Had a figure ducked behind a tree to his left?
He waited a moment, but there was no more movement. He continued, becoming annoyed with the silly game.
The noise that brought him to a halt this time was different. It had sounded like a child’s giggle.
He whirled and caught a fleeting glimpse of something hurry through the trees to his right. But it was gone in an eye’s blink.
Ridiculously, he thought it might have been a small girl. It had moved so fast, though. He couldn’t be sure.
He turned his head, sharply. No, he couldn’t have heard the whisper of voices; surely the muted sounds had been a breeze sighing through the woods.
Now the faintest echo of laughter.
Ash drew in a shallow breath. A feeling was rising – was creeping – from the hollow of his stomach – or so it seemed – spreading upwards and outwards, a gradual sensory frosting of sinews and nerve lines, seeping through to his outer skin, prickling its surface with tiny bumps. An unease that he could not understand; yet a sensing which he could not ignore. His pace quickened as he walked on through the forest.
Occasionally he would look behind him. Sometimes he would glance sharply to his right, other times to his left. He was not alone. Yet there was no one else with him.
Ash did not run. But he walked in haste.
He heard a snigger, he felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder. The touch could only have been the brushing of leaves. But the snigger could not have been anything else but a snigger.
He almost stumbled, his hand scraping across the rough bark of a tree. He did not linger.
The woods seemed more shaded, more gloomy, as if dusk were impossibly premature. The coldness might well have been in his own mind, for he could feel perspiration on his brow, the clinging of his shirt, the dampness against his lower back. He hurried, now ignoring the small noises that seemed to keep pace with him, the shadows that had no substance when focused upon.
And then he was in bright sunshine, the clearing he had burst into summer warm, as though it had trapped and stored its own heat. He even heard the lazy drone of a blowfly which had found sanctuary from the season’s death-chill. His eyes narrowed against the unexpected glare.
The clearing was an orderless area of coarse grass and foliage, with several openings that could have been paths around its ragged fringes. At the centre, its stone walls lichen-patched and stained, stood a small, square edifice. Its door, a tall rusted iron gate with grass growing through the lower bars, was ajar. Two earthenware vases filled with wilted flowers were on either side of the entrance.
He realized that the building, neglected and weather-worn could only be a mausoleum. A tomb. The previous Mariells’ final resting place?
Curious, he moved closer.
The sun slowly drew the coolness within the tomb. A shifting.
Ash paused, the long grass steadying to a rest in his wake.
‘Christina, is that you?’
He waited for a reply. There was none. But there was another sound from within the shadowed entrance.
He forced good humour. ‘Okay, Christina, joke’s over. You’ve had your fun.’
The silence was not comforting.
Weary of the game, he sighed. ‘Christina . . .’
The air itself seemed strangely still. Ash stepped closer to the old building and his hand reached in for the gate, fingers curling around a bar as if for support. He noticed at the side of the entrance a plaque, grimed with age, muddied by passing seasons. At the top he could just discern parts of the Mariell name.
He pushed at the gate and it scraped noisily on its hinges as it swung stiffly inwards. Inside, the air was dank, stale, and there came to him a sense of total emptiness. Yet there were tiers in there, narrow concrete platforms set against the walls. On them were stone coffins.
His voice was very quiet when he said, ‘Who’s in here?’
Still no answer, but there was movement: a shadow separated from other shadows. It came from behind a coffin on one of the lowest tiers.
He then heard the deep, menacing growling as the black bulk of the dog slunk from the darkness. Seeker’s teeth were bared as it came into the light, and its shoulders were hunched, head low to the ground.
Ash backed away, slowly, cautiously. The dog stalked him, muzzle creased, quivering over pointed teeth that glistened wetly. It snarled throatily, bunching its muscles, hindquarters tensing against the earth floor. It sprang forward.
15
Ash pulled the gate shut, the dog’s charge adding impetus from the other side against resisting hinges. He fell away as Seeker’s hurled body rocked the bars. The animal became frenzied by its sudden imprisonment, howling at the man lying beyond its reach, yelping in frustration. Slaver from its jaws soaked struts of the rusted gate.
The investigator picked himself up, his eyes never leaving the maddened beast whose ululations were amplified by the stone surroundings. Ash hurried away from the mausoleum, stumbling backwards, body half-crouched as if preparing for the attack should the dog burst through the iron bars. Not until he had reached the edge of the clearing did he turn his back on the dog and run. The sounds of metal clanging against stone and Seeker’s frantic barking followed him through the woods. He pushed into foliage, leaping over low obstacles, brushing aside leafy branches that tried to hinder him, not knowing how long the animal could be contained by the unlocked barrier, desperate to put as much distance as possible between him and it.
Voices. No, there couldn’t be voices. But there were. Around him. In the woods.
He, himself, shouted something, but he had no idea what.
Snickering. God, they were laughing at him. Shadows moving between the trees.
‘Stop this!’ he shouted (or did he scream this time?).
They whispered in return.
Then the crashing of leaves and bushes behind him, as if someone were following, someone or something moving fast. Charging. The dog charging through the undergrowth.
‘Help me!’ he cried out, but their laughter taunted him.
