The Indecent Death of a Madam Read online

  ‘Just give up,’ said Tamsin, as if faced with a tiresome teenager. ‘This is a crime scene, we need to clear up.’

  ‘It was a crime scene long before you and I turned up,’ said Terence.

  ‘You mean someone stole some lead from the roof?’

  She was mocking him.

  ‘Bybuckle Asylum became a crime scene the day they decided to close it down and threw the patients to the wolves.’

  ‘They were rehoused, Terence, it’s a well-known story. No wolves involved.’

  ‘Thrown to the wolves.’

  ‘Did your mother speak of wolves?’ asked Peter.

  ‘We’re going downstairs,’ said the soldier.

  ‘Why are we going downstairs?’ He didn’t like the idea. ‘Is that where you shoot us, Terence, like those cowards in the revolutionary army killing Tsar Nicholas and his innocent family? There’s only innocence here, Terence. And you’re no coward.’

  If Katrina hadn’t arrived on the scene, the job would have been done. Cherise would be dealt with and he’d be well away. But he wasn’t well away and he needed them downstairs. He needed time . . . play the situation in front of you, soldier.

  ‘Take your shoes off,’ he said. ‘All of you. Abbot – here’s the key. Unlock the handcuffs.’

  ‘Our shoes?’ Cherise didn’t get this at all.

  ‘Take your shoes off.’ The simple command, still quiet, expecting to be obeyed.

  ‘Curly!’

  ‘Take them off!’ His shout was as shocking as the blast. With their hands now free, they removed their shoes. ‘Now – single file, hands on your heads, no sudden movements – let’s walk.’

  They rose slowly and obeyed, moving towards the basement stairs. The wet tiled floor was cold on their feet, and jagged. They moved forward carefully, like swimmers on the shingle without beach shoes.

  ‘Left down the stairs,’ said Terence firmly. Cherise wasn’t happy.

  ‘It stinks down there,’ she said.

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘It’s gross.’

  ‘Do it.’

  And so they did, Cherise leading the way, down disintegrating stone steps that led to the asylum basement.

  ‘This is where the most troublesome residents were taken,’ said Terence.

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Tamsin.

  ‘Those ripe for more singular treatment . . . and where they kept the records.’

  ‘I’ve seen the records,’ said Peter.

  ‘And do avoid the back entrance, Detective Inspector. It’s wired again.’

  ‘We’ll get a moment,’ said Peter to Tamsin but he wasn’t sure if she heard.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re doin’ this, Curly.’

  ‘Well, we’re about to meet an expert in all that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An expert in the “why” of it all. I’ve flown him in especially – tremendously knowledgeable about rehousing schemes. So who’d like to meet an expert in inhuman housing?’

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’

  Cherise began to get scared again. This wasn’t Curly any more, or not the Curly she knew. She’d lost him and they were now standing in the asylum basement.

  ‘Sit on the bench,’ said the soldier. Like the star over the stable, his torchlight rested above a rotting wooden bench that ran along the underground corridor. Already sitting there was the resident expert, who could explain everything: Geoff Berry, local estate agent, though dressed tonight as a clown.

  ‘I’m sorry if it’s a little damp,’

  said Terence. ‘Perhaps you could move along a little, Geoff, as much as you’re able.’

  His right wrist was cuffed to the underside of the bench.

  ‘Who’s Geoff?’ asked Cherise, sitting down next to the stranger. The darkness was musty, damp and thick, untouched by warmth or the seeping neon of the street.

  ‘Geoff’s in property,’ said Terence.

  ‘Are we here because of your mother?’ asked the abbot. There was no reply.

  ‘I can’t see a fing!’ said Cherise.

  ‘I feel your mother, Terence,’ persisted Peter. ‘Is she the meaning of all this?’

  ‘There is no meaning,’ said the soldier.

  ‘So what’s the story, Terence?’

  ‘That’s probably a question for Geoff to answer,’ he replied. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Geoff? Would you like to fill them in on the housing story? Not your finest hour – in a life of un-fine hours.’

  Geoff coughed.

