Deadlight-Hall(82)

‘I am stuck,’ said Michael. ‘I’m bloody locked in. I’ll explain properly later, but Nell, can you possibly track down Jack Hurst and get a key to let me out? I’ve tried his number, and it’s on voicemail until Monday.’

‘I think I’ve got a home number for him,’ said Nell. ‘Godfrey gave it to me for the work on the shop. Hold on—’ There was a rustle of papers and Michael visualized her sitting at her desk in Quire Court, rifling her notes.

‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘It’s a landline – is that the one you tried?’

‘No, a mobile.’

‘OK, ring off and I’ll try to get him on this number now. No point in wasting your phone battery. I’ll call straight back.’

She rang off and Michael sat in the hall. The bouts of thudding were coming in batches now – a run of them, then a break. But nothing else seemed to be happening. He began to work out how long it would take for Nell to reach Jack Hurst, and for Hurst to drive out here with the keys. Supposing Hurst was not at home? Supposing the keys had to be collected from somewhere on the other side of the county? Supposing …

The phone rang again, and Nell said, ‘Sorry it took so long, but it’s all fixed. I got Jack’s wife – he’s had to go out to an emergency job, but she rang the house where he’d gone and explained, and he’ll be here as soon as he can with the keys.’

‘Well, thank goodness for that.’

‘She was very apologetic and so was he, apparently. He’s usually very careful about checking the house before they lock up, but he got this call about somebody’s leaking water tank, so he went off in a bit of a scramble.’

‘And to be fair, he didn’t realize I was here,’ said Michael.

‘No. He’s still at the emergency though, so he’ll be at least forty minutes. He’ll have to go back home to actually get the keys first. Will you be all right?’

Michael, closing his mind to the thuds and the drifting shadow, said he would be fine.

‘But,’ said Nell, ‘I’ll bet Jack Hurst’s forty minutes is more likely to be nearer an hour.’ She named a village on the other side of Oxford.

‘At least an hour,’ said Michael, trying not to sound dismayed.

‘Yes, so listen, I’ll drive out there now and see if there’s any way in from outside.’

‘There isn’t. Nell, there’s no need for you to drag yourself all the way out here.’

‘No, but I’d be company. I can wave through a window to you, or sit on the front step and make rude gestures,’ said Nell.

The thought of having Nell on the other side of the door was almost irresistible, but Michael did not want her coming out here. He said, ‘What about Beth? You can’t leave her on her own, and I don’t think you should bring her. It’s not a very good place for a child.’

He did not say it was probably not a very good place for Nell either, but Nell said, ‘Beth can spend an hour with Godfrey Purbles. He’s got some Victorian children’s games in, which he’s just found, and he wants her to see them. Beth’s keen to see them, as well, so they’ll both be pleased. Stay put, Michael darling, and I’ll be with you before you know it.’

It felt abruptly lonely after Nell rang off. Michael looked at his watch, and tried to think that she would be here before it reached half-past seven, and that Jack Hurst would probably be here with the keys before it was showing quarter to eight. Once home, he and Nell might have supper at Quire Court – they could pick up some food – and he would show her Maria’s journal.

The journal was still in his pocket. Would it be better or worse to finish reading it while he waited? It might prove so interesting he would not notice the time or hear any strange sounds. On the other hand, it might kick-start his imagination into conjuring up a whole new raft of macabre visions.

Instead he opened his own notebook with the idea of scribbling down a few ideas for the Wilberforce Histories. Having dealt with the Elizabethan Wilberforce, it might be as well to skip over the complex and often gruesome religious brangles of the next few decades, and move on to the Civil War, although Michael thought he would leapfrog over Charles I’s beheading. But there was no reason why the seventeenth-century Wilberforce could not don a dashing Royalist outfit, and even partake in one or two roistering adventures with the exiled Charles II. Michael wrote this down, then sketched out a scene in which Wilberforce rode into London with the restored King and had a popular song written, detailing his brave exploits. He considered this last possibility, then crossed it out, because his energetic editor would probably leap on the idea and demand the song itself, complete with the music, and might even harry the publicity department into putting out a CD. Michael did not think he was equal to writing a semi-pop, semi-Restoration jingle, so instead he drafted a later scene depicting the Fire of London, which Wilberforce was instrumental in helping to subdue. ‘And Master Wilberforce organized chains of men with buckets of water from the River Thames itself.’