Tunnels (7 page)

Well, look at him, not a care in the world
, she thought and leaned even farther over the bed. As she did so, she noticed a faint smudge under his nose.

Her eyes scanned the unconscious boy until they settled on his hands. "Mud!" They were covered in it. He hadn't bothered to wash before getting into bed and, even more revolting, must have been picking his nose in his sleep.

"Dirty dog," she hissed quietly. It was enough to disturb him, and he stretched his arms and flexed his fingers. Blissfully unaware of her presence, he made a low, contented noise deep in his throat, wriggling his body a little as he settled again.

"You're a total waste of space," she whispered finally, then turned to where he'd thrown his filthy clothes on the floor. She gathered them up in her arms and left his room, going over to the wicker laundry basket that stood in a corner of the landing. Feeling inside all the pockets as she bundled the clothes into the basket, she came across a scrap of paper in Will's jeans, which she unfolded but could not read in the diminished light.
Probably just trash
, she thought, tucking it away in her bathrobe. As she withdrew her hand from her pocket, she caught a fingernail on the quilted material. She bit thoughtfully at the rough edge and strolled toward the main bedroom. Once inside, she made sure she stepped only on the precise areas where the floorboards under the old and worn shag carpet wouldn't creak and betray her presence.

Just as she had watched Will, she now watched Mrs. and Dr. Burrows, as if she were trying to divine their thoughts. After several minutes, though, Rebecca had seen enough, and picked up Mrs.
Burrows's
empty mug from the bedside table, giving it an exploratory sniff.
Ovaltine
again, with a hint of brandy. With mug in hand, Rebecca tiptoed out of the room and went downstairs into the kitchen, navigating her way easily through the darkness. Placing the mug in the sink, she turned and left the kitchen to return to the hallway. Here she stopped again, her head inclined slightly to one side, her eyes closed, listening.

So calm
…
and peaceful
, she thought.
It should always be this way
. Like someone in a trance, she remained standing there, unmoving, until finally she drew in a deep breath through her nose, held it for a few seconds, then released it through her mouth.

There was a muffled cough from upstairs. Rebecca glared resentfully in the direction of the staircase. Her moment had been broken, her thoughts disrupted.

"I'm so tired of all this," she said bitterly.

She padded over to the front door, unlatched the safety chain, and then made her way into the living room. The curtains were fully open, giving her a clear view of the back garden, which was dappled in shifting patches of silvery moonlight. Her eyes never once left the scene as she lowered herself into Mrs.
Burrows's
armchair, settling back as she continued to watch the garden and the hedge that divided it from the Common. And there she remained, relishing the solitude of the night and enshrouded in the
chocolatey
darkness, until the early hours. Watching.

The next day in the museum, Dr. Burrows was growing weary of his task of arranging a display of some old military buttons. He exhaled loudly with sheer frustration and, hearing a car horn on the road outside, happened to glance up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a man walking on the opposite side of the street. He wore a flat cap, a long coat, and, although the day was distinctly overcast with only intermittent glimpses of the sun, a pair of dark glasses. It might easily have been the man he had bumped into outside the newsstand, but he couldn't be sure, because they all looked so similar.

What was it that was so compelling about these people? Dr. Burrows felt in his bones that there was something special about them, something decidedly incongruous. It was as if they had stepped straight out of another time — perhaps from the Georgian era, given the style of their clothing. For him, this was on a par with finding a piece of living history, like those reports he'd read of Asian fishermen netting coelacanths, or maybe something even more tantalizing than that…

Never a man to rein in his obsessions, Dr. Burrows was well and truly hooked. There had to be a rational explanation for the hated-man phenomenon, and he was determined to find out what it was.

"Right," he decided on the spot, "now's as good a time as any."

