Strangeways to Oldham

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Was the house locked up yesterday, Beauchamp?’ asked Lady Amanda, timidly.

  ‘It was, indeed, my lady,’ Beauchamp assured her.

  ‘Then how the dickens did he get in to leave a note under my bedclothes?’ she asked, less timidly, and in a more accusatory tone.

  ‘I have no idea, my lady, but I shall do my utmost to ensure that there is no way into Belchester Towers this night.’

  Like a ‘B’ movie horror, there was a flicker of lightning, and an almighty crash of thunder, and the rain started to pelt down with a real vengeance.

  ‘Oh, good grief!’ shrieked Lady Amanda, Hugo was seen visibly to jump in his chair, and even Beauchamp raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  ‘Beauchamp, would you be so kind as to make up a bed for me in the room next to Hugo’s? I’m feeling rather nervous tonight, and don’t consider that my bedroom is a good place to spend the night. After all, he knows where I usually sleep. He evidently had no trouble finding my room to place that note, and I don’t want to spend tonight in the same room – just in case,’ she ended rather lamely.

  ‘No sooner said, than done, my lady,’ confirmed Beauchamp, and left the room, forgetting, in his genuine concern for her safety, to whisper ‘Beecham’.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The storm worsened, and the wind howled in the multitude of chimneys in the old house, and bent the trees in the grounds, in its strength. It soughed in the eaves, and blew hitherto undisturbed detritus into new life, sending it wheeling and spinning across the lawns like the phantoms of discarded lives.

  Thunder rolled round the sky, a tympanic accompaniment to the lightning, providing one of nature’s most spectacular examples of son et lumière, out-performing anything that man, in his humble place in the great scheme of planetary life, could imitate.

  Rain bounced from the ground, to make a second impact a fraction of a second later, and plants were battered by its bullet-like impacts. This was no night to be out and about, for either human or animal. The weather waged a war with the area, its power unchallengeable, its dominance supreme.

  Beauchamp systematically did his rounds of all the means of ingress, carefully locking that which was unfastened, and checking that which was already locked. The care with which he disposed of this duty was witness to the anxiety that he was suffering. A man not easily ruffled, his feathers were well and truly fluffed up tonight.

  Unfazed by many an event that would have left lesser mortals trembling, he found himself to be strangely unsettled by the silent telephone calls, and even more alarmed by that received by Lady Amanda, when examined together with the note, that had mysteriously appeared in his employer’s bed, the previous night.

  This task completed to his satisfaction, he adjourned to the kitchen to make a cup of cocoa for them all. Cocoa was the ultimate comfort, at bedtime, especially when one was feeling a little ill at ease. As he approached the drawing room with his tray, the telephone rang again, and Lady Amanda appeared in the hall, to answer its urgent summons.

  He halted to listen to what would happen, and observed her listening in silence, a look of undiluted horror spreading across her face. Then she repeated ‘hello’ thrice over, before taking the receiver from her ear and staring at it suspiciously, and reaching down to press repeatedly on the connection bar, in the manner of someone in the past, trying to attract the attention of the old-fashioned operator service, which used to be the only way to get a call put through.

  ‘Is everything all right, my lady?’ he asked, putting down the tray on a half-moon hall table.

  Without a word, she held out the receiver in offering, and he took it from her and put it to his own ear. Silence! That’s all there was. No dial tone. No furtive breathing. Either the storm had brought down the lines, or they had had their telephone line deliberately cut.

  ‘Did he say anything, my lady?’ enquired Beauchamp.

  ‘He – he – he said he could see my house,’ she told him, her voice breaking up with fear.

  ‘He s-said he could see m-my h-house, and soon he’d b-be able to s-see me,’ she informed her intrepid manservant.

  Not wishing to alarm Lady Amanda any further, he handed back the receiver, and reassured her that it was probably just a crank, or a crossed line, and the breakage that occurred was, no doubt, due to damage caused by the storm, which was still raging round the countryside. ‘Come on back to the dining room, and forget all about it, my lady,’ he encouraged her. ‘I have a tray of cocoa here, to relax you before you go to bed.’

