The Boy Who Lived with the Dead (Albert Lincoln Book 2)

by Kate Ellis

  There’s no school today ’cause it’s Saturday and I’m going up to the Ridge. Our Ernie said I’ll get into trouble if Dad finds out ’cause he says it’s dangerous with all the old mines and that but I don’t care ’cause I like the trees and the magic well and the ghosts and there’s even a chance I’ll see the knight like our Jimmy told me about in my dream. He was rescuing a lady ’cause she was ill and making funny noises but I’ve never told no one ’cause they wouldn’t believe me. They never do. I like to go to the stone circle ’cause I hear Jimmy’s voice in the trees there. He tells me things, magic things nobody else knows. Secrets.

  Mam doesn’t see me leave the house ’cause she’s busy with the baby and when I get to the Ridge I can hear the big black crows sitting in the trees laughing at me. I don’t like the way they watch me with their mean little eyes and even if I wave my arms to chase them off they still stay there watching. There aren’t as many trees as there used to be before the war ’cause some were cut down. Dad says they were taken to France to make trenches but I thought trenches were something you dug – like graves.

  I want to get to the place where I saw the Shadow Man that time. I told that policeman about him – the one who talks funny ’cause he’s from London – but I don’t think he believed me. Everyone calls me a liar but I’m not.

  I haven’t seen the Shadow Man since I found the dead lady but if it was him who killed her he’ll be on the run from the police. That’s what murderers do. I read it in a comic once.

  I’ll be at Oak Tree Edge soon and you can see the whole world from there. You can look across at the mill chimneys far away and see the cloud of dirty smoke over Manchester and when you stand there it’s like you’re a bird flying above the fields and houses. Sometimes I’d like to be a bird so I wouldn’t have to go to school. I like Miss Davies but I don’t like the way the others laugh at my stories.

  Some of the boys at school say the Devil’s Grave’s near the Edge and they’re scared of coming here now ’cause the Devil might get them like he got our Jimmy. I said if the Devil’s got a grave that means he’s dead. I don’t think the vicar knows and I think someone should tell him the Devil’s dead which means he can’t drag anyone down to hell any more. The boys say people have heard music coming from the Devil’s Grave. I heard Dad telling Mam that people in the big houses listen to jazz and that’s the Devil’s music. I don’t know what jazz sounds like but it must be horrid if the Devil likes it.

  I can see Oak Tree Edge now and if I walk along the path for a bit I’ll reach the stone circle where they found our Jimmy. They kept asking me what happened that day and I told them the rock opened up and a knight came out to take him away. But Dad said I was lying again and gave me a belt ’cause Mam kept crying as though she’d never stop.

  When I get to Oak Tree Edge I cross the rocks till I reach the very edge and when I look down I get a funny feeling in my tummy ’cause it’s a long way down so I step back and look at Manchester in the distance. Dad says thousands of people live there and the Cottontots have big mills where they all work. I like watching ants marching to and fro and I wonder if the people in Manchester are small like that. I might go there one day.

  I get fed up with the view so I walk through the trees towards the Magic Well. I was scared when I went there first because of the face in the rock but then I drank the water and it was nice.

  Miss Davies says I should write my stories down but my mam says I’ll be leaving school in three years so there’s no point in reading or writing.

  As soon as I get near the Magic Well I can smell smoke, very faint like someone’s burning leaves, but it’s the wrong time of year for that. I think I’m on the wrong path ’cause there’s big rocks either side like walls and I don’t remember coming this way before. At the end of the path there’s a big round place with bushes and high rocks all around like a huge castle and I creep forward like a soldier, making sure I’m hidden by the bushes. I can see a big dark hole in the rock about the size of one of the graves my dad digs and I think it must be a cave.

  There’s a puff of smoke coming from the hole so I creep away ’cause I’m getting scared but the bushes start grabbing my clothes like they don’t want me to escape. I try harder to get away but they won’t let me. Then he comes out of the cave and looks straight at me.

