A Ghost in the Machine Read online

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “We need some spuds.” She smiled, taking his hand. “I’ll show you where they are.”

  Mallory found a fork in the shed and started to dig, putting the Nicola potatoes in an old bucket. As Kate began to pick the broad beans she suddenly remembered what day it was. At four o’clock this afternoon Ashley had been due to see his GP. Had been called in specially. They must be home by now. She hoped the news was good but couldn’t help feeling that if it had been they would have rung to say so.

  When Mallory’s bucket was full he took it and the beans to the kitchen, returning almost straight away looking slightly more cheerful.

  “Benny’s made us some Pimm’s.”

  “Pimm’s…”

  “My aunt’s favourite.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Floating salad. Come and try.”

  There were several fraying Lloyd Loom chairs on the flagstones outside the french windows. And a great stone table on worn-away lion paws. Kate poured the drinks and went to find Benny so they could all sit down together.

  Mallory picked the borage and cucumber out of his glass, drained it and filled it up again. He leaned back, faking relaxation. The croquet lawn, half the size of a playing field and still studded with rusty hoops, stretched widely before him. Perhaps they could have a game soon? A croquet party – ask some friends down from London. Heaven knew, there was enough room to put people up. He would invite the Parnells and maybe some members of his aunt’s bridge club. He dwelled on this attractive prospect for a while, seeing small groups of people strolling across the grass: girls in summer dresses, men in crumpled linen jackets and straw Panamas. Occasionally there would be a burst of laughter. Or a cry of “Hoopla!” when someone’s mallet thwacked a precisely angled ball.

  Mallory, trying to fill up every corner of his mind with pleasant things, struggled to add yet more verisimilitude to this pastoral idyll. Some huge sunshades materialised, a swing in the cedar tree, a brightly coloured gazebo. For a moment he was really there amongst them. Taken out of himself, as the saying goes. But then a real sound broke across his consciousness and the dazzling picture vanished.

  “It’s all right for some,” said Kate. She sat down and splashed the Pimm’s into two glasses, adding ice from the portable ice box, smelling the orange mint. “Would you like another one, darling?”

  “I’ve had another one.”

  “These things are a bit creaky.” Kate tipped the chair back, resting her heels on a stone trough of Madonna lilies and tiny green ferns, tightly curled, like shepherds’ crooks. She took a deep swallow of the drink then slowly exhaled, letting everything go.

  “I told Dennis,” continued Kate, “half-seven for eight. It’s now seven thirty-five and Benny’s already fretting.”

  Dennis. Mallory, about to drain his glass, put it down. He had quite forgotten that Dennis wanted to have a talk with him directly after dinner. Something personal, he had said. And afterwards there would be the inaugural meeting of the Celandine Press. At this rate he’d be drunk before they’d even started eating. Angry and ashamed at how little it had taken to hurl him back into self-indulgent misery, Mallory smiled across at Kate.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  “About what?”

  “Ohh…being me.”

  “I’m not sorry you’re you. If I woke up one morning next to someone who wasn’t you I’d be livid.”

  “I wouldn’t be best pleased, myself.”

  “That’s all right then.”

  Benny, rosy from attending to the duck, appeared on the terrace steps. “This Pimm’s is delicious, Ben,” said Kate. “I’ve poured some out for you.”

  “Thank you.” Benny took the glass and perched on the terrace wall. She agitated the ice cubes gently but didn’t drink. “The thing is – I’m getting worried about Dennis. He’s never late, you see.”

  “He’s not late now.” Mallory found it difficult to sound reassuring when he could see no reason for anxiety. “It’s only ten to eight.”

  “Even so…” Benny, though sensing his impatience, stood her ground.

  “Look,” Kate got up. “I’ll walk over, if you like.”

  “We’ll all go,” said Mallory, leaning back with his eyes closed.

