The Black Room (12 page)

Everywhere the smoke hung thick and choking. Lorn was too tired to speak. When Bando came to take the stones out of her hand, she let him open her fingers, almost without registering what he was doing.

Then Perdew took her arm and led her to the place where she slept, bundling one of her fur blankets into a pillow. She slept instantly, exhausted, as though she had spent the whole day struggling over rough ground.

ROBERT VANISHED INTO THE DARKNESS, MOVING QUIETLY and fast. After a second or two, Tom couldn't even hear him crawling through the undergrowth. There was no sound except the hum of the traffic from behind and the blare of the television below.

Tom wanted to keep out of it, but he couldn't. Not when he could see Robert heading straight for trouble. He was waiting for it all to make sense, but it didn't. Why was Robert so set on finding this girl? And how had he learned to move like that?

Tom found himself inching down the embankment, too. At first he tried to find some sort of track, a way through that showed where Robert had been. But there didn't seem to be any break in the undergrowth. Brambles snagged his clothes and branches whipped across his legs. Twice, he put his hand straight into a lump of thistles, and once, a long nettle wrapped itself agonizingly around his face. He kept struggling on but couldn't see anything clearly through the darkness. Not until he was almost level with the top of the cypress hedge.

Then everything changed suddenly. Luridly.

High on the back wall of the house, a security lamp erupted into life, and the whole garden was caught in its ugly glare. The harsh white light was thrown up the embankment, too, and all at once the darkness seemed more like a friend than an enemy. Tom slid down another foot or so, into the shadow of the hedge.

Robert wasn't so lucky. He was halfway across the grass, on all fours, when the white glare caught him, crawling between the hedge and the conservatory. He was totally exposed.

There was no time to stand up and run. Before he could move at all, the conservatory door flew open and a bulky figure shot out, heading straight toward him. Peering through the hedge, Tom saw Mr. Armstrong fling himself at Robert, pinning him to the ground.

There was a brief struggle. Tom thought Robert might break away, but Mr. Armstrong was twice Robert's weight, and very determined. It was only a few seconds before he grabbed Robert around the body and hauled him onto his feet. Spinning him around, he clamped an arm across his throat, from behind, dragging him backward and pulling him off balance.

Mr. Armstrong's thin, wet mouth was close to his ear, spitting words into it. Tom couldn't hear what he was saying, but it wasn't hard to guess. Every time he spoke, he gave Robert a vicious shake, for emphasis. Robert scrabbled at the arm around his throat, trying to stay on his feet and save himself from choking. But he couldn't pull it away.

Tom wanted to charge out of hiding and throw himself into the fight. But he was stranded up on the embankment, with a thick hedge in the way. All he could do was watch. He saw Robert's mouth move, forcing out a few words, but that just brought him another shaking. This time it was so fierce that his face twisted with pain.

Then Mr. Armstrong shouted, calling over his shoulder, toward the house. “Warren!”

For a second nothing happened, and he called again, irritably.

The back door opened slowly, and Warren came sidling out of the kitchen. He peered warily into the garden, looking miserable and sullen.

His father said something in a lower voice, with an impatient jerk of his head. Tom couldn't make out the words, but he saw Warren dive back inside the house. When he came out again, he was carrying something.

Mr. Armstrong waved a hand at him, pointing and giving instructions, but Tom didn't guess what was going on. Not until Robert was hauled around to face the other way and Warren came in close, holding something out in front of him.

It was a camera. They were going to take a photograph.

Robert realized it, too, and he tried to turn away. But the man caught hold of his hair and pulled his head around to face the camera. Warren bobbed about, taking two or three pictures in quick succession. Then his father waved him away, nodding toward the gate at the side of the house. Obediently, Warren scuttled across to it and fumbled with the bolts.

By the time he got them open, Mr. Armstrong was there, too, dragging Robert along with him. He gave him a last shake and then shoved him through the gate. Robert staggered down the path, and Mr. Armstrong closed the gate quickly behind him, shooting the bolts back into place.

Warren disappeared into the house, but his father didn't follow him right away. He walked slowly down the garden, peering into the hedges on both sides. When he reached the far end, he stepped back and began to scan the embankment.

Tom knew he was well hidden. There was no reason to be afraid. But as the cold eyes came toward him, he found himself shivering and huddling lower into the brambles, feeling vulnerable and afraid. Terrifyingly aware of the eyes sliding over the trees that shielded him.

They reached the place where he was crouched—and stopped. For a long, appalling moment, Tom kept completely still, not even breathing. The man in front of him was a faceless shape, silhouetted in the glare of the security light. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or what he could see.

just when Tom thought his lungs were going to burst, the silhouette shifted, moving farther along the hedge. Tom lowered his head onto his hands and bit on his fingers to stop himself shaking.

A moment later, it was over. Mr. Armstrong turned around and went back into the conservatory, closing the door behind him and leaving the garden empty. After a little while, the security light went off and everything was dark again, except for the glow from the television, seeping out around the edges of the all-concealing blinds.

Tom stayed still for a long time, gazing down at those blinds. At first, he was simply watching for shadows behind them, trying to see what was going on inside. But gradually he began to think about the blinds themselves.

What was the point of pulling them in the dark? The garden was hidden already, shut in by its tall hedges. Nobody could look into the conservatory without climbing along the embankment—and only an obsessive like Robert would do that. Why was Mr. Armstrong going to so much trouble to protect the conservatory?

What was going on in there?

From up on the slope, Tom could still hear the faint sound of the television, and every now and again, he could see a blurred shape dancing over the drawn blinds. But that was all. If he wanted to find out anything else, he would have to get closer.

