Ribblestrop
Page 8
Seventeen voices sang:
“Ribblestrop, Ribblestrop, precious unto me;
This is what I dream about and where I want to be.
Early in the morning, finally at night,
Ribblestrop, I’ll die for thee, carrying the light.”
At the end of the verse, Henry blew the whistle. Again and again they sang, and this time it was a work song: the kind of song a chain gang would sing as it labored. Thus the party moved into the depths of the rock.
*
Four miles away, had you been in the cab of the 13:06 Intercity Penzance-Paddington service, you would have heard the slamming of a connecting door and the following conversation:
“Hello, Arthur! You haven’t checked all those tickets already?”
“I have, Darren. Not many punters today for some reason, just the one gets on at Par. They all join at Exeter, that’s when my feet don’t touch the ground.”
“Better sit down, then. Break out that tea.”
“In your bag here, is it?”
The cab is small, but comfortable. It can accommodate driver and guard easily, and there’s always room for a trainee or inspector. The hydraulic driving seats command a marvelous view of the countryside whipping by and, as the glass is an inch thick and bulletproof, very little sound gets in to disturb conversation.
“Any more news on that mess yesterday?” said Darren. He was a thin, wiry little man with a lot of woolly white hair. New dentures allowed him to smile happily: he was a gentle soul and had been driving trains for nearly forty years.
“Not yet. Young girl, apparently—she pulled the lever on the other train. Then she jumped.”
“I couldn’t see if it was boys or girls. Black-and-yellow uniforms, I’m pretty sure about that.”
“They’re checking the Reading schools, they might find ’em yet.”
“She had a very narrow escape.”
“Hopefully they got a scare, those kids. You won’t find them on the railways for a while! Look at that view, Arthur.”
“Take your tea.”
“See that piece of rock to the right? That’s Ribblestrop Edge. I’ve been up there. You can see clear over the county—see Wales on a clear day. And then we bend round to the west and go through the Ribblestrop Pass, which is one hundred and thirty meters—excavated in, oh . . .”
“Signal, Darren—put your lights on.”
“Thanks, Arthur.”
Darren flicked a switch and the main beam came up like a searchlight.
“Irish built it, I do know that. It cuts through Ribblestrop Towers, where old whatshisname lived, the murdered scientist. I’m supposed to whistle here, just in case some poor badger’s got itself halfway up the tunnel.”
“I wouldn’t like to be a badger up that tunnel. Can I blow the whistle, Darren?”
“Be my guest, Arthur—it’s above you. I tell you, I can really get some speed up in this tunnel, it’s straight as straight. We’re touching eighty miles an hour, you wouldn’t believe it though, would you?”
“What’s that up ahead?”
“Where?”
*
“Ribblestrop, Ribblestrop, precious unto me;
This is what I dream about and where I want to be.
Early in the morning—”
“Shush!”
Sanchez stood still.
“Henry!” he shouted. “Was that you whistling, man?”
Silence.
“Did someone whistle?” said Sanchez, again.
“Stand close, everyone,” said Ruskin. “Gather round. This is interesting: can you feel a sort of vibration? It’s like a little earthquake almost, can anyone else feel it?”
“I can,” said Sam. He was sitting on the rail, head in hands.
The children moved into a tight cluster.
“Maybe it’s blasting from the quarry,” said Ruskin. “You don’t think it’s a train, do you? I know there are two railways in the park, because one of them’s the mainline between Cornwall and London. We used to go down to the fence and wave. I hope I haven’t got the two lines confused, that would be a real gaffe . . .”
Ruskin stopped there, not because he’d run out of things to say, but because the tunnel was filling rapidly with the most monstrous scream. The sound was spiraling round the walls of the tunnel, echoing on itself until it became an electrifying howl. It was the sound sheet metal makes when it is being torn apart by circular saws. The sound gets so far into your ears the very eardrums can split and all those little bones, the smallest in the body, simply fragment. It’s the sound of an express train with eighty iron wheels hurtling through a tunnel at eighty-two miles per hour.
*
Darren the driver’s accident report was not a long document. The handwriting was more wobbly than young Sam Tack’s, because the writer had temporarily lost all coordination. Arthur, the guard, was barely able to speak let alone write. He told only a police inspector what he had seen at one minute past four in the Ribblestrop tunnel: he never spoke of it again. Some memories have to be suppressed.
We were proceeding through the tunnel and I had whistled and illuminated my headlight prior to entry. I remember increasing speed because the restrictions had changed. My colleague and I were looking down the track and we saw upward of a dozen small children all dressed in distinctive black-and-yellow school uniforms. I remember there was one lad, closest to us, who seemed bigger than the rest. Some of the little ones, I remember, were (the handwriting breaks down here) were holding hands . . . One little fellow waved his cap. I applied the emergency lever but there was no way we could stop in time. They never stood a chance.
Chapter Ten
What had happened to Millie?
She had left Sam’s bedside, if you remember, after two ugly fights. The first she’d won handsomely. The second had humiliated her and she’d been thrown out into the corridor. She had sat for ten minutes or so, waiting for the throbbing in her head to die down. She calmed herself. Clearly, Sanchez was quick and well trained: some kind of martial artist, she imagined. Next time she would find an appropriate weapon.