  I recognise the big soldier’s coat he wears. And this time the Shadow Man’s got a face.

  Chapter 18

  Gwen Davies was trying her best to read but it was difficult to concentrate. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Miss Fisher at her little writing desk, head down over a letter she was writing, a picture of concentration. Her mousy hair had escaped from its pins and Gwen saw her push back a tendril that had flopped on to her face.

  Apart from the scratching of Miss Fisher’s pen against the paper the only sound Gwen could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room and she felt a sudden urge to liven things up with conversation, although Miss Fisher wasn’t the easiest person to talk to.

  Gwen presumed that the rent she paid for her room was the woman’s only income. There were many ladies in Miss Fisher’s situation, spinsters who existed in genteel poverty; a sad sisterhood whose ranks had been swelled since the war because so many eligible men had been lost. Gwen could tell that the woman resented the fact that she had to let out a room to a stranger, although she was always polite enough to conceal her feelings.

  There were times when Gwen felt that returning to her parents in Liverpool might be preferable to lodging with Miss Fisher. She couldn’t bring herself to like the woman whose thoughts were so hard to read and whose moods were so unpredictable, but, even so, she experienced an urge to break the silence.

  ‘Have you heard any more about that poor woman in the cemetery, Miss Fisher?’

  Miss Fisher twisted round in her seat. ‘I haven’t, Miss Davies. And I don’t think it’s a suitable subject for gossip.’ She made a tutting noise with her tongue to emphasise her disgust at recent events, yet Gwen noticed that her eyes were shining with interest.

  ‘I’ve met the policeman who’s come up from Scotland Yard to investigate. He was injured in the war, you know.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Miss Fisher turned her face away, a signal that the subject was closed, before returning to her letter.

  Gwen watched her landlady for a while. It was hard to tell her age but Gwen wondered whether she was younger than she first appeared. Her skin was clear and her hair untouched by grey and Gwen had seen her studying herself in the mirror when she thought no one was watching so she suspected there was a streak of vanity somewhere in her nature. Her figure was good but her old-fashioned clothes, probably chosen by her mother who’d passed away just after the war ended, did her no favours. Miss Fisher had once told Gwen that the room she rented used to be the mother’s and Gwen often wondered whether the old lady had actually breathed her last in the bed she slept in. Sometimes when she lay awake at night she imagined old Mrs Fisher lying exactly where she was lying, dead and cold. But she’d never asked Miss Fisher whether there was any truth in her morbid imaginings, partly out of politeness – and partly through desperation because digs were so hard to come by in Mabley Ridge.

  Gwen had the impression that Miss Fisher’s mother had been the domineering sort and perhaps that was why her daughter had never married. But who knew what went on in other people’s lives? Nobody outside Gwen’s immediate family knew her own secret – although there’d been times when she’d longed to shout it from the rooftops.

  She looked down at her book again – a copy of Prufrock and Other Observations by T S Eliot that he’d given her during the war soon after they’d first met. She treasured the slim volume and often turned to the dedication he’d inscribed at the front for comfort – Will you still talk to me of Michelangelo when we both grow old? It had been a private joke between them because there had been a lot of laughter in their secret world. The dedication ended with I give you all my love
and more. Forever. G.

  She’d left Mabley Ridge that first time because she’d had no choice, and by the time she managed to return, hoping to be with him forever, she found it was too late.

  Miss Fisher closed her writing desk and locked it, dropping the key into her pocket before standing up and leaving the room without a word. Gwen had often been intrigued about the contents of the desk and why she considered it necessary to lock them away. Perhaps it was just Miss Fisher’s way of asserting her privacy.

  She wondered whether there had ever been a man in Miss Fisher’s life – a sweetheart killed in the war, perhaps – but the woman’s reserve, verging on the secretive, had prevented her raising the subject, even in a general way.

  Miss Fisher had seemed nervous since the death of Patience Bailey and as Gwen looked up from her book she had an uneasy feeling that if the murder had been a random act of violence then any lone women, such as herself and Miss Fisher, were under threat. Miss Fisher was in the habit of walking out alone in the evenings to various meetings and church events and Gwen herself had never considered Mabley Ridge a dangerous place until now.

