The Death Chamber (40 page)

Operations were tricky things. Ketch had had a cousin who had ’pendicitis or something that sounded very like it. The cousin had been fifteen at the time and healthy as you liked, but he
had died from being cut open. Everyone had said it was a scandal and a disgrace but there was nothing anyone had been able to do about it. You would not get Ketch on an operating table, not for any
sum you cared to name. It was too much of a risk.

‘It’s too much of a risk,’ said the ambulance driver truculently.

‘There’s no risk,’ said Walter angrily, but the driver did not agree. He said he was not having a convicted murderess in the back of his vehicle without some proper safeguards.
Guards and suchlike.

‘This is the one who went with that Neville Fremlin, isn’t it? Five females they did in between them, and then she did another one by herself. And now you’re asking me to drive
forty bloody miles through the dark with her in the back? S’posing she tries to escape? S’posing she clumps me on the head and makes off into the night? Where’d I be then? Up shit
creek without a paddle, that’s where I’d be, never mind a dose of concussion.’

‘I’ll be with you in the ambulance,’ said Walter in exasperation. ‘In any case, she’s so drowsy from the morphia she’s barely conscious, never mind making off
into the night.’

‘I’d rather face Hitler’s bloody bombs than this one on the loose, morphine or no morphine,’ said the driver obstinately. ‘There’s the weather as well,
that’s to be taken into consideration, isn’t it? Coming down bloody stair-rods out there, it is. I might skid – half the lanes are under inches of mud, in fact I reckon I was
lucky to get up the hill to this place. S’posing I were to skid and land us in a ditch? I wouldn’t put it past her to take advantage of that, the sly little madam.’

He would not be budged and he would not be convinced that Elizabeth was in no state to take advantage of anyone. He said he had his rights and he was not risking being clumped on the head by no
silver-tongued murderer, not for Dr Kane, nor the governor of Calvary Gaol, nor King George himself. Handcuffs, that was what he wanted to see here.

‘That’s inhuman,’ said Walter angrily, ‘and totally unnecessary.’

All right, said the driver, if there were not to be handcuffs, he wanted another guard in the van – preferably somebody as could provide a bit of muscle if so needed. His disparaging
glance at Walter when he said this suggested he did not reckon much to Walter if it came to a fight.

‘Ketch,’ said Edgar Higneth resignedly, ‘sign yourself out for outside duties for the next two hours. And get yourself a heavy coat – whatever else the driver’s
said, he’s right about the rain. I’ll see you when you get back, Walter.’

It was raining even harder by the time they carried the stretcher out to the ambulance. Walter shivered and turned his coat collar up against it, but it seeped coldly into his bones and clung to
his hair. Behind them, Calvary was dark and lowering with only the guardhouse lights showing, and below them the countryside was black and impenetrable.

Walter was starting to feel light-headed. He reminded himself that he had hardly slept for the past week and had missed supper tonight and that neither of these things were conducive to clear
thinking or well-being. But seated in the jolting ambulance with Saul Ketch, Elizabeth on the shelf-bed covered by blankets, he began to feel as if he had entered a strange dark world where nothing
was entirely real. The whole world seemed to have shrunk to this creaking metal box jolting its way along the rutted lanes, with the sound of the rain pattering down on the roof and the drugged
breathing of the semi-conscious girl under the blanket. His headache had returned, and he wished he had taken a couple of aspirin before setting out.

‘You all right, Doctor?’ said Ketch’s voice, and Walter looked up.

‘Just a bit tired.’

‘Hellish journey to have to make, ain’t it?’ said Ketch.

‘Yes.’

‘Old bone-shaker of an ambulance, as well. Reminds me of the old line they used to tell us about going to hell in a handcart.’ He jabbed a finger at the figure on the stretcher-bed.
‘You reckon that’s where she’s going? Hell?’

