by C. J. Tudor
I open my mouth then flounder like a grounded fish.
Ruth turns to the cupboard and takes out two mugs. One has a picture of a cat on. The other proclaims: ‘Keep calm. I’m a cleaner.’
‘I’ve been up to the school. Loads of times,’ she says. ‘Talked to your head.’
‘Right.’
‘Fat lot of good that did.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I thought things might have changed. Schools don’t put up with that type of thing no more. They crack down on bullying.’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Yeah. Nice idea. Crap, though.’ She turns to the kettle. ‘Tea?’
‘Um. I’d prefer coffee.’
I’d prefer to tell her that she is wrong. That schools do crack down on bullying now. That they don’t brush it under the gym mats for the sake of a decent Ofsted report. That who someone’s daddy is has no effect whatsoever on their treatment by the teachers. That’s what I want to tell her.
‘We don’t have any coffee.’
But we can’t always get what we want.
‘Tea is fine.’
She fills the mugs with boiling water, adds milk.
‘I remember you from school,’ she says. ‘You were part of Hurst’s gang.’
‘For a while.’
‘I never thought you were like the rest.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Didn’t say it was a compliment.’
I wonder how to respond. I decide to say nothing, for now.
She finishes making the tea and brings the mugs over. ‘Are you going to sit down or what?’
I plonk my backside down in a chair. She takes the seat opposite.
‘I heard you were renting the cottage.’
‘Word gets around in Arnhill.’
‘Always has.’
She reaches for her tea and takes a sip. I look at the brown liquid stewing murkily in my mug and decide against doing the same.
‘You cleaned the cottage for Julia Morton?’
‘That’s right. Though I doubt she’ll be giving you a reference.’
‘You must have got to know her and Ben?’
She wraps her hands around her mug and regards me shrewdly. ‘Is that why you’re really here? You want to know about what happened?’
‘I have a few questions.’
‘It’ll cost you.’
‘How much?’
‘A deep clean.’
I remember Lauren’s price list. ‘Fifty pounds?’
‘Cash.’
I consider. ‘I’ll live with the dust. Twenty-five pounds – and it will have to be a cheque.’
She sits back in her chair and folds her arms. ‘Go on.’
‘What was Julia like?’
‘All right, as teachers go. She wasn’t too up herself. But she thought she was better than this place. Most of them do.’
And most probably are.
‘But she wasn’t depressed?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘And Ben?’
‘A good lad. At least he was, before he went missing.’
‘What happened?’
‘Didn’t come home one day after school. Had everyone out looking for him.’ She pauses. ‘And then he came back.’
For the first time, I sense discomfort, a crack in the hard façade.
‘And?’
‘He was different.’
‘How?’
‘He’d always been a polite, tidy lad. After, he’d leave the toilet unflushed. His bed was always stained with sweat, and other stuff. His bedroom stank, like something had crawled in there and died.’
‘Maybe he was just going through a phase,’ I say. ‘Kids can turn from sweet youngsters into smelly teens in the blink of an eye.’
She looks at me, swigs some of her tea. ‘I used to clean there last on my rounds. Sometimes Ben would be home from school. We’d chat. I’d make us both a cuppa. After he came back, I’d turn around and find him standing there, just staring. It used to make my skin crawl. The way he looked at me. The way he smelled. Sometimes, I could hear him muttering under his breath. Foul words. It didn’t even sound like him. It wasn’t right.’
‘Did you say anything to Julia?’
‘I tried. That was when she said she didn’t need me any more. Gave me my notice.’
‘When was this?’
‘Just before she took him out of school for good.’
I glance at my mug and wish I had a strong coffee. Strike that. I wish I had a bourbon and a cigarette.
‘Open the back door,’ Ruth says.
‘What?’
‘You want a smoke. I wouldn’t mind one neither. Open the back door.’
I stand and walk over to the door. It opens on to a small backyard. Someone has tried to brighten it with a few wilting plants in pots. At the far end, there’s a kennel. I walk back inside and sit down. I slip two cigarettes out of my packet and offer one to Ruth, then light both.
