‘The Bottle Dungeon’ 
ANTONIA FRASER

NAME: Jemima Shore, TV Investigative Journalist 
PLACE: Castle Crask, Scotland 
TIME: 1992.

CASES: ‘Quiet as a Nun’ (1977), ‘Splash of Red’ (1981), ‘Oxford Blood’ (1985), ‘The Cavalier Case’ (1990), ‘Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave’ (1993) etc.

DOSSIER: Jemima Shore, the glamorous, intelligent, self-assured television journalist, was the first female detective who was also a star. Described when she made her entrance as a mixture of Barbara Walters and Joan Bakewell, the elegant and stylish Jemima has also had to bear the epithet of ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’, not to mention her fair share of male chauvinism in the circles in which she operates. Famed for her sweet smile and gentle manners, she can, none the less, disarm the most un-cooperative interviewee and is always hard hitting in her presentations. Born in Bangalore and educated at various Catholic schools in England, she obtained a first-class Honours degree at Cambridge, and after a brief period in publishing is now the writer and presenter of her own TV series, Jemima Shore Investigates, which has probed a number of controversial issues from women’s rights to racial conflict, housing shortages to juvenile crime-along the way winning a number of awards and making her a major television personality. Jemima has also proved herself a formidable detective to whom members of the public bring problems as diverse as theft and first-degree murder. The demands of her job mean that being single is a definite advantage, though she is never without a man in her life. Above all, Jemima is intensely feminine, which caused one fellow journalist to describe her as ‘the woman most women would like to be-cool, self-reliant, physically brave and attractive’. Jemima lives in Holland Park, London, and describes her hobbies as ‘listening to music and talking to cats’, omitting to mention that she also has a taste for good champagne, driving her sports car fast, and lying in hot baths where, she says, ‘I do my thinking’-until the phone rings and she is called away on another case...

CREATOR: Antonia Fraser (b. 1932), who made her name as an historian and biographer, created Jemima Shore because she was struck by the number of glamorous and intelligent women who have chosen their own profession and consequently gained fame as well as independence. She based Jemima’s physical characteristics on one of her biographical subjects, Elizabeth I-the golden-red hair, white skin and virginal air-while her name is intended to be a combination of the repressed and the liberated: Jemima being a typical Puritan name, and Shore from Jane Shore, the beautiful and dissolute mistress of Edward IV. The success of the books made them a natural for television and to date Jemima has featured in two series: in the first played by Maria Aitken, and subsequently, Patricia Hodge. ‘The Bottle Dungeon’ is one of her most recent investigations and finds her far away from the bright lights and comforts of the London studios in a gloomy old Scottish castle celebrating the New Year, when the party spirit is suddenly turned chilly by a murder...

THE STORY:

Quite rare nowadays, I believe,’ said Joss Benmuir, looking down beyond his feet at the black hole.
‘It may be quite rare but it’s absolutely horrible! Really, Joss, I fail to see how you can-‘ Lady Martin paused, then went on with fervour,’-tolerate something so totally foul.’
‘It’s not a human rights issue, Aunt May, at least not now.’ The intention of Robbie Benmuir was evidently to tease. May Martin was an extremely wealthy widow: since her husband’s death she had occupied herself as an indefatigable campaigner for every conceivable liberal issue. Her figure was a familiar one, holding up a sandwich board of protest, spread across some newspaper.
Jemima Shore shivered as she too looked down. The Bottle Dungeon was carved-literally-out of rock. It consisted of a long narrow ‘neck’ which bellied out into a circular ‘bottle’, the shape of which could not be discerned from above until Joss Benmuir swung his flashlight into its depths. There were no steps cut in the ‘neck’. The only method of getting down (or up) consisted of using a thick rope, currently coiled beside them, and fastened to an enormous iron ring in the stone.
Privately Jemima agreed with Lady Martin there was something foul about the gaping hole. She also fancied that there was a fetid smell. No light, not much air, and absolutely no sanitation beyond a tiny aperture in the rock at the bottom of the bottle which dropped to the sea-no wonder there was something dank and rotten in the atmosphere of the stone cell which contained the entrances to the dungeon. But since Jemima was an outsider at this house party, she decided to stay silent. She had been working with May Martin in recent months on a project for a television series tentatively entitled A Woman’s Right to Say Anything: The Female Political Voice in Various Totalitarian Countries. She had become fond of the old lady, faintly ridiculous in her untidy appearance, certainly often ridiculed in the press for her views; yet ever gallant in her defence of those unable to speak for themselves. When her own New Year plans fell through, she had accepted Lady Martin’s invitation to be her companion on the Scottish trip.
