by Sarah Rayne
‘Not in public, Bransby.’
‘Rot, they’re at it like stoats all over the place,’ said Bransby, and stumped off to the Green Room, whither he was followed by the sidh girl, who was cross at finding her best scene cut. The lodge-keeper’s wife went along as well because you could not trust that saucy little hussy, and also if there were any tantrums to be thrown, the lodge-keeper’s wife could throw them with the best.
The sorceress had discovered unmistakable signs of rats in the dressing rooms and was refusing to appear, and the quarrel between Gerald Makepiece and Julius Sherry had broken out again because each had discovered that Gilly had accepted an invitation from the other: lunch with Gerald and supper with Julius.
The first thing to penetrate Flynn’s mind was the awareness that he was lying on a hard, cold floor, and that there was a skewering pain in his skull. He frowned, and fought his way up through the clogging unconsciousness, flinching when he opened his eyes. But it was not so very bright in here at all, in fact it was quite dark. It was only that his eyes were over-sensitive. After a moment he sat up, and at once sick dizziness swept over him. He remained very still and took several deep breaths, and the sickness receded slightly. Touch and go there for a minute, thought Flynn. But I don’t think I’m going to throw up.
He had no idea where he was, but the swinging vertigo was lessening. Although I don’t think I dare move too quickly or too much yet, he thought. At least I haven’t got double vision, so I don’t think I can be too seriously injured. He moved, wincing from the pain in his head, and made the discovery that he was tied up – his hands were bound behind his back, and a rope bound his ankles.
Memory was beginning to trickle back. He remembered Flaherty’s Bar and the drive along the wild cliff road. There had been something wrong with the car – he had turned off the main road and run aground on a narrow track. Oh God yes, he had set off on foot – Yes, of course! Roscius’s son, thought Flynn. I was trying to find him, only the bastard reared up out of nowhere and fell on me like a wild animal. He must have knocked me out – yes, I remember a sudden crack of pain and then spinning darkness. So presumably Roscius brought me here.
He thought he was in some kind of underground room. It was a largish room, low ceilinged, and with black brick walls and hard-packed earth on the floor. There was a stench of age and damp and as his head cleared a little, he made out worn steps on the opposite wall, winding upwards and away. And at the centre of the room was a yawning black abyss, roughly six feet across, with a brick parapet circling it. An old well. Flynn stared at it, and found it unspeakably sinister. A sour, tainted darkness seemed to waft upwards from the well’s depths.
It was beginning to look as if Roscius had carried him up to the clifftop house and thrown him into the dungeons. There was an indefinable sense of suffocation as if the crouching old house he had seen earlier was directly over him, and Flynn was aware now of the faint, steady, drip-drip of water against stone somewhere beneath him. He looked uneasily at the well, and then away, forcing himself to remain seated upright, so that he could test the strength of his bonds. Oh God, yes, they’re tight, he thought. If Roscius tied me up – and of course it must have been him – he did a very thorough job.
He was about to see whether he could drag himself across to the shadowy stair, and whether it might provide a means of escape, when he heard from above the sound of a door being unlocked, and the tortured creak of old hinges. A flickering light appeared on the stair, and with it, footsteps coming down. Someone’s coming, thought Flynn, sweat breaking out between his shoulder blades. It’s Roscius, of course – he’s coming down here to deal with me. We’re about to have our third encounter, and the way I’m feeling there’s no contest as to who’ll win this one.
The light grew stronger, and as the footsteps came down the last few stairs there was a moment when the shadows seemed to shiver and almost to flinch. And then he was there, framed in the stair opening, lit by the flickering flame of the candles inset in a branched holder. The young man Flynn had seen and fought below the Harlequin, and whom he had seen on the stormy hillside – how long ago had it been? A few hours ago? Longer? Hell, I’m losing track of time, thought Flynn, wildly. Mother of God, I feel dreadful, but I can’t let him see it.
He said, ‘Good evening to you. Have we no electricity down here, or is it only that you don’t pay the bills?’ It was not quite up to his usual form, but under the circumstances it was not bad.
