by Chris Simms
She heard the knock of wood and her mind was just registering pain in her knee when something to her right tipped and smashed. The vase of lilies, she realised. I’ve walked into the kitchen table. That’s OK. It’s no problem. She ran a hand along the edge of it, ignoring the waves of pain travelling up her leg. You wanted something solid, she thought to herself.
Cupping the corner of the table with one hand, she skirted round it. The kitchen door was now off to her right. Wind was making the bits of paper on the noticeboard flap. A set of keys chinked on their hook. She batted at the air with her left hand. Unvarnished wood brushed her fingers. The cellar door. She slid her hand lower and the smooth contour of the door knob glided into her palm.
Seven steps down. Maybe eight. That was all. She imagined the torch in her hand, its heavy criss-cross grip against her palm. The beam of light it could throw out. White and strong and pure.
The doorknob rotated with a metal rasp. She pushed it fully open and looked down. It had felt dark before, but it wasn’t. In front of her was real darkness: so complete and utter she imagined reaching down and scooping it out with her hands.
Chapter 37
She inched her toes forward until she felt the rim of the top step. She extended her other foot and began to lower it down. But before it connected with the next step she lost her nerve. It was like dipping a toe into an abyss.
She turned round, got on all fours and stretched one leg back. The tip of her boot made contact with a hard edge further down and she brought her knee in until it eased onto the step directly below. That’s one.
The stone was freezing but at least, she thought, I can’t lose my footing. Climbing down this way also had the advantage of letting her focus on the suggestion of light coming through the kitchen door. She shuffled her way on to the next step and looked over her shoulder into the yawning blackness. That was two.
She realised the birdsong now sounded different. It was no louder, but it was somehow less muffled. Even with the wind raging outside.
She kept count each time she dropped down a step. Three, four, five. It was growing noticeably colder and she sensed she was not seeing into the kitchen any more. If the cellar door swings shut now, she thought, and the lock somehow engages...stop it! She shouted the words in her head as loud as she could. Stop it! Six steps, seven, eight. Oh Jesus, where’s the bloody bottom? She stretched her foot back once more and it touched a flat surface straight away. The cellar floor. I’ve reached it.
She felt up the wall with both hands. The cracked and papery surface caught on her fingers. Paint flaked beneath her nails. Leaves rustled behind her and a scream almost broke from her lips. It’s only the toads! Don’t be such an idiot! But she was unable to stop the whine twisting in her throat. The smooth plastic of the junction box bumped the back of her hand and her fingers immediately spidered to the left.
Leaves rustled again and she could picture a scarecrow rising jerkily out of the coal pit, lopsided hat, button eyes, twig-fingers raking the air...She felt the edge of the shelf. Please, she prayed. Please be here. You must be here. She touched curved metal and clamped down on it with both hands. The torch! Oh thank God. The scarecrow was closer, now. Almost within touching distance. Her breast banged hollowly, as if her heart had knocked all her other organs aside. She located the button near the top and swung the torch round as she pressed with her thumb. The cellar jumped into view. There was no scarecrow tottering towards her. Just an empty cellar. The leaves rustled again. When this is over, she said to herself, I’ll get the window-hatch properly sealed.
Sweeping every corner of the cellar with the bright beam, she couldn’t help smiling. It was like she was cleansing the place. Purifying it. I have light, she declared. And my fears have lost their power. They are nothing. Nothing!
A thought struck her: William was still out there. Howling in the darkness like a soul in torment. She decided to find him first. Then they’d find the bloody cage together. Whatever else was in the wall could wait until the police got here. Or Owen. Whoever arrived first.
As she brought the torch round to shine it up the steps, the shelving at her side was momentarily revealed. She froze, not wanting to believe what she’d just glimpsed. Perhaps, she tried to persuade herself, I was wrong. Perhaps the small, square-shaped object sitting on the shelf wasn’t the canary’s cage. The spot of light was shaking as she directed it back. Oh no, Owen. Why? Why did you bring it down here? You said it wasn’t staying in the house. You said.
