Thorn (33 page)

Viewed, thought Quincy, staring at the notice, huge-eyed with horror. People used to view lunatics. Like today they went out for a day to the seaside or the zoo, or to garden centres or to look round stately homes. Once upon a time, when this house had been young, mad people had lived here, and it had been a day's outing to come and view them.

She went up the stairs, careful not to make any noise, hearing, very faintly, the ordinary sounds coming from the central part of Thornacre. There was the cheerful clatter of crockery and a door being closed and someone calling out something about going off duty.

The sticky spider's web of darkness that crouched at the house's heart stirred, and Quincy shuddered. It knows I'm here. It knows I'm coming, and it's lifted its head and it's listening and waiting . . .

She reached the corridor with the black iron door, and stopped. This was the worst part, this was the core of all the nightmares and all the frightening stories. If you don't behave we'll put you in the east wing, the nurses had said last time. The Cattersis-beast had said, if you tell what I've done to you, my dear, you'll find out what's behind the black door.

There was a bad moment when she heard someone open the door from the main part of the house and cross the hall below, and her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst out of her chest. She ran silently back to the head off the stairs where she could see down into the hall, but it was only poor old Mad Meg McCann, the bag woman. She had got hold of a trolley again today – probably she had given the attendants the slip and walked into the village and stolen it – and she was trundling it along the corridors, counting the bags of rubbish as she went, darting furtive, fearful glances from side to side. She was not in the least afraid of the east wing because she had no room for anything in her scatty old brain except her bags of rubbish. In a minute she would run off down the corridor with them, hugging the dirtiest to her withered chest. Quincy waited, and sure enough Meg grabbed the bags up and went scuttling and limping away.

Quincy went back along the corridor. This was the door; she could see the black iron bands and the huge steel hinges. She could feel the strangeness that breathed outwards. This was the black core and the evil heart of Thornacre.

She took her courage in both hands and went right up to the door and pressed her ear against the panels. Nothing. Absolute silence. Or was there? Quincy listened again. Her heart was beating so furiously that it was difficult to hear anything else, but she thought that something moved on the other side. Something that had come to stand against the door, pressing against it in exactly the way Quincy was doing. Something that sniffed the air for human blood, and that snatched up children to cook them for supper . . . The ogres still here? But this was the most ridiculous idea in the world.

Quincy sank to the floor, huddling in a tight little ball and wrapping her arms about her bent knees. The door would certainly be locked.

But I have to know, thought Quincy with helpless despair. I have to be sure. Know your enemy. She took a huge gulping breath and stood up.

The door had a latch and a lever, and Quincy saw, with horror, that her hand seemed to have developed a life of its own; it reached out to the lever, depressed it and turned the latch. Both clicked down easily, as if they had recently been oiled. The door swung open and Quincy's heart came up into her mouth.

A sour, faintly greasy smell wafted out of the black room. It was the kind of fat-laden smell that brought all the nightmare things rushing back again. Quincy took a cautious step forward. It was fairly dark in here, and there was a bluish flickering light. Television?

Her eyes were adjusting now, and she could make out things in the room. Objects. Chairs and a table and a rug on the floor. There was a window high up in one wall, and a muddy, uncertain dusk trickled into the room and lay across the floor, showing up the drab furnishings. And beneath the window, huge squatting things. Quincy frowned, and waited for her eyes to adjust a bit more.

She was dimly aware that she had thrust a fist into her mouth to stop herself screaming, because what she was seeing was dreadful, it was the most dreadful thing she had ever seen. It was not believable, it was a nightmare, and in a minute she would wake up.

In the corner of the drab room, positioned just far enough from the small window to escape most of the light, was a plain, heavy-looking table, the kind you saw in large, old-fashioned sculleries. The remains of a meal was set out on it. Quincy could make out bowls of soup and a bread board with bread and a crock of butter or cheese, along with a dish of the stew that had been served in the dining room earlier on. The greasy scent of cooling meat lay on the air, mingling with a faint, stale odour.

Drawn up to the table were four or five chairs, and seated on each of the chairs—

The badly-lit room with the flickering bluish light that looked like television but could not possibly be television spun dizzily before her eyes and she gasped.

Seated on each of the chairs was a grotesque figure, squat, repulsive,
immense.
Giant bodies and giant faces. Giant hands resting on giant knees, all sitting back after eating their dreadful meal.

Supposing the meal had not been lamb at all, but something far grislier?
Giants like their bread made from human bones, Quincy . . . They like their dinner made from human meat . . .

Confused, fragmented shreds of knowledge whirled through Quincy's mind. All those poor children cooped up in here, waiting for the ogre men to come stamping and shouting out of the forest to snatch them up. But the ogre men were still here; it was exactly as she had feared, they had got into the house and they had made a horrid lair in the deserted wing, and they were sitting here feasting and drinking.

As Quincy stood there, frozen into the most appalled horror she had ever known, the monstrous things turned to look at her. The repulsive heads with the overhanging brows nodded and smiled.

‘Hello, little girl . . .'

Quincy gave a strangled scream and tumbled back down the dark corridor.

Imogen was fathoms down in the violet and turquoise mists; she was at the silent secret heart of an old, old forest where nothing moved and no one came and where frightened crying did not reach.

At times there were sounds, splinters that came jaggedly through the thick undergrowth. The rasp of a voice calling her name, the brief jangle of music. Once – perhaps two or three times – there had been tiny pinpoints of light flaring somewhere out beyond the trees; darting will o' the wisp specks, glow-worms or fireflies or perhaps dancing cressets borne by mischievous spirits, like the elusive creature in the old Irish play who was bent on seducing the humans into the land of heart's desire.
Come away, human child . . . Come away to the land of faery . . . Where nobody gets old and godly and grave
. . .

