The Secret of Crickley Hall (67 page)

Loren and Cally were glad to be outside in the sunshine and had watched the comings and going of policemen and various rescue team personnel with interest. The most exciting were the police divers, but the girls had not been allowed to follow them into the house. If their mood was a little subdued it was because Cam's death had been confirmed and only partly due to the dramatic events of last night, which so far seemed to have had no harmful effect on either of them (nevertheless, Loren, in particular, would be closely watched over the next few weeks for any delayed reaction to the ordeal she had been put through). They had managed to catch some sleep, at first in their parents' arms on the landing overlooking the flooded hall, then later in their own beds while Gabe and Eve kept guard outside their room with Lili and Percy.

A group of men, Gabe Caleigh among them, had gathered by the big oak tree where a broken swing hung forlornly from a branch, one end of the seat resting on the damp grass, its rusty severed chain curled on the ground like an iron snake.

Gabe was speaking to the yellow-jacketed man on his left, the deputy chief of the emergency services, Tom Halliway. 'Thanks for all the attention. I'm sure you gotta lot to do in the village.'

'Not as much as we expected,' Halliway replied. 'Hollow Bay got off comparatively lightly because of the flood precautions taken over the years. Plenty of cars swept away and overturned, several properties seriously damaged, but overall there's been no great harm done to the village. The main thing is, there's been no loss of life as far as we can tell. Sorry, didn't mean to disregard your friend.'

'Pyke? No, he wasn't a friend. Barely knew him. He turned up two days ago calling himself a psychic investigator, looking for ghosts.'

The uniformed policeman to his right, Chief Superintendent Derek Pargeter, remarked: 'Because he'd seen the article in the
Dispatch
this week, you told me earlier.'

'Uh-huh. The guy had read the crazy story about Crickley Hall being haunted, said he wanted to disprove it—or prove it, I'm not sure which now. So we let him go ahead with his investigation.'

'Last night.' It was a statement, not a question.

'Yeah. Last night. He was setting up his equipment when the flood hit. Poor guy never stood a chance. He was swept down into the cellar.'

The thin-faced policeman nodded gravely. 'Poor man. Wouldn't have stood a chance because of the well there.' He jerked his head towards the house. 'The divers should have completed their search by now, but I doubt they've had any luck in finding the body; it would have been carried out to the bay by the underground river—the force would have been incredible. The coastguard and sea rescue helicopters will keep a lookout for Mr Pyke's body, but the currents along this coast can be unpredictable.'

Gabe looked down at the ground and said nothing. He and his family, with Lili Peel and Percy Judd, had spent the night huddled together on the landing, ready to move to the upper floor should the water rise to a threatening level. Once Loren and Cally had fallen asleep and been put into their beds, the group had discussed everything that had happened in the past week as well as the whole story of the evacuees and their horrific deaths. Lili had spoken of the vision or 'insight' she'd had while lying semi-conscious on the lawn after having been hit by the windblown swing—if it
had
been windblown, that is—and Eve had wept at the children's fate. But they all agreed that the true story of all that had gone on should be kept to themselves. Who would believe the truth anyway? As far as anyone else was concerned, Gordon Pyke had been unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was Gabe who had put the question: 'Who could've guessed the authorities had hushed up the real causes of the evacuees' deaths all those years ago?' The question rhetorical, he had gone on: 'As Percy told Eve the other day, the lid was kept on it because if the fact was ever known that the kids' bodies had strangulation bruisings round their throats, a couple of them with broken necks, then no caring parent would ever let their child be evacuated. Then, was it in the public interest to know in time of war? What about the morale of the country? Yknow, all that stuff. Besides, their only suspect was already dead—he'd paid for his crimes, so no point in dragging it all out into the open. The cane strokes and scars on Cribben's
naked
body—ignoring the fresh cuts from flying glass—must've got the authorities and police thinking something was not quite right about the guy. The only possible witness they had—maybe she was a suspect too, at first—was Cribben's sister, Magda, and she wasn't saying anything any more.