‘Not really a party,’ Lady Martin had pronounced. ‘In spite of its being Hogmanay. There aren’t any neighbours for miles. Plenty of time to work together.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank heaven you’re not married; you’ll take Joss’s mind off that dreadful Clio Brown; then of course there’s Robbie.’
A slightly uncomfortable silence followed Robbie Benmuir’s little sally about human rights. To May Martin at least such things were not a laughing matter. It was broken by Joss, who continued to gaze down into the dungeon as he spoke. ‘It’s a tourist attraction, Aunt May. That’s what it is. And a very fine one too. After all, who else would come to this desolate spot otherwise? So many finer castles, aren’t there? And you know how I need the money.’ His tone was perfectly equable; nevertheless, the words only increased the general embarrassment. Joss was being deliberately provocative, as Jemima Shore already knew enough about the Benmuir family set-up to appreciate.
May Martin was probably rich enough to restore the crumbling castle (what remained of it) single-handed, but preferred to spend her money on good causes-which did not include Castle Crask. And there was nothing to stop her doing so. Although Joss and Robbie, the children of her late brother, were her only blood relations, May Martin’s money came entirely from the man she had married comparatively late in her life and very late in his, Sir Ludwig Martin, founder of LudMart. She had confided to Jemima on the way up: ‘Joss wants me to “invest” in Crask-his phrase. He should know by now that I only make strictly philanthropic investments, which does not include ancient masonry even if it is owned by my family.’
As if there weren’t enough tensions within the party already, thought Jemima, what with Clio Brown being once upon a time a girlfriend of Robbie. Clio Brown and her overweight and overanxious husband, Gerald (why on earth had she married him? The answer was, presumably, money), and now apparently-all too apparently this afternoon-Clio Brown and Joss. Jemima Shore had taken a strong dislike to Clio Brown. She hoped it was not jealousy on her part. Clio with her cat’s face and fashionably cropped dark hair, so tall, so slim, and at the same time so curved, was certainly amazingly good looking. But there was something intensely disagreeable about her. Gerald bore the brunt of her bad moods: the sight of his red, perspiring face-even in the un-centrally heated castle he seemed perpetually hot-would remind Clio that she needed a handkerchief fetching from her bedroom. She seemed to take a malevolent pleasure in watching Gerald trying to fit his bulk up a curved stone staircase.
Joss Benmuir was right: Crask was indeed a desolate spot situated on a headland which ran out into the North Sea where even the harsh cries of the sea birds seemed to have something lonely and despairing about them. It had not always been so. Crask’s moat was now dry, but its depth indicated that the castle had once acted as an important fortress, ready to repel foreign raiders and hand off domestic assailants with equal ferocity. Its strategic position meant that some kind of defensive structure must always have existed on the site-there were even traces of a prehistoric dun-but the present castle had been predominantly built in the fourteenth century. It had however been badly battered during the Cromwellian invasion of Scotland and suffered again in the period of the Jacobite risings.
As Colonel Benmuir, father of Joss and Robbie, had been wont to lament: ‘It’s centuries since we Benmuirs managed to find ourselves on the winning side.’ He sometimes added, ‘Perhaps that’s where poor May gets her taste for losers from-the spirit of her ancestors.’
Two substantial towers did however remain of the fourteenth-century castle: but they were no longer joined by a great hall or other buildings. The space in between was occupied by grass and stones, some of which were big enough to cause unwary guests to stumble as they moved between the two separate structures which together made up the living quarters of the modern Benmuir family. There was no protection on the headland-mountains existed only in the distance-and the gusts of wind carried the seaspray inland and had been known to whirl umbrellas away. That had happened to Jemima Shore on the previous evening, so that her beautiful crushed velvet skirt had become sodden. Now, as they stood outside, a girl called Ellie MacSomething-attached to Robbie it seemed-who had suffered similarly with her tartan wool skirt, was bold enough to ask Joss why there was no covered way.
