Shiverton Hall, the Creeper (14 page)

As usual, it took the girls a moment to adjust to being in Chuk’s presence, and they spent the first few minutes rambling about the weather and trying not to fall over.

Once Penny had pulled herself together enough to put one word in front of another, she disclosed the purpose of their visit.

‘What do you know about Inigo Cornwall?’ Penny asked.

Chuk put his pen down and leaned back in his chair. ‘I tried to interview him for
The Whisper
when he arrived,’ he said, ‘but he told me in pretty strong terms that he doesn’t speak to the “press”. Fairly over the top, considering it’s a school newspaper.’

‘It’s going to be more than a school newspaper now you’re editing it,’ Xanthe breathed.

‘Why, thank you, Xanthe,’ Chuk said with a grin.

‘Anyway,’ Penny said, glaring at Xanthe, ‘we wanted to do a bit of digging on him.’

‘OK, why?’ Chuk asked.

‘Well, he clearly doesn’t like teaching,’ Penny said.

‘There are lots of teachers who don’t like teaching,’ Chuk said.

‘But he doesn’t need to do it,’ Penny said. ‘So, why is he here?’

‘Money troubles?’ Chuk shrugged. ‘He’s preparing for a new show. Maybe he wanted to get out of London so he could focus on it.’

‘He seems to be fairly . . . unhappy,’ Penny said. ‘His behaviour has got a bit out of control and we were just wondering if there may be a reason for it.’

Chuk thought for a moment. ‘Look,’ he began, ‘I’m pleased you guys are so keen, but I can’t sanction you investigating a teacher. Cornwall’s eccentric, true, but I think you’re getting into dangerous territory here.’

‘But we just wanted to keep an eye on him, see if he’s up to anything unusual,’ Penny said.

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think it’s a good idea,’ Chuk said.

‘But we thought you wanted to make
The Whisper
better. To stop writing about school dinners and missing library books!’ Xanthe said.

‘And I do! But we have to be careful about prying into people’s lives, especially teachers,’ Chuk said. ‘I don’t want to publish the same stuff as my father, and if Long-Pitt caught so much as a whiff of that sort of thing I’d be sacked as editor.’

‘Something is definitely going on,’ Xanthe said.

‘Yeah, he keeps on chucking you out of his class, that’s what’s going on,’ Chuk said.

Xanthe blushed. ‘How did you –’

‘Because I do my homework,’ Chuk said. ‘Look, I get that you don’t like him. He does seem a bit . . . intense. But that’s hardly unusual around here.’

‘I suppose,’ Penny said, not convinced.

‘No need to look so glum about it!’ Chuk laughed. ‘If it makes you feel any better I’ll keep my ears open. If I hear anything suspicious about Cornwall then you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, a new shop’s opened in Grimstone, a joke shop – it looks quite cool. Go down there and interview the owner, see if we can get a discount for
The Whisper
readers.’

‘Are you fobbing us off?’ Penny said.

‘No,’ Chuk sighed, ‘I’m trying to make sure you don’t get expelled for writing an exposé of our most famous teacher.’

‘What’re you two doing here?’ Arthur asked as Xanthe and Penny climbed on to the bus.

‘We’ve got to review the new joke shop,’ Penny replied.

‘Lucky!’ George moaned.

‘I’m going to eat a lot of cake,’ Arthur said smugly. ‘Mrs Todd promised a Battenberg today.’

‘I hate you all,’ George said as he tied the laces on his football boots. ‘I hope the cake is full of poison.’

The cake was delicious, and Arthur had eaten three slices before the tea was poured. He couldn’t help but notice that Mrs Todd looked a little tired, her make-up was even more haphazard than usual, and her hands were shaking as she poured the tea.

‘Let me do that,’ Arthur said, taking the teapot from her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m just old, Arthur,’ Mrs Todd replied, leaning back in her chintz chair. ‘It’s dreadful being old. Never do it.’

