by Sarah Rayne
He allowed himself another brandy; he was not on call this evening, and someone could drive him home later or he could call a taxi. It had been suggested that he might stay on to supper and he dwelled pleasurably on this. It was likely that the family would all have left by then, and if Eloise had slept off the phenobarbital, which was probable, she might join him in the dining room. Just the two of them together . . . There was a scenario to fuel a man’s fantasies. John Shilling’s view of Eloise as delicate and fragile did not prevent some of his fantasies about her from becoming extremely explicit.
It was very warm here in the sitting room – Eloise could not bear the cold, poor darling – and his eyelids were feeling heavy. As well as the brandy there had been an excellent Traminer at lunch; he remembered that he had accounted for at least a bottle of it. His thoughts roamed silkily in certain forbidden realms.
On the outer rim of consciousness he could hear the murmur of voices from the study. The family in conclave, presumably. It was nice of them to rally round Thalia so staunchly. They would probably close ranks about Imogen’s macabre behaviour as well, which was one mercy. John tried to think whether Imogen had actually committed an indictable offence, and what was going to be done about it. The idea of Eloise’s daughter being publicly punished was unthinkable. But probably something could be worked out – the Ingrams were amazingly loyal. John Shilling’s practice was an old family one; his grandfather had actually been summoned on the terrible day that Lucienne Ingram had taken the meat axe to her brother. He had helped the family to cover up the facts then, just as John himself would probably help to cover them up now. Presently he would tidy himself up, sluice his face and hands and comb his hair in readiness for that little supper . . .
He was almost, but not quite, over the boundaries of sleep – the room so warm, the brandy so seductively smooth – and he was allowing himself a brief, delicious daydream in which Eloise Ingram received him in a clinging silk gown and nothing else, and permitted certain preliminary intimacies. There was a gratifying flicker between his legs – have to quench that before supper! – and he was just thinking he would look to see what time it was when there was a crash and a scream from somewhere upstairs.
John was rudely jerked out of his half-romantic, half-lascivious doze. He leapt instinctively to his feet, and there was a moment of sudden sick dizziness. He grasped the mantel to steady himself – that last double brandy! – and turned to the door. Someone was running sobbingly down the stairs and coming across the hall. Whoever it was was panting with unaccustomed exertion or fear, and somewhere on the other side of the house somebody was shouting something.
The door to the warm sitting room was flung open and Aunt Dilys stood there, her face doughy white.
‘Dr Shilling, praise God you’re still here. Please will you come at once.’
Royston, thought John, fumbling on the floor for his medical bag, remembering it was outside in the hall. Myocardial infarct after all, blast it! He crossed the room and caught irritated sight of his reflection in the wall mirror. He was flushed and pouchy-eyed from drowsiness and befuddled-looking from alcohol. Not good for Eloise to see him like this, not good at all. Still, no time to think about that. Got to get to Royston, poor old chap, see what’s to be done. He found his case and made for the upper floors, almost colliding with Thalia on the half-landing.
‘What the devil’s happening? Is it Royston?’ He sounded just surprised enough to cover any faint slurring.
Thalia clutched his arm. ‘Oh God, John, it’s appalling. I didn’t think she was capable of—And there’s nothing to be done for either of them, absolutely nothing. But you’d better see it for yourself.’ She led the way to the large double room at the house’s rear.
As John stood in the doorway of Royston Ingram’s room, he had the confused impression that he was standing on the threshold of a stage set. The warm coppery stench of fresh blood filled the room, and there was a dull malevolent light as well, a red, smeary light . . . He blinked and forced his mind to focus.
Royston Ingram lay on the big double bed, Eloise beside him. Her skin was the colour of cold pale marble, but the marble was streaked with red where the blood had soaked into her ivory silk robe. Stabbed? When? By whom?
As he bent over the bed, John had the really appalling thought that it was not ten minutes since he had been visualising her in just such a robe – clinging and sensuous – leaning over a table, pouring a cool wine into his glass . . . Sickness rose unforgivably in his throat, and he swallowed hard and forced himself to take note of everything.
