A Place of Execution (1999)

  ‘It didn’t make sense to me either. That’s why I came down to Cromford this morning. Then the next-door neighbour told me what had happened.’

  Paul glared at Catherine. ‘So you thought you’d come and hassle him here? Very sensitive, Catherine.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, you misunderstand me, Paul. When I heard what had happened to George, my first thought was for him, for all of you. I wanted to offer my help, my support.

  Whatever.’ Paul was silent, thinking over what she’d said, his eyes dubious.

  ‘I’ve grown very fond of your parents over the last six months. Whatever the problem with the book is, it can wait. Believe me, Paul, I’m more concerned now about how your dad’s doing.’

  Paul began drumming his fingers on the arm of the bench. He clearly lacked his father’s gift of stillness. ‘Look, Catherine, I’m sorry I snapped at you, but it’s been a tough night. I’m not thinking straight.’ She put her hand out and touched his arm. ‘I know. If there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me—please?’

  Paul sighed deeply. ‘You can do something for me. I want to know what set this off. I want to know what happened yesterday to trigger this heart attack. If I’m going to help him, I have to know what’s behind it. You know more about my dad’s involvement with Scardale than anybody else, so maybe you can figure out what the hell happened to get him so worked up that his heart packed in on him.’

  Catherine felt some of the tension slip away from her shoulders. To have the course of action she’d already decided on endorsed by Paul made her feel easier. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘Nothing else happened last night that might have upset him? After he’d been to the post, I mean.’ Paul shook his head. ‘We all went down to the village pub. They’ve got a garden out the back and we just sat out there with our glasses of beer and talked about nothing much.’ He paused and frowned. ‘He was edgy, though. A couple of times, I had to tell him something twice because he just wasn’t tuned in to the conversation.’

  ‘Does Helen think there was anything odd in the way he was behaving?’

  ‘She agreed with me, that he seemed to have slipped a gear. She reckoned he’d been like that since we arrived in Scardale. She’d noticed, but it probably wasn’t obvious to anybody that didn’t know him. If her sister was offended by Dad’s silence, she certainly didn’t say anything to Helen…’

  ‘George wouldn’t have done anything to offend Janis,’ Catherine said.

  ‘No matter how upset he was. He’s such a kind man.’ Paul cleared his throat. ‘Yes. He is.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be getting back.’

  ‘When do you have to be in Brussels?’ Catherine asked, getting to her feet.

  He shrugged. ‘We were supposed to be going home the day after tomorrow. Obviously we won’t be leaving now. I’ll have to wait and see how he is.’

  ‘I’ll walk you back.’

  As they approached the hospital, Paul exclaimed, ‘That’s Helen!’ and broke into a panicky run.

  Helen swung round at his approach, a can of Coke halfway to her lips. Her face lit up in a smile but he was oblivious to that. ‘Has something happened with Dad?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, I just needed some fresh air.’ She reached out and put an arm round his waist, pulling him to her in a gesture of support. ‘Any news on George?’ Catherine asked.

  Helen shook her head. ‘Still the same. Paul, I think we should try to persuade your mum to go and have a cup of tea and a bite to eat.’ She gave Catherine an apologetic smile. ‘You know Anne—she hasn’t left his side since they brought him up to intensive care. She’s going to wear herself out.’

  ‘I’ll let you go,’ Catherine said.

  Paul took her hand. ‘Find out what he saw. Or heard. Or remembered,’ he said. ‘Please?’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Catherine said. She watched them walk back into the hospital, glad that she had something to do that might possibly ease the burden of guilt that Paul had assumed. That it would also serve her own interests had become a secondary consideration, she suddenly realized with surprise. George Bennett had clearly become more important to her than she had previously acknowledged. That made it all the more important that a book that would do him justice would eventually be published, she told herself firmly. And that was one service she could certainly provide.