‘It would blow away like your umbrella,’ Joss remarked blandly. ‘Wouldn’t it, Robbie? At least you didn’t stumble over a sheep: my father used to keep sheep here to deal with the grass. I got rid of them. Besides, we chaps like leading our own lives. Robbie has always got a home here. Until I marry, that is.’
‘And will you and your wife have separate towers when you marry?’ There was something provocative about the way Ellie MacSomething was pursuing the matter and it occurred to Jemima that she might be thinking of transferring her affections from Robbie to his elder brother. Joss, with his pale face, the black hair falling romantically over the eyes with their heavy lids, had more the air of a Spanish grandee-an El Greco-than a Scot. Robbie, on the other hand, with his rosy, almost ruddy cheeks, his freckles, his brownish curly hair already slipping back on his forehead, and stocky figure was the same physical type as his Aunt May. Although Jemima had the impression of intelligence beneath Robbie’s jokey manner, there was no doubt which brother was the better looking, and Joss was after all the owner of Crask (whatever that might mean).
‘Separate towers for married couples! What a good idea!’ said Clio Brown suddenly. ‘Gerald, I think we should get on much better like that. Towers with thick walls. Too thick for even your snores to penetrate.’ She smiled in her peculiar cat-like manner, the corners of her small, perfectly bowed mouth turning up as though she were contemplating a small mouse before her. The mouse however was her large husband. One could not say that Gerald Brown flushed, since his face was red enough already, nevertheless it was clear that the remark had wounded him-but then that was presumably the intention.
By unspoken agreement, the other guests turned back to their contemplation of the Bottle Dungeon. They had all been taken on a visit to Crask’s famous attraction-if a dungeon could really be so described-as a post-lunch treat by their host. The light faded early on a midwinter Scottish afternoon and as Joss Benmuir jocularly observed: ‘We don’t want to lose one of you down the neck, not on the eve of Hogmanay anyway, it might ruin our modest celebrations.’
He touched the aperture with his toe. ‘There’s one at St Andrew’s Castle but ours is a whole foot deeper. Twenty-six foot deep.’ Jemima shivered again. She still could not easily bear to contemplate the idea of a prisoner lowered into the depths and left-left without light, heat, food beyond what the captors condescended to lower, left in the filth, the prey to rats... for there were apparently rats there in the past, probably introduced down the neck by the jailers, since the drainage hole at the bottom was minute, too small for a mouse let alone a rat to enter...
In desperation Jemima found herself asking, ‘Did anyone ever escape?’ It was the best she could do to strike a more cheerful note. Before Joss could answer, May Martin said, very fiercely indeed, ‘The terrible thing is that people lived, not that they died. Death was merciful compared to what people endured down there. Sometimes for years. An amazing aspect of the human spirit: some people are survivors. Joss, I really think you should seal it off, not exhibit it, show some respect for the sufferings of human beings...’ Fortunately for Joss, he was able to ignore his aunt in favour of answering Jemima. ‘No one escaped.’ He pointed to some lettering cut in the side of the stone cell. ‘Initus non abeat. Medieval Latin. It means: Once in, you can’t get out. Carved shortly after the castle was built, they think.’ Joss paused. ‘No one escaped without help, that is. Some prisoner, put down there for supporting John Knox, at the time of the Reformation, that sort of thing, did get out. But it turned out that the jailer’s daughter had helped him out with a rope. Otherwise: Initus non abeat. That’s a bottle dungeon for you.’
‘Just like marriage,’ said Clio Brown suddenly. ‘Once in, there’s no way out. Unless you get help.’ At first the company assumed that this was merely one of Clio’s unpleasant interjections intended primarily to bait her husband. But it turned out that she had more to say. ‘I want to go down, Joss. I want to see what it’s like. It could be quite an experience. I want to spend the night down there. It should be-‘ she lifted her lips in her little cat’s smile again ‘-gloriously private. Look how narrow that neck is. Gerald, I don’t believe you could fit down there, even if the rope would hold you.’
