A Case of Grave Danger

by Sophie Cleverly

  Bones darted happily ahead with his stick, his tail wagging. On the air, the quiet laughter of the old ghosts. For a moment, the world was all right.

  As I lay in my brass bed that evening, I read and reread the pages from Miss Stone’s diary. I was curled up under my quilt, still toasty warm from the bed-warmer Maddy had left, with the fire crackling away in the hearth.

  I couldn’t help but think of Father, lying in a cold cell in a hammock that was no better than a sack for potatoes. There had to be something we were missing. Something that could save him.

  Yet no matter how many times I read the words, I couldn’t see what I needed. They began to swim in front of my eyes.

  I heard a whine from the doorway.

  ‘All right, boy,’ I said to Bones. ‘You can sleep on the bed again. Don’t tell Mother.’

  Apparently that wasn’t what he wanted. He stayed in the doorway, whining and pawing at the floor.

  ‘You want to go out?’ I asked. I was met with excited wobbling and a few circular loops.

  ‘All right.’ I yawned, climbing out of bed again. It would have to be just a quick run outside, because I felt sure I was on the verge of sleep, and everyone else had already gone to bed.

  Wrapped up in my coat and gloves and with Bones on a rope lead attached to his collar, I slipped out into the backyard and through the gate to the cemetery. He was pulling so hard I thought my arm might fall off.

  ‘Argh,’ I gasped, my breath making clouds in the air. ‘Fine, but stay close,’ I warned him as I let him off the lead. ‘No running away again, do you hear?’

  He stared back at me, unblinking. I followed, hands tucked under my armpits. ‘Be quick about it, then!’

  The night-time graveyard swam past as I tried to hurry along, feeling heavy with exhaustion. Occasionally something would swish in my ears, and I wondered if it was a greeting from a ghost or simply a falling leaf. But listening to the night’s ghostly whispers wasn’t at the top of my agenda. All I could think of were the words in the Black Widow’s diary. The Necropolis Train. The river. Revenge …

  Somewhere near the top of the path, Bones stopped and began sniffing around in the grass. I’ll just rest a moment and leave him to it, I thought, sinking back against a broken column.

  Then I realised where I was. I was beside the graves of the victims. Where the Black Widow had placed her four black roses, which were browned and wilting on the ground before me.

  Interesting, I thought, but the rest of my thoughts slipped away from me. My eyelids felt so heavy. The last thing I saw was Bones looking back at me, a shadow with just a hint of shining eyes like two coins in the darkness.

  I awoke.

  The ground felt strange, spiky. A familiar smell filled the air. I was on a bed of pine needles. I sat up, and saw a graveyard. At first I thought it was still our graveyard, but I soon realised that the light was wrong – it was bright and white and it was shining through the trees in pinpricks. I felt the dry pine needles between my bare toes. The sun was so warm.

  I realised I was inside the ruins of a church. Only two walls remained, the rest had crumbled away. Trees and creeping plants had grown up where the roof had once been. An alcove bore a faded, cracked painting of the Virgin Mary, her eyes raised skywards. The noise of rushing water came from somewhere nearby.

  I turned to see a river, a little way away. It looked cold and dark, and I felt afraid to go near it.

  ‘Bones?’ I called out, and suddenly he was behind me, looking up at my face with his friendly eyes. He barked a greeting.

  We were alone. Just Bones and me, and the ruins, and the river.

  But suddenly – there were four figures hovering nearby. They were somehow see-through and solid at the same time. They wore top hats and well-tailored suits, and they were all pointing at me, talking amongst themselves in voices I couldn’t understand.

  I stepped forward, crunching through the fallen needles. Bones began to growl, but the figures melted away like snow as I closed in on them.

  As I drew nearer to the black water of the river, something huge bobbed to the surface.

  I recognised it well. It was a coffin.

  Three more coffins appeared, rising from the bottom of the river. Then they floated there ominously, as if waiting for me to join them.

  And in the distance, I heard the distinctive whistle of a train.

