Secrets of the Dead

  It was after eleven o’clock at night. Nobody had told Oliver to go to bed. What’s more, he didn’t feel like going to bed. He felt all strange and worked-up inside and didn’t know whether he wanted to shout swear words or cry. Oliver stood by his chest of drawers. He scratched its shiny woodwork with a coin. He knew he was damaging it by covering it with scratches, but he didn’t care. He was angry with his parents for behaving like they were spoilt kids.

  Suddenly, he heard his name being whispered.

  ‘Ollie … Ollie, it’s me.’

  He glanced back at the open window. ‘Fletcher? What is it?’

  Just beyond the open window, he could make out the twelve year old in the gloom. He stood on a branch in the big tree that grew close to the house. Fletcher wore the red cap that Oliver had given him. Fletcher walked along the branch, arms extended to keep his balance. He grabbed on to the window ledge and leaned forwards so that his head was in the room. ‘Ollie, I came to warn you.’

  ‘Warn me about what?’

  ‘It’s the mummies. They’re walking. I saw them heading this way.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Oliver spoke angrily. This evening’s events had upset him badly.

  ‘You should, Ollie. The mummies are walking. I know something will happen tonight. I can see it. Everything – the stars, the rocks, the trees, the walls of this house – they’ve all got a worried expression.’

  ‘You’re stupid, Fletcher. You say stupid things all the time. I’m sick of you lying about the mummies walking.’

  ‘Ollie, you’ve seen them walk. Kadesh picked you up and almost carried you away.’

  Oliver threw the coin at Fletcher. It missed the boy’s head by an inch. ‘My parents have gone wild with each other. I’m worried they might split up, and you come here telling me stories!’

  ‘It’s not a story. The mummies have left the castle. All of them are walking. I’ve seen them.’

  Tears ran down Oliver’s face. ‘It’s not fair. I liked it here, now it’s all spoilt.’

  Fletcher’s manner was quietly sympathetic. Somehow he seemed so grown up tonight. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Oliver.’

  Oliver sat down on the bed. It all came pouring out – all the worry, the fear, the distress. He told Fletcher that Mrs Oldfield had come into the garden. She’d been acting weird, saying that somehow the mummies were turning into the Tolworth family. Oliver couldn’t understand properly what she’d said. ‘She kept using the word “convergence”,’ Oliver explained. ‘She said that my family were like those mummies, and that we were getting close to an “event”. She kept saying that something bad will happen to us soon, and that we should leave here while we still can.’

  ‘Mrs Oldfield is right. Something will happen. I don’t know what it is, but I know that the mummies from the castle are involved. You know it too, deep down. You told me that Kadesh came into the house. You know the mummies walk, and they have a way of making people sleep when they do.’

  Oliver had never felt such misery before. ‘Could the bad thing be about drugs?’

  ‘Drugs? Why do you say that?’

  Oliver told him that he’d found a bag full of white powder in the bottom of Ben’s rucksack. ‘The police will take Ben to prison if they find out he’s got drugs, won’t they?’

  ‘Where are the drugs now?’

  Oliver reached under his bed and pulled out the box that contained the bag of white powder.

  ‘You’ve got to get rid of that stuff.’

  ‘I was going to chuck it in a pond tomorrow.’

  ‘If the police come here, they’ll have dogs that can sniff drugs out. You’ve got to get it away from the house right now.’

  ‘It’s nearly midnight.’

  ‘It could be cocaine or heroin. Ben would go to prison for possession.’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘It’s late. I’m not allowed out.’ Fletcher’s expression was so sympathetic that a lump formed in Oliver’s throat.

  ‘You’ve got to be the big man, Oliver. You’ve got to become the hero. If you want to save Ben from prison then you’ve got to get rid of those drugs. His fingerprints and DNA will be on the box. The police will use that as evidence in court.’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘I’m not going out. I daren’t; you said the mummies are coming here.’

  ‘Maybe it is something to do with the drugs. Because you’re agitated it makes the mummies agitated. You’ll be able to relax again as soon as we’ve dumped that stuff. Then they might just go back to the castle.’

  ‘Do you think I’m turning into a mummy?’

  ‘What? A dead Egyptian?’ Fletcher tried to make a joke of it. ‘Nah, you’re just some kid from London, wearing a stupid yellow T-shirt.’

