She ran back downstairs and dialled. A man answered, and her voice stuck in her throat.
“Yes?” he said.
“May I speak to Mrs Jones, please?” Her voice came out in a squeak.
“I’m afraid she’s popped out for a minute. Can I take a message?”
Lucy thanked him hastily and said she’d phone back later. She checked her watch. It would be too late to ring again. They’d be going to bed as soon as Mrs Jones came back. She had another idea. If Paul was at Mrs Jones’s they’d both be at the school gates tomorrow. She’d get down there early, before half past eight, and she couldn’t possibly miss them. If they didn’t come, she’d put a note through the letter box and hope that man didn’t see it first.
Having made that decision she felt slightly cheered. When she went up to bed she took Donald with her, and his snuffles and snorts kept the noise of the silence away.
*
Lucy and Donald were outside Paul’s school by half past eight. Children and parents and grandparents, of all shapes and sizes, streamed towards the gate.
“What a sweet little dog,” said one mother as her child ran into the playground. “What breed is he?”
“I think he’s half a Westie,” said Lucy, bending down to stroke Donald. “He’s quite old for a dog. He’s fifteen.”
The woman smiled. “That’s a good age, but he looks very fit.”
Lucy was pleased and smiled back. People were friendly here, she thought – not like London.
“Yes, he is fit. He can be quite fierce sometimes,” she said proudly.
She hadn’t noticed her grandmother hastily pushing Paul through the school gate and rushing off. The flow of children continued and Lucy returned to her vigil, but there was no sign of Paul or Gwen. When the last child disappeared indoors, she turned away disappointed and terribly weary. She had so convinced herself that she’d see Paul at the school that she’d forgotten her alternative plan of dropping a note in Gwen’s door. Really, her brain seemed to be useless these days. She hadn’t even had the wit to bring a piece of paper and a pencil with her. Now she’d have to go all the way back and write something and come back again.
*
The house was too quiet, and Lucy’s heart was heavy. Without Paul and Dorothy and David she was just a pointless, unconnected speck in the universe. Aunt Sarah’s voice rang inside her head – Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got a dog to look after. Get some fresh air and take him for another walk – and wipe that miserable look off your face.
She pulled herself together and almost laughed. Aunt Sarah had been a pain when dealing with the soul, but she was so often right in other things. She bent down to stroke Donald.
“Later, after you’ve had a rest, we’ll go out again. We’ll deliver our letter to Mrs Jones and then we’ll walk from one end of the prom to the other, very briskly.”
If Donald had understood what she said, he might not have wagged his tail. He was old and fat, and was rarely exercised. He’d had to puff hard to get himself up the hill once already that morning.
Lucy searched yet again for Mr Lovett’s number, without success. She looked through the shelves in Miss Clements’s sitting room, and even rummaged through some of the mess in Miss Marilyn’s room. Why on earth did Miss Clements keep a phone book right next to the phone if she didn’t put really important numbers in it?
“You haven’t had your breakfast yet,” she said to Donald eventually, “and nor have I. We’ll have something to eat, and then we’ll go out again.”
She would drop the note in Mrs Jones’s door asking her to ring the big house, and just hope that her husband didn’t catch her doing it.
Donald’s appetite had improved, Lucy noticed, as she watched him gobble down his food. He heaved himself out through the dog flap, and returned a few minutes later and settled down in his bed for a rest. By the time she had boiled herself a couple of eggs and buttered some toast, she felt almost optimistic. There was plenty of food in the freezer and a roof over her head, and she still had this feeling that Paul might be with their grandmother, even if he hadn’t gone to school. She wrote the note and put it in her pocket.
When she had cleared up her breakfast things, she went upstairs and tidied Dorothy and David’s bedrooms so that there would be decent beds to get into when they came back. Better not touch Miss Clements’s room, or Miss Marilyn’s. They might not like to think that she had been in there.
At last she and Donald were ready to go. She put on his lead.
“Come on boy!” she said. “Walkies!”
As she took the key off its hook by the door, the front gate squeaked.
Chapter Eighteen
The gate gave another squeak. Lucy’s heart soared. At last, someone was home. Before she had a chance to pull back the bolts on the front door, the sound of uneven footsteps on the path brought her down with a bang. Nobody she knew had a limp like that – one heavy step, followed by the drag and scrape of a shoe on the path. She pressed against the door unable to move. The bell jangled and she held her breath. A key jiggled in the lock and turned, but the bolts held fast. Somebody swore under his breath, and turned away. She could hear him trying the side gate. That was still locked. Thank goodness Miss Clements had asked Mr Nicholas to nail a strip of barbed wire at the top.
She ran to the dining room and peeped through the curtains, but whoever it was had gone. It wouldn’t be safe to escape through the front in case he was waiting for her round the corner. Best to stay put. No one could get in if the door was bolted.
Had she locked the back door?
She hurried to the kitchen. Thank goodness, the key was still in the door and it was locked. Donald shuffled after her, dragging his lead. It made a clattering noise and she bent to take it off.
“You’d better go back to bed,” she whispered, throwing the lead on the table. “We’ll go out later.”
