The Ice King

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Moving down here, that was another part of her ambition, away from her strict and disapproving parents to a place where everyone else was sloppy, scruffy, and easygoing like her. Nowadays she only went home for the occasional bath – there were none here – or when her parents were away, but even then it felt like going back to jail. Whatever the problems, this had to be better, didn’t it? If only Wilf would come back …

  Their room was better than most – Wilf had seen to that – but she could hear the wind rising and whistling around her as she undressed, and she was shivering in draughts, real or imaginary. She slipped hastily under the duvet and tucked it in around her. Was that rumbling sound the wind? She giggled. No; Jay’s snoring. She’d have to be careful, when Wilf got back. Everything echoed in this place – everything …

  A long, slow creak echoed in the stairwell. Then another, and another, a slowly accelerating fusillade of sounds with a descant of giggles and squeaks. The card players all looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘My God,’ groaned Forbes. ‘They’re at it again! Them, and yon wind, and Jay snoring – will we never get any peace an’ quiet in this place?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Harry. ‘You know ol’ Wilfie overloads the power sockets in that room something awful? One more gadget plugged in there and ’appen ’e’ll be getting a new kind of bang. Teach ’im to mess around wi’ Pru.’

  ‘Aye, and maybe blow ’er backwards out of her knickers,’ said Neville, finishing his deal. ‘C’mon, lads, where’s your cash?’

  ‘In your bluidy pockets, mostly,’ said Forbes distastefully. ‘Want to sit in on my hand, Paul?’

  Paul Harvey looked up from his archaeology textbook and smiled uncertainly. ‘Not my game, really. Sorry – what …?’

  All of them jumped. The wind had risen to a tearing, drumming howl that grasped the windows and shook them. There was a long rasping slithering sound, a moment of silence, and then a spectacular popping crash from outside.

  ‘Slates!’ said Forbes. ‘It’s takin’ the slates right aff the roof. And will you listen to it creak? This place isna’ safe!’

  ‘Ee, sure it’s not Hurricane Wilfie at it again?’ asked Harry, grateful for the diversion from an unpromising hand.

  ‘That’d put anyone off their stroke!’ chuckled Neville.

  ‘Don’t know about that,’ said Paul. ‘It hasn’t interrupted Sleeping Beauty, has it?’ An exceptionally loud snore vibrated through the ceiling. ‘Is he always like – well, the way he was earlier?’

  ‘Ach, no,’ said Forbes reassuringly. ‘He’ll be sorry for that the morn. He can be gey friendly – specially if you’ve a real interest in the subject. Takes it very seriously – and himself as well, sadly, so he’s no’ sae ready to take a joke. But he’s a damn good supervisor – look at the way he was organisin’ everybody to get the excavation back in order today, wi’ the cops tramplin’ roond in a’body’s way. Don’t blame him for hittin’ the bottle after that.’

  ‘It’s what else ’e hits,’ muttered Neville. The wind roared and battered the windows, and another slate went crashing down into the street. High overhead the roof creaked and groaned as if a great weight rode down on it. ‘Ah, well, on wi’ the game …’

  ‘Sorry, Nev,’ said Harry hastily, forcing an elaborately unconvincing yawn. ‘Proper shagged out, I am. Gotta pack it in for tonight …’

  Hastily he rammed his cards back in the pack, but Neville managed to fish them out and examine them. ‘I’ve got news for you, ’Ardwicke,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve sold you. Better pack your bags, they’ll be ’ere for you in an hour …’

  The offender stared at him, deeply shocked. ‘Ee, you wouldn’t take advantage of an exhausted man, would you?’

  Exhausted or not, Harry’s senses were those of a poacher. The first faint sound flipped him into instant wakefulness from the depths of a confused but intriguing dream. At first, though, he wasn’t quite sure he was awake. Then he realised that the willowy gauze-draped female form bending over him wasn’t a stray fantasy. It was Pru, golden in the glow of the streetlights, wearing only a very floppy old T-shirt that was translucent enough to reveal all sorts of interesting things.

  ‘Eeee!’ said Harry happily. From that angle it was obvious she wasn’t wearing anything else.

  ‘Hssh!’ hissed Pru. ‘There’s something funny downstairs, and Wilf won’t do anything, I don’t think he believes me but I know there was something, I mean he said it was the wind but you don’t imagine a sound like that, not twice I mean –’

  ‘Mmmnhh? ’Ow’s that again, flower?’