  I woke with a gasp, startling Bones, who had apparently lain down at my feet in the frosty grass. He jumped straight into a defensive pose.

  I stared up at him, the piercing whistle of the train ringing over and over again in my ears.

  ‘I know what we have to do!’ I whispered.

  t seven in the morning on the dot, I was up and dressed. My mind was racing, and there was no way I could sleep any longer. After quickly running down to grab the city map and scribbling a few notes, I hurried upstairs to the attic and knocked on Oliver’s door, Bones panting beside me. Maddy peered out of her own room, where she was making her bed.

  ‘What are you up to, Miss Violet?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘No time to explain!’ I said, hammering on the door again. Oliver pulled it open, and I nearly knocked on his face.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I know where we have to look!’ I told him. ‘It might jog your memory.’

  Now his sleepy eyes went wide. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ll be down in five minutes.’

  I hurried down the stairs to the landing below.

  ‘Violet!’ Mother called from her bedroom. ‘You sound like a herd of elephants!’

  ‘Sorry!’ I shouted back. ‘Important business!’

  Thomas was sitting on his bedroom floor in his striped pyjamas, playing with his wooden train set. ‘You’re so noisy,’ he said.

  I quickly darted into the room. ‘Thomas,’ I said. ‘Oliver and I need to go out. Distract Mother for me, will you?’

  ‘Whyyyy?’ he moaned, as Bones sniffed the carpet around him in search of crumbs. Small boys seemed to attract them.

  ‘I think I’ve made a crucial discovery,’ I said. My little brother looked at me blankly. ‘You were right, Father is in a spot of trouble. But I’ve found something that could save him. Get him home to us.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Thomas, his face suddenly lighting up. ‘All right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  I prayed I wasn’t giving him false hope. I prayed I wasn’t giving myself false hope. But perhaps false hope was better than no hope.

  I ran down to the kitchen and quickly made some bread and butter, and a piece for Oliver as well. Bones whined impatiently until I gave him a bit of crust, and he snapped it up.

  We went back to the hallway, where Oliver jumped off the last two stairs. ‘Ready!’ he said. ‘Let’s go!’ I was surprised by his eagerness.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ I told him.

  He tweaked his cap self-consciously in the mirror. ‘I want to remember, miss. Not knowing is worse than knowing, isn’t it?’

  I knew what he meant. Not knowing Father’s fate was driving me mad. If I had certainty either way – well, one of the options was still much worse, but at least I would be able to come to terms with it. ‘You’re right,’ I said.

  We went out the front way, through the shop, once I had checked that the coast was clear of reporters.

  ‘So where are we going?’ he asked.

  Bones, of course, seemed to know the way already, and was striding on in front of us. I was wrestling with the map again, but I had a rough idea of where we were headed.

  ‘I had this most peculiar dream about a river. It’s helped me to put things together,’ I told him. Whether or not the dream had been some supernatural message or simply my own mind reminding me of what I’d read, I couldn’t be sure – but either way I felt confident. ‘Miss Stone wrote in her diary that she stole aboard the Necropolis train for three stops, and that she went down by
the river.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Oliver, staring at the map as it flapped and tried to fold in on itself in the breeze. ‘That could be anywhere, couldn’t it? The river goes all the way through the city.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we can safely presume that Miss Stone got on board the train at the nearest stop to where she lives.’ I pointed to the crumbling alley on the map, which I’d marked in pencil. ‘There are only three places it stops, and one happens to be nearby.’ I tapped the station with my finger. ‘And the third stop would be over here.’ I tapped another station, this time down by the river. ‘This is the main station. They put it near the river so that the coffins could be easily transported there. Father told me about it.’

  ‘Maybe he told her too,’ said Oliver, his face crinkling in thought.

  ‘Hmm, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Or she could have been on it for a funeral. Anyway, the station is in Havisham, right next to Sadler’s Croft where the victims were found. It has to be a clue.’