‘I’ll try not to.’ Arthur grinned as he sipped his tea and glanced around the room. The house looked rather shambolic. Arthur spotted the tea tray from his last visit gathering dust on the windowsill, the biscuits mouldering and the tea dregs covered in a green and lumpy fuzz.

Mrs Todd had fallen into a snooze, so Arthur quietly picked up the tray and took it into the kitchen. The sink was already filled with plates that looked as though they had been there for months. Arthur rolled up his sleeves, and got scrubbing.

There was that feeling again.

He looked out at the woods through the kitchen window. Did he see a figure step behind one of the trees? It was impossible to tell; it may have just been a branch moving in the wind, or a fox disappearing into the undergrowth.

He finished the washing-up, pushing the uneasy feelings down into the pit of his stomach.

When he walked back into the sitting room, Mrs Todd woke with a start.

‘I’m so sorry, Arthur,’ she said. ‘I must have dozed off. You haven’t been clearing up, have you?’

‘It’s no problem, Mrs T, it was only a few mugs, that’s what I’m here for,’ Arthur said. ‘Are you feeling all right? Would you like me to call anyone? A doctor? One of your kids?’

‘Oh, you won’t want to call them,’ Mrs Todd chuckled. ‘You’ll never get away!’

‘As long as you’re sure?’

‘Certainly. Now how about a story? I think you deserve a reward for tackling the dreaded washing-up.’

Husband and Wife

It had just started to snow, and Imogen’s mother wasn’t even close to finishing her Christmas shopping. The West End was steaming with people. Everyone was elbowing each other out of the way to get the best bargains, and Imogen had started to flag a little.

Eventually Imogen’s mother took pity on her, and pressed a five pound note into her hand. ‘Get yourself a hot chocolate,’ she said, nodding to a foggy café in a cobbled street nearby. ‘I’ll meet you back here in an hour.’

Imogen looked up at the sign on the corner of the street.
cecil court,
it read. She peered down the small alley, tucked away from the busy streets of the West End and filled with shops selling antiquarian books and faded theatre posters. It looked as though it hadn’t changed for centuries.

As she walked towards the café, she stopped in front of one of the shop windows. It was crammed with tiny antique objects; enamelled pillboxes, Toby jugs, thimbles and carved ivory figurines all jostled for attention on a green velvet shelf. Imogen scanned the collection excitedly. As a little girl she’d had a doll’s house, which she’d lovingly filled with miniature furniture, and ever since then she had always loved anything out of proportion – a scaled-down spoon on a necklace or a giant, plastic ice cream outside a corner shop gave her an Alice-in-Wonderland thrill. She pushed open the door and walked inside.

The owner of this Aladdin’s cave of a shop looked up and smiled. With his gold-hooped earring and black goatee, he resembled a genie who had escaped from one of the tarnished silver lamps on display.

‘May I help you?’ he asked, setting aside the book that he had been reading.

‘I’m just looking really,’ Imogen said, suddenly shy.

‘Well, there’s plenty to look at,’ the owner sighed. ‘Sometimes I wonder how I fit it all in!’

Imogen glanced at the glass cases heaving with curiosities: he had a point.

By the desk was an umbrella stand that had been made from an elephant’s foot. It was filled with an extraordinary collection of canes. Some had silver toppers in the shape of lizards and birds, their eyes made of glinting gems; others were twisted like barley sugars, or carved to look as though they had scales.

‘My mother collected those,’ the owner said, nodding at the canes. ‘We have dozens more downstairs.’

Imogen carefully browsed through them. Her father shared her love of the strange, and she still hadn’t found him a Christmas present.

‘Are they very expensive?’ Imogen asked.

The shopkeeper looked at her kindly. ‘Some of them,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m sure I can make an exception. I don’t see many collectors as young as you.’

Imogen nodded gratefully, scrutinising each stick diligently, determined to get the perfect one.

‘Wow,’ she said, pulling one of them out of the stand. ‘This is amazing.’

The owner craned forward to look.

