by Nick Moseley
‘Shall we get back to the important stuff?’ Oscar said. ‘You know, like working out what the hell this thing is and what it wants before it kills us all?’
‘Boring,’ said Trev.
Desai blew an irritated breath out of her nose. ‘We haven’t got much to work on, so let’s list what we know.’
‘Whatever this thing is, it’s restricted to the prison, or the prison grounds,’ Oscar said.
‘Are we sure that it’s a thing and not things, plural?’ said Trev.
‘That’s what it feels like, to my senses,’ said Oscar. ‘A single presence rather than a group. I think the phenomena that’ve been seen around the prison are just extensions of it, not genuine individuals.’
Trev thought about the wolf and its obvious intelligence and privately disagreed. However aloud he said: ‘Fine, we’ll go with that for the time being. We also know that the prison was constructed with a kind of cage or grid built into the walls, which is either keeping the presence in or allowing it to move around.’
‘And we know that it’s killing the prisoners, for reasons unknown,’ said Oscar.
‘What about the power cuts?’ Desai said. ‘Could the presence do that?’
‘I suppose it’s possible, yes.’ Oscar cocked his head. ‘I have known some supernatural entities that could mess with electrical currents – making lights flicker, and what have you – but none that could shut down a generator at will.’
‘A human accomplice? Jerry Phelps, maybe?’ Desai folded her arms. ‘The generator’s been guarded since the first power cut, though. I don’t know how he could be getting in there to shut it down without being seen.’
‘The sum of what we know is a good deal less than the sum of what we don’t,’ Oscar observed. ‘I still think we need to clear everyone out and then get a fully armed team of Custodians in here to investigate and see what’s what.’
‘Good luck persuading Grace on that,’ Trev said. ‘I’m starting to think she won’t call for help until she’s the only one left alive. And even then she’d probably do it by letter. Or maybe smoke signals.’
‘She’s been keeping Feargal updated,’ Desai said. ‘Any more deaths and he’ll have to step in, whether Grace asks him to or not.’
‘So what do we do?’ Trev asked. ‘Sit tight, wait for the next person to die and hope that it isn’t one of us?’
‘Works for me,’ said Oscar.
‘I’m going to go and show these plans to Grace,’ Desai said, choosing not to acknowledge the cat’s comment. ‘The more evidence we can give her, the better.’
‘I’ll come with you, if you like?’ Trev said.
‘Thanks, but that might not be the best idea,’ Desai said. ‘You probably ought to keep your head down as far as Grace is concerned.’
Trev considered arguing before conceding that Desai had a point. ‘Yeah, OK. In that case I’m going down to the infirmary to have another chat with Dr. Bookbinder. Maybe having another two bodies on his hands might make him a bit more talkative.’
‘You should ask him to change that bandage first,’ Oscar said. ‘It doesn’t look very hygienic.’
‘Thanks nurse, I’ll bear that mind.’
‘All right, we’ll meet back here,’ said Desai. ‘Keep your eyes open, OK?’
‘Will do,’ said Trev.
‘If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the radiator,’ said Oscar.
The infirmary was quiet except for the faint rattling of Bookbinder’s computer keyboard. Trev knocked on his office door.
‘Come in,’ the doctor called.
Trev walked through. Bookbinder looked up from his monitor. His clothes were even more dishevelled than usual and, like everyone else stuck at Spectre’s Rest, his face suggested that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for some time. When he realised who his visitor was he didn’t make any effort to hide his displeasure. Looks like the “first do no harm” part of the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t extend to my feelings, Trev thought.
‘What can I do for you?’ said Bookbinder, his tone suggesting he very much hoped Trev’s answer would be ‘nothing, sorry I bothered you’.
‘Hi,’ said Trev. ‘I was wondering if you’d have a quick look at my cut for me and put a new dressing on it if it needs one.’
‘Of course.’ Bookbinder indicated the chair in front of his desk. ‘Please have a seat.’
Trev sat down. Bookbinder removed the bandage and examined the wound. He didn’t have any alcohol on his breath for a change, leading Trev to speculate whether the doctor had decided to stop, or had simply run out.
