Into the Thinnest of Air

  We went back on to the landing. There was one more door, at the far end, which turned out to be the upstairs toilet. I looked inside, but the room was empty. It was so small there was only just room for the toilet bowl and the wash basin, and there was no window. I closed the door again.

  ‘No en suite for the guest rooms, in this day and age?’ said Penny. ‘The horror, the horror …’

  ‘All part of recreating the period, I suppose. The customers will be expecting the full olde-worlde experience … There’s probably something under the bed for emergencies.’

  Penny looked at me. ‘Like what?’

  ‘In the old days we used to call such things a shove-under,’ I said. ‘A china receptacle …’

  ‘Oh, ick!’ said Penny.

  I went back into the first guest room and searched it thoroughly. I looked under the bed and inside the wardrobe. I opened every drawer in the chest of drawers, got down on my hands and knees to examine the bare floorboards, and then stood on a chair to check out the ceiling. I tapped the walls carefully, listening for hollow sounds. Then I did it all again in the other two rooms, while Penny watched from the doorway so as not to get in my way. And then we went back on to the landing again.

  ‘Nothing interesting up here,’ said Penny.

  ‘Not that I can see,’ I said. ‘No one’s had a chance to use these rooms yet, and there’s nowhere anyone could be hiding.’

  ‘Where do you think Olivia is?’ said Penny. ‘I mean, she has to be somewhere, doesn’t she? What could have happened to her?’

  I shook my head. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘It is a bit creepy, isn’t it?’ said Penny. ‘Vanishing suddenly and silently from inside a room with no other exit.’

  ‘It’s a mystery,’ I said. ‘Fortunately, we’re really very good when it comes to solving mysteries.’

  ‘But this is something different,’ Penny said carefully. ‘I mean, from the kind of cases we normally investigate.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is.’

  ‘Do you think there’s anything unnatural going on here?’

  ‘Too soon to tell. But it seems unlikely.’

  ‘I am sorry, Ishmael. If I hadn’t insisted we come here for a nice normal weekend away, we wouldn’t have got caught up in all this!’

  ‘But then these people would have had no one to help them,’ I said.

  Penny smiled at me. ‘That is so you, sweetie. I’m sorry about the jinx comment, earlier.’

  ‘Story of my life,’ I said.

  I prowled round all three rooms one last time, hoping I might spot something I’d missed. But the rooms stared innocently back. I’d checked the walls for sliding panels and the ceiling for trapdoors, and done everything but tear up the floorboards. The guest rooms were just rooms.

  ‘This place was built by smugglers,’ I said finally. ‘I would have expected them to install a few architectural surprises … The odd hiding place, or an unexpected exit in case of unwanted visitors.’

  ‘They built the Castle to be their fortress,’ said Penny. ‘A last redoubt, where they could hold off attackers until help came. You’ve seen how thick the outer walls are, you couldn’t blow a hole through them with a cannon. I suppose they thought that would be enough.’

  ‘But why did they feel the need for a fortress to hide in?’ I said. ‘What were they so afraid of?’

  ‘Revenue Men?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘In the end, even these stout walls weren’t enough to keep the Revenue Men out. So how did they get in …?’

  ‘Are you by any chance doing all this thinking out loud so you can put off going back downstairs?’ said Penny. ‘Because you don’t want to have to tell the others you couldn’t find anything?’

  ‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘But mostly because I can’t help feeling I’m missing something. Olivia can’t just have vanished into thin air! Someone must have taken her. It couldn’t have been one of the other guests, because they were all sitting with us when it happened. Which has to mean we’re not alone here. Our kidnapper must be hiding somewhere in the Castle. Presumably, with Olivia.’

  ‘But there isn’t anywhere!’ said Penny. ‘And how could she have been abducted without any kind of struggle or outcry? She just went into the kitchen and never came out again. We should have heard something …’

  ‘There was a lot of conversation going on around that table,’ I said. ‘Even some raised voices on occasion. And it’s easy to miss something if you’re not listening for it.’

