‘Over the entrance. We’d need to go explore a bit to find ’em.’
‘Haven’t time. Sorry. Shall we go, Em?’
‘What?’ Emily had been looking over at the fireplace with its shining metal grate. ‘Sorry,’ she said slowly, ‘I was just thinking. You know, we could really do it – stay here, I mean.’
‘Yeah!’ Marcus said. ‘Now you’re talking sense. We could see our way about for another hour at least.’
‘I don’t mean today . . .’ Emily went on in the same measured voice. ‘Obviously – we’d fall and break our necks. I mean another time. We could bring sleeping bags and torches and food and – ’
‘It’s midwinter,’ Simon pointed out.
‘So we build a fire. That’s what that hearth’s for, isn’t it?’
There was a stunned silence. Both Marcus and Simon were digesting what they had heard. At last Simon frowned. ‘People will see the smoke from the chimney and come running,’ he said. ‘It’s a stupid idea, Em. Bad enough to be one of his.’
Emily smiled. ‘They won’t see the smoke if we build the fire after dark!’ she went on. ‘We use torches to see, then we build the fire and put sleeping bags down around it, and we could even cook stuff on it if we were careful – ’
‘Em – ’
‘Besides, there’s a gas heater in the hut downstairs. We could use that during the day, and at night too if we managed to lug it up here. Once we’re in, like we are today, there’d be nothing to stop us.’
‘Harris would see the glow of the fire through the window,’ Marcus said. ‘He’d catch it a mile off.’
Emily crossed to the window and looked out. ‘No chance. Nothing but open country there – just endless fields. Harris’s place is round the other side. Torches or fire, no one would see them. We’d have to be careful with lights near the other windows, of course.’
Simon still looked dubious. ‘It’s a crazy idea,’ he said. ‘We’re already risking too much getting in here at all. Likely enough we’ll set fire to the place and burn to death, or get ourselves locked away.’
Emily grinned at him. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘but you’d still love to do it, wouldn’t you, Simon? Come on – you’re not chicken now, surely.’
He flushed. ‘’Course I’m not.’
‘Well then. We couldn’t do it without you, of course. We’d never get in or out on our own, would we, Marcus?’ (There was no answer to this.) ‘And I wouldn’t have a clue how to get a fire going, or switch that heater on.’ She was resorting to open flattery, but Simon seemed oblivious to it. He nodded thoughtfully.
‘I could carry some wood up,’ he said. ‘Dad’s got some out back.’
‘There you go. Come on! This would be the real thing, just what Marcus’s been looking for.’
As she spoke she looked sideways at him. Marcus’s face was shadowed in the fading light. The more Emily talked the more conscious she had become that Marcus was not comfortable with her idea at all. Far from leaping on it and claiming it as his own, as she had expected, he was remaining unnaturally quiet. Why this was she did not know, but she found that his apparent discomfiture spurred her on. So much for his boasting, his know-it-all facts, his endless snide remarks! A heap of petty grievances, which had been building up steadily in her all day and which had been crowned by his latest bout of ill temper, fuelled her growing enthusiasm for her plan. When she first spoke, it had been little more than a half-thought, a small spark of inspiration. But the more uncomfortable Marcus became, the more Emily felt that her plan was good.
‘You are up for it, aren’t you, Marcus?’
Even in the dusk, he was obviously ill at ease. ‘Maybe.’
‘What’s up? I thought this was your dream come true.’
‘Yeah, it’s just . . .’
‘One thing,’ Simon said. ‘What do we tell our parents? I mean, mine don’t give much of a toss until midnight, but after that they start noticing.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Emily hadn’t thought of this. True, it was a tough one. But even as she prepared to give up the idea, she could sense Marcus relaxing at her side. He was getting off the hook.
‘Easy!’ she said. ‘We just say we’re staying over at each other’s houses. Say there’s a Christmas get-together or something. With other kids in the village. Would your parents ask questions, Simon? Mine wouldn’t.’