‘This looks OK,’ Bookbinder said after his inspection was finished. ‘No sign of infection and healing is well underway. Best to keep it covered for the time being though, I think.’
He went to a cabinet and retrieved a dressing and some bandage, stifling a yawn. ‘Busy night, I’m guessing,’ Trev said.
‘Obviously,’ said Bookbinder.
‘Same cause of death for the two new victims?’
Bookbinder applied the dressing and began winding the bandage around Trev’s head. ‘I don’t think I should be talking to you about this.’
‘It’s fine, Grace and I are cool now,’ said Trev. ‘I’d be in a cell otherwise.’
‘Is that right?’ said Bookbinder. ‘I have to say, I’m quite surprised to see that you’re still on the loose.’
And disappointed, by the sound of it. ‘Mishti and I have been doing some research on the prison’s history,’ Trev said. ‘Grace is happy for us to get on with it, as long as we don’t get in the way.’
Bookbinder stopped bandaging. ‘The prison’s history? What do you hope to find?’
‘We’re pretty sure that there’s a historical angle to the bad stuff that’s been happening,’ said Trev, aware that he’d snagged Bookbinder’s attention. ‘We’ve found some old plans that suggest the creepy atmosphere and the strange shadows are a result of the prison’s architecture.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, let’s just say that some of the walls have more than bricks in them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think I should be talking to you about this,’ said Trev.
Bookbinder barked out a humourless laugh. ‘Touché,’ he said, ‘touché. All right then. Yes, the two prisoners who died last night matched Corbyn in that there was no cause of death I could determine. Both appeared to have been alive one second and dead the next.’
‘And still no idea how the killer got at them?’
‘None,’ said Bookbinder. He finished the bandaging and went back to his desk. ‘Both were in locked cells, and there was no indication of any ranged weapon or poison being used on them.’
‘Interesting,’ said Trev. He ran his fingers along the bandage, checking that Bookbinder had wound it tightly enough, and stood up. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll let you get on.’
‘Hold on,’ the doctor said. ‘You were going to tell me about the walls?’
‘I could, but something tells me you already know a lot more than I do on that subject,’ said Trev. ‘Shall we compare notes?’
Bookbinder didn’t reply. His face was stony and he avoided Trev’s gaze.
‘Thought so,’ said Trev. He walked to the door and turned back, one hand on the handle. ‘If you get bored with doing post-mortems, maybe you should let us all know what’s going on here?’
‘Goodbye, Trevor,’ said Bookbinder. ‘If I were you, I’d go to my room and stay out of trouble until all this is resolved.’
‘That’s the thing,’ said Trev. ‘I’ve always been pretty useless at doing what I’m told.’
Twenty-Six
‘Maybe we should just go to our rooms and stay out of trouble until all this has been resolved,’ Trev said.
They were back in the library. Desai’s visit to the head warden hadn’t gone well; Montano had finally given in to exhaustion and gone to bed, and wasn’t prepared to cut short her rest to look at the plans. A frustrated De
sai had decided not to push her on it and returned to the library. She’d at least been able to stop by the canteen and get them all some lunch, which consisted – again – of semi-stale sandwiches.
‘Why do you say that?’ Desai asked. ‘I think we’re making some progress.’
‘Because Bookbinder basically warned me off,’ said Trev. ‘He either knows what’s going on or has a good idea of it.’
‘Then we need to tell Grace to have him questioned,’ said Desai.
Trev shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. He hasn’t actually said anything incriminating, has he? Even the warning was just a general suggestion for me to keep my head down, and everyone’s been telling me that. Plus I reckon Grace would take his word over ours if he just denied all knowledge.’
‘What’s the plan, then?’
‘We need more evidence,’ Trev said. ‘The plans aren’t enough on their own. They suggest that the architect was up to something, sure, but it’ll be a stretch to convince Grace that it ties in to the murders.’
‘There’s a bunch of filing cabinets up there filled with paperwork,’ Desai said, nodding towards the mezzanine level. ‘Do you think there’ll be anything useful amongst it?’
