Ruined 2 - Dark Souls (16 page)

“We’re due to leave in the morning, but I could come over first thing to help,” said Jeff, in a great mood after the success of his talk, and still wearing his White Rose of York tie. “We all could.”

“Very kind of you,” said Joe gruffly. A gust of wind blew the flap of his heavy coat open, and a cold drizzle began to fall.

“You should all go in,” Miranda said. “We’ll wait for … everyone else.”

“Sally, you know I would have got your friends tickets if —”

“It’s no problem at all, Mr. Tennant,” Sally said, blushing. At least she felt some shame. “We’ll see you at the party afterward, right?”

“If you’d like to drop by, that would be very nice, but it’s not necessary,” said Jeff. He beckoned Miranda away from the others and slipped her two twenty-pound notes. “One’s for sitting through my talk,” he murmured. “And the other is for the talk on conflicting accounts of the color of Richard III’s horse. Don’t worry about the party. There’ll be too many Witches there, and I think they’re a bad influence. You kids should go to a disco.”

“Nobody says disco anymore, Dad. But thanks.”

As soon as everyone over eighteen was inside and — as reported by Miranda, after a brief espionage mission — settled in their seats on the far side of the Minster, Rob and Sally left.

“Bye, Miranda,” Sally said, giving her an enthusiastic hug. “And thanks. We’ll meet you outside the Two Keys at eleven, okay?”

“Enjoy the concert,” said Rob. “We’ll need a full report later.”

“Sure,” said Miranda. “See you.”

Miranda waited for them to disappear down Stonegate, and then she counted to thirty. An usher who was even younger than Miranda appeared and hurried everyone in: The concert was about to begin.

“Are you coming in, miss?” he asked her, and she shook her head. She walked down the steps and across the street, following the path Rob and Sally had taken down Stonegate. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet; she had more than half an hour to wait. Half an hour until Nick knocked at the door and she took a giant leap into the unknown.

It was strange being alone in the flat at this time of night. Usually they were all getting back from dinner somewhere, or clearing away the debris — take-out packages, newspapers, empty cans and bottles — from an evening in. The flat felt too hot and too empty. Miranda sat for a while in the living room, then she lay on her bed. She finished off the orange juice in the fridge and threw the carton away in the recycling bin. She made another fruitless search for
Tales of Old York,
in the hope it had fallen behind the sofa or found its way onto her father’s bedside table. She searched through the TV channels, which didn’t take long. Still no Nick. Eight thirty came and went; eight forty-five. Miranda wondered if she should go and stand in the street, because he might have got their flat confused with another. But when she went outside, there was no sign of Nick anywhere, and it was too cold and wet to be hanging around.

Nine o’clock. He’d said he might be late, she remembered. He’d told her to wait — made her promise, in fact. Miranda climbed the stairs to her bedroom and opened the window, her radiator clanking in complaint. If he called her name, she’d hear him, and she could stick her head out of the window every few minutes to try and spot him walking along the street.

Nine fifteen. Miranda put down her cell phone and walked to the window. The rain had stopped, at least. It was Sunday night, but still there were groups of young people out, dressed up — not warmly, despite the weather — and making their way, shouting and laughing, from one pub to the next. Miranda didn’t know what to do. The waiting was gnawing at her stomach, making her feel ill with anticipation. He wasn’t coming, something inside of her was saying. Nick wasn’t coming.

But he said he would. He made her miss the concert so they could be together. She would wait downstairs, Miranda decided, out in the street, even if it was freezing. Then there’d be no chance of Nick going to the wrong door. She pulled her head back in and closed the window.

Just as she was about to draw the curtains, a light flickered in the attic window across the street. Miranda could see its beam darting around the room like a skittish insect. That was odd. Usually, the ghost’s candle was lit in the window. But although no candle materialized on the sill, and the handsome ghost didn’t appear, Miranda was sure that someone was up there. The light
kept moving, searching something out. And then someone stepped out of the darkness, walking right up to the window, looking straight at Miranda.

Sally stood in the attic across the street, her mouth an O of surprise. Miranda couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d been expecting the ghost, not Sally, of all people. What was she doing in there? How did she get into the boarded-up house?

Sally was jiggling the window, trying to open it, but it must have been stuck fast. She mouthed something at Miranda: It took several tries before Miranda could decipher
Go to the pub.

