by Sarah Rayne
There was to be no embalming, which Huxtable’s would have preferred, with the bodies remaining in the house, especially since the house was so extremely well heated. People wouldn’t believe how easy and hygienic embalming was these days; a simple matter of eliminating the body’s contents and injecting a preservative. Still, the instructions here had been specific and would be complied with.
There was no rigor at all in the female, which was probably due to the warmth. The assistant made himself a mental note to turn the central heating radiator off in this room before he left, and open the window. Really it was just as well that the service was being held tomorrow. Good-looking woman, she’d been, if you liked them pale and fair, which the undertaker did not. Perforated stomach ulcer, so the certificate said.
In accordance with his own small private ritual – he was a rather devout man in a quiet way – he murmured a brief prayer over the two bodies.
And then he screwed down the coffin lids.
Chapter Eight
Imogen thought it was going to get pretty boring inside Briar House. There was not very much to do during the day and there was even less in the evenings.
Nobody had actually come out and said so, but it was perfectly obvious that the aunts and everyone else wanted her out of the way for a while. It was possible that this was because of her parents’ death, but Imogen did not think it was very likely. Everyone seemed more concerned with Imogen herself than with her father’s heart attack or her mother’s perforated ulcer. This seemed extremely odd. And had Eloise really suffered from an ulcer for several years and not said anything? There’s something here I don’t understand, thought Imogen hazily. There’s something they’re not telling me. Aunt Rosa had referred to nervous strain which had not made very much sense; Aunt Dilys, weeping copiously, had talked about strain and exhaustion, which had made even less. But it made sense if they all thought she was responsible for what had happened at Edmund’s funeral. This was an appalling idea, but it had to be faced.
Did the family really think that? Did they believe that she had crept into the mortuary or the Chapel of Rest and opened Edmund’s coffin and taken his head and brought it back to the house? How did you carry a human head, for heaven’s sake? In a hatbox, like that old film where the murderer kept his victim’s head on top of the wardrobe? In a Sainsbury’s carrier bag? But a person who would do something like that would be mad.
The word exploded in her mind, sending up clouds of panic, like a depth charge, because that was it, of course that was it. They did think she was mad. That was what this was all about. They all thought it: Great-Aunt Flora, Dilys and Rosa, and nice, dizzy Juliette. That was why nobody seemed to be grieving about Royston and Eloise. Had the dark-haired young man at the funeral thought she was mad as well? His face was blurry now – almost everything was blurry now – but he had looked at her in a way she did not think anyone had ever looked at her before. As if she was grown-up. As if she was ordinary and did all the things that ordinary people did. Imogen would most likely never see him again in her life, but it was somehow important that he did not think she had done something so – well, so grisly. It was very important indeed that he did not think she was mad.
The regime in Briar House was rather casual. It appeared that no one minded if you missed the occasional meal, providing you did not make a habit of it and providing you were not in Briar House for any kind of eating disorder like anorexia. There was a small kitchen on the floor below Imogen’s where tea and coffee could be made, or even scrambled eggs or soup, although you had to ask one of the nurses to bring things in for you and it made problems if you had no actual cash, which Imogen had not. The kitchen was shared between several rooms, and Imogen thought, half enviously, half regretfully, that it was the kind of set-up you had in university halls of residence. It was a sad irony that when she should finally experience the kind of university half-liberation she had wanted and her school had wanted for her, it had to be in a place like this.
The matron was a well-built lady of uncertain age and, from the look of her mouth, even more uncertain temper, and Imogen had disliked her on sight. People talked about the eyes being the windows of the soul, but mouths were a much better indication and Matron Porter’s mouth was not wide and generous to match her build, it was small and pursed like an old-fashioned drawstring bag. She doesn’t much like me, Imogen had thought on the first day, vaguely listening as Aunt Thalia explained about the sedatives prescribed by Dr Shilling. ‘Diazepam, Matron. Quite a mild dosage, I understand. But you’ll see she takes it?’
‘Certainly.’
