The room was almost perfectly square, with very high walls, about twice the height of a normal room. James wondered if perhaps there had at one time been another room above; certainly there were square holes in the stonework where thick wooden beams might once have sat.
He slapped one of the walls. It was like slapping a mountain, it had to be at least ten feet thick.
There was only the one door, and – about twenty feet above his head – there was a single narrow window with heavy bars across it. Even if he could climb up there, James doubted that it would achieve anything.
No light came in through the window, so it must still be night-time.
The room was lit by a bare bulb sticking out of a rusted fitting, high up on the wall opposite the window. The thick electrical cable snaked along the stones a little way before disappearing through a rough hole.
The floor was made of smooth paving slabs, worn and uneven after hundreds of years of use. From his memory of the layout, James guessed that this room was at the lowest level of the building, which meant that beneath the slabs would be a few inches of dirt and then the impenetrable rock on which the castle had been built.
The only other feature of this bare and cheerless room was a large iron grille, covering a hole in the floor. He walked across and peered down into it; there was a deep shaft cut into the bare rock, but it was too dark to tell how deep it went or what was at the bottom. James looked closer. The grille was cemented into place, but the mortar looked old and crumbling. He kicked off a piece and let it drop down into the black hole. There were a few moments of silence and then a plop as the chunk of cement landed in water, far below.
What had Hellebore said about the castle being built over a natural spring? Maybe at one time this had been a well shaft?
James lay flat and stared down the hole into the gloom until his eyes grew accustomed to the light and he could just make out a faint glint, but that was all. It scared him to think what might be down there in the darkness.
He shivered and jumped up. Well, he’d wasted some time, he’d kept his mind off his predicament for a little while – but, if anything, he’d now made himself more depressed than he was before. There was no way out of this prison. He was done for.
He sat down against the wall, drew his knees up to his chest once more and stared at his boots.
His boots!
Of course. How could he have forgotten? He pulled off the left one and twisted the heel to reveal the secret compartment. His knife was still there. He took it out, gripped the blade between his fingernails and unfolded it. It felt good to hold this small weapon in his hand. It felt as if he were doing something at last.
But what? He laughed bitterly at himself. What could he do with this puny little knife? He was not about to dig his way through the solid granite of the walls.
What about the door, then?
Yes. That was an idea.
He jumped up and hurried over to it.
The door was massive, built of great oak beams that were as hard and black as the stones in the walls. The giant rivets and bolts looked strong enough to keep out an army. The keyhole was designed for a gargantuan key the size of his forearm. It was a giant’s door from a fairy-tale castle; but, unlike Jack in the fairy tale, there was no magic harp or ogre’s wife to help him. His heart sank. He was utterly alone.
Then, as he stared at the door, he noticed something. He squatted down; there was something scratched into the wood: the letters ‘A K’ – Alfie Kelly. James felt desperately sad. The poor boy. He must have used a piece of sharp stone, but he had barely scraped the surface.
What did James hope to do with his silly little knife? There wasn’t any way he could pick the massive lock. If he tried to carve his way out through the wood, he’d be here for the rest of his life. He could picture himself with a long white beard, steadily chipping away at the wood. He was going to die here, like Alfie Kelly.
And then he remembered the loose cement round the grille in the floor.
He went back to the shaft and examined the circular iron grating with its criss-crossing bars. He tugged at it – it didn’t give even a fraction of an inch. But hadn’t he kicked some of the mortar away? He jumped on the grille and noticed a piece of the cement wobble. Fired with the need to keep himself busy and not brood, he lay down and started to pick at the mortar with his knife. After a few minutes he felt a tiny grain of satisfaction as a small lump broke away. He poked at it some more, and soon another small piece came loose, uncovering a clean, shiny section of the grille beneath. Twenty minutes later, he had cleared away a sizeable section and exposed about a fifth of the grille. Feverishly he carried on, losing all sense of time. He shut any other thoughts out of his mind and simply concentrated on gouging and poking and digging away with the knife.
Some time later – how much later he had no idea… An hour? Two hours? – he dug out the last piece of cement, uncovering the full span of the grille.
Once again he laced his fingers round the heavy bars and tried to lift it, and this time it came up – slowly. The thing weighed a ton, but he got it up just high enough to shift it fractionally sideways and dropped it with a clang to the floor. He waited until he got his strength back, breathing slowly and deeply, then hoisted it up and slid it another couple of inches.
It took him several goes, but eventually he had it clear of the opening.
Now what?
He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. He hadn’t wanted to. It scared him. He looked down into the shadowy drop.
What was down there?
While he had been working, pieces of mortar had occasionally fallen into the hole and he had got used to the sound of them splashing into the black water below. He could tell by the echoes that there was a larger chamber of some sort down there, but what did that mean? Was he really thinking of climbing down there? If he got stuck, he’d be in a worse jam than he was now.
