The Door That Led to Where (16 page)

The following morning, after one of Mrs Furby's excellent breakfasts, Leon sat in a chair in Slim's rooms, his long legs stretched out before him.

‘I've been thinking,' he said. ‘I remember reading about a woman murderer. She poisoned three of her four husbands.'

‘Blimey,' said Slim. ‘Did no one click what she was up to?'

‘Eventually. Only when they found her notebooks. She'd kept records of how long it took each of her husbands to die. She took out life insurance on each of her husbands and when another one hit the dust she claimed her money, steadily becoming richer with each passing husband. Motive, that's what you need.'

‘Like Dalton's will,' said AJ.

‘We should start by seeing Miss Esme.'

‘I have to go to work,' said Slim. ‘But is there anything I can do from there?'

‘You can see if any of the many grocery shops that Mr Flint supplies has sold arsenic to the Dalton household,' said Leon.

The three newly minted gents were about to set off when Mrs Furby opened the parlour door to enquire if they would be back for dinner.

‘I'm not sure,' said AJ. ‘I hope so.'

He noticed that the wine Mrs Renwick had brought Mrs Furby sat unopened on a side table. Somewhere deep in his subconscious an alarm bell rang but he forgot about it in the effort to hail a cab.

This was the winter of 1830 and AJ remembered that it was on this time that Charles Dickens would base Christmas at Dingley Dell in
The Pickwick Papers
. It was one of the frostiest winters on record and that morning London lay muffled under a thick eiderdown of snow and ice.

‘I don't think that I'll ever get my head round how amazing this is,' said Leon as they clip-clopped slowly towards Ingleby's house. ‘It feels like I'm floating in another world, that I've been given a clean sheet of paper to write a new future on.'

‘Don't worry,' said AJ. ‘The gravity of the situation will strike you soon enough.'

Clip clop, clip clop. London was bathed in that pale wintry sunlight that can only belong to a snowy December. They stared out of the windows, Leon mesmerised by all he saw. Several carriages had skidded and ended up facing the wrong way, their bewildered horses waiting to be untangled, steam pouring from their nostrils.

Finally they arrived at Mr Ingleby's. Leon waited in the hall, as AJ was keen to see Miss Esme alone and try to explain about her father and mother.

Upstairs in the drawing room, surrounded by cats, Mrs Ingleby sat in the wintry light, which showed every line, crevice and wrinkle on her well-aged face. Miss Esme sat opposite her in a winged-backed chair, reading a book, and, in that instant before she realised that AJ was there, he had a revelation. The same light that did Mrs Ingleby no favours showed Miss Esme's face to perfection. He felt once again that tug, stronger than before, something shifting in the tectonic plates of his heart. This had never happened with Alice Fisher.

AJ had gone out with her for a whole year and never once in all those twelve dull months had he felt a pull, let alone a tug, of anything other than guilt. She was so clingy that Leon had nicknamed her Ivy. AJ would ask her what she wanted to do, and her reply was always the same: ‘I don't mind. Whatever you want to do.'

Round and round the mulberry bush they would go, until finally AJ could stand it no more and told her he wanted to be on his own. After that, he reckoned girlfriends were overrated, a waste of space compared to his two best friends, but this morning – either due to the watery sunlight or the tug – he felt somehow different. He knew that if he ever asked Miss Esme what she wanted to do she would tell him.

She looked up from the book and said, ‘Mr Jobey. I am pleased to see you. Agnes has something I want to show you. I'll go and fetch it.'

Mrs Ingleby rose, saying she would ask Agnes and it was no trouble at all, in fact her legs needed stretching. She left the room followed by an entourage of cats.

AJ, finding himself tongue-tied, stumbled badly and instead of his well-rehearsed speech, said, ‘You don't belong here.' To which Miss Esme looked completely bemused. AJ was just warming up to telling her who her real parents were, when Agnes came in with Leon and Mr Ingleby, His Honour perched like a macabre hat upon his head.

‘Here it is, Miss Esme,' said Agnes looking decidedly sheepish. She passed the book she was holding to her mistress.

Without any hesitation Miss Esme gave it to AJ.

He flicked through its pages then, somewhat disappointed, said, ‘It's a recipe book. There's nothing but recipes in it.'

‘That's a startling bit of observation,' said Leon. ‘Ingleby showed me the book downstairs. Look at the flyleaf.'

