Spider Light(89)
‘…pressing against the ground, and scrabbling at the floor…afraid of the light above the ground.’
Antonia frowned, and carried the dishes over to the sink. While she washed up, she half listened to the seven o’clock news headlines on the radio, and she was just drying her hands when she caught a sound from beyond the kitchen window. Probably it was only the rain splashing down the gutters or her own imagination.
No, there it went again, and it was not imagination at all; it was a definite sound. A footstep. And then the brush of someone pressed up against the window. If I opened the curtains now, thought Antonia, her heart thudding, what would I see? Don Robards, his eyes dead and staring as they had on the night I killed him?
The sounds would be from the radio, though. She switched it off, and silence closed down. For a few minutes nothing stirred. It must have been the radio after all. She reached for the kettle to fill it for a cup of coffee.
From somewhere inside the dark night beyond the cottage, unmistakeably and clearly, came the sound of a too-familiar piece of music. Paganini’s Caprice.
Somewhere very close, someone was playing Richard’s death music.
Antonia was so furious she did not stop to weigh the danger. Anger swept over her in a scalding flood–how dared this madman taunt her with Richard’s music.
She wrenched the kitchen door open and the cold night air rushed straight at her. The music stopped, and there was nothing except the sound of the rain falling, but Antonia stayed in the doorway, scanning the darkness, beyond caring if the prowler could see her. After a moment the music came again, and this time she could hear that it was thin and tinnily mechanical. A battery-operated CD player? A Walkman? At least that proves it isn’t a ghost, she thought.
The rain was quite heavy and it was difficult to see anything except the shape of the trees fringing the cottage and the thick hedge separating it from Quire Park. But the music was very close, and it filled the night with its prancing beckoning cadences. Richard used to say this particular piece might even be regarded as a skewed salute to the sinister legends threading through musical history. The faceless demons and devils who had danced jeeringly through the Middle Ages. The Hamlin Piper charming the rats away from the town, or the Black Man of Saxony beckoning children into his master’s lair. Antonia had liked listening to Richard in this mood, but she had always maintained a pragmatic outlook.
She glanced round the room, and then pulled on the jacket which had been lying over a chair. Was the mobile phone in the pocket? Yes, it was. She reached for a pewter jug from the dresser–it was small but very solid and it would make a reasonable defence weapon if necessary.
She started to go out and it was only then, when the darkness came up to meet her like a thick wall, that fear came scudding in, so that she paused, and cast a longing glance behind her at the warm safety of the cottage’s kitchen. Wouldn’t it be better to lock all the doors, and dial 999? But that doesn’t mean you’d be safe, said a horrid little voice inside her mind. Because he gets in when he wants, remember? Even a locked door doesn’t keep him out. So hold on to that burst of anger, Antonia, and let’s try to get some concrete evidence this time, something that will stop Sergeant Blackburn and Oliver Remus thinking you’re delusional. And if this twisted creature pounces, smash that chunk of pewter down on his head, and then you can dial 999.
On the crest of this thought she stepped determinedly outside, making sure to close and lock the door, and drop the key into her pocket. Several layers down she knew this to be pointless; the intruder must certainly have a key, but she did it anyway.
As the lock clicked home, there was a darting movement and the impression of a dark-clad figure going towards the trees, taking the music with it. Towards Quire House, was it? Yes. And there were lights on in the upstairs rooms, which meant Godfrey and the professor were within yelling distance. This made Antonia feel so much safer that she took a deep breath, and then went out into the rain-drenched night after the music.
Beneath her resolve she was still very frightened, but this entire thing was starting to take on a dream-like quality. Antonia found herself wondering if any of it was actually happening, or if she was asleep and dreaming it all.
The dark figure ahead of her looked real enough. He was going swiftly along the footpath with the high hedges on each side. The tinny music was tangling eerily with the night and Antonia remembered Richard’s theory again. Out here, pragmatism was not so easy, the rain itself was starting to turn into the dancing feet of the demons who had pranced through the legends.
But this was a flesh and blood man, and there was nothing other-worldly about any of this. As he vanished around the curve in the path, the music momentarily fainter, Antonia stopped, and reached into her pocket for the pewter jug, because if he had some idea of hiding and leaping out at her…
No, it was all right. The music was moving away, towards Quire House, and she went on again. As she came out onto the main driveway, she saw him ahead of her. He stopped and glanced back as if to be sure she was still following, and then he ran towards Quire’s main entrance, vanishing inside.
Antonia took a deep breath, and went across the lawn in pursuit.
Quire’s main door was partly open, which was unexpected. What now? thought Antonia, glancing uneasily about her. Is this a trap, and do I walk into it, like one of those wimpish horror-film heroines going artlessly into the dark spooky old house?