Eventually he regained control of himself, wiped the sweat from his forehead, swallowed hard.
‘I suppose,’ he began, his voice cracked, hesitant. ‘I suppose I owe you an explanation.’
‘No, it’s …’
He gave a sad smile. ‘Please. Don’t be polite. I was awful back there.’
Eve said nothing, just waited.
‘We got … shot down. Over the sea. My crew were trapped in the fuselage as it … as it went under …’ Harry stared out of the windscreen, eyes focused on somewhere Eve couldn’t see, didn’t want to see. ‘I swam down to rescue them. They were … were calling to me …“Help me … Help me, Captain”… and I could see them, I was … I was almost …’ He shut his eyes tight, let go a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. ‘It was sinking too fast. I … I couldn’t reach them.’
Despite the brightness of the day, he seemed to be in shadow.
Eve searched for the right words. ‘I’m …’
‘I was the only survivor.’
Neither of them spoke; they just sat there, staring ahead. Then Harry turned to Eve.
‘So now I don’t like the water.’ His voice aimed for lightness. Missed.
Eve said nothing. Just placed her hand gently over his.
Edward’s Conversation
Jean looked anxious. Her eyes were darting about nervously and she kept knitting and unknitting her fingers as the children filed into the dining room for their next lesson. They all noticed her out-of-character behaviour. That, combined with the absence of Miss Parkins and the death of Tom, had unsettled them greatly.
‘Come on,’ Jean said, attempting to chivvy them along, ‘break-time is over.’ She looked round the group, making yet another head count. ‘Where’s Edward?’ Panic rose in her voice.
‘He was on his bed, reading,’ said Joyce.
Jean stared at her, fear expressing itself as anger in her features, her voice. ‘What did I say about rules? Hmm? What did I say?’
Joyce just stared back, unsure whether the question was rhetorical or not.
‘Go and fetch him, please, Joyce.’
‘Yes, Headmistress.’ And Joyce ran off.
Joyce put her head round the double doors, ready to shout at Edward, mimic Mrs Hogg’s authoritarian manner, but the room was empty. She checked every corner, even looking under the beds in case he was playing some kind of hide-and-seek. She avoided Tom’s bed, though. The mattress had been stripped, the blankets removed. It stood bare and lonely at the end of the room. Joyce noticed that the black rot had spread so much on the wall behind it that it looked like a permanent shadow was standing over the bed. She shivered. It gave her the creeps.
In fact, the whole house gave her the creeps. But Mrs Hogg was right. The only way they were going to get through this was to follow the rules. Joyce had learned that at a very early age at home. Both her parents enjoyed having a good time, so much so that bills often went unpaid and groceries had to be negotiated for. Her father had gone to fight, leaving her mother to bring up Joyce. She spent most of her time in the pub, drinking away what little money they had.
Joyce decided she would never end up like that. Thank goodness for Mrs Hogg. Joyce loved and admired her, wanted to be like her when she grew up. She had taken to ensuring she was always dressed smartly for school, even if she had to wash her clothes herself, and always arrived there on time. In fact, she regarded Mrs Hogg as more of a mother to her than her actual mother was. She would never dream of telling Mrs Hogg that, though. That wasn’t in her rules.
She heard a floorboard creak and looked round. Not in the room. She heard it again. Upstairs. That was where it was coming from. Edward must be up there.
She left the room and made her way up the creaking staircase, stopping at the top. She saw Edward at the end of the corridor, standing on the threshold of the nursery, the room Tom had locked him in yesterday. He had that horrible puppet thing in his hand. Joyce hated it. Every time she looked at it, its teeth seemed to be blacker and more rotten, its grin wider and more unpleasant.
Edward hadn’t seen her. Joyce started to walk towards him. He had the puppet up to his ear, as if listening to it. Then he nodded and held the puppet out, as if he was talking through it to someone else in the room. A quick shake of his head, then the puppet was at his ear again. He paused, nodded again. Joyce could hear a faint hissing sound while he did this, like something sliding about in water. She could smell something too. Rotten, like old fish.
