Thorn (51 page)

‘I think the missing Thornacre girl could be at October House after all, Sergeant.'

‘Really, sir? And what makes you think that?'

‘Because I've just been out there. I crept into the garden, and peered in through a window.'

‘Did you now? What exactly did you see while you were peering through the window?'

‘Well, Thalia Caudle was with a young girl and the girl was undressing. It looked as if they were about to have it away together on the hearth rug.'

‘Really? And do you make a habit of peering through windows and watching that kind of thing, Dr Tudor?'

It was a shudderingly awful prospect.

They would presumably have to check his story, even if they did write him off as a voyeur, but they would be distrustful. They were distrustful already. They might uncover the fact that Dan had known Thalia in London. Why the devil hadn't he admitted to that at the outset! They might do the checking by telephone. Oliver could easily visualise some fed-up night duty sergeant delegating the task. ‘Just ring up this number, Fred, and check that Caudle woman's story again. There won't be anything in it, but the inspector says we've got to.' Whatever they did, the outcome would be that that odd child with the wise-ancient eyes would no longer be inside October House when they got there.

It was only when he heard the slightly startled voice answering the Thornacre phone that he realised it was now after midnight. But it could not be helped; as soon as Leo came on the line, Oliver said without preamble, ‘I've been out to October House, and I think your missing girl's there.'

‘Yes?'

‘Well, it makes rather bizarre telling,' said Oliver hesitantly, remembering his estimation of the police reactions.

‘I'm a psychiatrist, I'm used to bizarre things.'

Leo listened without interruption as Oliver briefly described the strange scene he had witnessed in the lamplit, firelit room of October House. ‘And I can't be sure that it was Quincy,' Oliver said. ‘But the police sergeant who questioned me described her, and it matched near enough. Small, not pretty, with wary eyes and short hair. A kind of urchin look.'

‘Yes, urchin describes it very well.'

‘And she had a rather old-fashioned air. I don't mean she had old-fashioned clothes or hairstyle, I mean her face. She looked as if she belonged to a different century. The mid-nineteenth, for choice. The
poor
mid-nineteenth.'

‘It's Quincy all right,' said Leo. ‘But since we talked, Dr Tudor, something else has happened. I don't know how much bearing it has on your brother's disappearance, or whether it has any at all, but six patients are missing, and so is Thalia Caudle's niece.'

There was an abrupt silence. ‘I'm sorry,' said Oliver, ‘but did you say
six
patients?'

‘Yes,' said Leo shortly. ‘Six patients suffering from acromegaly –I'll explain what that is some other time. And with Imogen Ingram it's seven.'

‘Do the police know?'

‘Yes, of course they know, they're crawling all over Thornacre at the moment, for God's sake. But if you mean do they know about Thalia's involvement, no, they don't.'

‘You haven't told them?'

‘No, I have not, and the reason I haven't is that Caudle's involvement is still only my deduction and yours,' said Leo. ‘There's nothing tangible to connect her with this, any more than there was this morning. And the logic we applied then still holds.' He paused. ‘Exactly how eminent are you, Dr Tudor?'

‘I'm not eminent at all. What's that got to do with anything?'

‘I was wondering how much of a professional reputation you had, and whether you were prepared to risk it.'

‘I don't give a damn for my professional reputation, such as it is. What have you got in mind?'

‘A little exercise in housebreaking,' said Leo.

‘October House?'

‘Yes. I expect I can do it on my own, and if I have to I will. But it'd be easier with two of us.' He paused, choosing his next words with care. ‘The thing is if we're caught it'll be straightforward breaking and entering. We won't have a leg to stand on. If you want to opt out now, I shan't blame you. In fact I'd think you were behaving very sensibly.'

‘Stuff common sense, and as for professional reputations, isn't your own far more at risk than mine, Dr Sterne?'

‘If I ever had one, I lost it years ago,' said Leo.

‘And I never acquired one,' said Oliver. ‘I'll meet you outside October House in fifteen minutes.'