‘What do you think happened to Ben?’ I ask.
She takes a moment to reply: ‘When I was a kid, we had a dog. I used to walk him up at the old pit site.’
‘I remember,’ I say, wondering where this is going.
‘One day he ran off. I was gutted. I loved that dog. Two days later he came back, coat matted with dirt and dust, a huge bloody scar around his neck. I bent down, fussed him. He wagged his tail and bit my hand. Right through to the bone. Dad wanted to throttle him right there and then. “Once a dog turns bad,” he said, “that’s it. There’s no going back.” ’
I stare at her. ‘You’re comparing Ben Morton to a dog?’
‘I’m saying something happened to that boy and it was so bad his mother couldn’t live with it any more.’ She drags on the cigarette, blows out a thick cloud of smoke.
‘Did you tell any of this to the police?’
She snorts. ‘And have them call me crazy?’
‘But you’re telling me.’
‘You’re paying me.’
‘And that’s all?’
She drops the cigarette butt into her mug. ‘Like I said, you weren’t like the rest.’
‘Is that why you sent me the email?’
She frowns. ‘What email?’
‘The one about my sister – it’s happening again.’
‘I never sent you any email. Today’s the first time I’ve set sight on you since we were kids.’
‘I know you sent the text.’ I pick up the Nokia from the table. ‘It came from this phone. I’m guessing it’s an old one of yours that Marcus borrowed.’
‘I never sent you any bloody text neither. And that’s not my phone.’
The confusion on her face looks genuine. My head throbs harder. Right on cue, the front door slams. Marcus shuffles into the kitchen.
‘Hi, Mum.’ Then he spots me. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘I brought your phone back,’ I say, holding up the Nokia.
His face falls.
‘Where did you get it?’ I ask.
‘I’ve had it ages.’
‘Really? So, does this mean anything to you – Suffocate the little children. Fuck them. Rest in Pieces?’
Guilt radiates off him like body heat.
‘Marcus?’ Ruth prompts.
‘It was just a joke. A wind-up.’
‘All your idea then?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Did someone make you send the text?’
‘It wasn’t like that. No one made me do anything.’ He juts out his chin defiantly.
‘Fine.’ I tuck the phone into my pocket. ‘I think I should let the police deal with this.’
I take a step towards the door.
‘Wait!’
I turn. ‘What, Marcus?’
He looks at me desperately. ‘She won’t lose her job, will she?’
22
1992
More steps. Different from t
he first. These were carved out of the rock and they curved gradually downwards, like a staircase. A slippery, treacherous staircase. Some of the steps crumbled a bit when you stood on them, sending bits of rock skittering down below. It sounded a long way down.
The walls either side were jagged, the roof above me low. I had to crouch a bit. I’d adjusted the battery on my helmet but, because of the curve, the light only illuminated one or two steps at a time, so sometimes it seemed like the third step was straight out into darkness. Ahead of me, I could see the other two torches bobbing up and down, but they only provided odd, abstract patches of illumination. However, they did at least confirm that nobody had fallen off the edge of a precipice and broken their neck. Yet.
Occasionally, I heard one of the others curse, usually Marie. I had no idea how she was managing in stiletto heels. Beneath my miner’s overalls I was coated in sweat. It slid down my brow and trickled around my eyebrows. My heart hammered and my breath was growing more ragged. Not just because of tension and exertion. My dad once told me there’s less oxygen in the air the deeper down you go.
‘How much fucking further?’ Fletch grumbled, because, if I was finding it hard going, Fletch – with his ten-fags-a-day habit – must really be struggling.
I expected Hurst to reply, but Chris got there first. ‘We’re close,’ he said calmly, and I could swear he didn’t sound breathless at all, didn’t sound as if he was even breaking a sweat.
