by Sarah Rayne
Here were the six doors. Despite the need to get out, he was aware of a sudden compulsion to open each one. Why? his mind demanded. To see if there are any more sad, twisted wraiths wandering around? Or were you expecting to find a calendar scratched into the stones by some forgotten, unjustly incarcerated prisoner? Still, if the Count of Monte Cristo had been here, at least he would have been company for Bluebeard’s wives.
He began to feel as if he had been groping his way through this bad-smelling darkness for a very long time – and clutching a broom, said his mind, wryly. But it was no longer quite as dark as it had been. Michael registered this with relief, because if light was trickling in it must mean he was almost at the door with the window.
Except there was something odd about the light. It was not the thin bluish light of outdoors; it was not moonlight or even the electrical beam from Nell’s torch. It was a flickering light – dull and tinged with red as if something had bled into it …
For several panic-filled seconds Michael thought it was the fire – that it had spread down here – then logic kicked in, because the fire Nell had seen had been two – no, three – floors up. If it had somehow found its way down here, he would have heard it – smelled smoke at the very least.
Here was the furnace room. The seventh chamber. This was where that other Hurst had carried Esther’s body, so that all evidence of his son’s murder could be destroyed. It was extraordinarily sinister. Black and secret – banded by the thick strips of iron, and with the unblinking eye of the circular window set into the top half. The dull light seemed to be coming from inside it.
Michael stood up against the door, peering through the thick glass. The light was coming from inside – he could see a faint red haze. And a movement – two small figures with long hair …? Imagination surely. He tried the handle, but it did not move, and he was about to continue along the stone passage when he became aware of other sounds. Footsteps? No, the sounds were too rhythmic; they were more like water dripping, or even someone tapping lightly with a hammer. He listened, and with a dawning horror realized what he was hearing.
It was the slow, inexorable ticking of machinery heating up. After a moment, a new sound began: a slow, deep, grating noise, as if an old, forgotten mechanism was struggling into life. Michael could see the shape of the furnace now – black and massive. There was a gaping hole where there must once have been a round door. Inside, threads of scarlet were thickening into solid blocks of fierce heat. There was a dull roar from the corroded pipes, and a smell of hot iron. The furnace was firing. It could not be happening, but it was. In another moment it would roar into life.
Michael went swiftly down the passage, and with immense thankfulness saw ahead of him the door Jack Hurst had described. A triangle of torchlight showed beyond it, with Nell’s face peering anxiously through the window.
The dull roaring was getting louder, and the scent of hot metal was filling up the passageway. Michael grabbed the broom firmly, and waved to Nell to stand clear. He brought the blunt handle of the broom smashing against the glass. It splintered at once, but nothing more, and he dealt it a second blow, then a third. Still the glass would not break completely, and by now he could hear the fire burning up, and the sound of something heavy crashing over. Pipework caving in?
He returned to the window and at the next attempt large splinters began to fall out. Michael plied the broom again, and this time most of the glass fell away. Behind him he could hear the fire roaring up, and the stone walls were flickering and glowing. Beating down panic, Michael knocked out the remaining shards, and Nell stepped back to the door, unwinding the thick woollen scarf she was wearing, and folding it over the rim, to pad any remaining fragments.
‘Can you climb out?’ she said, a bit breathlessly.
‘It might have to be head-first, and you’ll have to catch me. And it’ll have to be quick – I think the fire’s getting a stronger hold.’
It was not as easy as he had thought to get through the opening, but it was not as difficult as it might have been. He slithered to the ground, and took several grateful breaths of the clean cold night air. As he did so, there was a louder crash from the direction of the furnace room.
Nell grabbed his arm. ‘Let’s get clear of this. The fire engines are on the way – I heard the siren a few moments ago.’
As she spoke, Michael heard them, as well. ‘I think the fire spread through the pipes or something,’ he said, brushing splinters of glass off his jacket as they crossed a small courtyard. ‘It’s fired up an old furnace, and—’ He stopped abruptly, staring at a little straggle of buildings on the other side of the small courtyard.
