Poor Jacky, page 13
He ventured to step closer. She recoiled.
“Edmond! You are less than fragrant.”
“Frightened I’ll get your lovely travelling clothes all mucky? I ought to seize you right now and wring the truth out of you.”
“You shall not touch me!”
Edmond took another step. Lady Alice backed away. She was trapped against the foot of the bed.
“Tell me where my son is and you shall leave unhindered. Leave me, Alice, if that is your will but you will not take the boy.”
Lady Alice cried out. Her eyes darted around for some means to aid her escape. Thunder rumbled. Lighting tore the sky. Dark clouds began to shed rain in sheets.
“That settles it,” Edmond jerked his head towards the window. “You can’t possibly go out on a night like this.”
“It will pass,” Lady Alice backed away. The bed struck the backs of her knees forcing her to sit. Her husband, covered in filth and filled with madness, leaned over her. She inclined backwards. Oh, for something substantial to snatch up and defend herself with!
“Plenty of time for you to disclose what you have done with my son.”
“Your son! That’s rich!”
“The closest I have, that I shall ever have, thanks to your barren womb!”
“Edmond!” Lady Alice was aghast. “How could you!”
The sting of his melodramatic outburst brought tears to her eyes. The storm was building, casting the room into harsh relief and providing an undercurrent of menace with every rumble.
Edmond realised he had perhaps gone too far. He reached down to his wife’s cheek, his dirty face contorting as he tried to take back the words and frame an apology. Lady Alice wriggled beneath him, trying to get away. She crawled up the bed, away from his clutches. She kicked him with her hefty travelling boot square in the throat. He collapsed face down on the coverlet, choking and struggling for air. He clutched at his neck with one hand but the other lashed out to seize Lady Alice by the ankle. He pulled her back towards him. She screamed and tried to kick him again. He raised himself over her, trying to still her, to make her listen - Oh, if she would only listen! - but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t get the words out. Suddenly, she swung her arm in a huge arc, bringing the chamber pot she had retrieved from under the bed crashing against the side of her husband’s head. Edmond was knocked aside by the force of the blow. He fell face first from the bed and onto the floor.
He lay still. Lady Alice sat up, panting. She kept her eyes on him lest he stir at any second and renew the attack.
Perhaps I have killed him, she wondered. She realised she did not know how she felt about that possibility. She watched and waited; he still had the key in his pocket.
Edmond groaned. Slowly he lifted himself up from the floor, holding his head. Lady Alice scrambled from the bed so it was between them.
Perhaps if she yanked on the bell pull... someone would come, she could scream and they would break the door down...
Edmond seemed to read her thoughts. He bounced across the bed and shoved her away from the decorated rope. Lady Alice stumbled backwards over her luggage and sprawled onto the floor.
Edmond froze. Whatever he did, it seemed to make matters worse. If only she would keep still and let him apologise. And explain. If only she would allow him the opportunity to persuade her to stay...
Lightning flashed across one side of Lady Alice’s face. Her lip was curled but in a snarl of anger or fear, Edmond could not distinguish.
He held out his hand to help her to her feet. She lifted her arms to protect her face, believing he would strike her.
“N-no, no!” Edmond cried. “Please!”
Lady Alice tugged off her left glove. She wriggled the wedding band from her ring finger and cast it to his feet. The finality of the gesture was like a knife to Edmond’s heart. Winded, in more ways than one, he perched on the edge of the bed.
“The key, please.” Lady Alice held out her bare hand.
Edmond looked at the upturned palm, so delicate, and as pale as the moonlight itself. Thunder made him jump. He put his hand in his pocket.
“The key, Edmond!”
He couldn’t find it. He must have dropped it. He muttered something to that effect and the two of them began to crawl around on the floor, patting the rug with their hands.
“It must be here somewhere,” Edmond said, more than once.
“If this is a delaying tactic to keep me here against my will...”