  She seized his shoulder. ‘Listen!’

  He tried. It wasn’t easy. Colby was still snoring like a hog next door, on the far side of the room Neville was muttering in his sleep, and the old house was a chorus of grumbling and groaning in the savage wind. But he gradually filtered these out as he would the thousand sounds of a wood at night, to concentrate on the single sound that mattered, the hesitant movement in the undergrowth, the soft chattering of pheasants dozing on low branches. But what he isolated now was no natural sound, and he couldn’t place it. The ticking creak of lifted fence-wire? The squeak of a rusty shotgun hinge? Something metal, moved, strained …

  ‘I hear it, pet … Somewhere downstairs, eh? Neville! Neville! Wake oop, y’dozy booger!’

  Neville’s moustache twitched violently, he snorted and his eyes flew open. They took in a rear view of Pru in her T-shirt, bending over Harry, and kept on opening. But he heard the sounds when they were pointed out.

  ‘Could be visitors,’ whispered Harry. ‘Could be them bastards as knocked over t’dam, eh?’

  Neville swung out of bed and into his tracksuit trousers in one movement. ‘Want a coat, luv?’

  Pru, suddenly aware of the exposure, managed to smile, look embarrassed and whisper ‘Thanks!’ all at once. Harry flashed a look that said ‘Spoilsport!’ only too clearly, and rummaged around for his jeans.

  They made an odd procession on the dimly-lit landing, Harry in jeans that barely stayed up over his beer gut and peep-show Y-fronts, Neville in an old tracksuit, and Pru in his crumpled raincoat which came down to her knees, carrying her little handtorch. Neville carried a steel strut from his campbed, and Harry grabbed a pick-handle from one of the tool stacks – better than nothing, but not much. The sounds were hard to locate out on the landing; they seemed to be coming from the rear of the building, which would put them directly under Pru’s room. They crept over to the door of the room below hers, and listened. A minute of silence passed. Their breathing and their excited heartbeats sounded so thunderous in the silence they were afraid they might miss something. But after one minute, perhaps two, they heard the same stealthy creak.

  ‘Anyone sleeping in here?’ hissed Neville.

  ‘Don’t think so.’ Harry hefted the pick handle in fingers that were suddenly sweaty, and eased the door gently open.

  The orange-lit windows seemed to leap out at him, but the room itself was solid darkness. They heard something stir on the floor, there was a flurry of shapeless shadow-motion and a silhouette whipped upright against the window.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

  Neville breathed out sharply. The voice was Paul Harvey’s.

  ‘Ssshh, Paul! Sorry,’ whispered Pru shakily. ‘We heard something –’ And just then it came again, louder, long-drawn out, a grinding tortured creak of metal against stone. And everybody looked down at the floor.

  ‘T’ground floor!’ whispered Harry. ‘There’s storerooms or summat down there … C’mon!’ He noticed Paul come padding out behind them, gestured him back, but gave up as he fell in next to Pru. Well, why not? He’d have done the same himself.

  The staircase down was a nightmare, because they didn’t want to alert anyone with the torch. Harry, in the lead, had never tried going down it in darkness, and he wasn’t enjoying his first attempt. He was used enough to things looking different in the dark, to the tricks moonlight could play with your sense of di
rection. But here there was only reflected light, broken into scattered shadows by the gnarly carvings on the banisters. And the hallway below was worse, like wading slowly down into an ice-cold inky pool, the tiled floor chilling his feet numb. He couldn’t see where the rear storeroom door was, even whether it was open or closed – Christ, they might be in already, standing next to him –

  He touched the doorframe and stopped so suddenly that Pru bumped into him, with the faintest of squeaks. The door was closed – maybe even locked? His fingers walked across the peeling paint of the panels, found the cold brass doorknob and rotated it very slowly. The action was heavy, but it turned, and he could feel the door give a little and spring free – unlocked, and what was on the other side? Neville’s heavy hand touched his shoulder, and he sensed him slide across to the far side of the door. Pru and the lad would be facing the door, ready with the torch … Taking a deep breath, he flung the door back with a ringing crash. The torchlight flickered and spilled out – into a completely empty room.

