Nine Lessons Read online

  Also by Nicola Upson:

  London Rain

  The Death of Lucy Kyte

  Fear in the Sunlight

  Two for Sorrow

  Angel With Two Faces

  An Expert in Murder

  NINE LESSONS

  A Josephine Tey Mystery

  Nicola Upson

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Nicola Upson

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-321-2

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-322-9

  ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-68331-323-6

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-324-3

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover illustration by Mick Wiggins

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First North American edition: October 2017

  Originally published in Great Britain by Faber & Faber, October 2017

  For the women who survived the real Cambridge rapist, and in memory of Jill Saward, who did so much to give rape survivors an identity beyond the crime.

  ‘What is all this love for if we have to go out into the dark?’

  M. R. JAMES

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgements

  1

  Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose stood by the gate of St-John-at-Hampstead, struck as ever by the strange beauty of its wooded churchyard—quiet, peaceful and rambling, just like the parish it served. He had never warmed to the building itself, preferring the modest grey stone of an English country church to this more ostentatious red brick, but the surrounding land held a fascination which had little to do with worship. Other than Highgate, St John’s was probably the most famous burial ground in London, the final resting place of celebrated artists, scientists and actors—or, as his cousins often joked, the most sought-after green room outside of the West End. Many of the more dramatic tombs were to be found in the graveyard’s extension on the other side of Church Row, but it was this overgrown, secluded area that Penrose preferred, where the headstones seemed randomly scattered and the ordinary lives of chimneysweeps, bakers and nurses were remembered alongside the achievements of the more famous. He tried to spend time here whenever his work brought him to Hampstead, thankful for a reminder of death in its natural context and the welcome reassurance that not everyone was wrenched screaming from the world before their natural time. Today, that comfort was not to be his.

  A blackbird sang overhead, its sweet, melancholy notes offering an eloquent acknowledgement of autumn and the early onset of dusk. Penrose took the meandering path which ran to the left of the church, and soon saw the small clutch of figures standing stiff and awkward by a grave, their dark silhouettes blurred by the mist in a parody of an ill-attended funeral. One of them broke away from the group as he approached, a uniformed constable who seemed anxious, although it was hard to say if his nerves were due to the shock of the discovery or the arrival of a high-ranking detective. He wiped his hand diligently on his trousers and introduced himself. ‘Parkyn, sir. We spoke on the telephone.’

  Penrose nodded. ‘You said you were first on the scene—how long after the discovery of the body?’

  ‘Only a few minutes, sir. A quarter of an hour at the most. Apparently, a couple out walking their dog found him. The slab across the grave’s been pushed back a bit and the dog was scrabbling to get in. They fetched the vicar straight away.’

  On cue, the vicar glanced their way, and Penrose sensed the unease of someone who was used to being in control of an ordered world. ‘And the vicar identified the dead man?’

  ‘Yes, sir, by a ring he was wearing. His name’s Stephen Laxborough. Apparently he was the organist here.’

  Penrose found himself irrationally irritated by the constable’s habit of prefixing every fact with a qualifying uncertainty, but he tried not to let it show. ‘And everything is exactly as it was? No one’s touched anything?’

  Parkyn shook his head. ‘Apparently not, sir.’

  ‘Good. I’ll have a word with the vicar now and find out what else he knows about the victim. What’s his name?’

  ‘Reverend Turner, sir.’

  ‘Take the others back to the church and wait by the gate until back-up arrives. I don’t want anyone trampling through here before we’ve got what we need. Then get a statement from the people who found him.’

  ‘Right-o, sir.’

  ‘And you might put in another call to the Yard and find out where the hell the photographer’s got to. We’re losing the light, and I want every detail of that scene.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it straight away.’ Parkyn hurried back to the group and Penrose waited while he ushered an elderly couple with a cocker spaniel and two smartly dressed women towards the porch. He looked around, noticing that he was in one of the very oldest parts of the churchyard; without exception, the headstones were worn and fragile, victims of both weather and age, and there was something poignant about the way in which these once so solid markers of a person’s life had faded with their memory. The tomb that had brought him here was tucked away from the main path, sheltered by ancient yew trees and a tangle of branches overhead, and behind it the ground began to slope away towards the boundary wall. It had obviously been restored in recent years, because the flat stone slab was now raised to a height of eighteen inches or so on a foundation of modern bricks. The combination of old and new, red and grey, jarred to Penrose’s eye, and he noted that the ivy—the only thing uniting the two—had been roughly torn away. The slab, as Parkyn had mentioned, now lay at an angle to the foundations, partially revealing the horror within. He moved closer and stood silently by the vicar’s side, looking down at the flash of grey-blonde hair matted with blood, the clenched fist with its distinctive ring, the fingers scraped almost literally to the bone. The dead man’s face was hidden from view, but Penrose didn’t doubt that the Reverend Turner’s imagination had defied the mercy of the stone.

