Ash

  ‘Keep moving!’ he yelled as the other two waited for him. They skirted the fire and kept close to the warm stone wall on their right.

  Delphine suddenly stopped, bringing Louis to a halt beside her.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ she cried over the crackle of the fire and collapsing timbers. ‘There’s air coming from somewhere ahead!’

  It was as Ash had hoped: they were close to the old lift shaft.

  He ushered them onwards, moving faster now they had some much-needed encouragement and with their lungs recently filled with pure oxygen.

  At last they reached the point Ash had been aiming for since they’d left the armoury. Before them stood the lift’s heavy wooden outer door, half-open as if left that way by the last person to use it, but in fact blasted aside by the huge explosion from the subterranean dungeon. Ash and Delphine, gripping onto the side wall, peered down into the blackness of the shaft and felt a clean breeze flowing upwards.

  The investigator reached into his leather bag and pulled out the hefty, long torch. He shone its beam into the pit below, grimly aware of the heat at his back. His heart lifted as he smelt more than just dust and soot in the rising draught: there was a hint of sea air in the mix.

  ‘Look, Delphine, can you see it?’ He pulled her closer to him and held her firmly as she leaned into the shaft and saw what he meant.

  ‘The top of the old lift!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s battered and bent but there’s a hole on one side we can slide through. D’you think the big explosion, the one that shook the building, was planted down there?’

  ‘Yep,’ he replied, almost light-heartedly. ‘Someone – God knows who – placed a bomb in the rubble left after the lift car crashed through the ceiling. Come on, we’ve got to get going. I’ll lower you onto the top of the lift – what’s left of it; then I’ll lower Louis so you can help him drop the rest of the way.’

  He handed the long torch to Louis, saying, ‘Keep the light on Delphine, help her see around and below.’

  Louis took the Maglite and aimed its powerful beam into the shaft.

  Without hesitation, Delphine let Ash take her by the wrists and help her over the ledge of the opening, then gently lower her into the drop.

  ‘Okay?’ he called down to her, now on his knees to get her closer to the lift’s buckled top.

  ‘Just scraping my feet on something. I’ll be all right if you let me go.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He was almost at his limit and he cautiously let her wrists slip through his hands, hanging on to her until her fingertips slipped past his own.

  ‘Didn’t even have to fall,’ she called back when he finally released her. There was a hollowness to her rasping voice. All three had raw throats from the smoke-filled air. ‘The roof is misshapen enough to form a kind of slide. The metal is hot but manageable.’

  The explosion must have blown upwards through the already buckled roof of the lift carriage.

  ‘Ugh!’ he heard her groan from below. ‘Rats down here. They must have jumped over the edge or climbed down the walls. Right now they’re looking at the hole I’m standing over. Think I’m making them nervous.’

  He almost grinned. ‘Stand back and let them through. We’ll work better with them out of the way.’ Ash became serious again. ‘If you block their way, they’ll attack. Otherwise, they’re peaceable.’

  ‘You know a lot about vermin!’ she called.

  ‘With my work in old buildings I see a lot of them, although never quite so many. Don’t worry, they’re usually harmless.’ Except when they’re not, he thought, but chose not to say.

  With the torchlight opened to its widest beam, he and Louis watched as Delphine edged herself as far from the dented hole as possible. They saw the agitated rodents flow like a bristle-haired stream, scuttling through the almost V-shaped opening.

  ‘You next, Louis,’ Ash said, looking up at the prince. ‘Drop the torch down to Delphine and she can use it to help us see.’

  Louis did as instructed and the psychologist caught it deftly. She shone the light back at them.

  Turning away from the sudden glare, Ash spotted more vermin gathering in the corner behind Louis. They leapt over each other to get away from the heat, while those at the front watched Louis and Ash warily.

  ‘Right, your turn, Louis. Climb over the edge and hold on. I’ll take your wrists and lower you. Delphine’s down there waiting to catch you if you fall, so don’t be afraid.’

