The Old Tup was a squat, ugly little inn crouching stubbornly between much newer brick houses, having dug its heels in centuries ago and resisted the demolition men’s sledgehammers ever since. It was notorious. Its regular clientele consisted of thieves and habitual drunkards, and it seemed a very appropriate spot for Fellman, Flethick and Follyfeather, and their assorted alliterative crew, to be gathering.
It was even hotter tonight, if possible, than at any point during the last week. The Old Tup was built virtually right on top of the Fleet, and the stench was so strong tonight that the air almost hummed. The sunset blazed pink behind the city roofs, and the bricks of the nearby houses had absorbed so much of the sun’s heat today that they were warm to the touch as we pressed ourselves against them to watch from a convenient corner. “This place is popular tonight,” Nick whispered. “We’re not the only ones watching it. Word’s got about. Look!”
It took a little while, but as I scanned the street in the gathering darkness, I began to be aware of numerous peeping, dodging little faces in corners and hideyholes, gathering information about what the criminal world was up to, their eyes shining in the dark like fireflies. And it was clearer than ever, after the conversation at Fellman’s, that we, too, were being watched.
Slowly, in twos and threes, the villains gathered. They greeted one another in low monosyllables, but they said almost nothing else as they stood in the shadows, waiting. I recognized Flethick and one of the men I’d seen in his smoking den. Then Follyfeather turned up, impeccable and confident, with a man I’d never seen before. Finally, a stocky threesome strode into view, led by Fellman the papermaker. With him was a much larger man, built like a wrestler, whose face was so similar to Fellman’s that they might have been brothers; and another especially violent-looking character with a stick and a severe limp, and a withered arm held tight against his side in a short black velvet coat.
They were a very unpleasant-looking crew indeed. I couldn’t help remembering, with a tingle of fear, the words Fellman had growled while I was hiding at the mill this morning: “Boys and bosuns is easily disposed of.” Almost as soon as the last of them had arrived, they’d melted into the darkness: but they were off up the street which led to Cramplock’s shop, and to the strange house next door where I’d found the man from Calcutta’s hideout.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s go round the other way.”
Trying to be as quiet as possible unlocking the heavy front door, I let Nick into Cramplock’s and followed him inside. I was really frightened now, and I wasn’t entirely sure what we were going to do: but it seemed like we’d come too far to stop now. With Lash scampering ahead of us, we went up the stairs and into my little room. Nick’s face was solemn in the low lamplight as I showed him the cupboard with no back, and the bricks which lifted out to reveal the secret crawl hole.
“Are we going in?” he whispered.
“Not if the snake’s in there,” I said.
We stood there for a while, not moving. Eventually Nick said, “Well? Let’s find out!”
I looked at him. “I can’t move, Nick,” I said, “I’m scared.”
Nick tutted, and knelt to feel around in the hole. “This was your idea in the first place,” he said, pushing his head inside.
“Keep your voice down,” I whispered.
“Give me that lamp,” he said, holding out his arm.
Slowly, Nick crawled into the hole. All I could see were his feet disappearing inside.
“Can you see the basket?” I whispered, anxiously. I was holding onto Lash’s collar, waiting for him to start growling or barking as he sensed the snake’s presence. He sneezed a couple of times as the dust from the dislodged bricks met his nostrils, but otherwise he didn’t seem bothered. Maybe the snake wasn’t there.
Nick’s voice was muffled, sounding a terribly long way off. “There’s nothing in here.”
“Can you get out of the trapdoor?”
There was a muffled clatter, and a few moments’ silence. Then Nick came shuffling back out, backward.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, “I mean — nothing. No snake. No trapdoor. Just a big, empty house, all dust.”
What was he talking about?
“Did you hear any voices or anything?”
“Not a whisper,” he said.
I gathered my courage. The snake evidently wasn’t there, and we could take Lash in with us, if he’d come.
“After you,” I said.
Nick went first again, clutching the lamp; but as I crawled through after him, he stopped.
“Go on,” I whispered, trying to push his backside with my head.
“Hang on,” said his muffled voice, sounding irritated. There was a scraping sound as he climbed gingerly out the other side.
“Whoa,” I heard him say softly.
Something was wrong. The trapdoor was missing. The little hidey-hole wasn’t even here. All I could feel was rough, damp bricks scraping on my knees as I crawled through. Now that Nick was through the hole he wasn’t moving. He was standing, holding up the lamp, looking around. As I poked my head out, a slow creeping horror spread through me.