  She tried to banish this uncomfortable thought from her mind and returned her attention to her book. But after a couple of minutes the peaceful silence was broken abruptly by a knocking on the door; the sort of urgent rapping that often heralds bad news.

  She heard Miss Fisher open the front door and muffled voices in the little hallway. Then the parlour door burst open to reveal Jack Rudyard standing there, twisting his cap in his hands.

  ‘It seems this young man would like a word with you, Miss Davies,’ Miss Fisher said disapprovingly as though she suspected Jack had come to rob her.

  ‘Have you seen our Peter, Miss? He went off first thing and didn’t come back for his dinner. Mam said not to bother you, Miss, but Peter likes you … and he likes books and things so … ’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I haven’t seen him today. Did he say where he was going?’

  Jack hesitated. ‘No, but someone saw him walking towards the Ridge. Dad told him never to go there. Not after … what happened to our Jimmy.’

  ‘Perhaps we should tell the police.’ She glanced at Miss Fisher, who was staring at the empty fireplace as though she was determined to ignore any potential unpleasantness. ‘I’ll come with you to the police station if you like.’

  Since it was a warm evening Gwen left the house without a coat, placing her hat on her head and making a swift adjustment in the hall mirror on the way out.

  As she walked to the police station she quickened her pace to keep up with Jack, and when they arrived the inspector from London was talking to a young constable behind the station’s mahogany front desk. He looked round and smiled at her, apparently unaware that Jack was there too.

  ‘Miss Davies. How can I help you?’

  Gwen turned to the boy by her side. ‘Jack, tell the inspector what you told me.’

  Jack took his cap off again before reciting his story nervously, as though he feared the police more than his brother’s schoolmistress.

  The inspector hesitated then looked at his watch. ‘Perhaps we should go up to the Ridge – see if there’s any sign of the lad.’

  To Gwen’s surprise she realised she was looking forward to spending time in Inspector Lincoln’s company. Then she felt a tiny pang of guilt. Was she being disloyal to the memory of the man to whom she’d pledged her devotion in the wartime years? But he’d broken his promises to her. He’d never left his wife. And besides, he was dead.

  They walked up to the Ridge in silence, Jack hanging back a few steps behind. When they arrived at the little white tearoom next to the gate that barred the footpath, the inspector asked Jack to show the way, saying he hadn’t been there for years and had forgotten the route. Gwen noticed he was careful not to mention the reason for his last visit in Jack’s presence. She knew it was six years since Jimmy Rudyard was found dead up there but for the Rudyard family the pain had never gone away and she appreciated the inspector’s thoughtfulness.

  Gwen had never been to the Ridge before. She’d avoided the place when she lived in the village during the war and she’d had no reason to go there since.

  ‘They say there are all sorts of hidden places up here that nobody knows about,’ the inspector said to her quietly.

  ‘So I’ve heard. The children at school talk about quarries and ancient mines, although I’ve never been here before myself.’

  The inspector whispered a few words to Jack, who walked on ahead calling out Peter’s name. Gwen, feeling she should be doing something useful, decided to follow him, calling out, hoping her voice would carry on the air. But only the crows answered, mocking her from the canopy of trees above.

  When she glanced back she was shocked to see the expression on the inspector’s face. He looked haunted, as though being in that place had reawakened unpleasant memories.

  She waited until he’d drawn level with her. ‘Is something the matter?’

  After a long silence he pointed to the stones shaped, to the fanciful eye, like twisted figures condemned to perform some eternal round dance to unheard music. ‘That’s where Jimmy Rudyard was found, Peter’s twin brother,’ he said quietly. ‘In the centre of the circle … just there.’

  ‘Was it … was it some sort of sacrifice or … ’

  ‘The stones aren’t ancient – they’re a folly put here by the person who owned the land in the last century. But who knows what goes on in a killer’s mind?’