  Louis did as he was asked and, out of the corner of his eye, Ash caught sight of the rats tentatively crawling forward. The prince was hanging over the edge and, noticing how weak his grip was, Ash immediately grabbed his thin wrists. They felt weird to the touch, oddly soft and supple, the bones beneath the skin like sticks coated in thin rubber. Ash felt that if he squeezed too tightly they would snap. The investigator lowered the boy gently. When he glimpsed Louis’ upturned face, the huge balled eyes, the clearly visible veins, muscles, tendons and teeth, he almost recoiled in shock before suddenly becoming aware of the fluid forming in Louis’ tear ducts as he saw the investigator’s horrified expression.

  Ash was ashamed. He was treating Louis like a freak, as so many others would if they escaped Comraich.

  It was the first time he’d been able to examine properly the prince’s grotesque – how he hated himself for even thinking that word – mask of a face, bright reflections of fire dancing over the contours of his fine vellum-like skin. Louis struggled to free himself, clearly despising, even hating himself. Ash sensed the prince’s misery, but grasped the thin wrists more firmly.

  Ash felt something scurry across his back, then onto his arm, using him as a kind of ladder. He felt another rat run over his shoulder on the other side to scurry down his arms, digging its sharp claws in for grip, passing over his hand and on to Louis’ thin, naked arm, the robe’s loose sleeve having slipped down.

  ‘Delphine!’ Ash shouted. ‘Catch Louis if you can. It should be easy – he’s as light as a feather!’

  The psychologist scrambled from her refuge on the corner of the lift’s buckled roof. She looked up with the torch and screamed as a dozen rats fell onto her. Still she held her arms up to receive Louis, while managing to keep the flashlight cupped into the palm of her hand.

  Ash finally released the robed figure and Delphine had him in her arms almost instantly, steadying him as he turned into her embrace.

  ‘Now get back to the corner! Both of you. I’m coming to join you!’

  With rats clinging to him, and the fire behind scorching his back, Ash slipped over the open doorway’s edge and dropped down onto the lift’s roof. Other, smaller creatures were throwing themselves over the edge like lemmings. As he landed with a thump that shook the lift carriage, nearly upsetting the balance of Delphine and Louis, the terrified rats rained down on him. Nearly losing his footing, he hit out at them, knocking the creatures away; they seemed content to slither down through the jagged hole and disappear into the darkness.

  He scrambled his way over to his two companions, finding Louis locked in Delphine’s arms. She kept the torchlight’s beam angled downwards so that Ash was not dazzled.

  Ash put a light hand on Louis’ shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Louis,’ he said quietly.

  Louis turned, the hood back over his head. ‘That’s all right, Mr Ash. I do understand.’

  Delphine looked at Ash with a concerned expression, but he simply shook his head. Louis’ voice, although mumbled awkwardly, had been so forgiving – and truly understanding – that Ash wanted to turn him round and enfold the slight figure in his arms. What must this young man have been through all these years? Someone to be scrutinized, studied, prodded and have electrodes fixed to him just to discover how nerve systems worked, how blood moved through the body, how food was digested? What next for him should they all survive and then escape the Comraich estate? The media would go wild, questions would be asked in Parliament, Charles would
be reviled once more. The monarchy would be compromised.

  Even if they reached the outside of the castle, Ash had little doubt the small army of guards would be ordered to hunt them down, and if necessary, shoot all three of them. That way there could be no evidence nor any witness. Delphine, a young recluse, and David Ash, had been burned to nothing, the authorities would be told. Kate would be told.

  They heard constant thunks as the rats dropped from the opening; two of them on fire as they fell.

  Licks of flame were beginning to shoot from the doorway above.

  ‘We have to find our way out through the dungeons,’ Ash said. ‘Let’s hope there’s no welcoming committee left. Delphine, d’you still have the smaller torch I gave you?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  ‘Use it while I take the larger torch. Remember to keep the beam open wide. Narrow it if you need more concentrated light.’