Q
uincy knew that she was in the ogress's lair and that the ogress was going to kill her. That was what this was all about. The ogress had crawled up out of her dark hiding place when no one was watching, and she had caught her. She had also caught Imogen and the young man called Dan. There would not be any escape, even though Imogen was calling to her to be brave, and Dan was telling her that he would get them all to safety somehow.

Quincy was lying on the floor. There was a fiery glow from the ovens, and the stench of evil everywhere. The ogress was leaning over her, and flaring candles lit her from behind, so that you could see that her eyes were red and glaring. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl.

The evil-smelling place was beginning to spin round Quincy in a huge, whirling storm. There were immense crimson streaks in the storm, like blood, and there were jagged lights that hurt your eyes and made you feel sick. Quincy thought Imogen was crying, and she could hear the young man swearing at the ogress. She tried to call out to him that it would not do any good; you could not kill ogresses because they were not like humans, and this was the most evil ogress there was; this was probably the queen, like you had queen bees who led the others. But there was something brave-making about the young man, and Quincy was grateful to him. He might be able to get Imogen out later on, and then they would be together. He was exactly the kind of person you could visualise Imogen being with. Quincy held on to the idea of Imogen getting free and being with Dan, because it was a good thought.

The ogress gave a scream of fierce delight and triumph, and lifted her hands above her head. There was a scalding sizzling sound, like a whiplash curling through the air, and then a flash of steel, glinting in the candlelight.

Pain tore through Quincy's hands and exploded up into her arms and shoulders, and through her whole body. It was so fierce and so enormous that the red-lit place wavered and blurred, and she felt as if she was plummeting down and down into a deep, deep ocean. Someone was screaming and there was the choking feeling of agony closing over her head. She was swimming through the agony in her hands, and it was becoming difficult to see and difficult to hear. Imogen was still talking – yes, Imogen was still with her – and Dan was shouting, telling her to hold on, to hold on, Quincy, because they would not let her go . . .

As Thalia severed Quincy's hands with that single terrible blow, Dan felt the horror engulfing him. His mind shuddered in disbelief because nothing, not the worst waking nightmare, not the most warped vision, could be as bad as this.

Thalia was straightening up, holding the two jaggededged lumps of flesh above her head, and Dan caught the white glint of bone and saw the frill of blood-dabbled flesh. The blood was dripping sluggishly to the ground, and Thalia immediately cupped her free hand under it. Cradling the severed hands carefully, she leaned over the white, still form on the table, and began to arrange the hands in place. Her eyes were rinsed of all sanity, and blood smeared her cheek. At intervals she laughed, and once or twice she crooned Edmund's name. In his corner, the hunchback was gibbering with delight, scuttling back and forth over the same few inches of ground, like a monstrous human-faced spider busy about its web.

Quincy lay in a little huddle on the floor, surrounded by clotting pools of her own blood. She looked tiny and frail, and her skin had a waxy look, like tallow or old polished ivory. Dan looked across at Imogen and saw that she was crying, and trying to reach Quincy. But the chain held firm and she could only stretch a foot or so into the centre of the room.

Quincy's eyes were filmed over with pain and exhaustion, but as Imogen dragged furiously at the chain, she seemed to hear. She lifted her head and Dan saw that she was still conscious. Her eyes rested on Imogen for a moment and then turned to him, and she moved, holding out her mutilated arms to him in dreadful entreaty. The pity of it clutched at Dan's guts, because her hands, her poor hands . . . The wrists were soaked in blood, and splinters of bone and muscle and tendon protruded. And she's dying, he thought; she's bleeding to death there on the floor, and there's absolutely nothing I can do to help her.

Incredibly she was trying to speak. She was almost beyond sight and hearing, but she was not yet beyond feeling, and she was trying to reach him, pitifully trying to reach his arm with the bloodied stumps that were her wrists. Dan swallowed the choking knot of emotion and sickness, and even though the chains brought him up short, as Imogen's had done, he reached towards her as far as he could get. There was an appalling moment when the dripping, truncated arm brushed the tips of his fingers, and he only just managed not to flinch. ‘It's all right, Quincy,' he said. ‘In another few minutes we'll all be free, and we'll get you to a hospital and you'll be fine.' And God forgive me for the lie, because I don't think any of us are going to get free, and this poor child is dying fast.