‘Edward?’ she said.
He jumped, put the puppet behind his back, stared at her, round-eyed.
Joyce tried to see round him into the room. ‘Who were you talking to?’
Edward ignored her and, pushing past her, walked off along the corridor and down the stairs.
Joyce opened her mouth to say something, admonish him for his rudeness, but she decided against it. He had been through a great trauma, which had obviously upset him in some way. Instead she looked at the open doorway. Should she go in and investigate? See if there was someone in there, someone he had been talking to? Or had he just been playing, making up an imaginary friend?
Her foot was on the threshold, ready to step inside, when a strange feeling overwhelmed her. It was like she felt when she looked at the black rot behind Tom’s bed: creepy and lonely. Scared. She pulled her foot back and ran quickly back down the corridor, to Mrs Hogg and safety.
No Goodbyes
The sun was almost gone by the time Harry pulled the Jeep up by the church on the edge of Crythin Gifford. Eve got out and looked round at the ruined village. The gathering dusk caused the shadows to lengthen, the village to darken, as if some giant, taloned hand was grasping it in its clutches.
Harry leaned out of the driver’s side window. He was clearly torn between anguish at leaving Eve there on her own and worry at disobeying orders. ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay,’ he said. ‘Truly.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Eve. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
Harry nodded, wanting to believe her.
‘I think it’s admirable, you know,’ she said. ‘I mean that.’
Harry frowned. ‘What’s admirable?’
Eve’s eyes drifted towards the sky. ‘That you still go up there. After what happened.’
‘You have to carry on, don’t you?’ he said, his voice trailing away.
Eve nodded. ‘Yes. You’re right.’ She smiled. ‘Good lu—’
‘Don’t,’ he said sharply. ‘Wishing luck is bad luck. And no goodbyes. Ever. They’re forbidden, too.’
He offered her a pale smile and drove away.
She stood watching him go. No goodbyes, she thought. What must it be like to wave someone off, thinking it could be the final time you would see them, and knowing that they were thinking the same thing? Would you both pretend that nothing was happening? Would you both lie to each other? And if you did, what would that do to a person? How could you carry on? She shook her head. This war had a lot to answer for.
She turned and walked away from the retreating Jeep, through the village.
She knew where she was headed.
HJ
Eve stood before the burned-out exterior of the building and checked the sign:
Mr Horatio Jerome M.S. Esq., Solicitor.
Then she looked at the key she held in her hand. ‘HJ’ was inscribed on it in the same font that had been used on the sign.
The receding sun caused the shadows to lengthen, made the blackened front windows look like two ghostly, haunted eyes, the doorway a gaping maw.
Clutching the key tightly before her, like a crucifix to ward off vampires, she stepped inside.
The inside of the building had been so blackened by fire that it seemed to make what light remained of the dying day hasten away. For a fleeting second she thought of the black mould and rot covering the walls of Eel Marsh House. This is what it’ll look like eventually, she thought.
She stood in the hallway. The offices were panelled half i
n wood and half in glass and ran the length of one side, with what remained of a staircase heading downwards at the opposite end. The wallpaper was charred black and mildewed green. To one side of Eve was a large hole in the floorboards, its edges black, where she could see right into the basement. She walked to the edge of the hole and looked down, but saw only further ruin, swirling dust.
Entering the nearest office, she checked it for anything that the key might fit but found nothing. She checked the next office along, came up with the same result. She then made her way down the staircase into the basement.
The first thing she noticed was a charred, built-up pile in the centre of the room, looking like the remains of a bonfire. Eve frowned. Had the fire been started deliberately?
The blackened pile still held vague shapes. Eve carefully peered into it, checking for anything that might have a keyhole among the debris – a locked box, perhaps – but she could see nothing.
