Into the Thinnest of Air

  Valerie’s face softened immediately. ‘Of course. I’m sorry, Eileen. We’re all worried about Thomas, as well as Olivia. But please listen to me. It’s only by working out which of the old stories we’ve become involved in that we can hope to survive what’s happening. I’ve followed a lot of these stories back to their beginnings, and I’m convinced there’s something real and solid at the base of most of them. That’s why the stories are still being told today. Because they’re not just morality tales. They’re warnings. To give us information we need, to help us survive contact with something from beyond the fields we know. These stories follow rules that we can use against whatever’s after us.’

  ‘I deal in the printed word,’ said Jimmy. ‘I understand the power of stories. With the right words, you can make people believe anything. But ghost trees that come and go, scholars who make deals with devils and open doors in reality, Voices in the night … They can’t all be true. And I don’t see how any of them tie in with what’s happened to us here tonight.’

  ‘I saw a ghost,’ said Eileen. ‘It didn’t speak to me.’

  ‘Thank you. Very helpful, Eileen,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Screw you!’ said Eileen, dispassionately.

  ‘Everything that’s happened here took place after the Calverts restored the Castle to the way it was back in Tyrone’s time,’ said Penny. ‘They brought the past back to life … Could that be the connection we’re looking for? Could his murderous meal be the story we should be looking at?’

  We all turned to Albert. His head came up, and he pulled himself together long enough to consider the question.

  ‘I don’t see anything supernatural in the story of Elliot Tyrone,’ he said slowly. ‘He just poisoned a whole bunch of people. He didn’t make anyone vanish.’

  ‘Apart from his wife and daughters, who were never seen again,’ said Valerie. ‘And he did say that Voices made him do it. People have been hearing Voices in this area for generations.’

  ‘I think that says more about inbreeding than anything else,’ said Jimmy. ‘The gene pool around here is so shallow you could go wading in it and not get your socks wet.’

  ‘None of us have heard any Voices,’ said Penny. And then she stopped and looked round the table. ‘Has anyone …?’

  ‘I’ve heard the wind blowing outside, and that’s all,’ I said firmly.

  Jimmy looked at me oddly. ‘You must have really good hearing. I can barely hear the wind at all.’

  ‘I still think the best and safest thing to do is leave the inn and walk back into town,’ I said. ‘Sound the alarm, get some professional help.’

  But Albert was already shaking his head, his mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘No. I won’t go. Not while Olivia is still here, somewhere. And not while the hanging tree might return. You didn’t see it, Ishmael. It looked … dangerous.’

  ‘How can a tree be dangerous?’ said Jimmy. ‘What’s it going to do? Topple over on us?’

  ‘You didn’t see it!’ said Albert.

  ‘I won’t leave until we’ve found Thomas,’ Eileen said flatly.

  ‘And I’m not setting foot out that door until someone can tell me what the hell it was I saw outside that window!’ said Valerie.

  ‘What she said, only louder,’ said Jimmy.

  Penny looked thoughtfully at Valerie. ‘The face you saw … You said there was something wrong about it. How, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Valerie. ‘It was just an impression I got. I only saw it for a moment …’

  I didn’t actually shoot Penny an ‘I told you so’ look, but we both knew I was thinking it.

  ‘No one’s going anywhere until we’ve figured this out,’ said Jimmy. ‘If the kidnapper or kidnappers are human, then we have to find them and stop them and get our friends back. And if we’ve become trapped in supernatural territory … then we need to figure out which story we’re in, so we can work out what specific information we need to make the bad thing go away.’

  I realized Valerie was squirming, just a little, on her chair. She was uncomfortable about something, even if she didn’t want to say it.

  I wanted to know what was bothering her.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked her politely.

  She didn’t want to answer, but with everyone staring at her she didn’t have a choice.

  ‘All right! I need to go to the toilet, but I’m afraid to after what happened to Thomas when he went in there.’

  ‘You could always go outside …’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I am not going outside!’ said Valerie. ‘Not even if you hold my hand.’