On the side table, near to Eloise’s hand, was a small cut-glass tumbler, and John thought: the mineral water for the phenobarbital. The double measure I told her to take. Had it been sufficient to render her unaware while this – this butchery was happening? The terrible poignancy of it struck him like a blow – the last thing I did for her!
From the look of Eloise she was certainly dead, but John had to make sure; above all, he had to behave professionally. He noticed that a thin sheet had been drawn up over the lower half of the bodies.
Royston’s skin was faintly blue-tinged, and there was a dribble of vomit over his chin. He might well have suffered the infarct before he was attacked, or he might have suffered it while he was being attacked. He was certainly dead; they were both certainly dead. You did not lose blood to this extent and survive. And Royston had been sedated as Eloise had, which meant that neither of them could have put up much of a fight.
John moved unsteadily forward. There were things you had to remember in cases of violent death; you had to remember not to touch things, to determine causation as far as possible until the police surgeon arrived—
Police. The word hit his mind and broke into splinters, and each splinter was etched with a different word. Investigations. Questions. Scandal and gossip. Newspaper reports. His mind was blurred by brandy and wine and numbed with shock, but he could see the headlines very clearly indeed. Maniacal double murder . . . Publishing mogul dead . . .
He felt for a pulse at wrist and neck and found none, and he managed to focus a light on to the pupils of both the victims’ eyes. Nothing again. He was dimly aware of Thalia explaining about being sure they were both dead but sending Dilys for him anyway.
Of course they were both dead. It was unbearable but it had to be borne. He dare not let himself think of things such as coma states, somatic death . . . His shiningly beautiful Eloise was dead. Stabbed, quite obviously. He thought he said this aloud. ‘And I must – examine them. I must find the – the wounds.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Examine that body about which ten minutes earlier he had been fantasising. Peel back the thin silk, not in the way he had for years imagined doing, sensuously and intimately, but coldly and clinically, for no purpose other than to expose knife wounds, areas of trauma; to show up mutilations to that flesh around which he had woven those shameful, exciting dreams. His stomach betrayed him in earnest this time, and he had to make a dash for the adjoining bathroom. He hung over the washbasin, retching miserably. Disgusting.
When the spasms finally stopped, the mirror gave him back an appalling reflection. He was grey and blotched with grief and panic, and his eyes were bloodshot.
‘I can’t make the examination.’ He met Thalia’s eyes at last. ‘I simply can’t do it. They’re both dead, and they’ve obviously both been knifed. Or something. Royston probably died from coronary shock.’ He looked at Thalia. ‘But I can’t examine Eloise,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to call in someone else.’
‘I understand.’
‘It’s a job for the police. The coroner—’ He stopped short, and then managed to say, ‘Who did it? Was it Imogen?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Thalia very softly. ‘Yes, it was Imogen.’
Thalia took a seat behind Royston’s desk, and saw at once how everyone turned gratefully towards her, like obedient children waiting to be told what to do. Good. She took a quick mental inventory. Flab
by-minded people like Rosa and Dilys and flabby-stomached people like Cousin Elspeth could be dealt with; that besotted fool John Shilling could be dealt with as well, and with far greater ease than Thalia had hoped possible. He had come with her to the study but he had taken a chair a little apart from them all; he was grey-faced with grief and his eyes were slightly unfocused. A faint aroma of brandy clung to him. Good again. He would be no trouble.
The scattering of spouses would be no trouble either; they would do what they were told, just as all Ingram spouses did. This was not a family where females married strong-minded men.
There remained Flora Foy, and Flora might be difficult. She was unpredictable and unconventional, and she had always had that ridiculous preference for Imogen. But even Flora, with her scandalous past and riotous youth, could not deny what had happened today; she would hardly want Imogen to become known as the young woman who had stolen a corpse’s head and served it up at its own wake. She would certainly not want the child charged with the murder of her own parents. But she might be a bit of a stumbling block.
