Inferno

by Jo Macauley

  “Just Lord Cumbria and his two sons. Moved themselves into the rooms the King’s mother used to occupy – comfiest bit of the place by far.”

  “All right for some. Just them, in a big place like this?”

  “Well, supposedly...”

  Beth didn’t want to make it obvious she was after information. She sensed the cook wanted to get it off her chest anyway, so she left Mrs Barnsbury’s words hanging in the air and simply arched an eyebrow enquiringly. It worked.

  “Young Jenny there,” she nodded towards one of her skivvies scrubbing pans, “thinks there’s some strange people coming and going in the east wing. But me, I reckon there’s something peculiar going on.”

  Beth tensed. Did she know anything about Groby and his men? “Peculiar?” she asked.

  “The east wing is where Cromwell’s body was taken before his funeral. There’s always been tales of strange happenings in this place, and if you ask me he still walks the corridors at night...”

  “’Tis real, solid people I’ve seen,” Jenny chipped in, having heard the conversation. “I’ve seen people moving about through the windows.”

  “They might look solid from a distance...” the cook said ominously.

  “Well, if it’s Cromwell, he’s wearing noisy boots for a ghost – and carrying a candle at night,” Jenny said adamantly.

  “Who’s to say you can’t hear a phantom’s footsteps, or see one carrying a candle? Just how much do you know about what phantoms can and can’t do, eh?”

  “I’ve always wanted to see a spirit!” Beth said, playing down her interest in the possibility of real humans. “What did they look like, Jenny?”

  The girl was scrubbing energetically at a stubborn stain inside a pan as she carried on the conversation. “Hard to tell. They were just sort of flitting past the windows late at night.”

  “There!” cried Mrs Barnsbury. “Hard to tell because they weren’t solid! Cromwell and his anti-royal phantoms won’t rest while there’s a King on the throne.”

  Beth felt sure there was a presence in Somerset House that wanted to bring down the King – but she was also certain that Jenny’s more human explanation was the right one.

  Chapter Fifteen - Cromwell’s Revenge

  “So what did you find out?” asked John urgently. The trio had met up again in the secluded area under the staircase in the grand entrance hall. Through the windows they could see the distant flames and wide curtain of dirty black smoke billowing high into the otherwise clear but dark early-morning sky.

  “I found Hewer. Seems I’m getting somewhere with him,” said Ralph. “He trusts me and he’s telling me things. In fact, he’s let me in on a big job they’ve got on tomorrow.”

  “It must be something to do with Polly,” John said. “What do they want you to do?”

  “Er ... he didn’t go into detail, but I think you’re right – probably to do with Polly.”

  Ralph looked away as John’s eyes lit up hopefully.

  “That links in with what I found out,” said Beth. “The cook thinks the east wing is haunted, but from what we know now, it has to be Groby and his men.”

  “According to Hewer they’ll be back this morning. That’s when I’ve got to do ... whatever it is they’ve got lined up for me.”

  “So,” said Beth thinking out loud, “they’re planning to kill the King with our help at the Navy Board, then come back here and release Polly once the job’s done.”

  “Hopefully,” said Ralph under his breath.

  “What if we can get into the east wing before tonight?” John ventured. “Maybe Polly’s in there now – we could get her out then warn the King once she’s safe!”

  “It’s definitely worth a try,” said Ralph, glancing at Beth and back to John. “I think I saw the way we’d need to go when I was sneaking about. It was deserted up there.”

  “The east wing’s supposed to be deserted, but we must be careful,” said John. “We don’t know whether or not some of the gang use it to lie low when they’re not needed. If we do anything to alert them it might endanger Polly.”

  “We must be cautious, but I agree we try to get in now,” said Beth. “Lead the way, Ralph.”

  After checking that no one was about, Ralph led them up the left-hand side flight of the two curving staircases that swept up to the next floor. Once at the top they scurried along a corridor. At the end of it, he made them pause.