“It isn’t!”
“It better not be.”
Edmond felt his anger rising again. How could she speak to him like that? The disrespect was one thing but this was contempt, actual hatred, in fact. The weather lit up the room again. Looming large on the floor was the trunk.
A dark idea occurred to Edmond: the boy was in the trunk!
He threw himself at it, grasping at the catches.
“What are you doing?” Lady Alice cried. “It won’t be in there, will it?”
“We’ll see about that!” He strained to lift the lid. The trunk appeared to be packed with Lady Alice’s clothes, all neatly folded. He began to pull them out and cast them around the room. Lady Alice flung herself at him, trying to pull his arms from her things. He pushed her away. She slid across the room and fell, banging her head against the wall. Edmond continued to empty the trunk, certain his boy was within, at the bottom. The heartless bitch! How did she expect the child to breathe beneath all of these - these -
Frustration and confusion fought for supremacy in Edmond’s mind when the bottom of the trunk was revealed. There was no boy concealed inside. Edmond even checked for hidden panels and false bottoms. He examined the trunk from every side and every angle.
“Where is he?” he cried. “Where is he?”
He turned in a rage to Lady Alice but she was lining prone against the wall. Edmond froze. Cold terror filled his veins. She is dead! I have killed her!
He approached gingerly and called her name.
A helpful blast of lightning illuminated her throat. Her pulse! She was alive!
Edmond had never been more relieved - not even on the day when she had accepted his red-faced and halting proposal of marriage. He stepped closer. If he could lift her onto the bed, he would then ring for Morton - for anyone! - and summon the doctor.
She would have to stay put for a few days and by then - oh, by then - things would change.
He was about to put his hands beneath her arms when there was a loud bang. It wasn’t the most peculiar blast of thunder he had ever heard, but the sound of a shotgun obliterating the lock on the door.
A figure stepped into the room, a silhouette of a man. He was carrying the aforementioned shotgun.
“You!” Edmond cried, frozen in his stooped attitude.
Lady Alice moaned. She opened her eyes.
“James!” she cried. She tried to get up but she was too dizzy. She swooned.
The man with the shotgun directed Edmond away from Lady Alice and to the far corner where he stood with his hands on his head.
“I should have killed you,” Edmond spat.
“More fool you,” the man shrugged. “It is fortunate for Lady Alice that you did not. It looks like I arrived in the nick of time.”
Lady Alice roused again. Her surprise turned to delight to see her former lover restored to her.
“I thought you were dead,” she cried, holding onto the hand that had helped her to her feet.
“As did everyone. It suited my purposes to let them think so. And no doubt your brute of a husband felt it enhanced his reputation to have rumour and gossip believe he had murdered me. When in truth, he bought me off. He paid me to leave. Oh, he had his men do me over and deposit me on a ship bound for the Indies - do you ever think I would have left you willingly? But when I woke up, I found a banker’s draft from your husband’s account, enough to set me up in a new life.
“He did not foresee that I would spend the money making my way back to you, my love. We shall be together at last. You have begun your packing, I see.”
“Enough with the storytelling,” Edmond sneered. “You are an uninvited guest and unwelcome in this house. Kindly leave.”
Both Lady Alice and the former coachman laughed in derision at this.
“Don’t be a fool, Edmond. Let us leave him to his bitterness.”
She headed for the door. She glanced at the cases, the empty trunk and her belongings strewn around the room. “I shall enjoy purchasing new things.”
James backed towards the exit, keeping his shotgun trained on the Earl.
Lady Alice could not resist one last taunt. In the doorway she turned and raised her hand to wave. “Goodbye, husband.” She snickered.
With a roar, Edmond launched himself across the room. He would knock that smirk from her face if it was the last thing he did.
Startled, James stumbled over a discarded corset. The gun went off. Edmond stopped mid-pounce and fell to the floor. Blood began to spread beneath him.