  But Beauchamp was worried. Damned worried!

  As Lady Amanda and Hugo repaired to their separate rooms, she asked Hugo if he would mind if she left the adjoining door open for the night. She explained that it would make her feel safer, to know that he would hear her if anything befell her, and she, him. Hugo raised no objection, feeling that, if he should need assistance in the night, it would be easier to rouse her without a sixty-pound lump of oak muffling his voice, and creating a physical barrier between them.

  Both of them lay in their separate beds, listening to the ravages of the storm, neither of them in the least inclined to go to sleep, each taunted by worries about their own safety, and that of the other. Beauchamp was an admirable chap, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and the chances of him being anywhere in the vicinity of their adjoining rooms, should anything untoward occur, were slight indeed.

  So, neither of them actively sought sleep, but it hunted them down, and gradually overcame their worries and fears, as it does most nights of one’s life. By one o’clock, they were both sleeping peacefully, the only sounds in that part of the house, apart from the storm, being the creaking of old wood, and the steady ‘tick-tock’ of the long-case clock in the hall, the sound of which had always been particularly penetrating.

  At about three o’clock, Lady Amanda suddenly awoke, every nerve in her body tingling, with the absolute certainty that she had been awoken by an alien sound, somewhere within the house. Sitting up cautiously, she strained her ears to listen, and there it was again. There was someone in the cellars. She knew Beauchamp wouldn’t be so insensitive as to do something like that, considering the state their nerves were in. They had an intruder. Again!

  As quietly as she could, she got out of bed, and crept into Hugo’s room. He was lying on his back, snoring gently, as a gentleman should. Approaching his inert body, she shook him gently by the shoulder to wake him.

  She shook him again, rather more vigorously this time, and still he did not stir. In one final effort, she put one hand over his mouth, and pinched his nostrils together with her other hand. That always worked, and it proved so in this case, as she had known it would. The feeling of being suffocated was a great aid in waking oneself up.

  ‘Whaaa …!’ gasped Hugo, struggling for breath, and gazing wild-eyed about him, to discover the cause of his discomfort. He had left the curtains undrawn, and was able, instantly, to recognise Lady Amanda’s figure, standing at the bedside.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked abruptly, cross about having his repose disturbed.

  ‘Shh!’ she admonished him. ‘I can hear someone in the cellars. We’ve got to hide.’

  ‘Are you mad, Manda?’ he hissed.

  ‘Certainly not! But I am sure that what I’ve heard, twice now, was someone skulking about in the cellars. We’ve got to get out of here.’

  ‘Where do you suggest we go?’ Hugo was still not quite with it.

  ‘Up, Hugo. Up! I’m not sure whether Beauchamp’s on patrol, or fast asleep. All I know is that we’ve got to find somewhere to hide, before he finds us and does us harm. Come on, get out of bed and follow me.’ Unused to having such a new-fangled gadget as a telephone, she often forgot its existence.

  With great reluctance, Hugo rose from his bed and put on his slippers but, as he reached for his dressing gown, Lady Amanda’s voice hissed, ‘We haven’t got time for that, nor for hats, scarves, comforters or gloves. Come on, Hugo. We’ve got to get out of here no
w!’ and clutching only her handbag, she dragged him out into the hall, and headed for the staircase.

  ‘I can’t get upstairs that way,’ Hugo whispered urgently. ‘I’m not steady enough on my pins.’

  ‘The lift then!’ she decided.

  ‘He’ll hear us.’

  ‘Yes, but if he’s in the cellars, it’ll take him some time to get to the hall, and we’ll have hidden ourselves by then and, with any luck, the sound of the lift will have woken Beauchamp, and he’ll be able to rush to our aid.’

  A tremendous crash of thunder, like the crack of doom, broke above the estate, virtually simultaneously with its accompanying vivid flash of lightning, and the two of them scampered for the lift, as quickly as age and infirmity would allow.

  As they waddled towards it, full steam ahead, Hugo hissed, ‘If Beauchamp can hear us, so can he. He’ll guess where we’ve gone, and come after us.’

