The Faceless (31 page)

A wheelchair creaked; a truncated, malformed figure shifted in it. Alan moved into the light. The shadows teemed with motion; they circled him, crowded close as they dared. Like fish in a tank.

A match scraped and hissed; the dead sank away into the shadows. Alan glimpsed the match’s flare before it died, and a face. “Who’s there?”

The faint tinkle of the match dropping to the floor. A figure stepped through a pool of light further down, then back out into the shadows.

“Who is it?” Alan breathed deep, strove to sound calm. “Who’s there?”

Footsteps clicked. A man in evening dress stepped into the pool of light opposite Alan. Not a police officer, or Martyn Griffiths; this must be the one he’d been told he’d meet. The man took a cigarette from his mouth and blew out smoke, obscuring his face, but he was familiar, somehow.

The man stepped out of the light. His shoes clicked on the floor; slow, deliberate, a clock counting off a condemned man’s last seconds. In the black, the cigarette glowed.

The man stepped into the light with Alan. He was pale, with a narrow face, sharp nose and fair hair swept into a side-parting; a long fringe flopped across his forehead, nearly covering one eye. His wet, loose lips looked perpetually on the brink of a smirk; his eyes were near-black and emotionless. His left hand slid into his trouser pocket, brushing his suit jacket back from his side; his right hand brought the cigarette to his lips again. The coal glowed blood-orange; the tobacco crackled. He blew smoke off to one side, and smiled.

“Hello, Alan,” said Gideon Dace.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“A
NNA.
”

“What’s up?”

“Can’t keep going. Got to stop.”

Anna bit her lip.

“
Please
.”

“OK.”

Vera slid down the wall. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, to be honest.”

“You don’t know? You’re the one with the plans.”

“The corridors stopped matching the layout a long time ago. We should’ve at least found a window by now, or an office. Something.”

“Map’s not much cop, then, is it?”

“It’s this place. Playing with us.”

“Christ.”

After a moment Anna put an arm round her. She rummaged in her backpack, dug out a Mint Cake bar. “Here.”

Vera shook her head.

“Take it. Keep your strength up.”

Vera’s eyes were red. “What good’s that?”

“I’m not giving up. You need to keep up your energy. So bloody get this down you. Half now, half later.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Anna unwrapped the other bar for herself. “There’s some coffee here as well, if you want.”

“Ha. Might as well eat a hearty supper.”

Anna opened the flask, half-filled the cup. “Here.”

“Thanks. So what now?”

“Keep going. Find a way out.”

“How? Even if we do those things will be waiting for us.”

“I’m not giving up. Got Mary to get back to.”

After a moment, Vera smiled. “Tougher than you look, aren’t you?”

“Dunno about that. Not in a place like this.”

“You’re not just talking about the spooky shit either, are you?”

“What?”

“I saw you, back in E Block.” Vera looked away. “Sorry. That was...”

“Yeah.” Anna studied Vera’s profile. “True, though.”

Vera glanced back at her.

“After I got divorced. My husband...”

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

“We’ll go in a bit. I want some of that coffee first. Peter was a good man. Wish I could say he was a bastard, sometimes, but... he wasn’t. We’d met at college, gone out a few times, seemed well-suited.”

“But you weren’t.”

“Didn’t realise till later. The physical side was – well, OK, I suppose. Considering. Neither of us had much prior experience. And–”

“You were still in the closet?”

“Hadn’t even admitted it to myself back then.”

“Not an easy place to grow up gay, Kempforth.”

“No. You done with that coffee yet?”

“Sorry.” Vera drank off the coffee, returned the cup to Anna. “So?”

“So, I cheated on him. No-one steady. Just... I’d go out when he was away on business, find someone. Told myself at first it was a phase. I was getting it out of my system to save my marriage. But–”

“It wasn’t.”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“I got careless. He caught me. I think I wanted him to. He was pretty decent about it, to start with. He’d had a job offer abroad. Good timing, really. We’d sell the house, split the money, that’d be it.”

“But?”

“The job fell through. Company went bust. And all of a sudden it didn’t seem like such a good deal to him. We ended up fighting over the house. He won.”

“And you?”