  ‘Use the toilet,’ said Eileen. ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘There isn’t enough room for two people in that toilet,’ said Valerie. ‘And besides, there’s a limit to how far our friendship goes.’

  ‘You can leave the door open a crack,’ Eileen said patiently. ‘I’ll stand outside and we can keep talking to each other. That sound all right to you, Ishmael?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

  Eileen and Valerie got to their feet and hurried down the room to the toilet under the stairs. The door was still hanging open, just a little, because I’d broken the bolt. Valerie stood before the door for a long moment gathering her courage, and then pushed the door open and walked in. The rest of us watched closely. Valerie pushed the toilet door shut, but not all the way. Her voice rose loudly.

  ‘Look the other way, Eileen! I just know you’re looking at me.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be looking at the door,’ said Eileen. ‘That’s the point, remember? What do you care? You can’t see me.’

  ‘But I know you’re there! Or at least, my bladder does. Please, Eileen …’

  Eileen sighed heavily. ‘All right! I’m now looking the other way. So get on with it! And keep talking, so I know you’re still there.’

  ‘Thank you!’ said Valerie.

  Except Eileen didn’t look the other way. She took a couple of loud steps to one side so Valerie could hear her, but kept her gaze fixed firmly on the closed toilet door. I could hear Valerie talking quietly, maintaining in a running commentary. Just for the sake of talking. Eileen put in the odd word or two to assure Valerie she was still there.

  I was surprised at how tense I felt. Watching Valerie enter the toilet had been like watching someone enter the lion’s den. It was impossible for anyone to get to her, but that hadn’t helped Olivia or Thomas. I turned to Penny, so we could talk quietly.

  ‘Eileen is holding up well,’ I said. ‘Better than Albert.’

  ‘Albert always depended on Olivia to tell him what he needed to do,’ said Penny. ‘He’s lost without her. Whereas Eileen wore the trousers in her relationship, for all Thomas’s motorbike jacket.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve noticed that have you?’ said Jimmy, butting in without any embarrassment. ‘It’s never been much of a secret. Eileen likes to make out she goes along with what everyone else wants, but somehow that always turns out to be what she wanted to do all along. And Thomas … I always thought the whole motorbike and black-leather jacket thing was just compensating. Don’t worry. Eileen’s not listening, she’s concentrating on Valerie. And Albert’s lost in his own world, poor bastard.’

  He fixed me with a hard stare. ‘You’re supposed to be the man with security experience, Ishmael. So what are we going to do? We have to do something!’

  ‘You’re the one who wanted us all to sit tight until morning,’ I said.

  ‘That was fine when just one of us was missing,’ said Jimmy. ‘But now Thomas has vanished as well, that changes everything. We’re all targets now. There must be something practical we can do to defend ourselves! Before we all disappear, or end up like Albert.’

  ‘I can hear you, you know,’ said Albert. He raised his head slowly to look at us. ‘I’m grieving, not deaf. And … I’m scared. If someone could carry off Olivia, they could take any of us.’ He looked slowly round the room with dark haunted eyes. ‘This was
supposed to be our nest egg, our big chance at last, and it’s turned on us. I hate this place. Olivia’s not coming back. I know it.’

  ‘We don’t know anything for sure,’ I said.

  Albert looked at me. ‘Why should we listen to you? I saw you drink that whole bottle of plum brandy. What has that done to your judgement? Why aren’t you falling off that chair, or sleeping it off?’

  ‘I have a very high tolerance for booze,’ I said. ‘And there’s nothing like knowing you could disappear at any moment to concentrate the mind wonderfully. I can handle my drink. Just like Eileen.’

  ‘No one can handle their drink like Eileen,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I heard that!’ said Eileen, not taking her eyes off the toilet door.

  ‘You were meant to,’ said Jimmy.

  And then we all fell silent, as the toilet door swung back. Eileen just had time to look away before Valerie came striding out. She nodded quickly to Eileen and hurried back to the table. She planted herself in her old chair, next to Jimmy, and glared around the table in a way that dared anyone to comment on what she’d been doing. Then Eileen came back to join us, saying nothing. We all sat a little more easily, knowing that nothing had happened.

