Chapter Twenty-Nine I go to the door and open it, jerking it back. ‘Who’s there?’
The passageway is empty.
I stare up and down it, then lean forward to peer up the staircase.
Nothing.
‘Bloody hell.’ I start to turn away, then realise I’ve missed something.
The cellar door.
It’s usually shut, but today it’s open. Not fully open, but a crack . . . Like someone went down there to retrieve something – a bottle of wine, some china or linen – and forgot to shut it afterwards.
Hesitantly, I go to shut it, and hear something from below. Just the faintest echo of a cry from the dark pit of the cellar. Like a hungry baby, starting to whine.
I listen and it comes again. No, not a baby’s cry. A mewing sound.
A cat?
I stand there motionless, stunned.
We don’t have a cat.
Reluctantly, I open the cellar door and look down the steps to the cellar. ‘Kasia?’
There’s no reply. It’s pitch-black down there.
I leave the door ajar and head for the kitchen. I want to find Kasia. But the kitchen is empty, and she isn’t in the breakfast room either. I check the two dim and chilly pantries. No sign of her anywhere.
The side door to the back garden is locked and bolted from the inside. So Kasia does know how to use a key, I think wryly, rattling the door as I try it. But at least that means she’s unlikely to be outside.
So where is she?
I didn’t hear her go upstairs while I was in the study. But there was that fleeting shadow across the door . . . going in the wrong direction, I thought at the time, back towards the kitchen. But perhaps I made a mistake and it was Kasia heading upstairs with the vacuum or a basket of clean laundry. She usually checks the bedrooms are tidy, of course. Makes the beds, does a quick vacuum round, and brings down any cups or glasses left upstairs. But normally that gets done first thing, shortly after she arrives.
I leave the kitchen and go back along the hallway to the partly open cellar door.
I can hear mewing again, louder now, more desperate.
‘Hello?’ I say loudly. ‘Is anyone down there?’
I put a foot on the creaky old stairs down into the cellar, then stop, holding my breath as the mewing continues. If it is a cat, it’s sounding more and more distressed.
I grope in darkness for the light switch, but fail to find it.
Shit.
I click my fingers and purse my lips, making a beckoning noise instead. ‘Pussy cat? Here, pussy . . .’
There’s a brief silence, then the mewing starts again. Only this time it’s more high-pitched. I can hear what sounds like thin, scratching noises, too. As though the poor defenceless thing is trapped somewhere down there, and is terrified.
My hands are trembling. ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head.
I can’t bear this torment much longer. The air of the cellar is so cold, it’s almost like being outside. My palms are clammy, my heart thudding. I clap my hands over my ears, but the mewing is somehow still there, echoing inside my head.
I fight off dark memories, but they won’t stop coming. I’m remembering the last time I heard a cat make a sound like that. The day Rachel caught a kitten in our shed and tortured it to death in front of me, taking pleasure in its helplessness.
I did nothing to stop her that day. I felt just as helpless in the face of my sister’s viciousness and mania. She was older than me and stronger.
But I’m not a child anymore.
And Rachel is dead.
Is Kasia behind this cruelty? Why is she doing it?
‘Leave that cat alone!’ I shout down into the darkness, and slam my hand against the wall inside, so hard it dislodges some of the crumbling plaster. ‘Stop it, you bitch! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?’
Abruptly, the mewing stops.
I lean forward with a kind of angry roar, groping for the light switch and snapping it on. The bulb is unshaded and right beside the stairs, blinding me . . .
I overbalance, miss my footing and fall.
My arm flails out, clutching for the wooden banister, but it’s too old and smooth. I slither down several steps before cracking my head on the rough cellar wall and landing in an awkward heap at the bottom, my right ankle twisted painfully beneath me.
‘Shit, fuck.’
Swearing under my breath, I scramble back to my feet and hop forward a few steps, wincing in agony the whole way, unable to put much weight on my hurt ankle. I shouldn’t be trying to move at all. But I’m not hanging around like an idiot at the bottom of the stairs. I’ve got no idea who else is down here. Or what else they’ve got planned for me.
My head hurts badly, my eyesight is muzzy. I can see dusty boxes, and a storage chest and shelves, and rack upon rack of wine bottles all the way to the back wall. There’s only one light bulb though, up at the top of the stairs. It’s still swaying where I knocked into it as I tumbled. I stand in that dark, cramped space as the bare bulb swings back and forth, the long shadows rising and falling.
I try the double switches at the bottom of the stairs, but the light at the top snaps off, plunging the cellar into darkness, and I hurriedly switch it back on. There should be another bulb down here. Is it missing? I peer up at the empty fitting hanging above my head. Somebody has taken out the bulb.
Shakily, I look into the darkness and purse my lips again, making a soft beckoning noise. ‘Pussy? Puss-puss?’
But the panicked mewing has stopped.
It’s so cold in the cellar, my breath is making little clouds. The air is damp, too. I can see mould and dark stains near the base of the wall in front of me. Rising damp. The cellar is a great place for storing wine, but not so wonderful for human beings.
I hop on a little way further, and look about for the cat, moving boxes and checking behind an ancient Welsh dresser full of unwanted china.
Just in case.
There’s no cat, of course. There probably never was a cat. But there is a grimy old filing cabinet. With one drawer open, files and papers spilling out onto the dirty floor.
I lean on the dresser and stare at the mess of files on the concrete. The floor is dusty, but the files look pristine. As if they were dropped here recently. Perhaps even in the last few minutes . . .
There’s a sound behind me. I turn clumsily and too late.
The light switch clicks off, and the cellar is enveloped in velvety blackness, only a faint glimmer at the top of the stairs.
My breath goes out of my lungs in one blind moment of panic. I back away, my instinct to hide behind the dresser, and nearly fall again in the darkness, coming up against the cold, damp wall. I gasp, tearing at the air, then can’t seem to stop gasping. It feels like I’m being suffocated, as if there’s a weight on my chest, stopping me from breathing. My hands are shaking too, stretched out in front of me to ward off some unseen attacker.
Then I hear it.
Someone is running lightly up the stairs.
The cellar door slams shut at the top, and I hear the key turn in the lock.
Shit.
I’ve just been locked in the cellar.
My first instinct is to run up the stairs and thump on the door, demand to be let out. I don’t move though. My ankle is not up to running anywhere, and it feels safer to stay where I am for now, listening hard, trying not to lose control.
Someone was down here.
Someone who managed to entice me into the cellar by making those scared mewing noises, pretending to be a trapped cat. But whoever it was has gone now, and I’m alone in the pitch-black, my heartbeat loud in the silence.
I swallow down sickness at my own stupidity.
Groping along the wall, I make my way slowly, limping and hopping, back to the bottom of the stairs. My ankle is so bloody painful, I have to bite my lip to avoid crying out. Finally, my searching fingers touch something cold and flat and plastic.
The light switch.
I click it down and the bulb at the top of the stairs comes back on, light flooding the cellar again.
‘Kasia?’ I raise my voice. ‘Kasia, this isn’t funny.’
I wait, but the door at the top of the stairs remains firmly shut. Fury makes me almost hysterical.