‘I don’t know. They’d be a bit surprised, maybe. It’s not something any of us have done much of, staying out at someone’s. Staying out at the pub, now that’s different. Still, I don’t reckon they’d ask any questions.’
‘Cool. So,’ Emily went on brightly, ‘what about you, Marcus?’
He had his hat off and was scratching irritably at his hair. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s easier for you – you live here. You can cover for each other. What do I do? I can’t say that I’m round your house, can I?’
Simon gave a grunt of acknowledgement, but Emily was in no mood to compromise. ‘Just say you’re round at a mate’s in King’s Lynn. It’s not that difficult. Assuming you’ve got a mate there, that is.’ There was a pause. She looked at him. ‘You must have got some mates, Marcus, surely.’
Marcus said nothing. Emily turned her discomfort into a burst of exasperation. ‘Oh look,’ she said, ‘don’t worry about it. If you’re not up for it for whatever reason, that’s OK. You can stay at home. Simon and I will go.’
This produced a more emphatic reaction than she had expected. Marcus grabbed her by the arm.
‘Ow! Marcus – that hurts!’
‘Not without me, you won’t! You’re not doing anything here without me. Whose castle – whose idea was it to get in? Mine! It was mine. I had the idea. Without me you’d still be messing about like kids out there in the snow! So don’t think you can swan around in here as if it’s yours, all right?’
‘All right!’ Emily prised his hand loose. Marcus was panting heavily, wild-eyed with distress. ‘All right. So you’re on for it, then. Good. That’s all three of us, which is the way it should be. Let’s do it tomorrow. No point wasting time.’
‘What are you going to tell your parents, Marcus?’ Simon asked.
Marcus snorted. ‘Nothing. Don’t need to. My dad works nights.’
‘What about your mum?’
The answer came witheringly. ‘I don’t need to ask her permission, Simon. She’s dead.’
‘Oh.’
The sun had almost completely disappeared behind the trees. The snow on Castle Field was stained a reddish purple. They stood silent in the room.
Marcus folded the pamphlet and stuffed it in his coat. ‘Sun’s down,’ he said. ‘We’d better be getting off then.’
‘I’m sorry, Marcus,’ Emily said.
‘We’d better be getting off then,’ Marcus said.
Occupation
{5}
It was a perfect day for the great operation. Throughout the morning it had been snowing heavily, but by 2.30, when they met again at the gap in the hedge, the clouds had lifted and lightened and the chill breeze had dropped. There was a hushed feel to the countryside; everything around them seemed muffled. Every branch and twig was crowned with a delicately balanced layer of snow. Thin twists of smoke rose up from the houses beyond the wood. The sky was a dead, dull white.
Since they had little more than an hour to get settled before the light began to drain away, they did not waste time. Each carried a large rucksack and was sweating heavily under as many extra layers as could be worn inside a bulging coat. With barely a word they squeezed through the hedge one by one and scuttled the now familiar route across to the moat and up to the castle wall.
‘You look like the Michelin man,’ Marcus whispered to Simon as they paused for breath by the buttress. ‘How many jumpers have you got on there?’
‘Six. I nicked them off my brothers. And I’ve got two more in the bag.’
‘Jammy git – I’ve only got four, total.’
‘It’s well camouflaged, eh?’ Simo
n said. ‘You’d have to look hard to spot that.’ He pointed up at the cord that he had worn round his waist when climbing the wall for the first time. Now it hung down limply from the hole, blending in with the grey and white stone. Its end dangled just above the top of the buttress. Beyond the hole and out of sight, it was tied to the end of the coil of rope. The day before, after Marcus and Emily had descended, Simon had pulled the rope up and hidden it on the broken wall. After leaving the cord dangling, he himself had climbed down the wall and slid down the buttress.
‘If Harris is sharp-eyed he’d spot it,’ Emily said.
‘Better than climbing it all from scratch. Mind out.’ Simon took a couple of steps back before making a short sharp charge at the buttress. He got about halfway up, made a wild grab at the cord, missed and slid back to earth.
‘How did you do that to your face, Marcus?’ Emily was looking at him properly for the first time. ‘Looks sore.’