Comforting herself with this thought, Millie stood up. It was dinnertime after all, and time to find again the bomb site that the strange cook had called a dining hall. She descended the main staircase and set off along one of the school’s many long, poorly lit corridors.
Everybody makes mistakes, particularly in new surroundings. Millie had never mastered her left and her right and she should have taken the first turning. That would have brought her to the steps down to the hall. A right turn would have brought her into the yard, and there she would have been in time for the headmaster’s speech. Alas, Millie went straight on and turned left at the end of the passage. There was no right turn to be seen, so she continued, past a suit of armor without a head. Someone had lit a candle at the far end, which seemed promising—so she pressed on, knowing that soon she’d spot something familiar. At the end of the passage, she came to a landing of some kind, with another staircase down. This would lead to the kitchens, she thought: the place she’d first met Captain Routon when they repaired Sam.
Down she went.
“Hello?” she cried. She was a confident girl.
Left turn into what she thought would be the kitchen’s preparation area. Something rang a bell: she could see a chair that looked familiar. Right turn, toward a glow of light—a couple of right-angle turns that didn’t seem likely, but now she’d come so far she’d soon bump into someone. Left, then right through an unlocked grille she’d definitely never seen before. A staircase down: not the way, but she heard some footsteps, so that suggested a human presence. She hurried down them and found herself in a narrow passage. No carpet anymore, no boards even: the floor was stone flags. She knew she must be well under the mansion, in deep cellars. They would—they should—link up with the kitchen . . .
“Hello?” she called, again. “Can someone answer, please?”
A very dead sound; a rather damp
sound. In the distance, she could hear singing. It was low and mournful, like the chanting of monks. Even as she listened it stopped.
In her mind she was thinking, This school is a madhouse. Only in a place like this could you get so stupidly lost in a few minutes . . .
“Is anyone there?” she yelled.
Then she listened to the silence. Somewhere far off she heard a key turning in a lock, then—possibly—the shooting of a bolt. They weren’t comforting sounds.
Millie turned around nervously and tried to find her way back. But after a few minutes the ground sloped away downward and she knew it was hopeless. She lit Mr. Sanchez’s silver cigarette lighter and inspected the sandy floor.
There were bootprints pacing away downhill. She followed them. An iron gate stood on the left, all bars and chain; through the gate she could see empty wine racks. Opposite was an archway, with a broken door that stood open. Either side, soaring up high into the gloom, were marble shelves. It was a cold and clammy place, and Millie inspected it with her lighter. True, it felt like a tomb—but it wasn’t one. There were no headstones or bodies and the smell was only a little bit musty. She worked hard at logic, forcing herself to be calm: this was simply a larder, surely, where cold cheese and meat would be stored. Wine store, cheese store. Everything has its place, and she was simply in the kitchen cellars of a huge house where years ago they’d had dinners for a hundred guests. They would have had food and booze to last half a year . . . and they would also have staircases to get you back to the kitchens quickly, so Millie walked on, confident that in a short time she’d find those stairs.
It was the white rabbit that alerted her to the possibility that things were not really in control anymore. She only saw it for a few seconds, but it was definitely a white rabbit. It looked at her. It seemed about to smile or speak—but instead it turned and bobbed away.
When she saw the metal door, she knew the rabbit must have emerged from whatever room that door guarded. Her mouth was dry, but she tiptoed to the doorway and peered inside.
“Excuse me?” she whispered.
The hallway was small. The walls were lined with old wooden shelves, and the shelves were laden with jars and bottles; there was a smell of must mingled with bleach. There was one neon light and it flickered on and off. It was some kind of passage, used for storage, therefore it ought not to have been frightening. Chemistry lab bottles with heavy glass stoppers. Fat jars, thin jars, sugars and powders, liquids and crystals. Some of the glass had been scribbled on, in what might have been chalk. Some were thick with dust and some were clean. She moved past them and came to a metal sink into which a tap was dripping. The water dripped over what looked like a soup bowl, and something slimy seemed to be curled up inside, stinking—Millie caught the odor and turned her face away fast.
She saw a mirror. Reflected in that mirror was a pair of double doors. She turned, licking her lips, which had become painfully dry. Through the doors she could see bright yellow light, and there was a soft humming and an electronic bleep. She tiptoed forward, feeling unsteady. Something had dripped on the floor and it was sticky. She peered through the doors, and—convinced the room was empty—slipped between them, praying for a staircase. There were more shelves, everywhere, on every wall. There was a metal table and steel counters, and a small trolley, laden with bottles.
As she stared around, she realized she was being watched.