  She suspected he could be right. In spite of the circle’s humdrum origins, the clearing did have an otherworldly atmosphere, as though countless generations had worshipped the ancient gods of the landscape there.

  He started to walk away, as though he could no longer bear to be there within sight of the stones, and she began to follow. Jack had chosen another direction and she could hear his voice calling Peter’s name, fading slowly as he moved away.

  For a while the inspector seemed unaware that she was following a few paces behind him, then he stopped suddenly and waited for her to catch up.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a place called the Devil’s Grave. Children used to play there.’

  ‘Not any more. At school they say they’re too scared to come up here since Jimmy died. Where did Jack go?’

  ‘He didn’t say. But I think he might have been heading for the great quarry. It’s somewhere else they used to play before the war.’

  A sudden breeze snatched at her hat and as she clamped her hand against her head to keep it in place she heard a whispering, there for a moment then gone.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘I heard something. What was it?’

  ‘It sounded like voices. Children’s voices.’

  They both stood quite still, straining to listen, but all they could hear was birdsong and the wind rustling the surrounding branches.

  ‘I must have imagined it,’ she said. Then suddenly the sound came again. A muffled giggle, as though someone was watching them, concealed from view.

  She could see the inspector poised, like a hound who’d caught the scent of its quarry. The sound could have been coming from anywhere. Or nowhere.

  After a while he walked on, ignoring Gwen as though he’d forgotten she was there. She followed him because the prospect of being alone in that strange, echoing place frightened her; a primal fear she knew made no sense but which at that moment seemed all too real.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

  ‘I think we’re near the quarry now. Yes, I’m sure this is the way in,’ he said as he walked ahead between towering rocks that formed a sandstone passage slimy with moss where the sun never reached. He stopped to sniff the air. She could smell it too, a faint whiff of cigarette smoke drifting in the air.

  Then she heard another sound, nearer this time, echoing as if it was coming from inside the rocks that towered either side. ‘Shh,’ it seemed to hiss. ‘Quiet.’

&n
bsp; The children in her class told tales of people vanishing up there; being swallowed by an evil creature that dwelled in the caves, hungry for human blood. She’d always dismissed the stories as ridiculous but now a glimmer of doubt was entering her mind. What if there were hidden mine workings and passages inside those rocks? Rather than meeting a blood-hungry creature, what if Peter was trapped inside, consumed by the earth itself and imprisoned in a living tomb?

  She hurried after the inspector, careful not to break into a run.

  Chapter 19

  They found Jack Rudyard standing in the centre of the quarry smoking a cigarette, taking a break in his search for his brother. Jack was insistent that he hadn’t heard any voices so Albert concluded that either he’d imagined them or it had been the wind whispering between the rocks and vegetation.

  As there was no sign of Peter up on the Ridge he walked back into the village with Miss Davies, leaving Jack behind searching for his younger brother with a promise he’d send a constable up to help him if necessary. For the moment there seemed to be nothing else either of them could do.

  He could tell Miss Davies was upset about Peter. He’d seen her face when she stood on the rocks at Oak Tree Edge, looking down, expecting to see the child’s broken, lifeless corpse stretched out below.

  She’d talked of little else but the boy on the way back, telling Albert about his fanciful stories. Albert listened. Others might dismiss Peter’s stories as the product of an overactive imagination but he knew only too well that there was often a kernel of truth in even the most outlandish fantasies.

  He escorted Miss Davies back to her lodgings, wondering how she got along with her landlady. He remembered Miss Fisher from his last time there. She’d lived with her elderly mother and as a matter of routine he’d interviewed them about Jimmy Rudyard’s death, along with everyone else in Mabley Ridge. During the interview the mother had done all the talking while the daughter listened, her eyes lowered modestly, inscrutable as the Sphinx. She was a young woman he’d barely noticed; grey and pale as a ghost, someone whose personality had been subsumed by a stronger will. But when he’d eventually managed to study her he’d seen that her mousy hair framed a pretty face with even features.