by Deryn Lake
‘No. But we’d very much like to do so.’
A solitary police car slowly drove up towards the deserted orphanage. Another one had turned right and plunged down into the depths of Speckled Wood.
‘Spooky old place,’ said one officer, staring out of the window at the vast shape rearing up in front of him.
‘It’s where all the kids come for a spot of naughty, so I’m told.’
‘Well, there’s no one here tonight, by the look of it.’
And as the headlights flashed across deserted windows – every one with broken, jagged edges where bricks had been thrown – dim and shadowy rooms, the corners of which remained pitch black, came alive for a second.
Walking through that grim building, the only light the beam of their torches, strained both men considerably. In fact, they jumped violently when something scuttled in the corner and looked at each other with decidedly grim faces.
‘A rat, probably,’ said one.
‘Well, I’m not going to look, I’ll tell you straight.’
‘Nor me.’
They marched up to the dormitories and from a distant bed they heard the sound of sobbing. They were shaking with fright, though desperately trying not to show it, as they proceeded towards it. But when one man put out a hand, gingerly and carefully, he merely lifted an empty bundle of rags.
‘That’s enough. There’s nothing living in here. Let’s search the outside.’
But it was there that the greatest shock awaited them. By the light of the moon and the swing of their torches they saw the two bodies, like something from a fairy tale, the cobweb and the ogre wrapped in a firm embrace. They stood staring down, quite unable to move, thinking momentarily that the fairy moved a gossamer wing. But it was an illusion of the eerie light and, released from the spell, they phoned for backup, for forensics, for the doctor and for Inspector Tennant. Then they remained firmly in their car.
Dr Rudniski was on police duty that night and had to admit to a thrill of fear as he approached the mighty Victorian edifice and the empty swimming pool behind it. In his wild Polish imagination he could almost picture it as it must have looked when, in the 1920s, it was presented to the orphanage new. He could imagine excited little bodies, all encased in the large bathing costumes of the day, shrieking and squealing as they dived into the water, which hopefully had been heated in advance. But tonight he called for a ladder before he lowered himself into the squalor of what it had now become, all evidence of its former glory days long gone and forgotten.
The bodies had become curiously entangled as they fell and he had to push back Chris O’Hare’s arms and legs from round the remains of Belle. As he did so, he heard a whisper that sounded like ‘Don’t’, which sent a spine of fright right through him. But quickly checking, he found that the morris man had been dead an hour or two and what he thought he had heard must have been in his head.
Their skulls were badly fractured, brains and blood joining in the amalgam of muck that resided deep in what had once been a beautiful pool. At last when photographs had been taken from every conceivable angle and Dr Rudniski had been able to have a final examination before they were sent for post-mortem, the two bodies were brought up and zipped into bags before being driven away.
‘What a ghastly business,’ said Tennant to the doctor as he emerged, looking somewhat pale, from the depths of the pool.
‘Yes, she had fought him, you know. He had scratches on his face.’
‘Evil sod. Perhaps she pushed him in and then toppled accidentally herself.’
‘I don’t think so. He cuddled her as she was dying.’
‘How strange.’
‘That last moment looked rather beautiful. Their ugliness seemed washed out.’
‘Don’t get carried away, Doctor. He was a Satanist and she was an evil child. And I’m glad it has ended as it has. The strain of having to visit her in supervised lodging would have been too much for the major and his wife.’
‘You’re quite right, Inspector. It is the best ending for all concerned.’
‘I think so.’
But as he turned to go Tennant could not resist one last look at the pool, on the side of which he could have sworn he momentarily saw a little girl in a white frock dancing and dancing in the moonlight.
TWENTY-THREE
Samba the cat, battered and limping slightly, nonetheless survived and after recuperating at the vet’s, came to join the Wyatts in their new home, a small cottage in Virgins Lane, close to the centre of Lakehurst but fairly free of traffic so that Samba could laze by their rose-covered front door. They decided that from now on they would attend church because they had begun to believe in something. They weren’t quite sure what, but anything is better than nothing. Anyway, they had called in Nick Lawrence to bless their new house and drive out all evil influences and for luck Melissa had burnt white candles in every room, including the lavatory, and was glad to see that they had all burned down in the morning.
The Victorian orphanage had fallen into the hands of a clever property developer who had changed it into a series of luxury apartments. The swimming pool he had bricked in and planted a rose garden on the site. But people had seen things there, a glimpse of a girl in a white dress. And they had wondered who she was.
So despite the unpleasantness at the Medieval May Fair the vicar was quite keen to organize another, and the villagers to join in. Miss Patsy Quinn gave a great deal of thought to becoming a vicar’s wife and decided that a wedding at Christmas, with a velvet dress and carols, would be lovely. Olivia tried to plan to have enough time off to marry Dominic Tennant but couldn’t find a slot in her successful life. But the triumphant wedding that September was the uniting of Sir Rufus Beaudegrave and Ekaterina in the chapel at the old castle. The whole of Lakehurst turned out to cheer them on their way and it was only Jack Boggis, who upon entering the Great House exclaimed, ‘My God, things have come to a pretty pass. There’s no other bugger here.’
And so saying he took his usual seat, back to the room, and with much crackling of paper, ceremoniously opened the Daily Telegraph.
But it was Dickie Donkin who had the greatest triumph of all, though he wasn’t really aware of it and never thought about it much. The art dealer from Lewes bought the whole collection of paintings for £500 and sold them on at Christie’s for several thousand each, there being a great love of that sort of painting in America. In other words, Dickie shortly became a millionaire – his bank account being managed by his agent, who was scrupulously honest – and moved on to vodka. However, he still continued to plod about, and was last seen in Arundel, sitting in the sun, stretching his limbs, which these days smell fresher, and singing in his pleasant light baritone:
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