  ‘But where could the kidnapper have taken Olivia?’ said Penny. ‘There was only the one door and we were all looking at it.’

  ‘I know!’ I said.

  I strode back into the first guest room and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. Penny came in and settled down beside me. And we sat quietly together for a while, thinking. I looked around me, scowling. It seemed such an ordinary room. Nothing in the least odd or strange about it. Just an everyday room in a pleasant country inn. Which just happened to have a history of mass murder.

  ‘I still say something unnatural must be going on here,’ Penny said finally. ‘I mean, think of all the weird stories we’ve heard tonight.’

  ‘Just stories,’ I said. ‘Nothing useful in any of them. Nothing I haven’t heard before, in other places. Apart from the ghost tree.’

  ‘Trees, ghostly or otherwise, are not noted for their tendency to abduct people,’ said Penny. And then she sat up straight. ‘No! Wait a minute … Abduction! Is that the key word here? Could we be dealing with some form of alien abduction?’

  I gave her a long hard look. ‘Really? That’s where you want to go with this?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Penny, bouncing eagerly on the edge of the bed. ‘If there’s one thing you and I can be sure of, it’s that aliens are real. And what’s happened here does seem to fit all the criteria for your standard alien abduction. Someone disappearing without a trace under impossible conditions. Missing time, maybe even missing memories …’

  ‘You’d know more about that stuff than me,’ I said. ‘You’re the one who reads all those trashy supermarket tabloids.’

  ‘But you’re the one who knows what’s really going on in the world,’ said Penny. ‘So talk to me, Ishmael. Do alien abductions really happen?’

  ‘Not really my area of expertise,’ I said carefully. ‘Even when I was working for Black Heir, cleaning up after alien incursions, I preferred to avoid that whole area because I couldn’t risk anyone recognizing my true nature. I’ve heard things … but there are so many stories out there even I don’t know what to believe. Are we really taking this idea seriously? You’ll be asking the others next whether they’ve heard about any cattle mutilations in the area.’

  ‘Is that a real thing?’ said Penny.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘But it’s got nothing to do with aliens.’

  ‘As far as you know.’

  ‘Let’s go back downstairs,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t want to leave them on their own for too long. There’s always the chance one of them will panic and do something stupid.’

  ‘You have to have more faith in people,’ said Penny.

  ‘No I don’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve met people …’

  Down the stairs we went and back into the long open dining room. The others were still sitting round the table. They looked up hopefully as Penny and I came back to join them, but their faces fell when I shook my head. They’d really wanted me to find something upstairs that would explain everything that was going on and put their minds at rest. Jimmy fixed me with a challenging stare.

  ‘All right, Mister I’m the One in Charge … What do we do now?’

  ‘Did you search this room thoroughly?’ I said. ‘Including the toilet?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eileen. ‘And we didn’t find a damned thing.’

  ‘Except that Albert and Olivia were too cheap to put in male and female toilets,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Jimmy!’ said Valerie.


  ‘I’m just saying …’

  ‘It was accurate for the period,’ said Albert. He didn’t look up from staring at the table top.

  ‘It’s just one poky little room with no window,’ said Eileen. ‘Nowhere for anyone to hide.’

  ‘There’s nowhere down here Olivia could be,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘We’ve done everything we can do,’ I said. ‘So I think the best thing for all of us now is to leave the Castle and walk back into town.’

  They all sat up straight at that, followed by massed raised voices and much shaking of heads as they competed to make it clear just how much they really didn’t like the idea. I waited for them to settle down again. When it became clear they weren’t going to, I sat down at the table with them and glared around until everyone took the hint and stopped talking. Penny sat beside me, smiling brightly on one and all.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I said.

  ‘Walk a good mile and a half back into town?’ said Thomas. ‘In the dark? Anyone could sneak out of the woods at any point and pick us off!’

  ‘We’ll be perfectly safe as long as we stick together,’ I said.