There was polite laughter from those like Ellie and Jemima who decided to pretend that Clio was joking. Gerald merely spluttered: but this time there was no doubt at all in Jemima’s mind that he was seriously angry, and Clio might find she had gone for once a little too far. She did not however act as if she was aware of her husband’s rage. On the contrary, she persisted in talking about her descent, cajoled Joss into revealing that there was a rope ladder for emergencies, narrow but serviceable, in a locked cupboard in the corner of the cell, and finally provoked Gerald into shouting at her.
‘If that’s how you want to see the New Year in, goddammit, don’t count on finding me in a very good mood tomorrow morning.’
‘I don’t count on finding you at all tomorrow morning, Gerald, if you go on shouting like this,’ replied Clio smoothly. ‘You’re straining yourself dreadfully with all that shouting, and you know what the doctor said. Rage is not healthful.’ Clio sounded so primly reproachful that you might almost have thought that the previous scene in which she deliberately provoked her husband’s anger had not taken place.
‘And wouldn’t you be pleased?’ snarled Gerald. ‘A rich widow. Well, don’t count on that either.’ The embarrassment continued.
Afterwards it became important as to who had first suggested the bet. Was it Joss, his eyes black as he challenged Clio in a way that seemed positively sexual even at the comparatively asexual hour of three o’clock in the afternoon? Or perhaps frivolous, giggly Ellie, seeking to stir up further trouble? Or the much calmer and more self-possessed Robbie, with exactly the opposite aim of defusing the situation? Jemima had certainly not done so-she continued to regard the Bottle Dungeon with revulsion-while Lady Martin made her indignation quite obvious.
‘Sensation-monger!’ she said to Jemima in an aside which was clearly intended to be heard. ‘The sort of person who collects Nazi mementoes for kicks.’
Gerald had been the first one actually to use the word ‘bet’.
‘I bet you won’t stay down there for one hour, Clio, let alone for one night.’ Then he stumped away from the party, with the words: ‘Do what you damn well please! You always do.’ But it was after that the real bet somehow evolved: the bet that Clio would be lowered down by the little ladder, as warmly clad as possible, with sleeping bag and flashlight, and a pocket heater, generally used out shooting, to warm her hands. This lowering would take place at eleven o’clock that night. She would be formally let out-let up-one hour later, with the New Year.
‘And what does she get if she wins the bet?’ asked Ellie, who had gone back to twining herself round Robbie again.
‘I get to choose how I spend the rest of the night.’ Jemima swore that Clio actually licked her lips when she said that; certainly there was a flicker of her little red tongue as she smiled. ‘Which means,’ she went on, looking at each of the three men in turn, ending with her husband, now some distance away, ‘I get to spend it alone.’
It was not until dinnertime, when all had changed, including Clio, who wore a black Lycra cat suit, that Robbie made the obvious point.
‘I’ve just realised she’s bound to win the bet, isn’t she? Unless she dies of fright or something awful like that. You see if Clio does want to come up-come up early and lose the bet-she has no way of letting us know, has she? She just has to sit it out down there-yuk-until we come and get her. Next year.’
So it was agreed that Clio should be installed with a large noisy bell, which Robbie found, once used to summon labourers for lunch. If the bell was heard to ring, it would be regarded as a sign that Clio needed help and the bet was off.
‘Send not to know for whom the bell tolls’-Robbie being jokey again-‘because it will definitely be Clio. After all, once in you can’t get out. Without help. Good family motto that, Joss, we should use it. After all, we Benmuirs are always getting into things we can’t get out of, aren’t we-relationships, debt, that sort of thing.’ Lady Martin and Joss both frowned.
The presence of the bell meant that the door to the stone cell had to be left open: Robbie was not sure the clang from the depths would otherwise be heard. But no one felt that to be a problem. The door was clearly visible across the rough grass from the Big Tower where the party was congregated in the big sitting-room on the first floor, also used as a dining-room on festive occasions, with its high windows and seats in the embrasures. Nobody could rescue Clio early-supposing anyone was minded to do so-without being observed.
