Song of the Damned

by Sarah Rayne

  Gustav turned to look at her. ‘I’m going to open up one of the alcoves and put her inside,’ he said.

  As Olivia stared, he said, ‘And then I’m going to seal up the alcove.’

  He was unexpectedly practical, which surprised Olivia, because normally he could scarcely even change a light bulb.

  But he found hammers and trowels and what Olivia thought was a pickaxe from one of the cottage’s outbuildings. There was also a tub of some kind of cement or putty in one of them, which he said had been left behind by Firkin’s, the builders, when the cottage had had its rough-and-ready sprucing up before they moved in. It was a bit gloopy because it had been mixed for a long time, but it would stick the bricks together perfectly well.

  ‘I should think it’ll take two or three days to actually set firm, but it’ll be perfectly safe and secure.’

  Safe and secure. So she won’t be able to get out, thought Olivia, and then wondered with horror where such a thought had come from, because Imogen was undoubtedly dead.

  At Gustav’s request she fetched candles and matches from kitchen cupboards. ‘And there’s an oil lamp somewhere. Oh, and another torch if there is one.’

  By the time Olivia had found the candles and the oil lamps and the torch, Gustav had been up to the airing cupboard and taken a sheet, which he had thrown over what lay by the steps. He had dragged it to the centre of the cellar so that they could move up and down the steps without having to step over it.

  ‘Don’t switch on any lights upstairs,’ he said. ‘It isn’t very likely that anyone will be around at this hour, but you never know. A poacher, a young couple up to no good.’

  Olivia did not know if he visualized people using the forest for love-making, or illicit smoking, or even for dealing drugs.

  She sat on the bottom step, watching him, and she thought the candlelit cellar with its shadowy alcoves was starting to seem like something from a nightmare or a horror film. The candlelight flickered over the blanketed shape, so that at times it seemed to be moving slightly. The lamps were old and tarnished and Olivia had brought olive oil for them, not knowing what else to use. It took Gustav a little while to fire them, but eventually he managed it, and a coppery light burned up. As the lamps became warm, the metal glowed, and sent out a peculiar smell. It was partly the olive oil, but there was another scent with it – the scent of age and of secrets, as if the lamps had stored up all the images they had ever illuminated. Olivia found herself wondering what their light might last have shown up. The lamps created shadows in the two alcoves on the other side of the cellar, and she tried not to look at them, because shadows could be sly and deceptive and these shadows were very sly and deceptive indeed.

  When Gustav swung the pickaxe onto the bricks for the first time, the sound reverberated around the cellar, and clouds of dust billowed upwards. He stepped back, coughing, one hand flung up to shield his eyes. Olivia flinched, feeling the gritty dryness against her eyes and her throat.

  But Gustav wiped his face and pushed back his hair, and swung the axe again. ‘Once I’ve broken a small area open I can chip out more of the bricks fairly easily,’ he said. ‘It isn’t necessary to remove all the bricks – just enough to—’

  ‘I understand,’ said Olivia, quickly.

  ‘Goodness knows when these alcoves were bricked over, or why,’ he said. ‘It might have been done to strengthen the foundations. I suppose. I can’t think of any other reason – it isn’t as if there are any pipes or electricity cables down here. This cellar dates to well before electricity and modern plumbing.’

  The pickaxe whooshed through the air a second time. It took two more attempts before any of the bricks loosened, but suddenly several fell away, three or four on the outside, but a couple toppling backwards, into the alcove. Gustav frowned at that, but reached for the trowel and began to chip at the other bricks, being careful that no more fell down inside the alcove. As more of them came free, a stench of something old and dry and sad gusted out. Then he stepped back, and Olivia saw that he had opened up the alcove at eye-level – about four feet up from the ground. The hole he had made was roughly two feet across, and beyond it was a dark, shallow recess.

  She was about to ask if this was large enough, when, within the dark recess, something moved.