  ‘I could hear all of you too,’ said Valerie. ‘Jimmy’s right, we have to do something. Come on, Jimmy, think of something. You were always the smart one, the one who got us out of trouble in the old days.’

  ‘After he’d got us into it,’ said Eileen.

  ‘How do we get ourselves out of this?’ said Valerie.

  ‘Whoever is taking us must have a reason,’ said Jimmy, scowling hard as he concentrated. ‘Or if this is down to something supernatural … why did all of this start tonight? There must have been plenty of chances to abduct Olivia or Albert while they were staying here. Or any of the work people. So why is this happening now?’

  ‘Because we’re here?’ said Eileen.

  ‘Because this evening is all about celebrating Tyrone’s murders,’ said Valerie. ‘That has to be it! We just have to break the connection …’

  ‘What if we burn down the whole damned inn?’ said Eileen.

  There was a pause. We all looked at her. She stared right back at us.

  ‘After we’ve left the building, of course,’ said Eileen.

  ‘What about Olivia and Thomas?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘They’re gone,’ said Eileen. ‘Albert can tell himself all the comforting lies he likes, but it won’t change anything. Thomas is dead. I can feel it. And if can’t save him, all that’s left is to avenge him. If we set fire to the inn, that should flush out whoever’s hiding here.’

  ‘You know, that might actually work,’ said Valerie. ‘If there’s nothing more to this than just people …’

  ‘I still haven’t seen any evidence to convince me it’s anything else,’ I said.

  ‘We are not burning down the Castle,’ Albert said firmly. ‘I won’t allow it. Every penny Olivia and I had is tied up in this building, this business. And unlike you, Eileen, I haven’t given up. If Olivia was dead, I’d know it. I’d feel it in my heart. And I don’t—’

  Then he broke off suddenly and looked around, caught off guard. ‘Did any of you hear that?’

  We all sat very still, listening hard. I could hear the wind blowing outside, but that was all. I was about to say that when the footsteps began. Slow, steady footsteps, sounding out clearly in the quiet. They seemed to be coming from the far end of the room, down by the bar, even though it was obvious there was no one there. I concentrated, trying to focus on exactly where the footsteps were. But they sounded oddly muffled, as if they were coming to us from some undefined direction. And then they stopped abruptly, between one step and the next.

  Albert looked quickly round the table to make sure we’d heard them, and relaxed a little as we all nodded. He sank back in his chair.

  ‘We’re not alone here,’ he said. ‘Something’s in this room with us. And it’s not human.’

  ‘The footsteps sounded human enough,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘No they didn’t,’ said Valerie. ‘They sounded like something that used to be human. There was something … wrong about them.’

  ‘Are those the footsteps you heard before, Albert?’ said Penny. ‘When you were upstairs at night?’

  ‘Exactly the same,’ said Albert.

  Valerie looked at me triumphantly. ‘I told you there was more to this than just kidnappers!’

  I didn’t say anything. I was thinking hard. She was right, there had been something wrong about those footsteps. I looked at Albert.

  ‘When you and Olivia were overseeing the renovations, did the workmen ever uncover any hidden doors or passageways? That the smugglers might have used to get around unseen?’

  He looked at me scornfully. ‘No, nothing. I would have told you if they had. It was one of the first things we asked the workmen to look for. At the beginning we still had hopes of finding some old hidden treasure. But they never found anything.’

  ‘What about hidden cellars?’ said Penny.

  ‘The Castle is built on solid stone,’ said Albert. ‘No cellars, no attic, no hidden rooms. This is just an old inn, not your family’s country manor house.’

  ‘There are tales of old hidden tunnels connected to caves in the cliff face,’ said Valerie. ‘The smugglers are supposed to have used them to transport their goods up off the beach. But no one’s ever found them. And not for want of trying.’

  Penny shot me a quick ‘I told you so’ look. I rose above it.