  ‘Who on earth could do this to another human being?’ the vicar asked quietly. Penrose had no answer, and didn’t insult the question by trying to offer one. ‘I don’t suppose I should admit this,’ Turner continued, ‘but I’ve struggled to find God in some of the parishes I’ve been given. He’s never let me down here, though. Not until now.’

  ‘Did you know Mr Laxborough well?’

  ‘Dr Laxborough. He was always very particular about that.’ The vicar moved away from the grave, seemingly glad to pass res
ponsibility for the body to someone more familiar with the violence to which it testified. He met Penrose’s eyes for the first time. ‘It’s funny. I was just wondering that myself when you arrived.’

  ‘And what did you decide?’

  ‘I suppose I’d have to say that I didn’t really know Stephen at all, even though we’d worked together for years. He was a private man, neither easy to warm to nor to take against. In fact, now I think about it, I can’t remember a single conversation in all that time that wasn’t in some way connected to our work.’

  ‘So he’d been here a long time?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was already well established at St John’s when I arrived in thirty-two—I gather he settled in Hampstead after the war. The church has an excellent tradition of music going back to Henry Willis, but Stephen was thought to be one of the finest performers we’ve ever had. He was very well respected.’

  But not liked, Penrose thought, reading between the lines. ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘At evensong on Sunday. We’d just moved the service to its earlier time, like we always do ready for the winter, and we were supposed to be sitting down afterwards to discuss the music for the forthcoming month, but Stephen had to cancel. He didn’t say why.’

  ‘And how did he seem?’

  Turner shrugged. ‘Business-like, bordering on brusque, but there was nothing unusual in that. He lived his life like he played his music—precisely, professionally, and with rarely a note out of place.’

  The comment was insightful. Most people, when asked to describe the victim of a recent murder, were inclined to exaggerate the positive, and Penrose wondered if the vicar’s refusal to sentimentalise his opinion of his colleague said more about him or about the deceased. ‘Was he married?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he lived alone—except for a housekeeper. She’ll be able to tell you more about his life than I can, I expect, and she might be aware of some family. You’ll want to tell his next of kin, but I’m afraid I have no idea who that is.’

  ‘Who were the two ladies here with you just now?’

  The vicar raised an eyebrow to the heavens. ‘Mrs Marchmont and Mrs Willoughby. Flowers and brasses, for their sins—or for mine. They were with me when Stephen’s body was found and I’m afraid it would have taken a stronger man than I to keep them inside.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late in the day for flower arranging?’

  ‘Usually, yes, but we’ve got a funeral tomorrow morning and the ladies are exhaustingly thorough. Neither will concede defeat by being the first to go home.’ Penrose smiled, but Turner looked suddenly uncertain. ‘We will be able to go ahead with the funeral, will we? Stephen will be . . .’

  He tailed off before the words ‘cleared away’ could escape his lips. ‘Yes, we’ll remove Dr Laxborough’s body as soon as the photographer and pathologist have done their work,’ Penrose said. ‘I’ll need to keep the area roped off, though, at least for a few days.’

  ‘That’s fine. We haven’t buried anyone on this side since 1878.’ He reddened, embarrassed by the clumsy lack of tact. ‘Do you think he was already dead when whoever it was put him in there?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ Penrose said, recalling the ravaged hands which had clearly clawed for hours at the stone.

  ‘So why uncover him again? No one would ever have known he was there.’

  It was one of many questions running through Penrose’s mind, but he had no intention of speculating about any of them, except with the pathologist. A convoy of three cars drew up outside the church gates and he recognised his sergeant, Bill Fallowfield, followed by a police photographer and forensics team. ‘You can leave Dr Laxborough to us now,’ he said, keen to have the scene to himself for a few precious seconds of peace before science took over. ‘But I’d be grateful if you could find me his address.’

  ‘Of course. He was in Mount Vernon, just around the corner. I’ll get you the number.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The vicar walked off, picking his way carefully over headstones that had fallen across the path. Penrose returned to the body. The slab which now marked a double grave was flecked with moss and scattered with fallen yew needles. Its inscription gave a full account of the original incumbent, but the letters were worn and faded and Penrose could only make out enough to know that the tomb belonged to James McArdell, a London engraver who had died in 1765 at the age of thirty-seven. He took a torch out of his pocket and peered into the grave, but it was impossible to see any more of Laxborough’s body without moving the stone further back. As he turned to greet his colleagues, his foot brushed something on the grass by the tomb, and he looked down to see three identical steel padlocks, nestled neatly side by side.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Fallowfield said, looking over Penrose’s shoulder. ‘The poor bastard.’

