Spectral Shadows

by Robert Westall

  ‘He’s trying to put out the floodlights!’ shouted Rory.

  Then a large piece of brick came hurtling through the air. Followed by several more.

  ‘That’s it!’ roared the constable, at the end of his tether. He spoke into his radio and summoned back-­up.

  I must say, the police put up a splendid show. Two pandas arrived, blue lights flashing. They slammed in through the Park gates, and roared all the way round the path that followed the shore of the Pond. It was most impressive.

  ‘That should settle the little sods,’ said the constable, when they’d gone again. ‘It’s gone eleven. I suppose they’ve got some homes to go to.’

  He must have been right. Nothing stirred round the shores of the Wheatstone Pond.

  ‘Been like a bloody madhouse,’ he added, picking up his loud hailer. ‘I don’t know what’s got into the kids round here. This is normally a quiet district. For London.’

  It was then that, back at the shop, my burglar-­alarm went off. I would recognize that dreadful whooping anywhere. I was into my car and belting down Wheatstone High Street before I knew what I was doing.

  And, in my headlights, I saw them running out of my gate. Two slim figures in trainers, jeans and bomber jackets. They turned for a second to stare at me, shielding their eyes against my lights.

  And for some reason I went berserk. I mean, I’ve always hated burglars, especially with regard to my shop, because it’s my living. If they burgle the house, well, it’s just kids after videos to sell for drugs, and you can replace a video with the insurance money. But if they go for the shop, they’re pros, and they’re after the things you’ve sweated over . . .

  But that night . . . they were running along the pavement now, pinned by the lights against the high walls . . .

  I had a sudden mad desire to flatten them against that wall; to never have to worry about them again. They were . . . no more than insects . . .

  It was lucky for them they had a car waiting with the rear doors open. They vanished inside; the car revved up, smoke spouting from its exhaust . . .

  I aimed straight for it. And almost forgot to slam on the brakes.

  I can’t have been doing more than fifteen, when I hit it. I felt the seat-­belt tighten across my chest. Then the massive front of the Volvo was driving the rear end of their car along the bricks of the wall in a brilliant shower of sparks. Crushing it up like an egg. I could see it was a Citroën AX they’d got; by comparison with the Volvo they’re not very heavily built.

  A sudden silence. Then I was out of the car. Somebody tried to get out of the front door of the AX. I slammed the car door on his extended leg, and heard with joy a squeal of pain.

  Then a policeman from the Pond had hold of me, was shouting at me, shaking me. And slowly I came back to my senses.

  It was two in the morning before it was all sorted out, and then the duty inspector took me into his office. He was much younger than I was; in fact he didn’t look more than a sixth former, with his chubby rosy cheeks. But his face was solemn. Very solemn.

  ‘All’s well that end’s well, Mr Morgan.’ His tone quite belied his words. ‘Nobody hurt, beyond cuts and bruises. By a miracle. And we mustn’t expect too many miracles, must we, Mr Morgan?’

  He was talking to me as if I was a kid.

  ‘I’m entitled to make a citizen’s arrest,’ I said, nastily.

  ‘It’s only a miracle it wasn’t a citizen’s multiple murder. It’s lucky you’re not in the cells now. What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  ‘I suppose I misjudged the distance. But they were getting away. Like they so often do with burglaries. Even with our magnificent police force . . .’

  He just stared at me. Then he said, ‘Are you a violent man, Mr Morgan? All we have on our records about you is one case of drunk and disorderly.’

  ‘That was the week after my wife died.’ That made him flinch a little. But he didn’t like me any more for it.

  ‘You had no evidence they were even burglars . . . then.’

  ‘Running out of my gate at gone eleven, with the burglar-alarm going? I hardly imagined they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

  ‘They could have been passers-­by, trying to help.’

  ‘Why did they go running, then?’

  ‘Perhaps they panicked and thought you were going to knock them down. They say they were very frightened. They say they thought their last hour had come . . .’

  ‘But they were burglars.’ I wasn’t letting him get away with anything. The nerve, looking me up in criminal records . . . as if I was a common felon.