  ‘Well?’ said Terence.

  ‘Your mother didn’t like her new accommodation.’ He spoke it in a monotone, as a line given to him and told to repeat a hundred times.

  ‘That’s why you’re here, Geoff . . . because some easy money knocked on your door and you thought, “Why not?”’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea . . .’

  ‘So we can’t even credit you with originality.’

  ‘It was just something I was told to do. I was young, I didn’t really understand—’

  ‘And didn’t really care, either. Well, the misery of others is always a leg-up for someone, is it not? There wasn’t any care in the community on offer. Just cold-hearted fraudsters like you.’

  ‘Asylums were far from perfect, Terence,’ said Peter. ‘Before we get too nostalgic.’

  ‘Baroness Elaine Murphy is an expert witness for the prosecution,’ said Terence.

  ‘Is this a court?’

  It was a court, apparently.

  ‘She wrote about care in the community between 1960 and 1990 . . . and do you know what she called her book?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re goin’ to tell us,’ said Cherise, fear now turning to anger. ‘Not that we bloody care.’

  ‘The Disaster Years. That’s what she called her book. The disaster years. They didn’t “bloody care” either.’

  ‘We need to be leaving, Terence,’ said Tamsin firmly. ‘We do need to be leaving. People will be worried about us.’

  ‘Some benefited, of course.’ Terence paused. ‘Not the patients, obviously; nothing is ever done on their behalf. They were offered low-grade and isolating accommodation for high prices – but then, the local authorities couldn’t be choosy, with all those bodies to house. And they were bodies rather than people . . . to the developers.’

  ‘We did our best,’ muttered Geoff.

  ‘They were called “group homes”, which sounded rather nice. But they were dustbins for the difficult; halfway houses for those on the path to homelessness.’

  ‘Can we go now?’ asked Cherise, who felt cold.

  ‘I just want to apologize, if, in any way, I—’

  ‘I think we’re in a land beyond apology, Geoff. Even if I believed it. Like every criminal, you’re sorry you’ve been caught, not for anything else. You’re a worm.’

  Geoff sank back. They could feel his spirits deflate; a sad clown in handcuffs.

  ‘Of course, Geoff was expecting the mayor to be here and an adoring audience. Weren’t you, Geoff? It didn’t take much to get you out. So you’re bound to be a little down.’

  And then Peter spoke: ‘You do know your mother hated you, Terence.’

  Tamsin looked shocked. What was the abbot doing?

  ‘Be quiet, Abbot,’ said Terence.

  ‘She didn’t love you. She hated you. It’s important to know the difference. She couldn’t love; quite incapable of it.’

  ‘Be quiet, Abbot, before I blow you apart and make you truly holy.’ He’d impose operational silence from here on. The pain was starting again.

  ‘So we must stay truthful and not call it love. It was something very different. It was only she who believed that you had a heart of shit. No one else thought that.’

  A heart of shit? Tamsin was now alarmed. Terence, a clear figure in the dark, now tensing up, finger on the trigger. Peter wondered how many more words he’d be allowed. But only words could help them now, down in the chill belly of the asylum.

  ‘Not kind wo
rds, Terence – but do you know what I think?’ Silence. ‘I think she was speaking of herself, not you. She hated you because she hated herself. That’s what I think. She had a heart of shit, or that’s what she felt – while you had a heart of gold. It’s called projection. People put on others what they can’t face in themselves.’

  The major-general kept the torchlight on them, hiding in the shadows behind.

  ‘One more word and you’re dead.’

  Clear enough, thought Terence, and he wouldn’t say it again. He needed to think about the end game, the exit strategy. He’d shoot the abbot if he spoke again. He wouldn’t mind shooting the abbot. Operational requirement.

  ‘“No one loves you like I do, Terence,”’ said Peter – and now Terence staggered slightly. ‘Isn’t that what she said? “No one loves you like I do.” Well, that was a lie, of course. Possession isn’t love – and that’s all she wanted: to possess you, to have you as her lackey, her whipping boy, endlessly at her command. So why are you still listening to her?’