He had rashly assumed that this was an old access shaft down to the spring Hellebore had mentioned, but it could equally well just be a drain. And anyway, what if there was a spring down below, with water bubbling up from under the ground? That didn’t necessarily mean that there would be a way out of it into the loch.
There was only one way to find out.
The shaft was just wide enough for him to get into, and it looked as if he might climb down quite easily. Maybe… maybe he could go down just far enough to take a better look, and if it was hopeless he could climb back up again. Let’s face it, anything was better than sitting here and waiting for Hellebore and MacSawney to come back and finish him off… And then, as he sat there with his head spinning with all the possibilities, he heard a splash, like a fish breaking the surface of the water, or an animal… Had he imagined it?
No, there it was again. It was unmistakable, a splash of the kind only something living could make. That settled it. If there was something alive down there, then the water had to be connected to the moat. There must be a link of some sort to the outside.
In the back of his mind was an awful picture, but he fought to keep it out of the way and not let it come to the front.
He knew what shape that picture was, though.
It was the shape of an eel.
All right. So there were eels down there, but, from what Hellebore had told him, there was no reason for them to attack him – he wasn’t wounded, there was no blood. They were just eels, after all. Scavengers, not killers. He had to be positive. If an eel could get in, then it could get out, and if an eel could get out, then maybe a boy could too.
His mind was made up and, before he had time to think of all the terrible reasons why he should never go down there in a million years, he eased himself into the shaft.
He groped around for a foothold and soon found one that could take his weight, then he wriggled down and wedged his feet and hands on either side. If he pressed hard enough, he ought to be able to stay in place even if there was nothing to hold on to or to stand on.
&
nbsp; Right, James, here goes… Coolly and methodically, he began to squirm his way downwards, moving one foot, then the other, then one hand, then the other, inch by inch. After a few feet, however, his boot slipped on the slick surface and he had to find a grip in the rock with his fingertips, which were already ripped and sore from his climb up the wall. He grunted in pain, but managed to lodge himself securely, pressing against the walls with all his strength. He couldn’t stay like this for long, though. His arms were growing tired from the constant strain, and he was shaking with the effort.
Don’t think about that, you idiot, just carry on… Another few feet further, and he decided he had to rest. Carefully and rather awkwardly, he shifted his position so that his back was against one side of the shaft and both feet were jammed against the other. He stayed like this for a while before he realised that it would be less effort to move on down like this. By bending his legs he could shuffle down fairly easily, and it took the load off his arms, although it was still hard work. The jagged rock dug into his back and he was constantly afraid of slipping.
Down he went. He couldn’t see anything below but, from the sound of the small pieces of rock that occasionally fell beneath him, he guessed that he must be about halfway. He looked up. The opening above him looked like a shiny penny.
The walls of the shaft were cold, but James was sweating from the effort and the worst thing was that a big part of him wanted to go back up, rather than carry on down into that dark unknown.
What was he doing? He must be crazy. He could get stuck down there, in that black water, alone and in the dark… But the only alternative was to wait in the cell for certain death.
His mind was racing, his whole body throbbing like an engine ticking over. He felt as if he were on fire. Pulses of energy rippled through him and excited his thoughts.
Maybe he had gone crazy?
No. The injection – the SilverFin. He remembered what those little white pills had done to George. What must this infinitely more powerful serum be doing to him?
Well, it had backfired on Hellebore, because James was getting away…
He laughed, and the sound echoed up and down the shaft.
He was going to get away!
Go on, then, move, don’t stop here like a wet blanket. As long as he kept moving, as long as he kept on doing something, he was all right… Yes, he was all right…
No, he wasn’t.
He froze. He’d lost touch with the wall and one leg was dangling in mid-air. Quickly he pulled it back up and found the rock. He hadn’t been concentrating, just staring ahead, not looking up or down. Not that it would have made any difference. There wasn’t enough light down here to see anything. He felt with his foot again: it was as he had thought, this was the end of the line. The walls of the shaft ran out… But what was below? How far was the water? How deep was it?
There were too many questions and no answers.
James suddenly had an image of the cell door opening and Hellebore coming in with the ghastly MacSawney, seeing the grille on the floor, looking down into the shaft and finding him here, stuck like a rat up a drainpipe…
He let go.
There was a short painful moment as he scraped down the last two feet of the shaft and bumped his knees, and then he was in space, black space, like falling in a dream… It lasted only a short, terrifying moment, and then the freezing water hit him like a great fist and he was under it, not knowing which way was up or down.
24
A Lonely Death
James had been aware of noise more than anything. First the wind rushing in his ears, then a great explosion as he hit the water, then a confused, muffled silence as he went under.
He was turning slowly in that inky silence now, stunned, lost in the darkness. Then suddenly he broke the surface and heard his breath, very loud, echoing off the walls, mixed with the slap of the disturbed water and the reverberations from his splash-landing that were still rumbling around the underground cave.
Luckily, although the water was icy cold, it wasn’t quite cold enough to make him completely pass out as he smashed into it. As it was, he had an evil headache and his ears, nose and eyes hurt like hell.
