“Up here,” he said, redundantly.
Marc was glad he’d spoken. The atmosphere was starting to feel strange, as if there might be something up there at roof level that he might regret seeing.
He followed Rose up the narrow staircase. The timber creaked even louder than before, and Marc had the weird sensation that there were more people packed into the cramped space than just the two of them. He resisted the urge to turn around and see who was following them — he knew there was nobody there, but his body was trying to convince him otherwise. The back of his neck was prickling; his spine felt warm, as if a hand were rubbing it through his shirt.
At the top of the stairs there was a door on each side of the tiny landing, where the attic was effectively split in two. Both of the doors were closed. The single bare bulb on the ceiling between the doors struggled to illuminate the space, as if something were pushing back the light. Marc kept expecting it to flicker and then go out, but it didn’t. That only ever happened in horror films, and not in real life. Or so he kept telling himself, just to dispel the slow-creeping dread that had followed him up the stairs.
“I’ll show you the library first,” said Rose, his voice seeming too loud in the stairwell.
“The library?” said Marc, just trying to fill the space with his voice.
Rose stepped up onto the small landing area and used another key to unlock the door on the left.
“Security conscious, wasn’t he?”
Rose didn’t reply. He simply nodded once. Then he opened the door and stepped inside.
Marc was reluctant to follow, but he knew he should. In fact, he had little choice in the matter. Despite what his body was telling him, there was nothing to be afraid of here, deep inside the house of his old friend Harry Rose. There was nothing to fear; nothing that could hurt him. And if he was lucky, there might just be something in the attic that would bring his stalled book project back to life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ROYLE WAS SCARED to go down to the basement. It was an embarrassing admission, even if it was only to himself, but the lower level of the Far Grove police station had always made him afraid. Over ground, he was okay. He felt not a tremor of apprehension regarding the station. But once he was forced to go underneath, the fear kicked in. He was reminded of the Crawl, and how it made him feel.
The main building had been built in the mid nineteen seventies, but it had been constructed over the top of the former police station, which had been a lot older. The contractor had decided to keep the original basement and foundations, using it as a platform on which to mount the new station superstructure. The old basement had been where the cells were. Small rooms with rusted iron bars, each one containing only a tiny sink and with a metal bed frame bolted to the floor. The detainment facilities they used these days were much more modern and comfortable; those old Victorian cells were like something out of Bedlam. Whenever he was down in the basement, Royle imagined the people who’d been caged there. He felt their eyes upon him; he heard their screams ringing in the air. He could almost see them crawling across the floor towards him…
He knew it was just his mind creating an atmosphere that didn’t exist in reality, but this knowledge did nothing to reassure him. Whatever he did, however hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the nagging fear that this place was home to ghosts.
The elevator doors opened and he stood looking out into the main access corridor. He knew that he should just step out and make his way to his destination, but his body refused to obey the simple command.
The old stone basement walls had been rendered with plaster and painted what was meant to be a soothing shade of white, contemporary lighting had been fitted, and new rooms had been created within the underground space… but still, the place held a sense of dread and expectation. To Royle, it was like walking into a military bunker. As he passed open doors, he half expected to glimpse inside those rooms men in shirtsleeves leaning over table-top maps of war, moving little plastic flags around as they planned their invasion. White collars, small round spectacles, pale skin, peering eyes.
Royle finally stepped out of the elevator and turned right, heading for the small on-site lab. The facility wasn’t much to brag about, but it was somewhere the two resident techies could examine evidence that was considered urgent or too sensitive to be shipped out to the technical team based in Newcastle. The apparatus they had was limited, but the technicians — Miss Wandaful and Charlie — were talented and dedicated; they worked until the job was done, and never gave excuses when things went wrong.
He approached the computer server room and paused to glance inside the open door. He listened to the humming of the big extractor fans as they sucked warm air out through vents and through hidden ductwork, keeping the machines cool. The air-conditioned breeze cooled his cheeks. A man in jeans and a blue police-issue polo shirt was examining the system, making notes in a small black book. The man turned around and smiled. Royle recognised his face but was unable to put a name to it, so he simply nodded in greeting and continued walking along the corridor.
The lab door opened before he could reach it and Wanda Harper — the head technician — came out, her fingers struggling to take the cellophane wrapper off a fresh packet of cigarettes. She didn’t see Royle at first, but when she looked up her eyes opened wider, as if she were startled.
“Ah,” she said. “Fuck it. I thought I had another fifteen minutes before the hassle arrived.” She smiled to show that she was at least half joking.
“Sorry, Miss Wandaful, but you know me — always a few minutes ahead of the game.” Royle watched as the woman slipped the cigarettes into the back pocket of her jeans, under the white lab coat. She ran her hands through her spiky dyed blonde hair and rubbed at her temples, as if trying to ward off a headache.
“Well, seeing as you’re here…” Wanda reached back and made a big show of opening the lab door. “Age before beauty,” she said, bowing her head in mock deference as he entered.
The small room was crammed so full of stuff that it could barely fit two people, so it was always a relief when one of the technicians was on holiday — as was the case this week. The tiled walls were lined with shelves, each one packed to breaking point with box files or rows of medical supplies — bottles, cardboard boxes, instruments in sterilising machines. The floor was littered with filing cabinets, small cooler boxes and portable freezer boxes. Everywhere there were random pieces of equipment, and Royle felt hemmed in, as if he’d entered a storage facility rather than an annexe of a functioning police station.
The scarecrow was laid out on a stainless steel gurney at the centre of the room, the left side of its torso covered by a creased white sheet. The gurney was usually meant for transporting bodies, or parts of bodies, and the strange, stiff, legless figure looked out of place beneath the harsh, bright lights of the lab.
“What do you have for me, Miss Wandaful?”
Wanda grinned. Everyone at the station called her Miss Wandaful. She’d spent a long time protesting against the occasional nickname when it first started up, until finally, after six months on the job, she made the mistake of telling a uniformed officer on a station night out that she actually liked to be called that. Nobody had called her by any other name since.
“Okay,” she said, standing at one end of the gurney. She moved slowly around to the side, pulling the white sheet fully off the figure and placing it to one side. “What we have here is a scarecrow.”
“Gee,” said Royle. “Do ya really think so?”
She carried on, unperturbed. “As you know, there was a photograph of Connie Millstone attached to the scarecrow’s head. From what we can tell, it looks like the girl might have been deceased when it was taken. I’m sorry.” She glanced at him, her face tense. “I was hoping to be able to tell you otherwise, but… well. That’s how it looks. We’ve sent the photo to the main lab for an in-depth DNA analysis. The results should be back in a few days. I can tell you now, though, there were no fingerprints present.”
The too-bright light made Royle feel exposed. His head was aching and his eyesight was blurred. He blinked several times in quick succession, to clear his vision. “Is this an assumption, a hunch… or is it a fact? How do you know she was dead when it was taken?”
“It isn’t fact,” said Wanda. “But it isn’t guesswork, either. From the photo, you can see that the girl’s skin has begun to take on the soft appearance of death; her muscle tone is nonexistent. If it was in colour, you’d be able to see the slight bruising caused by pooling blood and necrosis.”
