Through the archway, the scent was far stronger. The walls were adorned with threadbare, faded tapestries, supposedly Oriental in design, which Lechasseur would have bet money had never been further than ten miles from London. On one side of the arch there was a worn, old settee; a set of large, stuffed chairs filled the other side of the basement. The furniture was all pocked with burn marks, and the assorted items of smoking equipment around the basement showed the reason for the lack of care.
‘Great,’ Lechasseur muttered sourly. ‘I’m in an opium den.’ From the corner of his eye, he caught a flicker of movement in the cellar, but when he spun round to look, there was nothing to be seen.
He inspected the wick on the nearest oil lamp. It was freshly trimmed and burning strongly. The bongs were still warm to the touch. He moved carefully through the series of basements, finding the same set-up in each of the rooms.
And then he heard a slight scraping on the stone floor. Glass. Probably one of the bottles he’d seen abandoned on the floor. He hadn’t been imagining things. Somebody was there with him.
‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Anybody there?’ There was no answer, and Lechasseur moved quickly into the next cellar. He stepped deliberately, taking swift but quiet paces. A flash of movement caught his eye. ‘I can see you there,’ he said, calmly and evenly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m guessing you’re as lost here as I am.’
Lechasseur warily stepped through the arch into the next basement. ‘It’s okay, nobody’s going to hurt you.’ He kept his voice smooth and reassuring. He panned his eyes round the cellar, and turned just in time to see a bottle flying towards his head.
• What do we do while they’re not here?
• Same as we do when they’re here, hon.
• I’ve told you. My name’s Alice, not hon.
• Okay, okay.
• So you’re saying we just float here until Joan and Tess get back?
• And then we float after they come back. It’s not that bad.
• No?
• Well, yeah, it is. I was lying to make you feel better.
• It didn’t work. The other women who are here. Do you ever talk to them?
• Some. Some don’t want to know.
• This is a nightmare.
• You wish.
Emily moved warily back along the corridor. From the parlour ahead, she could hear the wireless set warming up. Through the crackles and hisses, an old tune was breaking through.
‘Who’s there?’
The voice stopped Emily in her tracks. It was a woman’s voice, not old, but not young either. The voice was shrill and shook, as if the veneer of strength the woman wanted to project was cracking. She sounded nervous, uncertain and afraid. Whoever she was, Emily certainly couldn’t blame this woman for being scared. She stepped slowly into view in the centre of the doorway, though she was careful to stay a few feet back from the door itself. There was no way of knowing how a frightened woman would react to her sudden appearance.
‘Hello?’ Emily repeated. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’ She stepped cautiously into the parlour, her eyes flicking from side to side, half expecting an attack from the woman in the room. Instead, she found a slim, upright woman in her fifties standing by the sideboard. Her clothes were drab and well-worn, with signs of mending here and there, but even though they were old, they were spotlessly clean. The delicate, almost reverential way the woman ran her fingertips over the assorted family photographs was more than enough to tell Emily who the woman was.
‘Mrs Barton?’ she asked. ‘You are Mrs Barton, aren’t you? This is your house.’
The woman lifted her eyes from the photograph in her hand and looked at Emily. ‘That’s right,’ she nodded. ‘I’m Joan Barton.’ She turned her attention back to the photographs. She lifted one and touched the front with her hand. Her son smiled back stiffly from behind the glass.
‘Your son?’ Emily asked.
Mrs Barton nodded. Her gaze was centred on the photograph in her hand, but her mind seemed focused much further away. ‘My little boy.’ She gave a half-hearted laugh. ‘Little boy,’ she said wistfully. ‘He was taller than me by the time he was twelve.’
‘George?’ Emily prodded.
The older woman looked up quickly at Emily. ‘You know him? You know my George?’
‘Not exactly.’ Emily shuffled her feet uncomfortably. There was such an eagerness in the woman’s voice when she spoke about her son that Emily didn’t want to cause her any suffering by raising the subject of her son’s death. But was there really a choice? If she was to find out what was happening in this house – wherever it was – Emily needed answers, even if they came at the price of causing this woman pain. ‘When I got here,’ Emily began slowly. ‘Well, there was nobody here, but there were letters.’ She nodded towards the door. ‘On the table in the hall. One of them was from George’s commanding officer saying how sorry he was.’ She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. ‘How sorry he was that George had died.’ She waited for a reaction from Mrs Barton. Other than a slight slump in the shoulders, none came. The woman had obviously known that her son was dead. ‘I hope you don’t mind me reading it,’ Emily added gently.
Joan Barton shook her head distantly. ‘No. I never saw that letter. What else did he say?’
Emily sighed. ‘Not much, other than that George was a good soldier, that he was brave and that he was a good man.’
‘He was,’ Joan nodded proudly. ‘Like his dad. They both died in France,’ she added bitterly, and for the first time, Emily could see how hard the woman was trying not to break down. Tears were welling and her voice was becoming choked, but a stubborn defiance wouldn’t let her give in to her grief.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Emily said gently. ‘Sit down. Please.’