Imogen thought that Matron looked the kind of person who would enjoy shovelling repellent medicine down people.
She was given a room of her own, which was a relief because she had been visualising grim dormitories with iron beds and lockers. In the really bad moments she had been visualising iron bars at the windows. But she was shown to a room on the second floor. It was not very big, but it was clean and there were chintz curtains and a matching bedspread, and a small dressing table and wardrobe. The room was by itself at the end of a corridor, at the foot of a narrow stair that went up into the attics.
There was still a dreamlike quality to everything. Imogen felt as if her mind was wrapped in cotton wool. She tried to think about her parents and how it was appalling that they were both so abruptly dead but there was only a vague dull sense of loss. This was terrible. It was terrible to feel so little about your mother and father. She felt detached and slightly light-headed, as if her mind had been dislocated and as if it needed someone to tweak it back into place. Her sight did not seem to be quite synchronised with the rest of her, either. As if she was seeing everything through water, or a fraction of a second after it happened. She thought this might be the sedatives, and determined that as soon as she was fairly sure that Matron was not checking on her, she would stop taking them. There was a washbasin in her room, and it would be easy to tip the tablets down the plughole and wash them away with the taps turned on full.
On her second night in Briar House, Imogen met Quincy.
It was a curious meeting. Imogen had been taking a shower before going to bed, and she was crossing the landing back to her room, wearing only her dressing gown, when a stealthy movement on the attic stair caught her attention. She stopped, and looked up the shadowy stairway apprehensively. There was a moment of silence, and then a quick indrawn breath and a hesitant step. The slight figure of a girl of around Imogen’s own age, or perhaps a little younger – say fifteen or sixteen – came down the stairs. She had short, ragged hair and a triangular face like a cat’s, and wide, afraid eyes. She stood on the bottom step, staring fearfully at Imogen.
Imogen smiled at her and said, ‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry if I did but I didn’t know anyone was up there. I was just going to bed. That’s my room over there.’
There was a moment of silence, and then the girl said, ‘Yes, I know. Only I thought . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought you might be Matron.’ She stopped and made an urchin gesture of rubbing her nose with the back of her hand and sniffing back tears, or fear. ‘She don’t – doesn’t like me to sit on the stairs. She says it’s snooping. But it isn’t snooping; I like to watch people.’
‘Well, I’m not Matron. I’m just staying here for a while. And I quite like watching people as well. Do you,’ Imogen paused, and then went on, ‘do you live here?’ There was no way of knowing if the urchin girl was a patient or one of the assistants. She looks a bit fey, thought Imogen. As if she might sometimes see things that other people don’t. She said carefully, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
‘Quincy.’ It was as odd as everything else about her. Imogen wondered if it was some kind of nickname.
She said, ‘I’m Imogen Ingram.’
‘I know who you are, I saw you arrive yesterday.’ Quincy spoke with a London accent; not quite Cockney and certainly not what was these days called Estuary English. I
t might be one of the older strains of Cockney, one of the vanishing strains.
‘I made a drawing of you,’ said Quincy, suddenly. ‘Last night.’
‘Did you really? That’s rather flattering. Will you show it to me sometime?’ It was not quite like talking to a child, but it was not quite like talking to an adult either. Imogen was curious to know what kind of drawings this odd little creature could produce.
‘Now? You could come now while everyone’s in bed.’ It was as if having confided about the drawing, Quincy had decided to trust Imogen a bit further.
Imogen said, ‘Yes, all right.’
The attic room was stuffy and very spartan so that Imogen wondered if Quincy was a helper here after all. But the drawings were astonishing; Imogen had never seen anything quite like them. She really does see things other people don’t, she thought, studying them with fascination. She’s romanticised me a good deal – all that hair. And my face isn’t that exaggerated heart shape either. It’s a pretty creepy drawing when you study it a bit closer: the way the curtains are drawn back so that the folds shape into a leery face, and the way the curtain tassels look like a clutching hand with talons . . . But she’s amazingly talented. Imogen looked up to meet the frightened-cat eyes. ‘Quincy, these are terrific. Have you been to an art school or anything?’
