The sweep of car headlights outside the house pulled Michael out of Maria Porringer’s grim, candlelit midnight, and into the present.
He knelt on the window seat and waved, and the headlights flashed, then Nell parked the car so that the lights shone on to the window. She got out, then went back into the car to switch to sidelights, and came up to the window.
‘Can you hear me through all that glass and bits of lead?’
‘Loud and clear,’ said Michael. ‘And I’m selfishly glad to see you.’
‘So this is the nightmare mansion,’ said Nell. ‘It’s a grim old place, isn’t it? I feel like something out of one of those old horror films. The face at the window. Tod Slaughter?’
‘Yes. It’s a good film, but I could wish you hadn’t reminded me of it at this minute. Thanks for tracking down Jack Hurst,’ said Michael.
‘He should be here with the keys soon. But,’ observed Nell, stepping back to look up at the Hall’s facade, ‘this house looks as if it needs more than just keys to open its doors. Are you sure we don’t need to chant a dark spell or read runic symbols? Or even dance round the bonfire reciting from Dr Dee’s occult language?’
‘What on earth …?’
‘Elizabethan occultist,’ said Nell, grinning. ‘One of Elizabeth Tudor’s favourites.’
‘I know who he is, I just didn’t know he had an occult language.’
‘According to his journal he talked with angels. Although I believe that the original angelic language was lost when Adam was booted out of Paradise.’
Michael said, ‘You know, you are still a constant source of surprise to me.’
‘Oh good,’ said Nell. She was still staring up at the house. ‘Whatever language you use, it’s still the nightmare mansion or the ogre’s castle, isn’t it? As if it might have been made from the ground-up blood and bones of an Englishman.’
‘If so, we’d better forget Dee’s angelic language, and recite one of those ancient High German things instead. “Bone to bone, marrow to marrow, flesh to flesh …”’
‘Never mind ancient High German, I’m going to stand in the shelter of the main doors, because it’s starting to rain,’ said Nell. ‘So—’
‘What?’ said Michael, as she broke off.
‘I’m not sure, but … Michael, I can see a light right at the top of the house.’
‘That’s impossible,’ said Michael, but he felt suddenly icy cold. They lit candles that night, he thought. The flames flickered on the walls as Esther Breadspear strangled to death – she kicked one over, and it burned part of the attic. But he said firmly, ‘There can’t be any lights. There’s no electricity on – I’ve tried the switches. And there’s no one else in the house.’
‘Did you go up to the top floor?’ said Nell.
‘Yes, because I wanted to find a book I remembered seeing. It’s quite a find as well – Maria Porringer’s journal, and you’ll be—’
‘Did you light anything while you were there?’ Nell interrupted. ‘A lamp or candles?’
‘There was nothing to light,’ said Michael. ‘And if there had been, there wouldn’t have been anything to light it with. Why – what are you seeing?’
‘I can’t be sure,’ she said, narrowing her eyes and looking up. ‘But it looks like candlelight.’ Her voice wavered suddenly. ‘And Michael, it’s getting stronger.’
‘Stronger how?’
Nell said, ‘As if something’s caught fire.’
The next moments were blurred. Both Michael and Nell snatched their phones to tap out 999.
‘The fire engine’s on its way,’ said Michael, who had got the call in first. ‘Only—’
‘Only it’s got to come through the road block that held me up,’ said Nell.
‘Yes. And if there really is a fire—’
‘Michael, don’t go up there to investigate,’ she said at once.
‘That’s the last thing I’m going to do. What I am going to do,’ said Michael, ‘is find something to smash a window and get out.’
He paused, as Nell’s phone rang. She waved to him to wait, spoke for a moment, then said, ‘It’s Jack Hurst. His wife gave him my mobile number, and he’s ringing to say he’s about fifteen minutes away. I’ve told him we think there might be a bit of a fire.’
‘What did he say?’ Michael was watching the stair, praying not to see any wisps of smoke.
‘He said, “Sodding duff electricals,” and something about dismembering Darren on Monday morning. But I’ve given him your number and he’s going to phone you and see if he can guide you through the basement to where you might be able to smash open a kitchen window or something.’
