by Ben Cheetham
For a second there was stunned silence. Then the older woman shouted, “Run!”
All four figures fled towards the open French doors. Adam automatically gave chase. Faith tripped over the rug and fell to her knees. He grabbed her arm. She sprang to her feet, attempting to yank herself free. They reeled around like drunken dancers, then she broke away and darted into the hallway. Adam regained his balance and went after her. She ran into The Lewarne Room, slamming the door in his face. He thrust it back open. The room was as black as the night. He flicked on the light, expecting to find Faith halfway out of the window. She was nowhere to be seen.
“My wife’s phoning the police,” he said breathlessly.
No reply.
He edged forwards, craning to peer around the armchair and sofa. His eyebrows bunched together. No Faith. He stooped to peer up the chimney. Nothing but soot and cobwebs. He spun around at the sound of footfalls. Ella appeared at the door, clutching the stuffed peacock as if ready to bludgeon someone with it. “I heard a shout.”
“A girl ran in here.”
“What girl?”
“The one from the pub. The redhead.”
“Well where the hell is she then?”
Adam spread his hands as if to say, You tell me.
Ella looked around herself nervously. “She can’t have just disappeared.”
“Maybe she snuck out behind me.”
“I’d have seen her.”
“Well she didn’t go out the window.” Adam motioned to the closed shutters. “Which leaves only one other possibility.”
Both of their gazes moved to the secret panel. There were empty holes where the nails had protruded through the surrounding wood. The panel swung inwards at a gentle push. Once again, the lengths of wood lay on the flagstones beyond.
“You’re not going in there after her, are you?” asked Ella.
“No way. I’ll leave that to the police.”
“I’ve already phoned them. They’re on their way here. Do you think she knew about the passageways?”
“Even if she did, how did she get the panel open?”
They silently pondered these questions, then Ella said, “One of us will have to open the gates for the police.”
“We’ll all go.” Adam grabbed a poker from the fireplace and they hurried upstairs to Henry’s room.
Ella tapped Henry awake. “Nothing to worry about, darling,” she told him as he blinked bemusedly. “We just have to go outside for a little while.”
“Why?”
Instead of answering, Ella helped Henry into his dressing gown and ushered him from the room. As they made their way to the front gates, Adam’s gaze flitted around in case Faith’s companions were lurking in the garden. He half-expected to find the black van parked in the lane, but there was no sign of it. He opened the gates. Ella laced her arms protectively around Henry’s shoulders. After fifteen or twenty minutes, the lane was illuminated by blue flashing lights. A pair of police cars pulled up and a constable got out. “We received a report of a break-in at this address.”
Adam told him what had happened.
“Doesn’t sound like a burglary,” commented the constable.
“I think–” Adam broke off, glancing at Henry. Motioning for the constable to follow, he moved out of his son’s earshot. “I think they were performing some sort of ritual. The girl I chased is called Faith. At least I think that’s her name.”
Two constables searched the garden. Two others went into the house. One by one, lights came on in the windows. A constable eventually returned and informed them, “The locks on your back gate and French windows have been forced. We’ve searched the house and the passageways. We didn’t find anyone. Could you come with me, Mr Piper? There’s something I’d like you to have a look at.”
“What is it?”
“I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me.”
With this cryptic remark, the constable led Adam to the sitting room and pointed out a symbol chalked on the floorboards. There were three concentric circles. The largest was about two metres in diameter. Within the innermost circle a cross had been drawn, like a rifle sight. Along the outside edge of the largest circle were four words, each one lined up with a point of the cross – ‘Adonai’, ‘Agla’, ‘Tzabaoth’, ‘Tetragrammaton’.
“I’ve no idea what this is,” said Adam. He heaved a sigh. He could just imagine Ella’s reaction to the symbol. He could almost hear her saying, I can’t stay in this house. I want to go back to London. The thought of it weighed down his feet as he returned to the garden.
“What did they show you?” asked Ella.
Adam tried to keep his voice light. “Just some nonsense. It’s quite amusing really.”
“Amusing?” Ella frowned as if she suspected Adam was being disingenuous. Manoeuvring Henry into Adam’s arms, she went into the house. With another sigh, Adam followed her.
“Wait here,” he said to Henry in the entrance hall. He went into the sitting room. Ella was staring at the chalked symbol with deep ridges on her forehead.
“I don’t see what the hell is amusing about this,” she said.
“No, you’re right. It’s not funny. It’s tragic. But these people... Well, they’re misguided but harmless.”
Ella looked at Adam sharply. “They broke into our house in the middle of the night. Who knows what they’re capable of?”
“Oh come on, Ella. You can’t honestly think they meant to harm us. As soon as they saw me, they took off like startled rabbits.”
Ella chewed over Adam’s words and her frown lines became a little less pronounced. She glanced towards Henry. “I hope this doesn’t set off his night terrors.”
“He’ll be fine. We’ll tell him it was just some idiots messing around – which it was.”
“I’m going to need statements from all three of you,” a constable informed them.