  Her heart gave a great leap. There’s something in there, she thought. Something that’s moved … But it’ll only be a trapped animal – even just a bird. At any minute it’ll come pelting out, terrified and frantic, and we’ll let it out and it will be all right.

  But Gustav was staring into the alcove, his face sheet-white, his eyes horrified. One hand went to his chest in a convulsive movement. He’s clutching at the left side, thought Olivia – heart attack? Oh God, what will I do if he has a heart attack down here? What is it he’s seen that’s made him look like that? She scrambled up from the steps and went over to him. His hand came out to her, cold and shaking, pushing her away.

  ‘No … Stay back …’

  But it was already too late, because the glow from the oil lamp fell directly into the alcove, and there, within the shallow dimness, was a mummified body, festooned with thick cobwebs. Empty eye sockets stared out of a face from which the flesh had long since shrivelled, and whoever this was must have been there for years. Decades. Centuries.

  The movement came again, and with it a sound like dry old sticks scraping against one another. One hand, nothing more than finger bones and knuckles, loosely attached to thin wrist bones, fell forward, as if reaching out for help.

  Olivia screamed – or at least somebody screamed, because she could hear the sound echoing all round the cellar. She wanted to run up the stairs and pretend she had not seen anything. Her legs were giving way, but she got as far as the steps before she fell. She bent over, shuddering, and when finally she managed to sit up, Gustav was still staring at what was inside the bricked-up alcove. Then he seemed to recall himself to his surroundings, and he came to sit by her on the steps.

  For some moments he did not speak; his hands were shaking, and when he finally did say something, Olivia could hear how he was struggling for normality.

  ‘I think that by law we’re supposed to report this,’ he said, speaking slowly and carefully. ‘The finding of any dead body, no matter how old … But that would mean explaining what we were doing down here.’ He frowned, then said, ‘We’ll have to stay with the original plan.’

  He got up slowly and with obvious reluctance, but went back to chiselling at the bricks, opening up the wall a little more. Olivia tried not to look into it; she tried not to see the sad, terrible thing in there.

  At last Gustav laid down the chisel. ‘I think that’s large enough,’ he said, ‘but I’ll have to try reaching those bricks that fell down inside. We need to replace them all as exactly as we can.’

  Olivia waited, watching him, and after a few moments he straightened up.

  ‘I’ve got them,’ he said. ‘And now …’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Olivia, this next part … I’d spare you if I could, but I can’t – I can’t lift Imogen on my own. And we need to get her more or less upright so we can tip her over the edge of the hole. There isn’t much room – it’s shallower than I thought – but between us we could do it.’

  Olivia said, ‘She’ll be in there – with … with that other—’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, quickly. ‘But once we’ve done that, and once we’ve put the bricks back, it will be all over. No one will ever know what happened tonight. They’ll look for Imogen, but they won’t find her. And we can forget the whole thing. All right?’

  Olivia was not all right, and she would never forget any of this, but she took a deep breath and said, ‘Yes. Yes, all right.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  As they lifted the body, the sheet slipped back, and Imogen’s head fell bonelessly all the way across onto the other shoulder. Gustav snatched the sheet back into place at once, but Olivia had already seen the eyes that stared blindly at nothing – or did they s
tare accusingly at Olivia? Did the whispers come suddenly nearer, and hiss the word, murderess, with Imogen’s voice …?

  Between them they manoeuvred the body onto the edge of the aperture, and then forced it through and down into the alcove. It fell in a slow, awkward tumble, and wedged against the back of the alcove, just touching the sad, shrivelled remains. There was another of the dry-stick movements, and the head seemed to incline slightly to its left, as if looking round curiously. This was a ridiculous way to think, though. What Olivia did think was how Imogen would have hated lying in such a messy, squashed-up way. But a tiny voice, deep in her mind, said, gleefully, Serve her right, the stupid vain bitch.

  ‘Now for her things – her bag and her phone,’ said Gustav. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘The bag’s upstairs. The phone’s at the top of the stairs. I think it’s broken.’