“Edmond!” Lady Alice tried to see beyond James but he was bundling her out into the corridor.
“He’s fine,” James lied. “It was a warning shot, no more.”
Holding her by the elbow, James steered Lady Alice down the main staircase. She kept looking back, up at the landing. James yanked open the front door and pushed her outside.
“Wait!” she cried. “There is something - my old maid is going to send it, I mean him after me...”
“Then let her send him. Whatever he is. Some favoured pet?”
He steered Lady Alice towards his carriage, lifting her cloak against the rain. Lady Alice took one last look back at the Hall and climbed inside. This was not what she had planned.
No; this was better.
***
Edmond lifted his torso from the floor. He was bleeding profusely from the gunshot wound in his abdomen. It was not painful; he was too full of adrenalin to feel pain. He got to his feet and reached for the bell pull. Morton would come. Morton would summon the doctor. Morton would -
The room swam out of focus as unconsciousness threatened to claim him. Using the walls to support him, Edmond made his way towards the door. He launched himself into the corridor and fell against the balustrade along the landing.
He could make out a figure at the foot of the main stairs. Morton?
Leaning heavily on the railing, Edmond slid along to the top of the stairs. The figure was approaching, bearing a lantern.
It was that old witch, Sally!
“Do you require assistance, my lord?” Her tone was mocking.
Edmond slumped against a newel post.
“Morton...fetch...doctor....”
The crone continued her approach. The lantern swung in her lurching gait, casting wild shadows in all directions, and illuminating her toothless, collapsed face like a gargoyle on a church.
“Too late! Too late!” she cackled in a singsong manner. “Her Ladyship’s gone, her fancy man’s gone, and the boy will soon be gone...”
Edmond lifted his head - his neck felt ill-equipped for the task. He tried to look the old woman in the eye. Mention of the boy fired him up. The boy will soon be gone - that’s what she’d said... The boy is still here!
He reached up suddenly and snatched Old Sally’s wrist. She gave a yelp of surprise and pain. He pulled her towards him so their faces were level.
“Where is the boy? Tell me or by God I will kill you right here.”
Old Sally’s puckered lips parted to reveal her gums.
“You will never find him. And you’re running out of time.” She spat in his face, thick, gooey saliva. Edmond appeared not to notice. He twisted her arm. It snapped like a dry twig. Old Sally whimpered.
“You will tell me,” Edmond had to force the words out. It was almost impossible to breathe now. Beneath him, the stair carpet was awash with his blood.
Old Sally assessed the situation. His Lordship had minutes left. He was powerless.
“Your beloved cellar, my lord,” she added an extra sneer to his honorific. “Had you been of a mind to fetch your own damned port once in a while, you might have discovered him. You always was too much of a sot to do things for yourself.”
Edmond blinked as this revelation seeped through the fug in his mind. The cellar... poor Jacky!
He tried to get up, using the old woman as a support. She was too weak to support his weight. She threw back her head and cackled wildly.
Morton appeared at the foot of the stairs, having taken time to put on his livery over his nightshirt. He watched anxiously as the slumped figure of the Earl lashed out at the old servant. Still laughing, the old woman tumbled down the stairs, arms, legs and skirts flailing. She laughed and laughed right until the moment she landed at Morton’s feet. He heard the sound of her neck snapping and knew he would never be able to forget it.
Old Sally stared glassily up at him, her lips twisted in a toothless rictus.
Morton bounded up the stairs.
“My lord?”
It was too late. The Earl of Dedley had bled to death.
In his hand was a peculiar silver cylinder: a child’s rattle. Morton believed it was indicative of how much His Lordship had loved his eerie foundling son.
***
Several miles away, James pulled on the reins bringing the horses to a halt. They were out of the county and he thought his beloved would care for a comfort break.
He jumped from the dashboard and opened the carriage door.
“Asleep, my love?”