Roscius set the candlestick on the floor unhurriedly, and straightened up. The soft voice Flynn remembered from the Soho basement said, ‘You don’t need to maintain the image down here, Flynn. There’s no one to hear you.’
‘Except yourself.’
‘Except myself.’ For the first time Flynn caught the faint Irish lilt.
‘Are we to have a final confrontation?’ he said, after a moment.
‘No.’ The single syllable was dismissive; it was very nearly bored. ‘I’m simply getting rid of you.’
‘The devil you are!’
‘The devil I am,’ said Roscius at once. ‘Or so a great many people believe. But you knew that already.’ He appeared to study Flynn. ‘If you attempt any heroics,’ he said, ‘I shall shoot you in the stomach. And that’s an agonising wound to suffer when there’s no hope of medical attention.’
‘I don’t believe you’d do that,’ said Flynn, and at once the other man reached into a pocket and levelled a black-mouthed revolver.
They looked at one another. ‘Believe me, Flynn, I would,’ said Christian. ‘I’d enjoy it as well.’
‘As a point of purely academic interest, why didn’t you simply kill me while I was unconscious?’ said Flynn. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier?’
‘I didn’t want it to be easy. I want you aware,’ said Roscius. ‘I want you frightened.’ He moved nearer, and Flynn tensed to ward off an attack, and felt the rope around his wrists bite into his flesh.
‘I want you,’ said the soft voice, ‘to be sufficiently conscious so that you know what’s being done to you, but not so conscious that you can put up a fight.’
‘Be damned to that—’
‘And we both know,’ said Christian, ‘that you’re exactly in that state now.’ He studied Flynn for a moment. ‘To witness your terror, Flynn, will redress the balance a little.’
‘What balance? Jesus God, you’re mad—’
‘Whether I’m mad or not doesn’t matter. You can’t fight me, you’re far too weak.’
‘Sod that, come over here and untie me, and we’ll see if I can fight or not!’ said Flynn, but he knew that Roscius was right. He could feel the man’s thick gloating filling up the small room now, and he could feel the hatred. Why does he hate me so much? thought Flynn. Is it because I’m unflawed and he is flawed?
‘A fight between us would mean brother fighting brother,’ said Roscius very softly. ‘And that might be against your principles, Flynn, always supposing you have any.’
He stopped and Flynn stared at him. After a moment, he said, ‘What? What did you say? Did you say brother—?’
‘I did. Didn’t you know?’
Flynn said, ‘Oh Jesus Christ Almighty, you bastard!’
‘A lot of people have called you a bastard too,’ said the soft voice. ‘They’re right to do so, of course, because it’s what you are. You’re James Roscius’s bastard, Flynn. After I was born my father screwed a number of women in an effort to blot out the knowledge that he had sired a monster.’
‘You,’ said Flynn.
‘Me. But you were the result of one of those screwings. That’s all you are, Flynn. A nothing.’ He paused, and Flynn said, half to himself, ‘We’re half brothers. But why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I guess?’
Before he could say any more, before he could start to assimilate this astounding information, Roscius was standing over him, the gun levelled. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘I’m going to tip you into the old well and leave you there to die.’ He studied Flynn for
a moment. ‘It’s an immensely old structure, that well,’ he said. ‘And until about a hundred years ago it was still in use. But then it was found that fissures were letting in seawater, and so my great-grandfather – your great-grandfather as well, if it comes to that – had it closed and sealed.’ He paused, and Flynn saw that he was briefly enrapt in the strange legend. If ever there was a moment to take him off-balance and overpower him, this was surely it. He dragged uselessly at the ropes again.
‘No one has ever found out how deep the shaft is,’ said Roscius. ‘But there’s a legend that it winds down and down beneath the ocean, and that eventually it comes out in the underworld lair of the leanan-sidhe. You know about the leanan-sidhe, do you? Yes, of course you do. You depicted a version of them for Cauldron. But the leanan-sidhe of Moher and Maise are far grislier than your winged iridescent creatures, Flynn. Perhaps you’ll find that out for yourself.’