  ‘No we won’t!’ said Jimmy. ‘You’ve no idea how dark that road gets at night. We don’t even have any torches!’ He stopped and looked at Albert. ‘Do we?’

  Albert shook his head, still not looking up. ‘And I won’t leave here, anyway. Not without my wife. Olivia has to be here somewhere, and I won’t go off and leave her.’

  His voice was low, but completely inflexible.

  ‘The best way to get your wife back is to bring in some professional help,’ I said. ‘If we walk back into town, we can alert the local police and they can come back here with professional equipment. Find some real clues.’

  ‘Why are you so keen for us to leave the safety of the inn and put ourselves in danger?’ said Jimmy, scowling at me suspiciously.

  ‘I don’t know, Jimmy,’ said Valerie. ‘I don’t think I want to stay here. Olivia’s gone! Who’s to say one of us won’t be next? I vote we listen to Ishmael and get the hell out of this awful place while we still can. We’re not safe here! None of us!’

  ‘We wouldn’t be safe on that road!’ said Thomas. He was wringing his hands together, and his eyes had a definite deer-caught-in-the-headlights look.

  ‘We can walk together down the middle of the road,’ I said, as reassuringly as I could. ‘There should be enough moonlight for us to see where we’re going, and we’ll be well away from the trees.’

  Thomas started to say something, his voice almost incoherent with emotion, and then stopped as Eileen took a firm grip on his arm.

  ‘Look at me, Thomas! Maybe there is a way we can use the cars, after all. Couldn’t you hotwire one of them? You used to do that kind of thing all the time back when we were teenagers.’

  The others looked away, as though afraid they’d be asked to confirm this. Thomas shrugged unhappily.

  ‘That was a long time ago. Cars have moved on. It’s all computers and centralized security systems now. I wouldn’t even know where to start.’

  ‘And anyway,’ said Albert, ‘I’m not sure I want the police brought into this.’

  Everyone turned to look at him. His head came up, and he looked round the table defiantly.

  ‘There’s no proof anything criminal has happened. And bad publicity could ruin the business before it even gets started.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Albert?’ said Valerie. ‘Your wife is missing! Don’t you want her to be found?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Albert. ‘But she just vanished! How are the local police going to react when we tell them that? And you have to understand … Olivia and I sank every penny we have into refurbishing the Castle. If this should all turn out to be some kind of misunderstanding, Olivia would be furious to find I’d put it all at risk.’

  He looked around the table for support, but didn’t get any. As much as everyone hated the idea of walking back in the dark, they liked the idea of staying a lot less.

  ‘All right!’ said Albert. ‘You win. We’ll walk back to town. And you can explain it to Olivia when she turns up again. Get your coats. I’ll take a look outside and see how much moonlight we can count on.’

  He rose to his feet and stomped off, deliberately not looking back. He yanked open the front door and glared out into the night. The rest of us got up from the table and clustered round the coat stand, sorting out our coats. No one put them on. We were all too busy going through the pockets one more time, on the off chance our phones and car keys might have reappeared. And then Albert screamed.

  I looked round sharply. Albert was standing in the open doorway, staring wide-eyed at the car park. He pointed out at the darkness, his whole arm trembling violently.

  ‘It’s out there! The tree! The hanging tree is back!’

  Nobody moved. Either because they weren’t sure they believed him, or because they did. I hurried over to join Albert at the door, with Penny right behind me. Albert filled the doorway, staring disbelievingly out into the night. I had to grab him by the shoulders and haul him back out of the way. He was shaking all over, and the moment he didn’t have to look at the night any more he turned away and buried his face in his hands. I stood in the doorway and looked out over the car park. But there was no sign of a tree anywhere. Penny crammed in beside me, peering around eagerly.

  ‘I think it was over there,’ she said, pointing off to one side. ‘The concrete plaque, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not seeing any tree,’ I said. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Of course not! There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Just checking.’