“Okay!” she shouted, not sure if Sally could hear her. But just as she stepped away from the window, she heard a frantic banging on the glass across the street. Sally was waving to her, trying to get her attention again. She’d pressed something up to the glass, holding it high so Miranda could see it. It was a small green book and, even in the half-light, Miranda recognized it instantly. She’d been looking for it today, after all. It was
Tales of Old York.

M
iranda was running — darting around people, breathing hard. It wasn’t that far from the flat on the Shambles to the pub on Stonegate, despite the zigzag of the route, but there was no time to lose. She’d left a scrawled note for Nick —
At the White Boar,
it read — hanging out of the mail slot in the front door in case he turned up. If he’d ever planned to turn up, which she was beginning to doubt.

She didn’t know what game Nick was playing tonight, but right now, there were more immediate questions dancing around in her head. How — and why — had Sally managed to get into the boarded-up house on the other side of the Shambles? Where was Rob? Was he okay? How did Sally come across the missing copy of Miranda’s book? Why did they have to meet back at the White Boar? This evening’s plan had been so straightforward, but now
it seemed as though everyone was off on their own, doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Miranda’s stomach churned, and not just because the ghost with the bloody stump at the end of one arm was lying on Stonegate again, groaning in her direction.

The front of the White Boar was still boarded up. At the back door, Rob stood waiting.

“Get in,” he said, practically dragging her by her arm.

“Sally,” Miranda panted. “I saw Sally.”

“I know. Come on — she just got back. She’s downstairs.”

“Downstairs,” Miranda repeated stupidly. Sally must have run like the wind to get back so quickly. Odd that they hadn’t seen each other.

“The cellar!” Rob exclaimed. He led the way through the pub’s kitchen and into the charred, now-empty front bar. Sally was clattering up the cellar steps.

“Miranda!” said Sally, out of breath and flushed. She looked completely disheveled, her clothes and hair smeared with mud. “Has Rob told you?”

“He’s told me nothing.” Miranda was practically leaping out of her skin. What was going on?

“Jeez, give me a chance,” said Rob. “So, we were upstairs in the flat, and we decided to come down and get something to eat from the big kitchen, the one where they make the food for the customers —”

“Get to the point!” Miranda shrieked. This was no time for Rob to be long-winded.

“That’s when we heard it,” Sally said. “The noise in the cellar.”

“Like something being dragged or pushed or whatever,” said Rob. “But the door down there was locked. I went outside, into the alley, to see if the trapdoors were open.”

“We thought we could close them and bolt them, and whoever was in there would be trapped.”

“And then we’d call the police,” added Rob. “So don’t start again about us putting ourselves in danger, okay?”

“Were they open?” Miranda asked, and Sally shook her head.

“Shut and locked,” she said. “The security bolt my father added after the fire — it wasn’t cut through or anything. When we went back inside, the cellar door was still locked and the noise had stopped. We couldn’t hear a thing.”

“So we went down to look,” said Rob.

“With the flashlight and the cricket bat.”

Miranda rolled her eyes.

“And?” she demanded.

“There were footprints,” said Sally, her eyes widening. “Only a couple. Big wet footprints, and they seemed to just … to just …”

“Come straight out of the wall,” Rob said, smacking the wall next to him for emphasis. “And it took us a while, but we figured it out. Where the footsteps started, one of the stones seemed to jut out in a weird way.”

“We were pulling on it,” Sally explained, “and it moved. The stone moved! A whole panel, really — three big stones. It was some kind of secret passage: an entrance to a tunnel.
An entrance to a tunnel!”

“A tunnel?” Miranda repeated. Wow. A tunnel leading to the White Boar cellar. No wonder vandals could get in without a key. This was amazing.

“So,” said Rob, taking over the story again, “we decided to follow it, to see where it went.”

“Are you crazy?” This was even more stupid than the plan to stay in the cellar overnight, Miranda thought.

“It was my idea,” Sally admitted. She looked sheepish. “Rob said we should call the police — really, he did. But I was so sick of all this. I just wanted to find out for myself.”

“She was pretty determined,” Rob explained. “I couldn’t stop her. And I couldn’t … I just couldn’t make it very far along. It’s not really a tunnel. It’s more like a low passageway. Really low and really narrow. I couldn’t stand up in it.”

