The Indecent Death of a Madam Read online

  ‘What can I say?’ he said. ‘I have absolutely no understanding of this development, Tamsin.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘My only thought – and it’s a sad one – is that she must have gone on to live a rather lonely life. A full life, from what I hear, but perhaps lonelier than it looked. And our brief acquaintance – towards which she contributed very little, beyond being a most excellent nurse – perhaps became something more important to her in retrospect. These things can happen . . . a sense of something lost, yet which barely existed at the time.’

  ‘You did suddenly become rather unobtainable, didn’t you?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘After it was over. I mean, the monk’s outfit and all that. And the desert. You suddenly became impossible for her, which might increase the longing, I suppose.’

  Peter was struck by her insight – an unusual occurrence. Had she known such feelings herself? Had she once loved the unobtainable? She wouldn’t be telling him if she had. As for Peter, he noticed his breathing deepening, as one stirred. He found himself strangely moved that anyone could put him as ‘next of kin’. It awakened something inside him, there was no question of that. Rosemary’s rejection had been the easier path, removing hope, which could be so difficult to live with.

  But now he found himself troubled, wondering how different things might have been if he’d done something else? And in the light of this, another question: had his stay in the desert been nothing more than one long escape from his feelings? Imagine if he had stayed in England, for instance, if he’d persisted with the relationship – might things have been different between himself and Rosemary? He had to wonder . . .

  ‘I wanted you on the case,’ said Tamsin.

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘But that’s not possible now, is it?’ She was still angry about this.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re too connected.’

  Peter paused. He must think clearly. He wanted to work on the case. He’d wanted the case before he knew it was Rosemary. Now he wanted it even more.

  ‘Am I a beneficiary of her death?’ he asked.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘In relation to her will? I’m sure you’ve seen her will.’

  ‘I have and no, you’re not. You’re next of kin, but you receive nothing in her will. Absolutely nothing at all.’

  ‘Don’t sound so pleased.’

  ‘So no more surprise houses coming your way. Everything has been left to charity – apart from the business.’

  ‘The business?’

  ‘Model Service.’

  ‘Of course, yes.’ He would have to get used not only to her death but also to Rosemary as the owner of a brothel called Model Service . . . when it appeared the most unlikely thing in the world. It wasn’t that he now thought worse of her; he just thought differently. She was becoming a different person in death and therefore strangely alive, leaving so much to be re-evaluated. ‘So that’s good news, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I’m one of those rare souls delighted to be excluded from the will.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘It frees me to work on the case,’ he replied. ‘Where’s the problem in me investigating the murder of someone I last spoke with forty years ago?’

  ‘You haven’t seen her since?’

  He’d have to tell her; there were too many witnesses. ‘Once.’

  ‘You have seen her again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you see her again? You said it was over.’ Tamsin’s frustration could not be hidden.

  ‘It wasn’t planned. We met at the Stormhaven Etiquette Society.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Stormhaven Etiquette Society. It’s a . . . well, does it matter? It’s a society.’

  ‘I’d got that far.’

  ‘And I gave a talk to them the other night on the relationship between morality and grace.’

  ‘A ticket to die for.’

  ‘You weren’t invited, dead or alive. You’re not a member, it’s invitation only, very secretive. But she’s a member . . . or was.’

  ‘Rosemary was there at the meeting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you had no idea she would be?’

  ‘No idea at all.’

  Tamsin took in the scene, finding it hard not to be amused. The pain of others had this effect.

  ‘That must have been a shock for you; a large ghost from the past walking through the door.’

  ‘My feelings exactly . . . from the past. I don’t imagine she recognized me and the evening came and went without incident.’

  ‘You didn’t kneel down before her and declare your love.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or meet for a clandestine liaison of wine and roses later in the week?’

  ‘There was nothing between us, Tamsin. Too many years had passed under the bridge of time. I’m quite ready to assist on the case.’

  Tamsin considered the situation. She wanted to believe him but felt unease. She had no interest in the lovesick or the self-pitying. If the abbot turned out to be one of those, or both, their investigative partnership would not end well.

  ‘It may stir things, Peter.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Well, perhaps you won’t like what you discover about Rosemary. I mean, you probably never thought . . .’

  ‘That she was a madam? No, I didn’t. I can’t say I came even close to imagining that.’

  ‘And perhaps she had other liaisons that you’ll find . . . upsetting.’

  ‘What other liaisons?’

  ‘We don’t know the nature of her involvement, but she ran a brothel, for God’s sake. It’s different from a sewing club. You may discover things that provoke you, and rage is not a helpful tool in the detective’s armoury.’

  ‘No, but anger is – clean anger, unattached to the ego. And perhaps I’ll be allowed that simply because a good person has been killed.’

  Tamsin wasn’t listening, caught up in her own line of enquiry.

  ‘I mean, you say you’re over her, Abbot, as if the desert was your real lover. But do these things ever die? Especially your first love . . . or perhaps more truthfully, your first obsession. Obsessions are stupid but powerful.’

  Peter was not keen on this lecture and felt a tide of fury crashing against his shoreline. He didn’t trust the lecturer for a start.