‘Knocked it coming down yesterday.’
‘Ouch. Told you it was stupid doing it in the dark.’
‘Watch your feet, Simon! Nearly had my eye out.’
‘Gotcha!’ This time, Simon’s outstretched hand found its mark. He landed in the snow with the cord in his grasp. Out of the hole the end of the rope appeared; as Simon continued to pull, the whole length emerged until it hung to ground level. He grinned. ‘How’s that for genius?’
Emily returned from a reconnaissance round the edge of the tower. ‘All clear,’ she said. ‘Today, I’m going first.’
When all three were on the walkway and the rope had been drawn up, Simon shouldered his pack and set off towards the stairs.
‘Hold on!’ Marcus jerked his thumb along the corridor in the opposite direction. ‘You’re going the long way round.’ He took the crumpled pamphlet from his pocket and set it on the stone ledge with the castle plan face up.
‘Look, we’re here . . . If we follow this passage we join the staircase up to our room. We’ll be there in no time.’
‘Fair enough. Lead on.’
After a few metres they passed beyond the arches opening onto the great hall’s empty space and the walkway became an enclosed passage. It went straight on and ended at another spiral stair, with a archway on the left.
‘See, we ignored this twice yesterday.’ Marcus stepped over to the arch. ‘Our room’s above, but there’s another one in here. Let’s check it out.’
A short passage led into an open chamber – much darker than the one that had been restored. It had no less than three other exits, one of which gave onto the thin air of the hall. A set of bars and a sagging sheet of netting blocked this doorway off. There was another fireplace, a couple of narrow windows and a pervasive feel of damp and cold.
‘I like our room much better,’ Emily said. ‘Come on, let’s get up there and dump our stuff.’
They turned to the stairwell, Simon leading.
‘They reckon that might have been the lord’s chamber,’ Marcus said. ‘It leads on to the castle chapel. I’d like – ’
‘Shh!’ Simon suddenly froze in mid-stride.
‘ – to have seen – ’
‘Shut up!’ His hiss brought Emily and Marcus up short, bunched behind him.
They listened. Emily heard their hushed breathing, a crow cawing on the wind, no other sound.
‘What did you hear?’ she whispered. Simon shook his head furiously, grimaced urgently.
Nothing . . .
Then – a faint scuffling on the stairs below.
A low cough, a muttered curse.
Emily’s insides became water. Her legs nearly gave way. She couldn’t move.
Simon swivelled very, very quietly. He cupped his hands over his mouth. Slowly, deliberately, his whisper came. ‘Someone . . . Is . . . Coming. Hide.’
Panic. Emily had always associated the word with noise, with crowds and kerfuffle, with loud, wild movements, screams and shouting. But now here it was, most certainly and definitely – an utterly silent panic that froze her brain and made her jaw sag. Time seemed to flow like treacle. She did not know what to do. She saw Marcus turn round with fear etched on his face, she felt him disappear through the doorway into the cold room. She half-turned to follow, but was distracted by Simon: first he seemed inclined to go up the stairs – he took two great tiptoeing strides, then he stopped. He turned round, shook his head at her, began to follow Marcus and stopped again. She saw him mouth a swearword. Then he was past her and off along the corridor towards the walkway.
The scuffling steps on the staircase grew louder.
She did not know why Simon had gone that way. She did not know whether she should follow him. Perhaps, on reflection, she would. She took a step – and out of the corner of her eye she saw a moving shadow curving upwards along the wall of the spiral staircase and knew that in another moment the owner of that shadow would turn the bend and have a clear view to the landing. Then he would see her.
In a flash of decision she took a step back, twisted round and set off up the stairs.
And no sooner had she done so than she remembered that their room was a dead end. There was no way of escape up there.
But probably the owner of the shadow would not follow her. There were two other routes for him to take. Then it would be OK. She could wait in hiding on the stairs until the coast below was clear.
She paused in the dusk between two arrow slits. Listen . . .
