Ashes From Ashes

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “I’ll get another job in Sainsbury’s in Gloucester, and send you some money each month,” he assured her. “And the cops know they owe me. They’ll be nice.”

  „And now you think yourself so clever, you’re safe from all risks. But what if that Sullivan chap finds you? He must have heard of your book. I bet he’d like to drag you into one of his sheds.“

  „That big lolloping brute? He’s a total idiot. And he won’t even know what I look like.“

  „Don’t they watch TV in prison? On that interview, you sat with that big toothy grin cos you’re hoping to be famous. Perhaps you’ll get famous and dead too.“

  He left the next week after giving his notice with a lie about having been diagnosed with liver cancer, fell asleep on the train and woke up with his head cradled on the shoulder of a complete stranger sitting next to him, a somewhat round and genial matron whose restful shoulder was , stumbled off the train at Cheltenham Station, and went off to find himself some digs.

  It was pouring with rain by the time Sylvia, Harry and Stella reached Hokam House and stood a moment looking at the high white plastered walls behind their tapestry of black wooden struts.

  “Well, fancy that, Mrs Joyce,” said D.C. Crabb. “And Mr Joyce too. I wondered if you’d be turning up sometime.”

  “And I’m Stella Anderson,” Stella said rather loudly through the rain. “Part owner of this house. So perhaps you could open that door and let us in. We’re soaked.”

  Crabb was grinning. “Now, lady, sorry and everything, but you must know I can’t let you in. Totally impossible.”

  “I’m sure Darcey wouldn’t mind,” Sylvia said. “You’re well aware of the help we gave last time.”

  “Inspector Morrison’s not here at present,” Crabb said, not believing a word. “Get permission from him, Mrs Joyce, and I’ll open the door wide.”

  “Humph,” said Sylvia, pulled her navy raincoat tightly around her and walked off with the others.

  The rain pelted. The large mock Tudor house had blurred into clouds of sleet. The horizon of bare hills had disappeared. “Here,” said Stella under her breath as Crabb backed under cover of the porch over the doorway closed off with strips of yellow plastic. “There’s a way. But it’s not very nice.”

  They didn’t expect nice and followed Stella through the downpour. The grounds were empty beneath apart from the careful squares marked out for examination. It was too wet for digging and too cold for any sniffer dogs. It was down the back of Sylvia’s coat collar, her hood swept off backwards in the wind, and Harry closed up the umbrella as it turned inside out in a bitter gust.

  Leading out over the muddy lawn and across to the two wide branched chestnut trees, Stella tottered and leaned back against one knotted trunk, catching her breath. “Not as young as I used to be.”

  “Yes. It’s a shame time doesn’t go backwards.” Sylvia shook the sodden drops from her hair. The tree gave little shelter for its branches were bare. Harry fiddled with the umbrella and turned it back the right way.

  “More trouble than they’re worth.” He mumbled. Their shoes were mud slick, and the rain continued to pour. Crabb had sidled back inside. “Is anyone watching?”

  “Not a soul. Unless from those little windows.”

  “Then hurry. With me. Now.” There were two narrow stone steps within the shadow of the tree. But they seemed to lead nowhere. Then Stella kicked, and a yawning gap with sides of dripping mud opened at their feet. Not wide enough to fall into, but just large enough to squeeze down. “We’ll all look like miners after we go in there,” mumbled Stella, “but it’s the only way. At least, the only way I ever discovered.”

  “You were searching for secret passages?”

  “No, but my grandson was.” Stella pointed. “There’s more steps inside, but you have to go slowly, backwards, hanging on. There are fifteen steps beyond the first two, and they get smaller until number ten when they start getting bigger. They lead into the cellar. Just an empty dump. But there was a sort of bed when I was here. I brought Ben and our three grandsons, you know, just to see if I was buying the right thing. Little Georgie found this all by himself. We thought we’d lost him.”

  They thought they’d lost themselves as they started climbing down into the pit. It was as dark as hopelessness and nearly as demanding. Feeling, groping and stretching backwards, they climbed one by one until Stella called, “I’m down. You can jump the last step. It’s not far.”