  ‘How can you presume to know of my feelings, Tamsin, when you are so ignorant of your own?’

  He looked at her to emphasize the force of the question. Tamsin was clearly in the turmoil he should have been in. She even took a sip of the coffee she’d been trying to avoid. The fact was, she didn’t know what she wanted; or rather she did, but couldn’t see how it could be.

  ‘I do want you on the case, Peter, but I don’t want you with any baggage, because you’ll slow us down. And there’s an airport-full of baggage here.’

  ‘There’s baggage on every case, Tamsin – every case. I’ve seen the police at very close quarters, remember, and been able to evaluate their performance. The scores aren’t high.’

  ‘You haven’t perhaps met the elite of the force.’

  Peter laughed. ‘And then you’re hardly a clear pool of consciousness yourself. It wasn’t so long ago you ran away from a therapist who was just beginning to help you. And you ran away because you couldn’t face what was coming to the surface. So where’s that baggage now? At least I’m aware of mine.’

  Peter was dragging up events from an old case, but they were ones she could not deny.

  ‘So no lectures on baggage,’ he continued. ‘Or I might ask you precisely what it is that you fear?’

  A haunted look on her face became – slowly – a guilty smile, a small act of awareness, and somewhere inside she was glad he was fighting back.

  ‘All you’re doing, Tamsin, is allowi
ng me to find the murderer of someone I knew a long time ago.’

  ‘Next of kin.’

  ‘Her words.’

  ‘Why would she lie?’

  ‘She’s not lying. It’s just her interpretation.’

  But she’d have to press him on this, really she would. Tamsin didn’t want to get crucified by a wrong decision along the way, nailed on the cross of public perception.

  ‘Interpretations are usually based on something.’

  ‘I don’t know why she called me next of kin . . . as I’ve said. You’ll have to believe me on that one. But I do know I’ve had no serious contact with her since those faraway days. And I also know that I do not feature in her will – a fact that speaks loudly on my behalf, when I ask to be involved.’

  ‘Perhaps you discovered she ran a brothel and felt betrayed.’

  ‘And then killed her?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  She might as well say it at the outset. ‘Are you the murderer?’

  But the words sounded stupid even as she spoke them, and Peter was inclined to agree.

  ‘That Rosemary was a madam, I can cheerfully accept, believe me. It was her membership of the Stormhaven Etiquette Society I struggle with.’

  And most of what he’d told Tamsin was true, though not quite all. He wanted to work on the case without awkwardness, so hadn’t mentioned their meeting in Broad Street last Tuesday. It wasn’t pertinent, he told himself.

  ‘Then we need to go to the asylum,’ said Tamsin, getting up. She’d made up her mind, public perception be damned. Peter had just joined her team.

  ‘Which asylum?’

  ‘Bybuckle.’

  ‘Bybuckle? Why do we need to go there?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? It’s where Rosemary was killed.’

  ‘In the Bybuckle Asylum?’

  ‘Keep up.’

  He knew the place. It had been taken out of service in the late eighties and been a controversial folly ever since. It was a five-minute walk away, a near neighbour on the wind-battered Stormhaven seafront. After all these years of distance, Rosemary had been killed very close to his front door.

  ‘And we need to go now?’

  ‘You know SOCO, Peter. They’ll have the murder scene packed away in no time – dabbed, brushed, pictured, sealed and sent. We need to be there before it is. We need to see the body.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, but it wasn’t. It was some way from being fine. His innards felt compressed by the thought of the scene that awaited him. Tamsin hadn’t disclosed how Rosemary was killed and he hadn’t asked. But now the decision was made and he was on the case, her ruthlessness returned. She wouldn’t be protecting him.

  ‘Still got the light, I see,’ she said.

  ‘Which light?’

  ‘That one.’

  Tamsin was putting on her coat and looking up the stairs to the candle that burned in the small landing window. It had been there for as long as she’d known him; she’d just never asked why.

  ‘Yes, it still burns,’ said Peter.

  Not giving much away, then.

  ‘Does it burn for a reason?’

  ‘Must light have a reason?’

  Tamsin wanted an answer, not a meditation.

  ‘What you do in the privacy of your own home is entirely up to you, Abbot,’ she said dismissively. ‘We need to get to the asylum.’

  Peter put on an old duffle coat. ‘How did she die?’ he asked.

  He needed to know; and didn’t want to know.

  ‘You’ll see soon enough. Ready?’

  Police were everywhere

  in this Impressionistic seafront scene. The Bybuckle Asylum was obscured in a wet mist, as Tamsin and the abbot approached on foot. There were high-vis jackets around high-vis cars, parked at angles, blocking off the seafront road. There were watercolour reds and blues, one becoming the other, and a salt-water shine on the road. Slippery steps took the visitor up to the front entrance of the asylum, a once strong and solid Victorian front door. Around them, evidence-protecting outfits moved with purpose, like Arctic explorers on a trip to the sea.

  ‘Have you been inside before?’ asked Tamsin.

  ‘No,’ said Peter, speaking through the wind. ‘Though I’ve walked past it enough.’

  ‘No walking by on the other side today, Abbot.’

