‘A bit eccentric in certain areas,’ said Michael, who somehow did not want to say – even to Nell – that Luisa had seemed more than eccentric earlier in the day.
‘Will you be able to track down her family?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve got the run of the library, but I don’t think I can start looking through her private papers.’ Except the journal, said his mind. She wanted me to read that. ‘I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to rifle through her things,’ he said to Nell.
‘She sounds like a survivor,’ said Nell. ‘And you might find an address book somewhere un-private – by a phone, for instance But listen, just to put you back on track, I’ve been finding out a few things about Holzminden – about the prisoner-of-war camp, I mean. Godfrey at the bookshop in Quire Court – you’ve met him, haven’t you? – produced a couple of very useful tomes. One has excerpts from letters written in 1917 by an attendant who was a guard there. Even allowing for the German to English translation, they paint quite a vivid picture of the place. I’m trying to track down the rest of the letters – apparently they were privately printed.’
Michael smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice, asked after Beth, and was pleased to hear Beth was having a good time with Aunt Emily in Aberdeen.
‘I’m going to the Bodleian tomorrow to look for the letters,’ said Nell. ‘I’ve asked Owen to hold my hand and guide me through the hallowed portals. Also the Radcliffe, if necessary. I’d rather have your hand to hold, but I’d like to find the letters as soon as possible, so Owen’s a good substitute. And—’
‘And you’ve long suspected you’d never be in any danger by holding Owen’s hand anyway.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact I did suspect that,’ said Nell. ‘Ah, yes, I see. Dear Owen. But you’ll be back soon, won’t you?’
‘I’m setting off for Oxford tomorrow.’
‘Will you be able to? What if they haven’t cleared the tree by then?’
‘If I have to pass earth’s central line— If I have to cross the foaming flood, frozen by distance, I will be with you in Quire Court when night falls on the world.’
‘You do get carried away,’ she said, laughing.
‘The poets always say these romantic things better than I ever could.’
‘Don’t denigrate yourself. You’re the last of the real romantics as far as I’m concerned. Ring again if you want to. I wouldn’t mind if it was three in the morning when you rang.’
The house felt immeasurably safer and saner after talking to Nell, but by ten o’clock Michael gave up the struggle to work. He took the key of the underground room from his pocket and looked at it for a long time.
The prospect of going down to that room again was daunting, but Michael knew he would have to do it. I want you to be the one who knows the truth … He could dash across the room, snatch up the book, and be back up here within five minutes – ten at the most.
Before he could change his mind he went into the kitchen to find an electric torch and matches. As an afterthought, he collected his mobile phone from his room and, thus suitably armed, unlocked the door in the panelling. It opened easily, and as it swung inwards, a faint drift of still-warm oil or paraffin came up, with, beneath it, something old and sad. Michael took a deep breath, switched on the torch, and went warily down the stone steps.
The room looked exactly as he had left it. He righted the fallen chair, then shone the torch around. It was not so bad, after all. It was not somewhere he would choose to work, but Luisa had lived here all her life, and perhaps she had not minded the lingering ghosts.
He picked up the thick, leather-bound book and jammed it into his pocket. If nothing else, it might contain names or phone numbers that would be useful to the hospital. Before he went back upstairs, he shone the torch on the oak chest in its corner. In the sharp torchlight, the scratches around the lock were more noticeable. From one angle they almost seemed to form the pattern of a snarling angry face – the kind of twisted, scowling, incredibly old face depicted as guardians of ancient tombs or long-buried malevolent secrets. Whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with me, thought Michael, but his feet had already taken him across the stones and he was bending down to pull the velvet aside almost before he realized it. There were several deep scratches on the edges of the domed lid as well. Madeline Usher, entombed alive, after all? Struggling to rend her coffin open, clawing at the lid …? ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ said Michael impatiently out loud, ‘someone lost the key, and the lid had to be levered off, that’s all.’ But the memory of Stephen Gilmore’s hands, raw and torn, flickered in his mind.
A good many of us would like to know the truth about Stephen, Chuffy had written. And Stephen had been pronounced dead after seven years. That means they never found a body, thought Michael, still staring at the chest.
It was nonsense, of course. The chest, if he bothered to force it open, would turn out to contain nothing more sinister than old photos or old newspaper cuttings. But why would Luisa keep them down here, inside an oak chest, bound with a thick chain and padlock? Why would anyone?
The padlock looked fairly secure, but Michael grasped it to make sure. As he did so, something seemed to wrench at the shadows, as if tearing them aside, preparatory to stepping through them. Michael recoiled, his heart punching against his ribs. Hands, dreadful wounded hands, the nails splintered, the flesh raw, reached out from the darkness behind the chest, and he gasped and fell back on the stone floor, dropping the torch. It rolled into a corner, shattering the bulb, and darkness, thick and stifling, closed down.