  ‘This inn was built to be secure and solid, to be a fortress,’ said Albert. ‘I don’t think it ever was a storehouse, despite all the stories. That was somewhere else. The Castle was the smugglers’ last redoubt, somewhere where they could lock themselves in and hold off the Revenue Men until help arrived.’

  ‘But when the Revenue Men finally came, they did get in,’ I said. ‘How did that happen, exactly?’

  ‘It wasn’t a hidden entrance, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Valerie. ‘One of the smugglers was a paid informer, who betrayed the others. He opened the door and let the Revenue Men in. It was all written up at the time.’

  ‘But still,’ said Penny, ‘you have to wonder … Why did the smugglers feel the need for a fortress when they could have used the hidden tunnels in the cliff to get away? Was there something else here they were scared of?’

  ‘Never mind that!’ said Albert. ‘We all heard the footsteps. Something is in this room with us!’

  ‘You’ve woken up,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ said Albert.

  ‘But what do these footsteps mean?’ said Valerie. ‘What do they signify?’

  ‘And why are we only hearing them now?’ said Penny.

  ‘Because someone wanted us to hear them,’ I said. ‘Our kidnapper decided we needed convincing that something supernatural is going on here. I think someone has been listening to us. That’s why I asked about hidden passageways.’

  Everyone looked about them, spooked by the thought that someone might have been eavesdropping on our every word.

  ‘I don’t think it’s that,’ Valerie said finally. ‘But I do think we’re not alone. I know you don’t want it to be spirits, Ishmael … but there is a definite presence in this room. Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  But everyone else was nodding quickly. Even Penny seemed half convinced.

  ‘I’m not feeling anything,’ I said. ‘Not a presence, not a spirit, not even a cold draught.’

  Valerie looked at me pityingly. ‘Some people don’t. They’re not sensitive to manifestations of the other world.’

  I was still trying to come up with an answer that didn’t involve me losing my temper and throwing things, when Albert spoke up again. His voice was quiet and sadly reflective.

  ‘Olivia is gone. Thomas is gone. As if something just reached out and snatched them away.’

  ‘Remember the door the scholar opened,’ said Va
lerie, ‘to let through a demon that was unseen, perhaps even insubstantial …’

  ‘But that was just a Voice in the night speaking evil,’ said Penny.

  ‘Maybe it got stronger down the years,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Is that the story we’re in?’ said Jimmy. ‘The thing from another place? Is that what’s after us?’

  ‘I think it’s here with us right now,’ said Valerie.

  One by one we got to our feet and looked around the empty dining room. I still couldn’t see or hear anything, but I could feel the tension rising in everyone else as the idea took hold.

  ‘Everyone move away from the table,’ said Valerie, her voice charged with a fierce excitement. ‘Form a circle, looking out, and hold hands so it can’t separate us!’

  In a few moments we were all standing in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder. Penny held my hand tightly, and Valerie held my other hand really tightly. Everyone was staring silently around, searching desperately for some sign. I could hear their harsh breathing, but that was all. The light in the room was steady and the shadows were still. And then, after a long moment when nothing at all happened, everyone started to relax. One by one we let go of each other’s hands, though I almost had to prise mine out of Valerie’s. She was still looking around hopefully. Everyone else smiled at each other, half relieved and half embarrassed.

  ‘Whatever it was, it’s gone now,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Don’t sound so disappointed,’ said Jimmy. ‘I was just one loud noise away from having to change my underwear.’

  ‘I’m not convinced anything was ever here,’ I said.

  ‘You really didn’t feel anything?’ said Penny.

  ‘Did you?’ I said.

  Penny frowned. ‘I’m not sure now. Would you have expected to feel something if there had been something unnatural in the room with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I’m telling you, there wasn’t anything here but us.’

  ‘You’re the only person in this room who thinks that,’ said Jimmy. ‘Come on, you heard the footsteps!’

  ‘They were real enough,’ I said. ‘But that’s as far as I’m prepared to go.’

  ‘I think we need to hold a seance,’ said Valerie.