‘Michael, come on.’
‘No, wait. Look there. Those stone outbuildings.’
‘What? Where?’
‘The carvings over that door,’ said Michael. ‘Can I have the torch a moment?’
‘Two downspouts carved as faces,’ said Nell, as Michael directed the torch. ‘A bit chipped and sort of sly and leery. Is it significant?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Michael, and half to himself, he said, ‘“Blow-cheeked cherubs. The lips of one had broken away, so that it appeared to be screaming silently through a lipless mouth, while the other one’s eyes had chipped, making it seem as if the eyes had been partly removed. The screaming and the blind …” That’s what she called them.’
‘Who? Michael, what on earth …?’
‘Maria Porringer,’ he said, still staring at the carved stone faces. ‘She was here. This was once a murderers’ prison.’ Seeing her expression, he said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not delirious or anything. I found Maria’s journal, and it’s all there. And,’ he said, as they made their way back to the front of the house, ‘if ever this house was going to be haunted, it would have to be haunted by Esther Breadspear. This is where they tried three times to hang her.’
Nell looked at him, but before she could say anything, the flashing lights of the fire engine sirens cut through the darkness.
They stood with Jack Hurst as the massive hoses directed powerful jets of water on to Deadlight Hall’s upper floors.
Three more firefighters had snaked hoses around the side of the house, and had broken down the door through which Michael had made his exit.
‘Everything’s safe now, sir,’ said the most senior of the men, coming up to give Jack Hurst an interim report. ‘The fire was in the attic as you thought, but it had – well, in layman’s terms, it had whooshed through some old pipes and burst into an old furnace room. That’s pretty much ruined now. Burnt out almost entirely, I’m afraid – half of one wall’s fallen in, and most of what’s in there is charred to cinders. There’ll be a more detailed investigation about the cause when everything’s cooled – particularly if the owners are claiming on the insurance.’
‘The owners won’t do that,’ said Jack Hurst.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am sure. I’m the owner,’ he said.
Michael glanced at Nell, and saw his own surprise mirrored in her expression.
Hurst said, ‘What’s your best guess on the cause of the fire?’
‘Difficult to be exact,’ said the fire officer. ‘You’ve never had any kind of flame up there, have you?’
‘Of course I haven’t. No one but a complete idiot would have a naked flame up there.’
No one, thought Michael, but a group of frightened and bitter children, who lit candles so they could execute a murderess … Candles which were overturned as she fought for life …
‘Dr Flint, I don’t suppose you even went up there?’ said the fire officer.
‘No,’ said Michael, unhesitatingly.
‘There was that storm a couple of days back,’ said the man, thoughtfully. ‘Lightning can give an electrical charge to metal, so old plumbing can sometimes be vulnerable. It doesn’t happen much nowadays, but in a house of this age … It’s just about possible the lightning caused a small fire up there, and the fire smouldered for a couple of days. At
the moment that’s the best solution I can see. But we’ll send a report to you. Everyone else all right? We can call the paramedics to get you checked out if need be?’
He glanced at Michael and Nell, and Michael said, ‘No need for paramedics. I’m fine, thanks, and I’m very grateful to be safely outside. Thanks very much – to all of you.’
‘All part of the service, sir,’ said the man, who then sketched a mock salute, and went off to the waiting fire engine.
Michael said to Jack Hurst, ‘I didn’t realize you owned the place.’
‘Yes. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.’
‘I’m sorry about the house. I escaped unscathed, but it doesn’t look as if Deadlight Hall has.’ He glanced at the drenched facade.
‘Oh, don’t be sorry about the house,’ said Hurst. ‘This is the final straw if I’m honest. I’m abandoning the whole project.’
‘You are?’
