‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But, babe: you’d better wake up. There’s someone in the room with you.’
And then he’s gone, and I’m awake, and even before I reach consciousness, I am crying, though I knew while it was happening that I was only dreaming. I can feel the gooseflesh rising on my arms. I’m alone in the big bed, straining to shake paralysis from my limbs. And I’m casting around with my eyes because I know that what he has just said is true.
Someone has lit a candle. Over by the window. It stands in the centre of the pedestal table and glints feebly, doing more to throw the room into shadow than illuminate it.
My heart leaps – hope, and fear, mixed together in one sick adrenal lurch. A wind has got up outside while I have been asleep; it rattles the window and makes the tiny flame dance and jitter.
‘Rufus?’
A small movement, just outside my field of vision, beyond the bed-curtains. But no reply.
I struggle upright, covers heavy on my legs, head heavy with slow-clearing sleep from where I was knocked out by Nytol because I’m not letting diazepam near my baby. And then I remember that, before I took the pill, I locked the door from the inside: partly in pique, partly to stop intrusions. There’s no way he can be back.
I swing my legs to the far side of the bed from where I sense the presence, try the bedside lamp. It’s dead: clicks with a dullness that suggests that the electrical supply has given out again.
The candle gutters. The house shifts and groans. And a cloaked figure steps out from behind the curtain, turns its blank and hooded face towards me and laughs.
I don’t scream, this time. I’ve learned my lesson. But I’m on my feet and across the room like a greyhound out of a trap, and fumbling with the key before my ghostly visitor has reached the foot of the bed. And in turn, it doesn’t speak: just shakes a white hand from the drape of its sleeve and points a skinny finger in my direction, lets loose another peal of mocking laughter. Not funny-ha-ha laughter: the laughter of the bully watching the weakling scrabble in the mud. Laughter that contains nothing of humour and everything of violence.
The key catches, turns in my hand, and I burst out into the corridor, cold damp air on my arms and shoulders, my satin slip no protection against the wintry night.
In the bedroom, someone trips, stumbles, lets out a grunt of surprise and annoyance. There is nothing supernatural about the sound. I’ve been visited by someone very real and very solid. And then I hear his footsteps resume and tumble towards me, and this knowledge brings me no comfort at all. The passageway suddenly seems very long and very empty. I am half naked and alone in a house that is, to all intents and purposes, deserted. I look about me for some object – a candlestick, a doorstop, anything that’s hard and would fit into the palm of the hand – but there is nothing. Wattestone ancestors gaze, glum and disapproving, at my tangled hair, my bare feet.
He appears in the doorway. I do the only thing I can think of, and run. I bolt towards the stairs, see ivy leaves thrash like storm-swept seaweed against the windowpanes. The banister is cold beneath my hand, treads slippery with varnish. I can’t hear him behind me now, but I keep up my pace, pattering downward, my ears only half-registering the whispering that pursues me.
Leave. Leave. We don’t want you here. Get out. Get out. GET OUT!
I don’t need telling twice. I should have left last night; shouldn’t have waited, hoping, stupidly hoping, that Rufus would change his mind, that he would come back for me.
I reach the first landing. Swing round the corner, screech to a halt on the very edge of the top step of the next flight. Have to grip the newel with both hands to stop myself from pitching forward into the dark.
Below me, looking up, hands tucked into heavy sleeves, empty blackness where the face should be, is my monk.
I am rooted to the spot, sound of the ocean in my ears.
He begins to climb the stairs.
I run west.
Heavy dark-wood Gothic of the Victorian wing. Stuffed animal heads watch the far distance with blank glass gazes. Wattestones in black – white bonnets and thyroid eyes – ignore me as I scutter beneath them and whisper: We don’t want you. You are not one of us, at my retreating back.
I don’t know where Rufus is. I don’t know if he’s even in the house. I try doors as I pass, but they either refuse to open at all, or swing back to reveal cavernous expanses devoid of occupation. I never knew a place so large could also be so claustrophobic. The house itself is watching me. I can feel it from the prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck.