Nick spoke first. He was as bewildered as I was.
“This can’t be —“ he began.
I knelt in the rough brick hole, staring dumbly at the scene the lamp was illuminating before us.
Everything was gone. The walls, the floorboards, the trapdoor, the snake basket, the pedestal with its elephant statue. The stairs. The house was an empty, burnt-out shell. Blackened beams stretched out into the gloom ahead of us. Dust floated thickly in the yellow lamplight. Nick was standing gingerly on a thick plank which had once supported the floorboards of the rooms upstairs; now there were great yawning gaps through which we would fall twenty feet to the ground below if he took one false step. Above us, the ceilings had gone too. Nick lifted the lamp to light up a huge empty roof space, the wooden supports again apparently charred by fire. Everything was rotten and abandoned, just as it had been when I’d been in here that time years ago.
“This isn’t what I expected,” Nick was saying.
“I can’t believe my eyes,” I said, my voice trembling.
He handed the lamp back to me and shuffled slowly along the plank, his arms held out to steady himself. What if the beam was rotten?
“Nick, don’t,” I said.
Halfway across the beam, he stopped, hovering, like an apparition, in midair, in the middle of the giant empty space.
“Come back,” I urged him.
He was agile, but the lamp was tipping him off balance a bit, and he wobbled alarmingly as he stepped back along the plank toward me.
“I thought you said —“ he began.
“Nick, I can’t understand this. This isn’t how it was. I don’t think this can be the right house.”
“What do you mean, not the right house? Where else could we have ended up, climbing through the cupboard wall?”
“I don’t know,” I said, terrified, “but this isn’t what it was like, Nick. It was properly paneled, with strong new floors, all polished. Like there was someone really living here. And there was a statue of an elephant with — Nick, it’s all gone! Like it was never here at all.”
My head was swimming with confusion. Had I dreamt everything the other night? I remembered the details of the house with the utmost clarity. How could I have gotten it wrong? Had I been in a completely different house? But there could be no mistake. Hiding from the snake-man that night, I’d fallen through the same hole in the wall we’d just climbed through.
There was a sudden dry clatter from the back of the house, like a gate banging. In the shock of the last few moments I’d forgotten about the villains.
“It’s them,” I said, in a panic, grabbing Nick’s sleeve.
“Watch it!” he hissed. “You’ll push me off!”
We listened. There seemed to be no further sounds. They were biding their time, lurking at the back of the house, discussing their strategy, perhaps.
“But what have they come looking for?” Nick asked in a whisper. “I don’t understand. The house is completely bare.”
“I know,” I said, “everything is gone. But it was here, the other day. I can’t quite believe it, but I think the man from Calcutta must have just scarpered, and taken everything with him. It’s the only explanation.”
I knew it didn’t make sense. He couldn’t possibly have stripped out all those floorboards, that staircase, those panels, not to mention the heavy and conspicuous elephant statue, in the two short days since I’d last stood there. So had the house been burnt up in another fire since then? And, if it had, how could I not have known about it?
I sat in the hole in the bricks, with my legs dangling through, watching Nick as he moved. Quickly and acrobatically, he dropped to the floor below, with a barely audible thud. There was a sudden scrabbling and rustling as the floor around him cleared of rats. Then, for a few moments, he was gone into the shadows, and I couldn’t see him; until the lamplight picked up his movement again, over by the opposite wall. He’d done this a thousand times before: sizing up an unfamiliar house in the dark, looking for possible escape routes. I could see him looking out through a filthy old window onto the garden.
“Can you see anything?” I whispered down to him.
“Not really. It’s too dark. But they’ll see your lamp, Mog. Put it out, and come down.”
“I can’t climb down there,” I whispered.
“Yes you can. I’ll catch you. But leave the lamp.”
“What about Lash?”
“He’ll stay where he is, won’t he? Tell him to stay.”
I couldn’t think of any more excuses. Resignedly, I leaned back into the hole and reached out for Lash, waiting patiently on the other side of the wall. His muzzle met my fingers in no time and started licking them.
“Stay,” I told him, “I won’t be long, old boy. Stay there. Lie down. Good dog.”