We resumed our unsteady, stumbling progress. After a few more minutes I realized something. I wasn’t bending over quite so much. I could stand upright. The roof was getting higher. The quality of the light seemed to be changing too. Even the air felt a little more breathable, as if there was more of it around us.
Getting close, I thought. But to what?
‘Be careful,’ Chris called back now. ‘There’s a drop.’
He was right. We rounded the next corner and the narrow passageway opened out into a much larger cavern. It was big. Really big. I looked up. The ceiling rose high above us in a rough dome shape. Thick wooden beams formed supports. They crossed and curved in a way that reminded me of the vaulted roofs in barns or churches. Similar but more rudimentary. The steps continued but there was no wall to our left any more. Just a straight plummet down.
‘Shit!’ Marie suddenly yelped. Glass shattered, brittle and abrupt in the darkness. ‘The cider.’
I jumped. My concentration wavered. The foot I was poised to place on the next step slipped. My ankle buckled beneath me. I yelped in pain and grabbed for the wall but, of course, it was gone. No wall, just air.
Fear snatched the scream from my throat. I tried to grab hold of something – anything – but it was too late. I was falling. I closed my eyes, prepared for the long drop …
… and I hit the ground almost immediately with a sudden, spine-cracking thump.
‘Owwww. Shiiit.’
‘Joe?’ Chris’s voice called down. ‘Are you okay?’
I attempted to sit up. My back hurt a bit. It felt bruised, but it could have been worse – a lot worse. I looked up. I could see torchlights and vague silhouettes. Only a few feet above me.
We had found it, I realized. We were here.
I pushed myself to my feet. My ankle twinged again.
‘Shit.’
I clutched at it. It already felt a bit swollen. I hoped I’d just twisted it and not broken anything. I still had to climb back up those frigging steps.
‘I’m okay!’ I shouted back up. ‘But I’ve hurt my fucking ankle.’
‘Boo hoo. What can you see? What’s down there?’ Hurst’s voice. As caring and compassionate as ever.
My helmet had been knocked sideways. I propped myself against one rocky wall, relieving the weight on my bad ankle, and adjusted it. I looked around. More wooden beams were set into the walls. They ran straight up from the ground. Between them I could see other shapes and patterns. They looked like they had been made by white sticks embedded into the rock. They formed intricate designs. Stars and eyes. Odd-looking letters. Stick men. I fought back a small shiver. On some of the walls there were fewer patterns. Instead, piles of sticks and yellow rocks were stacked tightly in large arched alcoves.
I didn’t like it. Any of it. It was creepy. Weird. Wrong.
I heard the others descending. Chris stepped slowly down into the cavern. Hurst jumped and landed beside me with a thud, almost immediately followed by Marie and Fletch. There was a pause as they all looked around, taking it in.
‘Whoah. This is well cool,’ Marie said. ‘It’s like something out of The Lost Boys.’
‘Is it summat to do with the pit?’ Fletch asked, displaying his usual abundance of imagination.
‘No.’ The word came from Chris, but he snatched it from the tip of my tongue.
This wasn’t something forged by miners. Mines were hacked, punched and hewn from the rock; it was clumsy and rough and industrial, done with heavy tools and machinery.
This was something different. It had not been formed by necessity or stoic workmanship. It had been created by, I sort of wanted to say, passion, but that wasn’t quite right either. As I gazed around, another word thrust itself into my head. Devotion. That was it – devotion.
‘Shine your torch round, fuckwit,’ Hurst said to Fletch, who duly obliged.
He turned in a circle, pointing the torch around the cavern. It only just reached the far walls, and rather than illuminating it seemed to accentuate the deep hollows and corners filled with blackness. It was probably just some weird effect of the light, but if you glanced quickly, out of the corner of your eye, it almost looked like the shadows were moving, shifting and ebbing restlessly.
‘This is well weird,’ Hurst muttered. ‘Doughboy’s right. This ain’t no mine.’ He turned to me. ‘What d’you think, Thorney?’
