by Sarah Rayne
The car drove away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Emily did not know the precise moment when the last remnants of the mask fell away from Selina March, and the dreadful mad creature beneath was finally exposed, but she thought it might have been the moment when they actually stepped inside the Round Tower. The place was sufficiently nightmarish on its own account, of course; it did not really need mad people masquerading as prim fifty-something spinsters to add to its atmosphere.
What Emily did know, however, was that by the time Selina grabbed her arm, and said, ‘Don’t go up the stairs–not until we know the men have gone,’ the mask had vanished completely, and the situation had gone beyond all logic or reality.
She tried logic anyhow. ‘Miss March, there are no men. Truly there aren’t. Someone’s escaped from Moy–that’s what the alarm bell was for. So wouldn’t it be much better to just go back to Teind House and–and lock the doors, and wait until they’ve recaptured whoever it is?’
‘Oh no,’ said Selina at once. ‘Oh no, that’s just what they want us to do. They’ll be waiting outside the tower for us. They’ll be there now–you won’t see them and you won’t hear them, but they’re there for sure.’
So strong was the conviction in her voice that for a moment Emily really did believe that men were hiding outside, waiting to snatch them up.
‘They’re very cunning,’ said Selina softly. ‘That’s what you have to remember. They were so cunning and so sly last time, but I was slyer. I hid inside the tower and I cheated them all.’
The tower…She means that other tower, thought Emily. That dreadful place that Christy talked about. The burial pit, and the poor drying bodies on the shelves–one shelf for men and one for women, and another for children. That’s where she thinks we are. We’ve gone back, thought Emily. We’ve fallen backwards into that long-ago Indian village, with a group of doomed and terrified children trying to escape from terrorists. And it’s no wonder that Christy has been mad all these years, and it’s no wonder that Selina is mad as well. You could surely only feel extreme pity for someone who had been through that kind of childhood trauma.
So she said, in a bright, practical voice, ‘OK, then, what we’ll do, we’ll hide in here for as long as we have to. I’ll stay with you, and we’ll be quite safe.’
‘We mustn’t go up the stair, though,’ said Selina, and the glance she cast towards the winding stone steps sent a shiver of purest terror down Emily’s spine. ‘That’s where they are, you see.’
‘“They”?’ This was sounding like the most way-out dialogue ever written. ‘Miss March, there’s nothing up there except maybe a lot of dust and dirt—’
‘The ogre-birds are there,’ said Selina, and this time Emily heard, as she had heard in Christabel Maskelyne’s voice, the terrified child speaking through the woman. I don’t know how to handle this, she thought in renewed panic. I haven’t a clue about what to do and what not to do.
‘They’re waiting,’ whispered Selina. ‘They’re crouching on the ledge up there, and they’ll pounce. You don’t even have to be dead, you know. My mother wasn’t dead, but they tore her into little pieces. I watched them do it.’
‘Oh, God, that’s terrible—’
‘Yes, it was. It was terrible. So this time we’ve got to outwit them,’ said Selina. ‘The men are outside and the ogre-birds are up there, and we’ve got to outwit them both. We’ve gone back, you see, and if only we’re careful and plan ahead we might escape this time. And then they’ll all be alive in the world again–Douglas and the others, and dear Christy. I’ve missed them so much all these years, you know. We were such wonderful friends, and I loved them so very much,’ she said wistfully, and her voice was suddenly filled with such sadness, and such aching loneliness, that Emily wanted to put her arms round the poor bewildered little creature and tell her that yes, this time they would escape, and her friends would all be here with her once again.
‘So we’ll go down, not up,’ said Selina, suddenly brisk again.
‘Where—’
‘Didn’t you know about the secret room?’ said Selina, half turning to regard Emily. ‘No, I keep forgetting, you don’t; you wouldn’t know because you’ve never been here before, have you?’ There was the faint childish superiority now–the tone of I-know-something-you-don’t. ‘It’s a good secret,’ she said eagerly. ‘I only found out about it when my Great-uncle Matthew died. He knew a lot about Inchcape and all the old buildings. He wrote a book about it, you know.’
