The cupboard-stair door opened and Rob staggered out on to the neat, orderly landing.
‘Ro-ob!’ he heard his mother’s voice calling from the turmoil on the stairs. ‘Wait for me, Rob.’
Rob did not want to hear it. He pressed his hands to his ears so that he could shut out the false, hurtful sound as Steel moved out on to the landing, followed by Lead.
‘It’s coming down after us.’ Lead exclaimed as he slammed shut the cupboard-stair door, which immediately became filled with the glowing light which seemed to pour itself into the door with a white hot molten effect that was brighter than the daylight.
In the wind-swept kitchen, the torn-out page continued to swerve and dive and twist in the air, as if in an attempt to dodge and torment the pursuing Sapphire.
Then it made one mistake as it dipped too low and skimmed across the surface of the table. Sapphire’s hand moved quickly, snatching up the scissors that were embedded in the table-top, and jabbing downwards with them, in one quick movement. The scissor blade pierced the page, causing it to spin and twirl frantically, like a child’s paper windmill, in an attempt to free itself. But Sapphire seized it and tore it from the scissor blade. Then, hurrying to the stove, she threw the ball of paper deep down on to the hot coals and slammed the hob lid into place.
The wind died instantly and there was quietness in the wrecked kitchen.
On the second landing, the sounds faded and the images receded. Steel, Lead and Rob watched as the glow became dimmer and the cupboard-stair door returned to normal.
Steel moved cautiously towards the door of the stair. He listened at it.
The mechanical voice was now whispering once more as it chanted its latest fragment of rhyme.
‘Poor thing, Poor thing, Poor thing, Poor thing...’
Leaving Lead to guard the landing Steel began to descend the stairs. Rob followed him.
‘It’s alright now,’ said Sapphire as she lifted the frightened Helen from the floor and held her close to her, comforting her. ‘It’s alright.’
Steel and Rob entered, and looked around them at the devastated room.
‘A different rhyme,’ said Sapphire.
‘I know.’ Steel moved to the outside door and slammed it shut, wedging it fast with a chair.
‘It got into the child’s head,’ Sapphire explained, still holding the trembling Helen.
Steel walked to the broken window and closed it. ‘And I said to watch her at all times.’
‘It got into the book,’ Sapphire insisted, ‘A page in a book. Then into her head.’
Steel stared at Helen.
‘It wasn’t her fault then, was it?’ said Rob, not happy with the hard, accusing way in which Steel stared at his sister.
Sapphire interrupted them, keeping the peace yet again. ‘Anyway, I managed to burn the page, and the book,’ she said as she walked Helen to the table, straightened a chair and sat the child down upon it.
Steel looked at the stove and the stacked-up books and paintings. He then turned and moved quickly across the room and into the office lobby.
‘So where is it now?’ Sapphire asked Rob.
‘The attic landing and the attic stairs.’
‘That far?’ said Sapphire, and her face looked serious.
The freezer-cabinet had not completely defrosted, but it had been close. There was heavy condensation on the inside of the glass.
Steel tried to peer through the misty glass. He then felt the sides of the cabinet and seemed satisfied to find that it was still cold enough — just cold enough. He reached for the make-shift dial and set it to high.
He was watching the cabinet as the office door opened and Sapphire entered.
‘It tried to melt it,’ said Steel without turning, ‘From a distance. It’s capable of that.’
‘When it has a rhyme,’ said Sapphire, closing the door, ‘It’s capable of anything.’ She moved to the cabinet and looked at it, watched the ice and frost re-forming on the inside of the glass. ‘It wants its child back, I suppose.’
Steel said nothing as he waited for the cabinet to reach maximum coldness again.
‘It gets nothing back from us,’ he said. Then, as the dial needle reached its last mark, ‘It’s gained too much already.’
Steel then set the dial down and moved to the office door. He went out from the room and Sapphire followed him, closing the door to after her.
If the freezer cabinet had been completely defrosted, then Steel would have perhaps moved the sheet of glass, with its curtain of condensation, and looked inside the cabinet.
He would then have found that the cabinet was empty.
As if it had waited, just long enough for Sapphire and Steel to be well clear of the office room door, the patch of light moved out from under the cabinet, its faint fabric sound making tiny echoes in the empty room. The patch of light moved away from the coldness of the freezer. It then waited.
Chapter Thirteen
It was evening again by the time they had straightened the kitchen and the last of the books and pictures had been burned.
The house was still quiet and there were no further happenings on the second floor landing, apart from the whispered voice that chanted incessantly from behind the closed, cupboard-stair door.
‘Poor thing, Poor thing, Poor thing, Poor thing...’
Lead had maintained his watch on the landing, except for one brief spell when he had been called down to the kitchen to eat his usual enormous meal and to help Steel patch up the outside door and the broken window.
It was during a part of this spell, during the two or three minutes that it took for Rob to relieve Lead on the landing, that the other two patches of light had moved out from under the cupboard-stair door. They had moved swiftly, and with a sense of purpose, down the two flights of stairs and into the hallway. Once there, they had paused for a moment, as if to listen to the voices in the kitchen. The patches of light had then glided quickly to the cellar door, slipped beneath it and moved on down the stone steps to the darkness of the winding cellar.
