The Dark Water

by Helen Moorhouse

  In an instant Will and Sue had fled for the stairs, watched by a puzzled and hurt Martha. What was going on? Was Will sharing some sort of evidence with Sue, something that he’d found the night before that he didn’t want to show to her? She pouted as they took off up the stairs together at speed. She made to follow them and then stopped herself. It was clear that they didn’t want her with them – Will had told her not to come, after all. She glared after them, feeling left out and alone.

  The feeling only lasted a moment, however, as a torrent of raindrops distracted her, beating solidly on the roof above. She shuddered. The hallway was dim now, the only illumination a single bulb under a dark glass globe that hung down from the high ceiling and the faint light provided by the Christmas lights on the garlands and the trees. Martha heard Will and Sue’s footsteps clatter distantly upstairs and then fall completely silent.

  She felt very alone in the space and looked around her, taking in the height of the ceiling, the stone floor, the heavy occasional furnishings dotted around the edges of the hallway, the doors downstairs, and up. Her eyes travelled to the doors that led off the mezzanine upstairs. Where did they all lead, she wondered, and all at once felt dwarfed by the possibilities.

  “That was smooth,” remarked Sue sarcastically as they stood outside the door of Will’s room, waiting for him to open it. The lighting in the passage outside the rooms was so dim, like everywhere else in this damn castle, he thought to himself, that it was virtually impossible to see the lock to insert the rusty key that Gifford had given him.

  “You weren’t exactly the Queen of Cool yourself,” he replied, distracted. Finally the door budged and he pushed it open, bracing himself in case there was something inside that he didn’t want to see. A gush of wind screamed down the chimney, as they entered and he jumped. His hand flapped around the wall until he found the light switch and he was thankful that someone had replaced the blown light bulbs during the day, for what good they did.

  “That’s one more thing that this place needs – sixty-watt bulbs,” he grumbled.

  “Screw the bulbs,” hissed Sue. “Show me!” Her excitement was palpable and infectious.

  Will gave a quick glance around and saw the ring box where he had left it, on the bedside table. He reached across the bed, handed it to Sue and pointed at the bathroom door. “Just going to attend to some business,” he observed, ignoring Sue’s look of disgust which soon disappeared as he locked the door and she opened the box. Her face fell a little as she held the ring up to the weak light, turning it this way and that, watching it glisten and then, satisfied, she replaced it in the box, closed the lid and took in the room around her.

  “Amazing interior decorator in this place, huh?” she called toward the bathroom, walking to the centre of the floor at the end of the bed and taking it all in with an expression of distaste. Her attention was drawn to the incongruous metal filing cabinet and she moved toward it, reaching out an arm to tug at the top drawer. There was no budge. No sound either of Will emerging from the bathroom. Sue grasped the key which appeared to be rusted into the lock on the top right-hand side. She tried turning it to the right first. Nothing. Then the left. She jiggled it – it was against her nature to see a key in a lock and leave it unturned.

  Sue heard the toilet flush at the same time as another sweep of wind and rain drove against the window. Her attention was momentarily distracted by how loud it was, the gust of wind making a long whine trail down the chimney. For a second she glanced away from the key in her hand. And that was when it turned.

  Her eyes shot back to her hand. But that was impossible! It was completely rusted shut. No one had opened this in years. But there, like it had been freshly oiled, it had twisted open. Like someone else had done it for her . . .

  Downstairs in the hall Martha stood shivering in her sleeveless gown. What were Will and Sue up to? This was ridiculous. What was he thinking of, dragging her out of the function room for no good reason and then leaving her here in the cold dank hall?

  A sudden noise drew her attention sharply toward a door behind and she swung around to look at it, sure that there was someone there. She couldn’t see anybody, but something drew her toward it. “Hello?” she asked, hearing the word echo around the freezing hallway and taking a tentative step in the direction of where she had heard the noise.