“It’s low and it’s wet,” Sally said. “And dark. Horrible.” She shuddered, rubbing at one of the muddy streaks down her arm.

“And you followed the tunnel all the way to that house on the Shambles?” Miranda asked. She couldn’t believe how brave — and foolish — Sally was. She thought of the handsome ghost of the apprentice, wondering if he’d been there in the attic. Sally had said nothing about him. But, of course, Sally couldn’t see ghosts.

“I was going nuts, worrying about her,” Rob said. “I got quite a way along, but I just couldn’t … you know.”

He looked embarrassed.

“And the tunnel led to that house on the Shambles?” Miranda pressed.

“To the cellar,” Sally told her. “At that end, the stones were pushed out of the way, so I could crawl in with no problem. I had no idea where I was. The cellar wasn’t locked, so I could get into the house, also no problem, but it was in total darkness. Nobody there. No furniture. No sign of life at all, except for the top floor.”

“What?” Miranda’s heart started thudding again. Sally
had
seen the ghost — is that what she was about to say? “What did you see?”

“A mattress and a few odds and ends. Your book.” Sally lifted her sweater and pulled the book out; it was tucked into her jeans. “I saw it there, lying on the floor, and I remembered it from when you were in Little Bettys that day. But I still didn’t know where I was. All the windows were boarded up. There was just that one window, up in the attic. I walked up to it to look out, try to get my bearings. And that’s when I saw you.”

“How weird is all this?” said Rob. Much weirder than he realized, Miranda thought. He didn’t even know about the ghost in the attic — if the ghost was even a ghost. Why would a ghost need a mattress? Or a book, for that matter. Maybe the mark on his neck was just that, a mark. Miranda’s head was spinning. Was he a ghost or not?

“I tried the doors downstairs, but they’re boarded up. The only ways out of that house are along this tunnel and through a small trapdoor in the roof of the cellar. That probably leads into a yard, or an alleyway or something. But it was locked.”

“Let me see,” said Miranda, grabbing Sally’s arm. “Let me see the tunnel.”

“You’re not going to that house,” Rob said, frowning at her. “I forbid it.”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Sally, show me.”

Sally looked hesitant.

“I don’t know — maybe Rob is right. We should call the police now. Whoever’s vandalizing the cellar and setting fire to the pub — either they’re living in that house or using that cellar as an escape route. They might be dangerous.”

The guy in the attic wouldn’t hurt her, Miranda thought. He
knew
her. He’d seen her at least, in the window across the way, and smiled at her. She’d wanted to be in the same room with him and now, at last, she might have the chance.

“Let me look at the entrance to the tunnel, at least,” Miranda pleaded. She was so excited it was hard to keep her voice steady. No way was Rob going to call the police before she had a chance to see for herself.

Sally gave Rob a long look.

“It’s only fair,” she said to him, and he shrugged. Sally started down the cellar steps, and Miranda followed her.

Miranda had never seen the cellar of the White Boar before. Rob had described it to her in his usual vague way — low ceiling, stone walls — and that was right. But the first time he’d been down there, he said, it was all very neat and organized. Now the metal barrels and their rubber tubes were in a jumble, some tipped onto their sides, so there was hardly any room to walk.

To the left of the stairs gaped a jagged hole in the wall, the block of three big stones pulled out of place, just as Sally had described. The right wall was still daubed with the graffiti Rob had mentioned earlier in the week. It was the strangest tag Miranda had ever seen, just a wild smearing of paint — orange, red, gold — in some sort of big, crude rainbow.

“See, the footsteps were leading out of here,” Sally was saying, pointing to the opening in the wall. Miranda stood in the center of the cellar, gazing back and forth between the two walls. “They’re a bit hard to see now, because Rob and I have tramped in and out as well. And if you look in here …”

She gestured to the tunnel, and Miranda stepped forward, squeezing between two upturned barrels. But there was something about the painted wall, something about the abstract shape of it, the color. Miranda looked over, staring directly at it. Where could she have seen it before?

“There weren’t any paint pots in the house,” Sally told her, answering a different unspoken question. “I looked in every room. Which means, I think, that
whoever did this isn’t living in the house — don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” Miranda said, still intrigued by the crude smear on the wall. Even though it was just a shape, there was something so familiar about it.

