The Beggar's Curse Page 10

  The murderous black pit had become as clear as glass, and he saw a whole city, white, beautiful, as if frosted over by the first snow of winter. He saw little cottages and great manor houses, he saw rows of tiny shops, he saw a church and a castle, with pinnacles and domes, and flags flying from spiked turrets. But he saw no people there, no sign that man had ever been, only the creatures of the lake, drifting in and out of windows and doors on their silent ways.

  All his life Colin would remember it, being alone on the round, black lake, staring down at the forgotten city, wondering how it had been for them. Was it like Pompeii? Had the waters come upon them like that burning lava flow, sweeping over old men in doorways, over women chatting in the streets? And were the faces of the children eaten away by fish?

  The vision faded, the water thickening and turning dead and cold.

  “In a king’s tower and a queen’s bower,

  The fishes come and go. . .”

  As he rowed back, Molly’s voice rang in his head like a bell, and mingled with the croak of old Kath Brierley. “Evil,” she’d told them. “When the city rises it means evil.” And now he, Colin Blakeman, had seen the drowned city for himself. What did it mean?

  Within minutes he was back on dry land, and hitching the boat to its rusty ring with shaking fingers. He wanted reality now, a fresh hot-water bottle and a mug of cocoa, Oliver snorkling away in the next bed. What on earth was he doing out here in the middle of the night? He couldn’t have seen it.

  He set off for the village, but two strides away from the boat he remembered that bundle. If it had fallen out of Rose’s shopping bag and got caught up in a floating branch, it just might. . . Colin went back. It was definitely wrapped round something, and he was thinking of what Prill had told him, about her passion for pretty things. She was convinced Rose had taken her doll.

  He unrolled layer after sodden layer, dropping what looked like old tights and tea towels in a heap beside him. At last he held it in his hands and saw that his hunch was right. It was the little French “Miss” Grandma had given Prill on her tenth birthday.

  The doll was her prize possession, but he’d never liked it. He was irritated by its pert rosebud mouth and its pink-and-white cheeks. It had lost its shoes in the lake and its flounced dress was a rag, but the face was perfect still, almost fresher than before.

  As he stared at it the moon sailed out again from the knot of trees above Pit Farm. Amy was as clear as day in his hands, but there were no pouting lips or silly wide-awake eyes looking up at him now. The doll’s mouth was a twisted leer, and its eyes were hard and staring. It was a face with all the humanity sucked out of it and spat away.

  With a cry Colin dropped the thing in the mud and felt feverishly in the rags at his feet. Then he found a big stone. With his eyes turned away from the grotesque doll’s head he made a small bundle, tying it up with a pair of tights and knotting it again and again, in case the stone fell out and the creature swam after him, back across Blake’s Pit. Then he waded up to his knees in the freezing water and flung the thing with all his strength into the middle of the lake.

  The big moon peered down as he walked away towards Molly’s, not daring to look behind, not knowing what he feared, understanding nothing except the fact that his grand gesture against the Edge family was as useless as telling the sea to stand still.

  Throwing the doll into Blake’s Pit solved nothing. It had gone for ever now, it would rot in the mud at the bottom of the lake, shackled to its great stone. But the face remained with him, and the familiar shape of Elphins, with Molly’s lamp in the top window, did nothing to calm him down.

  It didn’t really matter how Amy had got into Rose’s bag, though it was more than likely that she’d stolen her from Prill’s bedroom. That wouldn’t be news to Prill, she was already suspicious. But what could he possibly tell her about that awful moment at the pit’s edge, when the moon had cleared suddenly and revealed that monstrous grinning face? This was one memory he would have to keep to himself, even if it meant he had to lie and lie. Prill must never know about it, not ever.

  His brain was splitting as he climbed into bed. Now he had seen everything: the doomed city at the bottom of Blake’s Pit, the child’s toy bewitched, with its painted innocence turned to evil. Under everything the black lake brooded, with its cargo of dead souls, and the dark hump of the farmhouse crouched on the slope above, sleeping but not sleeping.