When Lead had returned to the upstairs landing, accompanied by Steel, Rob was left alone in the kitchen. Sapphire and Helen were making up the two temporary beds in the sitting-room, and it was left to Rob to sweep the kitchen floor now that the room had been more or less set to rights.
Rob was close to the office lobby, sweeping the last few leaves and pieces of broken china from the corners of the kitchen, when he heard the slight, sharp click of the office door catch. He set down the broom and moved into the lobby to look.
The office door was slightly ajar, by about two or three inches, as if the catch had slipped and allowed the door to open.
Rob stared at the door for a moment. He then moved towards it and listened.
There was no sound from inside the office, other than the steady hum of the freezer motor.
The cold air was escaping from the room. Rob shivered slightly as he felt it, and he reached out to close the office door. Then something, some clear-cut, sensible thought entered his head and told him that he ought not to.
Rob withdrew his hand. As he did so, a second well-defined thought appeared in his head. The thought stated that it was perfectly reasonable and natural for him to enter the office room.
Rob reached out once more, opened the door and entered the cold office.
The figure of a man was standing in the darkness at the corner of the room.
Rob turned on the light, quickly.
The man stood there, looking relaxed and almost at home in the icy, empty room. He was even smiling as he looked at Rob.
Rob stared at the figure of his father. ‘Dad!’ he cried out.
His father continued to smile warmly. ‘Hallo, Rob,’ he said.
Rob stood there in the doorway, unsure. His first reactions, on seeing his father once more, were those of shock and pleasure. Yet something was wrong. He was not sure yet, but something had to be wrong. Although to turn and run now, to call for help
seemed, in Rob’s confused state, equally wrong. In a way, it would have been an act of betrayal. Whether he was looking at an image, or even a ghost, it was still the figure of his father, whom he loved and needed, that stood there in this lonely room. And that mattered. Therefore there was time to stand there, time to look. And that also seemed natural to him. That also mattered.
‘What — what are you doing in here, Dad?’ he eventually managed to ask. And he was half expecting, perhaps even dreading, that this representation of his father would now vanish, would be just another cruel trick, like the voice of his mother that had called to him through the attic room.
But his father did not vanish. ‘Well why shouldn’t I be here?’ he answered instead, with the same friendly smile.
‘But you disappeared, Dad.’
‘Disappeared?’ His father chuckled slightly, patiently. ‘What are you talking about, disappeared?’
And it made sense. The very tone of the voice made it down-to-earth common sense. Rob found himself agreeing. Why should his father have disappeared?
‘Come in and close the door, Rob. There’s a good lad.’
‘Close it?’
‘Yes. Close it.’
And his father walked across the room and quickly closed the office door himself. He closed it quietly, still smiling at Rob as he did so.
Outside, in the kitchen, Rob could hear the voices of Sapphire and Helen entering.
‘But why do we have to close the door, Dad?’ And a faint shiver went through him as he asked the question. A shiver that was deeper and more searching than the feeling of coldness.
‘Ssh!’ Rob’s father put his finger to his lips.
‘I mean, everything’s alright now, isn’t it, now that you’re back with us?’
But Rob’s father did not answer. He was listening at the door.
‘Anyway, it’s cold in here, Dad. It’s freezing.’
‘Is it?’ His father seemed to think about it. ‘Oh, yes. I suppose it is.’
Rob felt the inner shiver again as he said anxiously, ‘I want you to open that door please, Dad.’
Rob’s father stared at him for a moment, the smile leaving his face.
‘Or I can open it myself. Either that or I can shout.’
‘Why should you want to shout?’
Rob turned towards the door.
‘Alright, Rob. I should have known, I suppose.’
There was a change in his father’s voice that made Rob turn to look. His father’s face had a slightly pained, resigned expression upon it. And it was an expression that Rob had known of old. His mother would always refer to it as, ‘Your father’s sulky look. He can’t get his own way.’ But Rob had often disagreed with her, privately. He had always read that look differently. His mother was a very outward person. If she was upset, she would show it, she would let the entire house know it. Not in an angry way but in a theatrical way that was almost flamboyant with gestures and protests. She could hold the floor, grab their attention and amuse them in any way she chose. And she knew it.
But, with his father it was different. Rob knew when he was hurt, when the man felt misunderstood. Rob knew the look. An undemonstrative, almost sad look. And Rob’s father had that look now.
‘Should have known what?’ asked Rob.
‘Well, that I’d be wasting my time trying to fool you.’ And his father shrugged slightly and moved away to the far side of the office, as far away from the door as possible. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, ‘Open the door.’
Rob hesitated for a moment and then reached out slowly for the door handle.
‘Call out for your so-called friends,’ his father went on. ‘That way, you really will put me in danger.’
His hand still resting on the handle of the door, Rob stared at his father.
‘Rob?’ Sapphire’s voice called faintly from out in the hallway somewhere. ‘Where are you, Rob?’ Then a silence as if Sapphire had gone in search of him.
‘Put you in danger?’ Rob asked the lonely figure that stood in the corner of the room.