“Don’t you even want to look into the tunnel?” Rob asked. He was sitting on the stairs. “Or did you just come down here for the art?”

“I’ve seen it before,” Miranda said slowly. “It was …”

On the ghost’s hand.

That was it! In a flash, Miranda could see it clearly. What had looked like a smear of blood on the ghost’s hand was more or less this shape. The colors weren’t as vivid as the paint on the cellar walls, but it was the same image, she was certain — just on a very different scale.

“It was what?” Rob prompted, looking puzzled. Miranda didn’t reply. She didn’t know
how
to reply. She couldn’t tell him about the ghost, because he’d just scoff. And anyway, even if he believed her about the ghost, how could these pieces fit together?

Because — surely — ghosts couldn’t paint walls. Miranda had seen the ghost stonemason at work in the Minster, but for all his activity, no changes were made to pillars and doors; there was no trace of his work when he disappeared. The palm of the ghost’s left hand may have been painted
before
he died. Perhaps that was why the paint looked dark as blood and not bright like these swoops of color on the stone walls. A ghost couldn’t buy cans of
paint in the twenty-first century and use them to graffiti a wall, could he?

Unless someone else did it for him.

“WHAT?” said Rob again, now indignant.

“It looks a bit like a sunset, I thought,” said Sally, wriggling into position next to Miranda. “Or maybe a big fire.”

“A sky full of fire,” Miranda whispered. A piece clicked into place in her head. It wasn’t a picture, these livid streaks on the wall. It was part of a picture. An etching, actually, in black-and-white. She turned to the stairs, looking up at Rob with her mouth open.

“Okay, now you’re just being annoying,” he said.

“It’s a detail … a detail from a picture,” she said, stumbling over the words. “Something I saw — it’s called
The Fall of Babylon.
It’s a city under attack by God or the Persians or someone. It’s on fire, and there’s this big cloud of flame in the sky. And even though the picture’s in black-and-white, I swear to you — the shape of it looks exactly like this.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“The picture I saw at Lord Poole’s house.”

“No way.” Rob looked startled. “Lord Poole is the vandal?”

“No, idiot! But I think … I think I know someone else who’s seen this picture.” “Who — Dad?”

“Okay, now
you’re
the annoying one,” Miranda
snapped. “I’m talking about someone who
knows
this picture really well.”

Nick and his brother had practically grown up in Lambert House. They must have seen the John Martin print hundreds, thousands of times.

“Forget the police, Sal,” Rob said sarcastically. “Miranda needs to get an art critic on the phone.”

“Rob, shut up,” she said, turning to Sally. “I have to go see the house on the Shambles. I think I know … I think I know …”

“KNOW WHAT?” he yelled.

“I think I know who’s living in that house.”

Rob opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again: He looked totally puzzled. Sally glanced from him to Miranda, clicking on the flashlight.

“I’ll lead the way,” she said.

Miranda followed Sally into the tunnel. It was no surprise that Rob couldn’t cope with it: Miranda was stooped over, the moist stone ceiling brushing the back of her head. It was a passage so narrow that her shoulders were almost touching the walls. Underfoot, the stones were beyond slithery — so damp and mossy that Miranda seemed to be constantly slipping. She groped at the walls, willing herself to keep going. The only illumination was the pinpoint beam of Sally’s flashlight, and the increasingly distant cellar light behind them. Sally was trying to move quickly, but it wasn’t easy, especially with only one hand free to feel along the walls and keep herself steady.

“It’s more or less a straight line,” Sally called back; her voice sounded high and hollow. “Are you okay? You’re not claustrophobic, too, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Miranda shouted, though she didn’t feel fine. This passage — an old road, or a Roman sewer, maybe? — was enough to induce a panic attack, even if you’d never had one before. She tried to steady her breathing. They’d been making their way along for ten minutes, maybe. It felt like the longest ten minutes of Miranda’s life. They had to be almost there.

“I can see the other cellar, up ahead,” Sally called at last. “I warn you — the entrance is small. It’s easiest if you crawl.”

Miranda crouched, hauling herself, with dirty hands, through the gap in the wall. They were standing in another cellar, this one even smaller than the White Boar’s, and smelling of must.

“See?” Sally trained her light on the small trapdoor overhead. A lock that looked new, or at least recent, dangled down. “They could go in and out through there.”