‘I didn’t know.’ At least, thought Emily gratefully, they seemed to be back in the present day.
‘He didn’t put about the secret room in his book, but he mentioned it in his private notes,’ said Selina. ‘I read them all. And one of the things he wrote was that he thought the Round Tower would have had a hidden store-room; a place where the early monks could put their Mass vessels when there was a raid. Chalices and crucifixes and plates, you know.’
‘Buried treasure,’ said Emily, wondering if this would strike a chord with the child-persona that kept coming so macabrely to the surface.
‘Yes, but when I found the room, all the vessels had long since gone. It took me a little while to work out exactly where the room was, because those monks were very clever. And they had to face a great many dangers for their faith, the early Christians. So brave, I always thought them, although my aunts said it was a lot of hysteria. They thought religion was about going to church on Sunday and helping with fund-raising events, and asking the vicar to tea on Sundays.’ As she spoke she was kneeling down and scratching around on the stone floor. Emily watched helplessly, not having the least idea whether the secret room really existed or was just another mad fantasy.
‘When I found the monks’ hideout, I was so pleased,’ said Selina. ‘I knew, you see, that there might be a time when I would have to hide again, and I knew that if only I could get it right this time—’
Emily said, gently, ‘Then you would be with your friends again.’
‘Yes.’ It was said gratefully and humbly, and Emily felt the pity of it close around her throat. Then Selina said, eagerly, ‘This is where we have to go,’ and Emily saw that she was pulling up a kind of square trapdoor set into the stone floor, its surface so exactly flush with the stones surrounding it that you would never know it was there. Narrow steps led down into a gaping darkness.
Selina gestured impatiently and Emily thought: well, I dare say this is the maddest thing yet. But she’s not armed and I truly don’t think she means me any harm. I think she’s just sad and lonely, and I think the best thing is for me to go along with what she wants.
She glanced at the trapdoor’s underside as she stepped onto the stone stairs, and was relieved to see a hefty-looking handle sunk into the surface.
‘It’s very easy to get back out,’ said Selina. ‘You just push the trapdoor up from the centre, using that handle. When it’s closed, you can see a faint line around the edges, so you know where it is.’ And, anticipating Emily’s next thought almost before it had formed, she said, ‘And it won’t be pitch dark down there; there are candles and oil lamps. I brought them ages ago, in case I ever had to hide again. It’s a good thing I did that, isn’t it? Put lights down here?’
‘Yes,’ said Emily, and then, because there seemed to be no reason to resist, she began to descend the steps.
There was a dull scraping sound as Selina pulled the trapdoor back into place over their heads, and as the dim light from above slowly disappeared Emily paused and looked back, panic threatening to engulf her again. I’m shut in with her! No, it’s all right; I can push the trapdoor back up quite easily.
But the dream-quality was returning with every step they took: it was not precisely a nightmare, but it was a curious, out-of-the-world feeling. We’re going down into the bowels of the earth, she thought. Down below an old, old tower where people fought for their religious beliefs and hid from Vikings and Danes, and we’re going underneath a place whose ston
es have stood here, silent and grim, for a thousand years. She could not see the ghosts, but she could feel them all around her, and she knew that this was a place where the echoes of the past and the echoes of the future lingered, and perhaps even met and melded. And I expect I shall wake up quite soon, she thought, striving for reality. What’s really happened here is that I fell asleep, and I’m dreaming all this.
Selina must have been down here very recently, and she must have left one of her oil lamps burning, because as they descended Emily could see a gentle glow coming from below. Then she didn’t tell me everything, she thought, with a fresh jab of unease. Unless, of course, the light had been made by someone else who was down here already…
Someone else down here. The stairs ended abruptly, widening into a small dungeon-like room, the floor and walls lined with black stone. Two thick iron pillars were embedded in the floor, and they stretched up into the low stone ceiling; Emily had the unpleasant thought that these iron columns were all that was supporting the immense black weight of the tower overhead. Two oil lamps, standing in opposite corners, cast twin pools of soft light.