It was almost totally pitch-black down here. Only a tiny faint glow came down the shaft from above, and it did nothing to light the area. Reaching out with his hands, James swam slowly forward, feeling for something solid. It was hard work, swimming in his clothes, and his heavy boots weighed him down. It was as if he were inside someone else’s body; a body that was clumsy and sluggish. But then at last his hands touched rock. He trod water for a few moments, then began to work his way round the edge of the pool, to see if there was a place where he could get out of the water and plan his next move.
After a while he found a narrow ledge, just wide enough to take him, and he hauled himself on to it. He lay there with water streaming out of his clothes into the pool.
So, he’d come this far – he wasn’t dead, he was out of the cell. He was alive.
He smiled. He was mad – mad as that lunatic Hellebore – and it was Hellebore’s drugs that had done it. Already he could feel a fire inside his body warming him through.
Once he’d got his strength back, he stripped down to his underwear to avoid getting a chill in his soggy clothes. It would also be easier to explore the water like this. Although, if he did find an escape route, he’d have to take everything with him.
He knew that was the first thing he had to try and do – find a way out of this hole – but before he could do that, he needed to make a map in his head of the dark space around him, so that he could get his bearings. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he felt all along his ledge, learning its contours, then slipped back into the water and began to explore the edges of the cave, finding a distinctive outcrop here, a smooth stone just under the water there, and here a slimy patch where water trickled down the wall.
Round and round he went, until he was familiar with it all. Now, if he did find a passage out beneath the water, he would know exactly where it was in relation to his ledge, and he could easily find it again when he was ready to leave.
But was there a way out? Yes, there had to be, because he had heard the slap of a fish. Of course the exit might only be large enough to fit a fish, but he had to find out.
This time when he skirted the edges of the cave he did it underwater, taking a few feet at a time, swimming down, feeling all over the surface of the rock with his fingers until he was sure he had thoroughly covered each section of wall.
Luckily the pool wasn’t very deep. It was worst in the centre, where it was about eight feet or so to the bottom. Diving down here, he could feel numerous cracks and fissures through which the water bubbled in. But nearer the edges it was less than half that depth. It still took him some time, however, to make his way round, and the constant diving was making him very short of breath. Once he’d surveyed a fair amount of the pool, he rested again on the ledge and used the deep breathing exercise that Leo Butcher had taught him, until he felt almost relaxed. Despite the drugs inside him, the cold was beginning to get to him and it was making him weak, so that he was constantly having to fight off the despair that lurked in the corners of his mind, waiting to come out and swamp him.
He didn’t feel at all tired, though, despite the fact that it must be at least four o’clock in the morning and he had had no sleep. He had to make use of his energy while it still lasted.
He sat up and slipped back into the water, and this time, after only a few minutes, as his hands groped their way down the submerged rock face he felt a small flow of water and, following it, he found an opening. In his excitement he nearly took in a mouthful of water and he quickly bobbed to the surface. He was laughing, triumphant. It was a large hole, definitely big enough to fit his slim body into… but would it stay as wide as its entrance for the entire length? He took a deep breath, ducked under and swam a little way into it, arms outstretched. Yes, it certainly went some distance and it seemed to sta
y the same size. Also, he could feel the water growing slightly warmer, the further he went. There was no doubt about it: this tunnel must lead to the loch.
But he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. He pulled himself back out and swam to the ledge, which he could now do in the dark without thinking.
He sat there, elated, and pictured the look on Hellebore’s face when he found the cell empty. Oh, Randolph had been so sure of himself, and so dismissive of James, and now James had the upper hand.
He decided to leave his jacket behind, but the rest of his clothes he would have to take with him, including the boots, as he wouldn’t get very far outside without them. He unthreaded his bootlaces, then made two bundles – one with his trousers and the other with his shirt – and wrapped one boot in each. Then, using his belt and the laces, he tied the bundles to his waist. They’d drag in the water and there was a danger that they might get snagged, but it would be easier than swimming with them on.
Now that he was ready, he carried out his final preparations. He began to breathe very deeply and very quickly, which got rid of most of the carbon dioxide from his blood and pumped it full of oxygen. He was soon feeling light-headed and he knew that if he carried on much longer he might faint, but he was ready. Now, he would be able to hold his breath for…?
For how long? How long could the tunnel be? Ten feet? Twenty?
Practising holding his breath in his room at Eton, he could manage nearly two minutes, thanks to Butcher’s training, but underwater, with the extra pressure and the exertion? That was a very different matter.
And then there were the eels. The one thing he had been most desperately trying not to think about. This tunnel led to the loch. The loch from which they had taken Meatpacker’s half-eaten body.
Well, he’d been bashed about and was bruised all over, but, so far, James hadn’t cut himself. If he could just keep it that way, maybe they’d leave him alone. It was a slim hope to cling on to, but it was his only hope.