‘Not even to drop down the teeniest reviving malt whisky’-Robbie, determinedly lighthearted again. But none of the badinage was really very lighthearted. Something - what exactly and when?-had gone too far. A troublemaking young woman, a stupid bet, what a recipe for New Year’s Eve! (Jemima Shore wished she were at home, celebrating with her cat, appropriately named Midnight.) About ten-thirty both Gerald Brown and Lady Martin decided to opt out of proceedings-including the seeing-in of the New Year-and went to their respective beds. The Browns were sleeping in the Little Tower, or Robbie’s Tower, together with Ellie and Robbie himself; Lady Martin and Jemima were housed still higher up in the Big Tower. Joss, as host, now politely insisted on escorting Lady Martin upstairs, despite her protests about knowing the way perfectly well.
‘But Joss, I grew up here!’ she exclaimed. Perhaps he intended to make his touch at this point, thought Jemima, although it was scarcely a tactful moment with her disapproval so manifest. Gerald’s bulky figure could be seen crossing the grass, bending slightly as he fronted the wind. The moon, almost full, had now risen, and with its eerie glow on the stones, did something to supplement the inadequate lighting of the passage between the two towers.
After a short while Clio said crossly: ‘I hope he hasn’t gone to sleep already. I’ve got to put a great many things over this.’ She stretched out in her skintight black suit; she really did have the most beautiful lissom figure, small high breasts clearly visible under the Lycra, and the narrow thighs and long, long legs of a model; she actually could wear her cat suit and get away with it. ‘I’ll be back,’ said Clio. ‘May he not be snoring, that’s all I ask.’
A few moments later they watched Clio in her turn cross the grass, a cumbersome parka over her cat suit, as the winds tossed her short hair. Whatever passed between the Browns on the first floor of the Little Tower must however have been vaguely conciliatory because they saw Gerald at the window, raising his hand and waving. His mood must have improved since he left. Clio reappeared shortly afterwards.
‘Of course he’s in a better temper!’ she exclaimed. ‘He just thinks I’ll lose, that’s why. He’s really a cunning old sod, that one. Convinced I’ll panic and ring the bell. Such a downer. I really can’t think why I married him.’ Jemima, looking at her, now more of a Michelin woman in her jerseys, thought: why did he marry you? Do some men just like to be humiliated? Answer, I suppose: yes.
In the event, the actual descent of Clio on the rope ladder was a slight anticlimax. Her sleek head had disappeared from view into the Bottle Dungeon without anything more dramatic happening than her own voice echoing upwards: ‘It’s great down here, the new holiday spot, can’t think why those prisoners complained.’
‘Any rats?’ called Robbie.
‘They’re all upstairs,’ Clio shouted back. ‘Or asleep.’ She was in her usual form. The flashlight was seen to cast its sepulchral glow upwards, the bell was tested (it sounded very loud), and then there was nothing to do but brave the wind and go back to the Big Tower again and wait.
There nobody could quite think how to fill the time. The general clear view of the open door of the cell meant that it was impossible to forget Clio. Joss, their host, had fallen moodily silent, his thoughts no doubt with her. The hour looked like passing slowly until Robbie decided to organise them.
‘Here we are, four people in search of an occupation. Is it to be a foursome reel or bridge?’
Although Ellie clapped her hands and voted for a reel, Jemima hastily pointed out she did not know how to dance a reel. So they all four settled for bridge. After that the time did pass a little quicker, although the fact that the bridge table was placed in the embrasure containing the big window meant that the Bottle Dungeon-and Clio-remained somewhere in Jemima’s thoughts at least. Nor did the bridge prove quite the engrossing occupation for herself and Ellie they might have anticipated. The Benmuir brothers, Joss playing with Jemima, and Robbie with Ellie, played virtually every hand themselves, bidding, it seemed, with the aim of so doing. The one hand Jemima did play, Joss peered over her shoulder silently, but somehow, she felt, critically. Ellie never got to play a single hand.
It was actually Robbie who was busy making six spades-his luck was in-when they heard the bell ring. It rang loudly, the sound melted away into the wind, then it rang again. Instinctively Jemima looked at her watch: it was ten minutes to twelve. The others simply jumped up: then all of them started to run down the twisting stair, Joss pushing open the door, and out across the moonlit grass. Ellie stumbled twice but Robbie did not stop to help her. The brothers reached the cell together, leading Jemima herself by at least fifteen yards. By the time she arrived, the rope ladder was already being lowered and Joss was speaking soothing words to Clio-soothing and openly tender. But then Gerald was not present.
