Deadlight-Hall(73)

Michael emailed the pirate/playhouse version to his editor, added the Tower Hill one just in case, and pressed Send before he could change his mind.

He then turned his attention to the lecture on the metaphysical poets which he had been trying to compile for the last three days. The melancholic allegories and intensities came as something of a rest cure after the brooding darknesses of Deadlight Hall and Salamander House.





NINETEEN


It was not until Friday afternoon that the elusive memory attached to the handwriting – the memory that had been nudging at Michael’s mind – suddenly clicked into place.

Books – old books – that was at the centre of it. Children’s books in the main, with the exception of one. That one was not a printed book at all; it was leather-bound, the edges worn and one edge very slightly split. He concentrated, and the image came properly into focus. The shelf of books in the attic at Deadlight Hall. That was what he had been trying to remember – he had seen them through that blur of migraine, but he was sure there had been a small book among them – a book whose pages had slightly uneven edges. Beneath the split cover he had glimpsed handwriting – the same kind of handwriting he had seen in the old Poison Book and in Maria’s letters.

How reliable was the memory, though? Even if it was accurate, it was too much to hope that the book could be a diary. It could be an old household account book, or even a cookery book left behind by some long-ago cook. Nothing to do with Maria Porringer’s story at all. But Michael would not be able to rest until he had found out.

It was just on four o’clock. He had no more tutorials until Monday, and the rest of the day was free. If he drove out to Deadlight Hall now he should be able to get there before Jack Hurst’s men finished for the day. Hurst would not think it odd that Michael wanted to take a second look round.

It was not quite dark by the time he turned into the drive leading to the Hall. The builders’ rubble and machinery were still in evidence, and Michael saw Jack Hurst’s van. The main doors were open, and as he went up the stone steps and stepped inside, the remembered scents closed about him – clean new timbers and freshly applied paint. But underneath was the same whiff of something unwholesome, something old and troubled.

There was no sign of Jack or any of his men, but they must be around. Michael called out, hoping for a response, but there was nothing. Very well, he would go openly up to the attic floor, and take a quick look for the book. Now he was here he did not relish the prospect, but he had been perfectly all right last time. Nothing had come boiling out of the woodwork to gibber at him, or clank its chains in his face. There had just been a few whispering voices and eerie shadows, all of which could have been a product of his headache. As for the thuddings from the attic, Jack Hurst had said they were something to do with an airlock in the pipes.

No lights were on, but it was reasonably easy to see the way. The first floor was silent and still, but as he went up to the second floor, Michael had the impression of something moving somewhere in the house.

The attic floor was dark, but there was enough daylight left to see everything. As he had remembered, the rooms had certainly been partitioned at some earlier stage, but one thing he had not noticed last time was that the door of the inner room had had a padlock on it – part of it was still attached to the frame. It seemed odd to have a padlock on the outside of an attic, but perhaps valuables had been stored up here. Or, said his mind, perhaps it had something to do with the secret that Maria promised Augustus Breadspear she would keep.

He pushed the door back and went inside. His memory had been right, after all. There were the books on a low shelf, and they were indeed children’s books. Could this have been a nursery floor once? But not even the grimmest of the Victorians would have stowed children away in an attic and padlocked the door.

‘Children …’

The word came lightly and with a struggle, like dried insect wings or the tapping of tattered finger bones, and Michael turned sharply round. Had something moved near the door? Something that walked awkwardly, and that had the hunched gait of the shadow he had seen here last time? No, there was nothing.

He turned back to the shelves. There were several Rudyard Kipling volumes and some Rider Haggards; also a copy of Treasure Island and the Charlotte M. Yonge classic The Daisy Chain, which rubbed shoulders with Lorna Doone. Perhaps these were the books that the ungodly and irrepressible John Hurst had brought for those long-ago children. That poor wretched little Douglas Wilger, and the Mabbley girls who had vanished – probably because they had run away to find golden pavements and fortunes.