Flynn said, ‘You know, you’ll never get away with this.’
‘No? Let’s see, shall we?’ said Christian Roscius, and with a swift unexpected movement, he tore away the face-mask and advanced on Flynn.
The minute Roscius’s hands closed over his arms Flynn fought him, dragging frantically at the ropes and swearing furiously. But he was still infuriatingly weak from the blow to his head, and his captor had the iron strength Flynn remembered from their earlier encounter.
Roscius seized him from behind, circling his arms just beneath Flynn’s shoulders, and dragging him across the floor. The dizziness was sweeping in again, and as Roscius pulled him towards the gaping void at the centre of the room, Flynn was aware of slipping helplessly into a half-faint that tilted his consciousness and distorted his vision, and that was worse than a complete blackout would have been. Through it, he was aware of the dry, tomblike breath of the ancient well and then of being dragged inexorably nearer the edge.
Roscius half-lifted him and gave him a sudden violent push, so that Flynn landed half across the parapet, his head hanging down into the yawning hole. There was an appalling moment when he thought he heard the well actually breathe out, and its foul stench surrounded him. Nausea seized him afresh, and he thought: Oh God, don’t let me be sick in front of him! He gritted his teeth and after a moment the sickness receded. But I’m in no condition to fight him, he thought. He’s doing something to the rope now – is he tying it more tightly? No, he’s looping a second rope round my waist. Why?
But there was no time to wonder why, because Roscius was pulling Flynn over, so that he was lying on his back, still half over the parapet. The dreadful mad face was only inches away, and Flynn stared up at it, seeing it in all its horrifying deformity; seeing how the candle-light cast a reddish glow over it, and how the eyes – expressive and surprisingly beautiful eyes fringed with long lashes – reflected little pinpoints of light.
‘As you see,’ said the voice, in uncanny echo of Flynn’s thoughts, ‘I have unmasked, because I want my face to be the last thing you will see.’ The words sounded ragged, as if he was slightly out of breath, and Flynn was unable to decide if this was simply due to exertion, or if Roscius was deriving a warped arousal from what he was doing.
He was still struggling, and although consciousness was slipping away again, he was aware that he was being pushed into the appalling abyss. He thought frantically: But I can’t! I can’t die like this!
Roscius gave him a final, vicious push, and Flynn went down into the ancient blackness.
He was jerked to an abrupt halt after a fall of only a couple of dozen feet, and the suddenness of this snatched his breath away, and jarred his whole body. For a moment there was only a confusion of pain and fear, but gradually he began to sort out and identify his feelings. He was not, in fact, injured, and he had not, in fact, fallen all the way to the shaft’s foot.
I’m on the end of a rope, he thought, torn between relief and creeping horror. That bastard tied a rope round my waist – yes, I can feel it cutting in. Did he loop it around something at the top? He must have done, because I’m against one side of the well. I think I banged against the sides several times as I fell. He explored cautiously with his bound hands. The brick lining of the well felt clammy and rough and altogether repulsive. Even the smallest move caused him to sway slightly. He sent up a prayer that the rope around his waist would hold.
But now what? thought Flynn, wildly. He’s not going to leave me here like this, surely? He managed to look upwards, to where he could make out the blurry circle of light that was the well’s mouth. Against the dimness he could see the head and shoulders of his assailant. He’s watching me, thought Flynn. He’s watching to see what I do, although I’m not at all sure I can do anything. But if I could get my hands free I might stand a better chance. If I could somehow cut through the rope— Oh God, could I possibly use the iron rungs? They’re meant for a makeshift ladder, I suppose, but most of them are rusty enough to be pretty abrasive.
The iron rungs formed a very makeshift ladder indeed; they were a series of horseshoe-shaped iron staves driven into the wall at intervals. But Flynn thought he might manage to swing himself across and use the staves to saw through the ropes. He would probably tear his wrists to ribbons in the process, and he would probably contract blood poisoning as well. But anything was better than hanging here like a spider on the end of a web.