He put down the box of buttons and hurried through the museum to the main door, locking it behind him. As he stepped outside onto the street, he located the man up ahead and, keeping a respectable distance, he followed him down

Dr. Burrows kept pace with the man as he left

Dr. Burrows felt a tremor of fear as he saw the sky reflecting off the man's glasses and, sure the game was up, immediately spun around to face the opposite direction. At a loss to know what else to do, he squatted down and pretended to tie an imaginary shoelace on his slip-on shoe. Without getting up he peered furtively over his shoulder, but the man had completely vanished.

His eyes frantically scanning the street, Dr. Burrows began to walk briskly, then broke into a run as he approached the spot where he had last sighted his quarry. Coming to it, he discovered that there was a narrow entrance between two small buildings. He was slightly surprised that in all the times he'd been this way before he'd never once noticed it. It had an arched opening and ran like a narrow tunnel until it passed beyond the back of the houses and then continued for a short distance as an uncovered alleyway. Dr. Burrows peered in, but the lack of daylight in the passage made it difficult to see very much. Beyond the stretch of darkness, he could make out something at the far end. It was a wall, cutting off the alleyway altogether. A dead end.

Checking the street one last time, he shook his head in disbelief. He couldn't see anywhere else the man might have gone, vanishing as abruptly as he had, so he took a deep breath and started down the passage. He picked his way cautiously, wary that the man might by lying in wait in an unseen doorway. As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he could see that there were soggy cardboard boxes and milk bottles, mostly broken, scattered across the cobblestones.

He was relieved when he emerged back into the light again, and paused to survey they scene. The alleyway was formed by garden walls to the left and right and was blocked at its far end by the wall of a three-story factory. The old building had no windows until its uppermost story and couldn't possibly have provided the man with any means of escape.

So where the blazes did he go?
thought Dr. Burrows as he turned and looked back up the alleyway, to the street, where a car flashed by. To his right, the garden wall had a three-foot-high trellis running along it, which would have made it almost impossible for the man to climb over. The other wall had no such encumbrance, so Dr. Burrows went up to it and peered over. It was a garden of sorts, neglected and barren, peppered with faded plastic dishes containing dark green water.

Dr. Burrows gazed helplessly into the private wasteland and was about to forget the whole thing when he had a sudden change of heart. He slung his briefcase over the wall and rather awkwardly clambered after it. The drop was greater than he'd expected, and he landed badly, his outstretched hand managing to flip over one of the dishes, splattering its contents up his arm and neck. He rose to his feet, swore silently, and brushed off as much as he could.

"Blast! Blast! And blast!" he said through clenched teeth as he heard a door open behind him.

"Hello? Who's there? What's going on?" came an apprehensive voice.

Dr. Burrows wheeled around to face an old woman who was standing not five feet away, with three cats around her ankles observing him with feline indifference. The old woman's sight was apparently not good, judging from the way she was moving her head from side to side. She had wispy white hair and wore a floral housecoat. Dr. Burrows guessed she was at least in her eighties.

"
Er
… Roger Burrows, pleased to meet you," Dr. Burrows said, not able to think of anything to explain why or how he had come to be there. The expression on the old woman's face was suddenly transformed.

"Oh, Dr. Burrows, how very kind of you to drop by. What a nice surprise."

Dr. Burrows was himself surprised and not a little confused. "Um… not at all," he replied hesitantly. "My pleasure entirely."

"Gets a bit lonely with just my pussycats for company. Would you care for some tea? The kettle's on the boil."

Lost for words, Dr. Burrows simply nodded.

The old woman turned, her entourage of cats darting before her into the kitchen. "Milk and sugar?"

"Please," Dr. Burrows said, standing outside the kitchen door as she bustled around, getting a teacup down from a shelf.

"I'm sorry to turn up unannounced like this," Dr. Burrows said, in an attempt to fill the silence. "This is all so very kind of you."

"No, it's you who is very kind. I should be thanking you."

"Really?" he stuttered, still frantically trying to figure out exactly who the old woman was.

"Yes, for your very nice letter. Can't see as well as I used to, but Mr. Embers read it to me."