As she straightened herself up, there was a clunking sound in the yard outside and she dashed to the window. She should never have left the ladder there! A leg had already appeared over the wall and was waving about before locating the top rung. A peculiarly twisted foot followed it, searching painfully with its toe for the rung below. The ladder gave a jerk and righted itself.
Lucy looked around her. The boiler cupboard was the obvious place. She crawled into the space at the bottom, and Donald shuffled in next to her. Supposing the boiler collapsed on top of them? She kept the door slightly open, and they both watched through the gap.
There were sounds of movement out in the yard – a scraping noise as the storeroom door was pulled wide open over uneven concrete, the clanking of a bucket kicked across the yard, the rattling of the backdoor handle – and then silence. Lucy held her breath. Perhaps he’d go away.
Then there was a puffing sound and a thump.
Lucy’s eyes were fixed on the door. An arm slid slowly through the dog flap. It withdrew for a moment as the body behind it adjusted its position on the ground. Reappearing at a different angle, the arm reached upwards, its fingers feeling for the key in the lock.
She should have taken the key out! If she was quick enough she might get to it in time. She started to wriggle out from under the boiler, but the fingers had already reached the key.
What would David do? Lucy glanced at the dog lead dangling over the edge of the table. She could tie the wrist to a chair. As she leaped forward she remembered Donald. “Go for it, boy!” she whispered, giving him a shove.
He shot across the room and buried his teeth into the invading flesh. There was a howl of pain from outside the backdoor, and the arm hastily pulled itself back. Donald leaped out after it.
Lucy crouched next to the window and peeped out. The man had his good foot on the ladder while Donald tried to cling on to the other. With a mighty kick, he was sent flying. Before she had time to think, Lucy had unlocked the do
or, dashed across the yard and grabbed the ladder with both hands. The man was already near the top. The ladder tilted and rocked as he clambered up. Lucy shook it, and gave it a hefty pull. It twisted and fell towards the house. The man lurched sideways and hit his head on the open door of the storage cupboard.
Lucy watched as he fell to the floor, twitched for a moment and lay still. The face was familiar. It was Bernie. She couldn’t move. The world went black. Lucy Copse, murderer – or was it murderess? The fire of the melting flesh flickered around her. She could feel the flames. The Magnifico had caught her after all.
*
“We’ll sit down and have a little rest,” Lucy said to Donald when they reached the bandstand, “and then we’ll go back and you can have a nice sleep.” She had completely forgotten about the note in her pocket. She sat on a bench with Donald at her feet, and tried to calm the thundering in her head. She watched the people go by. How lucky they all were, not to have just done something so dreadful that they couldn’t bear to think of it. Her heart leaped and jerked with the horror of it all. She should never have left the Magnifico. Life would have been structured and secure. She would have known her place and kept to it, like Aunt Sarah.
She waited for Aunt Sarah’s voice to tell her what to do, but there was nothing. Even she had given up on her. Tears ran silently down her cheeks. No one seemed to notice her, and after a while she mopped her face and sat upright. There was no point in running away, because the Magnifico would always find her. All she could do was face the consequences – and, you never knew, if she went back to the house she might find that the man wasn’t dead after all. He might have stood up and walked away. Sometimes things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
“OK, Donald,” she said. “Time to go back. You’ve got your breath back now.”
Donald puffed reluctantly to his feet and they returned the way they had come, along the prom and up the hill. As they turned into the far end of the road they stopped dead. There was a police car in front of Miss Clements’s house (parked on double yellow lines, Lucy noticed) and an ambulance. Her instinct was to run, but she managed not to panic. She walked as sedately as her trembling legs would let her. If she could get there before anyone appeared she would nip up the hill path and peep over the wall. She heard men’s voices, and slipped sideways onto the path just in time. The wall was lower here near the gate. Peering through the shrubs, she could see that the front door was wide open. Two paramedics emerged, carrying a body on a stretcher. One arm was bandaged and the face wasn’t covered. Surely, if he were dead, they’d have put a sheet over his face? Gladys, the cleaner, appeared in the doorway. A policeman stood beside her, and they watched the stretcher’s journey down to the ambulance and away.
“Well, another housebreaker hits the dust,” said the policeman.
“Good riddance,” snorted Gladys. “Serve him right. Have you got time for a cup of tea?”
They went back into the house, and Lucy watched and waited. Donald lay on his side on the rough path. He was glad of the rest. It seemed an eternity before the front door opened again, and the policeman came out. Gladys stood on the step.
“The two ladies must have been taking a break while the kids were in London,” she said. “I’ll tidy up a bit downstairs, and then I’ll be off home. There’s no point coming in again till they’re out of hospital. Anyway, I’m away tomorrow for a week. We’re doing a peace vigil outside the Houses of Parliament.”
“Good for you, Gladys, old girl. And thanks for your help. If you see anything odd while you’re tidying up, let me know.”
“Will do. Ta-ra.”
Lucy took a deep breath. She swallowed hard, smoothed her expression to one of concerned curiosity and stepped out onto the pavement just as the policeman came through the gate.
“Oh, hello, sir!” she said, sounding surprised. “Has something happened at the house?”
“Nosy, aren’t you!”