  “Just need to make sure Hewer’s not still about,” he whispered.

  After peering round the corner and listening intently for a few seconds, Ralph set off again, waving them to follow. They came to a left turn leading into another corridor with a large doorway at the end of it, and Beth felt sure the east wing lay behind it. But before they had got halfway down this latest passageway, Ralph stopped again. He turned to John.

  “There’s nowhere to take cover here if anyone comes. Can you wait at the corner and keep a lookout for us?”

  “But you said the place was deserted. I want to be there when – if – we find Polly.”

  “We can’t afford to take any chances...”

  Ralph gave Beth the briefest of glances; she knew it was some sort of signal, and that he wanted her to back him up.

  “He’s right, John. You can join us as soon as the door’s open.”

  He reluctantly agreed, and sloped back along the corridor to take up station at the corner.

  Once he’d gone, Beth and Ralph continued towards the door at the end.

  “What’s this all about?” Beth asked. “You don’t just want him to be a lookout, do you?”

  “No,” he said in a low voice. “’Tis to do with what Hewer asked me to do.” He turned briefly to check that John was out of earshot – but as he did so his shoulder brushed against a bulky plant on a windowsill. It wobbled violently, and was just about to fall when Beth dived forwards and grabbed it before it smashed to the wooden floor.

  “Whoops!” said Ralph sheepishly.

  “You were saying?” Beth prompted him as she replaced the plant.

  “The gang wanted him to do a job. He couldn’t, but he daren’t refuse them either, so he asked me to do it instead...”

  “Do what?”

  He fixed her with a serious gaze. “Kill Polly.”

  Beth felt as if an Arctic wind had blown right through her.

  “I’m not gonna do it, obviously!”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  “I just thought t’was best if John didn’t know. We need him to be on top form, and if you ask me his mood’s been a bit dodgy ever since Polly went missing.”

  “I can’t blame him – but you did the right thing. And it’s worrying. I know Vale and Groby are ruthless men but I didn’t think even they’d go so far as to kill an innocent little girl.”

  “Well,” said Ralph, gently trying the handle of the big door they’d arrived at, “perhaps we can spoil their plan before it’s even started. And if we can’t, at least I’ll be there. Worst comes to worst, you know I’ll do my best to rescue young Polly if it comes to it.”

  “I know you will,” Beth said. But she worried that with too many of Groby’s thugs around, this might be more difficult than they’d hope. “But let’s hope we find her now before it gets to that...”

  But Ralph immediately tutted.

  “Locked?”

  “Yes. All’s not lost, though.” He pulled his trusty lock-picking kit from the depths of one of his inside pockets and set to work. Within seconds there was a distinct click. “Easy! Internal doors are never much of a problem.”

  But when he pushed at the door, it didn’t move. He put his shoulder against it, and still it refused to budge.

  “Bolted on the other side?”

  “No. They’ve put something behind it – heavy furniture or something.”

  Beth gasped. “Does that mean someone’s in there? What if they’ve heard us?”

  The waited, but nothing happened. “Well, if they don’t react to an
unexpected break-in, then they can’t be much use. I’d wager they’ve stacked the furniture against the door but gone out some other way.”

  They tried the door again, heaving with all their might, but to no avail.

  Just then, John came quietly along the corridor. “I think I heard someone coming! Why are you two taking so long?”

  Ralph quickly explained the situation to him.

  “We have to get out of here, we need to hide,” John urged. “Try the door again!”

  “It won’t open,” Beth hissed, glancing up and down the corridor and trying to listen for footsteps. “I can’t hear anything. If Polly’s in there, perhaps they’ve drugged her to keep her quiet...”

  “Do we have time to search the house for another entrance?” Ralph hissed.

  “John will be due to meet Groby not too long from now ... and we might get caught. If someone’s moving around up here, it’s better we get out of here. And if we can’t get this room in the normal way,” Beth said, “we’ll just have to do it the hard way.”

  She began hurrying away down the corridor, and Ralph and John followed.