  “No,” said Benny. “You stay here; it’s such a lovely evening.” She disappeared back into the dining room, calling over her shoulder. “I’ll probably meet him halfway.”

  It was not generally known that, to balance the unhappy condition of spending her entire life riddled with anxiety, Benny had been given a protective talisman against disaster. All she had to do was remember to call upon it in any situation that looked like being even remotely hazardous.

  She had her father to thank for this device, which he drew to her attention when she was barely thirteen. Benny remembered exactly the moment this occurred. The family had been watching the local news on television. Sally, their Cairn terrier, was curled up in Benny’s lap. A woman, whose husband and son had just been pulverised when their car had been squashed under the wheels of an articulated lorry, was being asked by a sparky young reporter how she felt.

  “Shattered,” had been her reply. Then, choking between sobs, “I never thought this could happen to me.”

  “Did you hear that, Mother?” asked Mr. Frayle. “Doesn’t that bear out what I’ve always said vis-à-vis the human psyche?”

  “What’s that, dear?” replied Mrs. Frayle.

  “Time and time again my point is proved.”

  “What point, Daddy?”

  “Hush, Berenice,” said Mrs. Frayle. “Your father’s listening to the news.”

  “The only people disaster ever strikes are the people who think it could never happen to them.”

  Unaware of the devastating effect of these words on his teenage daughter Mr. Frayle folded his Daily Express and turned his attention once more to the tiny blue screen flickering in its cabinet of light oak.

  Forty years on and Berenice was still conscious of her extreme good fortune in having such a perceptive and intelligent father. What devastating stroke of ill fortune might have shattered her whole world any day at any time had she not taken this warning sincerely to heart?

  Every morning, from then on, Benny would write down a list of incidents that the following twenty-four hours might reasonably be expected to hold. Then she would imagine every single thing that could possibly go wrong during each occasion and, when the time came round, expected them all to happen. And it worked! Not a single catastrophe had ever occurred.

  Of course, she couldn’t quite hold each and every imagined possibility simultaneously in her mind while its companion event was occurring but she did her best. Naturally all this was a terrible strain and meant that only half her attention – if that – was on what she was supposed to be doing at any given time.

  Obviously some happenings were easier to classify as potentially disastrous than others. For instance a check on carrot root fly (catching foot in garden hose, falling, breaking leg) was not nearly as complex or alarming as a visit to the zoo (mauled by escaping tiger, trampled by rhino, catching psittacosis from parrot bite). Or a trip on the underground (pushed under wheels in rush hour by maddened claustrophobe). And there were a few rare occasions when Benny did not feel the need to use her talisman at all. Visits to Dennis fell into this category. However disorderly or unharmonious the real world, once in his presence Benny always felt nothing could go ill.

  These reflections had brought her to the gate of Kinders. It stood wide open, which was strange. Dennis was meticulous, not just in closing but also in fastening gates. Gates, doors, cupboards even. And lining up edges, straightening cutlery; even drawers were closed with hairline precision.

  Just as she had three evenings ago Benny made her way into the house via the garage. No warmth from the cooker tonight, no fragrant smells of turbot in white wine. Benny reprised her “Cooee?” but without much confidence. For no re
ason she could name she felt sure the flat was empty. But she checked the other rooms, just in case. Finally she approached the war room. The door was shut but Benny, emboldened by her previous successful sortie, opened it and stepped briskly inside.

  When Benny came back Kate and Mallory were still on the terrace, relaxing in the amber haze of the setting sun. They had been drifting idly in and out of conversation, talking of nothing special while shadows from the giant cedar slowly spread across the lawn, finally disappearing into the long grass.

  Mallory said, “Here she is.”

  Benny had appeared at the corner of the house and was making her way towards the terrace. She was walking slowly in an odd sort of shuffle. Then, as she came closer, Kate saw that her whole body was stiff and unnaturally straight, the arms held up at a sharp angle before her, poised to return an embrace. Like a bad actor playing a zombie.