As I stood up, I clutched one of the bricks to steady myself, and it came away in my hand with a sharp scraping sound, making me teeter and flail in thin air for a few seconds before I stuck out a foot to stop myself falling. By a miracle, my foot made contact with the beam; but the brick plummeted ten feet to the floor, landing with a clatter near Nick’s feet; and as I tried to steady myself, I also lost my grip on the lamp. I think I screamed as it fell with a loud smash, missing Nick by inches; and then I screamed again, much more loudly, as it immediately burst into flames, sending a sheet of bright fire licking up the walls, lighting up the entire cavernous interior of the house.
Things happened too quickly now for me to remember them very clearly. I remember being terrified, gripping the beam, trying to lower myself toward Nick’s outstretched hands without getting burnt. I remember looking down into his grim face as he grabbed my ankles, and a jarring pain in my knee as we both collapsed awkwardly to the floor.
And I remember a sudden burst of activity at the back door, as whoever was out there heard the noise, and saw the light of the fire, and started trying to break the door down to get inside. Any moment now it was going to give way, and we’d be caught. I was too frightened to say or do anything.
Nick’s face was frightened and black with filth, his eyes darting around for a means of escape. There was another door, leading out onto the street; but to get there we’d have to run through the rising flames. Some of the dry timbers and bundles of old paper which littered the floor had begun to catch fire, and the house was filling with smoke. For long, agonizing seconds, we both stood looking at one another’s black serious eyes, not moving a muscle.
“Chimney,” whispered Nick suddenly, and ducked past me to investigate the huge dark fireplace, which I hadn’t even noticed.
“Nick, we’ve got to get out,” I said, panic-stricken, as I watched him leaning into the grate to peer up the chimney. “We’ll be suffocated — burnt up. Can’t we make it to the front door?”
“We haven’t’ got time,” he shouted. “Over here! Quick!”
I scrambled over the uneven floor, away from the rising flames, to join him by the fireplace. The hearth was broken, and the stone surround burnt and disfigured, but as he stuck his head up into the cavity Nick could see it was easily broad enough for a child to climb into.
“Follow me,” he said. “I think there’s room up here. We’ll have to stay still.”
“Don’t worry,” I muttered, pushing him from below as he heaved himself up the chimney. I knew the flimsy wooden door wasn’t going to prove to be an obstacle for long.
And it didn’t. I’d only just scrabbled my way up into the pitch black hole, grazing my elbow on the sooty bricks as Nick pulled me up by the forearm, when I heard the door fly open and determined footsteps enter the house. I didn’t have a very good foothold, and my feet were sending quiet showers of soot cascading down into the fireplace. Looking up, I could see nothing — not even Nick. The chimney was narrow, and seemed to get narrower as it got higher. I could feel years of filth filling my hair and trickling in a gritty stream down my neck.
There was more than one man in the house now. I could hear clattering sounds and voices from below, though I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. I was convinced we were going to suffocate up here; if the fire took hold beneath us we were completely trapped, because the only way out was up. As though he’d read my mind, Nick began moving his feet, looking for footholds so he could wriggle further up into the chimney. He was standing on my fingers. What are you doing, you idiot, I wanted to scream … but I didn’t dare make a sound.
Below us there were several sets of footsteps clomping on the echoing floor; trying to stamp out the fire, maybe. But there were also shouts, and now there came gasps of what sounded like pain. It came like a rhythm: a thud, immediately below me, no more than a few feet away from the fireplace — followed by a groan of anguish. Another thud — another groan. Someone was being beaten up.
Soot was still trickling down on top of me, dislodged by Nick’s movements, and it was filling my mouth now, too, coating my tongue like foul sand. I was feeling so dizzy I was sure I couldn’t hold on much longer.
The thuds seemed to stop. Nick had stopped moving and we hung there, in the airless darkness, clinging on for dear life. Had the men gone? I was no longer really aware of anything except my own discomfort and inability to breathe. I was going to die. We were both going to suffocate. I reached up in a panic for Nick’s ankle.
But I couldn’t find it, and my fingers couldn’t find their handhold again, and anyway I no longer had the strength to hold on. I slid painfully down the filthy bricks, falling rapidly, plunging out into the fireplace amid a rainstorm of black dirt.
I had to hold my fists against my eyes because they were hurting, grit-filled, impossible to open without pain. After a few seconds I realized I could feel something soft and wet around my face; and as I reached up to investigate I found the unmistakable shape of Lash’s head and the cold dampness of his nose. He was whimpering slightly with pleasure and relief at having found me.
“Lash!” I whispered, thrilled. “How did you get down here?”