‘Honestly? No,’ said Trev. ‘But we’ve got bugger all else to do, so…’
Desai sighed. ‘Bring the sandwiches, then.’
Trev had his misgivings about going back up to the dusty filing room, but it was free from homicidal shadows when they got up there. Having an armed Custodian with him this time also helped his frame of mind.
They spent the afternoon working their way through the drawers one after another. There was far too much paperwork to check every page, so they did their best to get a representative sample from each drawer. The vast majority of it appeared to be nothing more than the mundane, day-to-day record-keeping of a large Victorian institution: delivery manifests, personnel files, balance sheets. They did find a drawer full of prisoner reports, which were interesting from a historical perspective but didn’t shed any light on either the unusual architecture or the recent deaths. If the presence lurking in the prison’s walls was indeed an inmate, it didn’t seem to have been recorded as such.
It was past seven o’clock in the evening by the time they admitted defeat. Trev shoved the last packet of papers back into a drawer and sneezed violently as the resulting cloud of dust got him right in the face. Oscar, who’d given up on trying to help and had fallen asleep on top of one of the filing cabinets, opened one eye.
‘Keep it down, would you?’ he said.
Trev slammed the drawer shut in response. ‘Might as well get something to eat,’ he said to Desai.
‘Yeah,’ she agreed. She rubbed her dusty hands together. ‘What a waste of an afternoon.’
‘We had to look,’ Trev said, though he felt much the same way. After the breakthrough of finding the prison plans it seemed that they’d ground to a halt again. It was like being given a crossword puzzle without the clues – it was easy to fill in all the blank spaces, but there was no way of knowing if your answers were right or not. ‘Are you going to wait here?’ he asked Oscar.
‘Nah,’ said the cat. ‘Since you so rudely woke me up, I think I’ll go for a little wander round.’
‘Make sure nobody sees you then.’
‘Don’t worry. “Stealth” is my middle name.’
‘How can you have a middle name if you haven’t got a last name?’
‘It’s one of the mysteries of the universe.’
‘Right.’
They left Oscar to his own devices and walked through the chilly corridors to the canteen. The menu was limited to baked potato and tinned tomatoes. Trev ate mechanically. He wasn’t very hungry but he knew he had to keep himself going. Food is fuel, he thought.
‘I think they might’ve started on the furniture already,’ Desai remarked, sawing at the blackened skin of her baked potato. ‘I’m pretty sure this thing is the knob off the end of a banister.’
‘It’s only a matter of time before they have to use the tin of prunes,’ said Trev.
‘What tin of prunes?’
‘Everyone’s got that stray tin of prunes at the back of their kitchen cupboard,’ Trev explained. ‘It never gets used, but somehow it never gets thrown out either. My mum’s got one she swears came with the house when they bought it.’
‘Well if they’ve got one here, it’s pretty telling that they’ve started on the furniture before using it,’ said Desai. She spooned tomato juice over the rock-hard potato in the hope of softening it up.
‘I can’t believe it’s Friday night already,’ Trev said. ‘I’ve got to be at work on Monday morning and we’re still no closer to getting anything sorted here.’ He pointed with his fork at the guard who’d been stationed in the canteen to keep an eye on things. ‘They haven’t got enough guards to guard the guards, let alone the prisoners.’
‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ said Desai.
‘Is that Hindi or something?’
‘It’s Latin, you clown. “Who guards the guards?”’
‘That’s easy,’ said Trev. He pointed at the bored-looking guard again. ‘It’s that bloke.’
Full, if not satisfied, they headed back towards the staff quarters. The conversation had petered out and they walked in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. A pair of guards, armed with shotguns, passed them in the opposite direction. They looked almost exactly as pissed off as Trev felt. All tooled up and no-one to shoot, he thought.
They turned into a long corridor. Halfway along it Trev’s stride faltered and he slowed almost to a halt. Desai carried on for a few steps before noticing that Trev had fallen behind. She stopped and turned around.
‘What’s up?’ she said.