  49

  August 1998

  Whatever had happened to change George Bennett’s mind, it had happened in Scardale. Catherine felt certain of that. He’d seen something, but what…? How could so brief a visit have produced so seismic a response? Catherine could have understood it if he had decided she needed to make some changes to her draft in the light of a fresh realization, but what could have been so extraordinary that it derailed the whole project? And if it had been so portentous a moment, how had it passed unnoticed among the rest of the family? In the shimmering heat of an August afternoon, Scardale was hardly recognizable as the grim winter hamlet she had first revisited in February. Because the summer had been so wet, the grass was lush, the trees more shades of green than any painter could capture. In their shade, even the undistinguished farm labourers’ cottages of Scardale looked almost romantic. There was no sense of gloom, no trace of the sinister events of thirty-five years before.

  Catherine pulled up outside the manor house, where a five-year-old Toyota estate car sat in the drive. It looked as ifJanis Wainwright was at home. She sat in the car for a moment and pondered.

  She could hardly walk up the path and say, ‘What happened to George Bennett yesterday that made him want to scrap our book? What was so terrible about his visit to your house that he collapsed in the night with a massive heart attack?’ But what else would work? She thought about asking Kathy Lomas if she’d seen George the day before. She turned in her seat towards Lark Cottage, but Kathy’s car was nowhere to be seen. Exasperated, Catherine got out of the car. When all else failed, she could try the trusted journalistic technique of lying through her teeth. She walked up the narrow path to the kitchen door and raised the heavy brass knocker. She let it fall and heard it echo through the house. A full minute passed, then the door suddenly opened.

  Dazzled by the sunlight, Catherine could barely make out the woman’s shape in the dark interior.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  ‘You must be Janis Wainwright. I know your sister, Helen. My name’s Catherine Heathcote. You were kind enough to arrange for me to see round the manor house to help me with a book I’m writing about the Alison Carter case?’ She couldn’t have sworn to it, but Catherine sensed the woman withdraw at her words.

  ‘I remember,’ she said tonelessly.

  ‘I wondered if I might have another look around your house?’

  Catherine’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness of the kitchen.

  Janis Wainwright definitely seemed startled, she thought. ‘It’s not convenient. Another time. I’ll arrange something with Kathy,’ she said quickly, her words running together in her haste.

  ‘Just the ground floor. I won’t be in your way.’

  ‘I’m in the middle of something,’ she said firmly. The door began to shut. Instinctively, Catherine moved closer so Janis would stop closing it. Then she saw what George Bennett had seen the day before. She didn’t so much step back as stagger. ‘Speak to Kathy,’ Janis Wainwright said. As if from a great distance, Catherine heard the lock click, then the crash of bolts being shot home.

  Dazed, she turned and walked back to her car, stumbling blindly like a sleepwalker.

  Now she thought she understood why George had written the letter. But if she was right, it wasn’t something she could readily explain to his son. And it wasn’t something that made her want to abort the book. It made her realize that there might be a deeper truth behind the Alison Carter case that neither she nor George had so much as guessed at. And it made her even more determined to tell the truth that she had so cheerfully toasted with Paul that night in London.

/>   Catherine sat stock-still in the car, oblivious to the sweltering heat. Now the first moment of shock was past, she could hardly bring herself to credit what she’d seen. It made no sense, she told herself. Her eyes had lied to her. But if that was true, George Bennett’s eyes had also lied. The resemblance was remarkable, uncanny even. If that had been all, she could almost have written it off as bizarre coincidence, but Catherine knew that there was no resemblance in the world that stretched to include scars.

  She had learned from her reading and her interviews that the one distinguishing mark Alison Carter had possessed was a scar. It was a thin white line about an inch long that ran diagonally through her right eyebrow. It touched the edge of her eye socket and cut up into her forehead. It had happened the summer after her father died. Alison had been running across the school playground with her bottle of milk at playtime when she’d tripped and fallen. The bottle had shattered and a piece of glass had sliced through her flesh. The scar, according to her mother, had always been most prominent in summer when she had a bit of colour from the sun. Just as Janis Wainwright had.