  ‘We won’t take any chances,’ said Gustav. ‘Do those phones send out a signal even if they’re switched off or damaged? You see those police reports on television of missing girls and police tracing their calls and where they’ve been—’

  Olivia did not know. ‘We could take the batteries out,’ she said. ‘No, that wouldn’t be any good – if anyone found it, it would look odd, and anyway, I think they could just put new batteries in and charge it again.’

  ‘The best thing,’ said Gustav, ‘is probably for me to take it with me when I go to Worcester the day after tomorrow – you remember about that? It’s to let that opera company see a treatment of The Martyrs.’

  Olivia knew what he meant by ‘treatment’. It meant printed extracts from the whole work – parts of the dialogue and printouts of the lyrics – together with parts of the music which Gustav had played into the small recorder. They were not being allowed to see the whole opera, he had said, his lips puckered tightly together like an old-fashioned drawstring purse. He was not revealing his ideas for other people to steal.

  Olivia said, ‘Of course I remember about Worcester, but you surely aren’t still going—’

  ‘I’ll have to,’ he said. ‘We can’t do anything that’s out of pattern. So I’ll take the phone with me on the train, and throw it away somewhere. Then if it is tracked it’ll be tracked to somewhere a long way from here.’

  ‘I could see what numbers she’s got on her phone,’ began Olivia.

  ‘And phone people up? No, of course you can’t do that.’

  ‘I meant I could send one or two texts,’ she said. ‘It’s the kind of thing Imogen would have done if she was going off on one of her adventures again. Bragging.’

  ‘Who would you send messages to?’ Gustav sounded suspicious, but then he was not familiar with the practice of texting.

  ‘Well, to the aunt in Scotland – that’s her guardian. Her parents are dead and I don’t think there’s any other family. I could text one or two of the girls in her class, as well.’

  ‘You’d have to keep it brief,’ he said. ‘Not give any details that might be checked.’

  ‘Texts are brief. I could say something like, “Met someone fab. Off to the bright lights again”. Or, “Brill opportunity – grabbing it with both hands. Watch this space”.’

  ‘All right. Yes, it might dilute suspicion. Do it, will you? Oh, and get her bag, and make sure she didn’t leave anything upstairs.’

  Olivia went up the stone steps again. She collected Imogen’s bag, and checked the other rooms, although Imogen had not gone into any of them. Nothing anywhere. She took the coffee mugs into the kitchen and washed them up.

  When she went back to the cellar, Gustav was sorting the bricks. While he did so, Olivia switched Imogen’s phone on again. There were a lot of names and numbers in the contacts list, but after careful thought she sent three texts. One to Imogen’s aunt, sending love, and saying she would be in touch soon – exciting things were about to happen. Two to girls in Imogen’s class. In those, she said, ‘Brill opportunity came up – grabbing it before too late’. Did that sound convincing? Did it sound like Imogen? Olivia flipped through several of the Sent texts, and saw that Imogen signed them all as LIMOX. LIMOX? Oh, it would be LIMO – love from Imogen – and X for a kiss. She added this to the texts, pressed Send, then switched off the phone and went to help Gustav with the bricks.

  ‘Once they’re cemented in,’ said Gustav, ‘we’ll smear dust over the wall, so if anyone does make enquiries here – if anyone does come down here – it will look like an old, neglected, underground room. But pray God no major work’s ever needed to these foundations, because we can’t risk anyone needing to get through this wall.

  As he began to lay the bricks in place, cementing them with the mortar, Olivia gradually became aware of a soft sound. At first she thought it was coming from outside – an animal or a distant car or motorbike engine – but then she realized it was coming from her uncle.

  She glanced at him, thinking it was a nervous humming – in the way a man might whistle softly to himself for company or reassurance. But after a moment she recognized the faint, soft harmony and the words.

  ‘Step by measured step the murderers came to me …

  Inch by measured inch, the light is being shut out from me …

  Breath by measured breath, my life is being cut off from me …

  Heartbeat by measured and precious heartbeat, my life is ending …’

  It was the song Imogen had sung for him. The death chant he had written for the girl who had probably never existed outside of the legend. Ginevra.

