The Piper (18 page)

‘Was he a nice vicar?’ asked Daisy.

‘He seemed nice enough. He told me all kinds of things about the history of the Marsh. The funny things that have gone on here. He said that—’

‘Now then!’ Mrs Beesley stepped suddenly away from the sink. ‘I think perhaps it’s time you two got yourselves off to bed.’ Her tone made it clear that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

‘It’s still quite early,’ observed Peter. ‘At home, we go to bed at—’

‘You’re not at home now!’ snapped Mrs Beesley. Then she forced that phoney smile. ‘Now, why don’t you two go up and say goodnight to Miss Sally?’ she suggested. ‘But don’t be keeping her for long, she needs her sleep. Lord knows, we could all do with some of that.’

There was clearly no point in trying to argue. Daisy headed for the stairs and Peter got up to follow her. As he did so, he felt a wave of tiredness sweep over him and he lifted a hand to his forehead.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Daisy.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered. But he felt decidedly odd. He gestured to her to go on and followed her up the stairs, clinging onto the bannister rail, because he was feeling slightly dizzy. On the first floor, they tapped gently on Miss Sally’s door and were told to enter. There she was, sitting in bed, propped up by a stack of cushions, a book in her hands. Daisy went straight over and sat on the end of the bed, but Peter hung back, pretending to study the rows of bookshelves on one side of the room. The woozy feeling in his head was intensifying and he wondered if he was coming down with the flu.

‘We came to say goodnight,’ said Daisy, perching herself on the side of the bed. ‘What are you reading now?’

‘It’s called
Secret Water
,’ said Sally. ‘It’s the latest in the
Swallows and Amazons
series. Do you know the books?’

Daisy nodded. ‘They’re not really my kind of story,’ she admitted. ‘But Peter’s read some of them, haven’t you, Peter?’

Peter nodded and wished he hadn’t, because it made him feel even worse. ‘I’ve read the first three,’ he said. ‘I got them from the library in Dagenham. They’re … good.’ He waved a hand at the bookshelves. ‘What a lot of books you have,’ he observed. ‘There must be … hundreds of them. I don’t suppose you’ve got Professor Lowell’s book somewhere in here?’

‘The writer you met?’ asked Daisy, puzzled.

‘Yes.’ He looked at Sally. ‘I met him today when I was out with Adam. I … I expect you know him, don’t you?’

‘I’ve met him once or twice,’ admitted Sally, but her expression suggested she didn’t care for him much.

‘He’s written a local history book, hasn’t he?’

‘So I believe.’

‘You mean you haven’t read it? I’m … surprised. You read so many books. And this one mentions the … the Grange.’

Sally frowned. ‘Oh well, Daddy said it wasn’t really for me.’

‘Oh, so your father’s read it?’

‘Yes. When it had just been published. He said the professor had made up a lot of things.’

Peter moved closer to the bed. ‘But … why would he do that?’ he asked her. ‘You aren’t supposed to … to make up history, are you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sally shrugged dismissively. ‘I prefer fiction, anyway.’

‘The professor told me something interesting,’ said Peter. ‘He said that you … you haven’t always been ill.’ He sat down rather heavily at the foot of the bed and as he did so, his side bumped against Sally’s feet under the covers. He felt something hard prod into him and he thought he heard the muffled clink of metal. ‘He told me that … he saw you at some kind of fair in April and there was … nothing wrong with you then.’

Sally looked evasive. ‘Well, yes, I suppose that’s true,’ she said.

‘But … when I talked to your father, he said you’ve … always been weak … I thought that meant you’ve been like this for a long time.’ Peter lifted a hand to his head again. It was throbbing now. He felt like he needed some air.

‘Well, I suppose he just meant that I get colds and so forth. That’s all.’

‘So when … when did you first find that you … couldn’t get out of bed?’

Sally looked flustered. ‘It … it’s not that I
can’t
. It’s just that I’m not allowed to. Especially not at night. Daddy says … he says it’s too dangerous …’

‘I … I’m only…’ Peter swayed to one side and put out a hand to stop himself from falling. His fingers touched something hard beneath the bed covers and once again, there was that tell-tale clink of metal. He stared down at the bed for a moment. A sudden conviction had come over him. His head was buzzing and the room seemed to be swaying giddily around him. ‘What … what’s under there?’ he murmured, pointing to the foot of the bed.

‘Nothing,’ insisted Sally, but her face told him she was lying.

