Thorn (47 page)

There was just time to realise this, and to feel the ancient emotions and the long-ago terror and shut-away despair that had left their imprint here as plainly as if their symbols had been carved into the stones and the bricks. Then the hunchback took her through to a smallish room with a stone floor and a deep, square, old-fashioned sink. A small grimy window was set above the sink, and next to it was a huge copper boiler nastily crusted with green verdigris around the waste pipe. Imogen thought it might be a disused scullery or an old wash house. Her captor put her down on the floor, which felt cold and rough through the thin stuff of her nightgown, and then stepped back. Imogen tensed. Was this the moment when he would spring on her? But he did not. He looked about him, gave a satisfied little nod, and went away. There was the sound of the key turning in the lock and then of dragging footsteps going away. No one could possibly have heard them. No one could have heard him bringing her here.

She was huddled against one wall, just beneath the window. She stayed quite still and listened to the old wing settle back into silence. There was an occasional creak as a floorboard or a roof joist expanded or contracted, and the faint rustling of trees outside the window. She brought her knees up to her chest and braced her back against the wall, levering herself upwards until she was standing.

And then somewhere quite close by, somewhere that might have been at the end of a corridor or maybe up a short flight of stairs, there was a sound that was not timbers expanding or trees sighing. It was the sound of a massive door being opened and clanging back against the wall with a dull echo. The impression of something heavy and iron-banded printed itself on Imogen's mind. She shivered and pressed back into the concealing shadows. The hunchback returning?

She could see that beyond the window were the dark grounds of Thornacre. A rather horrid smell of clogged-up drains and mice and sour dishcloths wafted up from the sink beneath the window. Whoever was responsible for improving Thornacre either was not very efficient or had not got as far as this place.

Imogen was just trying to calculate if she could get herself on to the sink and break the window when she heard a sound that brought her heart lurching upwards and knocking against her ribs in sheer terror.

Somewhere quite close by several people were whispering.

It was the eeriest, most fearsome thing she had ever heard. To crouch helpless in the dark evil-smelling wash house and hear the whispering voices sent her heart thumping so wildly that for a second it almost blotted the sounds out altogether. Imogen took as many deep breaths as the gag allowed and fought to remain absolutely still and absolutely silent. She strained every nerve to listen.

And now she could make out isolated phrases. Things like,
‘We're free, my dears . . .' ‘We can leave . . .'
And then,
‘Let's go this way . . .' ‘But quietly so that no one hears us . . .
' There was a rather horrid sibilance as well, as if the whisperers might have lisping speech impediments, or as if the night stillness of Thornacre was picking up all the s sounds and giving them an echo, so that Imogen heard them as,
‘This-s-s way, my dears-s-s . . . Quietly s-s-so that no one hears-s-s . . .'
For some reason this was unspeakably sinister.

Whoever the whisperers were, they were coming nearer. They were creeping slowly and stealthily towards this room; she could make out heavy padding footsteps now, and harsh, laboured breathing.

‘This-s-s way . . . Into the darkness-s-s and away . . .'

It was impossible to avoid thinking that the dull, hollow, clanging door she had heard had been the door to some kind of prison being opened. He's let them out, whatever they are, thought Imogen in panic. The hunchback has let something out – several somethings –and they're coming towards me. Maybe they're coming
for
me! Maybe the hunchback left me here for them. As a sacrifice? As a present?

The door was locked from the other side, and she could see nowhere that would hide her, not even a cupboard under the sink into which she could squeeze. But whoever the people were – she must keep remembering that they could only be people and nothing more sinister – she could not just wait for them to come in. They might be friendly and helpful; they might untie her and help her back to her own room and raise the alarm. But they might not. They might be in league with the hunchback. It had sounded, in fact, as if they were escaping themselves –
‘We're free, my dears-s-s . . .'
It would have to be the window.