The little room was the strangest place she had ever seen. It was furnished neatly and carefully; there was a little low table, polished to a silky sheen, with several silver-framed photographs on it. Emily half recognised the photographs as being of Selina’s parents. A silver bud vase containing a tiny spray of something green and purply stood next to them. Lavender? No, not lavender, rosemary, because rosemary’s for remembrance, and remembrance was what this was about. With the photographs was a powder compact with the initials EM engraved on it. How long was it since people had used powder compacts? There was a small scattering of rather old-fashioned jewellery as well–the kind of pearls that ladies had worn in the Forties–and there was another of the between-glass sheets of newspaper that Emily had seen in Selina’s bedroom. John Mallory March again? Yes, of course it would be.
But Emily gave these things only the most cursory of glances, because set next to the table was a small fireside chair, and seated in it—
‘Hello, Emily,’ said Joanna. ‘Have you come to share my captivity?’
Her hair was dishevelled and there was an ugly bruise on the side of her forehead. She was so pale that for a dreadful moment Emily thought she was one of the ghosts she had sensed earlier, and then she saw the chains circling Joanna’s wrists and the small padlock holding them in place, and she saw that the other end of the chain was looped around the nearer of the iron pillars.
‘You’re a prisoner,’ said Emily, and thought that was probably just about the stupidest thing she could have said. ‘You’ve been down here all along?’
‘Yes,’ said Joanna, her eyes on Selina March. ‘Miss March will explain it to you, I expect.’
‘She’s been kept quite comfortable,’ said Selina at once. ‘Food and drink–every need attended to.’ With bizarre delicacy she indicated a small chair-like structure against the wall, and half lifted the hinged wooden lid of the seat.
‘It’s a very ladylike captivity, you see,’ said Joanna, and although her voice sounded tired and strained Emily saw the glint of irony that had been such a vivid part of Joanna.
She said, ‘I don’t understand any of this—’
‘I found the shrine,’ said Joanna. ‘That’s what it’s all about. Miss March had made a–a shrine to her parents’ memory, and she kept it down here where it was secret and private. That’s right, isn’t it, Miss March?’
‘It was necessary,’ said Selina. ‘Right from the start it was necessary, because when they died there was no one to pronounce the repentance-prayer over them. The patet it’s called in India. So there was nothing to help them take the three steps across the old and holy Bridge into paradise. Humata, Hukhta, and Hvarshta, the three steps are called.’
It sounded like an early Sixties pop song. Three Steps to Heaven. I’m becoming hysterical, thought Emily. Concentrate, you stooge.
‘Until I made the shrine,’ Selina was saying, her eyes glazed and stary again, ‘they used to come into my bedroom every night. They were mutilated, because of the ogre-birds. Half eaten. My mummy was the worst,’ she said, and Emily glanced at Joanna and saw the dreadful comprehending pity in Joanna’s eyes, and knew that Joanna understood.
‘My mummy wasn’t dead when they started to eat her,’ said Selina. ‘But they clawed her eyes out–they like eyes, those bad old ogre-birds. So when she came into my bedroom after she was dead, she had to be brought by my daddy, on account of being blind, you see.’
She paused, and Emily, hardly daring to speak, said, ‘So you made a shrine to their memories.’
‘Yes.’ Selina turned to look at Emily, and incredibly it was the familiar, briskly efficient Miss March again. ‘It kept them away. So I could never risk anyone’s finding it and destroying it. It was found once, a long time ago, and I was made to dismantle it—’ Her face twisted in a second or two of anger, but after a moment she went on. ‘But I hoped it would be all right. I thought that they would be sure to be across the Bridge after several years. You would think they would have been, wouldn’t you?’ This last was directed at Joanna, who said, ‘Yes, you would have thought so.’
‘But they weren’t. The very night the shrine was dismantled they came into my bedroom. The very same night. And it was dreadful. You have no idea how they looked—So I made a vow that no matter what I had to do, I would preserve the shrine for always. And I did. For a long time I kept it out here–in the little room just inside the door–but after my Great-uncle Matthew died I took it back to Teind House. I was there on my own, you see; there was no possibility of anyone’s finding it–of not understanding how vital it was. But then…’ She paused, and then, as if forcing herself to go on, said, ‘There was not enough money. So unpleasant to say it–I was brought up to consider it ill bred to discuss money–but it is the truth. Investments were no longer paying the dividends–I didn’t fully understand that, but I understood when there was not enough money to meet the bills every quarter.’