Henry gave his brief statement first, then Ella put him back to bed. When she returned, Adam broke off from speaking to the constable and looked askance at her.
“He seems OK,” she told him.
Adam smiled with relief. “He’s a lot tougher than we give him credit for.”
After signing their statements, Adam and Ella drank tea to chase away the chill night air. A pale blue light was diluting the darkness by the time the police were finished taking photos and dusting for prints. Adam locked the gates behind the departing police cars and returned to the house. Ella was staring uneasily into The Lewarne Room.
“Faith and her friends must have seen the nails and opened the panel,” said Adam. “That’s probably what woke me up.”
“Probably,” agreed Ella, although her tone suggested Adam’s theory did little to reassure her. She looked at him curiously. “How do you know the girl’s name?”
“I...” Adam stumbled sheepishly over his answer. “I overheard her and one of the men talking in the lane the other night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It didn’t seem important. They were only there for a minute.” He shifted the conversation back to the previous subject. “Shall I nail the panel shut again?”
“What’s the point? It clearly doesn’t to want to stay shut.”
“It’s a piece of wood, Ella. It doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Leave it as is for now in case the police need to go in the passageways again.”
The meaning behind the words was clear – Ella wasn’t convinced they’d seen the last of Faith and her friends.
They scrubbed away the chalk symbol, scraped the candle wax off the floorboards and rolled out the rug. Ella insisted on dragging a sideboard across the French windows – which the police had temporarily secured with screws – for added peace of mind. They headed back up to bed. Neither of them closed their eyes.
“I’m not sure if I can sleep in this house,” Ella said after a while.
Adam had been expecting her to say some such thing. “Tomorrow I’ll call a home secur
ity firm. We can get extra locks put in, maybe even an alarm.”
Ella sighed. “I wanted to get away from London so that we didn’t have to worry about that kind of crap anymore.”
“This is a bit different.”
“Yes, it’s worse. We’re being specifically targeted.”
“Not us. The house. The police said nothing like this has happened before. So this may well be the one and only time it ever happens.” Adam put his arm around Ella. “Close your eyes.”
She reluctantly did so. “Do you think they’ll catch them?”
“I’m sure they will. There are only a handful of roads off the peninsula.”
Ella’s breathing slowly softened into sleep. Adam slipped into a fitful doze, troubled by a dream in which a gradually widening crack appeared in the wall at the foot of the bed. A sound issued from the crack – a ringing that started low but grew in volume until it rattled his bones.
Chapter 20
Day Five
Adam awoke to bright sunlight. For an instant, the ringing seemed to follow him out of his dream. Then it was replaced by Ella’s voice. “Did you get much sleep?” she asked, stepping into the room from the balcony.
“Some.” Adam didn’t return the question. The smudges under Ella’s eyes already provided the answer. “Is Henry awake?”
“He’s in the bathroom. I’m going to take him into Helston. He needs new school trousers and shoes. He’s grown so much recently.”
“I’ll contact Mr Mabyn and check we’re OK to fit new locks.”
Henry came into the room in his dressing gown and sat on the bed. “Morning, sweetheart,” said Adam. “Are you alright?”
Henry nodded.
“It’s OK if you’re scared,” said Adam.
“I’m not scared, Dad.”
“Good, because there’s nothing to be scared of. The people who broke into our house last night aren’t bad people, they’re just very silly and the police will make sure they never come back here. Now give me a kiss.”
Henry kissed Adam’s cheek.
“Thanks, I needed that,” smiled Adam.
“Go and get dressed,” Ella said to Henry.
When they were alone again, Adam said to her, “What about you? Are you alright?”
“I’m not sure.” Ella’s eyes strayed to the wardrobe that covered the mirror. “We’ll talk later.”
She stooped to give Adam a peck and left the room. A sigh found its way past his lips. He didn’t want to talk about this later, or anything else that would inevitably lead to the topic of returning to London. Ella needed to understand that this was their home now. There was no going back. He knew it would be counter-productive to spell things out to her in such black-and-white terms. He would have to tread softly with her for a few days. He comforted himself with the thought that if she was buying school clothes for Henry that surely meant she was swaying more towards staying than leaving.
The car started up and pulled away. Adam dug out the number for Mabyn & Moon. A secretary answered his call and put him on hold. A moment later, Mr Mabyn’s clipped voice came through the receiver. “What can I do for you, Mr Piper?” Adam explained the situation and the solicitor replied, “I understand your concerns, but the contract states very clearly that no structural changes may be made. That includes changes to locks and such like. All I can do is speak to Miss Trehearne and find out if she’ll give permission.”
Adam thanked the solicitor and hung-up. He made tea and toast and took it to the study. The view through the window brought to mind his dream about Henry walking in his pyjamas on the lawn. Had Henry’s fingers been dirty for real that morning or only in the dream?