  From nowhere, Catherine had a pounding headache. She turned the car around and drove slowly and cautiously back to Longnor. There seemed only one explanation for what she had seen, and that was impossible.

  Alison Carter was dead. Philip Hawkin had been hanged for her murder. But if Alison Carter was dead, who was Janis Wainwright? How could a woman who could have been Alison’s clone be living in Scardale Manor and not be connected to what happened in 1963? But if she were, how was it possible that her own sister knew nothing of it? Catherine parked the car and walked back to the newsagent’s. She bought twenty Marlboro Lights and a box of matches. Back in her cottage, she poured herself a glass of wine so cold it made her teeth hurt. That at least made sense. Then she lit her first cigarette for a dozen years. It made her head swim, but that was an improvement. The nicotine hit her bloodstream and it felt like the most normal thing in the world at that moment.

  She smoked the cigarette with devoted attention then sat down with paper and pencil and made notes. After an hour, Catherine had two propositions: Proposition 1. If Alison Carter had not died she would look exactly like Janis Wainwright.

  Proposition 2: Alison Carter is Janis Wainwright. She also had an action plan. If she was right, it was going to take more than a bit of tweaking and polishing to finish her book. But that was fine by her. If Alison Carter was still alive, A Place of Execution was going to be even more exciting than it was already. And somehow she would persuade George to see her point of view, once he was well enough to consider all the implications properly.

  The first step was a phone call to her editorial assistant in London.

  ‘Beverley, it’s Catherine,’ she said, injecting energy she didn’t feel into her voice.

  ‘Hi! How’s life in the sticks?’

  ‘When the sun’s shining like it is today, I wouldn’t swap it for London.’

  ‘Well, I can’t wait for you to get back. It’s a madhouse here. You’ll never guess what Rupert wants to do with the Christmas issue ‘ ‘Not now, Bev,’ Catherine said firmly. ‘I’ve got an urgent bit of business for you. I need somebody who specializes in computer ageing of photographs. Preferably up in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’

  Twenty minutes later, her assistant had rung her back with the number of a man called Rob Kershaw at Manchester University. Catherine checked her watch. It was almost four. If Rob Kershaw wasn’t escaping the stresses of life in some foreign city, the chances were that he’d still be at work. It was worth a phone call, she reckoned. The phone was answered on the third ring. ‘Rob Kershaw’s phone,’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Is Rob there?’

  ‘Sorry, he’s on holiday. He’ll be back on the twenty-fourth.’

  Catherine sighed.

  ‘Can I take a message?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Thanks, but there’s no point.’

  ‘Is it something I can help you with? I’m Rob’s research assistant, Tricia Harris.’

  Catherine hesitated. Then she remembered she had nothing to lose.

  ‘Can you do computer ageing of photographs?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s my speciality.’

  Within minutes, they were in business. Tricia had nothing more pressing planned than a night in front of the TV, and she suffered from the perennial penury of all graduate students. Once Catherine had dangled the promise of a substantial fee in front of her, she was more than happy to hang on at work while Catherine drove over with her copies of Philip Hawkin’s photographs of his stepdaughter.

  When she arrived, Tricia efficiently scanned in the two pictures, asked a few questions and then started serious work with keyboard and mouse.

  Catherine left her to it, knowing how much she hated people peering over her shoulder when she was trying to work. She retreated to the far end of the room where there was an open window and lit her fifth Marlboro Light. She’d give up again tomorrow, she thought. Or whenever she found out what the hell was going on. Whichever was the sooner.