She now knew why the clarity of the canary song had increased when she’d opened the cellar door. Staring at the dry lump behind the bars, she realised William – blundering about in the blizzard – had stood no chance of ever locating it.
The song changed. Now it was just a single piercing note, held for a second then repeated. She fixed on the faded mass of feathers, the stiff half-open beak. The noise was coming from it and it wasn’t. It surrounded her, enveloped her. It was elemental. A component of the air. Why now this single note? Why?
From nowhere, an awful, nameless dread swamped her. She felt her scalp tighten, pulling her eyes wider. The torch was suddenly greasy in her hand and a voice in her head screamed to get out. Get out! She had to get away from this...this dead thing, lying in its cage, calling over and over and over. Realisation was starting to dawn; I was wrong. So terribly wrong.
She pictured the open fields by the cottage. Grass, air, sky. That’s where she needed to be. Not down in a cellar. She was about to run back up the steps when she heard a new noise. A dull thud, like the one she’d heard coming from upstairs. She wanted to move, but she couldn’t. She wished the birdsong would stop so she could listen properly. It came again. A single footstep. It was above her, in the house. Was it William? Had he come back inside? She was about to shout out that she’d found the cage when another part of her urged silence. William’s words reverberated in her head. The bad person will come. Put birdy back or the bad person will come. Poke fingers. She now understood what he meant: poke fingers through the hole in the bedroom wall. Except the hole was no longer a small one. She’d made it bigger. Big enough to climb through. Oh God.
She knew what the canary’s steadily repeated note was: a beacon. A homing signal. And now the slow, leaden footsteps were in the kitchen, directly over her head. It was coming for the canary and she was down here with it. No way out.
Terror sent trembles through her hands, but her mind was remarkably calm as she laid the torch on the bottom step. It rolled to the left, lens kissing the wall. Muted light bounced back. She didn’t know what was coming, but she understood it was evil. She could feel waves of it flowing onto her, like dry ice from a stage. She backed away from the stone steps. The low wall of the coal pit connected with the rear of her calf muscles as the ponderous footsteps halted at the cellar door.
She kept her eyes on the pool of light being thrown out by the torch as she climbed into the coal pit and silently lowered herself into the pile of dead leaves. The canary continued to call but, in the brief pause between each note, she could also hear a groaning noise. It was low and guttural. A harrowing growl of despair: just like the sound the woman on the psychiatric ward used to make. That woman’s children had been suffocated by their father.
She wriggled lower into the leaves. Something cold with slack, leathery skin shifted away from her hand. Chill flesh against hers. She didn’t care. The leaves smelled of dust, of the grave. She submerged her head gladly beneath them. There was a slight gap between the bricks which she could see through.
First one shoe, then another came into view. She knew that, up in the studio, her fingers had brushed against their laces. Her breathing had reduced to a tiny pant. She felt on the brink of passing out. A glimpse of a stockinged ankle before the heavy hem of a velvet dress dropped over it. Each step was laborious and stiff. She saw the edge of a petticoat at one point. It was dirty and a strip along the bottom of it was missing. The dress obscured it again. The heavy material wasn’t vel
vet; mould had enveloped it in a furry layer. Laura wanted to shut her eyes, but she couldn’t. She didn’t dare.
It was now halfway down. The voluminous folds were a bustle. She didn’t want to look above the pinched waist. Long strands of hair were hanging down. Laura’s eyes crept higher. Its bosom was massive. Hair covered the face like a veil. Laura knew she was looking at the woman in the black-and-white photo from the estate agent’s file. The canary breeder’s wife. The angle of the head was wrong. Too sharp, almost resting on a shoulder. The head lolled slightly as it looked about. Laura was crushing the backs of her fingers against her mouth. I must not scream, she ordered herself. I must not make a sound. I must not. Was it looking in her direction? Laura couldn’t tell: hair hid its eyes.
Slowly it turned to the shelves.