  Tamsin was furious with Peter. Why goad a man with a gun in the basement of a madhouse? Insanity was in the air, in the cold cellar walls, in the chill tile floor beneath their shoeless feet.

  ‘One more word, Abbot—’

  ‘Have you forgotten how to kill?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten how to kill. I killed Rosemary, Abbot.’

  ‘You did, yes.’ Tamsin felt the shift in Peter’s breathing, as one punched.

  ‘And I can picture their faces, some of those I’ve killed. Killing happens . . . there’s no plan to all this.’

  ‘There is a plan, Terence, and it’s yours. Your plan. Take responsibility. Who else’s plan is it?’

  ‘It’s not my plan.’

  ‘So it’s God’s plan, is it?’

  ‘The army chaplain used to speak of God’s plan.’ His tone was dismissive. ‘But that was tosh. There never was a plan, was there?’

  ‘There’s still a way back.’

  ‘A way back to where?’

  ‘To life, to kindness.’

  ‘You ought to get out more, Abbot.’

  ‘It hasn’t helped you much.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to go back?’

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘And where the hell would I want to go back to? What if I’m happy if this is the end – the end for all of us?’

  And then Cherise threw up. She couldn’t help herself, it was all too much, the anxiety, the terror. She was throwing up, jerking, heaving . . . and the torch slipped from the soldier’s grip. He liked Cherise.

  ‘Run!’ shouted the abbot, as the arm straightened for firing, the abbot moving forward, Tamsin reaching across, a shot in the dark, blood on the walls – a shriek.

  And then silence in the cellar, broken by a muffled, pitiful sobbing.

  *

  ‘The building is now surrounded,’ came the voice over the tannoy, though no one much cared down below. ‘But we’re concerned for the safety of those you have with you, Terence. Could you confirm that everyone with you is well? And if they aren’t, is there any help we can offer . . .’

  It’s a terrible sound, a soldier crying – and then the eye-watering smoke.

  Smoke everywhere . . .

  There were holes in the roof

  of the Bybuckle Asylum, due to recent explosions. This caused contractors in hard hats to be brought in to plan its demolition. No one wanted the place left standing now; and to that extent the explosives had been kind, if violence can be kind, forcing an issue avoided for years by red tape, committee work and legal objections.

  Like an alcoholic at the end of the road, the Bybuckle Asylum had finally touched the bottom; it could fall no further, there was no more abyss to explore. After madness, murder and bomb blast, the only way was up. The wrecking ball swung into action soon after.

  Rosemary Weller was remembered well, as a stalwart of the charity scene – respected, perhaps, more than loved. The death of Katrina Pulskaya, a Polish hospitality worker, was also lamented briefly. It wasn’t yet clear why she was at the scene of the crime; she left a son who was currently ‘staying with friends’. The Sussex Silt was restrained concerning these tragic events. They ran a stirring piece on Rosemary, with the headline ‘Stormhaven’s very own Mother Teresa’, focusing on her charity work and early days in the field of mental health, starting as a nurse in the Highgate Asylum.

  ‘Major-general turns mass-killer’ was another headline, detailing Terence’s remarkable war record before his fall from grace ‘in the dark caverns of Stormhaven’s shameful madhouse’. ‘War was easier than peace for this latter-day Lawrence of Arabia, whose twisted mind turned to murder and abduction in Stormhaven.’

  ‘“Katrina was both a friend and colleague,” said Daisy Watts, fellow hospitality worker and terrified hostage in the asylum on that tragic night.’ She’d wanted to do the interview under her real name. It seemed right after their recent conversation. And there was nothing wrong with the name Daisy. She hadn’t liked it as a child, but maybe it was time to return. Maybe Cherise had travelled as far as she could go.

  The paper also reported a police raid on a brothel in the town with a Mrs Hopesmith taken in for questioning, though later released without charge.

  ‘We acted as soon as we heard of it,’ said Inspector Wonder in a press conference. ‘There’s no place for this sort of establishment in Stormhaven – or anywhere, for that matter. We want to keep this town a decent town. Model Service has been closed down.’

