
“So what happened next? Did you open the door wider and go rushing down the cellar steps?”
“No. I opened the door, of course, and went in. I stood at the platform at the top of the cellar steps and looked over the rail. I saw Joanna immediately. She was lying almost directly below me, face down.” Kevan de Vries covered his eyes again.
“I’m sorry that this is distressing for you, sir, and I’ll be as brief as I can. Did you go down the steps at that point?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Were you hurrying?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I was dreading what I was going to find when I reached her. It was quite obvious to me from the way that she was lying that she was dead.”
“Did you notice anything else at all that might suggest that she hadn’t been alone in the cellar?”
“What do you think? She was my only concern from the moment that I saw her. If there’d been a whole army of people with her, I doubt that it would have registered.”
Forty
It was early: breakfast had yet to be served at the Pilgrim Hospital. Juliet was sitting up in bed. There was still a drip in her arm, pumping in antibiotics. It had been fitted as soon as she’d been admitted to hospital and although it had been swapped from arm to arm several times, it was beginning to feel unbearably sore. The area around the cannula was puffy and red. She dreaded each change of the shiny bag of clear liquid. The staff nurse had told her cheerfully that the antibiotics were very strong and that some people were sensitive to them, before wheedling Juliet into putting up with it for just one more day.
The burst of optimism that had buoyed Juliet through the second stage of her illness was beginning to fade. She wasn’t allowed to shower while the drip was in place and washing her hair was next to impossible. Her long, thick curls, always difficult to manage, had insinuated themselves into a hideous frizz, whilst the hair on the crown of her head was greasy and flat. She was beginning to feel dehumanised. Fiercely proud and always a little uncertain about her appearance, she could have wept when she looked in the mirror. She hoped that Tim wouldn’t visit her today. But it wasn’t just Tim that she minded seeing her looking like a freak: she knew that she’d be acutely embarrassed when Louise Butler came back on duty. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. It, too, made her feel uncomfortable.
She changed her position, hoisting herself further up in the bed whilst trying not to move her pinioned arm, and with her free hand reached across to the bedside cabinet to pick up Florence Jacobs’ journal again. Katrin was right: there was something distinctly odd about the way in which it’d been written, almost as if it was a parody of a young woman’s thoughts. Slowly, she flipped through the journal, taking care not to damage its stiff pages. It was a bulky tome, and quite heavy: it wouldn’t have been practical for a woman who travelled much, though evidently it had accompanied Florence on her rare excursions to seaside resorts. Of course, it hadn’t been intended as a journal: originally it had been a guest book. That in itself was odd. Mrs Jacobs had showered gifts on Florence and ensured that her clothes and jewellery were fitting for her station as a gentleman farmer’s wife. Why, then, did she choose to palm her off with a second-hand guest book in which to write her journal? Did Florence like the guest book? If not, she certainly had the means to buy herself a proper journal.
“Breakfast!” shouted the cheerful ward orderly who pushed his clanking trolley round the wards each day.
Juliet wasn’t hungry, but she’d been told that if she didn’t eat the antibiotics would make her sick.
She managed a thin smile.
“What is there?” she asked.
“I got Krispies, cornflakes, muesli and toast.” He consulted a clipboard, to which he’d fastened a sheaf of menu slips. “You didn’t order hot, did you?”
“No. Is there any brown toast?”
“Sorry, just white. Want some?”
“I’ll have muesli, thanks.”
He put the clipboard on the bed while he poured out the cereal. Juliet put down the journal beside it and pulled her swivel tray towards her. She gave an involuntary kick as she did so and sent the clipboard and the journal skidding across the bed on to the floor and scattering the little bundle of menu slips.
“Sorry!” she said.
“No problem. I’ll get them in a minute.” He placed the cereal on her tray. “Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
He bent down, retrieved the journal and handed it back to her and she watched as he dived for the menu slips.
“Can I just rest these on your tray for a minute? I need to make sure I get them in the right order.”
“Sure.”
He shuffled the pieces of paper around as if they were playing cards. They’d been inscribed with handwriting in many shades of blue, some of it flowing, some laborious and childish, some crooked and crabbed, painfully fashioned by arthritic finge
rs.
“Cheers!” he said, as he squared the bundle on the tray and clipped it back to his board. “See you later!”
He trundled off, the wheels of the trolley squeaking excruciatingly as he went.
Juliet picked at the muesli without enthusiasm and took a sip of tea. She flipped over a few pages in the journal again. The handwriting changed slightly over time, as she and Katrin had both noticed. What was strange was that the ink didn’t. She didn’t know much about how ink was made at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, but she guessed that it was unlikely that the same exactly uniform colour could be obtained over a period of many years. Even modern ink varied a little in colour from one purchase to the next. Now that she thought about it, another curious thing about the journal was that, after the first couple of pages, it contained no crossings-out or blots. The subsequent pages followed on from each other, immaculate. The more she thought about it, the more she suspected that the journal had been written during a much shorter period of time than it tried to convey. The author had made some attempt to indicate that Florence had gained more proficiency in writing as she’d grown older, but the whole thing was a clumsy production from the point of view of authenticity. In particular, the author had made the assumption that a poorly-educated girl was also half-witted.
The author? It leapt to Juliet’s attention that the author of the journal was probably not Florence Jacobs. If it was her, then she’d probably written it under duress. If it wasn’t her work, who else might have concocted it? Lucinda Jacobs? Frederick Jacobs, even? Could either of them have had a motive for creating such an elaborate forgery? If so, what might it have been?
Juliet made a valiant attempt at finishing the muesli. When she pushed the bowl away, there were only a couple of spoonfuls remaining. She drank the tea and lay back on her pillows. Despite the throbbing in her arm, she drifted into a fitful sleep.
Forty-One
It was 6 a.m. by the time Professor Salkeld’s car drew up at Laurieston House. Patti Gardner had arrived an hour earlier, but could not start work before Stuart Salkeld had examined the body in situ. After a short exchange with Tim and Ricky, she chose not to join them, but said she would wait in the kitchen. They remained in the drawing-room with Kevan de Vries and Jean Rook. The silence was sepulchral. Almost two hours had elapsed, during which no-one spoke more than a few words. Jean Rook had suggested that de Vries try to get some rest, but he had rebuffed her quite brutally, Tim thought; it was plain to see how much the woman was annoying him. Emotional intelligence was not Jean Rook’s strong suit, but that was hardly news to Tim.
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