I slept right through until the next morning – a deep and dreamless sleep. After I woke I showered and went downstairs. I liked the feel of Dudley Hall without the murder mystery guests filling the place with noise; the house had an emptiness to it which suited it. An emptiness that matched my mood.
Toby was eating cereal alone at the breakfast table. I poured myself a bowl and sat down next to him. ‘Hey, Toby, what’s up?’
‘I’m bored,’ he said.
‘You should never be bored,’ I smiled at him. ‘There’s far too much to explore in the world. Music, poetry, art – you can always find some way to entertain yourself.’
‘Are you going to be writing today?’ he asked.
I thought for a moment. ‘No.’ I didn’t feel ready to go back to The Ghost of Dudley Hall, not yet. ‘Wanna hang out?’
He looked at me cautiously. ‘Okay. What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ I lifted my eyebrows playfully. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Play detective.’
An idea quickly popped into my head. ‘Cool, detectives. Great idea, Toby.’ I smiled. ‘Let’s investigate the top floor of the house.’
‘It’s spooky up there,’ Toby said, looking slightly embarrassed.
I agreed with him, and even in the cold light of day I didn’t particularly want to go up there alone, but somehow going up there with my kid cousin seemed bearable. ‘But we’ll be together, we’ll look out for each other.’
‘Okay,’ he smiled back. ‘I’ll get my fingerprint kit after breakfast.’
So after breakfast, fingerprint kit in hand, Toby and I ascended the top flight of stairs up to the third floor. I looked along the long corridor to my right, which I’d foolishly walked down two nights before. I wasn’t quite ready to go back there.
‘Let’s go this way first.’ I walked in between the rusted hinges on the broken door frame to the left. The corridor beyond the door looked smaller than it did the other night. And lit by daylight, not flashes of lightning, it almost didn’t look creepy. Almost.
‘You go first.’ Toby pushed me further into the corridor.
Full of bravado, I charged straight up to the first door on my left and reached for the door handle. It swung open easily. Behind it was a small empty room, nothing but dusty wooden floorboards and an old fireplace. No pictures on the walls, no old furniture, nothing. ‘Let’s go to the next room,’ Toby announced.
The next two rooms along the corridor were exactly the same. Floorboards, fireplaces and dust, nothing more. The windows looked out into the sprawling grounds, the winding river and, from up this high, you could just about see the rickety old boathouse.
‘Let’s investigate the other corridor too,’ Toby said, obviously enjoying himself. ‘I’ve wanted to explore up here since we moved in, but no one would come with me.’
‘You were sensible not to come up here on your own,’ I said seriously. ‘Exploring should always be done in teams.’
‘But I’m the detective and you’re my assistant,’ he reminded me.
‘Lead the way, Sherlock.’ I gestured to the other corridor.
Toby merrily skipped past the staircase and along the other corridor, the same corridor I’d walked down the night I’d heard crying coming from the room at the very end. The corridor door was still open, pushed back against the wall. I shuddered as I walked over the corridor’s threshold; it seemed colder in there than the rest of the house.
Just as we’d done with the first corridor, we investigated room by room. And just like the first corridor, the first two rooms were empty. Dusty floorboards and fireplaces, that’s all we could find. I stood staring out of the window in the second room, studying the grounds, the river and the boathouse, trying to put off the moment we approached the third room – the locked door I had heard crying seeping through. My fingers moved over scratches in the wooden window frame. I looked down and noticed there were letters and words carved into the rotting wood. Girls’ names, mostly: Catherine, Caroline, Beth, Mary, Lavinia. The room had once been a dormitory. I’d forgotten that for the briefest of moments. So many other lives had passed through these rooms and halls.
I heard the rattle of a door handle, pulling me from my thoughts. ‘Toby, wait …’
‘This room is locked,’ he announced in frustration. I walked out into the corridor to see Toby battling with the locked door at the end. ‘I’ll see if I can pick it.’
He pulled out a little pouch of screwdrivers and tools from his pocket. ‘Part of my detective kit,’ he informed me, as he began to try to pick the lock. He fiddled with the stubborn lock for several minutes before he gave up in frustration. ‘Let’s dust the other rooms for fingerprints instead.’
‘Okay, you do that and I’ll have another go at picking this lock,’ I told him. He disappeared into the room next door and began to try and lift fingerprints from the windowsill.
Alone in the corridor, I pushed one of Toby’s pins further into the lock but nothing happened. Toby moved on to the next room and I stayed where I was, struggling with the door. Suddenly, the only thing in the world that was important to me was getting into that room and seeing what was inside. I stood up and pushed my weight into the door, then I kicked it, hard. It wouldn’t budge.
Toby emerged from the room at the end of the corridor. ‘Don’t break the door down, Suzy. Richard will be mad.’
‘No, he won’t,’ I reasoned. ‘He’s going to have to break it down eventually anyway to renovate the room. I may as well do it for him.’
Toby shook his head. ‘You’ll make him angry. Maybe there’s a key downstairs.’