She surveyed it. It was small but it was not as small as all that. It was grimy with the ingrained dirt of decades and very cobwebby but the panes looked large enough to get through, which was all that mattered. If she could get up on to the sink, she might manage to lever herself on to the narrow sill and break the glass. With her hands? Oh God, no, she would never do it, not with her hands still tied. And her feet were bare and anyway she could not risk cutting them because she might need to run. Was there something in here she could use to break the glass? What about the bit of waste pipe protruding from the copper boiler? If it would unscrew, it would be exactly right.

The copper waste was so corroded that it refused to budge. Imogen, hampered by having her hands tied behind her back, struggled fruitlessly for what felt like an eternity. And then, without the least warning, it snapped clean off and she was so startled that she almost dropped it. All right; now for the window.

If the hunchback had tied her ankles together she could never have done it. But although it was a bit awkward not having her hands for balance, she swung first one leg and then the other up into the sink until she was perched awkwardly on the narrow wooden draining board. The sink was brown pitted earthenware, with rusting taps, and the smell was disgusting. There were spiders and beetles. Imogen felt her feet brush against the plughole and shuddered, and then caught the whispers again:
‘Through here, and then we'll be s-s-safe . . .'
Get on with it, girl.

Smashing the glass was not going to be very easy; even using the copper pipe she would probably cut her hands quite badly and fragments of glass might have to be removed later on. But Imogen did not care if she had to be stitched up in fifty different places if it meant getting out before the whispery creatures reached her.

The scarf round her wrists gave unexpected protection. Her fingers were not very free but they were free enough for her to pull a piece of the cloth firmly over one hand. Here I go, thought Imogen, and lifting the pipe as far up as she could and tensing every muscle in her body, she cracked it hard against the glass. It shattered at once and Imogen thought it was not impossible that someone would hear it and come running. If she had been a housebreaker wanting to be silent and stealthy, the sound would no doubt have roused half of Thornacre and she would have been caught and hauled off to justice. But there were no welcome shouts and no friendly running feet, and if she had done anything at all she had probably let the whisperers know she was here. So you'll have to move quickly, you'll have to get out of here like a bat escaping hell.

Most of the glass seemed to have fallen outwards on to the ground outside, which was a mixed blessing because while it should mean she could get through without too much danger from the broken glass, she might land on it with her bare feet. Working more or less by guess, she swung the copper pipe twice more, and then twisted round to see how much of an escape hatch she had made. Yes, if she was careful she could get through. And quickly. Oh God, yes, she had to be very quick indeed. The creatures had heard the glass breaking, they had stopped dead and there was a moment of silence. But then the sounds reached her again, more clearly now.

‘What was-s-s that?'

‘Better find out.'

‘Better go and s-s-see, my dears-s-s.'

‘Look in there . . . No, in there.'

There was the sound of a door being stealthily opened and then another. They're searching, thought Imogen in horror, and she flung herself forward to the window in a half-slither, half-crawl. The rough, old-fashioned drainer scraped her legs agonisingly and it felt as if a million splinters were jabbing into her flesh, but this did not matter any more than the broken glass mattered.

And then,
‘There's-s-s s-s-someone in the old wash hous-s-se!'
said one of the voices and suddenly the voices were much nearer.

‘A girl! It's-s-s a girl!'

‘How do you know?'

‘I s-s-smell s-s-scent!'

‘S-s-scent on the air, we s-s-smell it as-s-s well!'

The sibilance of this last remark hissed malignantly through the darkness, and Imogen felt a new fear send her heart pounding again because there was something impossibly sinister about that last remark; there was something terrifyingly macabre about creatures who could smell you. It smacked of things not quite human, and the fee-fi-fo-fum hunting cry of giants.

They were already at the door, Imogen could hear them scrabbling at the lock. Sobbing with panic and the effort to breathe through the horrible gag, she swung her legs through the window, praying she had knocked out enough glass and there was not much of a drop outside.

She was halfway through the jagged hole and spiders were scuttling everywhere and dropping into her hair and it was disgusting and repulsive and she would never feel clean again – but let me get out and let me get free.