“I had a breakdown. Stress. Guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“He wasn’t a bad man. I’d hurt him. When things got ugly, I didn’t feel I had much of a leg to stand on. Morally, I mean.”

“Jesus. Being a bit too nice for your own good there.”

“Maybe. Anyway. I was sectioned for three months.” She looked up. Vera didn’t look afraid, or judgmental. “And when I got out...”

“You came back here.”

“Nowhere else to go. It was only meant to be for a few months. But there was stuff with my Dad. He’d found out. About the women. It wasn’t easy for him.”

“Sod him. It’s your life.”

“He was my Dad. I loved him. I’d always been his favourite. I had to fix things with him first. And then Mary was born and... I just adored her on sight. And there was Nan to look after... selling her house, getting her into Stangrove.”

“Sounds like you were making excuses.”

“I was going to move back to Manchester, get things started again. And then Dad died. Heart attack. No warning. And there was a funeral to arrange. It was particularly difficult for Nan, she’d just lost her son. Wasn’t easy for Martyn either.”

“And the next thing you know, you’ve been here how long? Ten years?”

“It wasn’t that simple,” said Anna. “I was going to move a couple of years back. Dad left me the house. I was going to sell it, split the proceeds with Martyn and clear out. But then he lost his job, and the housing market went down the pan at the same time.”

“I’d’ve sold the place for what I could get, bunged him a share and got out of this shithole fast as I could.”

“Maybe.”

Anna looked down. Warm fingers found hers and squeezed.

“Sorry,” said Vera. “Just being a bitch there.” The corner of her mouth twitched; her thumb stroked the back of Anna’s hand.
To hell with it all
. Anna leant forward; Vera parted her lips.

Light flashed; they sprang apart, shielding their eyes.

Someone was at the end of the corridor, shining a torch on them. It raised a hand, beckoning. Then it turned and began to walk away, flickers of receding light playing on the wall.

Anna re-packed the Thermos and stood. “Come on.”

“But what if...”

“Would you rather wait here and die?” She managed a smile. “We can pick up where we left off later.”

Vera smiled back, and stood.

The figure waited silently for them to catch up, then walked on. Anna glimpsed the khaki of a uniform, but didn’t shine her torch. Maybe it was best not to know. Nothing to do now but follow, and hope.

“Y
OU KNOW WHO
I am?”

“Gideon Dace.”

“
Sir
Gideon. I inherited the title from St. John when he died.”

Alan wouldn’t gratify him with a title. “Your father built Ash Fell. You...”

“Yes?”

“Embezzled the hospital funds, tortured the inmates, and finally died here, alone and despised. Have I left anything out?”

“A great deal. But I’ll overlook your manners. There’s a lot you’ve left out, but that’s hardly your fault. Or the Mason woman. She knows more than anyone alive, but this place has secrets it keeps from the living.”

“Even I know that.”

Gideon glanced around. “It’s never quiet,” he said. “In here you can never be alone.” He turned back to Alan and smiled. “But I digress. This way. We’ve a lot to discuss.”

Gideon stepped out of the light. Alan hesitated; all around him were whispers, like feathers brushing glass.

Gideon laughed. “Not afraid, Alan, surely?”

Alan followed, keeping his eyes on Gideon; better to see him than the other shapes around him.

“I was no angel, I’ll admit. But I have suffered a somewhat bad press.”

“You think so?”

“Of course.” At the end of the attic, Gideon descended a flight of steps, opened a door at the bottom. “I wasn’t the son my father wanted – too much the Hedonist, not enough the Stoic – but I applied myself diligently enough to my studies. Certainly enough to try to put right my father’s wrongs.”

He ushered Alan onto a landing. There was no visible light source, but nonetheless Alan saw quite clearly. “Wonderful Sir Charles Dace! Noble Sir Charles Dace! Noble? Ash Fell is one great monument to my father’s vanity. However high-minded his aims, he not only beggared his own children, but almost destroyed a business that had run for almost two hundred years – and which, in case you’ve conveniently forgotten, was the town’s chief employer. Bankrupting the family business was bad – even humiliating – for us, but a potential catastrophe for the men who worked in those mills. I found a buyer for them at a fraction of their true value. If I hadn’t, thousands would have lost their livelihoods.” Gideon breathed out, forced a smile, drew on his cigarette. “Note that it was
I
who found a buyer and saved the mills from collapse. Oh, I’ve no doubt St. John was a
better
man than I – more honourable, chaste, temperate and so forth – but he was nowhere near as worldly. He didn’t understand betrayal.”