‘Yes. But not only me. Your mother as well. And yourself.’
‘And Helen?’
‘Oh, yes. And Helen,’ he said, although Rob did not notice, just a little too quickly.
The coldness of the room made Rob’s face feel stiff. His hand, still resting on the door handle, felt almost frozen. But he waited, still watching his father.
‘Because I — well, I didn’t really disappear, Rob.’
‘Didn’t disappear? But you...’
‘I’ve been here in the house all the time.’ His father smiled again, but it was a dispirited, apologetic kind of smile. ‘I’ve been hiding.’
‘Hiding?’
‘Yes.’
Rob considered it. In a way, it made a kind of sense to him. He could not understand it, but at least the explanation seemed somehow believable.
‘And Mum? What about Mum?’
‘She’s been with me. We’ve both been hiding.’
‘But why?’
His father looked at him steadily. ‘Don’t you know why?’
‘Yes,’ said Rob, ‘Because the house is being threatened by...’
‘By them,’ his fathered interrupted quickly.
‘Them?’
‘As I’ve said, I could never fool you, Rob.’ His father moved slowly back into the centre of the room and stood by the converted cabinet with its sheet of heavy iced-up glass. ‘But they’ve fooled you.’
Rob thought about it for a moment and then realised what his father meant. Glancing first at the door, Rob looked back at his father.
‘Sapphire and Steel?’
‘Yes.’ His father nodded seriously. ‘They’re the real danger, the real threat. Nothing else is.’
And a series of unanswered questions sped through Rob’s mind, like the flicked pages of an unread book. The arrival of Steel and Sapphire, Constable Daly, the nailed-up room, the ship that had been sunk.
‘Had you never once stopped to think, Rob?’ His father was saying. ‘Never once wondered about them?’
Very slowly, Rob removed his hand from the door.
‘I thought he was with you.’
Sapphire was standing at the foot ofstairs with Helen close beside her.
‘No.’ Steel walked down the stairs, followed by Lead.
‘But we left him in the kitchen,’ said Sapphire, ‘That was the last time we saw him.’
Steel looked along the hallway, towards the kitchen.
The second and third patches of light waited in the dark cellar. There were no pictures or books left in the house, but the patches of light had found something that was just as good, perhaps even better. And so they waited, beyond the old support beams and wooden stanchions that jutted and straddled like dead trees, at the very far end of the cellar.
‘Rob!’ Sapphire called as she entered the kitchen, followed by Steel, Lead and Helen.
There was no answer.
Rob and his father listened as Sapphire called out a second time.
‘Rob?’ A question now. A trace of urgency in her voice.
Putting his finger to his lips once more, Rob’s father moved slowly towards Rob and the office door.
‘Now you must trust me, Rob.’
Rob looked at his father and nodded.
‘I need you to help me.’ His father spoke quietly and secretively, aware of the noises and the voices outside in the kitchen.
‘Of course, Dad, but...’
‘I want you to come with me.’ Rob’s father held out his hand.
Rob looked at the extended hand, but made no attempt to take the hand in his.
‘Your mother and I, we really need your help, Rob.’
‘Mother.’ Rob thought of her, there in the strange, cold atmosphere of the room. He thought of the sense of fun that she provided when she was in one of her frequently good moods. He remembered her vitality, the spontaneous games, the jokes, the fun and the laughter, all generated by her
sometimes wild charm. And suddenly it seemed right that Dad would be here asking for help. Not her. It was not like her to be the one who brought the warnings, or to have to talk in such a furtive, pleading fashion. Dad, yes. But not her. And so it seemed right.
‘Wouldn’t you like to see her?’ Rob’s father’s hand was still extended, still waiting. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see your mother?’
‘Of course I would,’ said Rob, eagerly.
And his father smiled again, pleased. ‘Come on, then. I’ll take you to her.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I told you. Hiding.’
‘But where?’
‘In the cellar,’ said Rob’s father, his hand still reaching out. ‘She’s waiting there for you.’
Rob stared at his father, and at the hand that was held out to him.
‘She’s waiting to see you, Rob.’
With his mind filled with the thoughts of his mother, Rob raised his hand just a fraction. As he did so, his father reached forward, the smile still there on his face, and took Rob’s hand.
Looking into the reassuring eyes of his father, Rob failed to see the pale glow of light that spread across his father’s hand and into his own.
Sapphire had realised that there was something wrong in the office room. Apart from outside the house, or maybe in the cellar, there was no other place where Rob was likely to have been. Then, moving into the office lobby, she had sensed it.
‘In there,’ she said, moving back from the door and reaching to protect Helen.
Steel and Lead moved quickly into the lobby and advanced on the office door. Like something they were well practised in, they gave, and took, no instructions from each other as Steel moved to the side of the door and Lead walked straight at it. He raised his giant hands as he walked and hit the door with the flat of them. The door was lifted and driven inwards, ripping out its hinges and catch as it crashed into the room.
Steel moved quickly, moving over the fallen door before the dust even had time to hover, let alone settle.
Apart from the freezer cabinet, the office was empty.
Sapphire and Steel Page 11