Fear in the Sunlight (Josephine Tey Mystery 4)

by Nicola Upson

  ‘It started before his first birthday. We were playing together in the garden and Taran just stopped laughing and stared into space, completely unaware of me or anything else. It only lasted a few seconds, but I knew the signs‚ and it was enough to make me realise how foolish I’d been to think that everything would be all right. The absences happened regularly after that, several times a week. Then he had his first fit. He was sleepy‚ and I was putting him to bed one night when his limbs started to jerk. He cried when it was over, as though he knew what it meant and wanted to tell me he was sorry.’

  ‘How did David find out what was happening?’

  ‘He came into the kitchen one day when Taran was having a fit. It happened so suddenly that I forgot to lock the door. Seeing him like that frightened David half to death, I think, but he was so good; he cushioned Taran’s head and moved things that he might have hurt himself on. Taran was always very confused afterwards‚ and David helped me to get him into bed to recover. He was so gentle with him, so grown up. It was as if he finally understood something that had been puzzling him for a long time, and I was grateful to him. You don’t expect to look to a fourteen-year-old for strength, do you? But I suppose they grew up quickly then. There were boys as young as David killing and dying in France.’

  Hardly for the same reasons, Penrose thought, but he bit his tongue. ‘Mrs Draycott, are you sure that you asked David to kill Taran? It wasn’t his suggestion?’

  ‘He knew how desperate I was,’ she said, and it was hard to tell if she had deliberately avoided the question or was simply answering it in her own way. ‘I was more afraid every day of what would happen to Taran because I’d seen it all before in my own family and I knew what the future held for him. I knew it would affect his mind and how people would torment him; I knew they might try to take him away from me and what would happen if they did; and I knew how difficult it would be for me to look after him properly. But‚ most of all, I knew how unhappy he would be, how much he would suffer. And it was my fault. I’d allowed it to happen, I’d given him this terrible thing‚ and it was up to me to make it right, but I didn’t know how to do it. Then I was walking in the woods one day and I saw David killing a dog. He told me it had broken its leg‚ and he was putting it out of its misery – his father had taught him to do it, he said – but it was so quick and so painless, and I wished more than anything that someone would do that for my son. He must have known what I was thinking because he looked at me and nodded. I didn’t even have to speak the words. I can’t explain the relief I felt to know that there was a way out if things got too bad.’

  ‘And Taran’s condition got worse after that?’

  She nodded. ‘It happened very quickly in the end. David woke him early one morning and took him out. He did that sometimes to give me a break, and Taran loved to be with him. He had a terrible fit while they were out in the boat. David blamed himself – Taran was always more vulnerable when he was tired or if he had just been woken up – but it wasn’t his fault; it could have come at any time, and David was only doing what I’d asked him to do when the moment was right.’

  ‘But he decided when that was, not you.’

  ‘Fate decided,’ she insisted, and then, as he looked doubtfully at her, she asked‚ ‘Have you ever seen someone having an epileptic fit?’ Penrose nodded. ‘Then you’ll know it starts with very little warning, and the force of it seems to come from nowhere. Your natural impulse is to hold the person you love until it stops, but you can’t because the movements are so violent that you might break an arm or a leg if you try to suppress them. So much strength in such a small body,’ she said, unconsciously echoing Franks’s words. ‘And it gets worse as they get older until it’s almost impossible to cope.’ Penrose saw the recognition in Rhiannon’s face and understood how hard it must be for Gwyneth to accept help when she knew better than anyone what a burden it was, both physically and mentally; no wonder her own death seemed to hold no horror for her. ‘Taran was hurting himself that day. There were terrible bruises on his face where he had struck his head against the bottom of the boat, and two of his little fingers were broken from slamming into the wood. David reacted instinctively. It was better that way, I think – better for me not to have known when it was going to happen. I’m not sure I would have had the strength to go through with it.’