He studied the position of the security lamp. Robert had walked straight into that trap and set it off. But suppose he'd taken a different route? Suppose he'd stayed in the hedge and crawled around the edge of the garden to the left-hand side? Over there, the conservatory was close to the hedge. It masked that part of the garden from the security light.

It wouldn't be very difficult to get around there....

Tom began to move cautiously down the slope, feeling his way with both hands and keeping a close watch on the conservatory. When he reached the bottom, he found himself facing a strong wooden fence running along between him and the hedge.

He hadn't expected that, but it just made him more determined—because it was another way of keeping people out of the garden. He looked along the fence, searching for a place where the cypress branches hung down over it, low enough to reach.

He had to stand on tiptoe to grab the branches when he found them, but once he had a secure grip, it was easy. He hauled on the branches, walking his feet up the fence, and scrambled into the tree on the other side.

It was tempting to stay up there, breathing in the clean, bitter smell of the cypress. He would have liked to travel around the garden that way, climbing from tree to tree, but the network of branches was too thick to penetrate. Reluctantly, he let himself down into the garden and started to move carefully from tree to tree, keeping back against the fence.

It seemed a long way to the corner. When he reached it, he turned down the left-hand side of the garden, toward the conservatory. It was much closer now. He could hear the sound from the television quite clearly, and underneath it, a faint mutter of voices.

There was something odd about the pattern of those voices. One deep voice (Mr. Armstrong's?) dominated the others, not speaking continuously but repeating the same phrases over and over. Occasionally, there was an answer in a higher voice, and once or twice, Tom thought he heard a third one, very faint. He went on moving steadily toward the sounds, his feet silent on the soft silt of fallen cypress leaves.

It was hard to leave the shelter of the trees. When he finally drew level with the conservatory, he had to force himself to lie down and wriggle out onto the grass. It was cold and wet with dew, and he felt the water soaking into his clothes as he squirmed forward.

The conservatory had a solid brick base. He lay up against it, listening. The television sounded very close—nearer than he had expected—but there was no other sound that he could detect. Had everyone gone? He levered himself up slowly, until he was high enough to peer over the top of the brickwork.

Like all the other windows, the window in front of him was covered by a thick blind. It fitted very well, but at the edge a narrow line of light was leaking out. Shutting one eye, Tom leaned forward to peer through the tiny gap.

All he could see was a solid, silvery surface. Something was pushed up against the other side of the glass, blocking his view. For a moment, he couldn't imagine what it was. Then a voice spoke out of it, clear and unmistakable.

“You'll need half a pound of cod fillet—”

It was the side of the television. For some reason, the television had been moved from the middle of the conservatory. No one had bothered to switch it off, even though it was jammed right up against the window.

Ducking down, Tom crawled a little way farther along, to the edge of the next blind. This time, when he raised his head, there was nothing to block his view. Peering around the side of the blind, he could see straight across the conservatory.

And what he saw made his mouth drop open.

THERE WAS A HOLE IN THE FLOOR OF THE CONSERVATORY, right in the very center. A great, black hole, completely square, going down into the earth.

The woman he and Robert had seen earlier was kneeling on the very edge of the hole, gripping the rim with both hands. She was bending forward to look down into it, and Tom could see that she was talking softly. The television masked the sound of what she was saying, but he could see her lips moving and her head tilting first one way and then another.

Mr. Armstrong came into view, standing opposite her on the other side of the hole. He didn't speak. He just stood there, staring. The woman shuffled back apologetically and scrambled onto her feet, wiping her hands on her skirt. As soon as she was out of the way, Mr. Armstrong looked down into the hole and said something short and sharp. Then he and the woman walked out of view for a moment. When they came back, they were carrying a big, square board with dozens of little perforations drilled through it. Together, they bent down and maneuvered it into position, fitting it over the hole like a lid. It dropped down into the opening, so that it lay level with the floor.

Moving automatically, without speaking, the woman fetched the red rug and unrolled it over the board, hiding it completely. She pulled the rug straight, very carefully, so that the white tulips marched down each side in neat, even rows. There was not even a wrinkle to hint at anything strange underneath.

Just in time, Tom realized that the television would be moved next. He dived down below the level of the windows and crouched very still, listening to the noise change as the television went back to its original position. It was a long time before he felt safe enough to raise his head again.

When he did, everything looked just as it had when he first gazed down into the conservatory. The television was in the middle, on the red tulip rug, throwing its pale, thin light onto the blinds at the end. Tom couldn't see anyone, and for a second, he thought the whole place was empty.

Then something moved, low down on the ground. He shifted slightly, changing his angle of vision, and saw a neat, small head, with brown hair pulled back tightly into a knot. It was the woman. She was on her knees, with her back to him, polishing the conservatory floor. Tom couldn't see any marks on it, but she kept moving briskly, rubbing hard at the wooden boards with the cloth she was holding.

Then she began on the legs of the table and the seat of the rough, old kitchen chair, rubbing and rubbing at stains too small for Tom to make out. Gradually she turned around, and he saw her face, tense with concentration. Her lips were moving, and she kept muttering and frowning and ducking her head, just as she had when she was looking down into the hole.

Was she singing? Reciting poetry? Memorizing a shopping list? Tom tried to lip-read, but he couldn't make out a single word.

Then she stood up to start work on the tabletop, and her head disappeared out of Tom's field of vision. Cautiously, he stood up so that he could go on watching her. As he did, he saw that the tray she'd brought in was still there, lying on top of the table.

When she'd first brought it in, it hadn't seemed important. Tom had seen it through the roof of the conservatory, but he'd hardly glanced at it. Now everything on it seemed like a possible clue. There was a red plastic plate, like a dog's bowl, with a dirty spoon lying in it. In one corner was a dishcloth, and lying next to it was a pair of big, heavy scissors.