Michael’s phone rang almost at once, and Jack Hurst’s voice, horrified and slightly panic-stricken, fired questions. Was Dr Flint sure he was safe? That there was no smoke reaching the ground floor? No crackle of flames or smell of burning?’
‘No,’ said Michael. ‘It might be nothing at all, but—’
‘But we can’t take the chance,’ said Hurst.
‘The fire brigade’s on its way, but—’
‘That bloody roadblock. Yes, I know. I’m stuck in it at the moment – they’re letting single-file traffic through, but I’m in the big van so I might have trouble getting round. But the fire engine will find a way through, be sure of that.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, who was not sure at all.
‘And we can get you out. What I’ll do, I’ll guide you down to the basement – there’s a garden door down there. It’ll be locked – in fact we’ve never opened it because we’ve never needed to and we haven’t got keys to it. But the top half is plain glass and if you can break that you should be able to climb through. Can you find a hammer or something? Those boys are sure to have left stuff lying around. I tell them time after time – “Tidy up as you go,” I tell them, but do they take any notice? Do they buggery, excuse my swearing, Dr Flint.’
‘Swear away,’ said Michael. ‘Hold on, I’ll see if there’s something I can use on the window. There’s a bit more light now – Nell’s parked so that her headlights are shining in.’ He walked into the main downstairs rooms. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said. ‘Paint brushes – they wouldn’t be heavy enough … Oh, wait, there’s a big old broom here. The handle should do it.’
‘Good enough. Back to the hall, and there’s a door set a bit back, near the stairs.’
‘I tried that a while ago,’ said Michael, ‘but it was as dark as the devil’s forehead, so I didn’t dare investigate. But if Nell can move the car a bit more … Wait a minute, I’ll tell her what we want.’
Nell was still at the window, and Michael explained, pointing towards the door.
‘That sounds fine,’ said Nell. ‘Once I’ve got the car’s lights lined up, I’ll try to make my way round to the back so I can help you climb out.’
‘Nell, it’ll be pitch dark!’
‘Michael, my love, did you think I’d drive out to a dark old house without a torch in the car?’ She brandished a large torch.
‘Well, all right. I’ll go down the steps,’ said Michael. ‘I don’t know if it’s straight down the rabbit hole, though, or whether it’s more a case of “Down, down, to hell, and say I sent thee thither”.’
‘No one but you would find an apt quotation at a moment like this.’
‘I don’t know about quotations, but I’m going to feel utterly ridiculous descending to hell clutching a broom.’
‘They’d probably let you sweep it out,’ said Nell. ‘Michael …’
‘Yes?’
‘Be careful.’
Before he could respond, she had gone back to the car. The engine fired, and Nell reversed and then drove the car back towards the house. Michael waved and indicated to her to move slightly to the left. This time the lights fell directly across the door.
He waved again, and sent a thumbs-up sign. ‘We’re all set,’ he said into the phone. ‘I’m about to plumb the depths.’
The door opened again, with only a small protesting creak, and a smell of damp and decay breathed out.
‘There’s a flight of stone steps inside,’ said Jack. ‘And at the bottom are several small rooms, with the furnace room at the far end.’
The furnace room, thought Michael. They fired the furnace that night to burn Esther Breadspear’s body.
He said, ‘Yes, I can see the steps.’
‘Go past the furnace room – you’ll recognize it because it’s got strips of iron over it and a round window. Then you should see the garden door. It leads to a small courtyard on the left of the house.’
The car headlights were doing a reasonable job of lighting the stone steps, and Michael, still clutching the broom, reached the foot without mishap.
‘So far so good,’ he said to Hurst. ‘Are you still hearing me?’
‘Yes, but you’re a bit crackly. Listen, if the signal goes – and you’re underground remember – all you’ve got to do is go along the passage as far as you can.’
‘All right.’
A thick smell of damp and decay hung everywhere, but Michael would rather grope his way through this bad-smelling darkness than remain trapped in the hall with the threat of fire.
At the foot of the stairs was a narrow passageway with brackets along the wall where gaslights might once have been. It was a dismal place; the stones were leprous-looking, and there were puddles of oily condensation on the ground. Thick cobwebs trailed from the ceiling; Michael tried to avoid them, but several times they brushed his face, and he shuddered and swiped them away.