  Every nerve and fibre in Penrose’s body wanted to expose Franks’s cruelty and tear the sick, twisted halo from his head, but he held himself back. ‘What happened then?’ he asked evenly. ‘Did David bring Taran’s body back?’

  ‘No. He left him somewhere safe and came to fetch me.’

  ‘Where, Mrs Draycott? Where is Taran now?’

  He repeated the question‚ but she ignored it as if it had never been asked, and Penrose guessed that her desire to unburden herself was no match for her determination to ensure that her son’s body remained undisturbed. ‘He’s at peace now,’ she said, confirming it as much for herself as for him. ‘He wasn’t tormented like Edwin. He wasn’t hurt or laughed at or punished like a criminal and left to rot . . .’

  She was becoming agitated‚ and Penrose watched as Rhiannon eased her back against the pillows and gently calmed her. ‘I’ll tell him, Gwyn,’ she promised. ‘You’ve said what you needed to say and now you’ve got to get your strength back. Edwin was her brother,’ she explained, turning back to Penrose. ‘They were twins‚ and his epilepsy was very severe. Gwyn was lucky, if you can call it that: she only had mild attacks when she was a kid, and so rarely that she managed to hide it, but Edwin was different. The family was terrified of the stigma. When he was too old for them to keep it quiet, they had him shut away in the Castle. It’s a hotel now, but it used to be an asylum.’

  ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘I went with Gwyn to visit him once a week. Nobody else from the family would even acknowledge he existed. Not that it did them much good, mind; the gossip round town was disgusting. That place was like a museum for every form of human misery: suicidal, delusional, violent, and a lot like him who were just ill, but there was no difference between them. Some were more trouble than others, that’s all. Edwin was one of those. Behind-the-table patients, they used to call them – the ones they thought were going to be most disruptive. I’ll never forget the first time we went in there. They’d put him on a chair behind a long table with five or six other patients, backs to the wall, never allowed to speak, and nothing to do except stare and be stared at. If you weren’t mad to start with you soon would be.’

  Penrose could understand her anger: after the first war, Bridget had made a series of drawings for an anti-war society of former soldiers living in asylums – the victims of society’s shame, shut away like criminals simply because their minds could not cope with what they had experienced. He remembered her bitterness at the crudeness of their treatment; drugging, purging and a little light starvation, she had called it, regardless of individual needs. It was the same here: people suffering from epilepsy were not responsible for their actions during or after an attack and were therefore insane according to the legal definition of the word, but an asylum was surely the last place in which they would find the care they needed.

  ‘It would have been humiliating for anyone to be treated like that,’ Rhiannon continued, ‘but it was only a matter of time before Edwin had a fit up there in front of everyone, like some sort of freak-show entertainment. We were there once when it happened. Everyone was laughing or shouting obscenities at him, and the noise was unbearable. None of the attendants did anything to help. If anything, I think they were grateful for the distraction.’

  Penrose glanced at Gwyneth. She had closed her eyes and he could only imagine the pictures she was seeing in her mind. ‘What happened to Edwin?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘He had a fit one night and hit his head, alone in a cell where they’d put him as a punishment for something. God knows what. He was supposed to be under constant supervision, but he’d been dead for nine hours by the time some
one found him.’ She took Gwyneth’s hand and held it. ‘He was just a young man, Mr Penrose, and so sweet-natured. Is it really any wonder that she didn’t want that for Taran, that she’d do anything to avoid it?’

  Penrose knew that she was pleading with him for her friend’s sake, but he doubted that any legal recrimination would be as harsh as the one Gwyneth had given herself. ‘It was all right while I was there to protect Taran,’ Gwyneth said quietly, as if she had read Penrose’s thoughts, ‘but I knew they’d take him away if anything happened to me‚ and I never expected to live a long life. Now, every day I wake up is another day of guilt for the time he could have had, and look what it’s all led to.’

  ‘Mrs Draycott, you can’t hold yourself responsible for every evil thing that David Franks has ever done,’ he said. ‘The murders he committed in America are . . .’