I could hardly believe it, but there seemed to be no one else there to greet me; no gleeful villains closing in to wring my neck. And there was, I realized, no fire. The men must have put it out before it took proper hold.
In a second Nick had slithered down too, and was whispering into my ear in the darkness. “Are you all right? What happened?”
I coughed, as quietly as I could.
“Don’t worry,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I don’t think I’m hurt.”
“I thought someone had pulled you from underneath,” said Nick. Then, with sudden surprise, as he felt a damp muzzle in his palm: “Lash?”
“He was here waiting for us,” I said. “He must have escaped. Did you chase the nasty men away, Lash old boy? Good dog!”
Nick stood up. There was silence in the house. Dust and soot were billowing around us. It was pitch dark now, the crazy shadows and leaping yellow light of the oil-fire killed.
“They’ve gone.”
We stood, listening, for a long time, just to be sure. As our eyes got used to the darkness we could make out the back door, wide open; moonlight coming in between the thick foliage of the trees outside and through the panes of the grimy windows.
“It sounded as though they were killing each other,” I whispered, still blinking to clear the soot from my eyes.
Nick crouched down to examine something by his feet. He reached out a hand and dabbed it on the ground.
“Look,” he said.
His hand had come up wet. He showed it to me, doing his best to keep it away from Lash’s sniffing nose; but there really wasn’t enough light to see, and it was only by the smell that I, too, could identify what he’d found.
“Blood,” I said, scared.
Nick said nothing.
“Do you think they got him?” I asked. “They’ve killed somebody, haven’t they, Nick? Do you think it was Damyata?”
He was still silent. At first I thought he hadn’t heard me.
“I said do you think — “
“Did you say Damyata?” he interrupted me, in a quiet voice.
“Yes. Do you think it — “
He leaned forward and took me by the shoulders. “What do you mean, Damyata? Where did you get that from?” He was still speaking very quietly, but there was an urgency in his voice which was almost anger, as though I’d said something to hurt him. His breath was in my face. I was confused. I’d obviously never mentioned the name to Nick before, but I couldn’t understand why it made him so upset.
“The man from Calcutta,” I said.
“What makes you say Damyata?” He was insistent, barely restraining himself. I could feel his hands trembling as they held me by the tops of my arms. Something I had said had shocked him, and I didn’t know why.
“Because that’s his name, I think,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t — I don’t, really, it’s just a guess. I heard — I heard somebody say it.”
“I fear,” Nick said, after a long sigh, “it will not be possible to reach Damyata now.”
Now it was my turn to freeze. Where had I heard that before?
“I can say no more, and I am feeling weak,” said Nick. “Please God this letter reaches you.”
At first I thought he must have hit his head as he came down the chimney. It was as though someone else were speaking, but using Nick’s voice. He was still holding my shoulders, but he’d relaxed his grip; he seemed to have gone into a kind of trance. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as he continued to talk. I didn’t like this. I clutched Lash’s neck tighter. “Nick,” I pleaded.
“And that you do not think too ill of me to grant some mercy to the gentle, perfect creatures who accompany it,” Nick was saying, refusing to be interrupted. He seemed to be talking complete nonsense, and yet there was something familiar about the words. “My dear, Good-bye, and with all the remaining life in my body, I thank you. Your undeserving Imogen.”
“Nick!” I said, in a panic, “Stop it! What are you talking about?” I was really frightened now, and the mention of my own name sent a shiver through my entire soul. It was this house. He was possessed by the man from Calcutta’s magic.
“Nick!” I said again.
There was what seemed an interminable silence before he lifted his head to peer into my face. “You don’t know what that is, do you?” he said.
“I — I’ve heard it before,” I stammered. I was trembling. I wanted him to tell me what was happening.
“That’s my mother’s letter,” he said. “The only thing I’ve got from her. My mother’s letter, Mog. I’ve had it my whole life, and I know pretty much every word of it, but I’ve never heard anybody else say the word Damyata before.”
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“I’ve never known,” he said. “And I still don’t. Why did you call the man from Calcutta Damyata?”
My head was swimming. I didn’t know. I’d seen the name, heard the name … “It will serve Damyata right,” I said, dredging my memory. “Coben said it — at the inn the other night. And I’ve read it. And I’ve read the words you just said.” Many of the things which had happened in the last few days had seemed unreal, but none of them quite as unreal as this. Somehow, this was the strangest, most inexplicable, most awful moment of all.