Suddenly, it all fell into place, and Dr. Burrows sighed with relief, the fog of confusion blown away by the cool breeze of realization.

"The glowing sphere! It is certainly an intriguing object, Mrs.
Tantrumi
."

"Oh, good, dear."

"Mr. Embers probably told you I need to get it checked."

She held her head to one side, waiting expectantly for him to continue while she stirred the tea.

"…well, I was rather hoping you could show me where you found it," he finished.

"Oh, no, dear, wasn't me — it was the gas men. Shortbread or gingersnap?" she said, holding out a battered cookie tin.

"
Er
… shortbread, please. You were saying the gas men found it?"

"They did. Just inside the basement."

"Down there?" Dr. Burrows asked, looking at an open door at the bottom of a short flight of steps. "Mind if I take a look?" he said, pocketing the shortbread as he began to negotiate the mossy brick steps.

Once inside the doorway he could see that the basement was divided into two rooms. The first was empty, save for some dishes of extremely dark and
dessicated
cat food and loose rubble strewn across the floor. He crunched through to the second room, which lay beneath the front of the house. It was much the same as the first, except that the light was poorer in here and there was an old wardrobe with a broken mirror, tucked in a shadowy recess. He opened one of its doors and was immediately still.

He sniffed several times, recognizing the same musty odor he had smelled on the man in the street and more recently in the duct at Penny Hanson's house. As his eyes became used to the darkness, he could see that inside the wardrobe were several overcoats — black, as far as he could tell — and an assortment of flat caps and other headwear stacked in a compartment to one side.

Beneath the hat compartment, he found a small drawer, which he slid open. Inside were five or six pairs of glasses. Taking one of these and pulling an overcoat from its hanger, he made his way back out into the garden.

"Mrs.
Tantrumi
," he called from the bottom of the steps. She waddled to the kitchen door. "Did you know there's quite a few things in a wardrobe down here?"

"Are there?"

"Yes, some coats and sunglasses. Do they belong to you?"

"No, hardly ever go down there myself. The ground's too uneven. Would you bring them closer so I can see?"

He went to the kitchen door, and she reached out and ran her fingers over the material of the overcoat as if she were stroking the head of an unfamiliar cat. Heavy and waxy to the touch, the coat felt strange to her. The cut was old-fashioned, with a shoulder cape of heavier material.

"I can't say I've ever seen this before. My husband, God rest his soul, may have left it down there," she said dismissively and returned to the kitchen.

Dr. Burrows examined the dark glasses. They consisted of two pieces of thick and absolutely flat, almost opaque, glass, similar to welder's goggles, with curious spring mechanisms on the arms on either side — evidently to keep them snug against the wearer's head. He was puzzled. Why would the strange people keep their belongings in a forgotten wardrobe in an empty basement?

"Does anyone else come here, Mrs.
Tantrumi
?" Dr. Burrows said to her as she started to pour the tea with a very shaky hand.

There was a lull in the rattling as she looked confused. "I really don't know what you mean," she said, as if Dr. Burrows was suggesting she had been doing something improper.

"It's just that I've seen some rather odd characters around this part of town — always wearing big coats and sunglasses like these…," Dr. Burrows trailed off, because the old woman was looking so anxious.

"Oh, I hope they aren't those criminal types one hears about. I don't feel safe here anymore—"

"So you haven't seen any people in coats like these — men with white hair?" Dr. Burrows interrupted.

"No, dear, can't say I know what you're talking about." She looked inquiringly at him, then resumed pouring the tea. "Do come in and sit down."

"I'll just put these back," Dr. Burrows said, returning to the basement. Before he left, he couldn't resist another quick look around the place, even resorting to stamping on the ground to see if there was a trapdoor hidden there. He did the same in the small garden, stamping around the lawn while trying to avoid the plastic dishes, all the time watched curiously by Mrs.
Tantrumi's
cats.