Let him off the hook? What language was this young man speaking? Oh yes, the nurse had said he was from America. Magda decided she didn't like Americans. Why had it taken them so long to join the war effort against the Germans? Which was a stupid and needless war anyway. She and Augustus liked the Germans. They were a fine race of people, strong and adamantine in their beliefs and pursuits. Not like the insidious Jews, the murderers of Christ. And not like the Americans with their impudence and slovenly speech. Not like this impertinent individual before her now.
'Look, we know how badly those kids were treated. We found the Punishment Book, y'see, and it's all written down, every detail of the punishments given for so-called misbehaviour—the canings, the whippings with a leather belt, making 'em go without food, the cold baths, standing still for hours in their underwear. Pretty harsh on a bunch of orphans, the eldest of 'em no more than twelve years. Sure, I know things were different in those days, but even so, you and your brother were a tad excessive, don't you think? The authorities would've thought so too if they'd ever found out. What puzzles me is why you didn't destroy the book—oh, and the split-ended cane we found with it—instead of just hiding it. Why was that, Magda?'
Because Augustus would not allow her to! He said every transgression and its consequence had to be recorded as evidence of their exemplary guardianship. But, always the pragmatic one, she knew the powers that be would never approve of their methods for controlling disobedient boys and girls, so, with his grudging acquiescence, she had hidden the book and the thrashing cane away. Inspectors might arrive on any day of any week, so it was best that they find no handwritten testimony to the punishments. Both book and stick could easily be retrieved whenever they were required.
'And for some reason there was a picture stashed away too. Of the kids and you and your brother.'
And the trainee teacher, the silly girl who protested and threatened to betray them with exaggerated stories of how the children were treated! Well she had been dealt with and the photograph put away with the other items because the young girl's image served as a constant reminder and Magda did not like to dwell on just how she had silenced Miss High-and-Mighty Linnet. But Magda was too proud of the photograph to get rid of it. It displayed Augustus and her in all their authority, a permanent tribute to their fine achievement and dedication. Before, they had been mere teachers with limited powers, but then the opportunity had come along to become tutors and custodians of eleven evacuee orphans for the duration at Crickley Hall, far from the war-torn city. She and Augustus had been chosen for the post from above all other applicants. No, she could never have destroyed that photograph. She swelled with pride just thinking of it. If only Augustus had not suffered the headaches, the excruciating pain that had him crushing his head between his own hands to suppress it. It was the headaches that slowly deranged his brilliant mind, leaving him with fits of uncontrollable anger. It was the agony of them that caused the insanity.
'Okay, I'm done here. It was my wife's idea to drop by anyway. I didn't expect much, and that's what I got. 'Cept for a slight reaction in your eyes. I caught it twice, just a flicker, even though you wouldn't look at me. Once when I said my wife thought Crickley Hall was haunted, and then again when I mentioned the photograph. Both times it was just a stab of fear. Well, it looked like fear to me. It came and went fast, but it was there.
'Maybe you're trapped inside a world of unresolved guilt, living in a hell all your own. Who can say? If I've got it wrong, I apologize. Didn't mean to bother you. So long, Magda, I hope you really don't remember.'
He was going! At last he was leaving the room. Curiously, she was tempted to break all her years of silence to speak to him. She wanted to defend her righteous brother. And herself, of course. But silence had protected her for a long time now—a century, it seemed—and she was not about to break it for this brazen young man. In truth, she had remained quiet for so long that she wondered if her voice had atrophied along with her tired old body. Damn this stranger, and damn all those others, all those officials and medical people who had tried to make her communicate! There, this man had caused her to curse. But God would forgive her. He had forgiven her for everything else, even the killing of the teacher, because He understood the necessity. God was with her always.
Besides, she hadn't cursed aloud, had she? So it didn't count.
•
Gabe was more disgusted with himself than impatient with Magda Cribben. She may have been one hell of a bitch when she was young, but now she was just a shrivelled-up old lady who looked so frail a sharp sneeze might cause her whole body to disintegrate. In the photograph he'd found she appeared so formidable, with her colourless face and black, shadowed eyes and stiff posture. Now she was a relic of her former self, a pathetic hunched figure whose bone structure seemed to have shrunk beneath her flesh. Yet, oddly, she did not have an elderly person's vulnerability; there was still something scary in her unblinking gaze. Had he really seen a flicker of fear in her eyes, though, or were both times only in his own imagination?
At the door he glanced round for one last look at her: she remained staring at the blank wall.
Well, at least he'd kept his promise to Eve, he thought to himself as he strode out into the corridor.
He had only taken a few paces when the partially open door he and the nurse had passed by earlier swung wider. A thin, brown-spotted arm reached out to him.
'Mister,' a low, raspy voice whispered.
Gabe stopped and saw the same wrinkled face that had peered out at him before; now there was more of it to see. The woman with grey straggly hair clutched a worn pink dressing gown closed tight against her flat chest and he could see the hem of a nightdress hanging low round her skinny ankles and slippered feet.
He drew close and she narrowed the gap in the door again as if fearing he might attack her.
'D'you need something?' Gabe asked. 'Can I get a nurse for you?'
'No, no, I jus' wants to speak to yer.' She had an accent almost as broad as Percy's. 'Yer've been to see her ladyship, haven't yer?' The elderly resident didn't wait for a reply. 'No one ever comes to see her. Got no relatives, no friends either. Give yer the silent treatment, did she?' She gave a sharp cackle.
'Yeah,' said Gabe. 'She never spoke a word.'
'Likes to pretend she can't speak, that one does, likes to play dumb. But I've heard in the middle of the night when everyone's's'posed to be sleeping. Walls're thin d'you see, an' I don't sleep much nowadays. I listen an' I hear Magda Cribben speakin' plain as day. She has nightmares and she moans somethin' awful an' talks to herself. Not loud though, not so the night nurse might come down to her. I can hear all right though. Puts my ear against the wall. Thinks they're comin' to get her, see?'
'Who? The police?' It was a fair assumption if Magda had played some part in the children's deaths. Guilt might still be hounding her.
The woman became tetchy, almost cross. 'No, no, not the police!' Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper again. 'It's the kiddies she's scared of. She thinks they're comin' back to get her for what she done to 'em. She cries out she's sorry, she shouldn't have lef 'em alone. She don't do it fer long, jus' fer a coupla minutes most nights. She can speak all right, despite what they thinks here. I know, I can hear her.'
She closed the door a little more, as if even more cautious.