He climbed in and sat beside the motionless Lady Alice. He reached for her hand - she had lost a glove somewhere along the way. The hand was like ice. He folded both of his around it. Lady Alice’s head dropped forward. It was then he noticed the blood seeping out from beneath her fur hat.
Panicked, James cupped Lady Alice’s face. He patted her cheek trying to get her to respond.
“Oh, no! No, no, no!” He gibbered. Then he held her to his chest and wept.
Lady Alice was gone. The injury to her head when Edmond dashed her against the wall had proved fatal. James cried into the night.
It was over.
***
Paul had reached the last entry in Miss Beamish’s notebook. He sat back, stunned. He shivered.
Poor Jacky...
Everyone who knew he was concealed in the cellar died, almost all at once.
The boy was never found!
Paul tried to imagine what it would have been like for the forgotten child. The loneliness. The cries that went unanswered. The starvation!
It was no wonder the boy’s spirit was not at rest!
Paul, in frustration, rifled through the notebook over and over, in a vain attempt to see if there was any more to it, if there was something he had missed.
Nothing!
But then he remembered there was a second volume, the book he had entrusted to that barman fellow. What had he been thinking? He shouldn’t have split the pair.
He grappled for his mobile from the bedside table. It lit up in his hands like a happy puppy. He scrolled though his contacts and called Rick’s number.
There was no answer, damn it.
Paul looked at the time. Of course there was no answer. It was four a.m. The lad would, like all decent, right-minded folk, be asleep at this hour.
Damn it.
Paul turned off the light and lay down. Sleep would not come. His mind was too full of the sensational events of the story - no, history! These things had happened. And now the child was abroad, roaming...
Paul tried to put aside thoughts of how the boy must have suffered at the end of his life and focus on what the unfinished business might be. What would it take to give poor Jacky his eternal rest?
Paul was stumped. The words “Put it back” kept recurring to him. Put what back where?
He resolved to, at a more appropriate hour, contact Rick and see what he had gleaned from his notebook. This would mean ducking out of another signing but fuck that. Judy could go hang; this was more important.
Poor Jacky.
***
Rick, in the house he shared with three other ex-students who had never bothered to go back to their home towns, was unable to sleep. A call from Paul would have been welcome. There was something troubling him, a noise he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t the usual middle of the night creaks and cracks the house made when it thought no one was listening. It wasn’t the rumble and gurgle of the plumbing. It wasn’t the squeaking of his housemates’ bedsprings as they got lucky.
He stared unseeing into the darkness, keeping perfectly still, not even breathing. He strained his ears to listen.
There it was: the sound of something dragging, something heavy. Rick turned his head. Where was it coming from? He couldn’t tell. At first he believed it to be above him in the attic. Now it sounded like it was on the landing where they always kept a communal light blazing.
It stopped.
Rick exhaled. He waited for his breathing to regain its regular rhythm.
He listened.
The sound started up again. That sound of something heavy being dragged...
Rick’s skin broke out into goose pimples. The sound was coming from under the bed.
Suddenly, Rick was a child again, clinging to the bedclothes for protection against the unseen monsters and the bogeymen of the night. He drew his feet towards the centre of the bed. No hand, claw or paw was going to grab him by the leg.
Silence.
Rick froze, not daring to breathe this time. He waited.
Something tipped the bed over. Rick crashed against the wall and rebounded to the floor. His bed was on its edge, the mattress and bedclothes spilled. The dragging sound began again. Rick cowered against the wall, curling up as small as possible. His eyes widened, keeping watch on the upended bed.
Silence again.
Rick waited. He realised he hadn’t blinked for a couple of minutes, so he blinked. Tears coursed down his face. He wiped them away with the heel of his hand.
Knocking at the door made him jump. And cry out.
“Ricky!” It was his housemate, Wayne, parodying a soap actress or somebody, Rick wasn’t sure. “Ricky! You alright in there, man? Knocking one out?”
