We was his best mates, dad. We had some laughs with Robbie.
‘As someone trained always to see the best in people, I confess to having a problem with those kids,’ Merrily admitted.
‘Let’s not dress this up, Mrs Watkins,’ Mumford said. ‘They killed him. As good as.’
And she was in no position to dismiss it. When they left, stepping under the door into the dark and the damp, she noticed Mumford stuffing the crushed turquoise baseball cap into his jacket pocket. Then he picked up the computer.
‘Long shot,’ he said. ‘But it’s possible the hard disk might not be totally destroyed.’
Jane woke up so suddenly that Merrily had to hold on to the chair to stop it tipping over.
‘Sorry…’ She held on to the kid’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t realize you were—’
The scullery was lit only by the computer. Merrily felt she’d had about enough of computers for one night. She had to have a bath. She felt exhausted and aching and soiled and useless.
‘Why haven’t you gone to bed?’
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘How long have you—?’ She saw what was on the screen. ‘You fell asleep online?’
‘Oh shit… listen, it’s been twenty minutes max. Anyway, it doesn’t cost much at night.’
‘Forget it, it’s my fault.’ Merrily switched on the anglepoise lamp and turned off the computer. ‘I should’ve rung – except I thought if you’d gone to bed— Don’t look at me like that. Things were… difficult. I realize it’s unlikely I’m looking my best.’
‘Shit…’ Jane breathed.
‘Jane—’
‘Things really were bloody difficult, weren’t they?’
‘I’m OK. I’ll tell you about it in the morning. In confidence.’
‘So, like, did Mumford do that?’
‘Huh?’
‘Was it Mumford gave you the black eye?’
‘What?’
Merrily stumbled out of the study, through the kitchen to the mirror in the hall, slapping lights on. From the framed print, Holman-Hunt’s Jesus Christ regarded her with sorrow and pity and eternal understanding.
‘Oh shit,’ Merrily said.
When she came back to the study, holding a cold sponge to her eye, the computer was back on and Jane was in front of it. Didn’t even turn round to reinspect the injury.
‘Mum… take a look at this.’
‘You know what time it is?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Listen… The suicide chat-rooms, OK? I got into this one, and it seemed to be just, like, crap. There was this guy in Nevada, and— Anyway, I logged on under a false name—’
‘Sadgirl?’ Merrily leaned over the desk. ‘That’s you?’
‘And Belladonna was there. Or least her music was, but Lol said somebody might have just ripped that off. And there was a song she covered, a famous suicide song, where lots of people connected with it topped themselves. It was Hungarian originally, composed in 1933.’
Merrily dabbed at the eye, wishing now that she hadn’t brought Jane into this. ‘Sounds a bit tenuous.’
‘Except Belladonna’s boyfriend also committed suicide, just like the original composer, by – get this – jumping off a high building?’
‘Well, that’s… it’s tragic and everything, but it’s not exactly an uncommon method.’
‘Yeah, well, I was trying to find a stronger connection. I dropped in the name Belladonna and got a nasty reply from this bastard, Karone, which is what he seems to specialize in, and then – this must’ve come in while I was asleep, right?’
‘OK, let me see…’
Merrily eased Jane away from the screen. Sneery message from someone called Karone the Boatman, and then someone called Dolores had written,
Sadgirl, you have to understand Karone is a technical adviser and inclined to be abrupt. i think what he’s saying is you need to go back and think things out. this is the biggest thing you have ever done or will ever do. i myself know, because of my condition, that i’m going to have to do this thing sometime, and all that is important to me is that when the time comes i do it efficiently and quickly and without leaving an unsightly mess for my folks to clear up. you sound like your problems are emotional and i beg you to go away and think again because it will surely pass.
‘Sorry, that’s not the one.’ Jane scrolled down. ‘I feel really bad about Dolores. She’s obviously got something really horrible wrong with her.’ She put a forefinger on the screen. ‘This one.’
REVENANT
Sadgirl, Belladonna understands.
Death is eternal life without pain.
Know that we must make our own eternity.
20
Old Ludlow
‘CANON CALLAGHAN-CLARKE is looking for you,’ Sophie said, without glancing up. ‘She’s rung here twice already. Claiming your answering machine isn’t switched on.’
‘Can’t believe how inefficient I am sometimes.’
Merrily dumped her bag on the desk, pulled out the chair opposite Sophie, who was addressing an envelope by hand with a fountain pen. Glasses on the tip of her nose, Sophie put the envelope in a tray, for the ink to dry, and started on another.
They’d talked on the phone soon after nine, when Jane, clear-eyed and superficially undamaged by minimal sleep, had carried off a slice of toast and marmalade to the bus stop. Merrily had told Jane a certain amount, not everything, about last night. She’d told Sophie – because there were probably confessionals less secure than this office – the whole situation. More or less.
‘Oh yes,’ Sophie said. ‘On the filing cabinet – this morning’s Daily Mail.’
‘Oh.’
The paper was folded at page five and a fuzzy picture of Jemima Pegler at a party, collapsed in laughter, with two other girls holding her up. The circumstances of her death had come to light too late for yesterday’s morning papers to indulge in more than straight reporting.
What a difference a day made: on the other side of the page from Jemima was a line drawing of a woman in a medieval robe and headdress.
A leap across time… Eight centuries separated them. But now Jemima Pegler and Marion de la Bruyère are united in tragic death.
Obvious the media would discover Marion. And nobody waited for an inquest any more; the police line ‘no suspicious circumstances’ was a strong enough pointer to suicide. The story said Jemima’s death had the hallmarks of a copycat suicide, but who was she copying – Robbie Walsh or the death-plunge of the twelfth-century woman whose ghost was said to haunt the castle?
The story is certainly well known in Ludlow, according to Jonathan Scole, who runs Ghostours, which organizes lectures and guided walks around the town’s haunted buildings.
‘Our tours are getting increasingly popular, and this poor kid may well have come to one. We do occasionally get groups of teenage girls.
‘Marion is a very romantic figure, and one of the highlights of the tour is gathering under the castle wall at the precise spot where she fell.
‘It’s intended to be pure entertainment, and I’m afraid I do tend to ham it up a bit.
‘Naturally, it horrifies me that the story could have had this kind of impact on someone, but I doubt it did. If we’d had a multi-storey car park, it’s quite possible she would have jumped off that.
‘I think if someone’s determined to die, they’re going to do it somehow, aren’t they?’
But an experienced psychiatrist who is studying the Ludlow deaths, said that a second fatal fall at the castle was disturbing because it indicated the formation of a behavioural pattern.