Quincy said, ‘Don't let her – get Imogen . . .'

‘She won't get Imogen. I promise you she won't. It's all right.'

‘Look after . . . Imogen . . .'

‘I will look after Imogen,' said Dan.

‘So beautiful . . .'

Their eyes met. Dan said, very softly, ‘Yes. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I understand. I'll look after her, Quincy.'

The filmed eyes focused on him with difficulty. ‘Promise?'

‘On my word of honour.'

He thought she nodded and gave a little sigh. Her head fell back on the ground, and Dan saw her eyes flutter and close. He looked up to meet Thalia Caudle's mad red-lit eyes, and braced himself for what was ahead.

Thalia said, ‘In a little while we will burn what's left of that one. But now it's time for the bitch-whelp. It's time to dig out her heart and give it to Edmund.'

Imogen had managed to hold on to a shred of courage while Quincy was killed, and this was mainly because of Dan. It was important not to let either Thalia or Harris know how frightened she was, but it was much more important not to let Dan know.

When the hunchback dragged her towards the table, she fought him for all she was worth, but he overpowered her, grinning and mumbling to himself. Imogen said, very clearly, ‘Take your disgusting hands off me, you repulsive insect,' but the creature only gave a snuffling chuckle and lifted her on to the table, arranging her limbs caressingly.

Lying next to the thing that had been her cousin almost dissolved the last fragments of Imogen's courage. There was a dreadful sense of finality about this and a stifling feeling of anticipation in the old coach house now. As if something unseen was pressing down from above. As if something huge and dreadful hovered nearby, waiting its chance . . .

Imogen stared up at the ceiling and terror swept over her, because it was really beginning to look as if this was it. She was about to die; there was not going to be any eleventh-hour rescue; the seventh cavalry riding in or the knight on the white charger. But I can't die like this! she thought wildly. I can't die in some disgusting warped ritual, before I've found out anything about the world and before I've done anything! She turned her head to one side to look at Dan, and as she did so she saw him look sharply towards the small, rather grimy windows as if he had caught a sound from outside. A flicker of hope surfaced. Had Dan heard something? Imogen strained to listen. The sense of something unseen, waiting and watching just outside the old coach house, brushed her mind, but nothing moved, and neither Thalia nor the hunchback seemed to be aware of anything.

It was obvious Dan had no idea how to get them out, and by this time Imogen's heart was racing so fast she could hardly think at all. She thought she might faint, and she began to hope she would because then she would not know what was being done to her. It was as she was willing unconsciousness to close down that an angry little inner voice suddenly sounded inside her mind. You wimp! said this unexpected, unfamiliar voice. Why should he be the one to think of something? What's wrong with you? Well, because I can't. Because nobody ever expected me to think before. Well, start thinking now, said the voice. You got out of the wash house in Thornacre, so get out of this place as well, because if you don't, it's a sure thing you never will experience anything and you never will find out about the world!

Harris had left off the mouth gag, probably because out here you could scream for all you were worth and nobody would hear you. If there really had been something outside Imogen would have screamed until her throat was in tatters, but she did not think there had been anything.

She was so close to Edmund's body that she could feel the cold wetness of the dead flesh, and little puddles of thawing ice were soaking her nightgown. She could smell the faint stench of corruption as well, and if she turned her head, she would see the dead face . . . But she would not look.

There
was
something outside. Thalia and Harris were bending over the knives and moving the candles, and the knives were scraping and clattering a bit, and Thalia's whole attention was on what she was doing. But Imogen heard the sound this time: soft, rather heavy-sounding footsteps, as if someone was moving in the dark garden. You're imagining it. You're hearing what you want to hear. No, there it is again. Traffic? How near was the house to the main road? Imogen could not remember. What about thunder? It might easily be thunder. It might even be her own heart pounding with terror. Don't think about hearts, Imogen. Don't think that in a very short time this mad creature is going to try to cut your heart out and plunge it into the grotesque corpse next to you. The anger she had felt a few minutes earlier boiled up more strongly. I
will
get free! cried Imogen silently, and now she did turn her head, searching for a means of escape.