Before the Poison Page 4

  See how easily distracted I am by memories of Laura? These are the blind alleys I suddenly find myself wandering down, the cul-de-sacs of lost love, where the grief waits with its sharp blade, jabs at me all of a sudden like a mugger in the night and makes my eyes burn. These are the deserted plazas of the heart, my very own boulevard of broken dreams. Get a grip, you sad old bastard, get a grip.

  ‘Problem, Mr Lowndes?’

  I was standing outside the bank a couple of hours later, getting in the way of the people queuing for the cash dispensers, when I saw Heather Barlow.

  I smiled. ‘Chris. I told you.’

  ‘Chris, then. But you seem a bit discombobulated.’

  ‘You could say that.’ I gestured towards the bank. ‘They won’t let me open an account without a utility bill. I told them I’ve just moved in, and I haven’t received one yet, and I need a bank account so I can pay my utility bills. They don’t seem to get the irony of it. They don’t care. They say it’s the Bank of England’s rules to protect them from terrorists and money-launderers. Do I look like a terrorist or a money-launderer?’

  Heather looked me up and down. ‘Well, you could probably pass for a money-launderer, but a terrorist, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘And when I told her I felt like I’d just been in a Monty Python sketch, she pulled a face and said, “Who?”’

  Heather laughed.

  ‘I’m glad someone thinks it’s funny,’ I said. ‘Look, I need a drink. In fact, I think I need two. And maybe some lunch. Care to join me?’

  Heather glanced at her watch. ‘Why don’t we go to the Black Lion? It’s just down Finkle Street here. They do a decent pub lunch.’

  ‘Lead on.’

  We entered a narrow street beside the bank, pedestrians only, except for local delivery vans, and walked past a row of shops, including a butcher’s, a charity shop and a post office. ‘What will you do about the banking?’ Heather asked.

  ‘I suppose I’ll leave things as they are for the moment. I can put everything on plastic and have it paid off by my US bank until I get a utility bill.’ I shook my head. ‘I even threatened to take my business to another bank. Guess what the girl said?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘“You’ll have no luck there. They’re worse than we are.”’

  ‘You’re not in Los Angeles any more.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘It’s just here.’

  We walked through the door and down the short flight of steps into the pub. To the right was a flagged dining area, and one of the tables near the window was free. The room wasn’t quite a basement, but I still got the sensation of looking up at the people passing by outside.

  Heather took off her coat and shook her hair, then sat down. ‘How about I get us each a glass of champagne,’ I said, ‘and we can have that toast?’

  Heather laughed. ‘You can try,’ she said. ‘More realistically, I’ll have a glass of white wine, please. Dry, if they ask.’

  When the polite young barmaid asked me what I wanted, I chickened out of the champagne and asked for a pint of Black Sheep and a glass of dry white wine. Yorkshire pubs have come a long way during my lengthy absence, but perhaps not as far as chilled Veuve Clicquot for lunch. The menu was chalked on a blackboard over the fireplace at the back of the dining room. Heather decided on chicken casserole, and I ordered the ‘monster’ fish and chips. My cardiologist would probably have had something to say about the fried food, but at least it was fish, not the ubiquitous roast beef. Against Heather’s protestations, I paid for both the drinks and meals at the bar.

  ‘We might as well drink a toast to your new home, anyway, don’t you think?’ said Heather, raising her glass. ‘Even if we don’t have any champagne.’ We clinked glasses.

  We chatted easily for a while as we waited for our food, Heather telling me more about the ins and outs of local life, where to get this, why to avoid that, how to do this, where the fitness centre and swimming pool were located. Our meals arrived, my battered piece of fish hanging off the plate at both ends. Heather laughed at my expression. ‘Get that in LA?’

  ‘We did have a fish and chip shop, as a matter of fact, but they mostly served Pacific snapper en papillotte and seared mahimahi with a guacamole roulade.’

  I washed the fish down with Black Sheep and everything tasted good. When you’re living away from England and people ask you what you miss the most, you usually say, quite spontaneously, the pubs and the fish and chips. It was interesting to learn that there was more than a grain of truth in that.

  ‘How are you finding the house?’ Heather asked. ‘Anything you want rid of?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not yet. Apart from some old books, and I can take them to the Oxfam shop myself. No, it’s fine. A lovely place. I’m sure I’ll settle in well enough. I have one question for you, though.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who was the owner? I didn’t really pay much attention to the paperwork, to be honest. I let my lawyer deal with it. But when I looked it over I saw that the owner was listed as a partnership of solicitors.’

  ‘That’s right. Simak and Fletcher.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Exactly what it says. Kilnsgate House has been held in trust by Simak and Fletcher for many years now. There was enough money in the estate to pay for the upkeep. They acted as the owner’s agent in the sale.’

  ‘So that’s why it’s their name on the deeds and contracts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t know the family that owned the house before?’

  ‘There’s been no family there for years except occasional paying tenants. Not since long before my time.’

  ‘It seems a bit odd, though, doesn’t it? The anonymity. Everything shrouded in secrecy and mystery.’