  They had breakfast in the cottage’s kitchen around six a.m. A dull light was showing outside, and it felt peculiar to be doing something so ordinary as scrambling eggs and grilling bacon and making toast. Gustav made a pot of strong coffee. He did not normally do anything domestic, and he was a bit clumsy and could not find things in cupboards, but Olivia was grateful to him for trying to help.

  After breakfast she asked if she could stay at home for the rest of the day. They could phone the school and say she had flu or something, couldn’t they? But Gustav said they must not do anything out of their usual routine. It would be discovered today that Imogen was missing – it might have been discovered already. Olivia could not be missing, as well. She must behave as normally as she could today, and she could catch up on sleep tonight.

  Olivia had already had the hottest bath she could bear, and had shampooed her hair over and over again to get rid of the smell and the feel of the old dust they had disturbed. She could still smell it on her hands, though. And the smell of murder? Would she ever be free of that?

  EIGHT

  Imogen’s disappearance had been reported to the police by the time Olivia reached the school. Officers came out to question everyone. There was a sense of concern, but there was also a sense of Imogen doing something she had done before. The two girls showed the police the texts they had received; they said Imogen had been talking about going on a TV talent show. The police said they would be checking Imogen’s social media profile – she was on Facebook and she had just signed up for that new thing, Twitter, although she did not seem to have used it much. As for the phone, they would be getting records from the provider, and would be following up leads from that. Olivia felt a jab of apprehension at this last, but she thought even if the police could tell that the texts had been sent from Cresacre, that would seem perfectly innocent; it would mean Imogen had sent them before she left.

  Olivia herself was questioned along with the others, and when she got home later in the afternoon, she found that the police had been to the cottage as well. Gustav did not seem very worried about it. He told Olivia he had simply said he had not known the missing girl, and he was very sorry that he could not be of any help. He shut himself in his study to get everything ready for his trip to Worcester, where he would be showing the new opera company parts of the opera, and letting them hear extracts of the music. They were currently performing Mozart’s Magic Flute, he said, and new companies were always looking for different things that might attract the public’s
attention. He would be meeting their director – he had written to the theatre, and the man had replied with a very courteous letter, suggesting a meeting. As an afterthought, Gustav told Olivia that they were an amateur company, but they were very well thought of, and you had to start somewhere. He thought it very likely that they would be extremely interested in The Martyrs.

  That night, he said, ‘Olivia – that recording of Imogen singing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We should destroy it. Can you do that while I’m away tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olivia. ‘Yes, I can do that.’ She held out her hand for the cassette, and he handed it to her.

  Throughout the day the police came and went. Searches were made for Imogen, fields and woodland areas were scoured, and appeals were made for information. There was talk of a local radio or TV appeal. But in the absence of any apparent struggle, or any other evidence, there seemed to be a feeling that Imogen Amberton had done what she had done twice before. Run off with – or to – a boyfriend. There was no real reflection on the school – although security around the bedrooms might have been a bit tighter. But teenagers were notoriously rebellious and also notoriously inventive.

  The students said, a bit defiantly and with unexpected loyalty, that the security was quite good, although one or two of them – including Arabella Tallis – admitted that it was not the most difficult thing in the world to get out at night if you really wanted to.

  Olivia supposed that if there had been conventional parents and a conventional family there might have been a bit more fuss. But most people seemed to think Imogen had seized some chance to become a celebrity. A check of her laptop showed she had been on several celebrity-competition TV sites. A check of her phone records showed she had not made a call since the night she had vanished. But it was a throwaway society, and phones could be bought over the counter these days. If she had gone away to start a new life, she would probably have bought herself a brand-new, state-of-the-art phone. Or had it bought for her. They did not say whether they would be making any more detailed checks on the phone’s possible whereabouts, and Olivia was relieved to think that by tomorrow the phone would be discarded many miles away, and she was glad, after all, about Gustav’s Worcester expedition.