The door opened. Light struck the top of the upturned bed.
“Edmond! You are less than fragrant.”
“Frightened I’ll get your lovely travelling clothes all mucky? I ought to seize you right now and wring the truth out of you.”
“You shall not touch me!”
Edmond took another step. Lady Alice backed away. She was trapped against the foot of the bed.
“Tell me where my son is and you shall leave unhindered. Leave me, Alice, if that is your will but you will not take the boy.”
Lady Alice cried out. Her eyes darted around for some means to aid her escape. Thunder rumbled. Lighting tore the sky. Dark clouds began to shed rain in sheets.
“That settles it,” Edmond jerked his head towards the window. “You can’t possibly go out on a night like this.”
“It will pass,” Lady Alice backed away. The bed struck the backs of her knees forcing her to sit. Her husband, covered in filth and filled with madness, leaned over her. She inclined backwards. Oh, for something substantial to snatch up and defend herself with!
“Plenty of time for you to disclose what you have done with my son.”
“Your son! That’s rich!”
“The closest I have, that I shall ever have, thanks to your barren womb!”
“Edmond!” Lady Alice was aghast. “How could you!”
The sting of his melodramatic outburst brought tears to her eyes. The storm was building, casting the room into harsh relief and providing an undercurrent of menace with every rumble.
Edmond realised he had perhaps gone too far. He reached down to his wife’s cheek, his dirty face contorting as he tried to take back the words and frame an apology. Lady Alice wriggled beneath him, trying to get away. She crawled up the bed, away from his clutches. She kicked him with her hefty travelling boot square in the throat. He collapsed face down on the coverlet, choking and struggling for air. He clutched at his neck with one hand but the other lashed out to seize Lady Alice by the ankle. He pulled her back towards him. She screamed and tried to kick him again. He raised himself over her, trying to still her, to make her listen - Oh, if she would only listen! - but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t get the words out. Suddenly, she swung her arm in a huge arc, bringing the chamber pot she had retrieved from under the bed crashing against the side of her husband’s head. Edmond was knocked aside by the force of the blow. He fell face first from the bed and onto the floor.
He lay still. Lady Alice sat up, panting. She kept her eyes on him lest he stir at any second and renew the attack.
Perhaps I have killed him, she wondered. She realised she did not know how she felt about that possibility. She watched and waited; he still had the key in his pocket.
Edmond groaned. Slowly he lifted himself up from the floor, holding his head. Lady Alice scrambled from the bed so it was between them.
Perhaps if she yanked on the bell pull... someone would come, she could scream and they would break the door down...
Edmond seemed to read her thoughts. He bounced across the bed and shoved her away from the decorated rope. Lady Alice stumbled backwards over her luggage and sprawled onto the floor.
Edmond froze. Whatever he did, it seemed to make matters worse. If only she would keep still and let him apologise. And explain. If only she would allow him the opportunity to persuade her to stay...
Lightning flashed across one side of Lady Alice’s face. Her lip was curled but in a snarl of anger or fear, Edmond could not distinguish.
He held out his hand to help her to her feet. She lifted her arms to protect her face, believing he would strike her.
“N-no, no!” Edmond cried. “Please!”
Lady Alice tugged off her left glove. She wriggled the wedding band from her ring finger and cast it to his feet. The finality of the gesture was like a knife to Edmond’s heart. Winded, in more ways than one, he perched on the edge of the bed.
“The key, please.” Lady Alice held out her bare hand.
Edmond looked at the upturned palm, so delicate, and as pale as the moonlight itself. Thunder made him jump. He put his hand in his pocket.
“The key, Edmond!”
He couldn’t find it. He must have dropped it. He muttered something to that effect and the two of them began to crawl around on the floor, patting the rug with their hands.
“It must be here somewhere,” Edmond said, more than once.
“If this is a delaying tactic to keep me here against my will...”
“It isn’t!”
“It better not be.”