  With that, the investigator took back the hefty Maglite and shone it into the sloping roof of the lift car. Without hesitation, he slid into it, almost losing control as he plummeted down. Fortunately, it was a short trip: within a moment he was crouching on debris left by the earlier explosion. He pointed the beam wide along the length of the corridor and took in the scorched walls and battered cell doors. It was lucky there was not much that would burn here, for the blast had travelled on, finding old timbers and more inflammable material to ignite.

  The smell was awful, and soot and dust soon covered the part of his face that was unmasked. He’d heard somewhere that sometimes the centre of an explosion was often left relatively unscathed as the blast blew outwards, so although he stood among ruins, it wasn’t as bad as he thought it might be.

  Tentatively, he swung the light beam round and took in the doorway close to him, the door itself blown across the cell’s small chamber. It was the dungeon where Hitler’s daughter had been kept. It took but a few strides for him to climb across the rubbled corridor and shine the Maglite into the empty room, its sparse furniture merely cinders: there was no charcoaled body that he could see. He wondered what had become of the mad old woman.

  Stepping back, he shone the powerful torchlight towards the other end of the corridor which was almost lost in a fog of dust and smoke, the aftermath of the explosion. His heart skipped a beat as he made out the movement of figures in the churning clouds.

  Of course. The inmates. For some reason they had moved to that end, perhaps intending to use the stairs to escape their confinement. They must have been released from their cells when the bomb blasted down the corridor and up the lift shaft.

  Now he could just make out several of the figures lingering over something dark that lay prone on the ground. But some of the blurred faces began looking towards the new source of light. He heard their low murmuring and then shouts, cries of alarm. They fought each other to get away, either panicked by the light or fearful of retribution. Again he tried to make out the figure lying face down near the steps and although he could not identify the person, Ash saw that he did not wear the usual baggy smock of the sectioned patients.

  Ash had a terrible thought: Was the recumbent body – obviously dead – someone who had made their way here to set the patients free and lead them to safety, but who the inmates had turned on and killed? Ash shuddered. Either way, he didn’t want to spend more time in their company than he had to. It was time to get moving again.

  Ash felt a breeze on his face that was strong enough to ruffle his powder-dusted hair. It blew the soot and other smells of the explosion away from him and towards the far end of the corridor where the milling inmates were, lost, frightened and dangerous.

  But his interest was in the opposite end of the dungeon corridor, and the thick wooden door that had permanently sealed it, almost fatally trapping him during his earlier run-in with the containment area’s inmates. He swung the Maglite towards it and smiled when he saw that there was hardly anything left of the door, just fragments of wood thrown into the tunnel beyond, and twisted iron hinges hanging loosely.

  Water dripped like huge tears off the secret tunnel’s ceiling, and it trickled down the mossy walls as if in a grotto. Where it came from, he’d no idea, though he guessed there must be a whole network of cracks and fissures running through the cliff face. There were broad puddles on the uneven floor, but most of the invasive water flowed in narrow streams at either side of them along the two walls, following the tunnel’s descent, which he felt sure would lead to the big sea cave hundreds of feet below shoreline.

  ‘David?’ Delphine’s concerned voice came from the top of the lift car. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Never better,’ he responded. ‘It looks like we have a way out. Help Louis down and I’ll catch him at this end.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  He glanced into the tunnel again, using the torch, its beam set at its widest angle. There was a line of vermin making their way along the sloping floor of the passageway so patiently cut and maintained by smugglers and slave traders centuries before.

  ‘The rats seem to think so,’ he called back, ‘and as I said, they’re born survivors. Let’s move, Delphine, before the whole bloody castle collapses on top of us.’ And before the dungeon people notice where we’ve gone.

  He heard Louis slithering down the short, rough metal chute and caught his legs as soon as they appeared. Ash gently lowered the prince, and again it came to him how slight and frail Louis was. Ash feared it would be difficult getting the exiled prince down the winding, slippery smugglers’ tunnel.

  And he didn’t even want to think about the monstrous web that he knew lay across their path.

  92

  It was heavy going. More than once one or other of them slipped on the damp and greasy tunnel floor, strewn with mossy rocks that had dropped from the rough-cut ceiling. In places, whole sections of wall had collapsed, forcing them to climb around or over.