  Despite himself, he laughed at Fletcher’s grinning face. ‘OK, I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Climb out of the window, and use the tree. All the house lights are on, and I’ve seen your mother and sister moving about. If you go downstairs, they’ll see you and stop you from coming with me.’

  Oliver tugged on his sandals, grabbed his rucksack, stuffed the box of evil white powder into it, and pulled the straps over his shoulders. The drugs were like a curse. He dreaded the idea of the police taking Ben away. He liked Ben and felt safe with him. ‘Where are we going?’ he whispered as he climbed out of the window.

  ‘I know a place where we can hide those drugs so they’ll never be found in a million years. Watch where you put your feet. If you fall, it’s a long way down.’

  Micky Dunt had spotted the kid in the red cap come scuttling into the garden. Before the kid could notice Micky and the unconscious guy on the patio, Micky had dragged his victim into the bushes where they’d both be out of sight. Don’t want some lousy kid raising the alarm, do we now? Micky had crouched next to the guy, who was dead to the world. Kids are weird, he told himself. What’s this one doing climbing a tree at this time of night? There was no obvious reason why the kid indulged in nocturnal tree climbing.

  Micky heard the kid talking to the younger boy, who was in a bedroom. He didn’t make out any actual words, but the younger boy was upset – at one point he started to cry. A little while later both boys climbed down out of the tree before heading off into the forest. Maybe gone out to smoke a joint? An entirely plausible notion to Micky, who’d joyously embraced the drug culture when he was still a schoolboy.

  The man on the ground moaned. OK, sleeping beauty’s starting to wake up. Time to get busy. Micky pulled the gaffer tape out of the rucksack. It didn’t take long to tape the guy’s wrists and ankles together. Nicely trussed up, completely powerless: good work, Micky.

  The guy muttered something, squirmed a little, and grimaced when the pain of the blow to the skull began to register. He still hadn’t come round properly. Grabbing the man’s feet, Micky dragged him back on to the patio. He took his phone from the bag. He filmed the man lying there, eyelids fluttering, grunting, a trickle of blood leaking from the head wound across the patio. Micky had started making his torture video. OK, time to recruit some more actors for his production. He chuckled when he looked through the window into the lounge. The woman, the teenage girl, and Ben were there.

  ‘All this is flowing nicely,’ he murmured, pleased. He knew his plan was going to work just perfectly. Pulling out the gun, he entered the kitchen by the back door and headed for the sound of voices.

  A female (the girl) shrieked, ‘I don’t care what you do to me. You’ll not stop Jason and me seeing each other.’

  The older woman came back with, ‘Why do you always think that the world revolves around you, Vicki? Other people have issues in their lives, you know?’

  Micky had heard Ben’s voice often enough to recognize it now. Ben seemed to be trying to calm the pair down. ‘It’s none of my business, but isn’t it best you sleep on all this tonight?’

  Micky clicked off the handgun’s safety switch. Smoothly, without rushing, he stepped into the living room.

  ‘Micky?’ Ben’s expr
ession was one of total astonishment.

  The two women gasped in shock when they saw the pistol. Their eyes became so big and round in their heads that Micky half-believed their eyeballs would pop right out.

  Micky grinned. ‘I’m here to collect my goods, Ben.’ He raised the gun, making sure they all saw that the muzzle pointed at Ben’s head. ‘Do not shout. Do not move. You’re all going to do exactly as I say. In a moment, I will tell you to move outside to the patio. Do not try and run away. Otherwise I will shoot. OK? Good … Now, Ben, you infuriating bastard, bring me the cocaine I asked you to keep safe for me.’ Micky used the pistol to tap the leg cast. ‘Come on, Ben. Hop to it.’ Micky laughed. ‘Hop to it? Ha. Ha. And you and your broken leg.’ Suddenly, he grabbed hold of the front of Ben’s T-shirt and dragged him to his feet. ‘Get my stuff. Go!’

