[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Houliston had once heard a summer tourist remark rather tactlessly 'I suppose
that's the fucking village idiot.' Yet the young keeper always wore moleskin
breeks tucked into polished gaiters, seemed to take a pride in the
once-traditional dress of his profession. His own status symbol, his father's
and grandfather's before him, and if people were too ignorant to notice the
'uniform' of an honoured profession then that was just too bad.
'Aye.' Jock pushed his peaked cap on to the back of his bald head. 'The Droy
House, what's left of it, at any rate.'
Even the swirling fog could not hide the dereliction. The rafters had conceded
finally to the perseverance of an army of woodworm and had collapsed,
showering the slates down inside, smashing most of the upper storey,
splintering it right down to ground-floor level. A heap of debris; soon the
remnants of the outer walls would crumble and that would be the end of the
once-splendid home of the Droy family.
Others were converging on the clearing now, whistles being blown to halt the
advancing line of searchers whilst the ruined building was investigated.
Houliston groaned to himself as he spied Fillery. The CID man would make a
meal of this lot; they could be here for hours.
'You come inside with me, constable,' the detective motioned to Houliston.
'You wait here, keeper. I expect you know this place well, better than most of
us here, but we'll call you if we need you.' We don't like civilian
involvement unless it's absolutely unavoidable.
'No, sir, I never come here.' Bean's tone was one of uncertainty, reluctance.
'We don't shoot the wood any more. It ain't safe.'
Too many bogs, eh,' Fillery cut in quickly. He didn't want this yokel to begin
retelling the Droy legends. They were concerned with facts not rumours today.
'You follow me, constable, and we'll take a look inside. We'll have to tread
carefully, we don't want the whole lot collapsing on top of us.'
Somehow the girders still held the doorway open, the door itself long gone, a
dark dusty square remaining. Threatening, defiant; almost an 'abandon hope all
ye who enter here', Houliston thought. But Fillery was moving forward with a
cautious eagerness, peering inside, producing a torch and swinging its beam on
the interior. 'Let's go inside,' he said.
The torchlight revealed walls covered with moss and lichen, condensation which
streamed down the stonework and dripped steadily into puddles on the floor.
Houliston swallowed; the sound reminded him of a radio play he used to listen
to as a youngster, propping his bedroom door open at night so that he could
hear the wireless in the living room downstairs. A headless body in an empty
house, the steady drip-drip of blood from the landing to hallway. Ugh!
'Look!' Houliston jumped visibly as Fillery spoke, saw the CID man drop to his
knees. 'Now that is very interesting!'
The other checked the instinctive 'what?' The detective force invariably
adopted a superior attitude over the uniformed branch, a kind of Holmes and
Watson relationship; surely you see what I see.
Jock Houliston leaned forward, peered intently at the floor. He saw slate
chips and fragments, a mound of thick moss - and clearly imprinted on the
latter was a naked human footprint. He felt his flesh go cold, start to creep,
glanced back towards the doorway. Outside he could hear Roy Bean talking to
some of the soldiers. Outside - it seemed a million miles away right now.
'It's fresh, too,' Fillery breathed, 'see how the impression has squelched
right down into the spongy moss which hasn't sprung back into place yet. A
matter of hours ago, I'd say. Look, there's another . . . and another. Going
right on into the hallway!' PC Houliston didn't want to follow his companion.
Somebody was in here, there was no doubt about that. Fine, they were hunting a
fugitive and that aspect did not worry him; if only it had been anywhere else
except Droy House! The old stories came flooding back. Tales recounted by his
father of how a few generations ago the Droys were the cruel landowners of
these lands, how they assisted the Customs' officers in the apprehension of
smugglers coming ashore on this deserted stretch of coast beyond the wood.
Prisoners were taken, brought back here, some terrible tortures inflicted upon
them. The villagers heard the screams in the dead of night and neither the
smugglers nor their contraband were heard of again. Stories, fables. Fiction.
You could tell yourself that any other place except here.
'Let's see where they go to.' Fillery's voice echoed in the confined space as
he moved forward, his torchbeam scanning every patch of shadow. Houiiston
followed; he didn't have any other choice. Oh God, why couldn't all this have
waited another year?
'That must be the cellar.' Suddenly the white beam was focused on what looked
like an open trap door in the corner of the hallway. Even Jock Houliston did
not need the sharp-eyed detective to show him the piles of rubble that had
been cleared from it; more moss, more footmarks . . . going right on down into
the bowels of Droy House. 'Whoever it is, they're down there, all right!'
Whispering now, the detective alert, his hand in the pocket of his raincoat.
He was armed, he would shoot if he had to.
Descending a step at a time, shining the torch on ahead of him, leaving no
niche in the ancient stonework unexplored. There was no debris down here, the
cellar having been protected from structural collapse, just bare wet walls and
an overpowering stench of damp staleness. And so very cold. You sensed the
evil.
Houiiston moved closer to the detective, didn't want to be left alone in this
awful blackness. He prepared himself for the gruesome sight of the murdered
girl; she just had to be down here. Maybe Dark, too. And Foster. The place was
bigger than you would have thought, like ancient catacombs stretching on and
on, the dripping roof supported by stone pillars. All manner of frightening
thoughts same to plague the Droy policeman; suppose the roof collapsed with
the vibrations of their movements, trapped them alive down here. Catalepsy.
Childhood bogies emerging from the cupboard. You do believe in spooks. Can't
you hear them whispering in the darkness, touching you with their cold clammy
fingers?
'Christ on a bike!' Detective-Sergeant Fillery pulled up so suddenly that
Houiiston cannoned into him, clutched at him to save himself from falling.
They both stared, words were superfluous. In the torchlight they saw that they
had reached the end wall of the cellar, built in a kind of bow, maybe eight
feet high, some fifteen feet across.
And there fastened to the stonework was a series of rusted manacles, five or
six pairs of them with matching leg irons a couple of feet from the floor
beneath them. You saw in your mind the pain-wracked bodies of centuries ago,
broken limbs threatening to jerk out of their sockets; heard their cries of
torment. Oh Jesus, you wanted to slap your hands over your ears to try and
shut out the pitiful wails, the screams of women and children. You smelled
death, the stench would never leave this place, the evil here would never die.
'Well . . . there's nobody here.' Houliston uttered the words, a hint that
they should be leaving. Something inside you told you to run, get the hell
out. But the sharp-eyed Fillery had spotted something else.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]