She was bracing herself for the drop to the ground when the wash-house door was pushed open. Framed in the opening, silhouetted against the dim light of the passage behind was the most fearsome sight Imogen had ever seen: several huge-headed, huge-framed people with great meaty faces and overhanging brows and thatches of ragged hair.
Huge. Giant-like . . .

Imogen gave another gasping sob and slid through the broken window. She landed on the ground with a breath-snatching thump.

G
etting Snatcher Harris to release the acromegaly patients as cover for Imogen's abduction had been a master stroke. Thalia was not going to waste valuable energy or emotion on being pleased, and she was certainly not going to fall into the trap of complacency, but she thought that if she had searched for a hundred years she could not have found anything better suited to use as a diversion.

Leo Sterne had been evasive, but to anyone with even a shred of understanding the situation had been clear. To anyone who had listened carefully to local gossip and interposed the occasional shrewd question, it was very plain indeed that Thornacre still had its secrets. Thalia had looked up the word acromegaly, using the small but well-stocked library in Blackmere, which was one of the places she had used to establish her innocent and worthy persona here, and where she had become acquainted with the head librarian. The small reference section had yielded only a brief entry on acromegaly, but it had been clear enough. The word derived from the Greek:
akron
meaning topmost, and
megas
meaning large. The description of the disease was as Leo Sterne had said.

Thalia had folded the information away; it might become of use or it might not. And now, tonight, it had been of very good use indeed.

It had meant trusting the Harris creature a bit further, but Thalia thought it was not so very much of a risk. As she sat in her car, parked in the deep shadows a little way from Thornacre's iron-sheeted gates, excitement was coursing through her and she was so strongly aware of Edmund's hovering presence that it was almost as if he was in the car with her. Soon now, my lovely boy . . .

As the tiny green figures of the dashboard clock ticked away the minutes, a faint curl of unease brushed her mind. Had Harris done it? He was taking longer than she had calculated. She had allowed an hour for him to carry Imogen to the deserted east wing and lock her in the disused wash house, and then set free the grotesque things in the barred room. With the freaks lumbering around on the loose and the alarm given, the confusion would allow her and Harris to carry Imogen out of the wash house and through the culvert tunnel. From there they would bundle Imogen into the car and be back in October House within fifteen minutes.

From this part of the road the house was hidden from view by the brick wall and the thickthorn and briar. Had she found accurately the place that was Harris's culvert entrance? Supposing she had missed it? Supposing she had misunderstood, or he had been caught? Worst of all, supposing he was less sane than she had judged him? The tunnel might not exist outside the creature's mad fantasy world.

And then he was there, lurching grinningly out of the clump of trees, clearly pleased with his own cunning. Thalia wound the window down and said sharply, ‘You've done what I told you? Imogen's locked in the east wing? And the freaks are loose? Good, well done. You know what to do next. Go back inside and wait by the culvert entrance until I come.'

The next part was easy, and it would be enjoyable because it involved fooling people again. Thalia drove to the phone box she had picked out days earlier; it was a little further away than was absolutely ideal but you could not have everything. It had been necessary to use a box which was not on the main road, and which was not too conspicuously well lit. At this time of night most phone boxes were like a lit stage and any passing motorist might see and remember her.

She did not meet any other cars, and it took barely five minutes to drive to the phone box. She dialled the Thornacre police station and as soon as someone answered she reported in a frantic voice that several potentially dangerous patients had escaped. It was easy to flatten her voice a little and shorten the vowel sounds to sound faintly northern. It was easy to send the pitch up several octaves to suggest slightly hysterical panic. She did not overdo it. She was not sure if they would be able to tell that she was using a pay phone, but it was a reasonable bet that a small, remote police station would not be equipped with the latest technology. And even if they could tell it was a pay phone and suspected a hoax, even if they could trace the exact phone box, they would still have to check the story. And find that it was true. Either way, she could not possibly be connected to any of it.