He dare not look, he dare not peek over his shoulder. He might trip, he might fall, he might see the black fury bounding after him. The crashing was drawing closer, he was sure he could hear the dog’s laboured panting, the rumbled growls as it gained on him; he was certain he could feel its hot breath.
His legs felt awkward, as though the knee-joints had loosened, his stride having no rhythm, no coordination. He staggered, each step jolting his body, his lungs seeming to jar against his ribcage. The dog was almost upon him, he could hear, he could hear, the widening of its jaws, the clicking of its teeth, the slopping of its distended tongue . . .
The stark blueness of the sky dazzled him as hands grabbed his chest, a figure blocking his way. He would have collapsed had not those same hands steadied him.
He blinked to clear the mist over his vision (caused by the sudden brightness, or fear’s teardrops?).
Standing before him on the open path, so close he could smell the powder on her lined face, and still gripping him tightly, was Nanny Tess. The flowers she had been carrying lay scattered on the ground.
He was too breathless to speak. He could only point back at the woods, his arm wavering, his awkward legs tensed to run.
But there was nothing following him. He could hear the twittering complaints of the birds, his hurtling progress having startled them, and he could see that the foliage and undergrowth were now undisturbed, save for the occasional breeze that ruffled through.
16
Ash rested his elbows on the rough wood of the kitchen table, the cigarette he smoked trembling between his lips. Autumn flowers, those he had knocked from Nanny Tess’ arms when he had rushed out onto the woodland path, lay nearby, their petals beginning to lose lustre, but their scent still strong. He inhaled deeply, then took the cigarette from his mouth; now it trembled between his fingers.
Nanny Tess glanced back at him as she poured brandy into a tumbler on the
dresser, her face creased with concern. There was the slightest tremor in her own hands. She set down the bottle and, still gripping its neck, she closed her eyes briefly. Then, with resolve, she brought the glass to the table.
‘Drink this,’ she urged. ‘It’ll help calm you.’
Ash took a large swallow of the brandy, and another as the Mariells’ aunt pulled out a chair to sit at right-angles to him. He felt her scrutiny.
‘You say that Seeker went for you again?’ she said anxiously. ‘He chased after you?’
He nodded and stared into the drink held in both hands on the table top.
‘But there was no sign of him,’ she insisted. ‘If Seeker was after you, what made him stop?’
‘I don’t know.’ His voice was low, husky from the brandy. ‘Maybe he hid because he saw you. All I know is that he went for me inside . . . inside that bloody tomb.’
She visibly flinched. ‘Mr Ash, what made you go to the family grave?’
‘Christ, I didn’t go there intentionally. I got lost and stumbled into it. Why didn’t someone tell me the Mariells had their own mausoleum?’
‘It didn’t seem important,’ she answered. ‘Nor is it. I visit once a week to replace flowers, but I’m afraid the place has become terribly neglected, like many other things at Edbrook.’ For a moment it was as though her thoughts were elsewhere, in another time.
Ash sipped the brandy, then cleared his throat. ‘Christina’s parents are buried . . . entombed there?’
‘Their remains were brought back from France and laid to rest at Edbrook. You said you found Seeker inside the mausoleum.’
‘Yes, skulking somewhere at the back. I thought . . .’ he hesitated, shaking his head ‘. . . I thought Christina was hiding from me in there. She’d left me in the woods, a silly game . . .’
‘You must forgive her, Mr Ash – her and her brothers – for their childishness. I believed that the years, all that has happened, would make them change. After their parents’ death, I thought grief would help mature them.’ Her shoulders slumped, her body seeming to shrink. ‘Somehow that tragedy had the opposite effect, as though their loss made the children retreat even more into their world of games and trickery.’
He became impatient. ‘Look, the dog – that animal’s too bloody dangerous to be running around loose.’
She straightened, became sharp. ‘Oh no, Seeker is harmless, Mr Ash. I promise he wouldn’t have hurt you. He imagined he was protecting his mistress – he was only trying to frighten you away.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? Christina was nowhere around.’
Nanny Tess was saddened rather than taken aback by his anger. ‘I had no idea Seeker still guarded her resting place.’
His words were controlled. ‘I’m trying to make some sense out of this, Miss Webb, but you’re not helping me. Whose resting place?’
She refused to look at him. Her hands fumbled in her lap, strands of white hair hung over her forehead.
‘Christina . . .’ she began, but faltered. One hand brushed at the wisps of hair. ‘Christina had a twin.’
The cigarette stopped before it touched his lips.
‘They were so alike,’ Nanny Tess went on, ‘so very much the same, and yet . . .’ She noticed his intense gaze. ‘Yes, a sister, Mr Ash, but there was one frightening difference between them.’
He waited, cigarette still poised.
‘The other one was a schizophrenic, a normal child one moment, an insane thing the next.’
His question was quietly put. ‘She’s dead?’
‘You saw where she rests, with her mother and father.’
‘Something else nobody thought important enough to mention.’ He drew fiercely on the cigarette, and expelled smoke in an untidy cloud.
‘Why should it mean anything to you?’