The wind buffets the windows again, air pressure suddenly up, then down, as though there’s been an explosion in the foundations. The house moans in protest. I make for the Victorian staircase. I still don’t know what my intention is. I’ve no clothes, no keys: even if I can make it to the car, I can’t drive away.
The descending section of the Victorian staircase has been blocked off with scaffolding. I’ll have to go through the Queen Anne wing before I can go down. Glance over my shoulder before I mount the stairs. The corridor is empty.
The long gallery: gloomy light filters through uncurtained windows on to bare floorboards. The suits of armour that line the walls from one end of the room to the other, brandishing swords and battleaxes and ancient longbows, have the air of long-dead guardians awaiting the opportunity to return to life. I pause on the threshold, try to check each in turn for signs of movement, realise that I have no alternative but to pass them anyway, and set off to jog the hundred metres to the far door. I stay in the centre of the room, glance left to right as I go.
The door behind me bursts open, and a dark figure flies through, cloak hems billowing round sprinting legs.
And now I’m truly running myself: through the long gallery door, down the Jacobean corridor, tumbling, leaping down the tollbooth stair without even holding the banister.
And he’s there. He’s there again, coming up at me. How can he be? I must be seeing things. I must. How can he be behind me and ahead?
I can feel the scream build. Choke it down. I can’t show fear. Can’t show more fear than I’m showing already. Muster a voice from somewhere in the bottom of my throat and say, stupidly, lamely: ‘Can I help you?’
There’s no reply. What am I thinking?
I stand my ground. Search for words. Try them out in my head for signs of weakness. What do you want? Why are you following me? Keep back, I’ve got a gun …
‘What can I do for you?’
He doesn’t reply. Just raises an arm to show me the object in his hand. It’s a kitchen knife. Eight inches long and pointed, for filleting. I don’t need telling twice. Bound up the flight I’ve just come down, belt along a Persian runner into the Jacobean wing. Black wood, panelling, heavy dark furniture that squats in the moonlight like stalking trolls. I don’t know my way around here well. Have only been here in daylight, passing through, following Rufus, going to the library.
Footsteps hard behind me. I step up my pace, feet slapping on polished teak, feel my face harden in a grimace. I know now what it feels like to be a fox, pursued for sport, hunted down and cornered and seeing my own mortality.
I hear him behind me. Panting more heavily than I am, heavy footfalls slapping about, as though he is beginning to flag. Perhaps there is a chance. Perhaps I can outrun him, wear him out; if I can only get far enough ahead, I can go to ground. Hide out until the danger has passed. I decide to head for the very core of the house, for the Tudor staircase, where wings, north, south, east and west, diverge from a single point and where, if I get there with time to spare, I can dive away into the darkness and lose him for good. Burst through the green baize door at the end of the corridor, rattle down the servants’ staircase and hurl myself into the final straight. The passageway is lower here, more cramped, ghastly imps’ faces looming from decorative plasterwork. I snatch hold of a huge pewter platter that sits on a table, frisbee it behind me. Hear it bounce from something hard, then the oof, reced
ing behind, as it catches its target. Almost manage a smile of triumph – take that, you bastard – but lack the energy. Turn a corner, then another one, and I’m there. Turn east.
And he’s right there in front of me. Hands raised like Christ blessing Rio.
Shit, shit, shit.
I try south. And he’s there as well. Leaning against the wall, arms folded, like an actor waiting to play Hamlet.
And he’s coming up behind. He’s behind me. Behind, and to the left, and to the right.
I don’t even think. Barely register that of course, it’s not one, it’s three, that they’ve been tagging me since I left the bedroom, that I’m not being hunted, I’m being herded. I skid round and run up the Eastern corridor, into the unused part of the house, the abandoned wing. Hear them pause and whisper. It’s a dead end up here. The house comes to an end with a huge oriel window overlooking the formal gardens. I must find somewhere to hide. I have no alternative. I must find an earth somewhere and wait until they pass.
Doors: locked, locked, locked. My every muscle aches with tension. My hair sticks to the back of my neck. I tiptoe along, now, try each door in turn, feel dust on handles that haven’t moved in decades.