  ‘Have you been inside?’

  ‘No,’ said Tamsin. The place spooked her. ‘Never had cause to, not being mad. But I have seen the crime-scene pictures. Not great. Are you ready?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  How could he ever be ready for this?

  The police cordon was lifted with a wave of Tamsin’s card and they climbed the ten steps up to the entrance. The salt wind ruins every frontage along the seafront, rusting Sky dishes, eating at the paint. Even the grandest dwellings suffer; though the Bybuckle Asylum had never tried to be grand. Sturdy red and grey brick in civic patterns, an earnest establishment, a place of both detention and reform, but decomposing now, rusty metal window frames, bereft of their panes, long smashed or blown away.

  Inside the dark entrance hall they stood for a moment, struck by the damp desolation of the building.

  ‘A place of ghosts and screams,’ said Peter.

  ‘Don’t get weird on me, Abbot.’

  Though she was glad he was here. There was something about this place, as if its history lived on, insanity permeating both walls and air. The mad had been removed, but their despair remained. Or was that all in her imagination? There was a rumour of developers turning this place into luxury flats, the vision for every half-decent space these days. But Tamsin wouldn’t be buying one. How could this space ever be free of its history? And now this . . .

  She spoke with the constable on the door. ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘Through there, ma’am.’

  He pointed down the long corridor to a door on the right.

  ‘Shall we?’ said Tamsin.

  They made their way into the darkness, reaching some swinging doors. ‘Gladstone Ward’ was the sign above the entrance, though nothing prepared them for the size of the room they walked into, a truly vast space.

  ‘DI Shah?’

  An officer approached them.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The body’s over here.’

  ‘Right.’

  The officer looked at the monk, uncertain about procedure. ‘Is he coming?’

  ‘He is, yes. And he has a name. Peter. Abbot Peter.’

  ‘Right.’ What was a monk doing on a crime scene? ‘And he has, er, clearance?’

  ‘You get on with your job, sergeant, and I’ll get on with mine.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  They were led towards a metal bed in the middle of the ward, partially hidden by the remains of a curtain, hanging from rusted rails in the ceiling. How many beds had been here once was hard to tell – fifty? A hundred? Now, only a few remained – a random scattering of bare metal frames. Only one of these was of interest today, however, and they approached it now.

  ‘When was she found?’

  ‘Eight o’clock this morning. A tip-off.’

  ‘Phone?’ He nodded. ‘And how long dead?’

  ‘About twelve hours, more details to come, but cause of death not hard to establish.’

  ‘No,’ said Tamsin, looking down.

  Peter looked . . . and looked away, numb to everything, quite unable to feel. It had the appearance of an execution. A trial, a judgement and then . . . an execution.

  Twelve hours earlier,

  there had been no police in Bybuckle Asylum; they do tend to arrive late when it comes to murder. Rosemary had been here alone, wondering if her ‘carer’ would return. She was hoping they wouldn’t, of course . . . really hoping they wouldn’t.

  She wondered, as she lay there, if this was some sort of revenge stunt, to frighten her, perhaps? If further harm was planned, then surely they’d have
finished the job? So was she to be left here? Left here to scream until someone came to free her? But who’d ever come in here? People walked past this place with averted eyes. And who’d hear a scream from a building designed to muffle such things, to keep the public safe from the awkward noises of the mad and the tied-down? And she was tied down, her movement painfully limited.

  Was this how Sarah had felt? She suddenly thought of Sarah, though she didn’t want to. She had done her best for her sister, everyone knew that, done as much as she could, though it hadn’t been enough . . . well, it was enough to get her drugged-up body away from the men – those repulsive men. But after that?

  Rosemary didn’t know much of the story. Her little sister had disappeared into the London scene after the arrest of her ‘boyfriend’. She’d been determined to make her own way, breaking all contact with the family. And perhaps Rosemary could have done more to find her? But Sarah hadn’t wanted to be found, this was the thing, and if she had, then she knew where Rosemary was. So surely it had been her responsibility to make it happen? You couldn’t always rely on your big sister to do everything.

  ‘I didn’t need you to save me,’ was all Sarah had said to Rosemary after the police had raided the flat. She had needed her, that was quite clear. But what can you say to someone like that?

  And were things any better between them now? She hoped so. Sarah had reappeared after a while, found herself a perfectly decent job in London, something in accounts, seemed happy enough, and they’d met on occasion for a meal. They didn’t talk about the past, they shared more recent events; though the past sat there with them, shouting loudly through their small talk . . . and Sarah should probably have said thank you. She’d had time to reflect on what she’d been saved from. But she never did, or she hadn’t yet. And she continued to choose rather unfortunate men.

  But this was not the time to think of Sarah. Rosemary needed to think of herself, because no one was coming to save her. There was no big sister out there for Rosemary, no cavalry on the way. There never had been. She must focus on the bed on which she was tied, or perhaps on events that had brought her here. She’d review the evening, she’d reclaim control . . . or at least some understanding. She liked solutions, she liked to sort things out; and everything could be sorted out with a bit of thought and elbow grease, even if you weren’t always thanked for it. So what had happened?