A Dark Dividing (53 page)

Harry said, ‘I’m here with Miss Thorne to carry out a bit of research in the area.’ He prayed no one had recognized Angelica, and then said, ‘We’re trying to track down a place that was once an old workhouse or an asylum. We haven’t got much to go on except the name, and I’m not even sure if we’re looking in the wrong part of the county. But I wonder if you’d know of it?’

‘Can but try, you know, sir.’ It was said with a faint lilt, not quite Welsh, but getting on that way.

Harry said, ‘It’s called Mortmain House,’ and the barman-cum-landlord set down his own glass of beer, and said, bless us all, sir, everyone hereabouts knew Mortmain House, shocking old ruin it was. So now then, what Mr Fitzglen and his secretary had to do was to take the main road heading for the bypass, turn off sharp left before actually hitting it, and then go on for three miles. They would see Mortmain House high up on the side of the road. You could not, said the barman-cum-proprietor cheerfully, miss it.

I bet you can’t, thought Harry, buying the man another drink, and then going back upstairs.

Angelica, told she was Harry’s secretary, only grinned, but when asked whether she wanted to come out to find the nightmare mansion there and then, promptly said, well of course she wanted to come; what did Harry think they were there for?

They found the house with ease, and Harry pulled the car off the road, and sat staring up at it.

So this was Simone’s nightmare house and Tansy’s bleak workhouse, set amidst desolate fields and dark watchful trees. This was the legend-drenched place built around the early seventeen hundreds, named for the ancient law of Dead Man’s Hand…

‘Are we going up there?’ asked Angelica, sounding a bit fearful.

‘We are. At least, I am. You can stay in the car if you’d prefer. If you lock the doors you’ll be perfectly all right.’

‘No, I’ll come.’ But Angelica cast a doubtful glance at Mortmain’s outline. ‘I daresay there might be a few ghosts in there, but what’s a ghost or two among friends? I refuse to be daunted by ghosts anyway.’

‘I don’t believe in them,’ said Harry firmly. ‘Although I’ll admit that something probably lingers in there.’

‘It’d be odd if it didn’t,’ said Angelica with one of her unexpected flashes of seriousness. ‘It was a workhouse, wasn’t it, and people used to see workhouses as a lurking menace. A bogeyman.’

‘And now,’ said Harry, ‘instead of that we’ve got the Welfare State and Centrepoint-type hostels, and the I’m-owed-a-living mentality.’

‘Dear me, I had you down as a sweet old-fashioned romantic.’

‘There’s nothing romantic about Mortmain’s ghosts.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

‘I don’t. Let’s just run the car into that patch of shadow under those trees, shall we?’

‘Why d’you want to do that?’

‘Because I think we should keep our visit as unobtrusive as possible.’

‘All right. How do we get up there, does anybody know?’ demanded Angelica, as they emerged from the car a few minutes later. ‘Because I can’t see how on earth—Oh no, wait, there’s a sort of track over there.’

As they began to climb the sort of track, Angelica said, ‘I do feel as if I might be performing the classic act of every wimpish heroine in every hackneyed thriller film.’

‘Tripping guilelessly up to the dark old house on the hill?’

‘Finger perplexedly to lips,’ agreed Angelica. ‘Do we have a plan for this wild escapade?’

‘Not really. I just thought we’d walk round the place first. We can do so perfectly quietly.’

‘In case there are any black-cloaked counts holding an annual convention of vampires?’

‘In case of any drugged-up teenagers,’ said Harry.

As they neared the top of the track a sharp wind blew into their faces, sending the night clouds scudding to and fro across the moon. Above them Mortmain seemed to swim in and out of the shadows.

‘Are we actually going inside?’ demanded Angelica, surveying the place dubiously.

‘Yes, because I want to try to identify the places on Simone’s prints. I’ve brought a couple of torches—here, you’d better take one. It’ll be as black as the damning drops from the denouncing Angel’s pen in there.’

‘Really? As black as all that?’ said Angelica, deadpan, and Harry smiled despite himself.

He said, ‘Yes, but it’s not the darkness that worries me.’

‘I know it isn’t. It’s the ghosts.’

‘It is. How did you know?’

‘It’s the ghosts that are worrying me as well,’ said Angelica.

After a time Simone became aware of a faint thread of light coming from the stairs. Did that mean the night had passed, then? There was still not enough light to see her watch, but there was a different feeling.

