by Sarah Rayne
Quincy had wanted to get into a bath and scrub her skin and scour out her mouth until it was raw to get rid of the feel and the taste, but you could not have baths when you felt like it at Thornacre, and she had had to go about with the tainted Cattersis-breath in her nostrils and with his sour taste in her mouth.
He had said she must not talk about it because keeping it a secret was part of the treatment. It was part of the cat-word. He said that if she ever broke the secret, she would be punished. Even if it took years and years, there would be a punishment waiting for her. She would be locked inside Thornacre for ever, he said; perhaps she would be locked in the old east wing, with the black iron door. He had thrust his face close to her, his eyes glittery like dead fish eyes. Did she know about the black iron door? he had asked. Ah, but did she know what was on the other side of it? If she told what had happened in this room today, she would find out because he would throw her into that room and lock the door.
Quincy sat in a miserable little huddle in the chair in the corner of Imogen’s room, staring at the still figure in the bed, and then without warning an idea began to form in her mind. As it grew and got stronger and more definite, she began to feel very frightened indeed, because it was a truly terrible idea. She squeezed her eyes tight shut to pretend it was not there, but this was cheating, because once ideas were born, you could never send them away.
Quincy took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She was going to look the terrible idea full in the face, because if she could not have courage for Imogen, she could not have courage for anything.
She would have to go with Imogen to Thornacre. To look after her and to protect her. The Cattersis-beast would not be there. Dr Sterne had told her that once people had found out what had been going on, they had taken him away, and probably he was going to prison for a very long time, which meant that Quincy could feel entirely safe.
The only person Quincy really felt safe with was Dr Sterne himself, but she couldn’t say this. She trusted him completely and she would die for him – not pretend die, not like when people said, ‘Oh, I’d die if such and such happened,’ but really truly die.
It was not the Cattersis-beast that worried her about Thornacre. It was the haunted east wing, and it was what was inside the east wing, behind the black iron door.
Chapter Sixteen
None of the Ingrams wanted to attend the inquest on Eloise, but somebody had to go.
Somebody had to be there to represent the family, and somebody certainly had to hold a watching brief for Imogen. Juliette said that somebody had better hold a watching brief on Dr Shilling as well, which caused a considerable stir because everyone had tried very strenuously to forget that bizarre little conference on the day of Edmund’s funeral. Several people tried to say they had important appointments in foreign countries the very day of the inquest but were not believed.
Cousin Elspeth created an unpleasant stir by wanting to know had anyone thought to ask where Edmund’s head was, for goodness’ sake? You could not get away from the fact that there was a head lying around somewhere, said Cousin Elspeth shrilly, and what were people doing about it? It was all very well to say in that quelling voice that Thalia had dealt with it, but were they sure that she had?
‘Of course she has,’ said Rosa sharply. ‘I remember her telling me that she had a meeting with Huxtable’s. It’ll have been re-interred, Elspeth.’
It was generally agreed that Dr Shilling ought to shoulder the blame at the inquest, although not, as Juliette pointed out, if it meant blowing the gaff. Aunt Dilys voiced most people’s unspoken fears by pointing out that if John Shilling could get it wrong about Eloise, he could get it wrong about Royston as well, and wondered if it had occurred to anyone to ask about this? But Inspector Mackenzie, to whom it had occurred very forcibly indeed, rang them up to reassure them. There had been a discreet second exhumation almost straight away, he said, and Royston Ingram had been peaceful and perfectly serene. There was no doubt that he had died from a massive coronary thrombosis, and it was probably not going to be necessary even to refer to it at the inquest.
Flora, descending on Battersea, agreed with Rosa and Dilys that it had been kind of the inspector to reassure them about Royston, but unfortunately added that while it was a tragedy to have one relative buried alive, it would be a farce to have two, which had the effect of upsetting Dilys all over again. Rosa remembered that Flora had always had a flippant streak and was not surprised she had never managed to keep a husband.
‘At least I got a husband,’ retorted Flora. ‘I got three, in fact.’