  The rest of his sentence was lost in the cry of protest from the bed. Gwyneth Draycott clutched desperately at the sheets and tried to sit up. ‘Please leave now,’ Rhiannon begged, looking at Penrose. ‘She needs to rest. She’s had so little sleep since she heard about David‚ and she’s more likely to have an attack if she’s tired.’

  Penrose did as he was asked and waited outside on the landing. Another flight of stairs led up to an attic room‚ and, through the open door, he caught sight of what looked like a child’s nursery. Rhiannon was still occupied with Gwyneth, so he climbed the steps and looked inside. There were toys lying on the floor by the window: stuffed animals, tin soldiers, a wooden Noah’s Ark, all the more poignant because this was not the house where Taran had lived, but where he had died. What caught Penrose’s attention, however, was a collection of small carved figures, arranged in groups on a long table down one wall. He walked over to look at them more closely and saw that each arrangement represented an everyday scene: a family having a meal‚ a classroom of children‚ a woman reading a bedtime story. It was a life lived out in miniature, the story of growing up which every mother took for granted but which had been denied to Gwyneth.

  ‘She’s lived in that world more and more these past few years.’ Penrose had been too absorbed in what he was looking at to notice Rhiannon’s footsteps on the stairs. ‘It’s as if she can’t face reality any more; hardly surprising, I suppose. David made all those figures for her. He was always clever like that.’ She picked up one or two of the other toys and tidied them away in a chest. ‘David was the perfect son she never had.’ She saw his face and tried to explain. ‘In Gwyn’s eyes, I mean. He was always so full of life – handsome, bright, strong, successful. Everything she had once wished for Taran she saw fulfilled in him. She had watched him grow up, remember. Every summer the Gypsies came back here, he spent more time with her‚ and he never really wanted to leave. From Gwyneth’s point of view, his mother was dead‚ and it was safe for her to care for him as a son, free from all the fears that tainted her love for her real child. After what happened to Taran, theirs was the ultimate bond, I suppose: you don’t share a secret like that without an enormous amount of trust on both sides.’

  ‘Why didn’t David stay with Gwyneth after his father was killed?’

  ‘That’s what both of them wanted‚ but Grace didn’t think it was safe for him here‚ and she asked Bella to take him. Looking back, I wonder now if the two of them suspected the truth and got him as far away as they could. Either way, it was the worst possible thing for Gwyneth‚ and she always resented Bella for taking him from her.’

  ‘What about when he came back to England in the twenties?’

  ‘He lived in London‚ but he visited Gwyneth all the time, I gather. Grace was dead by then‚ and Gwyneth had moved back here, but she and David had always kept in touch. Just before the war, when he went to America for the second time, he begged her to go with him. He’d inherited Bella’s money‚ and he offered to move us both out there where we’d be safe, but she wouldn’t leave here because of Taran. David saw that as a choice, I think, although if he resented it, he never said.’

  ‘Did she know what he was doing in America?’

  ‘No.’ Penrose looked doubtfully at her and she relented a little. ‘You saw her reaction earlier when you mentioned it‚ and it’s the same if I try to talk to her. She’s in denial, and I suspect she always has been. Every so often, he came back here‚ and there seemed to be a pattern to his visits: he’d arrive troubled and withdrawn, stay a few weeks and then go back like his old self. My guess is that he came here whenever he had killed, but that’s all it is – a guess. He never told me anything‚ and I would swear that he never spoke to Gwyneth about his crimes either. He didn’t need to confess to find peace here. This was always his sanctuary.’

  ‘Somewhere he could come to be forgiven,’ Penrose said, trying to keep any note of judgement out of his voice.

  ‘More than that. Somewhere he could come to be loved for what he was, where there was nothing to forgive.’

  ‘And you? You’re obviously an intelligent woman; was it so easy to turn a blind eye?’