  Nowhere in the reporting of these incidents was mention made of the Stormhaven Etiquette Society. Most of the column inches were given over to the county-wide manhunt for the murderer, Terence Blain, who’d escaped from the crime scene that was supposed to have been surrounded. The Sussex Silt wasn’t impressed: ‘Major look stupid!’ was the headline above a piece that chronicled how ‘the murdering major-general’ escaped through the drains to walk free. ‘His whereabouts are now unknown but police say that he is dangerous and should not be approached by the public.’

  ‘So did you know?’

  asked the abbot.

  ‘You’re sounding pompous, Peter.’

  ‘You mean the question sounds pompous?’

  ‘No, you and the question sound pompous. It’s the tone of the question, which is a combination of you both.’

  ‘I must work on my tone.’

  They sat in Channing’s large open-plan office in Lewes, overlooking the River Ouse. He’d seriously wondered about relocating to cheaper premises in Stormhaven – namely the Bybuckle Asylum – but he’d now decided against it. A ghostly lunatic army seemed to pervade the place and he really couldn’t be doing with them. There were no lunatics in Lewes; they wouldn’t be able to afford it.

  ‘I’m simply asking if you knew of their connections with one another – Terence, Geoff and Rosemary?’

  ‘You’re not simply asking, Abbot. No one simply asks anything. You’re a prosecuting counsel. You’re accusing.’

  ‘That may be how you hear it but it’s not my intention.’

  Channing got up from his editorial chair and gazed out through the large windows. The tidal river was full-bodied today, and on the opposite bank the large Tesco was busy with trade. He was not unattached to the scene – another reason to stay away from Stormhaven. There really were so many.

  ‘Do you know your problem, Abbot?’

  ‘I know of several.’

  ‘You seem to imagine that there’s some set and reasonable reality out there – some reality to which we’re all accountable in some manner.’

  ‘You pile your assumptions high.’

  ‘But there’s no such thing, believe me.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Everyone has their own reality. That’s what I’m saying, Abbot.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And I’ve met some pretty strange ones in my time. I know people who believe they travel to Saturn every day – twins who live in Pea
cehaven, God help them. Absolutely convinced they travel through space to Saturn each morning and return in the evening. And I know others who believe they simply commute to London and back. But who’s right?’

  ‘Is that rhetorical?’

  ‘And then some people know there is a God while others know there isn’t one. And again, which of them is right?’ Peter remained in silence. ‘We must allow everyone their own realities, Abbot, without pressuring them into ours.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Which rather removes the “one-reality” preacher from the scene, don’t you think? I think so . . . and pompous questions like the one you posed.’

  ‘Well, the ghost of Hitler will be most comforted,’ said the abbot with a smile. Channing looked quizzical. ‘I mean, he might have been worried that you’d object to his outlook on life; that you might pressure him into some other reality. But your cleverness gives him generous permission to proceed. The new morality: “Our reality is right if we believe it so, if our alternative facts suit us.”’

  Martin regretted his attempts at philosophy. He didn’t usually do this sort of thing, and he wouldn’t again. It had sounded good in his head but stupid as soon as it was spoken. So he’d move on.

  ‘Just forget Bybuckle, Abbot. I recommend forgetfulness on your part.’

  ‘That won’t happen quickly.’

  He still had the place in his clothes and his dreams.

  ‘I mean, obviously it’s the story on top at the moment, but believe me, the world is a lunatic asylum . . . one big nuthouse. We have the notionally sane and the officially mad, but let me tell you, between the two there is no between. Which makes marvellous copy, of course. But it’s now all about what it’s always all about: the next story. We’ve gorged enough on the Bybuckle carcass and it’s time for something new. Was there anything else?’

  ‘So you did know of their connections?’

  ‘I do applaud your investigative persistence, Peter.’ He said this with a smile and clapped his hands loudly. ‘And, of course, I remember now why I once offered you a job.’

  ‘That wouldn’t have worked,’ said the abbot. ‘We would have fallen out.’