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of this,” Ralph whispered. “Your plans always seem to end up in some death-defying stunt—”

  “The idea I’ve got might be dirty and uncomfortable, but it should be reasonably safe.”

  “There, you see. Reasonably. Reasonably makes me nervous,” he hissed.

  “Among your many careers, were you ever a chimney sweep as a young boy?” she asked Ralph.

  “You think we can get in down the chimney?” John whispered incredulously. “Surely there’s another way?”

  “We don’t have time to start another search,” Beth replied. “It’s been a hot summer so they won’t have had a fire in ages. And everyone’s too busy looking at the London fire to notice us. Why not?”

  “If it means saving Polly, I’ll walk through walls,” John replied.

  But Ralph had gone strangely quiet.

  “Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” Beth asked.

  “Might be tricky, to say the least. Chimneys tend to be fairly narrow ... But if we must, we must.”

  Ralph didn’t seem his usual self now, and she thought perhaps it was what he was supposed to do to Polly. But whatever the problem, there was no time to get to the bottom of it. They slipped quietly out of the house and into the garden at the rear, where they were less likely to be seen in the gloom. To give themselves time to plan their entry, they took refuge behind a large, ornate bush.

  Ralph let out a quiet whistle. “That place has got lots of chimneys...”

  “Yes,” said Beth, “but we’re only interested in the east wing, which is on the right of the building. If we can work out roughly where the blocked door was, we can see which chimneys are beyond it.”

  Ralph scrutinized the building, then suddenly perked up. “That window!” he said, pointing to the top floor. “There’s the plant on the windowsill I nearly sent flying!”

  “So that big chimney stack at the corner leads to a fireplace on the other side of the door!” Beth finished for him.

  “We need to start at that drainpipe,” John decided. After checking that the coast was clear, he led them quickly across the lawn to a metal pipe attached to the pale stone wall. The good thing, Beth thought, was that it was located in a quiet, dark corner: a right-angle where the main building met the east wing.

  John was in such a hurry that he had started his ascent before she and Ralph had joined him.

  “Careful, matey – looks a bit rusty,” Ralph warned.

  “It is,” came the whisper from above. “But it feels strong enough.”

  Soon all three of them were shinning up the pipe, with Beth taking up the rear. She could feel the rough patches of rust under her grasp. In places the metal was so corroded her fingers almost went right through and bits of wafer-thin rusty metalwork came away, fluttering to the ground below. She watched them fall, and only now realized how high they already were. Just as she thought it, a whole section of pipe came away in John’s hand. He swayed back with a cry of alarm, his legs squeezed against the lower part of the pipe preventing him from falling. Ralph quickly reached up a hand and supported him.

  “I can’t believe you’ve got us into this,” Ralph muttered.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” John asked, the section of broken piping still in this hand. “If I drop it someone might hear it land, but I can’t climb while I’m holding it.”

  “Put it on that window ledge beside you,” Ralph hissed.

  “It won’t stay on there for long,” Beth warned.

  “No, but if he jams it in place as best he can it might stay put long enough,” Ralph whispered irritably. “There’s no other option.”

  John reached across to his right and put the rusty pipe on top of an upper window ledge. Beth knew a strong gust of wind would soon bring it down, but it was the best they could do. Her hands, arms and legs were burning by the time they resumed their climb, but now there were only a few feet to go.

  “I can’t get a foothold to climb over the ledge onto the roof,” John hissed as they reached the top.

  “Use my shoulder,” Ralph whispered. “But quickly, I can’t hold on much longer!”

  John made an extra effort to get himself onto the roof – but his boot dug deep onto Ralph’s shoulder, and one of Ralph’s hands slipped free from the pipe. In his haste to regain his grip, Ralph only succeeded in clutching John’s leg and yanking hard on it. He stifled a scream as he lost his grasp of the ledge. A sudden image of them both tumbling through space flashed into Beth’s mind. She screwed her eyes tightly, letting out a little whimper, but then John’s hand caught onto the ledge and he pulled himself up. Once he was up on the roof he reached down to help the others up.