Adam made his way to the outhouses. He’d packed down the earth over the robin, but now it looked as if someone had dug it over. He dropped to his haunches and scooped up the loose earth. The robin was where he’d buried it, fifty centimetres or so down. He sucked in a sharp breath. Next to the bird the stuffed bunny lay like a murder victim. Several long rents had been slashed into it and its button eyes had been torn off.
As if afraid of doing further damage, Adam gently lifted the bunny to his nose. The smell of Jacob was gone. All it smelled of was damp earth. Anger surged inside him. It picked him up and carried him back to the house. He put the bunny on his desk and picked up his pen. After a moment he threw it down. All he could think about was Henry. How could he have mutilated Jacob’s bunny? Why would he do such a thing?
The phone rang. Glad for the distraction, Adam answered it. “You may fit new locks,” Mr Mabyn informed him, “but you must provide me with copies of the keys. Miss Trehearne is strongly against fitting an alarm.”
“The locks should do the job,” said Adam, thinking more about Ella than about how secure the house was.
“If it’s convenient, I’ll stop by later to pick up Heloise Trehearne’s book.”
“Ah well, we seem to have misplaced the book. I suppose that’s one downside of living in such a big house. It’s easy to lose things.”
Displaying his usual unwillingness to engage in small talk, Mr Mabyn said, “Please let me know when the work is completed and I’ll arrange a visit to inspect it. Good day, Mr Piper.”
With that, the solicitor hung-up. The phone immediately rang again. This time it was the constable who’d taken Adam’s statement. “We’ve arrested two suspects,” said the constable.
“Who are they?”
“I can’t give out that information. What I can tell you is that we have a forty-four-year-old woman and a thirty-eight-year-old man in custody.”
That meant Faith and her boyfriend were still at large. “What about the other two?”
“We have their van. So in all likelihood they’re still in the area.”
Adam didn’t like the sound of that. “Should we be concerned?”
“These people aren’t violent criminals. I’m sure they’re not a threat to you, but just be on your guard.”
Adam asked about home security firms and the constable gave him a number. After calling and arranging for an engineer to visit the following day, Adam’s thoughts returned to Henry. He abandoned trying to write and busied himself about the house, resetting the fireplace, watering the orangery, cleaning the kitchen, wrestling with the twin-tub, preparing a meal. At midday, Ella and Henry returned with bags of shopping.
“Something smells good,” she said, smiling thanks as Adam took the bags off her.
They ate a subdued lunch in the kitchen. Ella couldn’t stop yawning. Adam stared at Henry as if trying to work out what was going on in his head. Henry hummed to himself, happily working his way through a bowl of soup. When he was finished, he asked if he could play outside.
“So long as you stay in sight of the house,” said Ella.
Henry rushed out the backdoor as if he was late to be somewhere. Adam told Ella about his conversations with Mr Mabyn and the constable. “Well at least the locks are something,” said Ella. “I’m not surprised Rozen didn’t go for the alarm.”
“Why?”
“Because it would stop her from sneaking around here at night.”
Adam studied his wife’s poker-face. “You know, sometimes I can’t tell when you’re joking.”
Ella watched Henry through the window. “I don’t like the thought that those other two might still be in the area.”
“Me neither, but the police don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.”
Arching an unconvinced eyebrow, Ella took a piece of paper from her handbag and unfolded it on the table. “Does that look familiar?”
The paper was a printout of the concentric circles that had been chalked on the sitting room floor. “Where did you get this?”
“An internet café. It didn’t take long to find this online. It’s a symbol used for summoning diabolical spirits.”
“Diabolical spirits. What does that even mean?”
“It means those goths think there’s something evil in this house. Not just ghosts, but s
omething demonic.”
Adam let out a snort of laughter. “Oh give me a break.” He tapped the printout. “Has Henry seen this?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“What do you expect me to say? This just proves what I said last night. Those idiots probably pulled this crap from the same website as you. As far as I’m concerned, this is the end of the matter.” As if putting an extra full stop on the conversation, Adam opened the Rayburn and tossed the printout into the flames.
“I spoke to my mum and dad. They think we should go back to London.”
“Of course they bloody do,” Adam shot back. “They never wanted us to come here in the first place.” Seeing the tension in Ella’s eyes, he softened his tone. “Look I know you’re upset, but this house will be like Fort Knox by the time I’m done. So stop worrying.” He ducked into the fridge, grabbed a lemon and mixed up two gin and tonics. “Come on, let’s take these outside and enjoy the last of the sun.”
Ella looked at Adam as if unsure whether to accept his appeasement offer, then she took her glass and they headed for the patio. Adam raised his face to the sun. “Our backyard in Walthamstow will be in the shade now. Remember how we used to sit out there shivering?” He smiled wryly as Ella gave him a sidelong glance. “Yeah, I know I’m being obvious.” He made a sweeping gesture. “But seriously can you imagine giving all this up to go back to that?”
Ella sighed. “Not really, no.”
Adam rested his hand on hers. “This is just a little hiccup. A few weeks from now we’ll have forgotten all about it.”
“Hey Dad, look at me!” shouted Henry. He was dangling upside down from a branch a couple of metres above the lawn.