'I guess the vicar at the time—Rossbridger?—knew the truth of it, because he had Cribben's body buried in a neglected part of the graveyard and well away from the evacuees' graves. Rossbridger would've kept the secret outa self-interest—it might've damaged his reputation.'

Gabe's surmise had given them all something to think about during the hellish long night.

Halliway interrupted Gabe's thoughts. 'Not much more we can do here, Mr Caleigh. The last of the floodwater has been pumped from the cellar—most of it had already drained into the well anyway.'

'Thanks for what you've done,' Gabe said gratefully, shaking Halliway's hand.

The stocky deputy chief merely nodded and walked to his mud-caked Land Rover, where he was joined by two other members of his team. Before climbing in, he turned and called back to Gabe.

'Your vehicle's more or less where you left it last night. We just moved it to the side of the road when we cleared the fallen tree. Good thing you left the keys in the ignition.'

'Right. I'll go get it later. We're moving out today.'

As the Land Rover backed across the bridge, a policeman in wet Wellington boots came hurrying out of the house. Gabe hadn't noticed him before but he now recognized PC Kenrick, who had called on them earlier in the week after the two local kids had got a fright in Crickley Hall.

The policeman went straight up to the chief superintendent.

'The divers have brought up two bodies, sir,' he said breathlessly.

'What? Two?'

'Sir. And neither one was an adult male.'

Gabe looked at Kenrick in surprise.

'One is a small boy,' the young policeman went on, 'and the other is what's left of a woman—they could tell it was a woman by the hair. The paramedics will be bringing out the bodies in a moment.'

'In bodybags, I hope,' said his superior officer. 'What condition
are
the bodies in? I presume they've been down there for a long time unless you, Mr Caleigh, haven't been entirely frank with me and more than one person lost their life last night.'

He eyed Gabe suspiciously.

'No, just Pyke. Those other bodies have been there a long time,' said Gabe. 'Since 1943, I guess you'll find. I think they're what's left of a young boy and a female teacher who disappeared back then.'

'Good Lord. You're serious?'

The engineer nodded. 'They both went missing around that time.'

'No, that can't be right, sir.' Kenrick was addressing his superior. 'The woman maybe—apparently she was caught up in a niche in the rocks of the riverbed and she'd rotted. She's almost a skeleton.'

So, Gabe thought, Nancy Linnet revealed herself to Pyke—and himself, of course—in what was probably the worst stage of her decomposition. She meant to terrify her murderer.

'And the boy?' Pargeter asked the constable, irritated that he had to prompt. 'What's the condition of the boy's corpse, Kenrick?'

That's just it, sir. The boy. He's hardly been touched. His body hasn't rotted at all.'

'Don't be foolish, man, there has to be some decomposition or bloating even if the body has only been there a short time.'

'His skin is like pure-white marble. Oh, and so is his hair. Totally white. He's only wearing a jumper and one sock, and they're stiff, like rotted cardboard, colours almost washed out of them by the water, which suggests the body has been down there a long time. But the paramedics don't think he drowned: they're saying he might have bled to death.'

The chief superintendent was astounded. Gabe was thoughtful.

The young policeman continued: 'The boy had been mutilated, sir. Around the genital area. It looks like an injury that was never treated. The divers found him on a small shelf, almost a fissure in the rockface. He was wedged inside it above the water level. Even over the past few days when the river's been swollen and fast flowing, it still wasn't able to dislodge the body.'

He stopped to draw in a breath.

'The divers say it's like an icebox down there and it's almost as if the body was hermetically sealed, that's the only way they can explain it.'

'Are you sure it's not just in a state of rigor mortis?'

'No, sir, this is different.'

'But that means the body would have had to be insulated.'

'I know, sir. That's what they reckon. Like I said, the boy's corpse resembles white marble, too hard even for rigor mortis. The flesh can't even be squeezed. It's like a statue. It's unnatural, sir.'

'You're telling me,' agreed the chief superintendent. He scratched the morning stubble under his jaw; it had already been a long day and it wasn't noon yet. 'The pathologist might be able to throw some light on it. And there's no sign of this man, this Gordon Pyke?'

