The Secret of Crickley Hall

Despite her terror, Eve was aghast. Magda Cribben and Pyke—or Maurice Stafford as he was then—had murdered Nancy Linnet and thrown her corpse into the well, knowing that it would probably be swept out to sea by the subterranean river. Then they had decided to do the same with Stefan.

'Magda said that we would tell the authorities that Stefan Rosenbaum had wandered down the cellar alone —which was strictly out of bounds for the children, of course—and had accidentally fallen into the well. The wall round the well is very low so it could easily happen. In all likelihood, his body would never be recovered and none of the other children had witnessed what Augustus had done to the boy, although they must have heard the screams. Magda was sure they'd be too scared to speak out.'

My God, thought Eve, was Pyke insane even then, as a boy? All three of them—the brother and sister and Maurice Stafford—must have been crazy to imagine they would get away with such a crime.

Pyke flexed his knee to loosen the joint. 'So that's what we did. We dropped Stefan's body down the well. To be perfectly frank with you, I wasn't sure he'd bled to death by then. I don't think Magda was sure either.'

The revelation seemed to numb both Eve's body and her mind. She had to stop this madman getting his hands on her daughters.

Pyke gave a laboured shake of his head as if chiding himself for something. 'We had underestimated the interest that had been aroused in the disappearance of the teacher, though. She had been gone several weeks and could not be traced, despite the efforts of the education authorities to find her. We had assumed she wouldn't be missed, not with the kind of disruption a war brought to the country.'

He studied Eve, then Loren, with half-hooded eyes. 'The very day after we rid ourselves of Stefan Rosenbaum, we received notice that government inspectors were to visit Crickley Hall. Oh, it might well have been a routine call, something the inspectors were apt to do from time to time, but Magda thought not. She thought suspicions had been kindled by Nancy Linnet's abrupt departure.'

His gaze was momentarily on Loren, although his mind seemed elsewhere.

'Magda was in a state of panic,' Pyke continued, 'while Augustus was merely outraged that the authorities should even presume to inspect his province. The stress only made his pain worse and the usual method of relieving some of it had no effect whatsoever. In fact, it hadn't worked for some days, which was why Augustus finally lost all reason.'

The lightning and thunder came again and it was as though those elements were chained to the house itself; the storm just did not seem to be moving on.

Pyke changed position on the landing, sitting on its lip, thick wrists resting on his knees, head turned to take in Eve and Loren. His back was to the cane, which lay across the landing.

'Are you growing tired of my reminisces, Eve? It gets more interesting, I assure you.'

Tentatively, she said: 'My husband will be home soon.' It was a feeble warning.

Pyke responded almost cheerfully. 'No, you told me he'd gone off to London. Even if he were on his way back, he'd have stopped somewhere to avoid the worst of the storm. Nobody sane travels in this sort of weather.'

'What would you know of sanity?' She spat the words in spite of herself.

'Ah, aggression. That's quite understandable. You don't know why I'm here yet?'

'You were supposed to be proving there are no ghosts in this house.'

'I lied. Unfortunately—especially for me—there are such things as ghosts. To my regret, I've been haunted for most of my life. I'll explain it all to you, I promise.'

There was that affable and concerned person again. Pyke was like an emotional chameleon, changing so fast it was difficult to keep up with him.

Eve fought to control herself when she said: 'I want to know the real reason you came here tonight and why you attacked Lili Peel.'

'Lili Peel. So that's her name, is it? Well, I'm afraid your friend was interfering where she shouldn't. How did she know my original name?'

'She's psychic'

'She must be very good to pick up on it like that.'

'I showed her an old photograph of the Cribbens and the children—the evacuees—who were here in 1943. You were among them.' Eve was still waiting for the right moment to dash up the stairs with Loren.

'I see. But does that mean you knew my name then?'

'Our gardener pointed you out the other day when Gabe found the picture.'

'I remember the time it was taken; all the other children were so glum.'

'They had good reason to be.'

'Yes. Where is the photograph now?'

Eve indicated the hall. 'Down there, near the spinning top.'

'Dear Lord, I even remember that toy. It was one of the few items we were allowed to play with and that was only when the local vicar called in for afternoon tea. The Reverend Rossbridger, if I remember correctly. He thought well of Augustus Cribben—another disciplinarian, you see. He and Augustus were two of a kind in some ways. And of course, both strong believers in the Almighty.'

Eve thought that Pyke might go back down to the hall to retrieve the photograph, but either he was too canny or he'd already lost interest in it. He seemed to be growing restless, one foot tapping on a lower step. Loren's breaths were coming in quick shallow gasps.

'How did the children come to drown in Crickley Hall?' Eve was still playing for time, a distraction, something that would give them a chance to make a break for it. Unaware that the phone lines were down, Eve prayed for the phone across the hall to ring, anything that would draw his attention for a second or two. He had a bad leg, he'd have difficulty chasing them (although he had moved remarkably quickly when he had attacked Lili). She was taken aback by his answer to her question.

'None of the children drowned,' he said. They were all dead before the floodwaters broke.'

Eve stared. Her fear of him reached new heights. 'But everybody said that's how they died,' she managed to say.

'Oh, everybody said it, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I'm sure there were those in the community who had their suspicions. And those who found the bodies—the police and a few members of the rescue services—must have realized the truth. Possibly Reverend Rossbridger was informed that the children had been murdered and the blame had to lie with Augustus Cribben, who also died that night.

'I only discovered he died of a broken neck and multiple piercings to his body when I searched back through old newspaper stories of that time. I've visited his grave in the church cemetery down the hill and, disappointingly, his marker is quite humble. It's also situated in a very neglected part of the graveyard. Yes, I'm certain the authorities were aware that Augustus killed the children in his care with his bare hands. The marks on the children's necks could hardly have gone unnoticed.'

Appalled, and further shocked, Eve could only react by saying, 'But you—he didn't kill you. How…?'

'I told you I would explain.' Pyke was finding it a relief finally to share his secrets with someone who was neither dumb nor mad like Magda. 'There was a terrible storm that night of the flood, much like this one tonight, which makes it all the more apposite. No thunder and lightning that night, though, just heavy rainfall. None of the children were sleeping…'

71: CAUGHT

Lili groaned and tried to lift her head again, but it was no use: it sank back to the drenched earth.

It was almost cosy lying there. She hardly felt the rain that battered her, even where it drummed on her head and neck; she could not feel the cold at all. No, she was snug, dozing in and out of consciousness, half dreaming, but aware those half-dreams were more like revelations.

Lightning exposed the brown, churning river nearby, its level reaching the top of the banks. Woodland detritus, that which hadn't entangled behind the short wooden bridge—the unstable wooden bridge—was swept along by the current and carried down to the harbour estuary where the twin rivers, the Bay River and the underground Low River, met.

Lili felt rather than saw the hugeness of the room she was in, a room whose only lighting was from strategically placed oil lamps so that shadows hung like dark drapes around its walls.

There is movement, a sound followed by a warning whisper as small figures appear from a