But now I felt Lash stiffen, and sure enough there came the low sound of voices from the garden again. Nick sprang to his feet. “Mog!” he said in a clenched whisper, “my Pa!”
I joined him at the window, holding tight to Lash to stop him from growling and giving us away. Dark figures were running through the back garden and out into the lane. The branches of the willow flailed as two men wrestled with one another beneath it.
Another fight — or the same one, still going on. We stood transfixed as they rolled into a shaft of moonlight lancing between the neighboring houses. On the grass, the bosun knelt over his opponent and delivered a short series of powerful blows with his fist. There was no more sound from the house or the garden; and after a few seconds the bosun stood up, a silhouette, a purposeful and terrifying bulk.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I whispered, pulling Nick away from the window. “Let’s try the door at the front, come on.”
In the darkness we half-fell over the loose bricks and fallen, blackened timbers in our desperation to be out. The front door was heavy, and hard to open because there was so much rubble piled up against it. After we’d kicked the trash out of the way we managed to pull it open just far enough to launch ourselves through: me first, Nick behind.
“Come on!” I remember saying, before hurling myself down the steps and tumbling onto the dirty cobbles below, Lash’s grubby shaggy limbs getting mixed up with mine as we sprawled on the ground.
Out here in the street, everything seemed strangely quiet, and completely still, as though oblivious of the violent activity at the back of the mysterious house. My blood was pounding in my ears, and I felt around for Nick’s hand to drag him off up the street to safety.
My arms flailed around in thin air. “Nick!” I whispered.
There was only myself and Lash in the street.
I stood up. Above me, at the top of the steps, the door of the house slowly creaked shut. A dreadful silence was coming from inside: a silence of death and shock which seemed to infect the night air all around. Nick hadn’t come out. I stared up at the huge dark door and knew I had to go back inside. I began to feel my legs giving way, and I clutched at the railing in front of the house.
It was all too obvious what had happened. Nick had been intercepted, a familiar pair of tough seaman’s hands wrapping themselves around his sides like iron clamps as he’d tried to follow me through the gap in the door. He had been so close. I went back up the stairs and tried to push the door open; but it was shut tight, the rubble kicked back hard against it to stop anyone coming in. Desperately, I ran, with Lash beside me, down the street and down the back lane towards the back of the house. I no longer cared who we met; I had no thought for my own peril in the face of the bosun. My only concern was to find Nick. Emerging at the end of the lane, I was just in time to see the gate swinging shut at the back of the overgrown garden, and beyond it the bosun bundling Nick into a waiting cab, which moved off with a shudder like the throes of death.
The house and garden were deserted. The little back door gaped open. Beneath the tree a man lay motionless.
My whole life seemed to sink through the soles of my feet and drain away into the earth. To let Nick be caught by the bosun, after all this! It was no use chasing the cab: it was almost out of sight already, and my body felt so weak it refused to move fast enough, or move at all. I sank against the wall, clutching at Lash to bring him close. It was all over. It was all hopeless. All the help Nick had given me in my crazy, fruitless chasings, and how did I repay him? I remembered how I’d had to persuade him, time and again, that the adventure was worth the risk. And now we’d blundered into a chaos of violence — of murder — all against Nick’s will. He’d been right all along, and I’d been stupid and childish and reckless, and now the villains had escaped, and he’d been seized by his father, and heaven only knew what his father might do to him now.
The conversation we’d had before I escaped from the house was still ringing in my head. Nick had frightened me; but somehow I suddenly felt closer to him than I ever had. Something had changed: and the mysterious words he’d spoken about Damyata and Imogen haunted me, as though they mattered more than anything we’d yet encountered together. Furthermore, Nick himself seemed to matter. And, for all I knew now, I’d lost him.
Big wet blotches of black soot like paint covered my hands as I cried. I buried my face in Lash’s neck; my sobs broke the awful silence, and it was a relief. Somewhere nearby, a window sash rattled. Lash lapped dutifully and cheerfully at my salty, sooty face; but never, in all the years I could remember, had I felt so helpless.
I was about to test my legs to see if they’d let me stand up, when somebody grabbed me from behind. Instinctively, I lashed out; but an arm folded itself around my face and I was pulled back into an immobilizing wrestler’s hold. “Shut it. Don’t scream,” said a quiet voice in my ear as I was dragged backwards into the garden, “don’t make a sound.”