  With a rasp of anger Neville stumped across the cold brick floor and wrestled with the heavy shutters on the window, closed tight and sealed with generations of dusty cobwebs. Harry joined him, and the old hinges whimpered as the panels swung open. Pru’s little circle of light fell upon a row of very grimy windowpanes, opaque with dirt and minor cracks – but visibly intact. ‘Well, bugger me!’ said Neville flatly. Harry looked around. It was a largish room, with bare whitewashed walls; it couldn’t have been emptier, and these were the only windows there were.

  ‘It was coming from here, all right!’ said Pru tremulously, clutching the coat around her. ‘You all heard it – didn’t you?’ Overhead there was a buzz of confused voices. Harry rubbed the back of his neck, shook out his curls with a sigh; he’d never live this one down. But suddenly Neville leant forward, peering through the end window, and swore. He reached up and clawed at the window catch, then with a heave he sent the whole lower sash leaping upward, and a blast of cold air came spilling in with the grey light of dawn.

  ‘Chr-rr-ist!’ breathed Harry, and Paul echoed him.

  ‘Oh my God!’ quavered Pru.

  The windows were barred. Outside, six rods were set in the masonry, blackened with paint or dirt, each of them a good half inch thick and visibly cemented in. But at the base of the rightmost pair the cement was cracked and splintered, and about halfway up the bars themselves had been bent and twisted apart. Neville leaned out. The bars still stopped his burly shoulders – just.

  ‘See owt?’

  ‘Not a thing. Street’s empty. God, what’s that?’ He pulled himself hurriedly back in, wiping at his bare arm. ‘Bloody cold – felt like –’

  Droplets spattered the window, and a flurry of flakes rode in on the wind.

  ‘Sleet?’ said Pru, unbelieving. ‘Already?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘WHAT I can’t understand,’ Paul Harvey protested, ‘is what they were after. What’d they want – the furniture?’ There was a ripple of derisive laughter from the thirty-odd diggers sitting at, around, or – courting disaster – on the rickety common-room table.

  Harry, sprawled in his springshot armchair, smacked his lips and made vague clutching gestures at Pru. ‘I reckon it were t’white slavers, after a tasty young body.’

  ‘No chance,’ said Neville. ‘What would they want with ’er when they can ’ave a ruddy magnificent specimen of man’ood like you?’

  ‘Ee, lad, I never knew you cared. Give us a kiss – or better still, make us a coop o’coffee! All this boogerin’ about in the dark, I miss me beauty sleep.’

  ‘ ’Ark at the ruddy Yorkshire Marvel,’ grunted Neville. ‘Anyone’d think you’d scared ’em off single-’anded. What about the lovely Pru, eh? Not to mention yours truly and the audacious Mr Paul –’e was up just as late as you! You should be makin’ us coffee!’

  Paul laughed. ‘I’ll make it – hate to see a grown man cry. Anyway, it’ll be a change to have the kitchen free, with all you shower in here.’ With only three Calor gas cookers between thirty diggers, it was usually jam-packed, but today everyone wanted to hear about the break-in, and air their own pet theories. The commonest, naturally, was that it was somehow linked with the raid at the dam.

  ‘But I can’t see how it can be!’ said Pru. ‘I mean, all the finds and that sort of thing are down at the Museum, and we don’t exactly leave diamond rings lying about, do we? I mean, gosh, I don’t even have a decent pair of earrings down here.’

  Harry grinned. ‘Aye, not since we ripped t’ruddy floor oop looking for t’last pair.’

  ‘No, seriously,’ Paul shouted over the sound of a boiling kettle. ‘If someone’s got it in for the dig, then they’d come here, wouldn’t they?’

  Neville’s grin faded. ‘ ’Ow d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, the way Colby goes around duffing up fishermen …’

  ‘Ay, you’ve got a point. Might just be ’arbouring ’ard feelings, some of ’em.’

  ‘Can’t imagine why – just ’cos they were flattened by a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Texan thug. Here, coffee’s up, come and get it.’

  ‘Oh, super,’ said Pru. ‘If I don’t have some soon I’m going to be asleep all day.’

  Harry looked grave. ‘Ee, can’t ’ave that, petal. Soom dirty booger’d take advantage of you.’ He made another grab, and Pru squealed in mock indignation.

