‘The senile and the mentally unwell, you mean. A bunch of loonies living in a grand style.’ Creed shook his head in dismay. ‘Oh Christ. That’s it, isn’t it? That freak you say is Nicholas Mallik is here too. The stupid bastards who run this place allowed him and his bony sidekick to break out to create merry hell.’ He banged the wall with the heel of his fist. ‘It’s all too much, too much of a coincidence. Even Henry Pink, the man who was supposed to have hanged Mallik, is here too. And now you tell me Lily Neverless left her fortune to this place. It’s all connected somehow, they’re all pieces of the same puzzle.’
He leaned one shoulder against the stone and studied Cally. She was pallidly beautiful in the moonlight, the dark gown she wore, sequins sparkling where they caught the light, moulding itself to her curves; her shoulders were bare, icy . . . For all his doubts, all his distrust, he wanted to draw her close, to sink into her, to warm her shoulders, her back, with his hands.
‘Joe, is that why you’re here – to see the old executioner?’
‘That’s right. Henry Pink. I figured he was the one person who could tell me whether or not you were lying about Mallik.’
‘But I can help you.’
‘Like you were going to help me get Sammy back? Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I couldn’t reach you this afternoon, but I knew Sammy would be safe until this affair tonight was over.’
He gripped her arms. ‘Are you telling me he’s here, Sammy’s here?’
‘I thought that was why you came. I didn’t know how you’d found out, but—’
‘Sammy’s here?’
‘Keep your voice down. We can get him away. We can get them both away.’
‘Both? Henry Pink as well? He’s some kind of prisoner?’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘Not him. My mother, Joe. We can take them out of this place. Don’t you understand, don’t you know why I’ve had to help them? They’ve had my mother locked up for all these years and once I was old enough to realize what was going on, they threatened me with her life. I’ve had to do what they ask.’
‘I don’t get it. You could have gone to the police, the medical authorities. Your own grandmother could have arranged it for you.’
‘No, no. She was part of it. My brother, too. You don’t understand what they’re like. They’re involved in things you’ll never understand. My mother isn’t . . . she isn’t quite right, but she’s not like them, she isn’t evil. Lily committed her when my brother and I were babies. Our grandmother raised us, she took care of us, made sure we wanted for nothing. But she corrupted us to her ways. Hers and Mallik’s.’
She moved into him, and then his hands really were on her shoulders, on her back, warming her icy flesh.
‘If you only knew what I’ve been through. I’m part of them, Joe, but it has to end, it has to stop now. They’re insane, they think they can regain past glories—’
‘Hold it, hold it. Who are you talking about now? Mallik?’
‘Yes. And others. They’re aged, some of them are crippled, but they want what they had before. They think they can be powerful again.’ She pulled her head away from his shoulder so that she could look into his eyes. ‘You’ve got to help me, Joe. We need each other.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’ He made to move towards the gardens, but she held him back.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out of here. We’ll tell the police all we know and they can do the rest.’
‘Didn’t you listen to me?’ She sounded angry, although her voice wasn’t raised. ‘The police don’t have the authority to have my mother released.’
‘Lily committed her, and now the old hag’s dead. Somebody else has to take on that responsibility.’
‘Somebody already has. Daniel has agreed my mother stays locked away. He’s with them, Joe, he’s part of them.’
‘All that may be so, but we can tell them about Sammy’s kidnapping. At least the police can help me get him back.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘They would never find him. He wouldn’t . . . there wouldn’t be enough left of him to find.’
The nausea Creed felt made him unsteady.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, holding on to him, ‘but you have to know how inhuman they are. We have to do this on our own.’
This wasn’t Creed’s territory at all. ‘We can’t . . . we can’t . . .’ he began to say, but he couldn’t assemble the rest of the sentence.
‘There’s no other way, believe me. This is something more than a mere celebration of my grandmother, so they’re going to be very busy. It’s our only chance, right here and now. There’ll be no other opportunity after tonight.’ She grabbed his lapels. ‘Let me find out where Henry Pink is first . . .’
