by Sarah Rayne
Or she might take this really good chance to explore the attics, which was something she absolutely loved, but that Mum and Dad did not really like on account of there not being any electricity in the attics. Lucy might trip over something in the dark, Mum said, and what about those twisty stairs which she might easily fall down.
But tonight no one would know if she went up there, and so she got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers, and padded along the landing, careful to be extra-quiet. It might be a bit spooky in the attics at this time of night, but if so she would come back to her bedroom. Lucy went through the little door, remembering to duck her head because of the sagging bit of oak on the other side which smacked you in the forehead if you were not careful, and then she was there.
It was not spooky at all. It was exactly the way it always was: the exciting feeling of stored-away secrets, and the scents of the old timbers and the bits of furniture that long ago had been polished with the kind of polish you did not have nowadays. Lucy loved it. She loved the feeling that there were little pieces of the past scattered around up here, so that if you looked hard enough you might find them – maybe inside the old cupboard that stood in a corner, or locked up in one of the tea-chests, or folded inside the sewing-table with the green silk pouch under the top, or tucked away under the slopy bit of roof at the far end.
Usually she brought her birthday-present torch with her so that she could look at the photographs in the albums, or read bits from the old magazines. Sometimes there were things about her grandmother, which was very intriguing indeed, because there were big mysteries about Lucy’s grandmother. But she had not brought it tonight, so it was very dark and quiet. The rest of the house seemed suddenly to have grown very quiet, as well. It would have been nice to think this was because she had slipped through one of those magic chinks that take you into other worlds, but it would not be that at all; it would be everyone playing Mother’s game, whatever it was.
Lucy found the oil lamp which they used in power cuts, or if plumbers came up here to do something called lag-the-pipes, and which would give pretty good light. There were matches at the lamp’s base, fastened there with a rubber band – she was not really supposed to use matches but she knew how the oil lamp worked and she would be careful. She struck a match, and set it to the part of the lamp that was called the wick. There was a glass funnel thing that you had to slide down over the flame so that it would not burn anything.
The lamp made splashy yellow puddles of light, which Lucy liked. She set it against one wall, and thought she would see what was stored under the slopy bit of roof at the far end. She was just crawling across to a boxful of old photographs – old photographs were the best things of all up here – when there was a sound from beyond the attic door. Lucy looked round, because it sounded exactly as if someone had come up the twisty stairs, and was creeping very quietly across the tiny landing outside. It might be part of Mum’s game, although Mum had said nobody would come up to the second floor – there was only Lucy’s bedroom there, and the rest of the house was plenty big enough for the guests. They would put a little notice up at the foot of the second-floor stairs saying not to go up there, so Lucy could feel quite safe in going off to sleep as usual.
Probably whoever was out there was just somebody who had not seen the notice. Or perhaps the notice had fallen off. Lucy was not exactly frightened, but this was starting to feel a bit scary. The oil lamp was still burning, but she had closed the attic door, and she thought whoever was out there would not see it.
And then her heart bumped with fear, because the door was being pushed slowly inwards and a shadow had fallen across the dusty floorboards. Lucy could not see who it was; she could only see the shadow, which was huge and oddly-shaped because of the flickering oil lamp. She had thought it would turn out to be Mum or Dad, who had found her room empty and come up to look for her, but neither of them would creep scarily around like this; they would just come inside, calling out to know where she was.
The shadow did not come inside and it did not call out. It just stood there, as if it might be peering around. Lucy stayed absolutely still, praying that she could not be seen, clenching her fists so that the nails dug into the palms of her hands. The big black shadow might be a burglar; you heard about burglars creeping into houses when people were having parties. But burglars did not bother with attics, did they? Attics were just places where people stored rubbish. Lucy was trying to decide if this made her feel better or worse, when the shadow suddenly ducked its head and stepped into the attic. And Lucy saw who it was.
Edmund. Her cousin, Edmund Fane, who was here for the weekend, on account of his father being mad or dying or something. Edmund, with whom she had shared those really good holidays at Aunt Deb’s house, because Aunt Deb loved having them both there; she kept bicycles for them to ride around the village, and there were picnics and nature rambles. Sometimes in the evenings Aunt Deb told Lucy stories about her own youth which Lucy loved, although Edmund always pretended to find them boring.
Why had Edmund come up here in the middle of the party? And why was he looking round the attics and smiling to himself, as if something was pleasing him very much? Lucy began not to like the way Edmund was smiling – it made him look completely different. And then he turned his head and saw her and for a moment the scary, un-Edmund-smile stayed on his face as if it had frozen there. But when he spoke, his voice was quite ordinary.
‘Lucy?’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
He did not sound especially angry and he looked entirely ordinary again, so Lucy scrambled out from under the roof slope and explained about not being able to sleep, and about liking to come up here and look at the old photographs and things. There did not seem any reason to pretend about that, and it was always better to tell the truth. ‘Only I’m not really s’posed to be here on my own, so it’d be good if you didn’t tell anyone.’