Edmond felt his anger rising again. How could she speak to him like that? The disrespect was one thing but this was contempt, actual hatred, in fact. The weather lit up the room again. Looming large on the floor was the trunk.
A dark idea occurred to Edmond: the boy was in the trunk!
He threw himself at it, grasping at the catches.
“What are you doing?” Lady Alice cried. “It won’t be in there, will it?”
“We’ll see about that!” He strained to lift the lid. The trunk appeared to be packed with Lady Alice’s clothes, all neatly folded. He began to pull them out and cast them around the room. Lady Alice flung herself at him, trying to pull his arms from her things. He pushed her away. She slid across the room and fell, banging her head against the wall. Edmond continued to empty the trunk, certain his boy was within, at the bottom. The heartless bitch! How did she expect the child to breathe beneath all of these - these -
Frustration and confusion fought for supremacy in Edmond’s mind when the bottom of the trunk was revealed. There was no boy concealed inside. Edmond even checked for hidden panels and false bottoms. He examined the trunk from every side and every angle.
“Where is he?” he cried. “Where is he?”
He turned in a rage to Lady Alice but she was lining prone against the wall. Edmond froze. Cold terror filled his veins. She is dead! I have killed her!
He approached gingerly and called her name.
A helpful blast of lightning illuminated her throat. Her pulse! She was alive!
Edmond had never been more relieved - not even on the day when she had accepted his red-faced and halting proposal of marriage. He stepped closer. If he could lift her onto the bed, he would then ring for Morton - for anyone! - and summon the doctor.
She would have to stay put for a few days and by then - oh, by then - things would change.
He was about to put his hands beneath her arms when there was a loud bang. It wasn’t the most peculiar blast of thunder he had ever heard, but the sound of a shotgun obliterating the lock on the door.
A figure stepped into the room, a silhouette of a man. He was carrying the aforementioned shotgun.
“You!” Edmond cried, frozen in his stooped attitude.
Lady Alice moaned. She opened her eyes.
“James!” she cried. She tried to get up but she was too dizzy. She swooned.
The man with the shotgun directed Edmond away from Lady Alice and to the far corner where he stood with his hands on his head.
“I should have killed you,” Edmond spat.
“More fool you,” the man shrugged. “It is fortunate for Lady Alice that you did not. It looks like I arrived in the nick of time.”
Lady Alice roused again. Her surprise turned to delight to see her former lover restored to her.
“I thought you were dead,” she cried, holding onto the hand that had helped her to her feet.
“As did everyone. It suited my purposes to let them think so. And no doubt your brute of a husband felt it enhanced his reputation to have rumour and gossip believe he had murdered me. When in truth, he bought me off. He paid me to leave. Oh, he had his men do me over and deposit me on a ship bound for the Indies - do you ever think I would have left you willingly? But when I woke up, I found a banker’s draft from your husband’s account, enough to set me up in a new life.
“He did not foresee that I would spend the money making my way back to you, my love. We shall be together at last. You have begun your packing, I see.”
“Enough with the storytelling,” Edmond sneered. “You are an uninvited guest and unwelcome in this house. Kindly leave.”
Both Lady Alice and the former coachman laughed in derision at this.
“Don’t be a fool, Edmond. Let us leave him to his bitterness.”
She headed for the door. She glanced at the cases, the empty trunk and her belongings strewn around the room. “I shall enjoy purchasing new things.”
James backed towards the exit, keeping his shotgun trained on the Earl.
Lady Alice could not resist one last taunt. In the doorway she turned and raised her hand to wave. “Goodbye, husband.” She snickered.
With a roar, Edmond launched himself across the room. He would knock that smirk from her face if it was the last thing he did.
Startled, James stumbled over a discarded corset. The gun went off. Edmond stopped mid-pounce and fell to the floor. Blood began to spread beneath him.
“Edmond!” Lady Alice tried to see beyond James but he was bundling her out into the corridor.