Then something caught her eye. She picked it up. An old doll, soot-covered and singed. It looked like Judy, the companion to Edward’s Mr Punch puppet. There was no joy in the doll’s face. Its eyes were wide and fearful, its mouth a shocked O. With a shiver, Eve threw it back where she had found it.
As she did so, she noticed a small archway in the far corner, covered by a metal gate, fire-blackened and rusted, but still looking substantial and solid. Eve pulled at it. With a creaking of ancient, disused hinges, it opened. Eve walked through it and found herself in a narrow corridor. At the end of it was a stack of safety deposit boxes. Eve felt her heart skip, and the key in her hand suddenly felt hot.
She tried the key in the first box. It fitted but didn’t turn. She tried it in the next one. The same thing happened.
The third one opened.
Dread mingling with excitement, she reached inside, removed what was there.
An envelope.
She read the name and inscription: Nathaniel Drablow, on his eighteenth birthday. She turned it over. It had a wax seal on the back and had never been opened.
The gate clanged shut. Startled, she turned to see a figure silhouetted against the dying light. She heard rather than saw a lock being turned, and ran to the gate.
‘You can’t go back,’ said a rasping, cracked voice. ‘I’m sorry.’
Eve recognised the old, blind man she had seen when she arrived in the village. He was much bigger, much stronger than she had first realised. She pulled at the gate, but it held fast.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, her voice tinged with hysteria and disbelief. ‘You can’t do this. You can’t lock me in here and leave me …’
He turned and began walking down the corridor.
‘Please,’ she shouted, her voice echoing round the walls. ‘Please … come back …’
He stopped, but didn’t turn to face her. ‘If you go back to the house,’ he said, his voice heavy as if the reluctant deliverer of an unpleasant message, ‘the killings will start again …’
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Eve.
‘You heard my friends …’ He nodded along with his words.
‘Your friends?’
‘Yes … they sang you their song …’
Eve remembered. The children’s voices, the choir she had heard the first time she entered the village. Heard but not seen.
‘Yes,’ said Eve. ‘I heard them.’
‘Well, you should have listened.’ He continued towards the stairs.
Eve knew she had to do something, say something, to get him to come back and let her out.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ she called. ‘Jennet Humfrye. That’s who you’re talking about.’
The old man froze. But still he wouldn’t turn to face her. ‘Lost her boy Nathaniel in the marsh,’ he said, his voice now quavering and faint. ‘Then killed herself. But she came back for the other children. Oh, yes …’
Eve tried to keep him talking. Not just to get him to let her out, but also because she wanted to know. ‘But how does she …’
He talked over the top of her, reciting a verse. Eve wasn’t sure if he had made it up himself.
‘Whenever she’s seen, and whomever by, one thing’s certain, a child shall die.’ He shook his head. ‘So true, so true … And that’s why I can’t allow you to go back to the house.’
Eve nodded, taking his words in. ‘But,’ she said, ‘a child has died already.’
The old man slowly turned back to face Eve.
His sightless eyes staring at her.
James
James sat in the classroom unable to concentrate on his work. Tom’s death had upset them all, but he seemed to feel it most keenly. Since they had left London Tom had become his friend, and, although he wasn’t entirely sure he liked him, a friend was a friend and you were meant to be upset when something like this happened.
He wanted to run away, as far and as fast as possible. But he knew he couldn’t. He could hardly leave the house without Mrs Hogg’s say-so, so he sat there, fidgeting with nervous energy and apprehension.
He looked over at Edward, the boy who used to be his best friend. He didn’t know what had happened. It wasn’t just Edward losing his mother, it was everything. He knew he should keep trying to do nice things for Edward, but what was the point? Edward had changed, and he had to accept it.
He looked down at his work. He couldn’t do any more writing, and he couldn’t sit here any longer. He put his hand up.
‘Miss,’ he said, trying to attract Mrs Hogg’s attention, ‘I’m hungry.’
Jean put down her knitting and looked at him over the top of her reading glasses. ‘Finish your work.’ She returned to her needles.