‘He doesn’t matter any more.’
‘He does,’ she stated firmly. ‘It’s important that you know I’m telling the truth about Mallik. If you’re convinced by what Pink says, then you’ll be more willing to help me. And I do need your help, Joe, I can’t do this alone. Besides, think of the story you’ll have for your newspaper.’
There was that. ‘We’ll get Sammy too?’
‘If it’s possible. I can’t make promises. You have to trust me to do my best.’
Trust her? Trust anybody? That wasn’t really in Creed’s nature. She had, however, touched a nerve. This story, if it were true, could earn him a small fortune. It wasn’t the shot he’d been searching for all his career, the big one that would have put his name among the photographers’ hall of fame; no, this was even better, this would be (if the retired executioner was coherent enough to verify what Cally claimed) the scandal of the century, a revelation of skulduggery in high places from way back, nostalgia with a horrible twist. Imagine the movie rights on such a story! If, if, if it were true. Bring it up to date with kidnap, incarceration, and weird devil worship stuff. It was mind-blowing. It was awesome. Of course, he would have gone in to save Sammy anyway, but in all honesty he couldn’t deny that the rest of it was an added incentive.
‘Answer me two questions first,’ he said, feeling a familiar tingling in his nerve-ends.
Her face was close to his own. He could feel her warm breath on his cheeks.
‘Why all the different names? McNally, Lidtrap, Buchan . . .’
‘Buchanan. My mother’s married name was Buchanan, and mine used to be Calmeira Buchanan. I didn’t lie to you before – I changed my name by deed poll. Grandmother urged both Daniel and me to shed the Buchanan name legally as soon as we were old enough to do so. She despised my father, you see, she considered him weak and the ruination of my mother. I believe she also despised my mother for her particular weakness until the day she died. So one very drunken evening, Daniel and I stuck needles in a phone directory and came up with our present names.’
‘Your brother should have had another go.’
‘No. The rule was that we stuck with whatever the pin struck. Silly, I suppose, but as I said, it was a drunken evening. What was your other question?’
‘How did you find me here?’
‘Use your head, Joe. When I saw you near the estate’s entrance, I guessed you’d try to get into the building somehow. This was the only way you could, so five minutes after Daniel and I arrived I slipped away and came out here. I saw you dash from the trees quite clearly in the moonlight and all I had to do was wait until you got close. Can we go now before I’m missed? Besides, I’m freezing.’
Creed could think of nothing else that might delay them. ‘I’ll break your neck if you’re lying to me,’ he said grimly. It was a threat without substance, but it made him feel just a mite more bullish.
Unfortunately, when they had climbed the steps and crept across the terrace, lonely, insane laughter from somewhere inside the house set his limbs to shaking again.
30
If you’ve ever paid a visit to a lunatic asylum (perhaps been a resident at some time?), you’ll know the stale heaviness that hangs in the air like floating deca
y. For some peculiar reason it clings more stagnantly at night than in the daytime. Possibly it’s sick brain cells crumbling from their hosts to permeate the atmosphere in the way skin flakes from flesh. At least, that was the fanciful thought Creed had as he hid inside the small room filled with muddied boots on the ground floor of the Mountjoy Retreat.
The girl had led him around to the side of the house, away from the terrace and its large french windows and doors. Even as they stole past, lights in those windows began to come on behind them like stalking spotlights so that they had to hurry lest they be exposed in a sudden glare. The side door they entered was shut but unlocked, and was the one Cally had used earlier. Holding his hand, she took him along a narrow corridor. Music and muted conversation from somewhere in another part of the house came to them, but it seemed a long way off.