  Gently pushing open the door, she peered inside and instantly shrank back for a moment. Lit faintly by wall lights and with a soft glow from a dying fire, the room that must be the library, if she remembered Will’s account of the castle correctly, was as intimidating as he had described. Curious, she gingerly took a step further in and felt silence close around her. There was nothing to be heard – not a trace of ceilidh music in the distance, not a footstep from upstairs. There was even a momentary lull in the storm.

  Will emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. “Bloody towels are like sandpaper! What’s the matter?” He stopped in his tracks, catching sight of Sue’s face, shocked in the dim light.

  She pointed to the cabinet with her free hand, the other still grasping the key as if it couldn’t let go. “I seem to have opened this somehow,” she said cagily. Slowly, she pulled the top drawer open toward her.

  Will threw the hard, threadbare towel on the bed and joined her.

  They peered in, both recoiling from the cloud of must and stale air which billowed out. The drawer was deep, and dark. Sue reached her hand in and felt around inside. Will heard her palm brush against some sort of paper as she did so and he watched as she withdrew her hand, a number of photographs held in it. She turned toward the light with them as she checked the images, leaving Will to peer into the drawer again to see if she had missed any. She had. There was one stuck under the metal edge of the drawer. He was about to retrieve it when Sue spoke, a little breathlessly, and turned to show him what she held in her hand.

  “This is Gabriel’s brother, isn’t it?” she asked, fanning out the six or so photographs in her hand and pointing to one of them.

  Will peered at them, patting his pocket for his phone and the torch app which he had decided against using the previous night. He fumbled with it, and then held the small but powerful beam of light toward the images to get a better look.

  “Sure is,” he agreed.

  The black-and-white pictures were shot from an open window out onto grass. Clear as day, two of them focused on one subject only. Laurence McKenzie at play on the lawn of Dubhglas Castle, deep in a game, unaware that he was being photographed

  “They were taken out that window,” observed Will, nodding his head in the direction of the curtains which were tonight closed.

  “But the rest . . .” Sue pointed at the remainder and gathered them back into her hand, “weren’t.”

  She flicked through them one by one so that Will could see under the scrutiny of his phone-torch again. They were of boys. Four different boys, aged roughly between the ages of eight and sixteen. Like the photos of Laurence, they had been taken without the subject knowing. One on a street, against the backdrop of a market. two in a park, the last out a window also, the boy playing hopscotch on the street below completely unaware that his image was being captured.

  Sue looked at Will, an expression of discomfort on her face. “They’re not exactly what you’d call offensive by today’s standards,” she said quietly. “But I find these images really unsettling, don’t you?”

  Will nodded, staring at the shots again and then looking away from them quickly, as though he shouldn’t have looked at all. He took the prints from Sue’s hand and wordlessly dropped them back into the drawer. He was about to shut it when he spotted the photo that had been left behind. He plucked at it to retrieve it and held it up to the light, doing a double take as he caught a glimpse of the subject. Again it was taken without the boy’s knowledge, this one a little older than the others but thin of frame and slightly girlish of feature. Will held the torch up again and studied it more closely, recognising from Sue
’s files the image of a young Martin Pine. It was taken at what looked like a theatre, or a nightclub – Pine was sitting beside a showgirl in full costume and headgear who was showing daring amounts of flesh. The young man looked obviously uncomfortable at the proximity of the woman. And at first glance it seemed as though the woman was the subject matter of the picture. But taken in context with the other photos, Will felt sure that wasn’t the case. He pocketed the shot and then shut the drawer gently.

  “We’d better get back to Martha,” said Will, clearing his throat. The wind gave another piercing whistle down the chimney and he stirred a little. “She’s downstairs by herself – she’ll be terrified,” he said, reminded again that it wasn’t safe for her – for Sue either, for that matter. After everything that had happened – those scratches on his arm, the tree falling so close to Ruby, Gabriel’s sense that something was going to happen . . .