‘I scraped and scrimped to buy this ugly old pile,’ he said, staring up at it. ‘I was sentimental about it, see. There’s some connection to an ancestor of mine – bit of a wild boy from all the family stories. They vary a bit, those tales – some say he owned the place, some say he only lived in it, or that he used it for his bastards. Some versions even say he was part of some sort of murder scandal, about a century and a half ago. I don’t know the truth and it’s all a long time ago anyway, but I always felt an attachment to the place, and we’re an acquisitive lot, us Hursts. Buying it became a bit of an ambition for me. I worked and saved, and worked some more, until I managed it. I got it for a song, and I thought I could make money out of turning it into posh apartments. Bad idea and very bad decision. It’s an unlucky house – and it’s not often you hear a builder say that. But there’ve been a few bad incidents there over the years – probably all hearsay again, but people have long memories.’
‘What will you do with it?’ asked Michael.
‘Demolish it,’ said Jack Hurst at once. ‘Raze it to the ground and crunch it all up beneath the diggers and the bulldozers.’
‘And then?’
‘Develop the land,’ he said, with a sudden grin. ‘Standing here, I’ve been thinking. I reckon I’d get half a dozen luxury bungalows on this site, each with a third of an acre of ground. And very nice too. You might like to take a look when they’re done.’
‘We might indeed,’ said Michael.
As they walked over to their cars, Nell suddenly said, ‘Michael – I think there’s someone over there – in that bit of garden on the left.’
Michael looked to where she indicated. ‘I can’t see anything. Probably the firefighters are still around.’
‘It isn’t the firefighters,’ said Nell. ‘They’re all round the vehicle, packing up their equipment. Whatever I saw was blurred, like one of those photographs when someone’s moved as the shutters clicked, so I can’t be sure I saw anything at all. It might only have been the trees moving in the wind.’
‘Let’s walk to the side of the house and see. We’ll have to wait for the fire engine to move anyway before we can get the cars out.’
The house cast dense shadows on this side, but there was still an overspill from the fire engine’s lights, and it was possible to see that tall weeds grew up between the cracks of what might once have been a terrace. There was the outline of what had been a large lawn on two levels, with moss-covered steps between the two, and a cracked sundial, covered with lichen. On a bright summer’s afternoon, with cheerful voices, this could have been a lively, happy place. A family place, where children would have run free and enjoyed playing.
Children.
The two figures were indistinct – so much so that they could have been scribbled on the darkness by a child’s pencil. It was not entirely certain if they were even there.
‘It looks like two small girls,’ said Nell, almost in a whisper. ‘I can see their long hair.’
The girls could have been anywhere between six and ten years old, and they were moving away from the house, hand in hand, not exactly running, but not walking slowly. One of them looked back over her shoulder, and put up a hand. The gesture was so indistinct it could have been anything. But it could have been a gesture of farewell. Michael drew in a sharp breath, then sketched a similar gesture.
Behind them, the fire engine revved, its lights swung round, and the figures vanished.
‘We did see that, didn’t we?’ said Nell, sounding slightly shaken.
‘Yes.’
‘They weren’t … real children, were they?’
‘No.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I could make a guess, but it’ll be easier to tell you after you’ve read Maria’s journal,’ said Michael.
The fire engine was trundling down the drive, towards the main road, and as they went over to their cars, he said, ‘Nell – about that journal I found. How would you feel about having the professor in on it? He started all this, so I think he’d like to know what we’ve found.’
‘I’d like that. D’you think he’d be free to come to supper?’ said Nell. ‘But it’s half-past eight already, so it’ll have to be takeaway.’
‘Bless you,’ said Michael, smiling. ‘I’ll phone him now.’
Leo, listening to Michael’s brief explanation, expressed himself as horrified to hear about the fire. Invited to Quire Court, he said he had not dined yet – he had been working on his Radcliffe lecture, and he had not noticed the time.
‘But after what’s happened tonight I don’t want to cause Nell any trouble—’
‘She’d like you to come. And,’ said Michael, ‘we’re picking up supper on the way home so it won’t be any trouble at all. Can you meet us at Quire Court in about an hour?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘And can you eat Chinese food?’