‘Can you see the row of doors yet?’ asked Hurst.
‘Not yet … Oh, yes, I can now,’ said Michael after a moment.
‘Six rooms,’ said Hurst. ‘The furnace room’s the seventh.’
Michael said, half to himself, ‘It would be the seventh chamber. of course. The one containing Bluebeard’s butchered wives.’
‘Sorry? You’re breaking up—’
‘I think the signal’s going,’ said Michael, snapping back to reality. ‘But I should be almost there now. Is there any sign of the fire engine yet?’
‘No, but—’ Hurst’s friendly voice cut off and a thin whine emitted from the phone.
‘Hell and damnation,’ said Michael, and the enclosed space picked up his last words and spun them eerily around him. He cursed under his breath, thrust the phone into his pocket, and went cautiously along the stone passage.
Here were the six doors. Despite the need to get out, he was aware of a sudden compulsion to open each one. Why? his mind demanded. To see if there are any more sad, twisted wraiths wandering around? Or were you expecting to find a calendar scratched into the stones by some forgotten, unjustly incarcerated prisoner? Still, if the Count of Monte Cristo had been here, at least he would have been company for Bluebeard’s wives.
He began to feel as if he had been groping his way through this bad-smelling darkness for a very long time – and clutching a broom, said his mind, wryly. But it was no longer quite as dark as it had been. Michael registered this with relief, because if light was trickling in it must mean he was almost at the door with the window.
Except there was something odd about the light. It was not the thin bluish light of outdoors; it was not moonlight or even the electrical beam from Nell’s torch. It was a flickering light – dull and tinged with red as if something had bled into it …
For several panic-filled seconds Michael thought it was the fire – that it had spread down here – then logic kicked in, because the fire Nell had seen had been two – no, three – floors up. If it had somehow found its way down here, he would have heard it – smelled smoke at the very least.
Here was the furnace room. The seventh chamber. This was where that other Hurst had carried Esther’s body, so that all evidence of his son’s murder could be destroyed. It was extraordinarily sinister. Black and secret – banded by the thick strips of iron, and with the unblinking eye of the circular window set into the top half. The dull light seemed to be coming from inside it.
Michael stood up against the door, peering through the thick glass. The light was coming from inside – he could see a faint red haze. And a movement – two small figures with long hair …? Imagination surely. He tried the handle, but it did not move, and he was about to continue along the stone passage when he became aware of other sounds. Footsteps? No, the sounds were too rhythmic; they were more like water dripping, or even someone tapping lightly with a hammer. He listened, and with a dawning horror realized what he was hearing.
It was the slow, inexorable ticking of machinery heating up. After a moment, a new sound began: a slow, deep, grating noise, as if an old, forgotten mechanism was struggling into life. Michael could see the shape of the furnace now – black and massive. There was a gaping hole where there must once have been a round door. Inside, threads of scarlet were thickening into solid blocks of fierce heat. There was a dull roar from the corroded pipes, and a smell of hot iron. The furnace was firing. It could not be happening, but it was. In another moment it would roar into life.
Michael went swiftly down the passage, and with immense thankfulness saw ahead of him the door Jack Hurst had described. A triangle of torchlight showed beyond it, with Nell’s face peering anxiously through the window.
The dull roaring was getting louder, and the scent of hot metal was filling up the passageway. Michael grabbed the broom firmly, and waved to Nell to stand clear. He brought the blunt handle of the broom smashing against the glass. It splintered at once, but nothing more, and he dealt it a second blow, then a third. Still the glass would not break completely, and by now he could hear the fire burning up, and the sound of something heavy crashing over. Pipework caving in?
He returned to the window and at the next attempt large splinters began to fall out. Michael plied the broom again, and this time most of the glass fell away. Behind him he could hear the fire roaring up, and the stone walls were flickering and glowing. Beating down panic, Michael knocked out the remaining shards, and Nell stepped back to the door, unwinding the thick woollen scarf she was wearing, and folding it over the rim, to pad any remaining fragments.
‘Can you climb out?’ she said, a bit breathlessly.
‘It might have to be head-first, and you’ll have to catch me. And it’ll have to be quick – I think the fire’s getting a stronger hold.’
