by Chris Simms
The next one was from 2.34. ‘Mrs Wilkinson, it’s Dr Ford. I left you a message about fifteen minutes ago asking you to call me. I’m going to pop up to Lantern Cottage with a nurse, just for a chat. See you shortly, I hope.’
The next message came in at 2.45. ‘Mrs Wilkinson, Dr Ford here. I’m having trouble locating you; there was no sign of anyone when I called by just now. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to try contacting your husband to see if you’re with him. Please call me.’
Owen next, at 3.17. ‘Laura? Sorry I didn’t call you earlier. Darling, no one can get hold of you. I’ve just tried your mobile and left you a message there. Please call me the instant you get this.’
Owen again at 3.49. She looked at the clock. Only seven minutes ago. ‘Laura, I’m coming home. It’s about twenty to four. I should be there by half-past at the latest. Call me, please.’
Thirty minutes, she thought. He’d be back in thirty minutes. Was that good? She wasn’t sure. Whether he was on her side or not, she wanted to get to the bottom of it all before he arrived.
The missed call on her mobile showed up as from Owen’s phone. She decided to listen to it later, turning to the laptop instead. The screen lit up to reveal a mass of messages from Tamsin.
She started at the bottom.
Laura, I’m online right now. Don’t worry what time it is, get in touch. Let me know you’re all right. I’m worried for you! Tamsin.
The next one was the same, as was the one after that. She scrolled to the most recent, received just eleven minutes ago. Tamsin was repeating the message over and over.
Laura clicked on the latest one and typed a reply.
Tamsin, it’s me. Sorry to take so long, I’ve been out looking for Mouse, my kitten. A man with good local knowledge has just told me a murderer once lived in my house. He killed his wife and a young boy from the village, it seems. I think the boy’s body is hidden upstairs, in the same cavity as where I found the canary. I’m going to find out.
She pressed send and removed her jacket. The windows were now almost black. Just visible beyond them, she could make out the continuous movement of snowflakes. They were swarming in the wind, settling on every surface.
The laptop beeped and she saw Tamsin had replied already. She really is there, Laura thought. Half the world away, waiting at her machine. Bless her. She clicked on her reply.
Get out! Laura, just get out of there. Please!
Soon, Laura thought, hanging her jacket on the back of the chair. I will soon. At the top of the stairs she looked along the corridor. The door into her studio was shut, closed by Owen the night before. After he’d gone in there to examine the hole in the wall. Spots of her blood were visible on the carpet as she walked down the corridor. Like Hansel’s trail of breadcrumbs, she thought. Leading me along.
At the door, she paused and waited. On cue, the singing started. She knew it would. It was very faint and soon stopped. Just a short burst of notes. But as she began to turn the handle it started again, another burst, this one longer and more confident. As if it was warming up.
The light went on and she surveyed the room. No wonder Owen had shut the door – it was a complete mess. Broken glass formed a tidemark halfway across the floor. Smears of dried blood were all over the place. The lilies had started to putrefy, mushy stalks and blackened flower-heads melting into the windowsill.
She turned to the wall opposite the mirrors and looked at the framed photo there. It had been taken in the seconds following her last-ever performance. Everyone on stage, standing behind the curtain after it had dropped for the final time. That curious, between moment. No longer in performance mode, but not offstage and out of costume, either. The adrenaline was still there; everyone’s eyes were shining. But shoulders had lowered, smiles were more natural.
Most of the dancers were grouped round the principals. Some were clapping them, several were embracing. Laura was standing apart, looking off into the wings. All those years ago, she thought, and I can remember precisely what I was thinking about at that second. The exit.
A month before, the Director had taken her aside to say that she would never make it further than first soloist. Her career could go no higher. Owen was waiting for her decision on his proposal of marriage. She’d walked straight off that stage, accepted, and never danced again. It had been, she’d decided, the perfect time to move on. Start a family. Become a mother. Blinking away tears, she saw the hammer was laid across the top of Owen’s toolbox. Next to it was the opening.