She had found the boxroom quickly enough (perhaps she had already planned to hide him there). Its window was small, the glass thick and mottled so that moonlight barely scraped through. She had told him to wait for her there. ‘I have to get back before they realize how long I’ve been away. I’ll find out which is Henry Pink’s room, then I’ll come and get you.’ Unexpectedly she had kissed his cheek before slipping outside into the corridor again. Given the chance, Creed would have held her tight and returned the gesture with considerably more passion, but she was gone, the door quietly closed behind her, and he was all alone, cold and nervous and wondering if he wasn’t the world’s biggest fool for entering the lion’s den like this.
For twenty minutes at least he waited, listening to the creaking of the building, the faint strains of chamber music and muffled voices. Mercifully he did not hear that empty, manic laughter again, but this sombre cubby-hole, with its smell of dirt and dinginess, had an eeriness all its own. Twice he opened the door a fraction, not so much to investigate the ill-lit corridor beyond, but more to disperse his own rising claustrophobia. It didn’t really work, for as soon as he closed the door again, the shadows and the walls crept in a few more inches. It was funny (funny in the peculiar sense) how some of those shadows, when he looked away and then quickly back, seemed much darker than before and somehow took on slightly (you’d only notice if you concentrated hard) different shapes. And the shifts in air inside there were surely unnatural; the coldness that regularly brushed by his legs was more like the ephemeral touch of icy fingers than the passing of draughts from the window or the crack beneath the skirting. He should have gone with her, taken his chances, found a friendly broom closet in a bright hallway to hide in until she got the information he needed; this was bloody daft, waiting here in the dark, scrutinizing the shadows, his own imagination taking the piss. Creed felt the wall next to the door for a switch, the palm of his hand sweeping wider and with more urgency when he failed to make contact with anything.
For the third time he inched open the door to allow in a lick of light from the corridor. He leapt back, jolting his spine against the stone sink behind him and almost twisting his ankle on a carelessly discarded boot, when fingers curled through the gap and pushed from the other side.
‘What are you doing, Joe?’ Cally whispered. ‘You should have kept this door shut. My God, we’d both be in terrible trouble if you were discovered inside the house.’
She came in breathlessly, closing the door for safety. Her scent was stronger within the confines of the room, but hardly a match for the other smells present. She carried the jackal mask in one hand.
‘Cally, can you give me a warning before you creep up on me again? You know, whistle a tune or something.’ Creed held a hand against his chest to pacify his wildly beating heart.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘It’s something you’re becoming very good at. Did you find out where the old boy is?’
‘Yes. All the residents have their own labelled pigeon-holes in the main office. I suppose they’re for mail and messages. They also have hooks with individual keys.’
‘This place is more like a hotel than a nuthouse.’
‘I think the keys are to lock them in.’
‘Not Pink, surely? As far as I know, he’s not mentally ill, just ancient.’
‘Perhaps so. But there was no key with his name on it. Just these . . .’ She held up a metal ring on which hung two large keys. ‘They were on a hook marked “Basement”.’
‘You think he’s down there?’
‘Room 8. I checked it with a register they keep in the office.’
‘Clever girl. You’re sure one of these will open Pink’s room?’
‘There were no others. One might open the basement itself, the other his room.’ She handed the keyring to Creed.
‘Maybe that’s where they keep the poor folk. Listen, I’ve been reconsidering our position. I think it might be better if we get out of here and bring in—’
‘We’ve been through all that.’
He flinched from her anger.
‘Let’s just get on with it, Joe.’
His hands dropped from her shoulders. ‘Did you manage to find out where Sammy is?’ he asked sullenly.
‘Not yet. But I will. I’ll take you downstairs first, then I’ll start hunting. Don’t worry, I’ll find him.’
Cally turned away and peeped out into the corridor. ‘All clear,’ she whispered. She squeezed through the narrow gap as though that were the discreet thing to do; Creed followed suit.
The corridor joined a wider hallway, and this was much better lit. Conversations and laughter could be heard from the far end, all perfectly natural, sane and sociable.
‘There’s a reception room near the front of the house. That’s where all the guests are gathered at the moment. Fortunately for us, most of the Retreat’s staff are being kept busy because of tonight’s celebration.’