  ‘Eloquent as ever, Bill, but I couldn’t have put it better. Someone obviously wanted to punish him, but God knows what for. I’d say the suffering was as important as the death itself, wouldn’t you?’ He nodded to the photographer to begin his work, and the repeated explosions of light gave the scene an intense, surreal quality that only heightened its horror. ‘Get as much detail as you can, and don’t miss those padlocks. I’ve no idea if they’re connected yet, but I want everything recorded as it is before we open it up.’

  The instructions were unnecessary, and it wasn’t like him to patronise officers who were every bit as diligent in their craft as he was, but he realised now that there was a part of him which would happily have delayed the opening of the tomb for as long as possible. The atmosphere in the churchyard had shifted subtly from melancholy to unease, and Penrose had an almost superstitious reluctance to release the violence that lay hidden beneath the stone; none of them, he knew, would be immune to the brutality of this particular death or to the agony of those dreadful hours. Even Bernard Spilsbury—who had witnessed so much darkness in a long career as Home Office Pathologist that his sanity was nothing short of a miracle—remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  ‘All right, let’s get it over with,’ Penrose said, when there were no angles left to photograph. He stepped forward to the grave, determined to take the brunt of the task, but the effort of moving a solid slab of stone made him recoil in pain. Wincing, he rubbed his right shoulder, where an injury from a gunshot wound had taken a long time to heal, and the gesture didn’t escape the eagle eyes of his sergeant.

  ‘Leave that to us, sir,’ said Fallowfield, who had been fussing over him like a mother hen since his return to work. ‘You’ll set yourself back weeks if you keep going at it.’

  Penrose glared at him but stood to one side. ‘All right, but just one of you to start with. I want to see if someone could shift this thing on his own, at least enough to get the victim in there.’

  ‘Come on, Wilson, put your back into it,’ Fallowfield said, grinning at the burliest of the crime scene officers. There was a sharp grating noise as the stone was moved back, inch by inch at first, then more quickly as Wilson gained momentum. Just as the slab was about to topple to the ground, Penrose signalled to him to stop and stepped forward to look. ‘We need some light in here.’

  As soon as his request was obliged, he wished he hadn’t made it. Stephen Laxborough’s body lay face down in its borrowed sarcophagus, his head turned slightly towards the side. Instinctively, Penrose closed his eyes, trying to summon all the reserves of detachment that he had gathered over the years, but his objectivity deserted him. The bloodied and broken fingers that he had noted earlier were just the beginning. Laxborough’s face was contorted with agony and fear, his eyes swollen and his skull horribly mutilated where he had beaten it repeatedly against the stone that held him—in a desperate effort to escape, perhaps, or simply to bring on a merciful oblivion. Penrose might almost have convinced himself that the victim had died from blows to the head were it not for an accumulation of signs which bore evidence to dreadful torture. In panic, Laxborough had torn at his face and body until his clothes were all but shredd
ed, and handfuls of hair, wrenched from his own head, lay strewn around the corpse. There were bite marks on his right hand, Penrose noted, but they had not been made by an animal.

  In all the murder scenes he had attended, he could not remember a silence as profound as this. Each man stood absorbed in his own private world, defenceless against the power of his imagination. Some words ran unbidden through Penrose’s mind, lines from Poe’s tale ‘The Premature Burial’: ‘The boundaries which divide Life from Death, are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?’ It was a story that he had never been able to finish, either as a child experiencing the first frisson of terror or as an adult who admired Poe’s macabre power, but he felt that someone had completed it for him now, someone with more evil intent than Poe had ever envisaged. There was no mistake involved in this premature burial; whoever had sealed the tomb had known exactly what he was doing. ‘How long would it have taken him to die?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘That depends,’ Spilsbury said cautiously. ‘We don’t know yet what state he was in when he was entombed, and it’s reasonable to assume that he was rendered unconscious in some way to get him in there in the first place. You wouldn’t be tempted to cooperate, would you?’ Penrose shook his head, trying to imagine what it would be like to come to and realise the hopelessness of your situation. ‘A lot of those injuries are self-inflicted, but they might be hiding something that weakened his resistance and hastened his death. Let’s hope so. But in a confined space like this, you’re looking at twenty-four to thirty-six hours, perhaps a little more.’ He took a few paces back as the photographer began his work again. ‘The words “mercifully quick” certainly wouldn’t apply. I don’t envy you the house call to his family.’

  ‘I don’t even know if he has a family,’ Penrose admitted. ‘Usually I’d say there was nothing sadder than leaving no one behind to mourn you, but in this case it might be a blessing. It’s hard to imagine a crueller death.’