At first glance, the cane was not particularly exciting compared with some of the more ostentatious examples. It was made of plain, dark wood and had a simple pewter topper, but if you viewed it from above, it revealed a flat glass window. Inside were two dice, carved with peculiar symbols.

‘Goodness,’ the owner said. ‘Do you know, I have never noticed that? You’ve a good eye.’

From the bowels of the shop, down a rickety staircase, a phone rang. The owner sighed.

‘I shan’t be a minute,’ he said, hauling himself out of his leather armchair and disappearing into the basement.

Imogen looked into the cane again. One of the dice was black; the other red. Three of the sides on the black die had suns carved on to them, and the other three bore moons. The red die was more varied. As Imogen delicately turned the cane, the faces revealed six different symbols: a top hat, a heart, a pair of clasped hands, a dagger, a closed eye and a dove.

Imogen marvelled at the intricacy of the design; the carvings were minuscule, but rendered in astonishing detail.

She looked around to check that the owner was still downstairs – she needn’t have, as she could hear his muffled voice from below – and then gave the cane a satisfying rattle.

The rattle seemed to have a peculiar effect on the contents of the shop. The jugs and boxes and vases that crammed the shelves gave out a high, piercing whine, as though someone had run a wet finger around the rim of a wine glass.

Imogen panicked and stuffed the cane back into the stand, fleeing the shop, nervous that she might have broken something, and knowing that she would be unable to pay for it if she had.

Cecil Court, which only a moment before had been full of shoppers and pedestrians, was now empty. The windows were dimmer than they had been, and the customers in the shops were oddly still, like wax statues; a woman with her hand outstretched waiting for change, a man staring unblinking at a bookshelf.

A rolling fog began to creep down the narrow street, curling around the single lamppost and giving everything a bile-coloured tinge. Imogen could see people past the mouth of Cecil Court, hurrying along normally, but they seemed a lifetime away. She felt as though she was a figure trapped behind the curved glass of a snow globe that someone had shaken, clouding up the water inside.

Suddenly Imogen heard a faint rattling, followed by footsteps. She could feel her skin prickle. A figure, tall and dashingly attired, appeared from the cloud of fog and leaned against the lamppost. He was wearing a tall top hat, and a tailcoat, and once he spied Imogen, he gave a low, sweeping bow.

When he straightened up, Imogen could see the yellow of his eyes, and the sharp, wasted features of a once-handsome face. He was carrying the cane that Imogen had so recently been examining, his bony, blu
e-
veined hand caressing the top. He coughed, and a cloud of dust burst from his lungs.

‘Please forgive me, my dear,’ he said, giving Imogen a sly smile, revealing his blackened tongue and teeth. ‘You woke me from a deep slumber.’

Imogen backed away from the man, trying not to look at his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t go poking around, eh? That’s my cane you were toying with,’ the man said, following Imogen as she stumbled backwards. Cecil Court suddenly seemed endless. Every time she thought she had neared the end of it, it was as though she had started back at the beginning again, as if the whole street were merely the rolling backdrop in a theatre.

‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ Imogen stammered. ‘I didn’t know. Who are you?’

‘I am Husband,’ he said, his black tongue snaking over his jagged teeth. ‘Would you like to meet my wife?’

Before Imogen could answer, Husband whipped his top hat from his head and placed it on the ground between them.

Slowly, a skeletal hand reached out from within the hat, grasping the dusty brim. A second hand appeared, as chapped and cobwebbed as the first, and groped blindly out at the wet street, its fingers scuttling across the ground. Part by part, a creature hauled itself out of the hat, like a macabre magic trick. It was human-shaped and human-sized, but it did not move like a human. It scurried from side to side, oily, black hair obscuring its face, its torso crouched in the centre of its long trailing limbs like a spider.

‘Hello, Wife,’ Husband said fondly.

The creature blinked up at him, its huge black eyes just visible through the greasy hair. It hastened towards him and rubbed its head against his hand, emitting a strange clicking sound, like a beetle purring.

Husband looked at Imogen, who had turned almost as grey as his teeth with terror.