  Harry landed with a thud and Sylvia slipped down into his arms. “So there is,” decided Sylvia, “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

  The tunnel was tight, low, and winding. Everyone bent their heads, even Stella who was not tall. But the speck of luminescence at the distant ending gave direction, and when they reached that point, they discovered the promised steps upward, a broken trap door and an entrance into a small stone-walled space without windows or warmth. There was, however, another entrance for the large door in the opposite wall was heavily brass hinged with a row of locks, each with an iron key settled within. In fact, it was not locked and stood slightly ajar. Harry kicked it fully open.

  The police had not yet discovered this hidden cellar. It was large, although it smelled of damp and mould. “I haven’t changed anything,” said Stella. “This is exactly what I found when little Georgie dragged me through that tunnel. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be. Well, the house is fake Tudor, so perhaps they thought this would be a great tourist attraction or something. Tudor torture. They did, didn’t they?”

  “Or perhaps it’s real,” muttered Harry.

  “It’s not real Tudor,” Stella shook her head.

  “There were bodies up the chimney,” said Sylvia softly. “That wasn’t fake Tudor. And a girl recently went missing. This looks to me just like a place to keep some poor kid as a sex toy or a slave. Kidnap victim.”

  It was horribly uncomfortable. Reeking of misery, pain and loneliness, the black room echoed with tears. Although almost empty, it seemed crowded with vile memory. A double bedstead, rusty old iron, stood against one wall, stripped bare of covers and mattress. There were metal rings and hooks embedded in both floor and ceiling, but nothing hung from them. A ceiling light had no bulb, but there was a socket on the lower part of the wall next to the bed. That was all.

  The emptiness sobbed, and the bed shrieked. Yet there was utter silence, which seemed even more eerie.

  “It’s vile,” said Sylvia. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Harry said, “I’ll speak to Crabb.”

  The climb from the dark wet passage was as unpleasant as the entrance had been, but since it led away and was the escape, it seemed far more bearable. Stella breathed deeply as she appeared, head in the air, from the steps beneath the chestnut trees. Harry marched off to find Crabb while Sylvia and Stella began a long walk home.

  “I wish we’d brought the car after all,” muttered Sylvia.

  Stella muttered back. “I never want to walk anywhere ever again.”

  Morrison and Crabb were outside talking, sheltered by the pillared porch. The rain had eased to a dismal drizzle. Harry trudged through the mud. Crabb shook his head. “Again, Mr Joyce?”

  “Yes, again, D.C. Crabb, and with news you need to hear.” He turned to Morrison. “There’s a cellar,” Harry told them. “Hideous to climb into. No direct passage into the house. Do you know of it yet?”

  “You’d better come in,” Morrison said and waved to the two women who had just reached the distant fence. Somewhat reluctantly they turned and wandered back across the sludge. “Now,” continued D.I. Morrison. “Tell me.”

  Stella whisked in, once again out of breath. She regarded the pile of her son’s furniture, which had been collected into the corners, leaving the rooms easier to examine. The open Inglenook fireplace was barricaded with screens and plastic banners. Wind now whistled down the unblocked chimney, and the plastic flapped.

  “Officially,” Stella said, discovering a small chair and sitting h
eavily, “this is my house. It’s in my name alongside that of my son. When I was in the middle of the negotiations to buy, my daughter and her children came with me for an inspection. But my grandson likes to investigate and poke around. He found a secret passage.”

  “Then I’d be obliged if you’d show me, madam,” Morrison said with an ingratiating smile.

  “Someone else can,” Stella said without moving. “At eighty three years old, I’m not eager to do that sort of climbing over and over again.”

  “I’ll show you,” said Harry, and Morrison’s answering smile was genuine.

  “I’d be obliged, Harry,” Morrison dropped the official speech and slipped back into friendship. “It sounds important.”

  “Well, you should have let us in before,” grumbled Stella from the chair, where her wellington boots and plaid coat were leaving a large mud thick puddle on the floorboards.