  The bed was warm enough, but he didn’t doze off again. He was still awake when the dawn came, thinking about the Edges, about the curse that was upon Stang, and of that terrible face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  At ten o’clock he faced Oliver across the kitchen table. “I suppose you’re going to say I dreamt it all,” he said, in an embarrassed voice. His cousin didn’t speak for several minutes, he just sat there, staring into space, but methodically sifting through all the pieces of evidence now stored in his brain. Perhaps it was time to show Colin his photograph again, perhaps he’d see more in it now this had happened. But Oliver was always very cautious, and he didn’t want to say anything till he was sure of his case.

  “I don’t know if you dreamt it or not,” he said at last. “And I don’t think it matters actually. Dreams can be very important sometimes, they’re like visions, spelling out the future. It’s in the Bible, of course. My mother believes in dreams.”

  It was hard to picture Aunt Phyllis dreaming about anything more exciting than school name tapes, or making a good Victoria sponge. What would she make of Stang, with its crazy Mummers, and its horse’s head stewing in a pot?

  Colin wanted to get out of Elphins today, and right away from Stang. Prill had gone riding, and Molly was out too, with Rose. She wasn’t going to let her out of her sight till the Massey business was cleared up. She’d left them a note under the brass candlestick on the kitchen dresser. One of the poodles was missing, the crazy one which kept going into hiding. “Not in the studio when I came down this morning,” it said.

  “Come on, let’s go for a walk,” he said to Oliver. “The dogs need a good run, and we might find Dotty. They all get on better now, have you noticed?” Oliver wasn’t really listening. He didn’t like dogs, and their new improved behaviour didn’t interest him very much. There were more important things to think about now.

  But the missing poodle mattered to Colin, and he was just a little suspicious of the Edges who kept pushing notes of complaint about the dogs barking through Molly’s letter box. She’d laughed and screwed them up to make the fire, but he felt uneasy, even so. He just might take a peep round the shop this morning; it was closed because of Ranswick market day.

  Jackie Bostock was having a day off, to go riding with Prill. Molly drove away from the vet’s surgery with Rose sitting beside her, well wrapped up. They were going to pay a visit to Aunt Elsie Dutton, a private one, with no police around to make the girl nervous. Molly was determined to make her own enquiries about what Rose had been doing.

  She chatted away to her as they rattled down the road to Brereton Cross. “You know, I expect that wretched dog’s in the airing cupboard again, dear. It’s her favourite hidey-hole at the moment, and I never thought of checking in there. I bet that’s where she is.” It was the most obvious place too. Molly was getting more and more forgetful these days, and it was beginning to worry her. “Good thing my head’s screwed to my shoulders, Rose,” she said cheerfully. “I might leave it behind otherwise.”

  Rose didn’t answer. She adored Molly, but she wished they didn’t have to go all the way back to Aunt Elsie’s. There was Tony’s costume to finish for tonight’s rehearsal, she wanted to go home and get on with that. She just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. She’d kept telling the policemen about going to clean up for Aunt Elsie Dutton, and they’d checked her story and told Molly Yes, it was just as she’d said. She could remember the baffled expression of the man in charge quite clearly. “Beats me, missus,” he’d said, in the kitchen at Elphins. He’d had
three pieces of that new fruit cake.

  In the end, Molly rather regretted going to quiz Aunt Elsie. They’d woken her up from a nap, and she was cross. The old lady only repeated what Rose had said already, and what the police had written down. The girl wasn’t very bright, but she was honest, and all the time that child was missing she’d been here in Brereton Cross. “And if them police come bothering me again, I’ll give them what for,” she said vehemently, as Molly drove away.

  Oliver sat at the kitchen table, busily writing in a notebook. “How long are you going to be?” Colin asked, pulling his anorak on. “Only it’s not going to stay fine all day.”

  “I want to finish this,” Oliver muttered, not even lifting his eyes from the paper.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, just a few notes.” He sounded shifty. “A sort of journal.” As he said this, he curved his left hand round the exercise book, just in case Colin tried to read the writing upside down. His Stang file was strictly private, there were too many loose ends and unanswered questions to let anyone see it yet. Oliver was secretive; he might well never share it with anyone.