  “That was nothing compared to the maintop of a frigate in a gale!” Ralph breezily informed them, brushing off the shock of their near-miss. Now they were on the flat, leaded roof, they could walk along it towards the chimney stack with comparative ease. But the chimney was much taller than it had appeared from the ground. Then Beth realized that, being Somerset House, even the chimney stack had a decorative pattern in the brickwork, and some bricks stuck out to form a sort of spiral pattern running from bottom to top.

  “They’ve even made a sort of staircase for us out of bricks,” she said.

  “Very thoughtful of them,” said Ralph.

  But there was a sort of breathlessness to his voice, and Beth noticed he’d suddenly become strangely subdued again.

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No,” he mumbled, looking up at their next challenge. “It’s just that chimney...”

  “But I thought you were good with heights? You are the sailor boy after all – climbing masts and everything!”

  “That’s just it. Heights are meat and drink to me – ’tis depths sailors don’t like. This one, ’specially.”

  Now Beth thought she understood what had come over him ever since this plan had been raised. “You mean going down the chimney? You don’t like being closed in?”

  He had turned pale and was starting to shake. “Can’t stand feeling trapped...”

  John was becoming impatient. “It’s not that far down. Just close your eyes and get it over with as quickly as you can.”

  “I’ll go first,” Beth declared. Perhaps by setting an example she might boost Ralph’s confidence.

  “No, let me go first and get it over with,” he said quickly. But he didn’t make a move towards the chimney, and Beth began gathering up her skirts to prepare for the descent. She noticed John reddening slightly at this, turning his face away from her with an embarrassed cough. But Ralph was still sizing up the chimney like someone facing the hangman’s noose. Beth had never seen him so frightened.

  “Perhaps I ought to go last?” he now decided. “If I see you two do it all right, it’ll make me feel better...”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
said John, making for the chimney. “My sister’s life is at stake!”

  “All right, all right’ Ralph hissed, suddenly springing in front of him and commencing the climb. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll go first!”

  They all ascended the chimney, using the pattern of bricks that protruded like the sawn-off branches of a monkey puzzle tree. Beth followed Ralph, with John coming up behind. When he got to the top, Ralph hovered at the edge and looked down into the blackness.

  “Lord ... what if it’s too narrow?”

  Beth worked her way round to the other side ’til she was at the top with him. “Ralph, we’ll easily get down there. It will be a squeeze, yes, but there’s no possibility of getting stuck – trust me.”

  With a deep breath, Ralph swung his legs over ’til he was sitting on the edge of the chimney with his feet dangling inside.

  “Just use your arms and feet against the sides to stop yourself from falling,” Beth urged him. “We had a sweep who used to come into the Peacock and Pie, and his boy told me most chimneys aren’t completely straight on the inside. There’s usually a kink, and plenty of uneven bricks and crevices for foot-holds.”

  Ralph’s breath was coming in short, shaky bursts now. Without looking down, he began to lower himself bit by bit until his head disappeared from view. Beth quickly scrambled over the top so that she would be close behind him, with John queuing behind her, itching to go. Soot dislodged by Ralph wafted upwards on a draught from the fireplace. Beth had to pause, blinking and rubbing her eyes. She could hear Ralph coughing in the darkness below but she could no longer see him – but then finally she heard his whisper, relief flooding into his voice.

  “I’m nearly there! I can see the bottom!”

  “Carefully,” Beth cautioned. They still didn’t know what – or who – might greet them once they finally got into the room.

  Still, it sounded as if he more or less let himself fall the last few feet, and his landing sent a cloud of black dust billowing into Beth’s face.

  “All clear,” Ralph called, and Beth felt a wash of relief.

  Before long, the three of them were sprawled in the hearth of a huge open fireplace. Beth looked around quickly, dusting herself off.