  I folded the map away, which was easier said than done. I could see Bones again, still happily trotting, occasionally pausing to sniff a leaf or unmentionable things in the gutter. I often wondered what went on in that dog’s mind.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Simple,’ I told him. ‘We’re going to catch the Necropolis train.’

  The station was on the end of a row of large red-brick buildings, on a bustling street. It was a thin building, but still loomed above us from the ground below. Columns and arches stretched over the huge sign that simply read

  NECROPOLIS

  ‘I can’t believe I never noticed this place before,’ said Oliver, staring up at it. Bones was sniffing the entrance suspiciously as he padded around.

  I shrugged. ‘People don’t tend to pay attention to the business of death until they need to. I’d have thought you might have noticed all of the black attire, though.’ I pointed to the queue of people that snaked its way out of the wrought-iron gates.

  ‘A lot of people wear black,’ Oliver said sheepishly. I supposed he had a point. Not least since our entire family did.

  I led him and Bones over to an alcove so that we wouldn’t be overheard. ‘We’re going to have to sneak on.’

  ‘What?’ Both Oliver and Bones looked at me as if I were mad. ‘But, miss—’

  ‘Violet,’ I said for the millionth time, more out of habit than anything else. ‘We don’t have a choice. I don’t have the fare. And if Miss Stone managed it, I’m sure we can.’

  ‘She’s one lady,’ he insisted. ‘We’re a boy, a girl and a dog. It ain’t possible.’

  I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You underestimate me. What happened to playing Jack Danger? Come on.’

  The queue had begun moving. We joined it, and I formulated a plan as we neared the ticket office.

  Oliver shuffled nervously. ‘I don’t know if Jack Danger would do this …’

  ‘You made him up,’ I told him. ‘He can do whatever he likes.’

  He seemed to consider this, and then stood up a bit straighter. ‘Righto,’ he said.

  As we got closer, I began pulling strands of my hair out to look messier. I took my handkerchief and began surreptitiously poking myself in the eyes while thinking about the saddest things I could possibly imagine. A few tears would be needed. Unprompted, my mind suddenly thought of Father’s situation. I quickly had some real tears.

  ‘Try to look upset,’ I whispered to Oliver with a sniff as I batted my genuine sadness aside and focused on the task at hand. ‘Bones, stay right by me.’ As a black dog, he was rather hard to see when he was up against my many black skirts.

  A gruff-looking ticket clerk stood in a window at the front of the station. ‘You with the Barnes funeral?’ he asked, waving to the people just ahead of us. ‘Tickets?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I started, and then burst into a flood of tears. ‘It’s my … my …’

  The man’s face softened a little. ‘Your grandma?’

  Oliver patted me on the shoulder. ‘Our lovely grandma. She was such a dear. And so …’

  I jabbed him, hoping he would get the message to stop making up unnecessary details.

  ‘… old,’ he finished.

  I blew my nose, and threw in a wail for good measure. The actual Barnes family had already moved on ahead of us, thank goodness. I didn’t want them to witness this ridiculous charade. But we had to get on that train – it was the only way with our lack of money.

  I began patting my pockets frantically. ‘Our tickets! I … I … Jack, have you got them?’

  Oliver caught on and began searching his own person. ‘Swear I just had them …’

  A group of black-clad mourners just behind us were beginning to look impatient. The ticket clerk gave a heavy sigh. ‘On with you,’ he said, waving us towards the entrance. ‘Sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, sir, this would mean so much to Grandma, you can’t imagine …’

  I shuffled away, still sniffing, Oliver’s arm round my shoulders and Bones skulking along beside me.

  The entrance was decorated with tastefully arranged tiles in white and terracotta. They flowed along a corridor, lit with gas lamps, that led us to the platform. I had to hide a bit of a grin with my handkerchief.

  ‘I can’t believe we got away with that,’ Oliver whispered, dropping his arm.

  ‘Shush!’ I said. ‘We need to keep looking sad! Let’s not upset anyone …’

  We followed the smell of smoke to the platform, where an enormous black steam engine stood waiting. Following it were carriages of black and gold, each labelled with the family name for each funeral.