  Entering the room, Martha had felt as though she were entering a different space and time somehow. She had stood there, taking it all in: the walls lined with book-laden shelves, hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound tomes – the clutter of chairs, occasional tables, display cabinets scattered here and there, the baby grand piano. In the gloom she had walked about the room cautiously, peering at the titles of the books on the shelves, studying the odd ornaments crowding every surface – she shuddered as she encountered a stuffed weasel baring its vicious teeth.

  It was all so forbidding. As the whole castle was, in fact. Or was she just projecting her awareness of its nasty history on it? Poor little Laurence . . . Martin Pine . . . Jack Ball . . .

  She had shaken off those grim thoughts. She couldn’t allow herself to think of things like that alone in a cold, dim room. It was unnerving enough as it was, without allowing her thoughts to stray. Deep breaths, she had thought. Deep breaths. Time to leave. Will would be back any second now.

  She moved towards the door. Then stopped suddenly and swung around. She thought . . . no, she was sure she had heard a noise come from the direction of the piano – like a breath, a sigh or a very light cough perhaps. She stood totally still, breath held for a moment, to see if she could hear it again, but there was nothing. Don’t be ridiculous, she chastised herself, forcing her ear to see if she could pick up distant sounds from the party but to no avail.

  She turned to go, then stopped and held her breath again, listening. She was sure she had heard the sound again.

  Unnerved, she turned and glanced around the room quickly. The first time she could have easily just been hearing things – it happened all the time. There was a lot of extraneous noise that could be misinterpreted – the wind, the rain. But a second? An identical noise? An identical breath? A wave of goose-bumps ran down her bare arms as she became sure, all of a sudden, that there was someone in the room with her. Yet as far as she could see, there was no one else there. She was completely and utterly alone. Martha felt a familiar dread begin swell in her gut.

  She exhaled quietly, terrified lest even the smallest breath or rustle of her clothing would cover another sound, and strained her ears to hear anything else that might be there. She was suddenly aware – overwhelmed – by the possibilities that lay in all the dark spaces – the alcoves either side of the fireplace. the spaces behind chairs, the ceiling, under the piano itself.

  Martha felt herself start to panic and tried to control it. The noise had been like a breath, she thought, but it could have been anything – peat shifting in the fire perhaps? A mouse scratching? There is no one here, she urged herself. Be logical about things. And just leave.

  But she couldn’t leave. Frozen with fear, she found herself rooted to the spot, incapable of moving a step, afraid to turn her back on whatever might be there . . .

  She suddenly turned her head, feeling in an instant like there was someone behind her. Nothing. The space behind her toward the window and the door was empty. No one had joined her in the vast and dim room.

  No one had to, an inner voice said. They were here already.

  Again, Martha took a deep breath and shook the voice away.

  Then suddenly, again, just when her attention was focused elsewhere, there was a small, vague noise, a movement. There was no mistaking it. Martha stared in the direction of the bookshelves to the left of the fireplace. It had been something definite that time, she was sure. But it was the one area of the room that was relatively uncluttered. She could clearly see the shelves – about three feet of clear floor space in front of them, with no chairs, or small tables, or geegaws of any sort.

  Martha found herself drawn to the space, unable to take her eyes away from it, as if staring at it for long enough might reveal to her what exactly had made the noise she had almost heard.

  It was then that she noticed it. The book. She could just about make out that the cover was a burgundy colour, embossed with gold lettering, on the second shelf from the bottom, about a foot away from the floor. Where all the other books were firmly in line with each other, pressed right in to the back of the shelf, this one jutted out right to the edge. She found herself drawn toward it for some reason and took the steps from where she stood, surveying the room, to where the book sat, out of place and, she felt, somehow calling for attention, as if the other books were trying to squeeze it out – or it was trying to squeeze itself out. She watched, transfixed, as it did just that. The book edged itself out from the shelf and plopped the short distance to the floor. The other books relaxed into the space it had occupied and Martha stared in disbelief. The book had just removed itself from the shelves. Classic poltergeist, she heard Will say in the back of her mind. A spirit had done this. Someone was there, with her . . .