The singing picked up in strength, the pitch of the notes rising higher, before falling away. She knew that the wall contained the answer. She was totally certain of that as she approached the gap in the bricks. He hid you in here, didn’t he? You poor little boy. This is where he put you.
It was obvious; she’d been looking at the wrong side of the wall. When the canary breeder had concealed the boy’s corpse, this room didn’t even exist. He would have broken into the other side of the wall in the room where Owen and she now slept. If anything, when the extension had been built, the paint and plaster had just added fresh layers to the tomb, sealing it more tightly.
The canary sounded almost jubilant. Everything was fitting into place. It had been trying to lead her here all along. Kneeling, she looked for the torch so she could shine it through the gap. She’d forgotten to bring it up from the cellar. Peering into the opening, she could see the cavity must be almost two feet wide. The smell was a lot stronger, and suddenly she saw a bedroom. Her grandmother’s bedroom. Such a large room, with its own sink in the corner. Chest-high vases holding green plants. Palms. The enormous bed with its quilted eiderdown, and at the foot of it a wooden box with carved sides. Her blanket box: that was the smell! As a little girl, Laura would climb in when playing hide-and-seek with distant cousins. Inside it were rarely-used sheets and covers. Lacework items, shawls, bonnets, tablecloths. Faded things from a bygone era.
The inner surface of the cavity’s far wall had also been coated in the same brittle layer. Pressing her cheek against the crumbling edge and closing one eye, she could just make out the first few inches of floor to the left. Something was there.
Could she see cloth? Was it a sack? It seemed quite bulky. That far in, it must be leaning against the bricks that formed the chimney stack itself. The canary song was soaring, notes being held for seconds at a time. ‘I know, I know,’ she whispered. ‘We’re nearly there. I’ll get him out, I will.’
She reached her arm in. The edge of the opening was digging into her shoulder. Whatever was in there, it could only be millimetres beyond the tips of her fingers. She strained with all her might and the nail of her middle finger caught on the edge of something hard. By completely emptying her lungs, she was able to extend her hand a fraction further. It felt like the end of a leather shoe. She hooked her nail into what must have been stitching and tried to drag it forward. But something prevented it from moving.
Owen’s hammer was right next to her. She withdrew her arm and picked it up. Screwing her eyes almost shut, she swung at an exposed brick. The head of the hammer made a satisfyingly loud thud and the brick shifted a little. She swung again and the end of the brick fractured. Another swing and pieces of it fell to the floor. She turned the hammer round and used the twin spikes to rut at the connecting mortar. It was soon falling out and she knew a couple more blows would loosen two, if not three bricks. Then, she thought, the hole will be big enough to get my entire head in.
She turned the hammer round and swung once more. The loud crack of metal connecting with brick seemed to echo with a deeper, heavier thud. The brick was half out as she struck it again. This time two thuds come back. She stopped mid-swing and listened. Another thud and another. It was coming from downstairs. Someone was kicking at a door. The accent of the impacts lifted as wood started to splinter and come apart. Someone was smashing the kitchen door in! She could hear its bolt rattling with each blow. The canary song was now so loud it seemed to fill her head. She
came out into the corridor. The thuds were quickening: one, two, one, two, one two. She heard animal grunts and, for a wild moment, imagined a huge badger butting the wood with its head. Then she heard the door crash inward. Keeping hold of the hammer, she ran into the bedroom, grabbed the phone and dialled 999.
Chapter 35
‘Where birdy! Where birdy!’
She was peeping down through the banisters as William lumbered into view. He stood in the front hall, chest heaving in and out. There was snow in his hair and one slipper was missing. It looked like he’d run all the way.
The canary song rolled on, waves of it seeming to emanate from the walls around them.
‘Where birdy!’ he roared again, hands now slapping at his ears.
He hadn’t seen her as he staggered into the lounge. She didn’t reveal her presence. There was such strength in his shoulders and arms; all that power, governed by such an immature brain.