  Bones immediately went towards one of the carriages without windows.

  ‘Good thinking, boy,’ I whispered. I turned to Oliver. ‘We’ll be spotted in a second if we get into a funeral carriage. We’re going to have to get in one of these.’

  ‘What are they for?’ Oliver asked, looking up nervously at the painted wood where the windows should be.

  ‘Coffins,’ I said.

  The Necropolis train only went to the cemetery before returning to the city. That meant we were in for something of a long wait. Which wouldn’t have been too bad had we not been crammed in a dark train carriage as it rattled along, hiding behind a pile of coffins.

  Oliver looked distinctly uncomfortable, and to be honest I couldn’t blame him. ‘It ain’t just the coffins, and the whole thing … that happened to me. It’s …’ He waved at the coffins. ‘The dead, miss. What if they’re bothered by us doing this?’

  ‘The dead know nothing, it says in the Bible,’ I said, absent-mindedly stroking Bones who was curled up on the dusty floor beside me. ‘Well, perhaps that’s not quite true,’ I said, thinking of what I’d sensed over the years, ‘but they’re probably not too concerned. In fact they might thank us. If we can stop the murderer, they’ll have more space. All the cemeteries are getting overcrowded, you know. That’s why they built this railway to the Necropolis. The City of the Dead.’

  Oliver seemed to consider that for a moment. ‘They may know nothing, but you certainly seem to know a lot about them.’

  ‘Ha!’ I said. At least Oliver recognised what I’d learned, even if no one else did.

  ‘Can’t you hear the ghosts, miss?’ he asked. ‘You could ask them if they mind, couldn’t you?’

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my thoughts, but all I could feel was a sense of … peace. ‘It’s quiet,’ I told him. ‘They’re not long dead. That’s usually the way of things. Still adjusting.’

  We sat in silence a short while. The darkness and the endless rumbling, punctuated only by occasional blasts of the train whistle, were letting my mind fill up with unwanted things. Father. Miss Stone. Inspector Holbrook. The murderer. The dead. What did it all mean?

  I looked up at Oliver, just able to see his outline and the peak of his cap. ‘Perhaps it’s best if we don’t think of the rest of the quotation.’

  �
��What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘The living know that they will die,’ I said.

  few hours seemed like an eternity on the railway of the dead. Eventually we heard a whistle and the guard calling out: ‘Necropolis Main Station! End of the line!’

  ‘Come on, we have to be quick, before anyone sees!’ I said to Oliver. We heaved open the door and Bones jumped out and raced on ahead. We jumped out on to the platform too, and quickly mingled with the returning funeral-goers. I covered my face with my handkerchief again. It hid my identity, but it also kept the smoke from stinging my nose and eyes.

  ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ Oliver asked. ‘Bones seems to.’

  ‘I’m not certain if he really knows or if he just runs in whatever direction I point him in,’ I said honestly. I had my suspicions, though. That dog was a mystery, one I never knew if I would be able to solve. This mystery, on the other hand … ‘We’re near the river. I think I’ll know the place when I see it. Hopefully you will too.’

  We remained within the crowd. Even though I knew the funerals were sorted by First, Second and Third Class, and by religion, all I saw was the sea of black clothing and veils and tears. People comforting one another. Some even laughing and joking – the funeral was over, life carried on.

  The Necropolis Main Station was even grander than the small one where we’d boarded. We took the stairs down from the platform and left through a formal entrance hall with a chandelier, then through giant gates with elaborate ironwork. An imposing building adjacent housed the railway undertakers. I stared up at it in awe. I’d forgotten how huge it was. It made our little shop look positively primitive.

  ‘We’re right by the river, miss,’ Oliver said, pointing. ‘Look, you can just see it through those buildings.’ Even though it was freezing, the light glinted off the dark water.

  But something else had caught my eye across the busy street. ‘Come on,’ I said to Bones and Oliver. ‘I think I know where we need to go.’