I was trying, but thinking was hard down here. Even though the cavern was big and far less stifling than the narrow tunnel, I was still finding it laboursome to breathe. Like the air was wrong. Like the oxygen had been replaced with something else. Something heavier and sort of foul. Something no one should breathe, ever.
Poisonous gases, I thought suddenly. My dad had often spoken about the fumes released from deep down in the earth. Was that it? Were we slowly being poisoned while we stood here? I glanced over at Chris.
‘Chris, what is this place?’
He still stood near the steps, venturing no further. His face in the grimy gloom was pale, streaked with dirt, not scared exactly but tense. He looked much older than his fifteen years, like the man he would never become. Then his vivid eyes met mine and I understood. He hadn’t found this place. It had found him, and now he desperately wanted it to let him go again.
‘Don’t you know yet?’ he said. ‘Don’t you get it?’
I looked back around the cavern. At the high, vaulted roof. The wooden beams. And that was when something in my head clicked. Because when you looked again, it was obvious. Air that shouldn’t be breathed. A huge underground chamber. Like a church but not.
‘Get what?’ Hurst asked.
And right on the heels of that thought came another. The white sticks in the walls and the rocks piled in the alcoves. I limped forward, towards the nearest wall. The light on my helmet illuminated a star, a symbol like a hand and a stick figure. Up close, they weren’t pure white. And they weren’t sticks. They were something else.
Something you would expect to find in a place like this.
In a grave, a burial chamber.
‘Thorney, are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?’ Hurst snarled dangerously.
‘Bones,’ I whispered, horror leaching the strength from my voice. ‘The rock – it’s full of bones.’
23
Sometimes, it takes a while for you to realize that something is wrong. Something is off. It stinks. Like when you stand in dog shit and it’s not until you’re sitting in the car, wondering where the bad smell is coming from, that it sinks in: the stink is coming from
you. You brought it along for the ride.
When I get back to the cottage I notice that the front door is ajar, just a little. I’m sure I remember closing and locking it. As I get closer, I see that the frame is splintered and cracked. Someone has forced it. I push the door all the way open and walk inside.
The cushions on the sofa have been thrown off and sliced open, spilling their foamy guts all over the floor. The coffee table has been tipped up, the drawers from the small cabinet yanked out. My laptop is in pieces.
The cottage has been ransacked. I frown, my mind taking a while to assess the situation. And then it dawns on me. Fletch and his sons, probably on instruction from Hurst. I guess he didn’t want to negotiate after all. Typical Hurst – if someone won’t give you something, you take it, by any means.
Except, I know damn well that they won’t have found what they were looking for.
I walk wearily upstairs. My mattress has been slashed and eviscerated, the clothes in the wardrobe pulled off hangers and dumped in a heap on the floor. I bend down to pick up some shirts and I can immediately tell, from the dampness and acrid smell, that they have been liberally pissed upon.
I check in the bathroom: shower curtain yanked down for no apparent reason, the top taken off the cistern and smashed. I could have told them that nothing they could do in here could disturb me more than the things I’ve already encountered.
Finally, I check the spare room. Ben’s room. I open the door. I stare at the lacerated mattress, the ripped-up carpet, and feel a slow burn of anger. I limp back downstairs.
I find Abbie-Eyes in the log burner, along with the folder that I discovered beneath the Angel. I crouch down and take them both out. They’re dusty and black but they haven’t been set alight. I wonder why? I place Abbie-Eyes on the coffee table. After a moment’s consideration I slip the folder inside one of the slit-open cushions, just to be on the safe side. Something is bothering me. Why didn’t Fletch’s lads burn them? Had they got bored of their destruction by this point? Seems unlikely. Did they run out of time?
Or was it something else? Were they disturbed, interrupted?
I suddenly have a very bad feeling. There’s a creak from the kitchen. I straighten and turn.
‘Evening, Joe.’
I sit on the cushionless sofa. Gloria perches delicately on the armchair. Flames crackle noisily in the log burner. This is not as homely as it sounds. Gloria wears black leather gloves and holds a poker in one hand.