  Kate sprang up, knocking over her glass of Pimm’s. Her welcoming smile vanished as she cried out Benny’s name and ran towards her.

  “Benny – what is it? What’s wrong?” She took Benny in her arms and embraced a column of stone. “Tell me. Tell me.”

  Benny made an unintelligible sound.

  “Oh God—Mallory—” He was already by her side. “What shall we do? Benny…”

  “She must have had some sort of stroke.”

  “Let’s get her inside.”

  “Rook.”

  “What?” Now, in the glow from the terrace lamps, Kate experienced fully the stamp of horror on Benny’s ghastly countenance, the disturbed violent agony in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll find a doctor.”

  “At this hour?”

  “There’s always someone for emergencies.”

  “It’ll take too long. Ring for an ambulance.” Kate put her arm around Benny and tried to persuade her into the house. “And then,” she called after Mallory, “go round to Kinders.”

  “Aahhhhh…”

  “All right, Ben. It’s all right.” Kate, knocked off balance by the scream blasting directly into her face, could hardly get the words out. “Come…come and lie down, darling.”

  “…rook…rook…”

  “That’s right – lean on me. Lean on Kate…”

  Mallory ran, first to the telephone and then from the house. He passed a little knot of people at the gate, their faces avid with the happy curiosity of the uninvolved. No doubt Benny had been spotted by someone making her blind journey, her dreadful sleepwalk back along the High Street. Pushing past them, sensing them snuffling and sniffing behind him like hounds, Mallory wondered if he was, after all, cut out for life in a small village.

  At Appleby House Kate was trying to make Benny comfortable. An impossible task, which anyway didn’t signify, for whatever she did or said seemed not to be understood in any recognisable way.

  When the ambulance arrived the paramedics very gently, even tenderly, carried out the necessary checks. Benny spoke once more – “Just like the rook” – but the words were addressed to the night air and her eyes stared blankly through them all.

  Kate found a nightdress and toothbrush, took the duck, black and shiny now, from the oven, threw it in the bin and put her coat on. Just before she left, the telephone rang. It was Mallory to say that something terrible had happened at Kinders and that he had notified the police.

  By the time the patrol car arrived a group of forty or so people had gathered outside Dennis’s house. Most were on the little green by the pond opposite, but a few crowded round the gate. As the uniformed officers pushed by they were questioned, unsuccessfully, as to what was going on. Denied any solid description of events, people felt obliged to make up a free-wheeling scenario of their own.

  “They’ll be putting that blue and white tape round next.”

  “What for?”

  “Protect the scene of crime.”

  “How do you know there’s been a crime?”

  “Yeah – maybe he’s just had an accident.”

  “You don’t call the old Bill out for an accident.”

  “True. Could be a burglary?”

  “Look who’s letting them in.”

  “Him from Appleby House.”

  “One thing I do know—it’ll be something to do with them machines.”

  “Terrible things.”

  “Doris Crudge – she reckons there’s an iron cage in there. For roasting people.”

  A concerted gasp of horrified satisfaction.

  “Sounds like he got what he deserved then,” said the man with the hot tip about the tape.

  Mallory closed the front door behind the two officers and leaned back on it, legs trembling. His face was salt white, clammy and beaded with sweat. He had been very sick and still felt extremely nauseous.

  “Are you all right, sir?” asked the younger policeman. “I think you’d better sit—”

  “What we’ve been given,” cut in the other, a Sergeant Gresham, “is a fatal accident which you – Mr. Lawson? – discovered this evening. You then made a call to the emergency services at eight seventeen. Is that correct?”

  “Yes…that is, no.” Mallory stumbled, somehow groped his way into the sitting room and fell into a chair. “I made the call but I didn’t discover it – him.”

  “So who did?”

  “Her name’s Benny Frayle. But she’s in deep shock. They’ve taken her to hospital.”

  “That Stoke Mandeville?”

  “No idea.”