‘Oh no.’
‘Well, you should,’ said Imogen. ‘You ought to have proper training so that you could make a real career. Hasn’t anyone ever suggested it? Your parents or your school or anyone?’
‘I haven’t got any parents. I didn’t go to school much. Dr Sterne said I should go to an art school, though. When he came to – the place I lived before.’
‘Where was that? Where did you live?’ Imogen had asked the question without any intention other than that of ordinary friendliness, but to her horror Quincy began to tremble, wrapping her arms about her thin body and rocking to and fro. She’s not aware of me any more, thought Imogen, or of this mean little room.
But after a moment Quincy’s eyes focused on Imogen again. ‘Thornacre,’ she said. ‘I lived in Thornacre.’
Freda Porter had not wanted to take Quincy into Briar House, but Dr Sterne had been persuasive, and Dr Sterne at his most persuasive was hard to resist.
Quincy was one of his protégées; she was one of the poor souls he had found in Thornacre and brought out with him. He was still uncovering her story, he explained, although this was proving to be a long and difficult task. But it seemed clear that there had been abuse from childhood on, and they were afraid there might have been some ill-treatment in Thornacre as well. She had been there for two or three years, they thought.
‘A very pitiful case indeed,’ said he, fixing Freda with his remarkable eyes, so that Freda felt really quite peculiar for a minute.
‘And what exactly is the problem, Dr Sterne?’
‘I’m not sure yet. She’s withdrawn from the world a good deal,’ said Leo. ‘But not quite in the usual way of clinical depression.’
‘Ah. Indeed.’
‘She seems to have entered some kind of strange twilight world of her own,’ said Leo. ‘I don’t know yet whether it’s any safer or kinder to her than the real world’s been, and I don’t know what nightmares she’s lived through either.’
‘Well, I am sure you will find out if anyone can, Dr Sterne,’ said Freda comfortably. Quite stimulating it was to hear Dr Sterne talk like this. ‘A cup of coffee, Doctor?’ It was all set ready, with Freda’s best flowered cups and saucers.
Leo took the cup of coffee absently. ‘I shall find out eventually, of course,’ he said, and Freda thought that any other man saying this would have sounded arrogant. Dr Sterne said it as one simply stating a fact. ‘But until I do find out, it would be very cruel indeed to keep her in Thornacre.’ Leo paused, and then said, ‘I wondered whether you might be able to find a place for her here, Matron. I should be very grateful if you could.’
Freda maintained her smile but said it might be difficult. You did not run a nursing home on fresh air; books had to be balanced and bills paid. Briar House was not a charity.
‘I didn’t expect there to be any charity in the arrangement,’ said Leo, expressionlessly. ‘I thought it might be possible for her to work here and earn her keep. I’m sure you find it as hard as the rest of us to get good staff.’
This, of course, put a different complexion on the thing. The idea of gaining an unpaid helper was very appealing, and having one of Dr Sterne’s protégées here might mean regular visits from him. Her mind flew ahead, seeing herself and Dr Sterne discussing the case over dainty tea tables, or even cosy little suppers.
And so she said cautiously that it might be possible to find a corner for Quincy. Should they say a trial period? Perhaps six weeks?
‘Good idea,’ said Leo, standing up. ‘I’ll arrange for her to come right away. She’s an odd-looking little thing,’ he said. ‘And by the way, she has a really remarkable talent for drawing and painting. I’d like that to be encouraged as much as possible, if you would, Matron. I think it’s how we’ll eventually reach her mind.’
‘We will hope so, of course, Doctor.’ It was impossible to resist Dr Sterne when his eyes glowed with enthusiasm like this.
And really, so far it did not seem to be working too badly. Quincy was willing; she would do whatever was asked of her. She helped in the laundry and with the preparation of meals, even though her ideas of hygiene had made Freda throw up her hands in horror.