They have started walking. Just walking, as though they know that there’s no escape, that they have no need to rush.
And finally, some give. I hold my breath. Push the door open as silently as I can and enter a tiny bedroom, ugly, the proportions all wrong: long and narrow like another corridor. It’s deep in fust and dust and unmoving air. A bed. A couple of chairs. Some large black screen-like object, the size of a door and thick, like it’s padded in some way, leaning against the wall, pointless. And, out of place in this house of antiquities, a built-in wardrobe, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall.
I close the door behind me, quietly, quietly. Tiptoe over the carpet and pull the wardrobe door open.
Weird. It’s full of fur coats. Full-length fur coats, motheaten, green to the touch.
I slip inside and crouch behind them.
Chapter Seventy
Gone to Ground
Footsteps. They’re here.
They enter the room, treading carefully as though nervous of falling in the dark. They don’t switch on the lights. Of course they don’t. There are no lights.
Then I catch a flash of torchlight through the crack in the wardrobe door. They’ve come equipped. Jesus.
I shrink against the back of the wardrobe, and a protrusion from the wall digs into my side. Crazy, stupid: the instinctive reaction of an animal at bay.
The door clicks shut.
‘Are you sure she came in here?’ Hilary’s voice, muffled through the fur.
Another voice answers. It takes me a moment to recognise it. ‘Of course. It’s the only one that’s open.’
‘You don’t think, while you were … she might have …?’
‘No.’ She sounds slightly irritated. ‘No, she won’t have. She’ll be here.’
It’s Mrs Roberts. The faithful servant, helping out in the hunt.
‘Gone to ground,’ says my mother-in-law, and laughs.
A moment’s silence, then all three laugh together.
I close my eyes. If you exist, God, if you exist, help me now.
Mary raises her voice. ‘You might as well come out, now, Melody dear,’ she says. ‘We can do it the hard way or the easy way. It’s up to you.’
I don’t move a muscle. Barely even breathe. I’m not going to make it easier for them. Whatever way we do it, it’s going to be hard on me. A bit of me is going: Come on, Melody, they’re just trying to put the wind up you. It’s another of Mary’s little games. Scare me into hysterics and deny that they were ever there.
And the rest knows that the game has stepped up another level. That I’ve been underestimating them all along. That the easy way is already over and now they’re going to play hard.
An exaggerated social sigh: Mary’s, but coming from Hilary’s lungs. ‘Well, it seems we have to pause to draw,’ he says. ‘Roberts. If you’d be kind enough to cover the door, in case she breaks covert …’
‘Ar,’ says Mrs R. Jesus. I hear her make her way back across the room, heavy-breathing as she goes. I don’t know what to do. I’m cornered, like a rat in a trap. Think, Melody. I have nothing to defend myself with. A green silk slip and some mouldering mink. Why did I leave the bedroom? How could I have been so …?
Because you’re stupid and you deserve to die. You should have left when you had the chance.
I feel about me as they start to search the room. It’s not a big room, not by Bourton standards. It’s about half the size it should be, on this floor. I’ve got less than a jiffy. I start to grope about the wardrobe. Maybe there’s a hatpin, a brooch left in one of these stupid old-lady coats. Something – anything. I’m not going down without a fight.
They’re taking their time. That’s for sure certain. Enjoying themselves. They’re doing things at their leisure: relishing it.
‘Where, oh, where can she be?’ asks Hilary. ‘Could it be behind the curtains?’
A swish and a giggle as the curtains are thrown back. A bit more light, now. I can see my arm, my naked thigh.
‘Could it be under the bed?’ asks Mary.
‘Poke about and see,’ says Hilary.
There’s the sound of thrusting: breathing like someone’s bent over and using their muscles. Horrible. Hopelessly, I push myself further back against the wall. Feel, again, that object dig into the small of my back. Right down by the hip: something angular, something that shifts, ever so slightly, as I move against it.
‘Where can she be?’ asks Mary.
They’re toying with me. They know already. It’s obvious. They want to extract the max.