  ‘Put me down, Harry, you don’t know where I’ve been. Oh –’

  The buzz of conversation faltered and ran down as one by one people registered the blocky outline that had quietly appeared in the doorway.

  ‘ ’Lo there, Inspector!’ said Harry, unabashed. ‘Lookin’ for soombody, were yer?’

  ‘Well, not you, my lad – for once.’ Ridley hesitated, as if weighing up which approach would be best. He seemed to come to a decision at once, and smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry to just breeze on in like this, but your doorbell seems to be an archaeological relic. Anyway, if you’ve all got a moment – and maybe a spare drop of that coffee –’

  ‘Takin’ yer life in yer ’ands, Inspector!’ grinned Neville, pushing an overfilled cup across the table. ‘We didn’t know Mr Paul only made it ’cause he wanted ’is socks washed –’

  Paul made a rude gesture at him. Ridley carefully ignored it, slumping down onto a creaky chair with a deep sigh. ‘As long as it’s hot and wet and preferably strong – God, that’s welcome! First thing I’ve had this morning, and it was another five o’clock start.’ He looked around him keenly. ‘Which is what brings me here, as it happens. Any of you hear anything unusual in the street last night?’

  Harry and Neville exchanged glances. ‘Depends what you mean,’ said Harry uneasily. ‘Soombody were messin’ about wi’ our cellar windows, maybe tryin’ t’break in –’

  ‘Oh aye? So that’s what all the argifying was about? Should’ve reported it at once. I’d better have a look-see.’

  Ridley stared at the mangled bars, poked at an untouched one, and turned to the expectant audience of diggers. ‘Well! They’re not just for show, those bars – they’re solid. Looks as if somebody was using a strainer – what the Fire Brigade use to get kids’ heads out of park railings. Garages have ’em, too. But why – well, the police, as they say, are baffled.’

  ‘So’re we an’ all,’ said Harry. ‘Nothin’ ’ere worth nickin’, is there?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Ridley. ‘And it doesn’t seem to have much bearing on my main problem.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Death, causes unknown, one. An old gippo tramp called Wally Rogan. Found down on the corner there with his head bashed in.’

  ‘Might’ve been one of our slates,’ suggested Forbes, one of the upstairs sleepers. ‘I was forever wakin’ up and hearin’ them go rattlin’ down the roof wi’ the wind –’

  ‘Yes, we did think of slates,’ said Ridley wryly. ‘There’s enough of them in the road. But none with the traces you’d expect, nor in the wound neither –
well, I won’t put you off your breakfasts. Maybe he just got blown against something – it was wild enough weather. Mind how you go, if you’re out late; it got another fellow, too – young lad, took a tumble down the South Cliff steps and broke his neck. Not much doubt there; patrol’d logged in black ice on the road above, so the steps were probably –’

  ‘Jesus, you’re jokin’!’ burst in Harry, sounding so alarmed that the diggers stared. ‘It’s only early bloody autumn –’

  ‘Early, right enough. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ breathed Pru, ‘that’s perfectly dreadful!’

  ‘Kin say that again an’ all,’ said Harry. ‘Think I’m off south for the winter –’

  ‘Sort that out with your probation officer first. Well, I’ll send one of my lads up today to take some statements and maybe fingerprint those bars. And when he’s done that, why don’t you screw those shutters closed? Then if you hear anybody fiddlin’ with them –’

  ‘Drop a sewing machine on ’is bonce?’ suggested Neville. ‘Or let Colby off his chain?’

  ‘I’d rather you just called us,’ said Ridley severely. ‘Much safer all round. But since you mentioned your pal Colby – I wanted a word with him while I was about it, and he doesn’t seem to be here …’

  ‘Ey, they really notice things, these cops!’ said Harry admiringly. ‘No, ’e’s buggered off.’

  ‘When? Last night?’

  There was a unison groan from the diggers. ‘No sich luck,’ said Forbes. ‘Came in pissed an’ spent the night snorin’ like a bluidy steam train.’

  ‘So he was definitely here all night?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Neville. ‘Got up about six, shaved ’is tongue and went for a swim –’is patent hangover cure.’

  ‘A swim? Where?’

  ‘In the sea, of course,’ chuckled Paul.

  ‘At this time of year? At dawn? God above, he must be a polar bear … Where would he go? Would he still be there?’

  ‘Probably swum right out to the dam by now,’ Neville grunted.