‘Now then, darling, it’s going to be all right. Trust Joss. Easy goes. Come on, my beautiful darling.’
And after a few moments, Clio’s head emerged once again but it was a very different Clio, tear stained, dirty-filthy dirty and more or less incoherent. Jemima felt no particular pleasure at the sight; as a matter of fact, she found she preferred the confident if disagreeable Clio to this pathetic victim. Finally, how little Clio had known herself. She had been so sure of her own nerves, and so absolutely wrong when it came to the crunch. ‘The shadows, the ghosts of the prisoners trying to kill me,’ were some of the things Clio babbled about. At least Lady Martin might have been pleased at this last-minute sensitivity to the sufferings of people in the past. Still hysterical, Clio was led away in the direction of the Little Tower; it was now Robbie, not Joss, who took her arm, as though in tacit agreement that the Little Tower was ‘Robbie’s’. Joss, Ellie, and Jemima trailed after them.
‘Nobody ever asked what would happen if she lost the bet!’ cried Ellie suddenly: Jemima guessed she was annoyed at Robbie’s attention to Clio.
‘She gets to spend the night with Gerald,’ snapped Joss, evidently made equally tense by the sight of Robbie’s arm round Clio. Ellie continued to gaze after them.
‘My room is on the ground floor, overlooking the sea,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’d better go to it. It must be midnight by now. Happy New Year.’ Ellie did not even try to sound sincere. The door above their heads opened and shut; immediately Robbie came clattering back down the stairs: Clio had been tactfully left to face Gerald-if awake-by herself.
Ellie was therefore looking slightly happier when Clio started to scream for the second time that night. This time there were no sobs, just sheer horror. What Clio was screaming over and over again, as she half ran, half fell down the stairway till she reached Robbie (and Joss), was this: ‘He’s dead, he’s dead.’ Then: ‘Gerald, Gerald.’ Then more screams.
It was Robbie who slapped Clio’s face but it was Joss who shouted at her-almost as loudly as her own screams: ‘What do you mean, girl? How can he be dead?’
‘He’s dead,’ wailed Clio in a quieter tone. ‘I got into the bed, I touched something. It was a scarf. A long woollen scarf! A horrible thing. Red and purple squares.’ She gulped. T pulled it. It didn’t move. I put on the light. It was round his neck. He’s dead. Gerald’s dead.’
‘My scarf!’ screamed Ellie in her turn. ‘That’s my scarf!’

What followed was one of the most dreadful New Year’s Days that Jemima had ever spent. The Crask headland and its castle was like something under an evil spell. Dawn came late and brought with it lurid red streaks over the North Sea: diabolic colours, thought Jemima.
The police in the person of one solitary officer took a long time to reach them: the nearest police station was after all over twenty-five miles away, and the Force in general was occupied by drivers in distress, drunken drivers, and drunks pure and simple. The police doctor, summoned by him, took even longer to arrive; arrangements to take away the corpse-yes, Gerald had been strangled and with Ellie’s woollen scarf-would take a while to make. In the meantime the corpse was locked inside the Browns’ room, while Robbie, Ellie, and of course Clio took refuge in the Big Tower.
No one could leave the castle, statements would have to be made, evidence taken. The remaining occupants of Crask sat around in the big sitting-room, as though in a daze.
At one point Ellie, who seemed personally angry with the situation so clearly devoid of any element of enjoyment, burst out: ‘It must have been some tramp. He could have got in by the back door, through the kitchenette. Some maniac. He could still be lurking. And he took my scarf!’ Nobody answered her. After a while Robbie patted her hand. But nobody for the time being chose to go and sleep. When Lady Martin was wakened-by Joss-and told of the tragedy, she too joined them: with her curly grey hair, in her tartan dressing gown, she had the air of some cosy family nanny.
What Lady Martin said to Jemima later that morning was however the reverse of cosy. Joss was talking to the police; Clio was lying down in his room (which he made over to her); Robbie and Ellie were in the kitchen trying to organise some kind of meal in the absence of any local help at Hogmanay.