  Sylvia was staring at the empty fireplace as Harry and Morrison disappeared outside into the chill. Crabb shook his head. “No more to find up there, thank goodness. It’s been fully evacuated. But the newspapers have exaggerated as usual. We found four young women, but none of them have yet been identified. Amongst the ashes on the hearth itself, we found residual traces of two others, almost entirely burned. But even after the hottest furnace, teeth, or parts of them, tend to remain.”

  “Ugh,” said Stella. “Poor Brian. It must have been ghastly for him.”

  “Somewhat worse for the girls now dead, and presumably murdered,” murmured Sylvia. “DC Crabb, has anything been found in the garden?”

  “Neither in the garden nor anywhere else in the house,” Crabb said, shaking his head again. “But we’ve only examined a small part so far.”

  It was some time before Harry and Morrison returned. “I’m going back to the office at once,” he was pacing, “I’ll give you a lift home, ladies. Crabb, I’ll send a couple of the boys back to relieve you, and Harry, Sylvia, I hope we can meet up again tonight. I’ll come to the manor.”

  He turned up after dinner. In the smaller of the Rochester living rooms, the fire was blazing, and Sylvia sat staring at the flames, imagining the frail bodies of the underfed girls squeezed up the old fashioned chimney. Harry was more cheerful. “Is this a lone killer, or a group, do you think? Just another creep picking up girls off the street? Or something different? Perhaps this monster was inspired by the last monster. Lionel Sullivan copycat.”

  “I hope not,” Sylvia mumbled. “Anyone wanting to copy that creature would be sick indeed.”

  “Murderers are all sick.”

  “Not officially, or they couldn’t stand trial and wouldn’t go to prison.”

  Harry slumped back in the chair. “So you kidnap girls, rape and torture them, cut them into little pieces and have some for lunch, then stuff them in a barrel or up the chimney – and you’re considered sane?”

  “Sanity,” said the gruff voice behind them, “can be a difficult definition.” Darcey Morrison pulled up another of the large orange velvet armchairs, pulled up a Sanderson cushion of clashing checks from the sofa, and sat between Sylvia and Harry, all gazing at the spluttering fireplace. Every one of them was thinking the same thing.

  “So, have you explored the tunnel through the wardrobe?” asked Harry eventually.

  Darcey stretched his legs and pulled off the red woollen scarf which had been wound three times around his neck. “Yes and no.” He looked over his shoulder quickly, decided no one could hear, and turned back to Harry. “A couple of my men went down the rabbit hole, but after a few hours we decided to make our own entrance. Now there’s a direct route through the pantry floor, straight into the cellar. We needed light and quick access. But there wasn’t much to discover.”

  “The bedstead and the hooks.”

  “Yes, it’s been used as a prison of some sort,” Morrison nodded. “An obvious connection with what was discovered in the chimney cavity. But everything has been cleared out some time ago. Those metal rings and hooks must have held chains or ropes, and the bed legs held vestiges of old chain restraints. But everything has been cut away. Finding a few hidden fingerprints might turn out more successful, and we have hopes of remaining DNA..”

  “A house of monsters?” It was Ruby, on tiptoe, but bringing coffee.

  Morrison sighed but took the coffee. “Mrs Pope, what a pleasure. It’s been a long time.” He slurped and smiled. “But you have a good memory.”

  Sitting on the arm of Sylvia’s chair, Ruby said, “Very strong, two sugars. How could I forget, Mr Morrison?”

  He didn’t remind her about the D.I. “Fact is,” he continued, now low voiced, “The house was built in 1933, listed as genuine Tudor, and sold for a high price. Sold on the owner’s death to the local council, who intended making it into a town hall of some kind. It changed hands twice, never lasted long, and was finally donated to the Trust, who didn’t really want it. It’s been sitting unwanted and unlisted and entirely empty since 1982. Clearly someone took up illegal residence, quite unnoticed in that damn secret cellar.”

  The wind was moaning outside, which made an effective accompaniment. Ruby shivered. “Have you discovered – ?”

  “No.” Morrison swigged back the last dribble of coffee. “We’ve not finished excavating, Mrs Pope, but the indications are negative.”

