Elizabeth Speller - The Return of Captain John Emmett

'You'l know it when you see it,' said Cyril Trusty. 'High wals and spikes on top. To stop them scarpering. Impale 'em instead. Doesn't look as old as it is. Bits added on. Solid. Paid a fortune to instal proper asylum locks just before the war. Had to get a man from London. Ordinary locks won't do for lunatics. Ingenious type, your madman, they say.'

Chapter Fourteen

Laurence's appointment was at eleven and he set off along the riverbank with a quarter of an hour to spare. Where the path reached some water meadows he looked back to see the fine church standing on higher ground. It reminded him that the churchyard at Fairford was the last place anyone had admitted to seeing John Emmett.

Which way had he gone then, Laurence wondered? Not across the meadows, obviously, as that would have led him straight back towards Holmwood, the direction he was taking now. Not due east, as he could see a wide river and no sign of a bridge. And if he'd turned down into the market place, along the main road and towards the station, surely he would have been identified, if not as himself, certainly as an outsider: a patient. Beyond the church lay farmland as far as Laurence could see, with a few stands of beech and a Dutch barn right on the horizon. John must have headed that way.

Presumably the main service on Christmas Day was Matins. John's disappearance could have been discovered no later than midday, once the church party got back to Holmwood at the latest, though the youth he'd stunned in order to escape must surely have raised the alert before then. That left three to four hours or so of decent daylight to look for him. But it also meant that John would soon have needed shelter.

Could he have known anyone in the area? Could someone have come to fetch him? It would have needed a car. Branch-line trains ran a reduced service on Christmas Day and, anyway, he was sure the police and Holmwood people would have checked at the station. But in concentrating on how, he was no nearer knowing why. Where was John going so determinedly and who could he have persuaded to help him if that was what he'd done? And why hadn't that person come forward?

He had a sense that he was almost on to something when the sight of what he guessed were the closed gates of Holmwood distracted him. A large iron bel pul was set in the wal beside a smal nameplate. He couldn't see Cyril Trusty's promised spikes but he noticed that the smal upper windows, at least, were barred like a prison. The rooms up there must be dark, he thought. The building he was approaching was tal and square, its roof shalow and, unusualy for the area, he noted, of slate rather than Cotswold stone. That added to its slightly sombre appearance but the man who opened one gate a minute or so later had a perfectly pleasant expression on his face.

'Mr Bartram?'

He stood back to let Laurence through. Inside, an oval of grass was studded with a few falen crab apples. A cream Bentley was puled up by steps to the front door. It was one of the few cars Laurence could recognise. He thought of Charles, who was able to identify anything on wheels at any distance and by any visible part.

Charles would love this car. Perhaps one of the eminent parents was visiting a son?

'Could you come this way, sir?'

A graveled drive wound away behind a shrubbery but they were heading to a pilared porch on the left.

'Sorry.' Laurence caught up. 'Just admiring the motor car.'

'Mr George's car,' said his guide. 'He's a great man for cars. Dr Chilvers now, he stil takes the trap if it's fine, but Mr George loves a beautiful bit of machinery.'

They came into a half-paneled hal. Stained glass in the door filtered a wash of colour on to the stone floor but the space was mostly lit by a skylight three storeys above. The building was absolutely quiet, smeling of beeswax and, faintly, of cooking. It took Laurence back instantly to his prep school. Wide stairs curved up to a landing while several doors led off the hal. The man knocked at the nearest one and opened it without waiting for a response. The room he entered was a large, book-lined study, a room to receive guests rather than treat patients.

Dr Chilvers looked more the rural doctor than hospital physician. Dressed in a shapeless country suit, he was a spare man in his sixties, his hair sandy grey and wavy above a pale, almost waxy face. As he stepped forward his eyes held Laurence's. His handshake was firm. The doctor's demeanour was presumably intended to put Laurence at ease but, perhaps because he was here under false pretences, Laurence felt decidedly on edge.

'Come in, come in.'

Chilvers indicated an upright leather chair, then sat down himself behind a wide and tidy desk.

'You came up last night? Stayed at the Regent? It's comfortable enough and the owner is a good man. Used to work for us, in fact, but took on the hotel when his late father became il.'

'Actualy, I'm at the Bul.'

Chilvers looked surprised. 'The Bul?' he said, as if, although he recaled it, it was an effort to remember where it was. 'Wel, there's not much alternative, when the Regent is ful, I suppose. We do have a couple of guest rooms here but we tend to keep them for family. Of patients, that is. Especialy ladies traveling alone or where a visit seems likely to be distressing.'

Laurence nodded.

'Did you come by train?' Chilvers asked.

'No. I motored down with a friend.'

'Quite so. Quite so.'

Again Laurence had the feeling that it would have been better to have conformed to expectations.

'You're here about your brother,' Dr Chilvers said in a slightly brisker tone of voice. He put on his spectacles and puled over a sheaf of paper from the right-hand side of his desk. The first page was blank.

'I should tel you at the outset that at present we have no room at al. We take a maximum of eight patients. This permits us to give highly specialised care, adapted—I think I may say with confidence, very finely adapted—to individual patients' needs. However, I would anticipate a vacancy, possibly two, in the very near future. One patient returning home. Very much improved. The other into longer-term convalescent care. We could be looking at—' He reached for a large morocco leather diary, opened it, leafed through a few pages. 'Certainly before New Year. Late December, I would imagine. Would that be suitable?'

Chilvers evidently mistook for something else Laurence's look of alarm at the conversation's swift and specific direction, because he continued, 'Of course we haven't discussed your brother or what we could do to assist his condition, but I feel it is important not to hold out any false hopes for an immediate solution.' His eyes met Laurence's. 'Families come to me, some accustomed through rank or wealth to resolving a problem with some immediacy. But in these cases a swift and satisfactory outcome is not always possible. Despair is not susceptible to the usual processes of society. It is not just those who enter here but their families who may find their circumstances have very much changed. We help them al adapt.'

Chilvers had made this speech before, Laurence was sure. He nodded again, then he found himself saying aloud what he was thinking. 'It sometimes feels as if the fixed points have moved. It's as if we can't be sure how things might fit together any more.'

He spoke quite urgently and stopped, suddenly embarrassed, but Chilvers did not seem to find it odd.

'I think the essential aspects of human nature remain unchanged,' the doctor responded. 'Love, fear, jealousy, indolence, opportunism, hope—even nobility of spirit—but the relationship of one to another may have altered; some aspects may have moved to the fore, others have receded. Of course for every man whose response is to tread carefuly, recalculating those fixed points,' he paused and looked at Laurence, 'others abandon it al and live lives of remarkable recklessness.