‘She did it! Of course that wicked Clio Brown did it.’ Lady Martin’s voice shook slightly in the passion of her conviction; she might have been lobbying a recalcitrant politician for the rights of the forgotten. ‘I recognise evil when I see it. People think I’m blind to the bad side of life-but what do they know about me? On the contrary, I’ve seen so much of it that I recognise it instantly. Clio Brown has no moral sense. She never had when she flirted with Robbie in the first place, then abandoned him for Gerald, all for the sake of the Brown money. Then she wasn’t even grateful to Gerald for that-‘
Jemima realised that May Martin, another woman who had married a rich man, was subconsciously contrasting Clio’s behaviour with her own: she gathered May had been extremely attentive to Sir Ludwig during their brief and harmonious marriage.
‘Now she’s done away with him in order to marry Joss and queen it here at Benmuir.’ Lady Martin paused in her harangue. ‘Yes, Jemima, I’m afraid my nephew Joss is not exactly a moral person either. Clio and Joss: they’re alike in that way. Oh ye gods! Money, and what people will do for it.’ An unbidden thought came to Jemima that Lady Martin could perhaps have prevented all this, whatever it was that had happened, by helping her nephew with Benmuir. She dismissed the thought. Who was she, Jemima, to say that family feeling should be put before human rights? She herself had no family.
‘Listen, my friend,’ said Jemima in her most soothing interviewer’s manner, patting the tartan-clad knee. ‘It’s out of the question. Clio couldn’t have done it. Gerald was alive when she went into the Bottle Dungeon, we know he was, and dead when she came out of it. So she couldn’t have done it. No one gets out of the Bottle Dungeon without help. That motto carved in the stone-how does it go?’
All the time, however, Jemima was thinking fiercely beneath her tranquil front: I’m right, aren’t I? She couldn’t have done it, could she? She went over to the Little Tower, we saw her go. Gerald waved her goodbye, we saw him. A few minutes later she was back with us. Then she went down into the dungeon, we watched her, the ladder was pulled up and put aside, we could all see the stone cell from the Big Tower window. She couldn’t have got out without being seen. The boys, above all Joss: no, he was here, we were all here. Even when Joss was dummy, he kept looking over my shoulder. Robbie never left the bridge table. If anyone went to the loo-maybe Ellie did when she was dummy-she would simply have gone to that little turret cloakroom on the same floor, one instant away; you’d have noticed a longer absence.
Jemima pursued her thoughts. And yet Gerald was dead when Clio was released. He must have been. Robbie took her up to her bedroom door and came straight down, we heard him. Besides, Gerald’s body was beginning to grow cold. Jemima shuddered as she thought: I touched him.
To distract herself, she repeated: ‘How does the motto go?’
‘Like this. Initus - once you’re in-non abeat-you can’t get out. The only Latin I know.’ Lady Martin sounded weary. ‘Girls in our family weren’t taught Latin. Not that it would have been much use to me, as things turned out. I did learn first aid and nursing, much more useful, handling people the right way.’ Her voice trailed away.
Afterwards Jemima would look back on this conversation as crucial, and Lady Martin as the person who in all fairness was really responsible for solving the case. At the time she merely felt some stirring of comprehension, as though recent events, if looked at from the opposite angle, might be understood altogether differently-and correctly.
Jemima jumped up. ‘Will you be all right, May? I need-fresh air.’ On her way out of the Big Tower, Jemima stopped by the open door to the sitting-room. Joss was standing there, looking out of the window. When she reached the ground floor, she could hear Robbie and Ellie in the kitchen. Jemima caught the words. ‘My scarf.’ Ellie was still complaining. She grabbed her own coat from the pile in the hall and passed rapidly out of doors. She walked across the grass, towards the stone cell, bending slightly in the wind. Jemima was conscious that Joss must be watching her from the window, as they had watched first Gerald, then Clio, the evening before. The door of the cell was still open; no one had thought to close it.
Jemima entered. The fetid reek from the open mouth of the Bottle Dungeon seemed to her stronger than ever: a reek of death. After all, if some prisoners had lived, in torment, others had died here. She remembered Clio’s provocative comparison of the dungeon to marriage, a state from which she could not emerge without help. Gerald, of course, like some of the past prisoners, had emerged from it through death. The stone words were just visible above her head in the dim light. She traced them with her finger.
Initus... Suddenly she understood.
At that moment there was a noise behind her. Jemima turned cautiously round; she did not want to lose her footing. ‘Joss! You gave me a fright. I might have hurtled down into the depths.’