“And you did?”

“I’ve experienced treachery as well as dealing it out, Alan, I can assure you. St. John was father’s favourite, remember. And he looked up to father... you know, I honestly think that to him, father was almost a god. He was devastated by what father had done. Paralysed, in shock. He could do nothing. But
I
could.”

“Is there a point to all this?”

“Only that I wasn’t acting from purely selfish motives. My family was a consideration, trying to preserve and restore it. And there was –
is
– a thing called
noblesse oblige
. A contract between the leaders and the led. Most people just want sufficient food and water; shelter, a wage. They don’t
want
to wrestle with issues of state. My...
class
, for want of a better term, takes care of those things. We provide leadership and stability; in return we need the common herd to work the factories, harvest the crops, buy the goods–”

“Fight in the wars?”

“Yes. I’m afraid, Alan, that wars are sometimes necessary. When they are, we do what we have to, to convince the herd. That’s the system, and it works. Even after Passchendaele and the Somme, even after the parade of ruined and mutilated souls that passed through here and places like it, we could still send the young men marching if needs be. Not because we want to, not because we’re cruel; because we must. It’s how the system survives and maintains itself. And before you decry it, consider the other systems out there. Compared to, say the Kaiser’s Germany, the English ruling class of 1914 were positively benign.”

“Matter of perspective.”

Gideon snorted. “Well, I’m sure the Irish peasantry and African natives might take issue. But there was give as well as take. Surely even you can’t deny our colonies benefited from our presence also. In any case, we’re straying from the point. We each have responsibilities to the other. And ‘from him to whom much is given, much will be asked’. If I recall the Gospels correctly.” Gideon led Alan off the landing and into a corridor. “My father, however worthy of respect you find him, failed in his responsibilities. Someone had to retrieve his error. St. John was incapable, so the task fell to me. My methods might not have been the prettiest, but you can’t always choose the time or place of your battles, or the weapons at your disposal. I didn’t create the situation, remember.”

“I understand,” Alan said at last.

“Do you?” Gideon smiled. “I hope you weren’t hoping to lay the ghosts of Ash Fell with a single expression of sympathy. We’re rather past that now.”

“I thought as much.”

“And it’s not me who needs laying to rest; I’m not the villain of this piece.”

“Then who is?”

“In my time, Alan, not yours.”

“But that doesn’t explain everything.”

“Oh?”

“The treatment of the patients, for example.”

“Unfortunate, but I was left with little choice. Had to raise money somehow. Again, St. John’s responsibilities devolved on me. He couldn’t do what had to be done, but I could. I plead guilty to an excess of zeal.” He looked around. “And anything I may have done, I paid the price for. Remember how long I’ve been here, living and dead.”

“Why vanity?”

“Mm?”

“You said this place was a monument to your father’s vanity. But he built this place to help others. Even if it caused your family hardship... what?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Gideon dabbed his eyes with a yellow handkerchief; his titters died away. “But to hear you paint him as some dewy-eyed humanitarian... My father had far bigger considerations than that, Alan. Do you really think he’d throw away everything the family had built up over a few loonies and missing noses?”

“Well, I thought that’s what he did.”

“No. Ash Fell wasn’t built out of humanitarian motives, I can assure you.”

“Then why
was
it built?”

“You’ll see.”

A
NNA LOST COUNT
of the twists and turns their route had taken, but finally their guide led them out into a large, pentagonal hall, with a spiral staircase in its centre. The uniformed man turned and went up the staircase; it creaked and rattled as he climbed.

At the top of the staircase was a landing. The uniformed man walked down it. Torchlight gleamed on grimy, frosted glass in the doors along his way. Anna and Vera followed in his wake. Anna had turned her torch off for now, but kept ready to switch it back on, just in case.