It was important to remain very silent and very still so that no one could see her and no one could hear her, and so that she did not have to go back, up and up through the mists and the twilit undergrowth. So that she could remain here.
In the land of faery, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue . . . Stay with us here, Imogen . . . Where it is safe . . . Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise . . .

Where it was safe.

‘And now, as the enchantment drew to an end . . .'

Charles Perrault,
The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood

O
liver Tudor stood indecisively on his brother's doorstep. It was nine o'clock on the evening prior to Christmas Eve, and he had rung the bell of Dan's flat and knocked loudly on the door several times. There were four or five pints of milk on the step, and a box of eggs. Some of the milk looked as if it had gone off.

Oliver was not especially concerned. It was possible that Dan had forgotten he was joining him to spend Christmas in London, or that he had been called away and was due back soon. It was entirely possible that Oliver himself had got the arrangements wrong.

But Oliver knew quite definitely that he had phoned Dan because the answerphone had been on, and he had left a careful message. He did not entirely trust the answerphone, because it was amazing how often machines went wrong, and so he had posted a quick letter as well, confirming the date he would arrive and the approximate time. He was actually a bit later than he had said because he had missed a turning which had taken him quite a long way off his route, but Dan would surely have allowed for something like that.

Oliver had driven to London on Thursday afternoon, straight after what had been a really very good party in the rooms of a fellow don. It had been nice of her to include him; in fact it was very nice the way so many people did invite him to things.

He fished in his pocket to find the key which Dan had given him when first moving in here. Always useful to have a spare somewhere, he had said. And there might be occasions when Oliver would turn up in London and Dan could not be here to let him in. This looked like one of those occasions.

There was a large pile of post on the mat and a film of dust everywhere. Oliver switched lights on, which made the flat feel friendlier, deposited his suitcase in the tiny spare bedroom, and came back into the living room. The first thing to meet his eyes was Dan's manuscript, stacked in two piles, one on each side of the typewriter. Oliver had a swift, vivid image of Dan working, the finished pages on the right, the draft pages on the left. The cover was off the typewriter, although this did not necessarily mean anything; Dan tended to be erratic about things like that. Oliver understood this because he was erratic himself.

There was food in the fridge – cheese and bacon – and bread in a bin. The bacon had unpleasant whitish spots, and the cheese and bread were both white and furry and in a disgusting condition. Oliver threw everything away, and tipped the sour milk down the sink.

This was beginning to be very worrying, because it looked as if Dan had not been in the flat for some time. Oliver scooped up the pile of letters and studied the postmarks under the light of the desk lamp. Some were blurred, but many were readable. With a feeling of mounting concern, he saw that several were dated the end of November.

Dan had not been in the flat for a month.

It was no longer a case of respecting his brother's privacy; it was a case of searching for clues as to where he might be. Oliver considered phoning the police but decided to leave this as a last resort. In any case, as Dan's nearest relative, he would have been notified of accident or illness. Dan kept the Oxford address and phone number in his wallet and diary, under the ‘In case of accident, please inform' section.

The answerphone was flashing, which presumably meant there were messages on it. Oliver eyed it nervously; machines were so unpredictable. But it would have to be dealt with in case any of the messages provided the answer, and so he rummaged in the desk and eventually found the instruction leaflet. It took quite a long time to understand, and he was worried about wiping off messages that might be important, but in the end he understood which button did what. He found pen and paper from the motley collection on the desk, and scribbled everything down as it came.

There were three calls from Piers, Dan's agent, each one sounding more exasperated than the last, and ending with an exhortation for Dan to ring pronto, or find himself another bloody agent. And there were a couple of invitations from friends to join them for drinks or a meal over Christmas. One added that Dan must be sure to bring his brother if he was spending Christmas in London, which pleased Oliver.

One was from a lady with a feline-sounding voice, who announced herself as Juliette Ingram, and who was apparently ringing to thank Dan for taking her out to dinner, and also for a delivery of flowers. So he's at it with somebody new, thought Oliver, torn between vague embarrassment and envy. Juliette sounded rather attractive.

There was his own message as well, explaining about arriving today, and hoping this would be all right. Oliver had had no idea that he sounded so apprehensive on the phone. He hoped he did not sound like that when he lectured.

Certain things had to be given priority. The phone calls had better be returned and, if possible, dates when they had been made established. Oliver rang Dan's agent first, and then the friends who had issued the drinks invitations. He explained to them all that Dan seemed to have vanished; agreed that there would certainly be a logical and ordinary explanation in the end, and promised to report progress. The dates of the calls confirmed his original suspicions: Dan had not been in the flat for at least a month.

He left Juliette Ingram until last.

‘Goodness, I don't know
where
he could be,' said the breathless, slightly husky voice on the phone. ‘He certainly isn't here, in fact I haven't heard from him since we dined together four or five weeks ago. But it all sounds very intriguing. Shall I dash over to discuss it? I'm expecting people for drinks shortly, but I could—'

‘No, no, I wouldn't dream of troubling you,' said Oliver, terrified. ‘But – would you by any chance know what Dan was working on at the moment? It's possible that he had to go off somewhere in connection with a – a commission, and forgot to leave a message.'

‘He did the article on Thalia,' said Juliette, thoughtfully. ‘That's Thalia Caudle, my aunt.'

Oliver said he knew about this.

‘As a matter of fact, it was very good,' said Juliette. ‘But I don't know what else. Doesn't his agent know?'

‘No.'

‘Oh. Well, I can tell you one thing, Oliver – you did say Oliver, didn't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘I've
always
wanted to meet someone called Oliver.'

‘You said you could tell me—'

‘Oh yes. Well, I do know that Dan was interested in my family,' said Juliette. ‘I mean interested as a writer. The two mad Ingram ladies who went wild with meat axes and butchered people, you know.'