  I closed the front door on the night, then Penny and I went back to join the others. They’d already sat Albert down at the table, saying comforting things while attempting to get some answers out of him. He was shaking and shuddering, trying to talk but unable to get the words out.

  ‘What did you see, exactly?’ said Valerie. ‘Albert, you need to talk to us. What was it you saw out there?’

  ‘It was the tree,’ Albert said finally. His voice was unsteady, and he looked like he’d been hit. Hit hard. ‘I saw the hanging tree, right where it was supposed to have stood.’

  ‘Did you see Tyrone hanging from the branches?’ said Jimmy. ‘Or Olivia?’

  ‘Jimmy!’ said Eileen.

  ‘I was just asking …’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Well don’t!’ said Valerie.

  ‘There was just the tree,’ said Albert. ‘The old hanging tree. Huge and dark, standing out against the moonlight. It was horrid …’

  ‘It isn’t there now,’ I said.

  ‘It was!’ said Albert.

  ‘Of course it was,’ said Thomas. ‘If you say you saw it, Albert, we believe you.’

  ‘That settles it,’ said Valerie. ‘I am not walking back to town. I am not going out into the car park, and I am not leaving this room!’

  There was a lot of vigorous nodding around the table. They all looked seriously scared, and the more they took in how badly Albert had been affected by what he’d seen the more scared they looked. I had to do something, before open panic broke out.

  ‘Everyone stay here,’ I said. ‘Penny, you keep an eye on them. I’m going outside to take a look around.’

  ‘You can’t!’ Albert said immediately. ‘It isn’t safe out there!’

  ‘I’m not afraid of ghost trees,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘Which makes me the best choice to go out there, doesn’t it?’

  Outside in the car park, the wind was blowing viciously hard and the night seemed even colder. But there was still no sign of the infamous hanging tree. The parked cars were just dark shapes, and there was nothing else to see in the wide open space. The woods were a dark and silent presence way off in the distance. Nothing was moving anywhere, and the only sound came from the gusting wind.

  I walked over t
o the concrete plaque set into the ground. I couldn’t see it in the uncertain moonlight, but I remembered exactly where it was. I knelt down and located the concrete square by touch, my fingertips rasping over the inscribed lettering. It seemed entirely ordinary, and undistinguished. Nothing to indicate a ghost tree had been standing over it just a moment before. I stood up and looked around me. I couldn’t feel any trace of a ghostly presence, or anything that felt like a threat. The car park gave every appearance of being completely deserted. But I still had a strong sense of being watched by unfriendly eyes, though I had no idea where they might be watching from.

  I wasn’t convinced Albert had actually seen anything. It could have been simple hysteria, from a man already in a state of shock after losing his wife. Or perhaps he only saw what he wanted to see, so he wouldn’t have to leave the Castle. But suppose he really did see something … Could someone have arranged for him to see it? Did Olivia’s abductor want to keep all of us inside the Castle, so we couldn’t get to town and spread the alarm before they had a chance to get away? Or could it be they hadn’t finished with us yet? It was always possible Olivia hadn’t been a specific target, just the first opportunity. Which meant everyone was in danger. As I hurried back to the front door, a gust of wind hit me so hard it almost knocked me off my feet.

  Not a fit night to be out, for man or beast.

  Back inside, I closed the door firmly and then jammed the wooden coat stand up against it. The rack didn’t make that solid a brace, but it made me feel better. The bright light of the dining room was a relief after the obscuring darkness of the car park. Everyone was still sitting round the table. Thomas had an arm across Albert’s shoulders and was murmuring reassuringly to him. But it was obvious Albert wasn’t listening. He sat very still, his head hanging down, driven inside himself by what the world had done to him. Eileen had a glass of wine in front of her, but wasn’t drinking it. Jimmy was scowling, still angry because he couldn’t make sense of what was happening, and Valerie didn’t know what to do with her hands. Penny looked at me hopefully as I sat down beside her.

  ‘The tree still isn’t out there,’ I announced to the table. ‘And I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.’