‘Yes, but did you keep th—’
‘Oh, please don’t let’s fall out,’ wept Dilys. ‘We should be thinking about Imogen inside Thornacre. I can’t bear it. I keep remembering those pictures on the television news, those photographs of the east wing. It looked absolutely terrible, black and cold. They said it was known as the haunted wing. Not the BBC, of course. And Elspeth said George had read an article in his paper about it.’
Flora remarked that George had always had a taste for sensational literature of the worst kind.
‘Yes, but every time I saw those photographs I felt an icy shudder all down my spine, because if there is a ghost there, it’s Sybilla. Yes it is, Rosa, you said so yourself.’
‘What I said was that a ghost never hurt anyone,’ said Rosa tartly.
‘Prowling the east wing, that was what one reporter said. You remember, Rosa, because you said it was a disgraceful thing to put on the evening news, and he should be reported to somebody. Oh, isn’t there any alternative?’
‘Apparently not, as things are at present,’ said Flora. ‘That Porter woman’s making the arrangements. In fact she’s been appointed as Thornacre’s new matron, so she’ll be going with Imogen. That ought to be a help, oughtn’t it? With her knowing the case and the family and everything. And Dilys, Thornacre’s all right now, it really is. The commission – Dr Sterne and Professor Rackham – they made a clean sweep.’
‘I don’t care. It’s still an evil place, I can feel that it’s evil. It’s malignant. That can happen in houses, you know. Evil can stay in the walls and infect the people who live there.’
‘Don’t be hysterical, Dilys.’
‘I’m not being hysterical, and even if I am I don’t care. Sybilla lived there – she died there. And Lucienne. And they were both mad. Sybilla was evil, you’ve said so yourself, Rosa. And now Imogen’s going there as well.’
Rosa said, ‘I must admit I don’t much care for the idea myself, Flora. Couldn’t she go to an ordinary hospital? Or a private clinic? I suppose all the possibilities have been explored, have they?’
‘Oh yes. Thalia seems to have been extremely thorough.’
‘What if we paid? We could pay,’ said Dilys eagerly. ‘I don’t understand all these dividends we get, although Thalia tried to explain it to me. But we all have an income from Ingram’s; if we all contributed something, it wouldn’t cost anyone very much. Rosa, you and I could afford it. Mother’s shares – you know we always put the interest away and we hardly ever touch it. And Flora, you could afford it as well, couldn’t you? I don’t mean that to sound rude—’
‘I’d gladly contribute whatever’s necessary,’ said Flora. ‘In fact I’ve already told Thalia so. I offered to help with the arrangements as well.’
‘What did she say?’ Rosa and Dilys had been quite worried about this, because it had seemed as if Thalia was shouldering everything, which was surely not fair.
‘She said as Imogen’s guardian it was her duty to do it.’
Dilys said, ‘Oh, but—’
‘And that coping with it was helping her forget about Eloise and Royston. And also Edmund,’ said Flora. ‘I couldn’t force it. Not in the face of that.’
Rosa and Dilys, shocked, said, well, of course not.
‘In any case, it doesn’t seem to be a question of money,’ said Flora. ‘The only solution at the moment is apparently Thornacre. Dilys, if you c
ry for much longer I’m going to buy shares in Kleenex.’
In the end, the family was represented at the inquest by Flora who insisted on being present; by Thalia, who had to give evidence anyway, and by Elspeth’s husband George because it was important to have a Man there.
Dilys could not stop crying, and Rosa could not leave her, and everybody else managed to find a good reason for being somewhere else on the day. It was probably better not to create any suspicions by all turning up in a crowd anyway. Not that there was anything to be suspicious about, of course.
Flora had telephoned Dr Shilling and demanded to know precisely what he intended to say, and it appeared that he would stand by the original plan. There was an air of relief, although Cousin Elspeth wanted to know whether they could really trust a person who had let Eloise be buried alive, and said George had never liked him.