He carried on yelling as he blundered about below. She heard the table go over, the crash of ornaments breaking. She knew this was her chance to flee the cottage. But he could hear the canary too. She was no longer the only one. She couldn’t leave him.
When he reappeared, he was crying with frustration. ‘Where birdy!’
‘William.’
His head came up and he looked at her with bloodshot eyes. He was terrified. ‘Birdy moved? Where birdy?’
She approached the top step. ‘It’s OK, William. Shush now. I’m coming down.’
‘Where birdy?’ He moaned the words. ‘Where put it?’
She laid the hammer on the carpet of the landing and started to descend the stairs. ‘William– ’
‘Where! Must put back!’
‘The birdy from in the wall? The birdy in the little cage?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Drool was coming off his chin. ‘Where it?’
She was now halfway down. ‘William, did you make that hole?’
His head bounced up and down. ‘Yes. You moved birdy?’
‘What else is in there, William?’
He slammed a hand down on the banister and the whole thing shook. ‘Must put back! Now! Now!’
‘Put the canary back? Why?’
He placed a foot on the stairs and she retreated up a step in response. He was glaring at her now, like she’d stolen his most favourite thing in the world. She glanced quickly back at the hammer. Could I get to it before he grabbed me?
‘Where birdy? Where?’
I don’t know, she thought. I don’t know where it is. Owen put it outside the back door, but I don’t know what he did with it after that. Did he throw it in the bin? He said something about getting rid of it.
He took another step, then his eyes roved about as if he’d heard something apart from the groan of the wind outside. ‘Bad person come.’ He raised a hand to his mouth, knuckles pressing against the underside of his nose, fingers tentacling at her. ‘Put birdy back or bad person come. Poke with fingers, poke, poke!’
Poke fingers? What did he mean?
‘Put back before bad person!’ He was pleading with her now.
‘I...I’m not sure where it is. My husband – he put birdy outside.’
‘Birdy outside?’
‘Yes, outside. In the dustbins, I think. Or the compost heap, maybe.’
He whirled round and started for the kitchen, shoulder catching on the corner and causing him to stagger. ‘Must hurry. Quick, quick, hurry!’
She was still at the halfway point of the stairs, unsure of what to do. She knew William shouldn’t be outside in his state. He wasn’t even wearing a coat. But the song was so insistent. It kept going, gnawing at her attention. William would return soon with the cage. He’d want to shove it back through the gap. For all Laura knew, he’d want to replace the bricks, too. She needed to get the child out before he did.
She turned about, retrieved the hammer and set off along the corridor.
Back at the opening, she heard hollow bangs as the bins were tipped over on the patio. The wind must have caught one of them – it began a hollow rumble as the gale rolled it about. Layered with the noise were William’s anguished mutterings.
Her first hammer blow dislodged the partially broken brick. The next swing turned the one above it forty-five degrees. She smashed at the corner sticking out and it vanished into the cavity. The next blow caused a group of three to collapse.
That must be seven gone now, she thought. Enough for me to climb through, if I wanted. The hammer hit the floorboards and she stretched her arm back into the dark hole. It was a shoe! She could feel the laces. The poor little boy’s shoe. She patted her fingers to the side and felt another. She nudged it with a knuckle. It wasn’t empty; it would have moved, otherwise. The poor child, hidden in here for years. Decades, all alone.
Gritting her teeth, she felt a little higher. The shoes seemed quite big for a boy. There was felt-like material shrouding their upper parts. Then other cloth that wasn’t as smooth. She tried pulling and the edge of it came away like tissue: she tested it between her finger and thumb. It felt like it had tiny holes in it. Ones eaten away by moths, or something worse? Mice?
As she withdrew her arm, the halogen lights above dimmed for a moment. In the storm outside she could hear William shouting. The cage couldn’t have been in any of the bins.
She looked down at the long strip of material in her hand. It was stained a brownish yellow but she knew it would have originally been white or cream. The intricate arrangement of holes must have taken ages. She was wondering why a young boy would have been wearing a lace undergarment when the lights flickered once more and then went out completely.