In other circumstances, she was sure that Mrs Barton would have reacted to being invited to sit in her own home, but this time, Joan pulled a chair from the head of table and sat. Emily took the chair closest to her. ‘Thank you,’ Mrs Barton said, trying to force a smile. ‘You’d think I’d be used to the idea, now, wouldn’t you? It’s so long since they died, but every time I come back here and see the pictures …’ She looked around the room and out into the hall, as though she hadn’t seen the place for a considerable time. ‘The house …’
‘Come back from where?’ Emily interrupted.
‘I don’t know,’ the woman shrugged, then looked quizzically at Emily. ‘There’s never been anybody here before, though.’ She leaned forward. ‘You know, when I saw you, just for a second, I thought you were my Jenny.’
‘Your daughter?’
‘One of them,’ Joan agreed. Her eyes drifted again, becoming lost in memories. ‘We had six girls before George came along. My Albert always wanted a son. Don’t get me wrong,’ she added defensively. ‘He loved our girls. But he always wanted a son.’
Emily couldn’t help but smile at the pride in Mrs Barton’s voice. She had been right. This woman loved her family with every fibre of her being. ‘And he got one.’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Barton agreed wistfully. ‘And didn’t he spoil the little devil something awful?’
‘I think that’s often the way with fathers and sons.’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Barton nodded. ‘And sometimes mothers spoil their sons, too … just because we do.’ She smiled wearily. ‘Do you have any children yourself, Miss …’ she stopped and cocked her head, listening. ‘Did you put the kettle on?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I didn’t. In fact, I took it off the hob.’
Sure enough, a few moments later, Emily could hear the whistle of a kettle coming to the boil on the stove. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ The woman shrugged, as if a kettle boiling itself were the most natural thing in the world.
Perhaps in this world, it is the most natural thing, Emil
y thought.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
The question threw Emily off balance for a second. In the middle of who knew where and with who knew what happening, she should have known that an Englishwoman would head for the tea-pot. ‘You know, I think I would,’ Emily replied. ‘Thank you.’
Mrs Barton stood and took a step towards the door, then stopped. She looked nervously at Emily. ‘This might sound strange – silly even – but would you come to the kitchen with me?’
The woman was clearly afraid of something, and Emily found it unsettling that someone could be so frightened in their own home. A home should be a haven, a place of safety, but Mrs Barton clearly felt far from safe here. Emily felt that way too. She pushed back her chair and stood, smiling as reassuringly as she could. ‘Of course, Mrs Barton.’
The older woman tried to hide the her relieved sigh. ‘Joan,’ she said. ‘Please call me Joan.’
‘I’m Emily. Emily Blandish.’
Joan looked at Emily curiously. ‘I haven’t spoken to you before, have I?’
‘No,’ Emily answered, a little confused by the question. ‘We’ve only just met.’
‘No.’ Joan shook her head. ‘Not here.’ She tilted her head towards Emily a little and whispered: ‘The other place.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Emily said. ‘What other place?’
Joan straightened up. ‘Perhaps you’re new here,’ she murmured to herself.
‘Yes,’ Emily confirmed. ‘I only just arrived.’
‘That must be it.’ Joan sounded far from convinced. She looked nervously around the room and out into her hallway. ‘There’s never usually anyone here,’ she said again.
‘Not even your daughters?’ Emily asked.
The reaction was as if she had slapped Joan. The older woman snapped her eyes round to Emily, but her shoulders sagged under a great weight. ‘No.’
‘They’re not here?’
‘Please don’t ask me to explain,’ Joan said quietly, and Emily understood that there could be only one reason for such a reaction. She remembered what she had experienced in the kitchen earlier. The bomb. The unmoving hand caught in the rubble.
‘They’re dead,’ she whispered, half to herself.
Joan nodded, tears returning to her eyes. She pushed them away with the back of her hand. ‘Three days after the telegram saying George had been killed. I’d gone out to get the rations. George was gone, but we had to carry on. What other choice was there? To curl up and give in? No, he would have wanted us to go on. I went out early to avoid the queues as best I could.’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘Not that you could ever really avoid the queues.’
Joan paused, her attention slipping away into the past. ‘I could never imagine being apart from my family,’ she continued. It seemed as if she was talking as much to herself as to Emily. ‘Even after she got married, Victoria, my eldest, spent most of her time here. Well, with Alan, her husband, away at the War, it made sense for her to stay here. We always felt safe together.’
‘But you weren’t?’ Emily asked quietly.
Joan shook her head, and the tears she tried so hard to fight off welled in her eyes. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, rubbed them away angrily. ‘I heard the explosion from Dock Street.’
‘Your house?’
‘Not exactly. The bomb landed on the neighbour’s house.’ Joan gestured at the wall. ‘A big one. When I got back, there wasn’t a house left standing in the street. It was just bricks and dust on top of a huge pit. The dust was so thick, I could hardly see. And there was smoke from the fires. The few bits of the street left standing were in flames. The fire engines could hardly get close for the rubble. Everybody was choking and coughing. The air was so hot, some of the firemen were coughing up blood.’
Joan’s hands were beginning to shake as she spoke. Emily grasped the woman’s hands and squeezed them. ‘All of your daughters?’