  ‘There are acres of space up there. Two more floors, and then the attics,’ she hissed back, dragging him into the tiny cage of the lift, and closing the doors as quietly as she could. ‘This thing only goes up to the first floor, as you know, but it’ll give us a head start. I’ll leave the cage doors open at the top, then he can’t follow us. He’ll probably go straight to my bedroom first, as he knows where it is.’

  ‘If he follows us on foot, he’ll be much quicker than if he uses this thing,’ opined Hugo mournfully.

  ‘Don’t be so negative. If we’re up against the wall, we fight, Hugo – like animals, if necessary. Now shut up, and save your breath for escape!’

  The ascension of the lift was grindingly, painfully, slow, as well as noisy, exaggerating their anxiety and fear, rather than calming them with the fact that they were already in flight, and hadn’t been caught, literally, napping. Sounds, as of someone making a bit of a din in the cellars, made their way up the shaft of the lift, further unsettling them.

  At the top, Hugo, in his haste, accidentally pressed the ‘down’ button again, and it was only the quick-witted action of Lady Amanda, that stopped them arriving back at the point where their flight had started.

  Exiting the unsettling little metal cage on the first floor, Lady Amanda espied Hugo’s Zimmer frame, and hissed a question at him. ‘What’s that thing doing up here?’ she asked.

  ‘I brought it up in case I fancied a bit of exploration, ferreting around, that sort of thing. I could get to the lift downstairs, but thought I might wear myself out a bit up here, and would need it before I came down again.’

  ‘Just shut up and grab it, NOW, then follow me down this corridor. We’ve got to be quick. He’s much faster than us, and we’ve lost some of our head start because of that silly stunt of yours, with the lift.’

  ‘It wasn’t a stunt! It was a simple mistake. Sometimes you can be very judgemental, Manda,’ hissed Hugo.

  ‘Save your breath for fleeing, old stick. Come on, just a little faster.’

  Hugo propelled his walker as fast as he could, but could not keep up the speed that Lady Amanda set. Eventually, she went back to where he was, opened a door, and pushed him inside a cupboard, casting his walking frame aside, and pressing her handbag on him, as she did so.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s the linen press for you, Hugo old boy,’ she informed him, as she manhandled him inside the cupboard. ‘They took the shelves out years ago, so there’s loads of room. You shouldn’t be too squashed. Just stay there nice and quietly until either Beauchamp or I come to fetch you out again. I can get on faster on my own.’

  With that, she slammed the door on the highly confused Hugo, and made her way as fast as she could manage, up the staircase to the second floor, this one a little less grand than that from the ground floor to the first.

  From there, she supposed she would have to head for the attics, but, for now, she just had ambitions of reaching the next floor. One step at a time was how to achieve anything important. Try to tackle too many things at once and you scuppered your own efforts, and played right into your enemies’ hands. She’d learnt that at school. During lacrosse practice!

  Meanwhile, Hugo had found himself an old packing case to sit on, located by touch alone, and had settled himself to explore Lady A’s handbag. He knew she normally carried a little torch in there, and thought that it might be comforting, just to have a little light in his hidey-hole.

  Having located the torch, he used its small light (for its head was only half an inch in diameter) to locate a bag of mint imperials, and popped one into his mouth, to keep body and soul together, until someone turned up to tell him that the hue and cry was over, and it was safe for him to come out, and go back to bed again.

  He decided to leave further investigations of the gargantuan handbag for his later entertainment, and sat, torch switched off, sucking his peppermint, perfectly content with life, provided it didn’t involve him getting caught up in any actual fisticuffs.

  From downstairs, there came a crash, and the sound of muffled swearing. Hugo immediately had a mental picture of the wheelchair that had been delivered for him, and the fact that he had left it just outside the door to the cellar steps. Whoever the intruder was, he must have come up from the cellar and run into it, not expecting something like that to be right across a doorway.