“He’s fine,” James lied. “It was a warning shot, no more.”
Holding her by the elbow, James steered Lady Alice down the main staircase. She kept looking back, up at the landing. James yanked open the front door and pushed her outside.
“Wait!” she cried. “There is something - my old maid is going to send it, I mean him after me...”
“Then let her send him. Whatever he is. Some favoured pet?”
He steered Lady Alice towards his carriage, lifting her cloak against the rain. Lady Alice took one last look back at the Hall and climbed inside. This was not what she had planned.
No; this was better.
***
Edmond lifted his torso from the floor. He was bleeding profusely from the gunshot wound in his abdomen. It was not painful; he was too full of adrenalin to feel pain. He got to his feet and reached for the bell pull. Morton would come. Morton would summon the doctor. Morton would -
The room swam out of focus as unconsciousness threatened to claim him. Using the walls to support him, Edmond made his way towards the door. He launched himself into the corridor and fell against the balustrade along the landing.
He could make out a figure at the foot of the main stairs. Morton?
Leaning heavily on the railing, Edmond slid along to the top of the stairs. The figure was approaching, bearing a lantern.
It was that old witch, Sally!
“Do you require assistance, my lord?” Her tone was mocking.
Edmond slumped against a newel post.
“Morton...fetch...doctor....”
The crone continued her approach. The lantern swung in her lurching gait, casting wild shadows in all directions, and illuminating her toothless, collapsed face like a gargoyle on a church.
“Too late! Too late!” she cackled in a singsong manner. “Her Ladyship’s gone, her fancy man’s gone, and the boy will soon be gone...”
Edmond lifted his head - his neck felt ill-equipped for the task. He tried to look the old woman in the eye. Mention of the boy fired him up. The boy will soon be gone - that’s what she’d said... The boy is still here!
He reached up suddenly and snatched Old Sally’s wrist. She gave a yelp of surprise and pain. He pulled her towards him so their faces were level.
“Where is the boy? Tell me or by God I will kill you right here.”
Old Sally’s puckered lips parted to reveal her gums.
“You will never find him. And you’re running out of time.” She spat in his face, thick, gooey saliva. Edmond appeared not to notice. He twisted her arm. It snapped like a dry twig. Old Sally whimpered.
“You will tell me,” Edmond had to force the words out. It was almost impossible to breathe now. Beneath him, the stair carpet was awash with his blood.
Old Sally assessed the situation. His Lordship had minutes left. He was powerless.
“Your beloved cellar, my lord,” she added an extra sneer to his honorific. “Had you been of a mind to fetch your own damned port once in a while, you might have discovered him. You always was too much of a sot to do things for yourself.”
Edmond blinked as this revelation seeped through the fug in his mind. The cellar... poor Jacky!
He tried to get up, using the old woman as a support. She was too weak to support his weight. She threw back her head and cackled wildly.
Morton appeared at the foot of the stairs, having taken time to put on his livery over his nightshirt. He watched anxiously as the slumped figure of the Earl lashed out at the old servant. Still laughing, the old woman tumbled down the stairs, arms, legs and skirts flailing. She laughed and laughed right until the moment she landed at Morton’s feet. He heard the sound of her neck snapping and knew he would never be able to forget it.
Old Sally stared glassily up at him, her lips twisted in a toothless rictus.
Morton bounded up the stairs.
“My lord?”
It was too late. The Earl of Dedley had bled to death.
In his hand was a peculiar silver cylinder: a child’s rattle. Morton believed it was indicative of how much His Lordship had loved his eerie foundling son.
***
Several miles away, James pulled on the reins bringing the horses to a halt. They were out of the county and he thought his beloved would care for a comfort break.
He jumped from the dashboard and opened the carriage door.
“Asleep, my love?”