‘I wouldn’t have let that happen. No more tragedies.’ Joss was blocking the light so that Jemima could not see his expression.
‘How’s Clio?’
‘As well as can be expected.’ It was impossible to tell whether the cliché was intended sarcastically without seeing Joss’s face. The effect was to make Jemima eager to get out of the cell, away from the pervasive stink which came from the dungeon, into the sea wind. She moved towards the door but Joss continued to block it.
‘Any theories?’ he asked. ‘Any theories, Jemima Shore-Investigator?’ He used the title of her television series by which the public generally identified her, but he made the words seem threatening. ‘Do you buy Ellie’s tramp or Ellie’s maniac?’
‘Are there tramps in this remote spot? You tell me. But as for maniacs, I suppose you find them anywhere.’
‘Like criminals.’
‘Exactly.’ Jemima knew her voice was beginning to sound stifled. ‘The air, Joss,’ she began, ‘the air in here-‘ Then she realised what she must say. ‘One thing I do know: nobody in the party could have done it.’ May God forgive her for the lie: but like any prisoner she needed to get out.
‘Is that so?’
‘How could they? We were all together all the time, weren’t we? Except for Clio, that is.’
‘And she was-here.’ Joss stepped forward as though to peer into the hole.
‘Quite rare and absolutely horrible.’ Jemima was pleased to find her voice was under control. ‘No wonder Clio panicked and sounded the bell.’
Joss moved aside. Jemima stepped out. She was now in the full view of the first floor of the Big Tower, where she could make out Robbie and Ellie standing together. They must be able to see her. She was safe. Nevertheless, Jemima chose to walk a number of yards away from the stone cell in the direction of the Big Tower. Then she saw Clio coming out of the great door. Her short black hair became rapidly windblown; she was wearing a parka over the black suit she had worn the night before. Clio came and leant against Joss. He gave the impression of being quite indifferent to what anyone might think of this. Jemima had a fierce impulse to disturb that feline composure. She took a deep breath.
‘Yes, you are alike,’ she said sharply to Joss. ‘Your aunt was right.
Not only in your natures but physically alike. Both of you tall with short black hair. How could we tell the difference from the Big Tower? A parka over the trousers. We thought it was Clio. It was you, Joss. After you took May to her room. You killed him, didn’t you?’ Jemima still addressed Joss. ‘You took Ellie’s scarf from her room to kill him. Then you made him wave out of the window, took up his arm and manipulated him, handled him. So that we were certain he was alive. Minutes later Clio came back into the sitting-room, as if she’d just crossed the grass in the dark. But she’d been downstairs all along. And together you set up the bet. Another piece of handling.’
‘What’s she saying, darling? Why is she saying these horrible things?’ Clio sounded merely plaintive; she still looked perfectly, composedly beautiful.
Joss said nothing. He continued to gaze impassively at Jemima. She was glad to be under the protective gaze of Robbie and Ellie.
‘Initus non abeat. Once in, you can’t get out. The motto,’ cried Jemima. ‘But Clio wasn’t actually in the dungeon when Gerald died. That was all a plot, a distraction to get our attention. She was lurking downstairs among all the coats, finding jerseys there, letting you do it, Joss. Afterwards, Clio’s panic in the dungeon may well have been genuine, ringing that bell that Robbie found. She was alone, she had connived at the murder of her husband: and of course the bell made for another distraction.’
‘Prove it,’ said Joss coldly to Jemima. To Clio he said: ‘Pay no attention, she’s mad. Media people! We should never have let Aunt May bring her. Unhinged!’
‘I can’t prove it. That’s for the police.’ As though on cue, Jemima was aware of the distinctive Scottish police car driving towards the gates of the castle to her right. ‘All I know is: you were in it together. And you’re still in it together: this is one Bottle Dungeon with two prisoners inside it. A desperate kind of marriage: your word, Clio. Until one of you turns on the other, that is.’
As the police car drove nearer, Jemima saw Clio’s slanting cat’s eyes slide away from Joss. Clio was in deep, as deep as she had been down in those fetid depths. But Clio was going to try to get out. She’ll betray him, thought Jemima, and after all he did the killing. What was it May Martin said that afternoon by the dungeon? Some people are survivors.