  ‘Yes, luckily for you, we found tools on them that constitute an offence in themselves. Which gave us grounds to search their homes. We found enough. They won’t bother us now for a bit . . . but you bother me a lot, Mr Morgan . . .’

  ‘We’d had a lot of hassle up by the Pond . . .’

  ‘So I hear. University undergraduates hitting people with pickaxe handles. There seems to be something about that Pond, Mr Morgan, that comes between law-­abiding citizens and their wits. I shall be profoundly glad when it’s filled in and being used as tennis-­courts . . . well, that will be all, for now. I only hope you realize what a very narrow escape you’ve had.’ He didn’t shake hands; he pointedly lowered his head to begin reading a pile of report-­forms, and left me to find my own way out.

  I got home. Some workman recommended by the police had made my shop door secure with a huge piece of thick plywood. I went upstairs and poured myself a stiff drink, and stared at the little armoured cruiser and the smaller ocean liner, side by side, glinting in the lamplight.

  And finally I admitted that something had got into me tonight. Something I’d hardly known before. Something I didn’t like at all. Something I hadn’t felt since I was twelve, in a fight in the school yard. I had wanted, for a little while, to kill.

  The thought somehow congealed with an older thought. My feelings of guilt about the silly young fool who had killed himself on the motorbike I’d sold him. Why had death suddenly come into my life, after all these years? All these hardworking peaceful years? Was there really something odd about the Wheatstone Pond?

  It was then I noticed the light on my telephone-­answering machine was glowing, and pressed the play-­back.

  It was Hermione. Triumphant.

  ‘Best bib and tucker tomorrow morning, Jeff. We’ve got a television crew coming. Ten sharp, or so they say. I’ll be round by half-­past eight. There’ll be a lot to work out.’

  I stared at the machine as if it was the author of all my misfortunes. How on earth had she got the telly people in so quickly? There’d been no mention of them when we parted. I supposed she had contacts, being press officer for the City Toy Museum . . .

  But was she mad? The last thing we needed was publicity. We’d have the kids from half of London after us tomorrow night . . .

  With a groan, and a curse, I flung myself into bed, to get what sleep I could. Damned conniving woman . . .

  Chapter 5

  We were all gathered in my lounge for the end of the six o’clock news. Watching the weather forecast quack on, and waiting for the local slot. They’d left their wellies by the door, but my carpet was still getting pretty muddy.

  We were the first item; it was beginning to be the silly season, and they must be short of hard stuff. We were introduced by our very own girl-­reporter, Bunny Hodkinson, small and blonde and cuddly, with huge innocent blue eyes and the naïve grin of a pretty rabbit. Just the sort any male would open his heart to. I mean, whoever heard of a man-­eating rabbit?

  There she was, standing on the bank, peering out over the mud. Then she turned to the camera confidingly and said, ‘The Wheatstone Pond is beautiful in summer; but the Wheatstone Pond can be a killer. There have been seven suicides on this spot in the last five years. Now Wheatstone Council have decided its days are numbered. Once it is pumped dry, it will be filled in, and made into tennis-­courts.

  ‘The Po
nd is being pumped dry by appliances from the London Fire Brigade . . .’

  So then we had the station officer, wearing full fire-­fighting gear and his lovely big helmet, for no reason any of us could guess at. But he made a big thing of the danger of the mud and slime and the way kids were risking their lives. Ending up, ‘Not a nice death, with your mouth full of mud and your lungs full of green slime.’

  One up to Hermione; it would have frightened me off; but would it frighten the kids? Or would it be an excuse for them to play chicken?

  We had a few seconds of a girl student with a curvy bottom, crawling along one of the ladders. Then the camera panned on to what we were starting to call the dump. All the useless prams and bikes and children’s tricycles we’d unearthed, that no thief would want to nick. It looked spectacularly horrible, trailing strands of dried grey slime. Then it panned across to Hermione, who was wearing what any chic archaeologist would be wearing, providing she didn’t have to get her hands dirty.

  ‘It’s heart-­breaking work,’ she said, with a carefully rueful smile. ‘Nine out of ten of the things we find are just rubbish that people have dumped.’

  Two up to Hermione. Who wants to risk their neck for a pram with four bent wheels?