‘I don’t know.’ Walter leaned his aching head against the ambulance’s sides and as they jolted through the night Ketch’s words repeated themselves in his mind, over
and over again, forming a maddening little rhythm. Going to hell in a handcart. That’s where she’s going. Hell in a handcart. That’s where we’re all going, sooner or
later.

‘Will she be all right?’ said Ketch, breaking into this.

‘What? Oh yes, I should think so. It should be straightforward.’

All straightforward, but when you’re going to hell in a handcart you can never be sure, can you? said a little voice inside his mind. You can never be sure what might happen on the road to
hell. It’s a very smooth road, but there are often some surprises along the way, remember that, Walter and watch out for the surprises on the way . . .

The ambulance had tiny slitlike windows in the rear but when Walter wiped the condensation away with his coat cuff there was nothing to be seen but dense blackness. He tried to see over the
driver’s shoulder. Surely they were nearing the junction with the main Kendal road? Their headlights were cutting a swathe of light through fields and hedges; once a little scurrying animal
dashed across their path and they swerved to avoid it and went on as before, but for a second Walter’s stomach had tightened with nervousness. Surprises on the way to hell, Walter,
remember?

He thought they were just coming up to the main thoroughfare that wound across to Kendal proper, which was about the halfway mark of the journey. No sooner had he reached this conclusion when
headlights coming from the other direction suddenly appeared. The driver swore and Walter’s heart skipped several beats.

‘Christ Almighty, the idiot’s driving straight at us!’ shouted the driver. ‘He’s on the wrong side of the road – is he mad or drunk?’

He swung the ambulance sharply over to the right to avoid the oncoming vehicle, and it bounced and skidded. The headlights of the other car flooded the interior: Walter saw Ketch throw up a hand
to shield his eyes from the glare, but he had no time to spare for Ketch; he was concerned that Elizabeth, semi-comatose from the morphia, was not thrown from the bed. He dived forwards, trying to
wrap his arms round her as the ambulance bounced off the road.

The ambulance tipped violently to one side as the wheels sagged into a pothole or a ditch and this time Ketch was flung hard against the sides, his head banging against the metal with a dull
crunch.

The headlights skewed crazily upwards, and there was a crackle of brilliance on Walter’s vision that might have been lights or might be something exploding behind his eyes.

He had no idea how much time had passed before he returned to a full awareness of the scene inside the ambulance.

It was very quiet. Ketch was lying where he had fallen, but he was groaning slightly and sounded all right. Walter managed to call out to the driver, asking if he was hurt, deeply relieved when
he said no he wasn’t bloody hurt, but he had known from the start that something would go wrong with this journey, and hadn’t he been right!

‘What happened?’

‘Some silly bugger drove straight at us, that’s what happened,’ said the driver explosively. ‘Drunk most like. He swerved at the last minute or we’d have done a lot
worse than land in a ditch. Bumped my head on the windscreen.’

‘Were you knocked out?’

‘Bit stunned for a few minutes, but I ain’t seeing double or anything if that’s what you mean.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ Walter was checking Ketch’s vital signs, but the man’s pulse rate was steady, and he seemed to be coming round. ‘Is there any means of
having a light here?’

‘There is if it hasn’t smashed in the jolt. Wait a bit . . .’

A rather subdued light came on, and Walter said, ‘Oh God.’

‘What’s wrong?’ said the driver, turning round to look.

In a voice from which all expression had drained, Walter said, ‘The prisoner’s gone.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

‘It wasn’t your fault, Dr Kane,’ said the police inspector, seated in Edgar Higneth’s office. ‘Clearly the journey had to be made and you arranged
it in the only way possible.’

‘If any blame’s to be apportioned,’ said Higneth, tired and old-looking in the grey dawn, ‘it should be apportioned to me.’

‘Well, sir, I can’t see how else you were to get Molland to the infirmary other than in an ambulance,’ said the inspector. ‘You had two people guarding her, which
I’d have thought more than enough. I’d have to say, though, that it doesn’t seem very likely she got herself out of the ambulance, not in that condition. You’d definitely
given her the morphia, had you, Dr Kane?’