‘You really don’t see? My God, the spectre of a young girl manifests itself in your house and none of you considered the fact that Robert, Simon and Christina had a dead sister relevant? Even when I asked earlier today?’
‘It isn’t something we like to talk about.’
‘Carrying on the family tradition, right?’ he retorted disgustedly. ‘Well if you want to help this investigation – to help yourselves, for God’s sake – then you’d better talk about it now.’
Nanny Tess rose from the table, her chair scraping noisily against the tiled floor. She went to the dresser and took another tumbler from the cupboard beneath. This time she poured herself a stiff measure of brandy.
Ash held his own glass up, its contents almost gone. She returned with the bottle and placed it in front of him. He helped himself as she took her seat again.
Nanny Tess drank, grimacing at the taste, before saying, ‘I’m not sure . . .’
‘You have to tell me,’ he insisted.
‘It was so long ago. I’ve tried to shut what happened from my mind.’
His tone softened. ‘I want you to understand something. If you – if all of you – have been suppressing some dark memory, a terrible event from the past, then it might just be that your collective subconscious – believe me, this can happen – is now pushing that memory to the fore, refusing to allow the girl to be forgotten. Your minds could be working together to bring into being an image – a spirit as far as you’re concerned – of Christina’s sister. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Her thoughts were deep. ‘I . . . I think so. But you don’t believe in the supernatural.’
‘No, but I believe in the paranormal. There’s a difference. Now will you tell me?’
She raised the tumbler, sipped, took a longer drink. She looked directly at him, as if making up her mind. Then she began to speak.
‘My sister and her husband would never admit to the outside world that a child of theirs could be . . . wasn’t quite right. You had to know them, Mr Ash, had to know the times they lived in, the attitudes—’
He interrupted. ‘The Mariell attitude?’
‘There was never any question of sending their daughter away, not to an institution. Not just because of the shame, but because of the love they had for their child as well. It’s strange now to think of how many times my sister, Isobel, begged me to take care of all her children should anything ever happen to her and her husband. It was almost as if she had a premonition. Is that possible, Mr Ash? Do you think somehow she knew they would both die so very young?’
‘Some of my colleagues would say such premonitions are common,’ he replied.
She bowed her head, absorbing his response. ‘Their terrible deaths shocked us all, but for her, for Christina’s sister, the shock must have been the worst. Her poor little mind just couldn’t cope with the loss, you see; the bad part of her began to dominate the healthy part more and more. She played the same games as the others, but hers increasingly became more dangerous. They grew afraid of her; eventually they began to resent her. When those black, those foul, moods were upon her, she felt Seeker was her only friend. Her practical jokes became more malicious, so much so that we often had to lock her away, for her own safety as much as the other children’s.’
The aunt drank more brandy, as if to steady herself. Ash stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer she had provided. He waited for her to continue.
‘Then one night, she somehow managed to set fire to the house – we don’t know if it was accidentally or not. We were soon aware of what she had done and managed to put out the fire; but she had disappeared. We searched the house from top to bottom. Only when Simon discovered the back door was open did we realize what had happened. We found her body in the pond.’
Horrified, Ash stared at the Mariells’ aunt. Her thoughts were elsewhere, remembering the night.
‘Her nightdress had caught fire and she’d thrown herself into the water to douse the flames, you see. But her injuries must have been too severe, she must have been too weak to drag herself out. She drowned, Mr Ash, the poor child drowned.’
He was stunned, barely able to think
clearly. ‘Yesterday morning, when Christina was showing me the grounds, she seemed afraid to go near the pond . . .’
‘None of us like being near it, even after all this time. That’s why the pond has become so neglected.’
Ash sat back in the chair, confused, giving himself time to allow what she had said to sink in. ‘I still don’t understand why you haven’t told me this before,’ he said.
‘Why should we speak of madness within our family? We’ve always protected each other, even our memories. It wasn’t for you to know, Mr Ash. Until now, that is. Now I feel you have the right.’
‘And is there more that you should tell me?’
She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘There are matters here at Edbrook that should never be delved into by outsiders.’
Nanny Tess drained the rest of her brandy, then got up from the table.
‘Wait . . .’ Ash said urgently as she walked away.
She opened the kitchen door and turned. ‘My advice to you,’ she said, ‘is to leave this house. No good will come of your investigation. Can’t you feel that, too?’
Nanny Tess left the room.
17
Cigarette smoke poisoned the air, curling in the shafts of light from the bedroom window. Ash read through his notes, his face grimly angry, then laid the felt-tip down. He stubbed out the last half-inch of the cigarette into a brass ashtray. He reached for the vodka bottle, whose level was now well below the halfway mark, and was stopped from drinking by a sharp knock on the door.
Simon Mariell looked in, not bothering to wait for a reply. ‘Have you got a few minutes?’ he asked, wearing the supercilious grin that was beginning to irritate Ash more each time he saw it. ‘Robert would like to see you in the drawing room.’
Ash bit on his anger. ‘Yeah, and I think I’d like to see him.’
He pulled on his jacket, which had been draped over the back of his chair, and went to the door. Simon was already some way down the corridor and Ash followed, disliking the sunless gloom in that part of the house, the smell of dust and old wood particularly unpleasant there.