Thalia was shown into the witnesses’ waiting room, and Flora sat unobtrusively in the public gallery with George who was praying to escape prominence at this appalling inquest. He was disappointed in this when Juliette arrived at the last minute and bounced into the courtroom wearing a cherry red suit with an extremely short skirt and sheer black tights. She caused quite a flurry in the public gallery by trampling over people’s feet in order to sit next to Flora, who did not in the least mind people turning round to stare at them and was pleased at the defiant red outfit.
‘I’m flying the flag for us all,’ said Juliette. ‘I suppose we’re going to be stared at, so I thought we might as well give them something worth staring at. Oh, do budge up a bit, George, of course there’s room for me.’
George turned up his coat collar and slid down in his seat in an effort to escape the worst of these Ingram flippancies, and wished himself elsewhere.
‘Here we go,’ said Juliette, as the coroner entered and everyone obediently stood up. ‘The coroner’s rather nice looking, isn’t he?’
‘He looks a bit like my first husband,’ said Flora.
‘The one who ran amok with half the typists’ pool?’
‘That was the second. George, is that the jury in that loosebox thing? Looking as if they’ve had to be locked in for the duration? Oh, it is. Poor dears, they look as if they’re here under duress. I suppose you can’t blame them.’
‘I didn’t know you had a jury at a coroner’s inquest,’ put in Juliette. ‘I was wondering if I should vamp the coroner to get a verdict in our favour, but it looks as if I’d have to take on the entire jury as well.’
‘Rather extravagant, my dear.’
‘Well, you can hardly talk, Aunt Flo. What’s the matter with George now? Oh, don’t be so glum, George, it won’t help poor Eloise. We’ll all go across to the pub afterwards.’
‘John Shilling looks as if he’s been there for the past week nonstop,’ remarked Flora. ‘He looks pretty sick in fact.’
‘So he should. He’d look sick on the end of a rope if I had anything to do with it.’
‘George, they don’t hang people any more.’
‘I don’t know about hanging him, I’d flog the bastard,’ said George.
As John Shilling took the stand, he was visibly trembling and he saw the courtroom through a blur. He did not think he had slept since that terrible night in the cemetery; he did not really want to sleep, because every time he closed his eyes he saw Eloise’s face, twisted and frozen in that final terrible agony. His lady, his shining, beautiful goddess whom he had been prepared to die for . . . whom he had condemned to that dreadful, lonely death. Terror and remorse gripped him, not romantically by the heart, but embarrassingly, in the bowels, and he had had to make several hasty visits to the bathroom already that morning. He had drunk large draughts of white digestive mixture, but he was uneasily aware that viscerally speaking he trod a thin line.
He told the court how he had been called to examine the bodies of Eloise and Royston Ingram on the afternoon of Edmund Caudle’s funeral; Mrs Caudle, Royston Ingram’s cousin, had found them and had called to him at once.
The coroner knew all about this case; he knew about the appalling night when Jim Frisby and Leo Sterne had discovered that Eloise Ingram had been buried alive, and he had agreed with Frisby that while nobody wanted to distort the cause of justice, if the impromptu exhumation and its outcome could be kept private, they should be. Frisby had said, with some truth, that if once a story about a premature burial came to the public’s notice, there would be a nationwide panic. An inquest there must of course be, but if it could be treated as an ordinary case of suspicious circumstances, so much the better. They had consulted very carefully over this, including Inspector Mackenzie and his superiors in the discussions, and even Inspector Mackenzie, a good, honest officer, and the Chief Constable (with whom Frisby played golf), had agreed. Frisby could hardly, in the circumstances, head the inquest himself, but if he had to give evidence he would be discreet, and the police would be discreet, and John Shilling, who stood to lose more than any of them over this, would be discreet as well. It was true that discretion did not figure very highly in Leo Sterne’s list of priorities, but on this occasion he could probably be trusted; in fact there was not really any need for him to give evidence at all, said the Chief Constable firmly. To some extent they could control this inquest and they would do just that.