‘So you started the little paying-guest set-up,’ said Joanna, softly, and Selina turned to her eagerly, as if grateful for this prompt.
‘Yes. Such a good way to make ends meet. It was Gillian’s idea–my god-daughter. She was so helpful. And once I got used to it, I really rather enjoyed it.’
‘But it meant you couldn’t have the shrine in the house any longer,’ said Emily.
‘Anyone might have stumbled upon it by chance, you see,’ said Selina. ‘It was too risky. So I brought it back here.’
‘And I found it,’ said Joanna. ‘I was curious about this place, and I found the hidden room entirely by chance. My husband had visited round towers in Ireland–some of them had concealed rooms under the ground, and he had described them.’ She glanced at Emily. ‘So I thought I’d see if there was one here. It would have made a terrific basis for a plot.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘But I would never have come down here if I’d known about your shrine,’ said Joanna, looking back at Selina. ‘And in any case, I wouldn’t have touched it or–or spoiled it. I told you that. I would have honoured it, just as you did.’ A pause. ‘I do understand,’ said Joanna in a rather odd voice, ‘about honouring the memories of the dead.’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t be sure that you told me the truth,’ said Selina. ‘People are such liars. Fire and brimstone shall be the portion of all liars, did you know that?’
‘Fire and brimstone or not,’ said Joanna, ‘you can’t keep me here indefinitely. People will be looking for me—My husband—’
‘He’s here already,’ said Emily, and Joanna turned to her eagerly.
‘Krzystof? Is he really? But he’s meant to be in Spain—Oh, but I should have known he’d come.’
When she says his name, it’s as if a light comes on behind her eyes, thought Emily, and she felt suddenly and dreadfully lonely, because that was how she wanted to look when she said Patrick’s name, an
d it was how she suspected she did look really, except that she had tried to hide it—
She said, ‘He’s been here for a couple of days and he’s been frantic with trying to find you. I should think he’d find this place pretty soon, as well, wouldn’t you? Because if he knew about the secret rooms in the Irish round towers, he’ll realise there might be one here.’
‘Yes, of course he will,’ said Joanna, and Emily saw that Selina was watching Joanna and listening to what Joanna had said about Krzystof. The lonely envy in the little woman’s eyes was almost more than Emily could bear.
She said, ‘Miss March–Selina–you’ll have to let Joanna go. No one will make a fuss. People will understand.’ I could grab her and knock her down quite easily, thought Emily. I’m much younger and far stronger than she is. And then I could sprint back up the stairs and get help. But something in her flinched from it: Selina was so vulnerable and so pitiable. It would be like hitting a small child or an animal, thought Emily. She’s quite mad, of course, the poor creature, but I don’t think she’s evil. I think we might be able to reason with her.
And then Selina said, in a perfectly ordinary, completely sane voice, ‘I usually kill people who find my shrine. That’s what I usually do. I haven’t killed you, Joanna, because I liked you. I didn’t expect to, but when you came to Teind House that day, I liked you right from the start. You were so friendly, so nice to me. That’s made it quite difficult to find the resolve to kill you.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘I’ve covered my tracks very well,’ she said. ‘Reporting your disappearance, Joanna, and helping the police and your husband. And everyone’s been very sympathetic–Gillian even offered to come up here to stay with me until it was all sorted out.’ She paused, and then said, in a brisker voice, ‘Of course, I had worked everything out first. All the things I had to do to stop people from suspecting. But I really do think I’ll have to kill you,’ she said. ‘And now Emily will have to be killed as well. It’s a pity, because I like Emily, too. But she’s seen the shrine, so it can’t be helped.’ She paused. No one spoke. ‘In the past,’ said Selina, ‘I’ve always disliked the people I’ve killed. That’s made it easier. So I don’t know how it’s going to feel this time.’