  An enormous brattle of thunder sounded, the sliver of light at the foot of the cupboard door flickered, then was extinguished. The storm must have knocked out the electricity supply. That was in Manda’s favour, he decided, as she had lived here all her life, and knew this house like the back of her hand.

  A noise outside his hideaway implied that Foster, if that is who it was, was tackling the stairs to the first floor with some speed, and heading towards the cupboard. Hugo steeled himself for discovery, but instead, heard a howl of rage, as their pursuer had presumably got himself entangled with Hugo’s walking frame now. He must not have noticed it, in the sudden lack of electrical lighting.

  A similar crash became audible from the second floor, and the sound of someone swearing loudly and robustly. Golly, he thought, Manda must be terrified out of her mind, if she’s cussing like that.

  Whoever was outside the door of Hugo’s temporary housing must have heard it too, for there were sounds of someone picking themselves up, and stamping towards the staircase to the second floor. He was on his way to get her, and there was no way Hugo could warn her of his approach.

  Sunk in misery, he opened the handbag once again, more as something to occupy his mind, as sitting doing nothing would drive him to despair. What was that, down in the corner? Hugo scrabbled down to the bottom of the handbag, on a voyage of discovery.

  Upstairs, on the second floor, Lady Amanda had got herself into a tangle with a clothes rail filled with old wire coat-hangers, the sudden loss of light having caused her to make this unfortunate collision. As she wrestled with the wretched things now, she could hear someone charging up the stairs towards the ballroom, where she was currently trying to untangle herself.

  As she finally pulled herself free, there was a vivid explosion of light from outside, clearly showing her, standing at the far side of the vast space, and illuminating a crouched figure at the other end, apparently getting his bearings.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she was off again, heading for a small, semi-concealed door behind which was the tiny, narrow staircase to the attics. Grabbing a chair that stood forlornly by itself, just this side of the door, she manhandled it through the small opening with her, and jammed it against the wooden door, which opened inwards on to the stairs. That should hold him for long enough for her to get herself hidden.

  The attics of Belchester Towers had not been cleared since the house had been built, and consisted of a vast network of inter-connected spaces, housing all manner of discarded furniture, clothing, and general junk. Packing cases were strewn everywhere, a trap for the unwary, and old garments, once special, were suspended on hangers from beams, to wrap themselves round the heads of those who did not observe where they were going.

/>   Lady Amanda knew exactly where she was going, and ducked and wove her way through the maze of detritus like an expert. Little had been added since she used to play up here as a child, and she knew her way through the labyrinth from long experience.

  She and her friends used to play hide-and-seek in these attics when she was a youngster, and she knew some of the best places to conceal herself, where even her parents would not have discovered her should they have searched.

  As she took herself to a cramped space in the middle of a collection of old tea-chests, she pulled down a curtain that hung from a beam, and draped it over her entire body. On one side of her was a suit of armour that would make a marvellous weapon, should her pursuer find her.

  The wind up here was considerable, blowing in through the eaves as it did, and she almost didn’t hear the sound of sirens wailing their way up the drive. Suddenly there was hope again, and she remembered, with triumph, that she had left her mobile phone in her handbag. Either Hugo had found it, and summoned help, or Beauchamp had become aware of the intruder, and alerted the authorities. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter now, for help was on its way.

  Suddenly she felt her bowels clench with fear again. Help might be arriving, but would it be in time to save her? Foster was out to get her, and she couldn’t see him mildly surrendering himself, just because the police were outside. After all, he still had time to complete his mission, and goodness knows what story he’d come up with, but it would no doubt be a plausible one.

  There was a kicking and scraping noise from the bottom of the little staircase, and she knew he was at the foot of the stairs, and hadn’t passed by the door without noticing it, and realising its significance.

  She heard the sound of wood giving way. That would be the old chair. It would never have made a successful barrier, but it must have been older than she thought. She had considered that it would last a little longer than it evidently had.

  There they were now, footsteps on the staircase, leading right to her place of concealment. The steps, however, were slow, and she imagined him savouring his moment of victory, approaching it at a pace that would allow him maximum enjoyment, at her discovery.