‘YOU’VE JUST HAD a fright, love. Here, have a biscuit.’
Ashley looked at the plate of Jammie Dodgers Melva was offering and shook her head. Melva and Ashley were in a small office room off the main foyer, full of filing cabinets and partly taken up with a large cherrywood desk covered with paper. Ashley sat in the big leather swivel chair, and Malory stood close by, looking concerned. There were no windows in the small room, just the light from a desk lamp, and in it Malory looked too much like her mother Biddy. I could almost be back there, thought Ashley. In a minute, Malory will give me a hot cup of tea with whisky in it, and then they’ ll make me go back to the dorm, and the whole thing will start over again.
‘Have you found Penny yet?’
Malory looked away and pushed a strand of black hair behind her ear. ‘No.’
‘Christ, Malory, that child is in your care! How can you not know where she is? Have you checked her room?’
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Ashie, but this’ – Malory gestured sharply to the room, taking in Red Rigg House and the Moon Market as a whole – ‘this has all been a total shit show. Half the guests haven’t arrived, half the talent want to leave, and my guest of honour had a meltdown in the middle of her big comeback.’
‘I beg your fucking pardon?’
‘Ladies, please.’ Melva held up her hands. ‘Tearing each other to bits won’t help.’
‘My point,’ Malory continued, losing some of her sarcasm, ‘is that I’ve been rushed off my feet, and Penny is practically an adult, not some snot-nosed toddler. She’s probably hiding out somewhere with her phone, like all teenagers.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Ashley shivered. All her life, she had sought out the cold, but the cold she had experienced outside Red Rigg House was something else. It was cruel, and it had teeth. It meant her harm. The bone-white shape of Red Rigg Fell rose for a moment in her mind’s eye. ‘There was a doll on my bed, and I found more of them in Richard’s room. Malory, I think your brother—’
‘Dolls? What on earth are you talking about?’ Malory turned to Melva. ‘Perhaps we should find her something stronger to drink.’
‘The dolls, the changeling dolls. Melva, remember I asked you about them? And I told you that whoever was killing those children was sending these twisted wooden replicas of babies to the parents?’
Melva sighed. ‘Aye, I remember that piece of nonsense, yes.’
‘Richard has several in his room! And now Penny has gone missing.’ Ashley lurched to her feet. ‘If you’re not going to do anything, I will bloody find her myself.’
She took a teetering step forward, her legs wobbling. Melva grabbed her arm with her big butcher’s hands.
‘Take it easy, Ashley. You’re not quite up to scratch yet.’
‘Are you accusing my brother of something?’
Ashley turned to look at her friend, caught by the tone of her voice. She wasn’t angry, nor surprised; instead there was a thick coating of dread there, as though she’d been waiting to say the words for a long time.
‘Mal, Richard isn’t a good guy. I think you know that.’
Malory smiled lopsidedly. She looked pale, with an almost greenish cast to her skin.
‘I know it better than anyone,’ she said. ‘But this? Killing children? That’s something else. He wouldn’t have the stomach for it.’
The shadows next to Malory deepened, and a smeared dusty face appeared, like a smudge of white paint left by a thumb. The Heedful One came forward until it was almost resting its chin on Malory’s shoulder. Ashley suppressed another shiver.
‘Can you be sure of that?’ she said instead. At that moment, there was a knock at the door, and without waiting to be asked, Aidan stepped inside.
‘There you are!’ He glared at Ashley. ‘I’ve been looking all over. You know you have more one-to-ones booked in before dinner?’
‘Fuck the one-to-ones,’ said Ashley, with feeling.
‘What?’
‘Aidan, love, I think you’ll have to tell them she’ll do them tomorrow,’ said Melva. ‘Or I’ll do them, if they’ll take me. Your sister is in no fit state.’
‘Do they even still want to have their palms read?’ Ashley wasn’t quite able to keep the acid from her voice. ‘Now that they know what a fraud I am.’
‘What are you even doing here?’ Aidan directed this at Melva, frowning slightly.
‘I thought you might all be in a spot of trouble up here, what with the weather, so I came to lend a hand.’ Melva stepped past Ashley and scooted Aidan back towards the door. ‘Now. Malory and Ashley are going to go and look for Richard, or Penny, whoever turns up first, and you and I, Aidan, are going to see what we can do about these customers needing the veils pierced for them and so on.’
‘Hold on.’ Ashley grabbed her brother’s sleeve. ‘Do you have a phone signal?’
‘Nope. Nothing since the snow really started to kick off.’
‘Shit.’
* * *
When they were gone, Ashley and Malory headed up to the first floor, a painful silence hovering between them. They reached Richard’s room, and Malory threw open the door; inside, the floor was clear, with no sign of the changeling dolls. Ashley stared at the blank space, mortified.
‘He must have moved them.’
When Malory didn’t reply, Ashley raised her voice. ‘I’m not making this up, Malory.’
Her friend turned to her. ‘We always knew there was a chance that coming back here would bring things up for you, Ashie. You’ve been so brave, and so resilient, but I think maybe it’s time you had a rest. Investigating those awful murders, hanging around with that American, coming back here, and then Dean bloody Underwood turning up in the middle of the night. It’s all been too much.’
The hallway lights flickered. Outside, the wind was barrelling against the walls like it wanted to get in.
‘Fine. If you won’t believe me, come to my room then. The changeling doll should still be there. We have to call the police, Malory – if nothing else, they need to know that there are more of these things around. It’s evidence.’
‘Certainly.’ Malory closed the door to Richard’s room. ‘If the house is still standing by the time we get there.’
* * *
Ashley half expected the doll to be gone – it would probably be easier if she were imagining everything after all. But when she flicked the light switch, it was still there, dark and obscene in the middle of her sheets. It occurred to her that she did not want to sleep there tonight.
‘Oh my God,’ said Malory. Her hands flew up to her face, fluttering like wings. ‘What is that thing?’
‘I told you.’ Ashley pushed her hair behind her ears. She realised that she hadn’t told Freddie about the changeling doll left on her bed, and that was like an extra kick in the gut; they had been partners in crime detection, and now they were nothing. Worse than nothing. She was an idiot, and he was a jerk. ‘Listen, does Richard have any places around the house that he considers particularly his own? Apart from his room?’
‘All right. Okay.’ Malory pushed her fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face. Her eyes were glittering, filled with tears. ‘Oh God, okay. Look, this place has the most ridiculous cellar you’ve ever seen. Honestly, it’s like another house down there, and he was always very partial to it. Part of it is used for storage now, but there’s also a big section that I have barely looked at in years, not since Mummy passed away. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to look there.’
‘Great, good.’ Ashley took a step forward and took her friend’s hand. Despite the snowstorm, her hands were feverishly hot. ‘It could well be nothing, Mal, and honestly, I really hope it is. Your brother is a dickhead, but I really don’t want to find out he’s a murderer or anything. I just want to find Penny.’
At that moment, the lights went out.