‘Fine, I’ll go and ask.’
‘I’ll stay here and look for more fingerprints,’ he said.
I frowned. ‘You sure you’ll be okay on your own?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘It’s not scary up here. It’s just rooms.’
I flashed Toby a false grin. I wanted more than anything to agree with him.
I left Toby upstairs as I went down and into the kitchen. I found Aunt Meredith hunched over a juicer, working her way through a pile of fresh lemons. ‘I’m making lemonade for this weekend,’ she said as I came into the room. ‘Here, try some.’
She passed me a glass of pale, cloudy liquid. It was sharp and sweet. ‘Great, thank you. Aunt Meredith, is there a key for the attic rooms?’
‘What?’ She looked up from the juicer.
‘I need a key for the attic rooms. Toby and I are exploring.’
‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Although Richard will be back later this week and we can check with him then if you really want.’
‘I could just break the door down …’
‘No, you won’t. I don’t want broken legs and sharp wooden spikes to worry about, thank you very much. I promised your mum I’d look after you,’ she said sternly. ‘Like I said, Richard will be back soon, you can ask him about a key then. There are plenty of other rooms for Toby to explore in the meantime.’
I huffed loudly. ‘Fine, I’ll wait.’
I spent the rest of the day helping Toby dust the other attic rooms for fingerprints. The only ones we found in the thick layers of dust were his and mine. The frustration I felt at not being able to go into the room at the end of the corridor was subdued slightly by Toby’s obvious enjoyment of the day. After he’d collected the prints he lovingly taped them into a scrapbook and I helped him label them all up. Before I knew it the day had passed and it was time for me to get ready for dinner at Nell’s house.
‘Thank you for keeping Toby entertained,’ Aunt Meredith said as she caught me on the second-floor landing, just about to go into my room. ‘He likes you.’
‘I like him too.’ I grinned.
‘It’s good to see you smiling, Suzy,’ she said gently. ‘Sometimes you remind me of your mum when she was younger. She had that same twinkle in her eye.’
What happened to her? I wanted to ask, but Aunt Meredith reached forwards and pulled me towards her. She held me tightly in her arms and squeezed me. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Suzy,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry Dudley Hall’s not the most exciting place in the world, and I’m sorry your mum couldn’t look after you, but I’m glad you’re here.’ I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I just smiled and awkwardly wriggled out of her arms, putting space between us.
‘There’s more than enough excitement at Dudley Hall,’ I said, trying to sound positive. Aunt Meredith had been nothing but kind to me since I arrived, even though it wasn’t her job to make sure I was well – Mum should have been doing that. In that moment I couldn’t bear to let her know just how much I hated the house and how difficult I found it living there, how I’d leave in the blink of an eye if I could.
‘You better hurry up and change for dinner.’ Aunt Meredith nodded at me. ‘I know Nell’s looking forward to having you over tonight.’
I walked away to my room feeling suddenly deflated at the thought of dinner with Nell and Nate. Sitting around a table making small talk with them was the last thing I wanted to do with my evening. Still, at least it would only be for a few hours. I showered quickly and picked out a short black skirt and a bright blue vest I’d stitched a peace sign onto the front of last summer. I put on my heavy DM boots and wrapped a fake ivy wreath I’d bought from Camden Market around my head. I painted on my make-up, taking the time to draw small flowers at the corner of each eye.
With every minute that passed I felt myself grow less sure that leaving Dudley Hall was what I wanted. Instead of feeling relieved at leaving the house I was beginning to feel dread. Dread at having to see Nate again, dread at having to make small talk and answer questions I didn’t want to answer. As the sun set in the sky and the evening grew colder, I felt my stomach tighten up in knots as if I was about to walk onto a stage in front of a room full of people.
‘Suzy, Nate’s downstairs.’ Aunt Meredith banged on my door, making me jolt with nerves.
I felt my stomach fall through the floor, and my legs shook beneath me as I walked slowly out of my room and down the stairs.
Turning the corner of the grand staircase, I saw Nate standing just inside the front door wearing his uniform white T-shirt, leather jacket and jeans. His eyes met mine before looking me up and down. I gave him a nervous smile that wasn’t returned, and a scowl quickly spread across my face as I realised Nate was obviously dreading the evening as much as I was. All of a sudden I had no idea what I was doing – why on earth was I leaving Aunt Meredith and Toby to spend the evening in the company of someone who thought so badly of me? My feet numbly moved towards him, and I noticed that he held a motorbike helmet in each hand. ‘This is for you,’ Nate said, pushing one of the helmets towards me. I took the helmet from him and looked down at it with a frown. I opened my mouth, desperate to tell Nate where he could stick his helmet, I was staying right where I was. But my voice froze in my throat and I looked up at him blankly. His expression had softened, and there was the faintest hint of a smile upon his lips. ‘You’ll need a jacket,’ he said, looking me over once again. ‘It’s cold outside. Let’s go.’