  ‘But what exactly are you hoping to find?’ Bunny fed Hermione the agreed question. At this point the filming stopped and we moved to my workshop. Which had, of course, been cleared of everything of value, apart from a wardrobe that James was repolishing.

  And here was James himself, with the camera panning on to him. He was holding what appeared to be a three-­foot-­long shallow, narrow dish made up of charred wood. With a tall cylinder sticking up from the middle of it, surrounded by blackened cylindrical objects and wheels.

  ‘What exactly is it?’ Disbelief and distaste mingled in our own girl-­reporter’s voice. James opened his own mouth, preparing an oration . . . oh, foolish James! Hermione had nipped in front of him, before he could draw breath.

  ‘This is rather pathetic really. It’s Victorian model steamboat – I mean, actually powered by a steam-­boiler, with a methylated-­spirit stove underneath to heat the water. Unfortunately, in this case, the spirit-­stove must have overturned or leaked, setting the wooden super-­structure on fire. It burnt the hull right down to the water-­line, sadly, before the little ship finally sank. It must have been heart-­breaking for the proud child who owned it . . .’

  ‘But quite a spectacular sight for any bystanders,’ said Bunny callously. ‘Steaming round, going up in flames. Then sinking. Like the Titanic in miniature, really.’ She sounded like she would have liked to have been there with her camera crew. At the real Titanic disaster too. Everything brought grist to her mill . . .

  ‘What can you do with it now?’

  Poor old James opened his mouth again, but once more Hermione nipped in. James was being reduced to a hard-breathing display-­stand.

  ‘Oh, we can dry out what’s left of the woodwork and preserve it. And remove the mechanical parts and polish them up. If we can find a maker’s name-­plate, we could possibly look up the model in an old maker’s catalogue, and build a replica – wreck and replica displayed side by side. Or at least the photograph from the catalogue, greatly enlarged.’

  ‘Oh yes, fascinating,’ said our girl-­reporter, without a lot of conviction in her voice. ‘But this . . . wouldn’t be worth anything? In the open market?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Hermione, with a sudden tightening of her jaws. ‘Only of interest to our City Toy Museum.’

  ‘But we’ve heard you’ve found things of real value, Mr Morgan . . . you’re taking part in this . . . dig . . . but you’re also an antique dealer with a knowledge of prices. Has anything of value been found?’

  I was ready, with breath already in my lungs; so I got in while Hermione was still opening her pretty mouth. And I had a carefully-­selected table of items beside me. The first was the cheap tin tugboat from Woolworth.

  ‘That looks exciting,’ said Bunny dubiously. ‘What’s that worth?’

  ‘Well, to a fanatical collector of tin-­plate toys, about a hundred pounds. At a specialist auction – Sotheby’s or something. But it’s not the kind of thing anybody could hope to flog round the nearest pub. I mean, how much would you give for it, in a pub?’

  ‘Couple of quid?’ asked Bunny, wrinkling up her pretty little nose.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Tin-­plate-­toy collectors are the maddest folk in the business. And that thing cost sixpence in Woolworth, before the War.’

  I went on holding up dreary items for the camera. The crushed yacht, the little fractured fishing-­boat, the Star yacht that anybody could buy for ten quid.

  The camera watched Bunny’s face fall. ‘So you haven’t had much luck, so far?’

  ‘We found a loaded revolver. But we passed that straight across to the police. It had been fired twice . . . it could be a murder weapon.’

  Oh, how her little face lit up! The camera cut to the local nick, where Sergeant Crittenden said the police were waiting for a lab report.

  I really thought we’d got away with it. I drew a deep breath of relief.

  But then we were back in my workshop again. And she was opening her sweet girlish lips for the fatal question.

  ‘But I believe you did find one item of value – a motorbike – an antique motorbike? Which you sold for a good price – to a young man who later killed himself on it?’

  The camera panned on to my face. My mouth, wide open as I absorbed the body-­blow. I looked a guilty crook found out, even to myself. A guy who sold dodgy motorbikes, on which people killed themselves. I watched myself trying to say something three times. I watched myself break out into a sweat. Just like those guys who That’s Life pillory on their own doorsteps.