‘Don’t they have nurses or wardens patrolling?’ asked Creed, taking a furtive look into the hallway.
‘There are only ever two on duty at night, and they’ll be upstairs somewhere. They tend to keep the worst cases sedated once it gets dark.’
‘You seem to know a lot about the place.’
‘I should. My mother has been a patient for a long time. You could say it’s almost a second home to me.’
‘That’s rough. You didn’t try to forget her?’
‘I could never do that.’ Although she spoke quietly, Cally said this with passion.
She suddenly grabbed him and pushed him further back into the corridor. He looked at her in surprise and she put a finger to her lips. He heard footsteps in the hallway, but they were walking in the opposite direction.
‘Somebody came out of a door halfway down,’ Cally whispered. She peeked round the corner and Creed jerked her back.
‘How do we get to Pink?’ he demanded to know. ‘I don’t want to stay in this place one second longer than necessary, so let’s get on with it.’
‘I think there’s a way down over there.’ She pointed to a door almost opposite them.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ He gritted his teeth, exasperated.
‘Because I’m not sure. There’s a proper staircase near the front of the house, but on my way back to you I looked in some of the doors in this corridor. I knew there had to be another way down, and I think that’s it. There’s an old iron staircase, and it should take you to the main basement area.’
‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ He really didn’t feel like investigating alone.
‘I have to get back to the reception for a while. I’ll get away again as soon as I can.’
‘Then we find Sammy and leave, right?’
‘Mother, too. I’m not leaving without her.’
‘Okay. Mother, too. But don’t leave me on my own in the crypt too long.’
‘It’s a basement, that’s all. And it was your idea to see the hangman in the first place. You don’t believe me about Mallik.’
‘Let’s not argue over it now. Just come and get me soon as you can.’
He went over to the door and gripped the h
andle. Before he opened it, he looked back over his shoulder at Cally.
But Cally had already gone.
It was dusty and even more smelly down there, obviously the neglected part of the mansion (unless the upper floors were in a similar state). At the bottom of the creaky stairway, he found a passageway whose walls were of crumbly brickwork and where cobwebs draped from cracks and rafters. The lightswitch had been at the top of the stairs, but the two bare lightbulbs along the passageway’s length cast scant light, probably because they were covered in thick dust. The concrete floor was damp, as though water freely flowed through on occasion. Here and there were clods of mud where dust had collected and congealed. In all probability there was an underground spring beneath the foundations that swelled and flooded when rainfall was particularly heavy. Creed half expected a rat or two to scurry by; fortunately, that didn’t happen, although he did hear scraping and scratching noises from behind the walls at certain points.
It was a relief when he finally came to the end of the passage, even though the next one was only a minor improvement. This was wider, paralleling the one above, but when he found a lightswitch, it was almost as dingy as the one behind. A heavy, dull thrumming meant there was a boiler room nearby. There were doorless doorways on either side of the passageway and when he poked his head into one or two he saw rooms filled with bric-à-brac – odd bits of furniture, stacked pictures, some with frames, others without, as well as unidentifiable pieces of machinery. A veritable basement junkyard.
He noticed there were other doorways leading off to other rooms, but had no inclination to explore them. Instead he moved on, coming next to a chamber with a padlocked iron door. The family vault? he wondered. Was this where they kept heirlooms and treasures? But no, this was a ‘rest’ home, not a family mansion.
He tried both keys on the ring, but neither one fitted the lock. He moved onwards, choosing one of the few corridors that led off from the chamber, hurrying his steps now. He couldn’t deny it: the whole place gave him the creeps. Even the fat receptionist, with her piggy little eyes set deep in rolls of swollen flesh and her tinkly, child’s voice, gave him the creeps. And skulking down here in this dirty inner sanctum definitely gave him the creeps, not to mention that lonely loony laughter he’d heard outside. That gave him the creeps in abundance.