  Enough, she thought, and turned sharply, ready to make for the door. She had barely taken a step when, out of nowhere, something hard hit her square on the eyebrow, just adjacent to her temple. The room flared white and Martha grunted, her hand shooting to the side of her head where the object had made its impact. She was dimly aware of the thud as she saw the book bounce off her skull and hit the floor. For a second she could think of nothing else, had to stop to allow the searing pain to fade. The impact dazzled her, confused her completely. There was a warm sensation under her fingers. It took her a few moments to realise that it was blood.

  Will had already opened the bedroom door when he realised that Sue hadn’t budged from her position at the filing cabinet. As he’d looked at her questioningly, she’d placed her hand on the second drawer down, her huge green eyes focused on Will’s face.

  He’d hesitated, thinking of Martha alone downstairs, then reluctantly closed the door again.

  Sue had given the drawer a tug, her eyes still fixed on his face. It slid open and they’d looked down together, peering in nervously, afraid of what they might find. There was nothing.

  Nor was there anything in the third drawer.

  Then Sue’s hand had made its way down to the bottom drawer and she’d tugged gently to open it but it had failed to yield. She’d pulled it again and it moved a little, but not enough to force it open.

  Will had taken a turn then but was unable to get it open. He shone his phone-torch in and examined the edges closely, leaning right down to get a closer look.

  “Have you got a nail-file?” he asked. “One of those metal jobs?”

  Sue snorted. “Not on me right now, goshdarnit,” she sneered. “I think I left it in 1965 along with my lace hanky and a fresh ribbon for my hair. A metal nail-file, Peterson? Seriously!”

  Will looked at her and frowned. “Over there,” he urged her, pointing to the back of the door where his jacket hung. “The pocket of my jacket – there’s a penknife in there actually. Could you get it for me?”

  Sue did as she was told, squatting back down to peer at what Will was doing once she’d handed him the implement. “A nail-file you ask for? When you’ve got the whole Swiss army in your pocket? Think, Will, think!” She tapped the side of Will’s head for emphasis and giggled as he chipped away at whatever was holding the dr
awer shut. Both the discovery they had made and the relief of what they hadn’t discovered had made her slightly giddy.

  “This is well and truly jammed,” he said.

  Sue sat back on her hunkers and continued to prattle. “Where did you get the big sparkly ring, by the way? I did you a deal with those guys who make the really unusual pebble rings. Although I have to admit that Martha will probably prefer the shiny one. When are you going to do it? A moonlit walk by the lake in this weather isn’t really on . . . oh!”

  The drawer had shot open.

  “What is that?” said Sue.

  They leaned in further to see the drawer’s contents more closely.

  “What’s all this stuff?” Sue asked, reaching a long, red nail in to poke at the pile of filthy pink, shiny fabric, for all the world like a quilt of some sort.

  Silently, Will forced himself to reach in and withdraw something black that he could just about see among the folds of stinking fabric. He pulled the long strap all the way out from its soft hiding place and held it aloft, watching the camera swing from side to side. Something caught his eye suddenly and he lifted the apparatus closer to his face, holding it up to the light. It had faded a little over time but the monogrammed initials were still clear enough.

  “I’m not sure what else is in there,” he said, concentrating hard, “but I think we may just have found out who our photographer might be.”

  He dangled the camera toward Sue so that she could get a better look. It took a moment for her to realise what she was looking at, but when she did, recognising the initials as a J and B intertwined, she gave a gasp and bit her lip, looking at Will with wide eyes.

  CHAPTER 37

  Martha staggered through the library door back into the hallway. Her mind was a complete jumble, her heart pounding, her body electric with fear. She was only vaguely aware of being surrounded by the noise of rain beating like applause on the building. Instead, she was deafened by the jagged rasps of her own breath and the clatter of her feet on the hall tiles. What the hell had just happened? Her head throbbed where the book had hit her. And what about the blood, now seeping through her fingers from her temple? She stopped moving, her mind a blank, and turned to stare back at the library door, terrified lest whatever was in there should lurch out and that she should see it.