  ‘He frightened me.’ She said it with such feeling that Penrose regretted his naivety in even asking the question. ‘Particularly towards the end. He was coming back here more often‚ and I knew he was out of control. He had no affection for me other than as the person who cared for Gwyneth. Would you have challenged him if you were in my shoes, or done anything braver than pray for him to be caught?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I would.’

  She glanced round the attic and gave a shudder. ‘I’m sure you have more questions‚ but do you mind if we go downstairs? I hate this room.’

  In truth, Penrose was glad to leave it too. ‘Where do you fit into this, Mrs Erley?’ he asked bluntly when they were both seated back in the kitchen. She frowned at his use of the name, but said nothing. ‘The story is that you ran off with Henry Draycott all those years ago, and yet here you are caring so fondly for his wife. You didn’t leave here with him, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you even having an affair with him?’

  ‘He paid me for sex, Mr Penrose. You’ll have to decide what you’d like to call that relationship.’ She softened, realising perhaps that sarcasm was not the best line to take with so little in her favour; privately, Penrose admired her spirit, although he would never have admitted as much. ‘As I said, Gwyneth and I were brought up together. My parents died when I was very young‚ and hers were kind enough to take me in. We were roughly the same age, and we took to each other straight away. Had we been real sisters, I doubt we would have been closer‚ and we’ve stayed friends all our lives.’

  ‘Did she know about your arrangement with her husband?’

  ‘Of course she did. She had always been honest with Henry about what their marriage would be if it went ahead: they would never be husband and wife in the truest sense‚ and he could never expect children from her, but she would care for him and look after his house and turn a blind eye when he looked for sex elsewhere.’

  ‘And that’s where you came in.’

  ‘Yes. It was an arrangement that suited us all for a while. I’d married for what I thought was love when I was very young, but it didn’t take me long to discover that he was a bastard and I was a fool. I won’t bore you with a list of his qualities except to say that he drank, was handy with his fists and extremely possessive in that one-sided way which comes naturally to so many men.’ In spite of the circumstances, Penrose suppressed a smile. ‘We lived next door to his family, and sometimes I found it hard to remember whether I’d married him or his mother. My plan was to make enough money to leave him and start again somewhere else, and Gwyneth made sure I was well paid for my services to her husband.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘We didn’t take into account the fact that Henry loved Gwyneth to the point of obsession. Sex with me – or any other woman, for that matter – was never going to satisfy him in the long term. He would have agreed to anything to marry her, but he always believed that he’d w
in her round.’

  ‘Hadn’t she explained why those conditions were there?’

  ‘Yes, of course. She wouldn’t have been able to hide her illness for long in a marriage. One day, when she was sick of Henry trying to persuade her to sleep with him, she took him to the Castle to see what sort of life her brother was living, but even that wasn’t enough: Henry couldn’t stop himself. He forced her to give him what he wanted‚ and, once he had crossed that line, he wouldn’t stop. It was only a matter of time before she fell pregnant, and she was terrified.’

  ‘Did she know that David had seen it happen?’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him in horror.

  ‘It’s in his confession.’

  ‘She had no idea. Good God, she’d have died of shame if she’d known; she was reluctant even to tell me, but she was desperate.’

  ‘So what did being desperate lead her to do? Or lead you to do? Did you blackmail him?’

  She laughed scornfully. ‘With what? She was his wife, for God’s sake. No man would have blamed him for taking what he was entitled to.’ Penrose wanted to argue, but he remembered what Marta had said and knew in his heart that she was right. ‘She could have killed him, I suppose, but she wasn’t capable of that, so the only way round it was to make him as afraid as she was. It was a way out for both of us.’ She avoided his eyes for the first time, and he guessed she was either searching for words or deciding how much to tell him. ‘Henry liked his sex on the rough side,’ she said eventually. ‘I imagine Gwyneth’s resistance made things more interesting for him. He was certainly never very considerate with me‚ and I earned my money. He particularly enjoyed knocking me about or having his hands round my throat. One day, I simply didn’t get up. I let him think he’d gone too far.’