  Moonlight revealed the path at the edge of the forest. Oliver Tolworth followed Fletcher; both were running. Oliver could feel the heavy box in his rucksack knocking against the bottom of his back as they ran. There were lots of drugs in the box. To Oliver it seemed as if that evil powder wanted to make its presence felt. Jab, jab, jab! The corner of the box was like a finger digging into his spine, hell-bent on reminding the boy that he carried a substance that was as dangerous as it was illegal. Do kids get locked up if they’re caught with drugs? Oliver hadn’t heard of any school children being jailed, but maybe there were. Imagine, if a policeman stepped out in front of him right now and said, ‘You’ve got something in your rucksack, haven’t you? Show me, boy.’ Oliver shivered. He could already hear the clang of a cell door in his ears.

  ‘Here!’

  Oliver was so startled by Fletcher’s yell that he cried out.

  ‘Nervous?’ asked Fletcher.

  Oliver nodded. ‘I don’t want the police to catch us with this stuff.’

  ‘The police never come here.’ Fletcher paused. ‘Did you see them on the other side of the field?’

  ‘See who?’

  ‘The mummies. All five of them. They’re walking towards the houses.’

  Oliver couldn’t take any more tonight, no more stress, no more emotional overload. ‘Stop lying, Fletcher.’

  ‘You noticed them. They’re easy to see with the moon being so bright. You’re just pretending that they’re not there.’

  ‘Stop that shit!’ Oliver’s face burned with anger. ‘Having these drugs in my bag is scaring me. I just want to get rid of them.’

  ‘Then get rid of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’re here.’ Fletcher left the path and stamped on a patch of moss. Instead of his foot making a soft thumping noise, like it should when stamping on mossy ground, it made a loud, hollow-sounding clunk.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Oliver. That clunk sounded like a big wooden box being stamped on. Mental images formed inside his head of a coffin buried just below the surface. Once again, searing flashes of panic burst inside of him.

  Kneeling down, Fletcher began scraping the moss away. ‘It’s the top of an old mine shaft,’ he explained. ‘Years ago they sealed the opening shut so people wouldn’t fall down and be killed. The planks are rotten now. It’s easy to move them.’ Fletcher did just that. Working by moonlight alone, he lifted up a slab of wood and pushed it aside. ‘Listen.’ He picked up a stone and dropped it through the gap.

  A long … long … time later Oliver heard a splash of water. ‘Damn and hell,’ he breathed. ‘That’s a long way down.’

  ‘Nobody will find anything that goes down there. Dump the drugs in it.’

  Oliver didn’t need telling twice. Quickly, as if there was a danger the white powder would burst into flame and burn his hands to the bone, he tugged the plastic box from the rucksack. He felt the heavy bag of powder slide inside the box. It was as if the drugs were alive in there and trying to find a way out. ‘I’ll open the bag and tip the powder down.’

  Fletcher shook his head. ‘No. The breeze is getting up. If the powder is blown on to your clothes, the police sniffer dogs would pick up the scent of drugs on you. Keep everything in the box. Chuck the lot down there.’

  Crouching, Oliver pushed the box through the gap. The smell of cold, stagnant water reached his nostrils. He opened his fingers, allowing the heavy box to tumble away into the darkness. A long time later the sound of the splash echoed up the mine shaft. The drugs were gone. He hoped the anxiety he felt would now vanish, too.

  Out on the patio, Micky Dunt stared at Ben in disbelief. ‘What do you mean it’s gone?’

  ‘The box with the coke. I kept it in the bottom of my rucksack. It’s vanished.’

  ‘Vanished where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about what you’d got stashed there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can it have disappeared, then?’

  ‘It just has, Micky. I checked this morning and the stuff was still there.’

  ‘But now it’s gone?’

  Ben nodded.

  ‘Oh, right.’ Micky glared at the kid as he stood there, using the crutch to balance himself. ‘I show up, and all of a sudden thousands of pounds-worth of cocaine disappears from your bag. Convenient, huh?’

  ‘I’m telling you, Micky, it’s—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Micky considered the situation. Here he stood on the patio. The guy he’d knocked out still lay at his feet, ankles and wrists bound together by tape. The woman and the teenage girl stood at one end of the patio, some ten feet from him. Their eyes glittered with fear in the light of candles and lamps dotted around the garden. Just seconds ago, Ben Darrington, the son of Micky’s girlfriend, had hobbled out here to tell him that a valuable consignment of cocaine had gone missing from his bag. Shit. What would Karl Gurrick say if Micky phoned him with the news? ‘Sorry, Mr Gurrick, Ben Darrington mislaid your coke. You’re not at all annoyed, are you?’ Gurrick would ignite with rage. He’d chop Micky to pieces. Gurrick would suspect Micky of keeping the drugs so that he could sell them himself and take all the money. Of course, Micky now concluded that Ben Darrington planned to do exactly that. He’d portion out the coke into little plastic bags then sell it to his student friends, while, no doubt, laughing at Micky’s misfortune.