  After about an hour and another three cigarettes, Tricia called her over. She picked three sheets ofA4 off the printer and spread them out before Catherine. ‘The one on the left is what I’d call the best-case scenario,’ she said. ‘Minimal stress, well nourished and well cared for, maybe about seven pounds over ideal weight. The one in the middle is more typical in some respects—more stress, not quite so much attention paid to looking good, right on the button weight wise. The third one is the one nobody wants to be. She’s the one who’s had the hard life, the crappy diet, smokes too much—very bad for your lines and wrinkles, you know,’ she added with a sly smile at Catherine. ‘She’s a bit underweight.’ Catherine stretched out a finger and pulled the middle of the three photographs towards her. Apart from the hair colour, it could have been a photograph of the woman who’d answered the door at Scardale Manor. Janis Wainwright’s hair had been silver with hints of blonde. Alison Carter, as aged by computer, was still golden, with only a few strands of grey at the temples. ‘Amazing,’ Catherine said softly.

  ‘Is that what you expected?’ Tricia said. Catherine had told her almost nothing, saying she was working on a story about a missing heir who’d turned up to claim a legacy.

  ‘It confirms what I was afraid of,’ Catherine said. ‘There’s somebody walking around who isn’t who she says she is.’

  Tricia pulled a face. ‘Bad luck.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Catherine said, feeling excitement gripping her chest. ‘Not bad luck at all. Quite the opposite.’

  50

  August 1998

  As she drove away from Manchester University, Catherine felt the hot buzz that burned in her veins whenever she knew she was on the verge of a major story. She was so thrilled she’d temporarily lost sight of the starting point for her exhilaration. That a man was lying on life-support machines in a hospital in Derby had become irrelevant for the moment. Too wound up to eat, she drove back to Longnor with the dizzying possibilities tumbling round in her head.

  Catherine decided the first thing she had to do was to find out who Janis Wainwright was legally.

  That Janis Wainwright had a legal existence she didn’t doubt. It would be difficult for her either to own property or to have any significant career without one. Finding it would mean a search through public records for births, marriages and deaths. It would take her days to do it herself, but there were agencies that did that sort of work routinely for journalists. She switched on the laptop and started to formulate an e–mail request to the Legal Search Agency, a company that specialized in tracing information relating both to individuals and to companies.

  Catherine was reasonably sure Janis had never married. For one thing, Helen hadn’t mentioned a husband. Also, a quick check on the letter she’d had from Janis’s lawyer arranging the guided tour of the manor revealed that the lawyer referred to her as, ‘Miss Wainwright’. And of course
, Helen herself had been married and divorced, which explained why her surname was different.

  Somewhere, therefore, there had to be details of Janis Wainwright’s birth certificate. To be doubly sure, Catherine decided to ask for Helen’s details too. And because, like all good journalists, she had a healthy stock of suspicion, she requested a further check to see if there was a record 360 of Janis Wainwright’s death at any point between her birth and Alison’s disappearance in December 1963. From the details in the birth certificate, it would be possible to track down the marriage certificate of Janis’s parents, and from there, their birth certificates if that proved necessary. That would be the starting point to discover whether there was any real connection between Janis Wainwright and Alison Carter. Catherine sent off her request, making it clear that she wanted the express option, with results e–mailed to her as well as hard copies sent by post. Even so, she knew it would be late the following afternoon before she could reasonably hope for a reply. She had no idea how she was going to fill the time until then.

  Then she remembered George. Feeling guilt at having wiped him from the front of her mind, Catherine phoned the hospital and inquired after him. The intensive care nurse told her there was no change. With mixed emotions, she hung up. She hated the thought of what had happened to George; but the moment of recognition that had triggered his heart attack also seemed to be leading to the biggest story of her life. She had sufficient self-knowledge to understand exactly how much that meant to her. Catherine had always been more committed to her job than she ever had been to another human being. She knew that the commonly held view was that that was sad; but Catherine thought it was sadder to put all your eggs in the basket of humanity when people invariably let you down somewhere along the line. People came and went, and there was a lot of enjoyment to be had from human relationships. She knew that, and she took what pleasure and satisfaction was to be had. But no one individual had ever been as constant as the rush of excitement that came from a well-crafted exclusive.