Summoning his last reserves of strength, Peter stood up. He reached out a hand and took hold of the covers at the foot of the bed.

‘Don’t!’ cried Sally. ‘You’re not supposed—’

Peter yanked the covers roughly aside, exposing Sally’s bare feet. He stared down in horrified amazement. Her ankles were clamped by a pair of stout metal shackles. From them, a short length of chain ran to the metal frame of the bed. Peter recoiled and stood there, swaying, staring down at her feet. Daisy was staring too, her mouth open.

‘Daddy says it’s for the best!’ cried Sally. ‘They put them on me every night. It’s to stop me from sleepwalking.’

‘Sleepwalking?’ murmured Peter. ‘Or dancing?’

Sally’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I can still hear the music,’ she said. ‘Even with the earplugs in, I can hear it. It calls to me. And I … I want to go out and dance with the other girls. But Daddy says I can’t go. I’ve begged him to let me, but he won’t. And I want to. I want to so badly!’

And then Peter remembered something he’d heard a couple of times, late at night when he was drifting off to sleep. The sound of metal clinking against metal. And he knew what it was now. Sally, trying to get free of the chains, so she could go out and join the girls waiting for her in the mist-shrouded garden.

Peter tried to say something else but words failed him. He could only dumbly point at her shackled feet. He was aware that Daisy was looking up at him now and asking him what was wrong, but her voice seemed to boom and echo meaninglessly. The room had turned into a crazy carnival ride, a blur of garish colours that whirled and swayed around his head.

He was dimly aware of the bedroom door opening and somebody coming into the room. Then hands were closing around him, lifting him up off the ground and he tried to struggle, but his limbs had turned to mush and a heavy blackness was pushing into his head, swallowing everything. He went down into the darkness and knew no more.

Grandad Peter stops talking again. Helen stares at him.

‘She … she drugged you?’ she gasps. ‘That Mrs Beesley. She gave you something to make you sleep?’

Grandad Peter nods. ‘She wanted to be certain that I wouldn’t wake up that night,’ he says, as though that explains everything.

‘That … that horrible woman! How… how could she do such a thing to a … a boy?’

Grandad Peter sighs. He turns his head and looks out of the window at the rain-lashed garden and the skeletal branches swaying in the wind. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think about Mrs Beesley,’ he tells her. ‘In the end, I decided that she was acting out of love.’

‘Love?’ Helen stares at him.

‘Yes. Love for Sally and dedication to Mr Sheldon. Sometimes, people can persuade themselves to do the most unimaginable things in the name of love. The most wicked, hurtful things. I didn’t see it then, I was too young to understand. It’s only in the fullness of time that you come to realise the full extent of what people are really capable of.’ He frowned and sighed. ‘I still don’t know what it was she put in that milk,’ he said. ‘Only that it was very powerful. And if I’d taken one mouthful more of it, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation now.’

Helen looks at him. It is suddenly very quiet in the room. She is aware of the beating of her own heart within her chest, as Grandad Peter continues with his story.

Images swam around in Peter’s head like the contents of a nightmarish aquarium. Mysterious shadowy pipers pursued children across midnight marshes. Hideous faces floated to the surface of pools of stagnant water and grimaced at him. Sheep bleated, birds flapped and a wolf loped silently along the bank of a canal. Through it all ran that music, high and keening, seeming to fill his head with its lilting tones.

And then quite suddenly, he was awake, lying on his bed in the attic. It took him a little while to come back to his senses, to realise that he was fully clothed and stretched out on the covers. His mouth was parched, his head throbbed and above all else, that infernal flute music rose and fell. At first he thought it was simply in his head, but then he realised that it was actually coming from somewhere outside the house. He tried to remember what had happened earlier, but for a moment his thoughts were insubstantial wisps of cloud, floating this way and that, eluding him completely.

Then everything swam abruptly back into focus. He sat up on the bed and gasped. He’d been drugged, he was in no doubt about that – but he hadn’t drunk much of the milk and that must have been what had saved him. He swung his legs around onto the floor and got himself upright, but for the moment, his limbs felt rubbery and out of control. He stumbled across to the nightstand, picked up the big jug of water and raising it to his mouth, took a long noisy swig from its contents, sloshing half of it down the front of his shirt. He poured more into the basin, set the jug down and scooped the water onto his face, its coldness making him gasp. He stood there trying to pull himself together.