‘I’d gone out early,’ Joan nodded. ‘To beat the queues – to get some air, to not be reminded of everything about George in the house. Just to get on with life again.’ She looked at Emily. ‘Does that make sense?’
Emily tried to offer a reassuring or comforting smile, but couldn’t force the expression onto her face. She couldn’t even begin to understand what this woman had been through. If she were to be completely honest, she didn’t really want to try. She had an uncomfortable feeling that it might be too much for her to bear. Perhaps, she thought, it was for the best that she had no memory of loved ones at home, wherever home might be. If she knew she was never to see them again, or that they were dead … no, it wasn’t a thought she relished.
‘What happened to you after that?’ Emily asked. ‘How did you come to be here?’ She looked around at the house.
‘In a house that’s obviously not been bombed or burned out?’ Joan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I remember the police and the fire brigade trying to stop me getting through to what was left of the house. They said it was still dangerous. But I wasn’t interested in what they were saying. How could I be? I’d left my girls in the house. A couple of coppers started coming towards me, saying that I had to leave.’ She laughed humourlessly. ‘I threw broken bricks at them and told them to leave me alone. I was sure my girls weren’t dead. They couldn’t be dead. They couldn’t.’
Joan took a deep breath. ‘But then I saw Victoria, in the rubble. She’d been burned so badly.’ Again, Joan pushed at a tear with the heel of her hand. ‘I didn’t see the others.’
‘Perhaps that’s for the best.’
‘Yes, perhaps. No,’ Joan shook her head firmly. ‘No matter what had happened to them, I should have seen them. I should have been able to say goodbye properly before …’ She waved a hand around vaguely in frustration. ‘Before all this.’
Emily looked around. ‘All what?’ she asked.
Joan looked at Emily sadly. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’
Emily shook her head.
Joan sighed. ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, dear, but there isn’t a way out.’
‘No,’ Emily disagreed firmly. ‘There’s a way in, and that means there has to be a way out.’
‘We all thought that at one time.’ Joan looked around at her familiar surroundings, her face an odd mixture of contempt and resignation. She still harboured a great anger, but didn’t have enough will left to fight. ‘But we’re all trapped. All of us.’ She looked Emily in the eye. ‘And that includes you.’
Chapter Five
Lechasseur ducked just in time and the bottle flew by his ear, smashing against the wall a second later. He turned towards the area the bottle had come from, his hands raised, ready to fight or flee, whichever seemed appropriate. He dropped them when he saw a scrawny girl of 15 or 16 cowering back into the corner of the room, nervously eyeing the doorway, clearly wondering if she could make it there before Lechasseur.
‘What did you do that for?’ Lechasseur asked, keeping his voice calm and relaxed. ‘Where I come from, it’s considered bad manners to throw bottles at people.’
The girl didn’t reply. She just eyed him, fear and suspicion equally evident in her expression.
Lechasseur took in the girl’s appearance quickly. Her clothes were old and worn. The dark green skirt with the ends of petticoats showing underneath looked forty years out of date, like something from before the first War. That was a worrying thought. Had he been moved through time again? Had coming into the cellar bumped him back fifty years to Victorian London?
Sensing that this tall, dark man’s thoughts were elsewhere, the cowering girl gathered her courage and made a run for the door. Lechasseur snapped back to the present – whenever it might be – and made it to the doorway three steps before the girl. She cannoned into his chest, then backed off quickly.
‘Get out of my way.’
Lechasseur recognised t
he accent. She was London through and through. He held his hands out wide, palms open. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said calmly. ‘But I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I mind.’ The girl tried to dodge round Lechasseur again, but he blocked her easily.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Lechasseur repeated.
‘I’ve heard that before,’ the girl sneered. ‘You blokes always say that, then take what you want.’
There was genuine bitterness in the girl’s voice. Bitterness and anger. For all that she was little more than a child, Lechasseur was sure that this girl had seen and probably been on the receiving end of some appalling experiences. He took a half step back. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘If you want to go, you can. I won’t stop you.’
The girl looked puzzled. ‘What? Really?’
‘Yes,’ Lechasseur nodded. ‘Really.’ He stepped away from the door and leaned nonchalantly against the wall.
The girl ran.
Lechasseur watched her scoot through the archway, her heels clattering hollowly on the concrete floor. The footsteps stuttered and changed rhythm as the girl reached the stairs. They scuffed on the stone steps before disappearing completely. Lechasseur settled into one of the sofas and stretched out his legs. A few minutes later, slow footsteps came back towards the doorway. They stopped, with no-one in view. Lechasseur let a few more moments pass before speaking.
‘You might as well come through,’ he said. ‘I know you’re there.’
The girl looked through the archway at him, but said nothing.
‘No way out?’ Lechasseur carried on. ‘I guessed there wouldn’t be.’
‘Never is,’ the girl replied. She stayed on the far side of the arch. ‘Just that blackness at the top of the stairs.’
‘You’ve been here before? Or do you live here?’
‘Live here?’ the girl laughed. ‘Who could afford to live here? I can barely afford to chase the dragon once a month if I’m lucky.’ She shook her head. ‘Nah. Chang Wu’s the only one as lives here.’
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