‘It’ll be our secret,’ said Edmund. ‘I understand about secrets, you know,’ and for a really dreadful moment the other Edmund came back and looked at Lucy out of Edmund’s eyes. But he only said, ‘I see you’ve lit the oil lamp. That’s a bit silly – you might have started a fire up here.’
The really odd thing was that when Edmund said this about the lamp, Lucy had the feeling that he was not annoyed, but actually very pleased. She mumbled that she had been careful to blow out the match and put the glass funnel in place.
‘So you have. But I’ll turn it out now,’ he said. ‘And then we’d better go back downstairs.’ His hand – a long big-knuckled hand, made bigger and longer because of the flickering light – came out to the lamp. Lucy saw his fingers slide the funnel up so that the little flame was unguarded.
Between one heartbeat and the next – so quickly that Lucy could not see quite how it happened – the lamp tipped over, and a sizzling line of flames ran along the dry floor timbers of the attics, and with a little whoosh of sound a stack of old newspapers, tied with twine, caught fire and blazed up.
Edmund said, ‘Go downstairs at once, Lucy. Now! Tell them what’s happened – tell them to bring buckets of water up. It’s all right,’ he said, as Lucy stared in horror at the tongues of greedy fire. ‘It’s really all right – it’ll be out in minutes. But go and tell people now, while I start stamping this out.’ He grabbed at a pile of old curtains, and moved forward to fling them over the flames.
‘Buckets of water,’ repeated Lucy obediently.
‘Yes. We can form a chain from the bathroom – we’ll pass the buckets up the stair. Hurry up, but tell everyone there’s no need to panic. It’s only a tiny fire.’
People were starting to reassemble downstairs for the next phase of the Murder game. They were coming cautiously out of various hiding places and laughing and swapping experiences, and asking what happened next. The interrogation, wasn’t it? And then supper? Oh yes, look, Mariana was just going across to the kitchen. This was all being rather fun. There was an atmosphere of slightly ti
psy friendliness and one or two people might well have been a bit more than merely friendly while hiding in the dark from the murderer, but no one was roaring drunk or making embarrassing accusations of unwanted groping.
There was a bit of a delay about switching the lights on – Bruce Trent was supposed to be doing that, wasn’t he, although he was nowhere to be seen – Oh, one of the victims, was he? Well, wouldn’t you know he would get himself bumped off, silly sod, good old Brucie.
One of the men found the under-stairs cupboard with the mains switch, and there were cries of ‘Ah’ as light flooded the house once again. People started arguing about how many victims there were, and somebody began to talk bossily about habeas corpus and was told to hush because that meant something different.
‘No, it doesn’t, it’s in Magna Carta.’
‘Oh, bugger Magna Carta, let’s habeas some more gin before we start searching for the corpus.’
‘Well, Bruce is one of the corpuses, we already know that.’
‘Not very good manners to murder your host, though.’
‘No, but in the dark you wouldn’t necessarily know who you were murdering.’
‘That has to rank as one of the most bizarre remarks in the history of—Hold on a minute—’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I think – in fact I’m sure – I can smell smoke.’
‘It’ll be from the kitchen – Mariana’s going to serve chicken curry and rice at half past ten—’
‘No, it is smoke,’ said another voice. ‘And it’s coming from upstairs—’
It was at this point that Lucy came tumbling down into the hall and gasped out what had happened, and that they were all to fill buckets of water and pass them up to the attics – and please to do it fast, because even though Edmund had said it was only a tiny fire, it was burning up quite dreadfully…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Only a tiny fire.
To begin with everyone accepted Edmund Fane’s message that there was no particular need for urgency over this tiny fire, and several of the guests ran outside to find the garden hose and connect it up to the bathroom tap. Somebody asked if they ought to phone the fire brigade, and if so, had anyone done it? Oh, somebody had, oh, well done.
And even though it was just a tiny fire it had to be dealt with quickly, and it was a good thing Edmund Fane was here because Bruce Trent, when he was finally found, was three-quarters sloshed, and Mariana had never been any use in a crisis, in fact she was running around flapping her hands distractedly, and saying, Somebody do something; and, Oh, Bruce, why must you drink too much tonight of all nights?
It seemed to be falling to Edmund to organize people into filling buckets and plastic washbowls, and Lucy was taken firmly into one of the downstairs rooms where she could be out of the way of the panic. People formed a chain up the stairs, passing the buckets and bowls of water, but it was a big old house and the stairs were very steep, so that passing the full buckets up took a surprisingly long time.
Lucy tried not to be scared and she tried not to get in anyone’s way. The guests were all running around, and it was all a bit confusing. She lost sight of her parents, but she saw Edmund go back up the stairs towards the attics. It was not a raging inferno up there, and everyone was saying the fire was not likely to spread much in the next few minutes, but it was still very brave of him.
Lucy tried to concentrate on how brave Edmund was being, and she tried not to think how she was the one who had caused the fire by lighting the oil lamp. Would Edmund tell people about that? But the lamp had been perfectly safe until he had turned it out – Lucy was sure it had been perfectly safe. Or had it? whispered a horrid little voice inside her head. Mightn’t you have fixed the funnel a bit crookedly? Or put the lamp on a bumpy bit of floor so that it overturned? Did I? But even if I did, it’ll be all right. They’ll put the fire out and there won’t really be any harm done. Make it be all right, she said in her head. Please make it be all right.