The only other stumbling block was that unknown young man who had so unexpectedly taken command and summoned John Shilling to attend to Imogen. Whoever he was – a colleague of Royston’s perhaps, or representing some decrepit and distant cousin for the day – he had apparently left the house. This might indicate extreme diplomacy or it might indicate something quite different. He might very well need to be traced and somehow silenced.
She said, ‘We can’t have any squeamishness about this. We know what’s happened, and we know who’s responsible for it. And as far as we can, I think we should protect her.’ She paused, and then said, ‘Royston wanted her to go into a nursing home. After –what happened at lunch. He thought it would be the best thing.’
‘How do you know?’ That was Flora, of course, her voice sharp.
Thalia met her stare levelly. ‘He told me,’ she said. ‘When I went up to his room with the mineral water for Eloise. In fact,’ said Thalia, ‘he dictated a letter to me there and then, and signed it. It’s here if anyone wants to see it.’
There was a brief silence while everyone absorbed this. Thalia registered with inner irony that every person present was probably dying to see the letter but no one quite liked to ask to do so.
The letter, scrappily written, signed almost blindly, was perfectly in order, and it was a clear and unequivocal indication of Royston’s wish. No one had seen Thalia go into Royston’s room, and Thalia was not going to tell anyone how she had stood over him and watched his face go greyer and greyer with the heart pain, and listened to him crying with despair and defeat because after all his care Imogen had the taint. She was Lucienne over again, he had said. She was Sybilla reborn. It was unbearable.
He had signed the letter that Thalia had written and put before him, even though he had scarcely known what he was doing. Eloise had certainly not known: she had already been sunk in her sedated stupor, and she was not going to argue against Thalia. Nobody was going to argue against Thalia – she was making very sure of that. It was a good thing that Royston had signed before the pain swamped him and smothered his breathing, and it was even better that he had died so swiftly afterwards. Thalia had been prepared to substitute an ordinary paracetamol tablet for any further drugs that John Shilling might send up, but it had not been necessary.
The letter would reinforce the family’s decision. It would endorse it. It was not possible to say that Imogen must be put where she belonged, and the door locked and the key as good as thrown away, but that was what must happen. The bitch who had ousted Edmund, who had stood in his way and might, if Thalia was not careful, even now inherit Ingram’s, had to be punished.
‘She must be put away,’ she said aloud. ‘Nothing else is thinkable.’
Dilys, who had been crying on and off ever since the appalling thing had been discovered, said, ‘But surely . . .’ and stopped.
Flora said, ‘Are we sure that it was Imogen?’
Thalia was aware of a murmur of agreement. She said at once, ‘Who else could it have been? You were all down here in the study. I was in the kitchen—’
‘I was in the sitting room,’ said John Shilling. ‘I heard you all talking. I heard Mrs Foy come down and join you after Mrs Scullion brought in the tray of tea. I think I’d have heard anyone come out and cross the hall to go upstairs.’
‘Aren’t we overlooking something?’ This was Aunt Rosa. ‘There were two separate incidents today—’
‘I always knew you had a gift for understatement, Rosa,’ said Flora. ‘I should not, myself, call what happened today incidents.’
Rosa said, ‘Whatever name you give them, they were both obviously the actions of a sick mind. And I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to believe that two separate members of this family have run mad on the same day.’
‘Well, yes,’ agreed Flora reluctantly.
‘If the Ingram madness – I’m sorry if you don’t like the word, Elspeth, but that’s what it is – if it’s erupted after all this time, it must have been like a – like a simmering volcano finally exploding,’ said Aunt Rosa with unconscious eloquence. ‘Hurling itself out in several different directions. Doctor?’
‘What? Oh yes. Yes, I’m very much afraid you’re right. A sudden releasing of restraints. Yes, it would be like a tightly-coiled spring snapping free.’ He dredged up a morsel of professionalism and said, ‘I gave Imogen a mix of secobarbital. Quite mild. Mrs Foy, you took it up, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. She drank it, and I left her more or less asleep. Thalia, I’m sorry, but I can’t believe Imogen is responsible for this.’