And so the coroner, who wanted to get this horrific matter over with as soon as possible, and who did not like the way the reporters were taking down every word, eyed Dr Shilling firmly, and said, ‘Will you tell the court what examinations you made on that afternoon?’
John Shilling felt rather than saw the ruffle of unease from the public gallery. He said, very firmly, ‘I made virtually no examination at all.’
‘None?’
‘I checked for pulse and respiration, of course. But there was none. Royston Ingram had certainly died from myocardial infarction – in layman’s terms a heart attack. He had a history of angina pectoris, exacerbated – possibly caused – by arteriosclerosis.’
‘You had treated him for it?’
‘Yes, he had been taking beta-blockers – propranolol – and an angiotensin-converting enzyme.’
The coroner made a note. ‘And Eloise Ingram?’
John Shilling paused, and thought: this is for you, Eloise. And for Imogen. With a feeling of crossing a private and very dark Rubicon, he said, ‘I believed Eloise Ingram to have committed suicide.’ A murmur of surprise went through the press bench, and John, staring determinedly into the middle distance, said, ‘I gave a fictitious cause of death on the certificate because I wanted to spare the family further pain.’
This was not quite according to the plan mapped out by the coroner and Inspector Mackenzie, but there was a rough and ready formula on these occasions, and so the coroner said, ‘Was Mrs Ingram suicidally inclined?’
John hesitated, and then said, ‘Both Royston and Eloise had found the funeral extremely distressing. It was almost certainly the stress of it that gave Royston Ingram his final heart attack. And Eloise relied on him very much.’
‘You think his death might have caused her to take her life?’ said the coroner.
‘She was a very sensitive and delicately balanced lady,’ said John, and several people caught the wistful note. ‘If she perhaps woke from a sedated sleep and found him dead, lying next to her in the bed – it would have been enough to tip her into an unbalanced condition for a time. There could have been deep despair and acute depression.’
‘Suicide whilst of unsound mind,’ said the coroner, thoughtfully.
‘Exactly.’
‘I hope,’ said the coroner, suddenly glaring at the press bench, ‘that there are no reports of any harassing of the family after these proceedings.’
One of the older journalists whispered to his neighbour that the coroner was a close friend of somebody on the Press Complaints Commission, and a respectable air of decorum instantly descended on the entire press bench.
‘There had been a massive haemorrhage,’ said John after
a moment. ‘The body was covered in blood, and in places it had soaked into the bed. It was – I found it extremely distressing. I had known the lady, the whole family, very well for many years. That was why I did not make a full examination.’
‘You were personally involved?’
‘Yes.’
‘I believe I must ask if you were emotionally involved as well, Dr Shilling.’
‘No,’ said John Shilling loudly. ‘No, I was not.’ He saw the embarrassment on most of the jury’s faces, and realised they all thought he had been Eloise’s lover. What a sad irony. He said, ‘There was no involvement between us, other than that of friends.’
‘Very well. Please go on.’
‘The blood – the quantity of blood on the bed was consistent with self-mutilation.’
‘Such as cutting the wrists?’
‘No, more like stabbing.’ Another deep breath. ‘I found a knife under her hand,’ he said, firmly. ‘It was smeared with blood.’
‘Ah. But you did not examine for wounds?’
‘No. I . . .’ Shilling paused, and wet his lips. ‘I thought it was fairly plain what she had done,’ he said. ‘And so I made fictitious entries on the medical records consistent with symptoms of a stomach ulcer. And I gave the cause of death as a perforated stomach ulcer. In order to explain the blood. Several of the family had come into the room, you see.’
The coroner gave John Shilling a very level stare. ‘You do realise what you’re admitting to?’
‘Yes.’ Across the Rubicon and into the River of Jordan now, thought John Shilling. In fact neck deep. But the structure of the plan was holding so far.
‘Well, it isn’t my concern,’ said the coroner, rather testily. ‘But you’ll have to answer to the GMC, you know. And probably the police, as well.’