  Micky aimed the gun at Ben. ‘Give me back my drugs.’

  ‘I haven’t got them.’

  Micky pointed the gun at the older woman. ‘Ben, I won’t ask twice. I know you’re hiding my gear. Give it back.’

  ‘You’ve got to believe me, Micky. I haven’t got that coke. It’s gone. Someone stole it.’

  Micky strode over to the woman and jabbed the gun into her chest. ‘I don’t believe you, Ben. But if you’re content to see this lady get shot …’

  The two women gasped in shock.

  The older woman took a deep breath. ‘Ben. Do as he asks.’

  ‘Ingrid, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where they’ve gone.’

  ‘You brought drugs into my home, Ben. We trusted you. John thought you were wonderful, and now we learn that you’re just some drug-dealing piece of shit.’ The woman – Ben had called her Ingrid – glared at him in fury, her eyes flashing. She didn’t even seem concerned that the pistol was jabbed into her ribs.

  ‘I didn’t want to bring them here.’ Ben sounded distraught. He hobbled closer to Ingrid. ‘I only agreed to keep them for a few days, then I broke my leg. I went to hospital and didn’t have an opportunity to return them.’

  The teenage girl stared at Ben in astonishment, and Ingrid shook her head in disgust. ‘You’re friends with this man?’

  ‘Micky Dunt? Hell, no. I hate him. He’s a thug. He’s my mother’s partner, but he knocks her around.’

  Micky barked out one word: ‘Bastard!’ He kicked the crutch away from Ben. The kid lost his balance, crashing to the floor with a yell. Micky watched with satisfaction as this individual, who had caused him so much trouble, writhed in pain while clutching the leg cast.

  Micky said, ‘You will tell me where you’ve hidden m
y stuff.’ While aiming the gun at the woman, he pulled out his phone, switched to movie camera mode, pressed ‘Record’, and then he kicked Ben’s broken leg. He watched the phone’s screen as Ben’s face twisted with agony. ‘All you have to do, Ben, is tell me where I can find the coke. Then I’ll leave.’

  That was a lie, of course. In all the excitement, Micky had overlooked one important fact. These people could identify him to the police. They’d have to be silenced forever. When all this was over, when he’d got the coke safely in his bag, when he’d got torture footage that would satisfy Karl Gurrick, then he’d have to come up with the next part of the plan. Perhaps something to do with a tragic house fire? A situation where the skeletons of a whole family are found in the smouldering ruins. Yes, that would work nicely.

  John Tolworth realized that in this terrible situation he had one small element in his favour. The gunman didn’t know that he had recovered consciousness. John only opened his eyes by the tiniest fraction. Candlelight revealed the scene. He lay on the patio, his wrists and ankles bound together. His head hurt so much that he wondered if he’d been shot. He recalled Samantha rushing into the garden, breathlessly telling them that the castle mummies were changing. That they were beginning to share physical characteristics with the Tolworth family. He remembered right up to the point where he’d been sitting out on the patio, wondering how he could persuade Ingrid that he spoke the truth – that he’d not had sex with Samantha Oldfield. He’d been brooding over the evening’s events; moths had been flying around the candle flames. The next thing he knew he’d woken up on the ground.

  He’d clearly heard people speaking. He knew Ingrid and Vicki were there, being held at gunpoint by the crook Micky Dunt. John knew that his wife and daughter were scared, no matter how defiant they sounded when they answered Micky back. John had pieced together what had been said since he came round. Micky had left a significant quantity of cocaine in Ben’s care. Micky wanted it back. Ben claimed that the drugs had vanished. Micky had shown no qualms about threatening to shoot John’s wife and daughter. Now Ben lay beside John, and he’d been kicked several times. John had been able to make out that Micky held a pistol in one hand, while he used a phone to film Ben. The kicks kept on coming. Ben grunted with the force of the boot smashing into his ribs.