Chapter 36
It was as if blackness had flooded through the hole in the wall, filling the room right to the ceiling. Suddenly sounds were all she had. The deep roar of the storm mixing with William’s hoarse shouts and, above it all, the canary trilling away like a crazed soloist.
She hated the dark. She’d hated it ever since being a little girl. From its depths, her mind had always been able to conjure such terrible things. Taloned fingers curling round the wardrobe door. Vampires, staring in through the thin panes of her bedroom window. Calm, keep calm, she told herself. The torch would be where it should be, downstairs, on the shelf by the junction box in the cellar. Just think about this logically and you’ll find it. She got up and looked over her shoulder.
A dark grey square, vague and indistinct, floated behind her. The window, she realised. She did a quarter-turn and stretched her hands out. Her fingers made contact with the end of the open door. She felt her way along it, extending a foot until her toe bumped against the carpeted step. Something close by made a noise. A light scrape. It sounded as if it had come from within the wall behind her. Bad person poke fingers. Stop it! Just stop it, Laura, she told herself. For God’s sake. The corridor will be next and, at the end on the right, will be the stairs. Go down them, turn left and you’ll end up in the kitchen. After that, aim left again. On the far side of the room will be the cellar door. Easy.
With a hand on each side of the doorframe, she stepped up into the corridor. Behind her she heard the slow scrape of a brick being moved. No, she desperately insisted, you didn’t. She swallowed hard. Imagination, that was all.
She wanted so badly to run. Pressing her right hand against the corridor wall, she battled with the urge. To run, she thought, will be to give my fear control. Instead she took small controlled steps, like walking en pointe across the stage. Yes, she said to herself. En pointe. You’re on stage and this is all just a performance. Make believe. Her left hand was waving rapidly to and fro before her. She thought her eyes must be adjusting to the dark: now she could discern the slightest variation in the blackness in front. A faint suggestion of light. Washing up from the front hall.
She passed the door to the bathroom and, a few steps further, the wall on her right ended. She wafted a palm downwards until it touched the banisters. Her eyes were as wide as she could make them and she was just a
ble to see the outline of the hallway window below. Normally from this angle, she thought, there was a sprinkle of lights visible beyond a dip in the hills. Nothing. The power to all of Oldknow was out. Down the hallway, back in her studio, she heard a low moan. Wind, it was wind, probably catching in the chimney.
Carefully she descended the steps, counting each one. She was on number thirteen when her foot touched the hallway floor. Good, she thought, this is good. I’m halfway there. Her inability to see left her craving something tangible. She stamped her feet on the floorboards. The sound reassured her. Solid ground. Progress. Moving forward.
A strong draft was coming from the direction of the kitchen. She turned and walked into the flow of cool air. Her foot came down on something soft and fleshy. Even though she was wearing walking boots, she somehow knew it was moist. Her mind’s eye could see a fat tongue, protruding from the mouth of an ogre. He was lying there, chin on the floor, waiting patiently. Her next step would be into the creature’s gaping maw. Teeth like tombstones would clamp her shin, slowly splintering it.
She had to know what her foot was on – it was the only way to halt the pictures forming in her head. Suppressing a sob, she bent her knees and reached down with both hands. Her fingers touched something cold and wet and soft. Instinctively, she recoiled from it. Come on, Laura, she thought, making the voice in her head sound stern. Find out what it is. Her fingers reached out once more. Cold, saturated material. William’s slipper, she realised, with a sense of triumph. He only had one on. It was a victory for her rational mind, but she was not stopping to savour it. Upstairs, the stupid part of her was saying, something just thudded against the studio floor.
The step down into the kitchen was exactly where she anticipated it would be. Another grey smear in the pitch black; the back door, wide open. It allowed her to get her bearings. By staring at where the door was and waving her hand before her face, she could just make out the movement of her fingers. That made her feel better. She headed for the corner where she knew the cellar door would be.