The canary’s long, single notes were suddenly replaced by song, a triumphant soaring. Glorious noise, so wrong. A pair of hands with black nails and skin like parchment lifted the cage. Then the figure turned about and started lumbering back up the stairs, cage held before it.
The canary song slowly lost strength. Laura couldn’t move. Had it gone? No, the singing was becoming louder once more. She turned her head, brushing leaves from her face to look fearfully up at the hatch near the ceiling. A pair of legs shuffled past. It had left the house. The canary song grew fainter until, finally, the sound was swallowed by the storm.
Chapter 38
‘Hello? Mrs Wilkinson! It’s the police! Can you hear me?’
Laura didn’t know how long she’d lain there before the voices came. Long enough for the torch’s batteries to have almost died. She’d watched through the crack in the bricks as the beam gradually lost strength. Dreading the blackness coming back. The storm blew over at some point. She wasn’t sure what she’d do when the torch went out completely. That thing was up there, somewhere. She hoped with all her heart that William had run away.
With their voices came light, flickering, at first, beyond the coal hatch above her. Soon, they were in the kitchen.
‘Mrs Wilkinson! Hello! Is anyone here?’
‘This door’s been kicked in.’
‘I know, the kitchen table’s wrong. Broken vase on the floor. Mrs Wilkinson! Can you hear us?’
‘I don’t like this, I really don’t. Let’s wait for the fire engine to get up here.’
‘Sod that. Her call was logged almost two hours ago. She could be dying in there.’
Were they, Laura thought, real? They sounded real. The light showing down the cellar steps seemed real. She wondered whether to answer.
‘They’ll have moved that Audi blocking the lane soon. I reckon we should wait.’
‘Turn your torch off a second.’
‘You what?’
‘Turn it off. There – look.’
‘What is it?’
‘That’s the door to the cellar. Something’s down there, giving off light.’
Footsteps, slow and cautious. Bright beams cut the air above her. One angled down.
‘It’s a torch. I can see it on the bottom step.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson? Are you down there?’
She sat up, deciding they were real. ‘Here. I’m down here.’ Light blinded her and she shut her eyes.
‘Jesus Christ. Are you OK?’
She nodded. Tears were leaking from her closed eyes. Their shoes scraped on the stone steps.
‘Are you hurt? Can you stand?’
She tried to get up. Hands helped her. Strong hands. She clutched at one, pressing it to her cheek. It was warm. It was the hand of a living person.
‘Let’s get you out of there.’
She opened her eyes and stepped unsteadily from the pit. Leaves dropped from her.
‘Were you hiding?’
She nodded.
‘Who was here, Mrs Wilkinson? Was it William Hall?’
She nodded again.
‘Is he still in the house?’
She shook her head. She heard the colleague start talking into his handset. ‘Alpha One, this is Tango Three. Receiving?’
‘Go ahead Tango Three.’
‘We’re at Lantern Cottage on Coal Lane. We have confirmation William Hall was here, but is no longer at the scene.’
‘Who from?’
‘Laura Wilkinson. No obvious injuries but she appears to be in shock.’
‘Ambulance?’
‘Yes.’
She looked at the officer whose hand she was clutching. He was the same one who came out when William last broke in. ‘I don’t know where he went.’
‘OK, don’t worry. Are you all right?’
‘Cold.’
‘Andy? Get upstairs, find a coat or something.’
The other officer took the stairs two at a time.
‘Can you climb these?’ His arm was around her. She gripped his waist.
‘Yes.’
He kept the torch on their feet as, step by step, they went up. As they emerged into the kitchen, a blue light started strobing the windows. Andy had found her jacket. ‘Careful of the broken glass by the table,’ he said, wrapping it round her shoulders as she sat.
The fire engine’s diesel chug had a reassuring quality to it. It was all hard metal and moving parts – no one could dispute its existence. A firefighter clumped in through the door, lumps of snow sticking to his boots. He was holding some kind of hurricane lamp that lit the room from one end to the other.