It moves again: more this time. Suddenly, I realise that it’s not just the knobble that’s moving, but a section of the wall against my back. Just a slight shift, but enough to make me realise, suddenly, what lies behind. Of course. That’s why the proportions of the room are all wrong.
‘Well,’ says Hilary, ‘there’s only one place she can be.’
Torchlight plays suddenly, brightly, across the crack in the door in front of me. I hear them cross the room: neat, crisp footsteps.
Scrabbling behind me, I grasp what’s been sticking into me and feel it. It’s a latch. So far down the wall that no casual observer would spot it, but a latch none the less. Beneath my fingers I identify the smooth length of iron that holds the door to, and the vertical lifter, which has been what’s been digging into me.
It’s a priest hole. It must be. Rufus said they were here, and I’ve found one. Sanctuary.
The torches pause at the door. Whispers: ‘Give it to me. No, let me. I want to. You promised I could …’
I don’t waste any more time. Grasp the lifter and push upward. For one sweaty moment it resists – God knows how many decades since the last time it moved – and then with a little click it lets go of the latch and the door swings back. Carries me on its momentum, tumbling head-over-legs into a darkness so total it wraps itself around me like velvet. Darkness that’s dry and musty and smells faintly of – what? Vinegar? White spirit? Rot?
Carpet beneath me. I bump against a piece of furniture, crouch, in the black. No time to close the door: the wardrobe is coming open. All my will to control my breath. If they don’t hear me, maybe they won’t see the aperture, will think themselves mistaken.
A giggle, again – Hilary, this time: high-pitched, like a schoolboy in the thick of some act of random cruelty.
I see a hand – bleached, fingers grotesquely long in torchlight shadows – reach out and push the coats apart. Three silhouettes move forward to fill the gap, then suddenly, with a flick of a wrist, their faces are lit from below, wide-eyed and grinning like jack-o’-lanterns.
‘Boo,’ says Mary.
I don’t reply.
‘We brought you your handbag, Melody, dear,’ she says. ‘We won’t be needing it any more.’
‘Sorry, old girl, and all that,’ says Hilary, ‘but family comes first.’
‘They’re not your family, Hilary,’ I say.
‘Yours neither,’ he says.
He takes a step into the wardrobe, grasps the top of the dwarf door leading to my hideout. Holds out my bag at arm’s length and hoicks it, disdainfully, into the void behind me. ‘Goodbye,’ he says. ‘No hard feelings.’
‘Are you crazy?’
Mary looks at me pityingly. ‘You never really did understand our ways,’ she tells me. ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, but of course, I really don’t like to tell more lies than strictly necessary.’
Hilary yanks at the door and it bangs to. The darkness snatches at me, grips the back of my neck, crushes my chest. And on the far side of the wooden panel, I hear something that makes my eyes flare with fear.
I can hear sounds of strain, groans of exertion, and I hear the scrape of another panel, sliding into the place. I know what that big heavy screen was, propped up against the wall.
It was soundproofing.
Chapter Seventy-One
Priest Hole
Breath. Whooping. Frayed. In, in, in, in, my chest tight like a drum. Sounds of a wolf, snarling, hands clutched at my throat.
Black. It’s black. Eyes goggling, desolate search for some tiny source of light, some pinprick of comfort. Black. The world, gone. Silence. All silence, just the sound of my breath.
All states pass. All states but death. As my awareness begins to return, I understand that I am crouched on my haunches, hands, stiff like coral, either side of my face, and that I am rocking, back and forth, back and forth, like the porcelain mandarins in the Chinese Drawing Room. My skin feels stretched from the screaming, and my teeth are dry like bones.
Panic. You’re panicking.
It’s dark. It’s so dark. They left me in the dark. I don’t know what’s in here with me …
I can hear it. Breathing. A tiny part of my wit knows that it’s only me who breathes here in the dark, that the rustling is my own scant clothing, but my mind is filled with zombies and vampires and stalking assassins. I see nothing, but I see things with red eyes, I see tall dark figures in fedora hats, I see Mary, crouched in a corner, fingernails filed to points, laughing at me.
Simply Heaven Page 43