Not a sound to be heard. Had he gone elsewhere? Still nothing. Emily breathed a long sigh of relief through dry, parted lips.
Then she heard the footsteps climbing onwards up the stairs.
Climbing on towards her.
Oh no. Oh no.
She forced herself to lift in turn each deadened foot, heavy and cold as marble. One at a time, one at a time, stealing up the stairs.
Oh no. Oh God. Oh no.
It was Harris, she knew it was, and when he found her he would kill her. Maybe he knew they were in the castle; that was why he had come. He had come to find her and kill her, and he would do it in the whitewashed room at the top of the stairs.
Up she went, fast as she dared, and then she was at the top, where the black grilles barred the ways along the passage and up the stairs and the door opened into the room of light. She spilled out into it, looked around. Nowhere to hide.
A wheezing cough behind her, not far now.
Only – maybe – the chimney . . . ? She raced across to it, ducked under. No time to consider it one way or the other. She stepped onto the grate, stood up inside.
Head and shoulders hidden. Not enough.
She raised her hands, gripped onto the brickwork. It was rough, irregular. Seizing with both hands a brick at the front of the flue, she swung her legs up to lodge against the back of the chimney. It was an awkward movement – she was twisted like a cat in free fall, her head facing downwards and her feet facing to the side – but it held her in position. Her rucksack shifted on her back under its own weight. Her right hand found a new grip a little higher up. She took it, adjusted the left hand too, then with more freedom of movement locked her back in an arch and walked her feet a few more steps up the opposite wall. Flecks of black-brown powder drifted to the floor with every shift in position.
Someone entered the room.
Emily stopped moving. She hung there, wedged in the darkness. One side of her face was pressed against the soot of the brickwork. With half an eye she could see down between her wrists to the pool of light coming in through the fireplace. Even with half an eye the mess of powder on the grate below screamed incrimination.
There was an incoherent sound of footsteps. They halted. Somebody blew his nose loudly and messily. There were a couple of sniffs. Then a cough.
Emily had no idea whether her feet were high enough, whether they were out of sight. She imagined them peeping out at the back of the bright, white hearth, bathed in a circular spotlight. She wished, fervently, that her boots had been painted white for camouflage, instead of being dar
k brown with a hint of red. Above all, she wished she had never come back to the castle – never seen it in the first place. Whose stupid idea had it been to come back today?
Hers. She had no one else to blame.
The strain was beginning to tell on the muscles in her shoulders. The top of one arm began to shake. As stealthily as she could she shifted the fingers of that hand to change the position of her muscles. Her fingers scraped the fragile brick. A delicate trickle of powder drifted downwards into the open hearth. She watched it fall, spiralling gently in the light.
How could it not be noticed?
Biting her lip, eyes closed, she waited . . .
Waited . . .
Emily opened her eyes. The room outside was very quiet. There was no snuffling, coughing or scuffling. There were neither footsteps nor the sound of moving clothes. In fact, no matter how hard she strained to detect even the smallest something, there was no longer the feeling of any presence in the room.
Even so, she did not budge.
Five minutes passed. The aching in Emily’s shoulders grew steadily more unbearable. Still no sound came from outside. But the more she waited and the harder she listened the less sure she became that the silence was not treacherous. She imagined Harris waiting there, as motionless as a praying mantis, his eyes fixed on the open hearth. He was enjoying himself. He knew where she was. He would wait until she thought she was truly safe, until she came out timidly like a mouse from a hole – then he would seize her.
She held on grimly, though her arms, hands, fingers now were all shaking. Her whole arched back was racked with pain. She felt sick inside. She had been up this chimney for hours, days . . . She could bear it no longer . . .
Then her fingers gave way. In a cascade of brick dust and medieval soot, Emily fell into the fireplace, twisting her ankle awkwardly on the grate. She collapsed forwards onto the floor, arms out like the hands of a clock. Her feet lolled in the hearth. A plume of black settled slowly all around.
Through the descending cloud she saw the wooden ceiling. Nothing else looked down at her – no hateful face. No one came to seize her. She was alone in the room.