Roots of Evil(128)

She was dressed plainly in a skirt and sweater but there was just the suggestion of hospital starch about her, and of thermometers and stainless steel bowls. A nurse? No, but something close to it. At once the plan that had been shifting its contours in Edmund’s mind dropped into place, and he saw his way forward.

‘I’m sorry I was a few minutes coming to the door,’ said the brisk lady. ‘Can I help you at all?’ She spoke English smoothly, but there was a slight inflection that emphasized the faint foreign air.

Edmund’s whole body was thrumming with nervous anticipation, but he smiled Crispin’s smile, and introduced himself as Mr Edwards, apologizing for intruding. A business journey from London to a place just north of Rotherham, he said, and he happened to have mentioned it to his good friend, Michael Sallis, earlier in the week. Michael had suggested he might break his journey here since it was only a few miles out of his way. And, said Edmund, he understood that visitors were always welcome.

‘Oh, how very nice,’ said the woman. ‘I always like to see a new face. Mr Sallis comes up about once a month, but of course he phones as well, just to see if there’s any news.’

‘So I believe,’ said Edmund, picking his way carefully, but thankful that he seemed to be striking the right note.

‘A bit of company always helps as well,’ said the woman. ‘Come along in. There’s very little change, of course, but we stay positive. Would you like a cup of coffee? – I was just thinking I would make some for myself.’

‘That would be very kind.’

‘We’ve converted one of the downstairs rooms,’ said the woman, leading Edmund along the hall. ‘Friendlier, somehow, than being tucked away upstairs. And it’s at the back of the house, so we can open the French windows on to the garden in summer. I’ll take you through.’



It was a large room, and in the summer it would be filled with sunshine from the garden beyond. But on a dark autumnal day the shadows clustered everywhere, and there was a feeling of immense quietness, as if hardly anything had happened here for a very long time. A high, narrow, hospital-type bed stood near the window.

Edmund paused just inside the door, waiting for the woman’s footsteps to die away. Had she gone back to the kitchen? Yes, that was the sound of a door opening and closing. Then he was on his own for a brief space.

Except that he was not on his own at all. There was someone lying in the high narrow bed. Someone who lay very still, and whose light papery breathing barely stirred the covers. As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he began to make out colours, shapes, features…

There was no movement from the bed, barely even any indication of life. Sleeping? But as he moved to stand by the bed, he could see that this was deeper than sleep. You’re very far away, said Edmund silently. You haven’t quite died and I don’t know if you’re drugged or in a semi-coma, but you’re not really in this world any longer. Beneath all these thoughts, an immense tidal wave of emotion was sweeping over him because he knew, definitely and unquestionably, who this was.

The legend. The person about whom all those stories had been told, and upon whom so many of those rumours had focused. Edmund did not understand how it had happened, or how the legend had wound up in this remote corner of England, but he knew who was lying in the narrow bed.

As he stared down, he was strongly aware that Crispin was pouring into his mind, filling him up, so that all the guilt and the fear scalded through Edmund’s whole body. He thought he gasped with the pain of it, and he must certainly have made some sound, because the movement he had been watching for came from the bed. A light stirring, and then a half-turning of the head.

You’re not yet so far away that you don’t sense I’m here, thought Edmund. But is it me you’re sensing? Or is it Crispin? Because it’s Crispin who’s smiling down at you, and it’s Crispin who’s reaching into the coat pocket for the syringe, and who’s saying to me, Isn’t it fortunate that we brought this with us, dear boy…

It isn’t me in this room any longer, thought Edmund. It’s Crispin. It’s Crispin who’s about to sever this remaining link to the shameful past. The voice inside his head was very clear, and he could hear exactly what Crispin was saying.

One last murder to commit, that was what Crispin was saying. One last murder, and then we can be safe.

And this murder, dear boy, is going to be the easiest of them all…

As he bent over the bed, the door opened behind him.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN




Lucy and Francesca had not been able to keep up with the police cars, which had hurtled away at top speed and vanished into the swirling traffic and the snaking network of roads.

‘I didn’t think we would,’ said Fran. ‘But I think we’re on the right track.’

After they left the motorway the roads narrowed and were harder to negotiate, but the signs were still clear. They were going deep into the fenlands, and if the telegraph poles and the occasional electrical pylon or cellphone-mast could have been blocked out, they could both have believed themselves to have somehow gone back to medieval times.

‘I’ve never been to this part of England before,’ said Lucy. ‘Have you?’

‘Fen country. No, I haven’t. But there’s masses of history out here and lovely bits of folklore. The Babes in the Wood in Wayland Forest and the Paston Letters, and some of the settings for David Copperfield. I might set up a project for my sixth-formers on all the associations of the place,’ said Francesca thoughtfully. ‘Where are we now?’