James put his hand up again. ‘Miss,’ he said.
Jean looked up once more, irritated this time. ‘Yes, James.’
‘I’ve finished.’
She sighed. ‘Then write it out again.’
‘But Miss Parkins lets us—’
‘Miss Parkins is not here!’ Jean slammed the knitting down on the table with such force that the rest of the class jumped. Jean seemed to regret her loss of composure, took a few seconds and gathered herself. ‘I have no concern as to what Miss Parkins lets you do. You will do as I say. Now be quiet and write it out again.’
The knitting was resumed.
James couldn’t sit still. His right foot was bouncing up and down so hard he felt it might fall off. He had an idea and stuck his hand in the air once more.
‘Miss,’ he said.
Jean was getting angry now and was about to shout at him or hand him some punishment, but he continued talking.
‘I need to go to the toilet, Miss.’
Jean sighed and shook her head. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Just go.’
Outside the room, James looked up and down the hallway. Instead of going to the toilet as she would expect him to do, he turned right and headed towards the kitchen, smiling to himself at how clever he had been.
Unaware of the dark-clothed figure watching him from the top of the stairs.
Hunt at Night …
‘What … what’s your name?’
Eve stared at the sightless eyes before her. She knew she had to get his attention, talk him round. Make him unlock the gate. She had dealt with enough children’s tantrums to know how to calm someone down. She should be able to deal with this old man.
‘My name?’ he said, as if it were a question he hadn’t been asked for years and had to think about. ‘Jacob.’
‘Jacob,’ she said. She smiled, knowing he couldn’t see it but hoping that the lift would show in her voice. ‘Hello. I’m Eve. How long have you lived here, Jacob?’
He flicked his head around as if bothered by a troublesome fly. ‘Always …’
‘I thought everyone had left the village?’
He nodded. ‘They did. I’m the last. The last …’
Eve leaned forward. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Dead.’ He spat the word out like gristle. ‘All the others are dead.’ His laugh was h
igh-pitched and unhinged. ‘But she couldn’t catch me.’ He pointed to the milky dead orbs of his eyes. ‘Born like this …’ He wiped his fingers across his eyes and didn’t blink.
‘So how did you survive, Jacob?’
He pointed to his eyes once more. ‘Because of these …’
‘Right. And how do you still survive?’
‘Hunt. At night.’ He leaned closer. She could smell the rankness of him. ‘When eyes don’t mean nothing …’
Eve breathed deeply through her mouth. ‘Jacob,’ she said, trying to appear calm and reasonable. ‘I need to go and take the children from the house. I need to keep them safe. I can’t just leave them there.’
Jacob’s face took on a thoughtful expression. He moved towards the gate. Emboldened by this, Eve continued.
‘I saw her, Jacob. That means she’s coming again, doesn’t it?’
Jacob stopped, shook his head. ‘No … no, no, no …’
‘Jacob,’ said Eve, urgency in her voice now, ‘listen to me. I promise if you let me go and get the children, take them to safety, we’ll leave and never come back.’
He let out a sound like a wounded animal. ‘Too late,’ he said, ‘too late …’
‘Please,’ said Eve, panic rising within her, ‘please, Jacob, let me go …’
Jacob lunged for the gate. His hands went straight through the bars and grabbed hold of Eve. Stunned and unable to fight back, she felt him pulling her towards him, crashing her against the metal.
‘Too late … too late …’
James thought he was being really clever. He hadn’t lied to Mrs Hogg, not really. Well, not about being hungry, that bit was true. And he probably did need to go to the toilet, just not yet. He had to get something to eat first.
He opened the door to the walk-in larder in the kitchen and stood before the shelves, deciding what to take. There wasn’t a great deal of choice, but, he thought, beggars can’t be choosers. He found a few oatcakes and stuffed them into his pocket. They were for later, when he couldn’t sleep and woke up peckish, but they wouldn’t do now. He looked for something more.
The Woman in Black Page 10