If the well shaft had been wider he would not have done it. But it was barely six feet across and it was easier than he expected to brace his feet against the wall, and manoeuvre into position with his hands against the iron ladder. He began to rub the ropes against the jutting staves, wincing as the rusting iron scraped his flesh, but going doggedly on. Because if I can free my hands I think I can free my feet, he thought. And then I’ll be out of this gruesome place and I’ll strangle bloody Roscius with my bare hands!
He had no idea how long it took before the rope strands parted, but he thought it was not very long. There was a moment of delighted hope when he managed to pull his hands free and bring them around in front of him again. He rubbed his grazed wrists, and then braced his back against the wall again, so that he could go through the same process with the rope around his ankles. This took longer, and several times he over-calculated and sent himself spinning dizzyingly in the centre of the well, but in the end he managed it.
So far so good, thought Flynn. What I’ve got to do now is climb up to the top, and if I can do that, I’ll beat the shit out of that warped, evil creature, even if he’s got fifty guns!
He grasped the iron staves and began to climb, testing each rung before he put his weight on it, seeing how they were placed at carefully-spaced intervals so that they supported feet and gave a handhold at the same time. But it was a slow, difficult process. The sides were completely vertical, and the pull on Flynn’s thigh muscles and on his shoulders was agony. Several times the rungs dislodged and went skittering down into the black depths below, and each time this happened Flynn clung on to the other staves, his heart hammering. But I’m still in one piece, he thought. And I’m nearly there.
He was within four feet of the top when he heard a sound that chilled his blood and froze his marrow. Above his head, something huge and clanging was being dragged across the floor of the underground room. It was a monstrous, an enormous sound, and it was the kind of teeth-wincing sound that made Flynn think of huge nails being scraped across immense iron surfaces. The well cover! he thought, in horror. Oh God, Roscius is dragging the well cover into place!
But even as he frantically grasped the next set of iron staves, the light from above was shutting off, and he heard the mad laughter of his gaoler.
There was a final massive clanging, that reverberated through and through the well shaft, and the black iron cover came down over the well’s mouth. Flynn heard, very faintly, the scraping of a locking mechanism, and then blackness, thick and stifling and absolutely impenetrable, closed down.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Julius Sherry donned his well-cut dark blue suit, and thought
that for a man of his age he was looking remarkably trim. A good tailor did wonders for the more portly figure, of course, but really, he did not look his age.
He had found a very nice, discreet little restaurant just outside Galway, and he had arranged with the manager to have a table for two intimately tucked out of sight.
He knotted his tie carefully, and studied again the playbills that Mr Flanagan of the County Arts Association had had distributed. They were vivid and surprisingly well-designed, and Flanagan’s minions had been thorough; the playbills and small posters were being displayed in most of the shops in Galway City, and in all of the hotels. There had also been talk of some kind of door-to-door mail-drop, although Flanagan had said they would have to pick the areas carefully, because folk in the Gallery’s immediate neighbourhood would not know a good musical if it got up and hit them on the nose, unless it might be one of the raucous pop groups they all listened to at top volume. But a good mail-drop in the more up-market parts always stirred up interest, said Flanagan, and with the curious Irish talent for mixing city-wise ingenuity with downright parochialism, added that what you did, you arranged for the dairies to take the leaflets onto the milk floats, so that people got the information with their morning milk.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Sir Julius, rather blankly.
‘And if you give the dairies a free advertisement for yoghurt and eggs on the back page, they’ll do it for about half of nothing,’ said Flanagan enthusiastically, and Julius remembered that the County Arts Association was to some extent accountable to the Dail.
As Gilly got ready, she supposed a bit glumly that she would have to go through with it. Looked at sensibly it would be no worse than the nights on the game in Soho, and looked at practically it would very probably be a great deal better; Julius Sherry was clean and reasonably intelligent, and it would doubtless all take place in a comfortable hotel bedroom – presumably this one.