But she was sly. More than once, Freda had come upon her curled into the deep window seat on the half-landing, or folded into a corner of the nurses’ common room, concealed by shadows or long curtains. Listening, said Freda, not best pleased. A sly little thing, creeping unnoticed about the house, picking up gossip and storing it away. A plain little thing as well. Dr Sterne might be concerned with Quincy’s mind, or the lack of it, but Freda had to think about character, and what she thought was that Quincy was sly.
As for the famous art talent, as far as Freda could see the drawings were no more than scrappy bits of paper covered with time-wasting scrawls, best thrown in the dustbin. Real drawing was a nice vase of flowers, or a pretty landscape, or a rose-gardened cottage, not queer, warped people with distorted faces or disturbingly out-of-scale backgrounds. She thought, but did not say, that Quincy’s peculiar drawings were as likely to be caused by astigmatism as by talent. An eye test and a good pair of glasses would cure that nonsense. She would take the girl to the optician’s. It would look well to Dr Sterne; it would look concerned.
She made the appointment herself, and then turned to the matter of the Ingram girl. Unless Freda mistook the matter, this was one who was going to resist the prescribed sedatives. Freda knew all about these sly-boots girls who flushed tablets down the lavatory, and she was going to begin the tried and tested practice of crushing up an extra tablet or two in Imogen’s cup of morning coffee. It would not hurt the child, and Freda was not going to risk losing this new and very welcome source of income. All kinds of extras had been suggested to Imogen’s family and all had been agreed to without demur. Freda was thinking of having her private sitting room redecorated on the strength of it.
Having his brother in the flat was as easy and as undemanding as Dan had known it would be.
Oliver arrived just after lunch on Friday, his clothes untidily packed in a suitcase that was already spilling over the back seat of his car, but the notes for Dan’s Victorian asylum-cum-workhouse pristinely arranged and slotted into a neat, labelled folder. He had quite enjoyed the drive here, he said. He had had a bit of difficulty finding one or two of the roads, but he had consulted an AA map a few times and in the end had found the way all right.
It was good to see him. It always was. Dan listened with interest to the gentle Oxford news and the unmalicious gossip and bloodless feuds, and wondered, as he always did when he was with Oliver, if he should have followed in his footsteps.
Oliver said he had quite a good set of st
udents at the moment; a surprisingly large number of females were taking his course on national finance during the reign of Henry VIII, which was very gratifying. Of course, females took a much greater interest in finance these days, and old Henry was a colourful personage by anyone’s standards.
Dan looked at his brother’s ingenuous expression; at the clear grey eyes fringed with thick dark lashes and the lock of soft brown hair that tumbled almost permanently over his brow, and did not find it in the least surprising that Oliver had so many female students. The first time Dan had heard his brother lecture, his mouth had dropped open with astonishment. In everyday life, Oliver was hesitant and unsure; on home ground, talking about his own subject, he was incandescent. The women hung on to his every utterance, and he played them like a violin. The pity was that he did not realise it. Dan suspected the male students realised and privately ground their teeth.
One of the best things about Oliver was that he understood that when you were working, you were working and could not always afford to come out of it for very long. Dan, who could hardly bear to leave Rosamund for too long at this stage, seized Oliver’s research notes about asylums and plunged back into chapter ten the same afternoon.
Rosamund was now completely isolated from her family and anyone else who might have rescued her – although Dan might allow her a faithful friend who could share some of the ordeals. She was tied up in a careful net of intrigue, starting with Margot who was after Rosamund’s inheritance, and who was at the web’s centre. She was a very feisty lady indeed, this one; Dan was greatly enjoying her. She had killed Rosamund’s parents very satisfactorily, laying her complicated plans, and luring them both down to her country cottage and then into the disused wash house where she first drugged and then stabbed them. Dan became so enrapt with the gore and the stench of spilled blood and the screams for help that went unheard and unheeded that he forgot the time, and it was only when Oliver returned from wherever he had been for the afternoon that Dan discovered it was nearly seven o’clock. He stopped typing and said, vaguely, that they would send out for pizzas presently.