She felt weak and quite odd, although she thought she might have slept for a while, drifting in and out of an uneasy, uncomfortable half-consciousness. Her mind had swung violently between panic and a creeping despair. You’ll never get out, said the whisperings and the scufflings. Never, ever get out… You’ll die here in the dark, just as Sonia died here in the dark…

She had clung firmly to the belief that either someone would come searching for her, or the hard-eyed woman would come back. This seemed perfectly likely; people did not shut complete strangers away in ruined old houses and leave them to die. It was some bizarre punishment, or the woman was in the grip of a mad fixation. Simone remembered the woman’s eyes and the strength of her hands as she had pushed her into the cage, and shuddered.

To keep these images at bay she had tried to recite poetry, but with the perversity of the mind all she could remember was Lovelace’s ode about stone walls did not a prison make nor iron bars a cage… The poetry did not really shut out Mortmain’s ghosts, either. It did not shut out the scufflings and the scratchings all around her. If a rat gets in here, thought Simone, her skin crawling with horror, I think I’ll go genuinely mad.

The scufflings did not get any quieter with the coming of the faint curl of grey light, and after a time Simone thought they might even be growing stronger. Were they rats or ghosts? She half-turned her head listening, because just for a moment she had thought there were voices inside the scufflings. But it had only been her imagination, after all—

Or had it? This time there were more definite sounds, and they were definitely neither rats nor ghosts. Footsteps. The woman coming back to free her? To say it had all been a mistake, or a joke, or a bet? No, surely there was more than one set of footsteps? Yes, they were directly overhead, and Simone was sure she could hear voices as well. People were inside Mortmain House.

Dredging up every ounce of energy, terrified that they might go away without finding her, Simone drew in her breath, and shouted at the top of her voice. But her voice, weakened from the drug, dry from the hours without water, came out in a cracked, feeble croak. Oh God, no! Oh God, let me find a way to let them know I’m here! Don’t let them go away without finding me!

She clenched both fists hard, and began systematically banging them on the iron bars of the cage.

Harry shone the torch slowly across the dereliction of Mortmain’s main hall, recognizing parts of it from Simone’s photographs.

‘We’re in the right place, at any rate,’ said Angelica, nodding in agreement.

‘Yes. But I don’t know if we’re going to find anything. I told you I was going on instinct.’

They went deeper in, carefully negotiating the intersecting passageways. The sad smells of worm-eaten timbers and mouldering stones closed around them, and there was the acrid stench of urine—human or animal or both. Their shadows, cast into sharp relief by the torchlight, walked with them: it was fanciful to imagine that occasionally the shadows did not quite walk in step with the two intruders. Harry had to make a conscious effort to shake off the feeling that Floy’s small Tansy was among those walking shadows.

The torchbeam cut its livid swathe through the darkness, showing up the crumbling bricks and the crusted dirt of years. Spiders and black beetles scuttled out of their way, and as they went deeper in, towards the house’s heart, the shadows were thicker and the stench was almost overpowering. Harry was aware of Angelica fumbling for a handkerchief to put over her mouth, but after a moment, she said, ‘Fortunately, I practically
bathed
in
Joy
before we came out. I think
Joy
’s winning, don’t you?’

‘It usually does,’ said Harry, suddenly inexpressibly grateful for Angelica’s presence. And then he stopped and Angelica stopped as well, because somewhere inside the old house was a faint sound. They both stood still, hardly daring to breathe. Nothing. Imagination, probably. And then it came again, light, frail. There was a faint rustling in one corner and Harry felt his senses leap, and he shone the torch. A small furry body with a long thin tail scuttled out of sight.

‘Oh God,’ said Angelica. ‘The one thing I hoped we wouldn’t see. Harry darling, do a Pied Piper act, or something, and
get rid of it
—’

‘It’s all right, it’s gone. You can have a nice noisy bout of hysterics after we’ve got outside. In fact would you rather go back down to the car and wait there?’

‘And miss the chance to tell this story around a dinner table afterwards? Darling!’ said Angelica reproachfully and Harry grinned.

‘All right. Onwards and upwards.’

‘In any case, you’ve wanted to do a romantic knight-in-shining-armour act with Simone ever since you met her, haven’t you?’ she said shrewdly, and Harry glanced at her.

‘You’re mixing me up with someone who possesses a heart, Angelica.’

‘I don’t think I am. And as a matter of fact I think you’d be rather good for Simone.’ She glanced at him, and said, ‘Harry,
darling
, did you really think I didn’t know it was Simone you wanted all the time?’

‘Well—’

‘But we’ve had a lot of fun together these past few weeks, haven’t we?’

‘Angelica,’ said Harry, ‘you’re unique. I can’t think of another female who would stage a farewell scene in a situation like this. In fact, in all my experience—’

‘Stretching over many nations and five continents?’

‘You know,’ said Harry after a moment, ‘if you don’t get rid of that habit of quoting, people will start to think you might be intelligent.’