AJ looked again and then he saw it. Written in pencil were the words, “The property of Miss Meacock, maid to the Bramwell family of Hammersmith, 1806.”
The writing was self-conscious and had been struck through with pen and under it, in a clearer and bolder hand of the same author, was written “Mrs Meacock, Housekeeper to Samuel Dalton, Esq., of Clerkenwell, 1810”.

‘Where did you find this?' AJ asked Agnes.

Agnes sounded defensive.

‘Mrs Meacock said it was her bible and she would not hesitate to fire anyone who touched it. Then she fired all the servants anyway with not a why or a wherefore of an explanation. I was boiling. Then she refused to give me a reference and without it I won't be able to find a respectable job. So to spite her, I nicked it. I never done nothing like it before, honest I haven't.'

‘I am glad you did,' said Leon. He was still looking at Mrs Meacock's writing. Then, closing the book, he stood up and said, ‘I think we need to go to Hammersmith and find out if the Bramwells have fond memories of their maid.'

Ingleby thought it an excellent plan but advised them that due to the snow many roads were impassable and AJ and Leon should take the steam passage upriver to Hammersmith and, once there, enquire in the local inn for the Bramwell house.

‘Can I come with you?' asked Miss Esme.

‘That would be great,' said AJ. He could spend more time in her company.

‘Mr Jobey,' said Mrs Ingleby, horrified at the idea. ‘Whatever are you suggesting?'

‘Oh, no, I just I thought that  … '

Ingleby wasn't interested in what AJ had in mind, but was adamant that Miss Esme shouldn't leave his house.

‘That would be insane,' he said. ‘She must stay here. The inquest will have reconvened and we don't know who might be looking for Miss Esme in an hour's time.'

At the word ‘insane' Miss Esme sank back into her chair.

‘You are right, Mr Ingleby,' she said. ‘If the inquest finds that my father was poisoned then I suppose the suspect is either me or Mrs Meacock.'

‘I doubt very much that you could kill flies, let alone poison your father or Baldwin,' said Leon. ‘But without proof to the contrary, we are stuck.'

AJ wanted to forget the social niceties and put his arms round her, to take the sadness from those grey eyes and colour her life with hope, tell her he could carry her away to the future even though it might not be the brightest of Utopias.

He put on his hat and coat and followed Ingleby and Leon downstairs.

At the back door Ingleby said quietly, ‘If the coroner finds Miss Esme guilty, you know I will not be able to hide her here for long. The alternative would be the other side of Jobey's Door.'

The River Thames, a long snake of black, bloated water, wound through the great city, bursting with the waste of its citizens. Even in the bitter cold there was a smell to it, a smell that told Londoners they were home.

AJ and Leon caught the steam packet at Blackfriars, astonished to find the river so congested on such a bitter day. Vessels of every kind bobbed energetically about, the ferrymen taking their passengers across the river skimmed like dragonflies over the water, the wash of the steam packet rocking them so that they looked as if at any moment they would capsize with their precious cargo into that mercury liquid. Lumps of ice floated in this dark cocktail, a true witches' brew.

After Westminster, London gave way to countryside and here both travellers could easily have forgotten the reason for their journey, so amazing was it to see the land naked of the endless peppering of high-rise buildings. No planes heading into Heathrow, just screeching gulls whirling white against the sky; sheep huddled together in frozen fields, a rural scene doomed to be buried in tarmac. By the time they reached Hammersmith they could have been in another country and London could have been another world.

They were taken by the water ferryman to the Dove Inn. It had a fire blazing and AJ ordered the dish of the day and two jugs of beer, and by degrees began to feel his fingers once more. The place was near deserted; the season being festive, many people were spending time with their families and the innkeeper was genuinely pleased to greet two new customers. It did not take them long to find out that the Bramwells' house lay more towards Chiswick than Hammersmith and that to get there it would be best to take another water ferry.

The river, when seen from the vulnerable perspective of a waterman's boat, took on a truly menacing quality. The sun had tired of its efforts and the snow-filled sky looked set to burst once more as the little boat wobbled to and fro before finally landing at the steps at Chiswick. They were in the heart of the countryside, the M4 but a glint in the eye of a future town planner. It was heartbreaking to see what progress would destroy: the still, snowy meadows and copses, doomed to be lost under miles of roads and ribboned houses, and the hot wheels of aeroplanes.

The Bramwell house was surrounded by tall railings in which was a gate that was firmly locked. The windows were barred but apart from that the house looked not dissimilar to others thereabouts. The gate possessed a bell and AJ rang it. A servant in an apron came out. He had a serious face and didn't look as if he was expecting visitors.

