The Beast of Seabourne (31 page)

Ten minutes later, Ruff was online with S and S, destroying whole worlds with gusto. Oz glanced out of the window and saw his mother's car had returned while they'd been in the library.

“Fancy meeting Rowena Hilditch?” Oz asked Ellie.

“Uh, no, thanks,” Ellie said.

“Oh, come on. Come down to the kitchen with me. I could do with some juice.”

“Get some for me, would you?” Ruff said without looking up from the game.

“Please, Ellie. If you're with me, it'll give me an excuse to get away,” Oz persisted.

Ellie made eyes to the ceiling but followed Oz as he made for the stairs and almost collided with him as he turned back to speak to Ruff. “And when I come back, I've got something to show the both of you, so you'd better finish that level and tell S and S you'll be signing off.”

“Anything exciting?” Ruff asked, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“Wait and see,” Oz said.

In the kitchen, Mrs Chambers was spooning instant coffee into two mugs, while Rowena Hilditch, in a balloon-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons on the sleeves and front, sat at the table scribbling on a pad and talking. “We'd keep it very informal, no more than twenty, perhaps thirty maximum.”

“Twenty or thirty what?” Oz asked as he and Ellie breezed in.

Mrs Chambers spun around, and for one split second, Oz thought he saw a kind of terrified relief flood her face at seeing him.

“Didn't know you were back,” she said.

“Finished what we had to do in town and came back early. Ruff's upstairs on the Xbox dreaming about your chicken and broccoli dijonnaise.”

Mrs Chambers smiled indulgently.

“Ozzie,” drawled Rowena Hilditch before her gaze raked Ellie, “how nice to see you, and is this young lady your very pretty girlfriend?”

Ellie's eyes flashed dangerously, but Oz saw her force a smile.

“This is Ellie,” Mrs Chambers said. “She and Oz have known each other since they were babies.”

Ellie stepped forward and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said.

Rowena Hilditch shook it and kept her unblinking gaze on Ellie's face. Oz remembered that gaze from the first time he'd met the woman, and again found himself wondering if it was some sort of challenge to see who would drop their eyes first. One thing Oz knew for certain: it wouldn't be Ellie. There was a moment's awkward silence until Mrs Chambers took a step forward and grabbed Ellie in a hug.

“Ellie's my surrogate daughter.” She smiled and kissed Ellie lightly on her hair.

Oz went to the fridge and rummaged for the juice cartons.

“Settled on the colours for the bedrooms, then, Mum?” he asked absently as he poured three glasses.

“Ummm,” Mrs Chambers said uncertainly.

“I think that a return to earth colours would be best,” Rowena cut in. “There's a great need for emotional balance when we sleep. It's an essential time for re-energising our life forces. We've decided that, when I move in, I'll decorate my own rooms. Add a personal touch.”

Ellie looked quizzically from Oz to Mrs Chambers.

“Oh, uh, Rowena is a…therapist,” Oz explained. “Knows loads about rainbow healing and stuff like that.”

“I'm helping Gwen deal with the negative issues in her life,” Rowena said. “And we're making huge strides, aren't we, Gwen?”

Mrs Chambers nodded, but Oz couldn't help notice that she turned back to making the coffee with a lot more enthusiasm than was really necessary.

“In fact, so impressed is your mother with the results,” Rowena Hilditch purred, “that she's agreed to kindly let me host a holistic healing soiree here at Penwurt in a few days' time. Isn't that fantastic?”

“So, that's what the twenty or thirty was about, was it?” Oz asked.

“Exactly.A few interested potential patients and one or two of the more enlightened members of the press. I will give a talk and it goes without saying that my books will be available for purchase. I generally find I'm inundated with requests once people hear me speak.”

“Where are you going to hold it?” Ellie asked. “The library?”

Rowena Hilditch's eyes widened dramatically. “Oh, no. Ozzie's been showing me around, and there's a much more atmospheric place than the stuffy old library. No, the dorm in the old orphanage is simply dripping with psychic energy.”

“Is that what you are, then?” Ellie said. “A psychic?”

Before she could answer, they all heard a loud cough, and everyone looked up to see Ruff in the doorway, beaming at them. It was all Oz could do to stop the laughter from bursting out of him, because inside that cough, he had distinctly heard the word “psychiatric.”

“And this,” Mrs Chambers said, grabbing Ruff in a hug that was a tad firmer than usual, which suggested she'd heard Ruff's scantily disguised cough too, “is Rufus Adams. The last of the three musketeers.”

“All right?” Ruff said amiably.

“Hello, Rufus,” Rowena said. “As I was saying, you are all welcome to come to my soiree. I like to educate young people on the importance of considering the world beyond science and our humdrum existence. Gwen has kindly agreed to provide refreshments.”

“I'm definitely coming, then,” Ruff said. “Will there be Ouija boards and floating tables and stuff?”

Rowena let out a high-pitched laugh meant to sound as if Ruff's suggestion was hilarious, but the way her eyes narrowed menacingly gave the lie to that assumption.

“Unfortunately not.I don't believe in tricks or illusions. I take my work very seriously, Rufus.”

“Right,” Ruff said, and then saw the juice cartons, and his concentration, precarious at the best of times, shifted focus in an instant. “Is that orange and cranberry I see? I lurve that stuff.”

“What is she like?” Ellie said five minutes later, as they sat in the library with their juice. “She dresses like a steampunk tween, and ‘Ozzie'? What's that all about?”

“I did warn you,” Oz said.

