the next general groceries, another antiques. At the end of the row was a butcher’s. Matt could see chickens hanging by their feet, their necks broken. Slabs of meat, grey and sweating, lay spread out on the counter. A large man with a beard and a blood-splattered apron chopped down with an axe. Matt heard the metal as it sliced through bone.
There were quite a few people around and as he rested the bicycle against the war memorial, more of them appeared, coming from all sides of the square. Matt sensed that they had been drawn here because of him. Their faces were more curious than welcoming. He saw them stop, some distance away, and whisper among themselves. It was unnerving, being the centre of attention in this forgotten community. He had no doubt that they all knew exactly who he was and why he was here.
A woman walked towards him and she seemed familiar. She had long white hair, a tiny head and black eyes that could have belonged to a doll. As she came nearer, he saw that she had been disfigured by a birthmark. An ugly mauve blotch covered one side of her face. He thought back to when he was ill. Had this woman been in his room at Hive Hall?
She walked right up to him. “How nice to see you back on your feet, Matthew,” she said. She had a squeaky, rasping voice and seemed to strangle the words at the back of her throat. “My name is Claire Deverill. You’re staying with my sister.”
So he was right. He had seen her before.
“I am the head teacher at the primary school here in Lesser Malling,” she went on. “You may be joining us soon.”
“I’m too old for primary school,” Matt said.
“But too stupid, I’m afraid, for secondary school. I’ve seen your reports. You’ve done no work. You know very little. Not a good example for the other children.”
Another woman – tall and thin – had appeared, pushing an antique pram. The wheels squeaked as they turned. “Is this the boy?” she demanded.
“It is indeed, Miss Creevy.” Claire Deverill smiled.
Matt glanced down at the pram. There was no baby. Miss Creevy was nursing a large china doll. It looked up at Matt with a frozen smile and wide, empty eyes.
“I’m looking for the chemist,” Matt said. Suddenly he wanted to be out of here. He was beginning to wish he’d never come.
“It’s over there.” Claire Deverill pointed. “Next to the sweet shop.”
Two more women had appeared on the far side of the village, in front of the church. They looked like ragged scarecrows, their black coats flapping in the breeze. They were identical twins. At the same time, a short, fat man with blue and green tattoos on his arms, face and head stepped out of the pub. He was smoking a clay pipe. He saw Matt and began to laugh. Matt walked away before he could get too close.
It was no surprise really that everyone in Lesser Malling seemed to be a little mad. You’d have to be to live in a place as forlorn as this, Matt thought. There was a pond near the church and he noticed a group of children feeding the ducks. He went over to them but as soon as he was close he saw that he was going to find no friends here. There was a ten-year-old boy with strange, greenish hair and fat legs bulging out of short trousers. A couple of girls – sisters – stood together in identical, old-fashioned dresses and pigtails. The last boy was about seven and crippled, one of his legs enclosed in a metal calliper. Matt would have felt sorry for him but as he approached, the boy pulled out a BB gun and, smiling, took aim at the ducks. Quickly Matt kicked out, sending loose gravel into the water. The ducks flew away. The boy fired at them and missed.
“What did you do that for?” one of the girls demanded sulkily.
“What are you doing?” Matt asked.
“We feed the ducks and then Freddy kills them,” the other girl explained. “It’s a game!”
“A game?”
“Sitting ducks!” both girls chorused.
Freddy reloaded the gun. Matt shook his head in disgust. He left the children and walked back to the chemist.
The shop was like nothing he had ever seen before: a dark, evil-smelling place with rows of wooden shelves. There were some boxes of headache pills and a few packets of soap, but mostly the shelves were stacked with old bottles. Some of these were filled with powders, some with dried herbs. Others contained strange, lumpy objects, floating in murky water. Matt read some of the handwritten labels: Nux Vomica. Aconite. Wormwood. They meant nothing to him. He found a flask filled with yellow liquid and turned it round, then almost cried out as a severed eye floated to the surface, kissing the edge of the glass. The eye had been taken from a sheep or a cow. It was trailing tissue behind it. Matt felt sick.
“Can I help you?”
It was the chemist; a short, ginger-haired man in a shabby white coat. The hair continued down his neck and there was more of it on the backs of his hands. He was wearing heavy black spectacles, which had sunk into his nose in such a way that Matt wondered if he ever took them off.
“What is this?” Matt demanded.
“An eye.”
“Why is it here?”
The chemist turned the jar round and examined the specimen, his own eyes magnified by the lenses. “The vet requested it,” he said. He sounded irritated. “He was doing tests.”
“I’ve come to collect something for Mrs Deverill.”
“Oh yes. You must be Matthew then. We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you. We’ve all been looking forward to it very much.”
The chemist produced a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “My name is Barker. I hope I’ll be seeing more of you. In a village like this, it’s always nice to have new blood.” He handed the packet over. “Do drop in again any time.”
Matt came out of the shop, noticing that more of the villagers had arrived in the square. There were at least a dozen of them, talking among themselves. He hurried over to the bike. There was a bag behind the saddle and he thrust the package in. He just wanted to get back on the road, away from the village. But it wasn’t to be. As he wheeled the bicycle round, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbing hold of the handle-bars. Matt followed the arm it belonged to and found himself looking up at a man in his thirties with straw-coloured hair and a round, ruddy face. He was dressed in a baggy jersey and jeans. He was strong. Matt could tell that from the ease with which he held the bike.
“Let me go!”
Matt tried to pull the bike away but the man held on to it. “That’s not very friendly,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You’re Matthew Freeman, aren’t you?”
Matt said nothing. They were both still holding the bike. It had become a barrier between them.
“They sent you here on this project?”
“That’s right. Yes. You all know that – so why ask?”
“Listen to me, Matthew Freeman,” he said suddenly. “You don’t want to be hanging around this village. You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me? I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get away. You’ll go as far away as you can and you won’t come back. Do you hear me? You need to-”
He broke off. The chemist had come out of his shop and was standing there in the doorway watching the two of them. The man let go of Matt’s bike and hurried away. He didn’t look back.
Matt got on to the bicycle and pedalled out of the village. Ahead of him, the pine trees waited, black and ominous. Already it was growing dark.
WHISPERS