  The gesture infuriated Colin. That’s what little kids did in nursery school, in case anyone copied. Honestly.

  “I’ll go and post Prill’s letter to Mum and Dad,” he said curtly. “They empty the box at eleven. Will you be ready when I get back?”

  “I might be, if you’ll let me get on,” Oliver replied, equally curt.

  The post box was in the wall opposite Edges’ Stores. Colin dropped the letter in, then looked round. The village was quiet; most people must have gone in to Ranswick, to the market. It was the day Harold and Frank went off to a big cash-and-carry place to buy in supplies for the shop, according to Molly. There was nothing doing at the Masseys’ either; the curtains were pulled back but there were no other signs of life, and the car had gone from the drive.

  Colin crept round to the back of the butcher’s shop. The jumble of decrepit sheds was dead and deserted, and there were no lights on. He stuck his nose through the same knothole through which Prill had seen them boiling the head, but it was dark inside. The smell was still around though, still bad enough to turn his stomach over. Poor Prill.

  He went up to the back door and tried the handle. It was shut, but not locked. He listened very carefully and then glanced up at the flat above. A window was open, and moth-eaten curtains were blowing in the wind, but the old blue delivery van had gone from its muddy parking place. He went in very cautiously even so, and kept looking round.

  Behind the shop there was a big storage area lined with cupboards, and a couple of ancient meat chillers. He stood in the middle of the grubby floor, peering round and straining his ears for the smallest noise. He felt he was being watched, that same cold feeling that had followed him up the lane to Stang church was creeping over him now. Jessie had been whole then, like a puppy, barking with the sheer joy of being alive, dragging him along. But the accident had knocked all the stuffing out of her, and she drooped around now. According to Jimmy Bostock, she might always limp. Colin hated the Edges for that.

  The uneven floor was dirty but bare, and there was no sign of Dotty. He looked in vain for her little red collar and her mangled rubber ball. Prill had told him they’d hung William’s tail on a hook in that big shed. There were hooks here too, and he wouldn’t put it past the Edges to use the dog’s hair or tail for one of their horrible Mumming costumes. He was more and more certain that the poodle’s disappearance was something to do with them.

  But if so, where was she? A squeaky little noise made him spin round, and he thought he might have found her. But it was only the noise of a door moving over a rusty hinge. One of the chillers was open just a crack, and a mouldy, stale, school-dinner smell seeped out of it and into his nostrils. The thick white door was rusty and dark with stains. Colin looked at it in disgust. The Edges couldn’t look after anything properly.

  That was it though; the longer he stared at the old meat safe the stronger his conviction grew that the silly creature was inside. He walked up to it and peeped in; there was a dim light on, and he saw Easter turkeys swinging from hooks, like so many hats, and rabbits hanging upside down, dripping blood on to the dirty floor.

  Colin went in, his determination hardening and turning into rage. He would find the poodle if he looked carefully enough, and he would confront the Edges with it. Before that though, he’d tell the police.

  But he hadn’t taken two steps into the gloom before the rusty door swung to behind him and chunked solidly into place. Blindly he staggered backwards, with cold feathers swinging in his face, feeling for an inside handle. There must be one, shop fridges were supposed to have them in case of accidents.

  Accidents? Someone had crept up behind and shut him in. “Serve you right for prying” – he could just hear Sid Edge’s thin sneer. But Sid was at school, and his uncles were at the cash-and-carry. How long would it be before someone came and opened the door?

  He stretched out an arm and touched one of the rabbits; the little body was stiff and cold to his fingers, and he shrank away, feeling terribly sick. Terror was growing inside him; it would burst out soon in a great scream. But nobody would hear him behind that door. Panic killed people; he must pull himself together and think.