‘We have come to see Mr Bramwell,' said AJ.

There was a pause.

‘Mr Bramwell is long dead and buried.'

‘Then would it be possible to see the owner of the house?' said Leon. ‘It's a matter of some urgency, to do with a Miss Meacock who was once a maid here.'

They were shown into a wood-panelled hall furnished with a collection of chairs and a table. It was Leon who noticed that the chairs and table were all screwed to the floor.

‘Why do you think they did that?' asked AJ but before Leon could answer a woman appeared.

Soberly dressed like the servant, she had an expression of concern on her face as if her days were made up of perpetually saying, ‘There, there.'

‘How can I help you?' she asked.

‘I wonder if you can tell me where we might find Mrs Bramwell?' said AJ.

‘My late husband was William Bramwell. I am his widow. My servant tells me that you have some interest in Martha Meacock.'

Leon stepped forward and bowed.

‘My name is Leon Grant and this is Mr Jobey. We have serious suspicions about Martha Meacock and would like to ask you some questions. Mrs Bramwell, I take it this is a mental health hospital?'

AJ looked at him, impressed.

‘A lunatic asylum,' said Mrs Bramwell. ‘Although you, sir, have a kinder way of seeing these troubled souls. My late husband ran the asylum.'

AJ had imagined a grand house on the river with servants' quarters and a huge kitchen. Never had it occured to him it would turn out to be a nuthouse.

‘And Miss Meacock was a maid here?' said AJ, not quite able to picture it.'

‘No, sir. She was an inpatient.'

For a moment AJ and Leon could hardly believe what they had just heard.

‘I think we should talk in the parlour,' said Mrs Bramwell and she led them to a room where the furniture was not screwed to the floor.

‘Martha Meacock,' Mrs Bramwell explained, ‘came from a respectable family. Her father was a clergyman and a widower. He had a son and a daughter. Reverend Meacock told us that at the age of twenty his daughter attempted to kill her brother. That was how she came to be committed here.'

‘So she was never a maid?' asked AJ.

‘Yes, she was,' said Mrs Bramwell. ‘After five years her father died and there was no more money to pay for her upkeep. Her brother cared little if she went to the devil, as he put it in his letter to us. My husband believed many of his patients were not as insane as their families liked everyone to believe. He took pity on Martha and rather than turn her out suggested we took her on as our maid. She was a bright, pleasant young woman and much taken with my husband. After a time she became a great help to him with his experiments.'

That alarm bell rang again.

‘What sort of experiments?' asked Leon.

‘William was a chemist. His particular interest was in poisons and he hoped to find a test that would show the existence of arsenic in a corpse, for it is impossible in many cases to be certain if someone has died of poison or some unknown malady. Many people have been wrongly accused of murder. Sadly, my husband was suddenly taken ill before he could complete his work. Martha left us shortly after he died. Such a kind woman she was, to whom life had not been kind.'

‘And you never saw anything strange in her behaviour?' asked Leon.

‘No,' said Mrs Bramwell.

AJ had detected a slight pause before she'd answered, and so had Leon.

‘Mrs Bramwell, the reason we are here,' said Leon, ‘is because a young woman, the daughter of the late Samuel Dalton, is to be wrongly accused of murdering her father by arsenic poisoning. The housekeeper to the Dalton family is a Mrs Martha Meacock.'

Mrs Bramwell was shocked.

‘Are you positive it is the same woman?'

‘Yes,' said Leon, bringing out the recipe book for Mrs Bramwell to see.

‘That is certainly her writing.' Tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh dear,' she said. ‘My husband was such a gentle man, a trusting man, all he saw was the good in everyone. Martha, I believe, fell in love with him. We both thought it was a girlish infatuation, nothing more.'

‘Which – please forgive me asking – your husband didn't reciprocate?'

‘No, no. In fact, he told me shortly before he was taken ill that he had come to the conclusion that he had misjudged the severity of Martha's mental condition.'

The journey back was a very sombre one. The nearer AJ and Leon came to Holborn the more agitated AJ felt. Oh, for a mobile phone.The thought of the wine on Mrs Furby's side table rattled him, for he now had a strong feeling that it might have been mad Martha Meacock who had sent it to Mrs Renwick. She wouldn't want any tittle-tattle, and arsenic in Madeira wine would ultimately silence the most talkative of tongues.