it had fallen away. There was a little graffiti, but not much - as if even kids on a dare didn't venture this far in. I placed a hand against it. Dust and a sticky sediment, like sap, clung to the skin of my fingers. I looked up. There were huge fir trees above us and mulched pine cones at our feet.
We both turned and looked back in the direction we'd come. Healy glanced at me and then back into the gloom.
'What the hell was that?' he said quietly.
I didn't reply, waiting for it to come again. But it didn't. Instead, a disconcerting hush settled around us, all other noise briefly drifting away, until the only thing I could hear was Healy breathing next to me. Something was out of kilter here. I'd been to places where death clung to the walls and the streets and the people left behind. But I'd never been to a place like this. I was no believer in ghosts. But whatever had happened here, whatever lay buried, something of it remained above ground.
Turning, I grabbed the top of the wall and hauled myself up.
At the top, I peered over.
Directly below was the river, just as Sona had described it. Probably slightly more than six feet across, but not much. The current flowed surprisingly fast, sloshing and gurgling as it moved off to the right. On the other side of the water was the rough path she'd fallen into the water from. It looked like it might once have been a wall; maybe a property boundary. Bits of red brick remained embedded in the mud and gravel. Beyond the path, on the other side of the water, huge trees rose out of the earth, like thick forearms reaching for the clouds. Then hidden between them, surrounded by nature, was what remained of Ovlan Road. And the house Sona had described.
Four walls. No roof. A dark, empty interior.
Clambering up on to the top of the wall, I waited for Healy to do the same. He was bigger, slower, but seemed to move pretty smoothly. 'Looks like we're going to have to make a leap for it,' I said, turning to him. He didn't seem keen.
I aimed for a patch of grass slightly to the left, and just about hit it. The impact was hard, but not painful. I stood and looked back at Healy. He was sizing it up. A foot either side of the space I'd hit and he'd be landing on brick or stones and breaking an ankle. He glanced at me and then back to the patch he wanted to land on. Then he leapt across the river. As he landed, I heard a hard slapping noise: skin, bones and cartilage impacting against the ground. Mud kicked up, gravel spat away.
'You okay?' I said.
He nodded, moved gingerly. 'I'll survive.'
Now we were closer to the house it looked even bigger and more ominous than before. The opening in its front was a mouth. The windows that remained were eyes. Blackened moss ran from the bricks and was speckled around the entrances, like the house had coughed up its memories. Trees loomed, almost leaning in, as if drawn to the building. And there was a sudden lack of sound again. The river. The rustle of the leaves.
But nothing else.
In my jacket pocket was Healy's torch. I flicked it on and shone it into the darkness of the house. The cone of light swept across the interior. There were two windows upstairs, both long since smashed through, huge branches reaching in from trees lining the rear of the building. Some of the original wooden floors remained, but they'd been chipped and scuffed, broken by falling branches and pieces of masonry. Rubble was scattered everywhere: stone, concrete, wood, tiles.
Further inside it was even colder. And now there was a noise. Very distant, but clearly audible. I turned to Healy.
'You hear that?'
He stepped closer and listened.
A wind passed through the holes in the house, disguising the sound for a moment. Then, as everything settled again, the noise emerged for a second time.
'Something's clicking,' Healy whispered.
Dropping to my haunches, I shone the torchlight towards the centre of the room. Piles of rubble had formed everywhere. To my left was part of the wall that had once divided the kitchen and living room. More rubble. Bricks. Grass coming through a crack in the floor. To my right was what was left of the living room: a fireplace built into the wall; a couple of original floorboards, but mostly just the space beneath them. I got to my feet and walked across to where the floorboards didn't exist any more and shone the torch down. A rat darted across the floor. Lots of dust and debris. Bricks from the walls.
And hidden in the darkness: a manhole cover.
Chapter Sixty-five
We jumped down into the space below the floorboards. Everything else was decades old, but the manhole looked new. It had been painted black. There was a T-shaped lever built into its middle, sitting in a hollowed-out space. I reached down, wrapped my fingers around the lever and turned it. A squeak. Then it began to move. On the other side the clicking sound continued, neither of us saying anything.
Finally, the lever hit a buffer and there was a gentle clank.
I looked at Healy, nodded, then lifted it out. It was heavy, but relatively easy to move. I shifted it sideways and placed it gently on the floor, among all the debris. Then we turned back to the hole and looked down.
Immediately inside was a speaker, a crackle coming from it like static. Next to that, embedded in the wall, was a small plastic box, about the size of a ten-pound note. There was nothing on it but two LED lights. One red. One green. It was an alarm system. The green light was on, and the clicking was faster now. The light must have changed from red to green the minute I'd removed the manhole cover, and the faster click was the alarm going off somewhere else.
A ladder dropped down into a circle of darkness. I shone the torch into the space. I could see a polished floor below, but not much else. Maybe a cabinet and a door to the right — but the torch was already struggling. The batteries were old, and the beam was starting to fade from using it continuously at Markham's house. In fifteen minutes, we'd have a light that couldn't define anything clearly. In twenty minutes, we'd have nothing at all.
I looked at Healy. Are you okay? He nodded, but all of a sudden he looked old and ground down. This place; the expectancy of what lay ahead; the confrontations, dead ends and betrayals that had littered his journey: it had all come to a head.
'Healy?' I said softly.
A second's pause, as if he was trying to pull himself out of the funk - and then he did. 'I'm fine,' he replied and, as if to prove it, he shuffled into position at the manhole and started descending the ladder. I put a finger to my lips. Slowly. Even as he dropped down through the hole, I could hear the gentle ching of his shoes against the metal rungs. When he was about halfway down, I started to wonder if that might not be the point: every surface, every movement, made a sound.
After about ten seconds, all I could see of Healy was his head. I leaned down and handed him the torch, a fist coming up from the black circle and taking it from me. Then I got into position myself. Below, I could hear him taking the rest of the steps. Ching ching ching. Then nothing. He must have reached the bottom. I stopped and peered into the dark. The torch swung left and right, picking out walls, another door and the cabinet I'd glimpsed earlier.
I started down after him. There were thirty-eight rungs in all, and each one felt wet to the touch. Maybe it was dew from Healy's boot. Maybe it was oil. It felt thicker than water, but didn't leave any colour on my skin. Once my feet touched the floor, I wiped my hands on my trousers and looked for Healy. He was off to my right, the torch gripped at shoulder height. He was shining it through a big glass panel in a door in the corner. He tried the door but it was locked. Inside it was mostly dark, but the torch revealed what looked like steel medical storage units, the torch reflecting in their surface as he swung it in all directions. In the centre of the room, drilled into the floor — so dark and so deep we couldn't see the bottom — was a hole.
Healy raised his eyebrows:
Suddenly, a noise exploded around us.