It seemed that the fire was getting a bit more of a hold – all those old, dry roof joists, and all that stored-away junk in the attics! – but the fire brigade would soon be here and they would douse the flames.
There was a kind of soft explosion from the attics, and Edmund cried out and came tumbling down the narrow stairs, half running, half falling, his hands blistered, his face and hair black with smoke.
‘Get out!’ he shouted. ‘The whole top floor’s alight! For God’s sake, everybody get out of the house now!’
Somebody grabbed Lucy and half carried her outside to the big lawn at the back of the house. It was cold and the rain was still coming down, but flames and smoke were shooting up into the night sky, tinting it crimson. Lucy stared at it in new horror, because it was exactly as if the house was bleeding into the darkness. She began to shiver, but she still tried not to cry and be a nuisance.
People were saying this was all absolutely dreadful, but the fire brigade was on its way and the fire would soon be under control, and Bruce and Mariana would probably be able to have the place reroofed on the insurance. In fact where were Bruce and Mariana? Had anyone seen them?
Between one breathspace and the next, a situation that had been quite serious, but in control, spiralled shockingly out of control. A man who had found the garden hose and had been connecting it to the water tap at the side of the house suddenly looked up and pointed at the tiny skylight window at the very top of the house. One of the women screamed and then clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘What is it? What’s happening?’
‘There’s somebody still inside the house!’
‘Where? Oh God, where?’
‘Up there. The attic window.’
And then Lucy saw the flash of colour at the skylight window in the attics. Bright jade green. The distinctive outfit her mother had worn for the party. Green silk and the jade earrings she often wore in the evenings, because she loved vivid colours. She saw that her father was there as well, standing next to her mother, and quite suddenly she could feel her father’s arms around her, and she could smell the nice scents of him – soap and clean cotton shirts, and the disreputable old jacket he wore for gardening – and she wanted him to be down here on the wet grass with her more than she had ever wanted anything in her entire life.
‘Shout to them to make a dash for it!’ cried one of the men. ‘They might just do it – if they run straight through the flames.’
‘Handkerchiefs over their mouths so they don’t breathe in the smoke,’ said a woman. ‘That’s what you do. Or sleeves – anything. Shout to them to do that!’
‘They’ll never make it!’ said Edmund. ‘Both stairways are in flames.’ He was staring up at the attic window, his face sheet-white, oblivious of his own burned hands. Lucy looked at Edmund’s burned hands. My fault. I lit the oil lamp and it overturned…My fault that my parents are trapped up there…
‘If they smash the window—’ said the man who had thought they could make a dash for it. ‘Yes, listen, if they smash the window, they could just about squeeze through – they could jump down—’
‘They’d break their legs,’ said somebody. ‘They’re thirty feet from the ground. More, probably.’
‘Better to have broken legs than burn alive,’ said the first man angrily.
Bruce Trent’s hands were beating uselessly on the tiny window – the window that was never opened because hardly anybody went up into the attics, and that certainly would not open now – and in the livid light of the fire Lucy could see her mother’s face stretched in a silent scream of fear and entreaty. Get me out…We’re trapped…The little pulse of panic and horror redoubled. They’re-trapped, they’re-trapped…And it’s my-fault, my-fault, my-fault…
‘Jesus Christ, can’t somebody do something!’ demanded one of the men. ‘Where’s the fire brigade? They have been called, haven’t they?’
‘Yes, I phoned them and they’re on their way.’
‘They’re going to be too late! W
e’ve got to do something—’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said the woman who had said about handkerchiefs. They’ve managed to smash the window. Look, Bruce is knocking all the shards of glass out—’
‘The window’s too small,’ said the man who had phoned the fire brigade. ‘They’ll never do it.’
‘They will. Bruce is helping Mariana to climb out—’
Mariana Trent was trying to get through the tiny window, crying out to the people below to help her. It was appalling to see her like this, the silk skirt rucked up above her knees, her legs cut and bleeding from the jagged window-frame, and her face crimson and shiny from the heat. There was a terrible moment when Lucy thought her mother’s head looked exactly like a giant baked apple in the oven – just at the moment when the apple-skin had turned scarlet with the heat and was starting to split, and all the juices were running out. She tried to shut this picture out and to think of the figure as her mother but the dreadful image stayed stubbornly on her mind. A thin figure with a giant baked-apple head trying to climb through a window…
It was screaming, that grotesque figure; its mouth was open. It was halfway through the tiny window when the flames reached the frame, and there was a burst of flame as its hair caught light and a shower of sparks, and the thing that Lucy could no longer think of as her mother flailed wildly with its hands, trying to beat out the flames. But the flames caught at one of the hands and ran up the arm, and the figure fell helplessly back into the burning-up attics.
Lucy could not bear it. She sank on to the rain-drenched grass, wrapping both arms around herself because she was shaking so badly she thought she might break apart, and she was dreadfully cold as well, which was stupid with the heat of the fire and everything.