It was not as easy as he had thought to get through the opening, but it was not as difficult as it might have been. He slithered to the ground, and took several grateful breaths of the clean cold night air. As he did so, there was a louder crash from the direction of the furnace room.
Nell grabbed his arm. ‘Let’s get clear of this. The fire engines are on the way – I heard the siren a few moments ago.’
As she spoke, Michael heard them, as well. ‘I think the fire spread through the pipes or something,’ he said, brushing splinters of glass off his jacket as they crossed a small courtyard. ‘It’s fired up an old furnace, and—’ He stopped abruptly, staring at a little straggle of buildings on the other side of the small courtyard.
‘Michael, come on.’
‘No, wait. Look there. Those stone outbuildings.’
‘What? Where?’
‘The carvings over that door,’ said Michael. ‘Can I have the torch a moment?’
‘Two downspouts carved as faces,’ said Nell, as Michael directed the torch. ‘A bit chipped and sort of sly and leery. Is it significant?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Michael, and half to himself, he said, ‘“Blow-cheeked cherubs. The lips of one had broken away, so that it appeared to be screaming silently through a lipless mouth, while the other one’s eyes had chipped, making it seem as if the eyes had been partly removed. The screaming and the blind …” That’s what she called them.’
‘Who? Michael, what on earth …?’
‘Maria Porringer,’ he said, still staring at the carved stone faces. ‘She was here. This was once a murderers’ prison.’ Seeing her expression, he said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not delirious or anything. I found Maria’s journal, and it’s all there. And,’ he said, as they made their way back to the front of the house, ‘if ever this house was going to be haunted, it would have to be haunted by Esther Breadspear. This is where they tried three times to hang her.’
Nell looked at him, but before she could say anything, the flashing lights of the fire engine sirens cut through the darkness.
They stood with Jack Hurst as the massive hoses directed powerful jets of water on to Deadlight Hall’s upper floors.
Three more firefighters had snaked hoses around the side of the house, and had broken down the door through which Michael had made his exit.
‘Everything’s safe now, sir,’ said the most senior of the men, coming up to give Jack Hurst an interim report. ‘The fire was in the attic as you thought, but it had – well, in layman’s terms, it had whooshed through some old pipes and burst into an old furnace room. That’s pretty much ruined now. Burnt out almost entirely, I’m afraid – half of one wall’s fallen in, and most of what’s in there is charred to cinders. There’ll be a more detailed investigation about the cause when everything’s cooled – particularly if the owners are claiming on the insurance.’
‘The owners won’t do that,’ said Jack Hurst.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am sure. I’m the owner,’ he said.
Michael glanced at Nell, and saw his own surprise mirrored in her expression.
Hurst said, ‘What’s your best guess on the cause of the fire?’
‘Difficult to be exact,’ said the fire officer. ‘You’ve never had any kind of flame up there, have you?’
‘Of course I haven’t. No one but a complete idiot would have a naked flame up there.’
No one, thought Michael, but a group of frightened and bitter children, who lit candles so they could execute a murderess … Candles which were overturned as she fought for life …
‘Dr Flint, I don’t suppose you even went up there?’ said the fire officer.
‘No,’ said Michael, unhesitatingly.
‘There was that storm a couple of days back,’ said the man, thoughtfully. ‘Lightning can give an electrical charge to metal, so old plumbing can sometimes be vulnerable. It doesn’t happen much nowadays, but in a house of this age … It’s just about possible the lightning caused a small fire up there, and the fire smouldered for a couple of days. At the moment that’s the best solution I can see. But we’ll send a report to you. Everyone else all right? We can call the paramedics to get you checked out if need be?’
He glanced at Michael and Nell, and Michael said, ‘No need for paramedics. I’m fine, thanks, and I’m very grateful to be safely outside. Thanks very much – to all of you.’
‘All part of the service, sir,’ said the man, who then sketched a mock salute, and went off to the waiting fire engine.
Michael said to Jack Hurst, ‘I didn’t realize you owned the place.’
‘Yes. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.’
‘I’m sorry about the house. I escaped unscathed, but it doesn’t look as if Deadlight Hall has.’ He glanced at the drenched facade.
‘Oh, don’t be sorry about the house,’ said Hurst. ‘This is the final straw if I’m honest. I’m abandoning the whole project.’