He climbed in and sat beside the motionless Lady Alice. He reached for her hand - she had lost a glove somewhere along the way. The hand was like ice. He folded both of his around it. Lady Alice’s head dropped forward. It was then he noticed the blood seeping out from beneath her fur hat.
Panicked, James cupped Lady Alice’s face. He patted her cheek trying to get her to respond.
“Oh, no! No, no, no!” He gibbered. Then he held her to his chest and wept.
Lady Alice was gone. The injury to her head when Edmond dashed her against the wall had proved fatal. James cried into the night.
It was over.
***
Paul had reached the last entry in Miss Beamish’s notebook. He sat back, stunned. He shivered.
Poor Jacky...
Everyone who knew he was concealed in the cellar died, almost all at once.
The boy was never found!
Paul tried to imagine what it would have been like for the forgotten child. The loneliness. The cries that went unanswered. The starvation!
It was no wonder the boy’s spirit was not at rest!
Paul, in frustration, rifled through the notebook over and over, in a vain attempt to see if there was any more to it, if there was something he had missed.
Nothing!
But then he remembered there was a second volume, the book he had entrusted to that barman fellow. What had he been thinking? He shouldn’t have split the pair.
He grappled for his mobile from the bedside table. It lit up in his hands like a happy puppy. He scrolled though his contacts and called Rick’s number.
There was no answer, damn it.
Paul looked at the time. Of course there was no answer. It was four a.m. The lad would, like all decent, right-minded folk, be asleep at this hour.
Damn it.
Paul turned off the light and lay down. Sleep would not come. His mind was too full of the sensational events of the story - no, history! These things had happened. And now the child was abroad, roaming...
Paul tried to put aside thoughts of how the boy must have suffered at the end of his life and focus on what the unfinished business might be. What would it take to give poor Jacky his eternal rest?
Paul was stumped. The words “Put it back” kept recurring to him. Put what back where?
He resolved to, at a more appropriate hour, contact Rick and see what he had gleaned from his notebook. This would mean ducking out of another signing but fuck that. Judy could go hang; this was more important.
Poor Jacky.
***
Rick, in the house he shared with three other ex-students who had never bothered to go back to their home towns, was unable to sleep. A call from Paul would have been welcome. There was something troubling him, a noise he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t the usual middle of the night creaks and cracks the house made when it thought no one was listening. It wasn’t the rumble and gurgle of the plumbing. It wasn’t the squeaking of his housemates’ bedsprings as they got lucky.
He stared unseeing into the darkness, keeping perfectly still, not even breathing. He strained his ears to listen.
There it was: the sound of something dragging, something heavy. Rick turned his head. Where was it coming from? He couldn’t tell. At first he believed it to be above him in the attic. Now it sounded like it was on the landing where they always kept a communal light blazing.
It stopped.
Rick exhaled. He waited for his breathing to regain its regular rhythm.
He listened.
The sound started up again. That sound of something heavy being dragged...
Rick’s skin broke out into goose pimples. The sound was coming from under the bed.
Suddenly, Rick was a child again, clinging to the bedclothes for protection against the unseen monsters and the bogeymen of the night. He drew his feet towards the centre of the bed. No hand, claw or paw was going to grab him by the leg.
Silence.
Rick froze, not daring to breathe this time. He waited.
Something tipped the bed over. Rick crashed against the wall and rebounded to the floor. His bed was on its edge, the mattress and bedclothes spilled. The dragging sound began again. Rick cowered against the wall, curling up as small as possible. His eyes widened, keeping watch on the upended bed.
Silence again.
Rick waited. He realised he hadn’t blinked for a couple of minutes, so he blinked. Tears coursed down his face. He wiped them away with the heel of his hand.
Knocking at the door made him jump. And cry out.
“Ricky!” It was his housemate, Wayne, parodying a soap actress or somebody, Rick wasn’t sure. “Ricky! You alright in there, man? Knocking one out?”
The door opened. Light struck the top of the upturned bed.