“Yes sir. Is everything alright? Because I know the ladies who live there. They’re my granny’s friends.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve had a car accident, and now while they’re in hospital they’ve had a break-in, except he knocked himself out before he could take anything. So, now you know as much as I do about it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s a pleasure.” The policeman climbed into the car. As he drove off, he remembered he should have asked her why she wasn’t at school. Oh well, he thought. She must have had a good reason, she seemed a pleasant kid – called him ‘sir’. You didn’t get that often these days.
It wouldn’t be safe to go into the house now. Gladys might be doing the downstairs for hours, and she’d be sure to phone the policeman if Lucy appeared from nowhere. Donald reluctantly followed the tugging on his lead and they walked down to the town to the long, wide avenue next to the station.
Lucy sat down on the first bench they came to. At least Bernie wasn’t dead and that was a tremendous relief, but even so, she’d done him harm. She leaned back and closed her eyes, and tried to work out if there was any way she could contact one of the holy leaders and beg the Magnifico’s forgiveness. Donald wheezed away at her feet. Passers-by noticed a sad young girl with olive skin and a wind-blown mass of soft brown curls, and they wondered why she wasn’t at school.
“Maria?” said a voice. Lucy opened her eyes. A tall, elderly man stood in front of her. He was speaking to her in Welsh, and she didn’t understand. She stared blankly at him. When he spoke again, it was in English.
“What are you doing here, when you should be in school? Aren’t you feeling well? Come home now, cariad.” He switched again to Welsh, and Lucy didn’t reply. Taking her hand, he pulled her gently to her feet. “Why have you got a dog with you?” he asked.
By now Lucy had realised who he was, and she of the spawn and the devil’s blood didn’t dare speak. He chatted to her as they went along, but she understood little. As he opened the blue front door she knew she couldn’t go in. She looked up at him, and gave a shaky smile. Would her voice sound all wrong to him?
“I’ll have to take the dog back first.” She released her hand from his, and walked away as fast as Donald’s legs would go.
“Don’t be long,” he called after her. “Mam will have the dinner ready.”
From the window in the front room, David saw her retreating figure.
“It’s Lucy!” he hissed. “She’s supposed to be in London!”
Dorothy jumped up and peered over his shoulder. They both made for the hall, but it was narrow, and they would have had to push rudely past Mr Jones to get out.
Dorothy ran to the kitchen. “Mrs Jones,” she whispered urgently. “We’ve just seen Lucy going past.”
“Run after her then, and bring her back!”
Evan ambled in and filled up the kitchen doorway. Dorothy gritted her teeth as she waited for him to move out of the way.
“I just saw Maria, my love,” he said. “She must have missed school. There’s a dog with her, and she’s taking it home. She’ll be back in a minute.”
Gwen’s heart was beating fast, but she spoke calmly. “She’ll be just in time for dinner. She doesn’t like school food. Run after her, Dorothy, and tell her to hurry or the meat will be cold. Did you manage to get your newspaper, Evan, dear?”
By the time Dorothy had squeezed past Mr Jones as politely as she could and dashed out of the front door, David was halfway down the street. He could see Lucy and Donald easily, despite the crowded, narrow pavement. When they reached the corner, they turned right towards the sea. At the crossroads they waited for the traffic to pass, and David caught up with them.
Lucy flinched as he grabbed her arm and then she nearly collapsed with relief.
“Flaming flesh! You gave me such a fright. I thought you were the Magnifico. Where have you been?” she wailed. “I’ve been really worried. There was no one in
the house. I’ve been on my own since Friday.”
“We’ll explain it all. Mrs Jones said to bring you straight back for lunch.”
“I can’t! He thinks I’m Maria! What will he do when he realises I’m not? He’ll go berserk if he finds out the devil’s spawn is in his house.”
“Take a chance,” said David. “We can’t go back to Miss Clements’s place.”
“Nor can I,” said Lucy, “The police were there. And Gladys. Meet me on the castle after you’ve eaten.”
They were joined by Dorothy and, after some persuasion, Lucy agreed reluctantly that as soon as Mr Jones had gone for his afternoon sleep they would come and take her back to the house. All three, and Donald, were watched with interest by the drab woman with the pink-rimmed glasses and permed hair, standing on the steps outside the station.
Chapter Nineteen
Isobel followed the children to the house with the blue door, noted the number, and went up to the end of the road before turning back. What a stroke of luck, she thought. For the past three days she’d been tramping round this dreary town, and there they were, only a hundred yards up the road from her hotel.
She phoned head office and gave them the address, with instructions to find out who lived there and what connection they had with the children. Then she took out her private phone and had a satisfying chat with Drax.
“I’ve told them to send down an abductor again. I wanted two, but the only other one available was that Robin, and Dorothy would recognise him straight away. I’ll have to make do with one. As soon as I’ve had the info about the household I’ll decide how to approach things. This time it’ll really have to work.”
Drax agreed. “Don’t waste time bribing anyone. Just get the kids away to some quiet spot, do what you have to do and tip them out, or chuck ‘em over a cliff. Have you still got your equipment with you?”
“Yes, of course. I never go anywhere without it.”
The Big House Page 17