  The camera cut, before I said, ‘It had an MOT test and passed it successfully.’ On to the next item – a fuss about a welfare centre for ethnic lesbians, in the Red Republic of Brent. Somebody had the grace to switch the bloody set off.

  ‘The bitch,’ I said. ‘The little bitch!’

  There was a rumbled murmur of agreement, from the assembled workers. But Hermione just said cheerfully, ‘Don’t worry, Morgan, it’ll be a nine day’s wonder. You aren’t going to be selling any more motorbikes anyway. The main thing is, I think that’ll have killed off the enthusiasm of our treasure-hunters.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Rory, in a very heartfelt tone. ‘Unless they start thinking the lake is full of revolvers . . . Well, back to guard-­duty . . .’

  But I think they had a pretty quiet night.

  It was nearly lunch-­time, the next day, when Lenny turned up with the box. A strong wooden box, about two feet long and nine inches wide, and dark with still-­dripping water. We’d had a steady stream of objects all morning; the best of which was a long narrow object that turned miraculously into a slim white speed-­boat, with a covered-­in bow and a long brass boiler, and a propeller stuck out behind on a long shaft.

  ‘Heck,’ I said. ‘A Meccano Hornby steam-­launch. I’d forgotten that they existed. Not many people had them. I wanted one, but I could never save up enough. They cost a bomb, even in 1939 . . .’

  ‘Well, you can’t afford one now, either,’ said dear Hermione. ‘Hands off, Morgan. Down, dog.’

  I gave her a look. And it was at that point that Lenny walked in with the box. I was getting a bit fed up with Lenny. He was my youngest worker; my errand-­boy really. And his legitimate errands were taking longer and longer. I mean, I had sent him off to deliver a couple of leather chairs to Hampstead two hours ago. And even allowing for traffic . . . now I had proof he’d been wasting time hanging round the Pond. The Pond was rapidly coming between him and his senses. I was going to have a word with him. But it would have been quite useless at the moment. He could think about nothing but the box.

  ‘I’m going to open it. I’m going to open it. It’s my turn.’

  Pathetic.

  I looked at that box, while
he was rummaging for a screwdriver among the benches. Somehow, I didn’t like the look of that box. It was well made, of thick plywood that had survived its soaking, and it was screwed down tight, with no less than eight screws. And from the way he’d been carrying it, and put it down, it was heavy.

  Somebody had not wanted that box to be found. Or opened. Too many screws; screws beyond sense. I began to edge away from the crowd that was gathering round Lenny; edge towards the door. Almost as if it might be a bomb. Though the idea of a bomb going off after all that soaking was pretty unlikely. But my silly body insisted on edging away. Even before I smelt the smell. Now I admit that my workshop has never smelt like a bed of roses. Too much boiling of glue; the odd pot of rancid size; welding . . . and it hadn’t smelt any sweeter since they began carrying in things covered with stinking ooze. But this smell . . .

  From the doorway, I paused and looked at them. All the avid faces, like something out of a painting by Bruegel, or a medieval Doom. Hermione, James, Rory, the tall bland Dane they called Sven.

  ‘Two more screws,’ called out Lenny hysterically. ‘It’s coming, it’s coming.’

  Now Hermione had noticed the smell; her nostrils were twitching. And James was backing up and flinching; it was a smell he must have smelt often in Italy. Even bland Sven was looking worried. But Lenny, impervious to everything but excitement, was undoing the last screw. He prised up the lid.

  I think he tried to say something; but his breath was overtaken by the vomit rising in his throat. He made a feeble lunge for the nearest Belfast sink, but he didn’t make it. He spewed up uncontrollably all over the shavings on the floor; all down his own front. James swung away, grabbing a grubby handkerchief from his apron pocket and pressing it to a face turned green. Sven just stood, paralysed, giant hands clenched so tight the knuckles showed white. Only Hermione kept her cool, though she was ghost-­pale. She stepped to one side, and I saw it, at the distance of ten yards. I never wanted to get any nearer.

  A tiny skull, tilted, peered out of the box. Below it, there might have been fabric; but it was mottled with patterns of green and brown, like damp patches on a ceiling; like mould on cheese.