Thalia stood up. ‘I’d hoped this wouldn’t be necessary,’ she said to Flora. ‘But you’d better come upstairs. John, will you come as well? And George? But the rest of you had better stay here.’
Imogen’s room was not quite in darkness, and the curtains had been dragged back from the windows to show the wintry blackness beyond.
Thalia and Flora stood in the doorway with John Shilling just behind them. The bedroom was filled with creeping shadows, and with the dry rustling of the wind in the ivy on the outside wall. It was impossible to avoid thinking that it sounded exactly like dozens of dry, bony hands being rubbed together with evil glee.
The casement window was closed, and the lattice of lead strips that made it rather charming in the daytime cast its silhouette harshly across the bed, like iron bars on a prison floor. Beyond the window, less distinct, was the ghostly outline of an old oak tree, gnarled and twisted, its leafless branches like huge-knuckled hands against the night, lifted, ready to snatch up its prey.
Flora said abruptly, ‘I drew the curtains and switched on the bedside lamp. It wasn’t really dark outside yet but I thought it would be friendlier for the child. She was tucked into bed and half asleep when I left her.’
John Shilling said, ‘Someone’s opened the curtains. And someone’s switched the light off.’
And someone’s lying in bed with blood-dabbled hands and blood-smeared jowls . . .
Imogen was lying amidst the tumbled blankets, sound asleep. Her lashes were dark against her cheeks, and her hair was dishevelled. She looked impossibly young and unbearably innocent. She wore a thin cotton shirt, a rather masculine garment that only emphasised her femininity, and in the shadowy room it was impossible to tell if it was white or cream or pale blue. But across the front were several dark, irregular splashes and the hand that had fallen loosely over the side of the bed was stained with the same dreadful, thick darkness.
Because blood turns black in the moonlight, my dears . . .
Across one cheek was a smear of blood, and John and Flora – the one a slightly drunken and thwarted romantic, the other a practical, shrewd feminist – shared a vivid, sickening picture of Imogen leaning over the drugged bodies of her parents, her hair falling about her face, and pushing it impatiently back with a bloodied hand. Like someone baking and leaving a floury mark without real
ising, thought Flora.
Thalia said, in a soft voice, ‘Do you see there on the floor? Under her hand?’
Just beneath the outflung hand, lying as if it had slipped unnoticed from Imogen’s grasp, was a long-bladed kitchen knife – a bread knife or a carving knife. The handle still bore marks of bloodied fingerprints and the blade was covered in blood to the hilt.
Chapter Five
Aunt Dilys could not stop crying. ‘She was such a pretty little girl,’ she kept saying. ‘So lovely. So bright and clever.’
If Dilys – if anyone – was going to become maudlin, it must be nipped in the bud at once. Thalia took the seat behind the desk again, and drew in breath to speak.
She was forestalled. Rosa said briskly, ‘Lucienne was beautiful. So, apparently, was Sybilla. She was a Beauty in the days when they gave it a capital B.’
‘And,’ said a sepulchral voice from the back of the room, ‘we all know what those two did.’
‘Lizzie Borden,’ remarked a frivolous cousin who worked in advertising in Bloomsbury, and was told to hush.
‘I don’t see how you can know about Lucienne when all the photographs were burned,’ began Cousin Elspeth querulously.
‘Oh, don’t latch on to trivialities, Elspeth. The thing is,’ said Aunt Rosa, glaring round the room, ‘to consider what’s to be done. The rest of us don’t know the details, and from the look on Flora’s face I don’t think we want to know, but I take it there’s no doubt about the child’s guilt?’
‘No. Dear God, no. Must have stabbed both of them several times, judging by the amount of blood—’
‘The knife lying there in her room, and her own nightgown drenched in gore—’
George and Flora both spoke at once and stopped and begged one another’s pardon.