  ‘You’re reading too much into it. It happens more often than you’d think.’ We ate in silence for a while, then Heather said, ‘So you’re not too lonely up at Kilnsgate?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t had any company yet, but no. Too much to do to be lonely. Why don’t you and your husband come over for dinner some evening? Bring the children, too, if you have any. The more the merrier. I’m not a bad cook, though I’m a bit out of practice, and I have to get used to the different ingredients over here.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘That’s an excellent idea. We can have seared mahimahi with guacamole roulade.’

  ‘Now you’re making fun.’

  ‘Couldn’t resist.’

  ‘I promise you something very English. How’s that?’

  ‘What makes you think I don’t like mahimahi? Do you think we’re all boring backwoods provincials up here?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re boring at all. How about Saturday?’

  ‘Let me check and give you a ring. No kids, by the way. You mentioned you had two?’

  ‘Yes. Boy and a girl, Jane and Martin. Both in their early twenties. They both went off to university within a couple of years of each other – one to Stanford, the other to Johns Hopkins. Now they’re settling down. Jane’s pursuing a medical career in Baltimore, still single, and Martin’s in computers, married with one child already.’

  ‘That makes you a grandfather.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m a very young-looking one.’

  She smiled. ‘I can see that. So neither plans on coming to live with you over here?’

  ‘God, I hope not,’ I said, then paused. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound so bad, like I don’t love them or anything, and I certainly hope they’ll be visiting. But I’m looking for a bit of peace and quiet. There’s something I . . . I’ve got work to do, and I just, you know, I need to be on my own for a while, to sort myself out. It seems the last twenty years or so we didn’t slow down enough to see the world going by, and Laura’s death was such a blow. I don’t really think I’ve come to terms with it yet.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Heather. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘It’s all right.�
�� We ate in silence again for a few moments, then I said, ‘What you mentioned yesterday about houses having their secrets, their darker memories. What did you mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I meant anything in particular. It was just an off-the-cuff remark.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I mean, it didn’t sound like that. It sounded a bit ominous, as if you know something I don’t.’

  ‘Why do you ask? Did something happen? Has someone said something to you?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just a feeling.’ I drank some more beer. ‘You do know something about the house, don’t you? Is it something to do with the owner wanting to remain anonymous?’

  Heather laughed, but it sounded a little more nervous and less musical than her previous laughter. ‘I really don’t know much about that at all,’ she said.

  ‘But there is something?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. A little ancient notoriety, perhaps.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. I don’t really know any of the details.’

  ‘But it’s not the kind of thing you rush to tell prospective buyers?’

  She seemed to relax at that and leaned back in her chair and sighed. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ she said. ‘Neither here nor there. But you’re right, I suppose. It’s not something you advertise. Discretion just becomes second nature in this business.’

  ‘What is it? Will you tell me now? I promise not to ask for my money back.’

  ‘Of course. You’ve bought the place now, after all, haven’t you? Signed, sealed and delivered. Kilnsgate House used to belong to a local doctor, a GP, I believe. This was in the war and during the early fifties, you understand. A long, long time ago. Before I was even born.’

  ‘I understand. What happened?’

  ‘His wife poisoned him.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’

  ‘She was hanged. Quite a cause célèbre at the time, but a bit of a flash in the pan, not much remembered these days. That’s all I know. Honest.’ She grabbed her coat and bag from the other chair. ‘And now I really must be getting back to the office. Thank you for lunch. Hope to see you on Saturday. I’ll ring tomorrow.’

  I sat in the large dark room at half past three in the morning playing the third Schubert Impromptu, the one in G flat major, on the out-of-tune grand piano, a tumbler of whisky balanced precariously at one end of the keyboard. I had found the sheet music among a collection in the piano stool. Someone had made notes in the margins in a neat, tiny hand. Bad dreams and strange noises had woken me yet again – wind in the chimneys, the usual creaks and groans from the woodwork and the boughs of the trees outside. It would take me some time to get used to it. The apartment in Santa Monica had been quiet.

  As usual, when I awoke in the middle of the night I missed Laura the most. The sense of loneliness is sometimes so intense that I can find no reason to get up in the morning, no reason to play or write music, no reason to do anything. I drink, perhaps a bit too much, but I don’t think I’m an alcoholic. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suicidal. I don’t want to end my life, even at my lowest ebb; I just want it to ramble along smoothly and indifferently without any effort or participation on my part. And perhaps Kilnsgate House is just a bit too perfect an environment to indulge in that lassitude. I have to keep reminding myself that I have come here to work as well as to heal. This is my chance to be remembered for composing something other than music nobody listens to.

  Schubert’s beautiful andante sounded so badly mangled that I had to stop playing. Luckily, I had found a piano tuner in the Yellow Pages, and he had agreed to come over the following day. It meant I would have to stay in, as he couldn’t guarantee the exact time of his arrival, but it would be worth the inconvenience to have the Steinway in good working order.

  I picked up my whisky and went to stand by the French windows. I could see only the vague silhouette of the treeline against the night sky beyond my own reflection in the glass; there were few stars visible through holes in the clouds, but they shone brightly. Here, the darkness was almost as total and overwhelming as the silence.