‘You are?’
‘I scraped and scrimped to buy this ugly old pile,’ he said, staring up at it. ‘I was sentimental about it, see. There’s some connection to an ancestor of mine – bit of a wild boy from all the family stories. They vary a bit, those tales – some say he owned the place, some say he only lived in it, or that he used it for his bastards. Some versions even say he was part of some sort of murder scandal, about a century and a half ago. I don’t know the truth and it’s all a long time ago anyway, but I always felt an attachment to the place, and we’re an acquisitive lot, us Hursts. Buying it became a bit of an ambition for me. I worked and saved, and worked some more, until I managed it. I got it for a song, and I thought I could make money out of turning it into posh apartments. Bad idea and very bad decision. It’s an unlucky house – and it’s not often you hear a builder say that. But there’ve been a few bad incidents there over the years – probably all hearsay again, but people have long memories.’
‘What will you do with it?’ asked Michael.
‘Demolish it,’ said Jack Hurst at once. ‘Raze it to the ground and crunch it all up beneath the diggers and the bulldozers.’
‘And then?’
‘Develop the land,’ he said, with a sudden grin. ‘Standing here, I’ve been thinking. I reckon I’d get half a dozen luxury bungalows on this site, each with a third of an acre of ground. And very nice too. You might like to take a look when they’re done.’
‘We might indeed,’ said Michael.
As they walked over to their cars, Nell suddenly said, ‘Michael – I think there’s someone over there – in that bit of garden on the left.’
Michael looked to where she indicated. ‘I can’t see anything. Probably the firefighters are still around.’
‘It isn’t the firefighters,’ said Nell. ‘They’re all round the vehicle, packing up their equipment. Whatever I saw was blurred, like one of those photographs when someone’s moved as the shutters clicked, so I can’t be sure I saw anything at all. It might only have been the trees moving in the wind.’
‘Let’s walk to the side of the house and see. We’ll have to wait for the fire engine to move anyway before we can get the cars out.’
The house cast dense shadows on this side, but there was still an overspill from the fire engine’s lights, and it was possible to see that tall weeds grew up between the cracks of what might once have been a terrace. There was the outline of what had been a large lawn on two levels, with moss-covered steps between the two, and a cracked sundial, covered with lichen. On a bright summer’s afternoon, with cheerful voices, this could have been a lively, happy place. A family place, where children would have run free and enjoyed playing.
Children.
The two figures were indistinct – so much so that they could have been scribbled on the darkness by a child’s pencil. It was not entirely certain if they were even there.
‘It looks like two small girls,’ said Nell, almost in a whisper. ‘I can see their long hair.’
The girls could have been anywhere between six and ten years old, and they were moving away from the house, hand in hand, not exactly running, but not walking slowly. One of them looked back over her shoulder, and put up a hand. The gesture was so indistinct it could have been anything. But it could have been a gesture of farewell. Michael drew in a sharp breath, then sketched a similar gesture.
Behind them, the fire engine revved, its lights swung round, and the figures vanished.
‘We did see that, didn’t we?’ said Nell, sounding slightly shaken.
‘Yes.’
‘They weren’t … real children, were they?’
‘No.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I could make a guess, but it’ll be easier to tell you after you’ve read Maria’s journal,’ said Michael.
The fire engine was trundling down the drive, towards the main road, and as they went over to their cars, he said, ‘Nell – about that journal I found. How would you feel about having the professor in on it? He started all this, so I think he’d like to know what we’ve found.’
‘I’d like that. D’you think he’d be free to come to supper?’ said Nell. ‘But it’s half-past eight already, so it’ll have to be takeaway.’
‘Bless you,’ said Michael, smiling. ‘I’ll phone him now.’
Leo, listening to Michael’s brief explanation, expressed himself as horrified to hear about the fire. Invited to Quire Court, he said he had not dined yet – he had been working on his Radcliffe lecture, and he had not noticed the time.
‘But after what’s happened tonight I don’t want to cause Nell any trouble—’
‘She’d like you to come. And,’ said Michael, ‘we’re picking up supper on the way home so it won’t be any trouble at all. Can you meet us at Quire Court in about an hour?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘And can you eat Chinese food?’
‘I can indeed,’ said Leo.