  Sylvia sat forward, forgetting her coffee. “Have you dated the bed and those horrible iron hooks?”

  “Around 1985.” He watched her reaction. “ Soon after the place went vacant. But I’d say there’s no sign of recent activity. The last human remains date from 2016.”

  “My God. Fairly recent, then. I’ve been here longer than that.” Sylvia looked up at Ruby. “Delicious Bluebell, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Darcey smiled. “I’ve nothing more to report. No discoveries, no secrets. And no suspects. “

  “I suppose we should make another list,” said Harry. “Any pointers?”

  But the detective had no more idea than Harry himself. “If I had, Harry, I doubt I’d be telling you. But I assure you, there’s not a soul being investigated as yet. So when you perform one of your magic tricks, my friend, and walk in on the culprit, please let me know.”

  The fire crackled. Sylvia muttered, “He’d better not. I’ve warned him I’m divorcing him if he walks into any more suspicious places on his own. Sheds are forbidden. Now mock Tudor is added to the list. Actually anything.” She thought a moment. “Except the loo.”

  Small table lamps glimmered, some bright and some dim, clashing with the huge scarlet blaze of flame. The ceiling light, a chandelier of genuine crystal which was not fake Tudor, but dated back to the times of manor itself, had not been lit. It still only accepted candles and they only lit it at Christmas. Christmas was now long over and it was February, with icicles which grew longer every night until the freezing winds blew them down. Most of the manor’s inhabitants had already gone to bed or sat cosy at the other end of the vast room where the television was playing a rehash of something comic, and the central heating was more placid than the fire.

  Having assumed that the housekeeper had also long retired to bed, they were surprised when Lavender appeared, well wrapped in a dressing gown over satin pyjamas, and held a finger to her lips with dramatic exaggeration. “I saw you arrive, detective inspector,” she said in an echoing whisper. “But I knew you’d want privacy anyway, so I locked up and went to bed. Sylvia has the key to let you out.”

  Darcey looked expectant. Harry said, “No coffee?”

  “There’s something rather more important than that,” said Lavender, the drama rising to melodrama. “I’ve been watching my little T.V. in bed. Only small, but very comfy. I mean, I always watch the news before falling asleep.”

  They waited. The television at the far end of the room was certainly not transmitting anything as dull as the news.

  “So what’s happened now?” demanded Harry. ‘We’re on fire? The queen’s married again? The co
untry’s gone bankrupt?”

  “Lionel Sullivan’s escaped,” said Lavender.

  Chapter Four

  The silence resounded and then broke. Sylvia groaned. “How?”

  “Something about a transfer,” said Lavender. “They mentioned an inside job. I wasn’t really listening at first, then suddenly I realised what they were saying.”

  Harry said, “He knows exactly where we live.”

  “Well, I’m not moving.”

  “But we could go on holiday.”

  Standing abruptly, Morrison wrapped his scarf around his neck once more and nodded to his hosts. “Most unexpected,” he said gruffly. “And damned careless of somebody, unless they’re right and it’s an inside job. Looks as though I’ll not be going home to the wife again tonight.”

  “Good luck with getting him back quickly,” Harry said, also standing. “He’s the last person we want roaming the hills.”

  “He won’t roam,” snapped Sylvia, “he’ll go to ground.”

  “And I remember those threats of revenge,” muttered Harry. They saw Morrison out, back into the slush and the whistling winds with the rain flung in torrents against the trees, walls and windows. “And those threats included his wife.”

  “She’ll be taken into a safe house,” nodded Morrison. “You two look after yourselves and I’ll be in touch.”

  They saw him out, then locked the door again, leaned back and gazed at each other. “Bloody shit,” said Sylvia. “I feel like using all the swear words I’ve ever used in my life before. I’m interested in this new case, and I’d love to be able to help a bit. But do I have to hide indoors instead, scared of bumping into that monster?”

  They climbed the stairs to their bedroom, a long and somewhat grand staircase which Sylvia called her daily gym activity, and talked for some hours before sleep. It was the next day when Sylvia bumped into Ruby in the cake shop just over the little bridge.