Spider Light(58)
‘Bor-ing,’ said Donna, deliberately drawling out the word.
‘Listen, I don’t care which of you comes, but one of you must, because—’
‘Because you won’t leave us on our own in the cottage in case we leap into bed and start screwing like stoats,’ said Donna. ‘Oh, all right then, but it had better be me. I shouldn’t think anything short of an atomic bomb would budge Don from the garden today. He didn’t so much as speak when I took his food out.’
‘He’s finishing a holiday task,’ said her father reproachfully. ‘A history essay. And Donna, you will not talk to your mother in that way—’
‘She has no shame whatsoever,’ said Maria at once. ‘Oh, let’s get going if we’ve got to,’ said Donna. She glanced out of the window. ‘Don looks as if he’s asleep anyway. We’ll be back before he knows we’ve gone.’
‘I’ll go upstairs to get ready,’ said Maria. ‘I’ll only be five minutes.’
It was, of course, a lot longer than five minutes before Donna’s mother was ready to leave. She had to find the correct shoes–‘No, I want the brown ones, for goodness’ sake. Would I wear navy shoes with this jacket, now would I? Well, I don’t care if it is only a mouldy old watermill, I have my standards, you should know by this time that I have my standards, and one of them is not wearing navy shoes with a brown jacket.’
Donna put on jeans and a clean T-shirt in her own room, found a straw sunhat to wear, and stabbed crossly at her hair with a brush as if she could not be bothered to brush it properly. This was to maintain the image of a sulky intractable teenager, in case either of her parents happened to be slyly watching her through the partly open door. She thought she was giving quite a good performance.
She went on giving a good performance on the short drive to Twygrist, slumped in the back of the car (deliberately slumped very low in case any of the locals happened to see the distinctive people-carrier go by with Donna inside), and replying in monosyllables to any remarks made to her.
But once at Twygrist, she livened up a bit, and even agreed to come into the mill. It would be better than frying inside the car on a hot afternoon like this. No, she didn’t know where the memorial tablet about the clock might be. No, she had not thought to ask, because she found the whole thing utterly—Oh wait a minute, though, something had been said about a kiln room. (This was in a slightly more animated tone.) Did you have kiln rooms in mills? Well, anyway, it was somewhere right down below ground–there were some old tunnels that led to the centre, or stone cellars or something.
This had the effect of galvanizing Maria into instant action.
The camera in its leather cover, was slung around her neck, and the small folio case, was tucked under one arm. Jim was to bring the big torch, and Donna could have the smaller one and carry the large notebook and pen so she could make notes from Maria’s dictation as they went.
‘What’ll you do if it’s locked?’ said Donna’s father resignedly, but Maria said it would not be locked. It had not been locked the first time they came, and there was no reason to think it would be any different now.
It was no different at all. The worm-eaten door was still sagging on its frame, and its hinges still shrieked when they pushed it inwards and stepped cautiously inside. The smell was exactly the same as it had been last time as well, and Donna wrinkled her nose fastidiously and said this was a repulsive way to spend an afternoon, she was getting disgusting cobwebs in her hair because she had left her sunhat in the car.
‘Give me the car keys, would you, and I’ll go back for it,’ she said. Mentally she crossed her fingers. If her father refused to give her the keys, or her mother said she would go back for the hat herself, a linchpin of the plan would fall out, and she might have to rethink the whole thing.
But Jim Robards only said, ‘You’re a nuisance, Donna. But here you are.’ He fished in a pocket for the keys. ‘Make sure you lock the doors, won’t you? And check that the alarm re-sets. It’s an absolute magnet for thieves, that car.’
‘No, I’ll leave all the doors open, with a notice on the windscreen saying, “Please steal me so we can claim a whopping great amount on the insurance and buy a better car.” Of course I’ll lock it,’ said Donna, crossly. ‘What d’you take me for? Wait for me here, will you? I don’t want to go wandering around this spooky old place looking for you; it’s a lot bigger in here than it looks.’
‘It’s a lot deeper than it looks,’ said her mother. ‘But we’ll have to find how to get to the lower levels before we can start looking for the tablet.’
Donna was only a minute getting the hat which she had deliberately left behind. She locked the car and checked the alarm, because her father would ask if she had done so. She put the keys in the pocket of her jeans–the keys were crucial to the plan–and glanced at her watch. Five past two.
She took a deep breath and went back into Twygrist’s ancient darkness.
As the three of them walked across the old floor, little creakings and groanings seemed to come from deep within the old mill. Donna’s mother said she had not thought to look for the kiln room when they came before. Presumably there must be stairs leading down. What did they both think?
‘What’s over there?’ said Donna, pointing towards the waterwheel. ‘Where’s the torch–no, shine it over there. No, behind the actual wheel.’