“Why's your mum hanging around with her, anyway?” Ruff asked pointedly.

Oz shrugged. “She's writing a book. Knows loads about the Beast of Seabourne and stuff like that. She's been doing research here on the Bunthorpe encounter. And what's worse,” he added gloomily, “is that there's a chance she may be renting some rooms.”

“She's writing a book about the Beast of Seabourne?” Ellie said, intrigued.

“Yeah. It's full of stuff about gypsy curses and full moons and guano like that.”

“Wicked,” Ruff said.

“It's got dates and everything. Hang on, I've seen a draft copy somewhere. She's asked Mum to read through it.” Oz pushed himself out of the armchair he'd sunk into and ran down to the drawing room. He retrieved a battered manuscript and threw it at Ruff as soon as he was back in the library.

“Is your mum really doing rainbow healing?” Ellie said, with a frown.

“Supposed to be. But I found the coloured tube thingies in a box under her dressing table the other day.” He cocked his head. “Funny, it's like Rowena's got her talons into Mum. We both know she's barking, but she doesn't seem to want to shake free.”

“Says here,” Ruff said, peering at
Supernatural Seabourne
, “that the Beast killed ten people.”

“Yeah, well you can divide that by three at least,” Oz said.

“But it did actually kill someone, then?” Ellie said.

“Yeah, and nasty stuff too, according to this,” Ruff muttered as he scanned the pages.

Ellie had gone quiet, and her face took on a troubled look.

“What's up with you?” Oz said.

“Well, it's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it? I mean Rowena Hilditch is here in Penwurt writing a book about the Beast of Seabourne, and you're being accused of actually being it. I mean…”

“You mean what?” Ruff asked, looking up from the manuscript.

“That Rowena's got something to do with the attacks?” Oz said, trying but not succeeding in keeping the derision out of his voice.

“Well, yes,” Ellie said. “What if she's like a double-bluff weirdo? I mean, she is a weirdo, obviously, but what if that's just her cover? What if she really works for Gerber?”

“I told you, Soph couldn't find any connection between her and Gerber.” Oz said, frowning.

“Maybe not, but…” Ellie hesitated, but seeing the other two glaring at her, finally blurted, “Well, we've underestimated Gerber before, haven't we? I mean, look at the lab coats.”

“So, you think Rowena Hilditch, under Gerber's instructions, has brought the Beast back to life to frame Oz?” Ruff said. He was frowning, and Oz guessed he was struggling to follow the logic of Ellie's suggestion.

“I don't know what I think. It's just so…convenient somehow, that's all,” Ellie said, sounding suddenly flustered.

Oz sat back, desperately trying to get his head around this new twist. Rowena Hilditch in cahoots with Gerber? It seemed completely mad, and yet… A new thought blossomed in his head. A memory of a JG Industries van, a woman, and a boy on a lead, trying to sniff him out.

“What if it's an auramal?” Oz blurted.

“Come again?' Ruff said.

“What if what's attacked Kieron and Pheeps is an auramal and someone is controlling it?”

“You mean Rowena Hilditch?”

Oz nodded. “I saw the bear auramal being controlled up at Sussex Street.”

“But why attack Skinner and Pheeps?”

“That's the bit I can't work out yet,” Oz said, his enthusiasm for his theory deflating rapidly as he ran out of answers.

“Maybe she's a cuckoo,” Ruff said.

Ellie and Oz stared at him.

“Rowena Hilditch, I mean. Cuckoos are brood parasites. Lay their eggs in other birds' nests so their young get food and stuff for free. There's this alien shape-shifter cuckoo in
Caverns of Omega
, and this alien gets to live with this family…” He saw their expressions. “Okay, but it would be a great name for her, though, wouldn't it?”

Oz frowned and then nodded. “Well, she is a parasite, all right…”

“Cuckoo it is, then.” Ellie nodded.

Ruff shut the pages of
Supernatural Seabourne
, obviously bored with it. “Right, what was it you were going to show us? I gave up on Level 7 of DPH because you promised me a surprise.”

“Almost forgot.” Oz got up and grabbed some torches before going to the eastern wall of the library and pressing the alchemical symbols for essence, alum, soap, and tin. The wall clicked open, and Oz took them straight up to the room of reflection.

“I came up here the other day. To get away from Rowena Hilditch, in fact,” he said. “And while I was here, I found this.”

He showed them the iron firedog.

“Lovely,” Ellie said with mock delight.

“Looks like a constipated iron lion,” Ruff commented.

Oz grinned. “Only kidding. What I wanted to show you was this.”

He shone his torch onto the small crack in the wall panel and, using the tweezers he'd remembered to bring this time, eased out the letter. Oz waited while Ellie and Ruff read it, Ruff peering over Ellie's shoulder in the confined space.

“Sounds like the squire's son lost it big time,” Ruff said when they'd finished reading Redmayne's account.

“It's horrible,” Ellie said in a low whisper.

“Reminds me a lot of
Down to the Woods 3
. There's this bloke that gets turned into a cross between a werewolf and a gorilla every time he eats mongrelberries—fruits that only grow in this particular wood—”

“Sugar!” Ellie said, swinging round to face them both, a manoeuvre that was not at all easy in the cramped space. “That's it!”

“What's it?” Oz said, staring at Ellie's animated face.

“The Beast of Seabourne. Don't you see?”

Oz shook his head.

Ruff frowned and gave Ellie a patronising little smile. “Sorry, but the Beast of Seabourne definitely did not feature in
Down to the Woods 3
.”