A vision rose in his head, the image of his sister’s face, an expression of terror etched into every feature. He groaned and lurched around towards the door of his room, telling himself he had to go to her before it was too late. He wrenched open the door and went outside. He stood at the top of the first flight of stairs, listening. Outside, the music was still playing, the same simple refrain he had heard the previous night, repeating itself over and over. He listened for a moment, his blood seeming to chill in his veins.

‘Daisy!’ he gasped. He went down the stairs to her room and pushed open the door. Moonlight was flooding in through the window and he saw in an instant that her bed was empty, the covers strewn in an untidy heap on the floor. Now fear spilled through him, as sharp and cold as a knife blade. He crossed the room and went to the window to look out. As ever, that infernal mist hung low to the ground. He saw nothing in the garden itself, but when he lifted his gaze to the avenue of trees that led out to the gates, he caught sight of several figures moving through the mist, making it writhe and coil around them. Most of them were too far away to see clearly but the nearest of them was Daisy, he was sure of that. She was dressed in the white nightgown that Mrs Beesley had given to her and she was following the other figures, who seemed to be dancing along through the gates of the house, but for the moment he paid them no attention. If he could just get to Daisy in time …

He backed away from the window and then noticed one other detail. A row of dolls sat on the window seat, smiling up at him. Among them sat Tillie, her white teeth bared in what looked like a grin of triumph. Tillie. But how had she got back inside? He snatched up the doll, threw her to the ground and brought down his heel hard on that grinning face, smashing it to fragments. Then he turned and ran out of the room and along the corridor. As he passed Sally’s door, he heard sounds from within, the clanking of a metal chain, the furious gasping of breath as she struggled to free herself, but there was no time to think about that now. He went down the next flight of stairs. He’d intended to go straight out of the front door, but he came to an abrupt halt halfway down the stairs when he saw that somebody was sitting on a wooden chair in front of the door. Mrs Beesley. She had been dozing, her head tilted forward, but Peter’s footsteps must have woken her. She lifted her head and her eyes opened. She stared up at him in silence, her expression furious.

‘I
knew
you hadn’t drunk it all,’ she growled.

He took another step down. ‘You … you have to let me go,’ he told her. ‘Daisy’s out there.’ He pointed towards the door. ‘I … I saw her from the window.’

‘Go back to bed, boy,’ she said, and her voice was expressionless. ‘You’ve been dreaming, that’s all.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No, Daisy’s not in her room. I saw her in the garden. You must let me out.’

‘Why didn’t you stay overnight in Hythe?’ she asked him, shaking her head. ‘It would have been so much easier if you had.’

‘You must let me help her,’ pleaded Peter. ‘She’s with other people out there. Strangers. Something terrible could happen to her.’

He heard footsteps coming from the direction of the sitting room and Mr Sheldon came slowly along the hallway. ‘Do what you’re told, boy,’ he said gruffly. ‘Go back to bed.’ His voice was badly slurred and his face was red, as though he’d been drinking heavily.

‘But my sister’s out there,’ pleaded Peter, pointing again. ‘She’s in danger. Please, she’s just a little girl, you have to let me go to her.’

Mr Sheldon shook his head. ‘Best you stay away,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can do for her now.’

Peter stared at him in desperation. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘I … I promised our mother that I would look after her.’

But Mr Sheldon didn’t seem to be listening. He was gazing towards the door as though he could somehow see beyond it. ‘You think I’m proud of this?’ he murmured. ‘You think I like what I’ve had to do? I lost my wife years ago and Sally is all I have left in the world. Don’t you see, boy, I couldn’t lose her too? I just
couldn’t
. To prevent that, I’m prepared to pay any price.’

Peter licked his lips. He was aware that as he stood here talking, Daisy was getting further and further away from the house. Who knew what might happen to her out in the darkness? Meanwhile, Mr Sheldon went right on talking. ‘I didn’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I really didn’t. Superstitious mumbo-jumbo, I told them, nothing more! That’s what I believed back then. Of course, I … I knew about the earlier deaths, but I put them down to coincidence and exaggeration. I told myself, this is the twentieth century, such things cannot happen now. I truly believed that! Even when my wife died in such a terrible way, I dismissed it as bad luck. I really thought Sally would be safe here … and then … then she started hearing the music.’ A look of cold dread came to his eyes. ‘At first, I put it down to fanciful imagination. You see, I have never heard it, not once. Mrs Beesley has heard nothing, Adam has heard nothing. What about you boy? I expect you can hear it, can’t you?’