  “Right. Now—if you’ll just show me—”

  “I’m not going in there again.” Memory brought more drowning waves of nausea. The sergeant loomed suddenly closer, then swam out of Mallory’s vision. A hand on the back of his neck eased his head down between his knees.

  “Don’t overdo it, Palmer. You’ll be running him a bath next.”

  “Sergeant.”

  “And try and get hold of the dead bloke’s doctor.”

  Gresham disappeared. He checked out the kitchen and tiny bedroom. Then opened the door at the end of the hall and stood on the threshold of the vast awful space, his jaws agape with sheer astonishment.

  The sergeant had not the slightest interest in history. He had never been to a museum in his life and so, confronted with these astonishing weapons of destruction, had no idea what they were. At first he thought they might be some wonky form of modern art, sculptures or suchlike. Then he noticed the huge crossbow. A weapons freak, then. A weirdo. They were up to all sorts, these survivalists.

  The body lay face downwards, huddled against the apparatus that looked like a giant’s catapult. It was wearing men’s clothes, very light tweed but still heavy going, the sergeant would have thought, in this weather. Even then you’d have to take them off to prove he was a man ’cause there was not much left of his head. Spread all over the place, it was. Red stuff both runny and jellified, grey stuff, white stuff and pounded bits of bone.

  None of this fazed Sergeant Gresham. He was a veteran. Thirty years of examining evidence following the discovery of murder victims. Or suicides. Not to mention trying to sort out the unspeakable carnage resulting from the worst traffic accidents. Gresham had been there. And he had done all that.

  Now he noticed a large slick of vomit just a few feet from the corpse and was glad he hadn’t brought young Palmer into the room with him. One person chucking up was more than ample.

  He walked round the area of the big machine carefully. It was easy to see what had happened. There was a wooden rack set up on a frame around twelve feet square standing directly alongside the catapult. Six huge wooden balls were secured there. A seventh, heavily stained, was lying a short distance from the dead man’s head.

  Gresham called into the station to ask for a photographer. This looked to him like an accidental but it was always advisable to have a record of the scene. Then he went back to the sitting room to find the guy who had called them out, looking slightly less green and drinking a cup of tea. Palmer had already produced his notebook.

>   “Got the medic sorted, Palmer?”

  “Yes, Sergeant. Dr. Cornwell. He’s been notified.”

  “My aunt’s doctor,” offered Mallory. “He’ll be so—”

  “Could you tell me how Miss Frayle came to find the body, Mr. Lawson?”

  “He – Dennis – was expected for dinner at Appleby House – which is where I live – and Benny too. But he didn’t turn up.”

  “You were on social terms then?”

  “He was a family friend,” replied Mallory quietly. “I’d known him all my life.”

  “Surname?”

  “Brinkley.”

  “Did he live here alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea who his next of kin might be?”

  “I’m afraid not. His parents are both dead—thank heavens. I believe he had a cousin somewhere in Wales but I don’t think they’ve been in touch for years.”

  “Right,” said Sergeant Gresham. “Now, this person you reckon found the body…”

  “Benny Frayle,” supplied Palmer.

  “She seems to have been sick, by the way—”

  “That was me. Sorry.”

  “I presume she rang you from here?”

  “No. She made her way back…somehow…to Appleby House.”

  “Somehow?”

  How was Mallory to describe Benny’s terrible perambulation? Her blind stare and lumbering mechanical stride. The screwed-up blinking eyes and gaping mouth.

  “Do you remember what Miss Frayle actually said when she arrived?”

  “No.” He saw no point in mentioning Benny’s strange repetition of the word “rook.” “She was…well, she seemed to have no grasp at all of what was going on.”

  “Understandable,” said Gresham. “And you came straight round here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The kitchen door was unlocked.”

  Here the volume of sound outside the house became suddenly louder. There was knocking at the front door and Palmer disappeared to return almost immediately murmuring, “Photographer.”