  He looked all round carefully. It wasn’t a fridge, it was a safe. But it was cold enough. The reddish light was weak and softened the joints on hooks above him into shapeless lumps, but he could see a whole pig’s head with the eyes still in it, and the necks of the turkeys, wrung out like pink elastic, had little glittering eyes in them that jewelled the dimness.

  He’d once read of a small boy who’d been trapped like this. He’d saved himself by snuggling down in a heap of game birds, pheasants and partridges, anything with feathers, anything that would provide insulation from the cold and keep his blood flowing. There was nothing else to do.

  Very slowly, his flesh creeping, Colin reached up and started to unhook the furred and feathered corpses that swung silently above his head. He must make himself a blanket of them and lie underneath. It might be hours before someone came.

  Oliver was puzzled when Colin didn’t come back. He reread his Stang file, making a few corrections and adding bits here and there, then he wrote a letter home. It was chilly in the kitchen. Last night’s ashes still lay in the fire grate and the hearth was unswept. Rose usually did the fire first thing, but she’d got up late today, and Molly had rushed out without thinking about it.

  His hands and feet were freezing, and he decided that it might actually be rather warmer outside. He would wander up the village and look for Colin, but he’d have to wrap up well. He went upstairs to look for his thick walking socks. They’d got muddy and wet a couple of days ago, and Rose had washed them for him. She was a compulsive airer and ironer of clothes, the only person he knew who ironed socks and underpants, apart from his mother.

  It was about all they had in common though. Aunt Phyllis wouldn’t approve of Rose Salt’s odd habits, or of her peculiar disappearing tricks; she liked people she could put into categories, straightforward people that she thoroughly understood. Eccentricity annoyed her, which was why it was very odd that he’d ever been sent to stay with Molly Bover in the first place. If his mother had realized how vague and forgetful she was growing, she’d never have let him come.

  His socks were probably airing on the hot-water tank, inside the bathroom cupboard. When he opened the door a furry black bundle leapt out at him, clawing and barking, and seconds later Dotty had torn down the stairs and was rushing manically round the kitchen, snuffling hungrily at her food dish which the systematic Jessie had already licked clean. Oliver extracted his socks, pulled them on, and clumped back down the stairs. The poodle was now scratching at the front door. She must have been fast asleep in that airing cupboard for several hours, the silly creature.

  Oliver let her into the garden for a minute, and stood on the step, staring down the path. The tangled garden was
curiously still, with daffodils furled up inside their long green hoods and the fruit tree by the gate barely in blossom. Stang was dead. In its rottenness the place reminded him of a fairy tale his mother had once read him, a long time ago, a story of a cold white land always covered with snow, in the power of a wicked witch, a land where it was always winter and never Christmas. He’d always remembered that.

  This valley was the same. The sullen, cold spring was dragging on and on, but nothing was really stirring. There was no feeling here of joyous new life. It would always be spring in Stang, but a cold, unwilling one, and he felt that Easter, with all its hope and happiness, would never come.

  At twelve o’clock he decided to go out. He wrapped up carefully – anorak, scarf, woolly hat and shut the three dogs in the kitchen. They were furious and hurled themselves noisily against the door, but Oliver took no notice. He was going to visit Winnie Webster, Colin might have wandered up there. “Shut up!” he yelled at them as he locked the door. Dogs.

  He posted his letter home then crossed the road to Edges’ Stores, where he crouched down and peered through a hole in the tatty blind, hoping for a glimpse of the horse’s head. Oliver would never have admitted it to the others but he was rather fascinated by Old Hob, and quite jealous of Prill for seeing the whole thing. Why couldn’t it have been him?

  It was dark on the other side of the hole, so he looked through the letter box. A stale meaty smell wafted through it, and he could hear something, a faint noise coming from somewhere in the back, odd bursts of sound, suppressed cries, like someone screaming through a gag. He knelt on the pavement and put his ear to the slit. The noise had now been replaced by a thin tapping.

  He stayed there for several minutes, listening very carefully, and only straightening up again when he was quite certain. His mother had never allowed him to join the boy scouts, she said he wasn’t strong enough for all those rough games, and camping, but his father had taught him Morse code.