‘Yes. You can see the record of it and the dosage. There are a few people who have a high tolerance to morphia, of course,’ said Walter. ‘But she seemed to be drowsy enough.
It’s difficult to fake the effects of morphia, Inspector. Pinpoint pupils, for instance.’

‘To my mind, there are only two possibilities here,’ said the inspector. ‘The first is that she wasn’t as ill as she seemed.’

He glanced at Walter as he said this, and Walter said at once, ‘That’s got to be considered. I’m not infallible and my diagnosis was never definite.’

‘You might not be infallible, but you’re very good,’ said Higneth.

Walter shot him a grateful look, and then said, ‘But she seems to have managed to escape from the ambulance while the warder and the driver were knocked out – and while I was
dazed.’

‘So you think she might have been faking after all?’

‘People in here do fake illness,’ said Walter. ‘But by now I’m aware of most of the tricks they pull and I can usually spot them. I thought she was genuine, but . .
.’

‘But it’s not that difficult to induce vomiting and a fever,’ said the inspector thoughtfully. ‘Had she any opportunity to take anything from the dispensary?’

‘No,’ said Walter. ‘And the drugs book balances with the drugs in stock – I’ve checked – it was one of the first things I did when I got back.’

‘Well, it only needs something as homely as mustard stirred in hot water or a good swig of ipecacuanha, and most households have both those things. What about visitors? Did anyone visit
her in the last twenty-four hours? Anyone from outside?’

‘No one,’ said Edgar Higneth at once, and Walter glanced at him. He’s not going to tell the police about Sir Lewis’s visit, he thought. Is that because he knows the
truth? Or because he thinks Lewis is involved in this? For a moment he wondered whether to mention his own phone call, but that might throw suspicion on Lewis. It might also mean Elizabeth’s
paternity coming out, and Walter could not see it would do anyone any good to make that public – not yet, at any rate. Hopefully it would never need to come out at all. So for the moment he
would follow Higneth’s lead.

‘If Molland genuinely did have appendicitis,’ the inspector was saying, ‘it’s unlikely she could have got out of that ambulance and walked anywhere, that’s right,
isn’t it, Dr Kane?’

‘Yes, certainly. Especially allowing for the morphia.’

‘And even if she had managed to crawl a few hundred yards, my men would have found her by now. Which brings us to the other possibility.’

‘The driver of the car who forced the ambulance off the road,’ said Walter.

‘Bit of a coincidence, wasn’t it, that car?’ said the inspector. ‘Coming along that stretch of road just at that time. You’re sure you couldn’t make a stab at
identifying it, Dr Kane?’

‘No, I told you. It was pouring with rain and dark. I think it was a black car, but it could have been any make.’

‘Pity,’ said the inspector. ‘Still, we’ll work on it being black. There wouldn’t be too many cars on the road at that time of night, in those conditions. And it
does sound as if the driver could have got her out while you were all unconscious.’

‘I wasn’t out for long,’ said Walter. ‘I don’t think the ambulance driver was, either. I think we were more dazed than anything.’

‘Yes, but look here, Inspector, if the car driver did get her out, that argues pre-knowledge,’ put in Higneth. ‘And hardly anyone knew Dr Kane was making the journey. In any
case, who would take such a massive risk? Friends? It’s a lonely business being a murderer and from all the accounts Elizabeth – and Fremlin – lived very much withdrawn from the
world for all those months they were together.’

‘Everyone inside Calvary knew she was being taken to Kendal though,’ said the inspector. ‘Her parents knew it.’

Her parents. Walter said, ‘Yes, but would her parents have had time to set things up? I only phoned Molland an hour earlier, if that. And if Elizabeth was taken, she had to be taken
somewhere safe. That couldn’t have been arranged so quickly, could it?’

‘Whoever took her could just have driven her as far away as possible and booked into an hotel or a guest house,’ said the inspector. ‘There’re hundreds of them for miles
around. We’ll check as many as we can, but that’s a long-winded process.’