  As I stood, I thought about what Heather Barlow had told me that lunchtime and how it had subtly shifted my perspective on Kilnsgate House. I know it all happened a long time ago, and that many people have lived in the house since then. The place has no doubt seen numerous happy moments, and the halls have echoed to the sound of children’s shouts and laughter, not screams and cries. But that vague something I had sensed in what was now my office, and in other nooks and crannies, the feeling I had that the house had been waiting for me, that it had secrets to tell me, somehow took on a new perspective now I knew that a tragedy had occurred here. Perhaps I was imagining it all with the benefit of hindsight. I wasn’t used to living in old places full of other people’s memories. Everywhere I had lived in LA was new.

  Knowing didn’t really alter my feelings. It didn’t disgust me or frighten me. If there were ghosts, I thought, they were pretty harmless. I knew why Heather had kept it from me. She was a practised saleswoman, and there’s no point even hinting at something unsavoury about what you’re selling. There are no doubt people who would baulk at living in the house of a murderess and her victim, no matter how long ago the events took place. But not me.

  I didn’t think I was enjoying some sort of vicarious thrill in the world of the sensational and the macabre, but I was interested. I have a naturally curious nature, and it intrigued me that the house I was now living in, now owned, had once been home to a murderess. I knew nothing about these people and their lives – or deaths; Heather hadn’t been very forthcoming about the details. But I wanted to find out more. Put it down to having too much time on my hands. Let’s face it, even if I was going to work on a piano sonata, there was only so much time in a day I could spend on it. And with no one around to talk to, and not much else to do except read, watch TV and work on DIY projects – a slap of paint here, a new door handle there – I would have plenty of time to research a forgotten piece of local history.

  I took my drink with me into the TV room and flipped through my selection of DVDs. In the end I settled for Billy Liar. It was my story, after all, except at the end I would have gone to London with Julie Christie like a shot.

  3

  Famous Trials: Grace Elizabeth Fox, April 1953, by Sir Charles Hamilton Morley

  The peaceful and picturesque old market town of Richmond stands majestically above the River Swale in one of the most enchanting corners of the North Riding of Yorkshire, commanding a panoramic view of the meadows and hills beyond. Its character and charm are evident in its many quiet wyndes, its quaint riverside and woodland walks, the Friary Tower, its cobbled market square, with Trinity Church at its centre, and perhaps most of all, in its ruined castle, begun in the year of our Lord 1071. The castle dominates the town from its steep hilltop above the Swale and offers many remarkable prospects in all directions.

  It was in the town of Richmond that a young doctor from Stockton-on-Tees called Ernest Arthur Fox arrived by bus on the 21st day of March, 1919, to take over the practice of the venerable Dr. MacWhirter, who, at the age of 77, had decided it was finally time to retire.

  After his brilliant career at medical school, where he distinguished himself in both neurology and microbiology, Dr. Fox had recently returned from his duties at a base hospital in Flanders, where he had helped treat victims of mustard gas and other war injuries. We can no doubt be certain that many of the memories he brought with him of our gallant young wounded soldiers were the stuff that nightmares are made on, and that, perhaps as a result of these, his expressed desire to enter into general practice in a small town, while, of course, maintaining his research interests and teaching connections with local hospitals in both Newcastle and Northallerton, should not have come as a great surprise to his family and friends.

  Dr. Fox presented a robust and vigorous figure possessed of that certain dignity of bearing that is i
ndicative of good breeding. He could frequently be seen striding the many woodland and riverside footpaths, walking-stick in hand, cape billowing in the wind. Though none would describe Dr. Fox as a handsome or a warm-natured man, he possessed a certain almost aristocratic charm that earned him the respect of all who came into contact with him, if not their love.

  Dr. MacWhirter’s thriving practice was situated on Newbiggin, a broad, cobbled, tree-lined street close to the market square. Dr. Fox was able to take as his first lodgings the apartment directly above the surgery. Dr. MacWhirter remained in Richmond for one month, during which time he acquainted his successor with the ways and customs of the local townsfolk and farmers, and with the manner in which he had found it best to manage his practice. After that, he left the district, and our story, never to return.

  By all accounts, Dr. Fox proved as thrifty and industrious as he was robust. No doubt things were difficult for the young doctor at the beginning, Yorkshire folk being notoriously resistant to change and reluctant to part with their money, but it is reported that he soon won the confidence of the local people – and, perhaps more important, their purses – and before long he was running such a successful practice that, in 1923, he took on as his partner one Dr. Clifford Nelson, from the nearby market town of Bedale. Dr. Nelson’s young wife Mary proved invaluable to the business side of the practice, with her book-keeping and accounting skills.

  In time, Dr. Fox was able to move from his cramped apartment to a small detached house overlooking the Richmond cricket ground, and his practice continued to thrive. In addition to his duties as a general practitioner, he consulted on certain surgical cases and diseases at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle, involved himself in various research projects around the country, assisted in a number of minor operations and delivered lectures on various learned topics.