‘I can indeed,’ said Leo.
TWENTY-FOUR
They opted for Cantonese food in the end, and reached Quire Court laden with foil cartons. Leo arrived ten minutes later, bearing two bottles of wine – a Chablis and a good claret. There was also a bottle of some bright pink concoction which the professor had spotted in the wine shop and which he thought Beth might like.
‘I love pink concoctions,’ said Beth, who was being allowed an extra half hour before going off to bed, and who had no idea what the bottle contained. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Don’t spill any of it on Michael’s notes,’ said Nell.
But the Cantonese restaurant, with its customary attention to customers’ comfort, had provided small, moist, sweet-scented paper napkins, which they shared out.
‘It’s beautifully hygienic,’ said Michael. ‘Pass me the crispy duck, Beth. We’re going to provide Professor Rosendale with some information after you’ve gone to bed, so we’re going to stoke up with food now. Then we’ll tell him the tale, and we’ll begin at the beginning—’
‘And go on until you reach the end, then stop,’ chanted Beth, delightedly.
‘What an intelligent daughter you have,’ said Leo, smiling at Nell. ‘I didn’t think anyone read Alice in Wonderland any longer.’
‘Beth practically knows it by heart.’
‘We’ll have a competition on it one day, Beth, but I’ll have to reread it beforehand, so I can keep up with you. Are there any more chicken wings? Let’s divide them up, shall we?’
It was not until Beth, who Nell could see was entranced by Professor Rosendale, had been scooted up to bed, and Michael had refilled the wine glasses, that he commenced the story of Maria Porringer.
He had made some notes while they were eating, and he now gave Nell and Leo a précis of the journal.
‘Extraordinary,’ said Leo, when Michael reached the part where Esther’s body had been cut down, and John Hurst had agreed to conceal the evidence.
‘That’s as far as I got,’ said Michael. ‘Then Nell turned up and the fire started, and everything was chaotic. I thought we’d read the last few pages now, but I think we’ll simply f
ind they burned her body in the old furnace.’
‘You brought the journal with you?’ said Leo.
‘I did. I wasn’t going to leave it there. And,’ said Michael, taking the journal from his jacket pocket and setting it down on the table, ‘it’s a good thing I did, because it would either have been destroyed by fire or drenched to sodden illegibility by the firefighters.’ He looked at Nell. ‘It’s written by a woman,’ he said. ‘So it’s a woman’s “voice”.’
Nell stared at him, not immediately comprehending.
‘I suspect Michael thinks it would sound better if you read it,’ said Leo. ‘I agree.’
‘Well …’
‘Please.’
Nell made a gesture of acceptance, and reached for the book.
‘Her writing’s very clear,’ she said, after a moment. ‘All right, here goes.’ She reached out to tilt a small table lamp slightly nearer, then began to read the closing pages of Maria Porringer’s journal.
It was John Hurst who carried Esther down to the stone corridors beneath the Hall, and along to the furnace room. I went with him, of course.
We had told the children to stay in the hall, and most of them did so. It was only as we went down the steps that I saw two small shadows behind me, and realized that Rosie and Daisy Mabbley had followed us.
‘You are to go back upstairs at once,’ I said, sharply.
‘No,’ said Rosie with defiance, and Daisy shook her head. ‘We want to see that she’s gone. We want to make sure she can’t come back.’
‘She was evil,’ said Rosie. ‘She killed her own children.’
‘She chopped them up with a knife,’ put in Daisy, her voice trembling.
‘Dead people don’t come back,’ said Hurst, in an unexpectedly gentle voice. ‘And although she did that wicked thing, her mind was sick – very sick.’
‘Now do as you’re told,’ I said.
‘You can’t tell us what to do any longer.’ Rosie again, of course, very mutinous. ‘We don’t live here now.’