She gulped, then heard herself whimper. She was not alone! Around her were a hundred little eyes. From the bottles and jars helpless faces peered—were they animals or fish? She went closer, and backed away again—did she want to know or not? Eyes and mouths were floating in murky liquids, and some had little hands or paws, and some of the faces looked so wise. Oh God, they were rats and rabbits and creatures curled up so tight she couldn’t recognize them, and some had mouths that were yawning, with teeth bared. She could see teeth straining, she could see wide eyes! And, in one particular jar above the eyes, what had happened to the skull? She shied away but she couldn’t not look: the sad little creature held her gaze, and Millie saw that the head had been cut clean through. Its brain was visible, soft and bulbous. Next to that, a creature without fur—a piglet perhaps—its limbs twisted round itself, its eyes shut tight, and its snout lifted. Once again, side on, the head had been cut and the brain was . . . balancing there. It wasn’t a dream, she was looking at broken heads.
As she snapped her eyes shut, something whirred behind her and she spun round with a cry. It was an animal cage, she saw it in a moment, and something was racing on a metal wheel, racing suddenly as if for its life. There were wires and dials coming from it, coming from its head. An animal cried out behind her, parrotlike, monkeylike, and Millie spun round again, and there was a bigger cage, with something cat-size, rocking backward and forward staring into her eyes . . . She felt vibrations in the floor. Its skull . . . the creature’s head—there was something wrong, but she’d managed not to see, and now her hands were over her eyes and her mouth was full of bitter vomit. Was the whole room really shaking, or was it just her own sickness? Glass was rattling, the animals were screeching, and it was as if an underground train was coming, getting closer all the time. The sound became a hammering of metal and some of the glass started to rattle. The monkey cries got louder and Millie was panicking. She turned to the doors, she turned back. The noise was all around her and as she staggered there was the smashing of glass—her hand had caught one of the flasks on the trolley, and a powder fine as salt spread over the floor and her shoes. She was on her knees in the broken glass, her hands in the powder.
Then, up—up at all costs, because she had to hide. She could see a concertinad metal door at the far end of the room, and that was where the noise was coming from. It was the door to a lift and that was the noise; there was a row of lights flickering above it, and she knew the lift was coming down. The animals were frantic, as if they knew too.
She hunted for a corner—how lucky for her that years of hiding from teachers had given her the reflexes of a panther so, as the noise built to a crescendo, Millie leaped sideways and slid between a rack of shelves and some kind of fridge. She was in a corner where a couple of freezers stood, lids wide open. In seconds she had rolled into the first like a soldier trained for such maneuvers: it was wet and stank of bleach, but there could be no better hiding place. She pulled the lid down over her head, careful to let it rest open by a few centimeters. Her fingers were burning, her heart was racing, and her mouth was achingly dry.
“To me!” said a voice.
She was safe. She could breathe easily and she could still see out. She crouched there, trying to calm down. Yes, the lift door was open now, and she heard the metal grille slam into itself. Two figures. At first, they were shapeless—one in green, one in black. They were bent over something, and wrestling with it. It was heavy and they were grunting.
“Careful!” said one. “Get your end up!”
Deep, panting voices—Millie strained to see more. Whatever they held was dead weight. She fought to remain calm and silent—her fingers were burning, and she must have touched her lip because her mouth was hurting too. She heard the second voice, filled with impatience: “It’s stuck your end!” The men were irritable. “It’s caught on the wretched door,” said the first one. “Your end down!”
“Lift it! Ow!”
“Shut the damn door! Shut the damn door!”
The animals were quiet. The men were unloading something, but Millie couldn’t make out what it was, it was still wrapped in plastic. It was big and black, with what looked like a crane attachment bolted to its top, all rods and levers.
They were both panting, but calming down. They had dragged the thing into the middle of the floor and were leaning on it, getting their breath back. A radio crackled and Millie saw that the man in black was in uniform. He wore a cap, and the cap was trimmed in a line of all-too-familiar check. The man was a policeman and Millie went cold with fear and closed her eyes.
“Where’s he want it?”
“Didn’t say,” said the policeman. Millie was watching again. “Just said leave it on one. But he did say plug it in . . . Hey.”
“What?”
“Where’s the rabbit?”
“What d’you mean?”
The policeman was standing still, looking around him, hat in his hand. He wasn’t young, and she could see big, fat, red hands. He went to one of the cages and lifted it. “It’s open,” he said. The voice had a northern twang.
“He said he’s finished with all this anyway,” said the other man. “Didn’t he? He said clear all this. We should have come the other way.”
“We need the cylinders in as well. Look, he might not need any of this but rabbits don’t open their own cages. Look at this poor soul . . .”
She was watching, mesmerized, wondering what on earth she’d stepped into. The man farthest away had a knife, and was cutting and stripping, ripping through the cord and plastic that swathed the delivery. Oh, she could see what the thing was now, and it made her even colder. How many times had she seen just that kind of object? It was a dentist’s chair. It even had the tray that sits close to your chest, where they hang the little drills. There was a face mask on a hook, and tubes looped from it upward, out of sight. There were stirrups where you put your feet, and—worst of all—on the arm rests, where your wrists would go, there were straps. So it couldn’t be a dentist’s chair . . . nobody got restrained in a dentist’s chair, strapped in for treatment—that just didn’t happen.
As Millie stared, the lamp came on. The man had thrown a switch and the inspection lamp was shining, bright and brutal. The chair yawned backward, waiting—hungry for a patient.