‘Can’t you feel it?’ Trev replied. Bad Trev was doing cartwheels in his chest and the sensation of creeping unease was overwhelming. ‘I think something’s about to happen.’
‘There’s definitely something, you’re right,’ said Desai, moving to stand alongside him. ‘Somebody turned up the creepy.’
‘Was there one of those “special” walls on this corridor, do you remember?’ said Trev.
Overhead the fluorescent lights began to buzz and flicker and the hair on the back of Trev’s neck bristled as the temperature dropped several degrees.
‘I don’t, but I don’t think I need to,’ said Desai. She had drawn her gun and was checking in both directions along the corridor. ‘Let’s get moving before something nasty happens.’
‘Too late,’ said Trev, looking back over her shoulder.
Darkness was flowing up the wall in a narrow column about two feet wide. It spanned the space between the ceiling and the floor, writhing and pulsating. Trev and Desai stared at it, the unnerving sight holding them in place. At the other end of the corridor one of the flickering fluorescent tubes blew with a loud pop.
The strip of darkness twitched and bulged outwards. A black figure stepped out of it with all the nonchalance of a man walking out of his front door for a stroll. To Trev’s alarm it moved completely clear of the wall, which the shadow-figure he’d seen in the common room and library had been unable to do. Even more alarming was the utterly malevolent look in its glowing green eyes. And even more alarming than that, which Trev hadn’t thought possible, was that it then spoke to them.
‘Hi Trev,’ it said. The voice was scratchy and sounded like it was coming to them from the bottom of a rusty bucket, but it was unmistakable.
It was Corbyn.
‘Oh shit,’ said Trev.
‘It knows your name,’ said Desai, shocked. The shadow took a step forwards and she snapped her gun up. ‘No closer or I shoot.’
‘It’s Corbyn,’ Trev whispered. ‘I don’t know how, but it’s him.’
‘It can’t be. He’s dead.’
‘Oh, it’s me all right,’ said the shadow. ‘Have you missed me?’
‘I think we should give serious consideration to running away now,’ said Trev
. His chest was constricting and the headache was back, reducing his vision to a tunnel down which the green eyes of the shadow shone back at him. Darkness steamed off the creature, blurring its outline.
‘Don’t go,’ said the shadow. ‘I’m here with an offer. Join us.’
Trev was already backing away. ‘No thanks,’ he squeaked. ‘Mishti, we need to go. Now.’
Desai stood her ground, her gun still aimed at the shadow’s chest. ‘What do you mean, “us”?’ she asked it.
The shadow spread its hands and two more figures emerged from the wall, moving forwards to flank it.
‘Us,’ said the shadow with Corbyn’s voice. It took another step towards Desai.
‘I said no closer!’ she snapped, thumbing off the safety catch.
The Corbyn-shadow did nothing for a few seconds. Trev felt somehow sure that its blank face was smiling at them; the thing simply radiated arrogance. It stepped forwards.
‘Fair enough,’ said Desai, and fired two quick shots.
In the confines of the corridor the noise almost rattled Trev’s fillings out. Desai’s bullets passed straight through the Corbyn-shadow, the only visible effect being two puffs of darkness drifting up from its back. Desai swore, holstered her gun and drew her vapour weapon. Its blade hissed into life and bathed the corridor in green light.
‘It’s three on one,’ said Trev. He put a hand on Desai’s arm. ‘I’m unarmed. We need to get help.’
He wanted to run. He wanted to run, and not stop running until the soles had worn off his shoes, his feet were raw and bloody, and he was as far away from Spectre’s Rest as it was possible to be. But he wasn’t going to leave Desai behind to do it, however much his feet seemed determined to. His hand on her arm was about the only thing preventing him from bolting down the corridor.
Desai didn’t reply. She had adopted a defensive pose, her vapour weapon held across her body. Her face was calm. Trev knew that she would be assessing her opponents and her chances against them, unburdened by the kind of fear and panic that he was feeling. Not for the first time, he wished that Montano hadn’t confiscated The Twins. Without them, he’d been forced to spend far too much of his time at Spectre’s Rest running away, cowering in corners, and being generally somewhat useless.