  A couple of times they all slid off their feet, particularly when the descent became steeper, and both Ash and Delphine did their best to cushion Louis’ fall. But their efforts were not always successful: once Louis fell so heavily that they were unable to catch him; yet he never cried out, even though the stone floor must have hurt his delicate skin. Luckily, his cashmere robe, light though it was, saved him from the worst scrapes. At one point, where there were no steps, was a stairless slope so slick and steep that they all slithered down together. Delphine gave out a small shriek, but Ash, who had been in the lead, was able to turn and soften their landing by spreading his arms wide and catching both of them before they jarred against the base.

  On they went, masks lowered but breathing in musty stale air that was occasionally relieved by the salty, sea-blown draught from below. After ten minutes Louis was becoming more and more unsteady on his feet, one arm often reaching out to balance himself against a wall.

  ‘I think we need to take a break, David.’ Delphine’s voice sounded hollow and echoed in the tunnel. ‘Louis is all but done in.’

  Ash was reluctant, but he knew she was right. At one stage he might end up carrying the prince, but his leg was still painful and he would sooner delay that moment for as long as possible. They had reached a set of rough-hewn steps and the investigator motioned for them all to sit.

  ‘You’re right.’ He looked back at Delphine on the step behind him. She looked more weary than frightened. Her face, with her scarf-mask dropped, looked grimy and anxious, the dirt on her skin emphasizing the whites of her eyes. She noticed he was studying her and she smiled a smile so radiant that all anxiety seemed to drop away from her.

  Louis was behind Delphine. Ash stretched back and put a hand on the robe-covered knee. He wasn’t surprised to find Louis trembling, and although his strange face was hidden in the shadow of the hood, the investigator knew his expression would be one of fear.

  ‘You going to be okay, Louis?’ he asked quietly, shaking the young man’s knee gently to comfort him.

  ‘Of course I will, Mr Ash,’ came the response, resolu
tion in his tone.

  ‘Please, call me David.’

  What would happen to the monarchy when the truth about Louis was discovered? Ash could have wept for him. A poor, unfortunate son who had been turned away out of fear of public opinion.

  ‘David,’ said Delphine, ‘I’ve just had a thought. Move over, will you?’

  She shuffled down the steps to share the one he occupied.

  ‘What is it?’ Ash’s mind was still elsewhere, his reaction automatic.

  ‘What if there’s no way through to the cave on the shoreline? What if the roof has fallen in further on?’ She gripped his arm.

  ‘It certainly isn’t blocked completely, the draught is too strong for that. But anyway, what choice do we have? We can’t just sit here; when the castle collapses it could take the whole cliff with it, us included.’

  He sighed, but could not look away from her imploring eyes. He decided that now probably wasn’t the best time to tell her about the mass of cobwebs that dammed the tunnel from wall to wall, ceiling to floor.

  Meanwhile, the rats scurried by them, leaping down the steps in a constant, bustling line. They seemed to be in a tearing hurry. Maybe they knew something he didn’t.

  Ash, Delphine and Louis continued their long, hazardous descent, becoming accustomed to the cave-water stench, their masks covering their faces again. Ash led the way, lighting up the tunnel with the wide beam of the Maglite, then Louis, and finally Delphine.

  A few cobwebs had begun to appear now, although gossamer thin, hanging from the ceiling. Ash brushed them away with a flick of the long-barrelled torch, dreading what he knew lay ahead.

  Even this far below the castle they could feel an occasional vibration followed by a small roof fall of dust and pebbles, an indication of what was going on in the building above: burning timbers falling, stonework collapsing. It perhaps wouldn’t be long before the whole structure would crumble in on itself. If that were to happen, Ash feared the zig-zag tunnel they were in might collapse with the impact. Here and there wooden crossbeams held up the sagging roof, while other stout-looking stanchions propped up crumbling walls; but these supports were themselves ancient and rotting in places, bending from the strain in others. Just how much longer could they do their job with all the pressure bearing down on them from above?