After seeing her, he turned to the policeman. ‘Did you ask?’
The policeman shook his head and she saw the nervousness of the glance he sent in her direction.
She looked questioningly at their faces.
The policeman coughed. ‘There was a vehicle blocking the bottom of the lane. It’s registered to this property. A black Audi?’
‘Yes – that’s Owen’s car...’ She stopped speaking. His phone message from earlier. He said he was on his way home. How long had passed since then? ‘What time is it?’
‘Almost half-past six.’
She got up and their hands shot out, as if she was about to fall over. ‘I’m OK.’
‘You’re not,’ one of them answered.
‘My mobile; it’s there by the laptop. There was a message from him on it...’
Andy passed it over and she brought the call up. It had been made at 3.15. Owen’s voice started speaking into her ear.
Laura, I’ve just come off the phone to Doctor Ford. Obviously you’re not there. No one knows where you are. Christ, Laura. I...I haven’t been telling you everything and Dr Ford’s afraid you’ve jumped to some conclusions.
Laura, the reason I was seeing him today was not about you. It was because of my hearing. He tested me and it seems...well...it’s failing. I’m losing my hearing, Laura. It’s started to go.’
The wobble in his voice made her vision swim.
The problems in rehearsals. The sopranos? It was all down to me. I came back here to apologise to the orchestra and choir, to see if we can salvage this performance. We can. We can! But where are you? I’m coming back. I should never have left you on your own. Please wait for me in the cottage. I’ll wrap things up here. I’m coming.
‘He should have been here ages ago,’ Laura announced woodenly.
The policeman was concentrating closely on her face. ‘What did he say?’
‘He...’ Oh, Owen, your hearing. That explained so much. ‘He set off from Manchester hours ago.’
The fireman stepped forward. ‘My colleagues are looking already. What’s he wearing?’
‘I don’t know...just a thin jacket. And normal shoes. He’s not dressed for weather like this!’
‘It’s OK, don’t worry. We’ll find him.’ The firefighter turned away and stared speaking into his radio.
She shrugged her ski jacket on properly as she spoke to the policeman. ‘And William, he’s out there somewhere. He was in the garden, over near the bins.’
‘Who the hell’s William?’ The firefighter was now looking at the policem
an.
‘He’s a...a vulnerable young adult. Late teens, but not all there. Up here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘He lives out at the Skylark Trust.’
The firefighter didn’t look happy as he turned to Laura. ‘You say he was in the back garden. How long ago was this?’
‘An hour ago. Maybe more.’
‘I’m bloody tempted to get the High Peak Mountain Rescue Team over with their search dog,’ he said to the policeman. ‘You sit tight here, madam. We’ll sort it out.’
‘No, I need to help. I want to help.’ She stepped towards the door but the policeman blocked her path.
‘Mrs Wilkinson, you could well be suffering from shock. Let us take care of this. An ambulance is on its way for you.’
You’re not, she thought, leaving me in here alone. That thing I saw might come back. ‘I’m fine.’
He didn’t step aside. ‘Sorry to say this, but you are not fine. Please, stay here.’
‘This is all my fault. Listen, I know where he was. Let me at least show you.’
He glanced at the window overlooking the back garden.
‘It was here,’ she said, stepping round him and toward the kitchen door.
He let her pass, a hand hovering indecisively at his side. ‘Just that, then. You shouldn’t be...’
‘It’s here. Follow me.’ She looked out the door. The snow was so deep! Five inches, easily. There were three more firefighters by the engine. The cover of its side panel had been rolled down. Two of them were removing equipment. The other was sitting in the doorway of vehicle’s rear compartment. He was tearing lengths off a paper roll and stuffing them in a cardboard box. Molly Maystock’s dad. He looked over. ‘This isn’t your kitten?’
‘Mouse?’ The snow on the path was churned up where they’d been walking. She sprang from one footprint to the next. ‘Mouse? You’ve found Mouse?’