'The safety lines the divers were attached to limited their search a bit, but they had a good look around the area close to the well bottom. The body of the boy and what was left of the woman were all they found.'

Gabe was thinking of Stefan Rosenbaum: had the young Jewish boy, still alive when he had been dropped into the well, managed to drag himself from the river into a cavity in the rockface, to die there alone and in utter darkness? It was too gruesome to contemplate.

The two police divers emerged from the house at that point, the tops of their rubber suits peeled down to the waist, diving equipment in their muscled arms. Both men looked pale, their expressions grim, as they made their way to their vehicle. Behind them came the paramedics carrying a body-bag on a stretcher gurney. Because of the plastic bag's size and shape, Gabe knew it contained the remains of Nancy Linnet.

•

Inside Crickley Hall, Eve quietly wept, while Lili Peel avoided looking at the bodybag that contained the small preserved body of Stefan Rosenbaum. They had witnessed the condition of both bodies when the paramedics brought them up from the cellar to be bagged and put on stretchers. Nancy Linnet was no more than a skeleton dressed in faded rags, but the boy was in an almost perfect state, although his skin and hair were bleached pure white.

To Eve, he had looked beautiful, the hair that fell over his forehead still full, although colourless, his features reposed as if in sleep. Instantly, she knew it was Stefan's presence she had felt last Sunday when she had dozed in the sitting room. It hadn't been Cameron who had come to her and soothed her brow, calmed her fears, but this little boy, Stefan. Or, that is, his ghost.

She wept not just because of sadness, but also because she now knew for certain that death wasn't the end. Lili had told her that most spirits passed over as easily as walking through an unlocked door; it was only the troubled spirits who lingered in this world, those spirits who needed some resolve to their past life, whether by revenge, atonement or conclusion. Eve desperately wanted to believe her. So she did.

The paramedics returned to collect the second bodybag and, as they gently placed it on the stretcher, Eve wondered if the boy's soul could now rest in peace or would forever be lost in Crickley Hall. There seemed to be no way of knowing for sure.

•

Chief Superintendent Pargeter had departed and PC Kenrick was trudging across the metal bridge to his patrol car parked in the lane. He stepped to one side to let the police divers' van pass, then went on his way.

Gabe was about to go back into the house when a sound made him stop and look towards the bridge. The girls had also stopped dead in their tracks and they looked in the same direction as their father. The sound that had caught their attention was a dog's excited bark, one that was so familiar to them all.

Percy Judd had left Crickley Hall earlier that morning after an uncomfortable and cold night on the landing with the others, checking on the water level in the hall every few minutes or so until they were sure it wasn't going to come anywhere near the top of the stairs, none of them, apart from Loren and Cally, catching a minute's sleep. By late morning the next day, the temporary bridge having been put in place, he was looking all of his eighty-one years and Gabe, when the danger had passed, had tried to persuade him to take a nap in his and Eve's empty bed, but Percy had declined, saying he'd 'gotta bit of business to tend to at home'. Now he was back and restraining a dog that was desperate to cross the bridge and get to the girls.

'Chester!'

Both Loren and Cally had screeched the name together. Chester finally broke loose from Percy's grip and, trailing the leash behind, raced towards them as they raced towards him. They met at the end of the bridge, Chester throwing himself at them, knocking Cally over (although she didn't seem to mind, she was giggling at the pet's antics so much). His tail wagging furiously, Chester slobbered all over the sisters, barking happily between licks.

Gabe whistled and Chester was off like a shot, tearing across the grass to reach his master, his barks becoming short gasps of joy. So eager and so intoxicated with delight was Chester that he almost bowled Gabe over too. The engineer could not help but chuckle as he tried to calm the dog down and avoid Chester's slavering tongue at the same time. When Gabe finally declared, 'Enough, enough,' and stood, the dog ran back to the girls to be fussed over again. Meanwhile, Percy was crossing the lawn towards him.

'What's the story, Perce?' Gabe called out, frowning his bewilderment but happy to have Chester returned.

'Sorry, Mr Caleigh,' apologized the old gardener when he was still a few steps away. 'I couldn't tell yer afore 'cause yer'da wanted him back.'