Secrets of the Dead Read online

  Greg took up the story with enthusiasm. ‘You see, Oliver, if ancient Egyptians didn’t like people who’d died, they’d open up the tombs and destroy the bodies.’

  ‘Oh?’ Oliver’s eyes went wide as he imagined such a thing.

  ‘It seems to be a quirk of human nature,’ Greg explained. ‘Sometimes the living try and get their revenge on people who’ve died by attacking their remains. In effect, they’re trying to kill someone who is already dead.’

  ‘Then I shouldn’t be surprised if it happens the other way around.’ Vicki kept her eyes on the phone’s screen as she talked. ‘Sometimes dead people will be so angry with the living that they get back at them, too. Revenge from the grave. Vengeance from the tomb.’

  Everyone stared at Vicki after she’d made that bizarre statement.

  The sixteen year old shrugged. ‘That’s my opinion … I’m entitled to have an opinion aren’t I?’ She read an incoming text. Her eyes narrowed with anger. ‘Susan Cranshaw’s gone bowling with Lee and his friends! I knew I shouldn’t have come to this dump.’

  NINE

  The last minute before sleep …

  ‘And I thought you were too tired to make love,’ Ingrid said, sighing with pleasure.

  ‘I hope I’ll never be too tired for that.’ John Tolworth smiled, although his wife wouldn’t have seen his contentment in the dark.

  Outside the breeze had picked up, making a soft roaring sound that slowly rose and fell. Such haunting music, he thought, feeling drowsy and completely relaxed.

  ‘I’m looking forward to staying here,’ she murmured. ‘It’ll make a change from the town, all that traffic, bustle, noise. You know something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to immerse myself in nature, relax, read books, and enjoy being a mum with her family for a change.’

  ‘Sounds a good idea.’

  She sighed happily again. ‘Do you want to cuddle into my back?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  She turned over. He moved closer until he pressed softly against her bare back, and he felt the curve of her bottom deliciously in contact with his skin.

  He slipped his arm over her. ‘Do you know what Oliver said earlier?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘He says his new friend told him that everyone has secrets.’

  ‘Of course, they do; it’s human nature.’

  ‘Ingrid, what’s your secret?’

  She chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, would it?’

  John never even heard her evasive answer. His body had acquired that heavy sensation, as if sinking deeper into the mattress. Within seconds he was dreaming. The castle doors swung open. He was ten years old again and going to meet his friend, who would show him the secrets of the chamber in the castle tower …

  Vicki’s phone lay on the bedside table. She stared at it, wishing with all her heart that a text would arrive from Lee. Vicki knew that Susan – the witch! – had somehow tagged along with Lee and his friends to play bowling tonight. Fiery images zinged through her mind of Susan laughing and flirting with Lee, and of them eating hamburgers after the game. And after that?

  After that … well, that’s when Vicki’s imagination went red hot. All kinds of images flickered inside her head. Horrible ones that made her so angry she wanted to scream at the walls of this stupid house that was miles from anywhere. She checked the phone. At least she had a signal now. Perhaps it was something to do with the weather? Had it made reception better? It meant there was a chance, just a chance, that Lee might text, or even call. The sound of his voice would tell her if everything was OK between them.

  ‘I’m going to stay awake all night, if I have to,’ she murmured.

  Yet a moment later her head sank back into the pillow. Her breathing became slower, more rhythmic, as she fell into a deep, dreamless blackness.

  Oliver Tolworth had been woken by sounds coming from his parent’s bedroom below his. He occupied the attic room, which faced that mysterious expanse of moorland. He sat up in bed, looking through the window. The world was black out there. The breeze made ghostly sounds in the trees … the sound of ghost creatures, he decided. Usually, such images of phantom monsters running through his head would keep him awake; however, he was tired after the long journey from London today. Oliver lay down and soon fell asleep, lulled by the sounds of the breeze in the forest.

  Fletcher Brown had been to see his mother in hospital. He sat on his bed and drew a picture of her: tubes coming out of her arms, dark rings under her eyes, those machines bleeping by the side of her bed. He sketched a coffin standing against the wall next to her bed. The coffin hadn’t been there in real life, but the twelve year old decided it should go into the picture anyway as a vision, as it were, of things to come. He drew a grave, too. He wrote the line: The grave worms are hungry, Mother.

  Fletcher put the paper and pencil down on the floor beside his bed. Resting his head down on the pillow, he said quite loudly to himself, ‘That’s it. I’m going to the Land of Nod.’

  In no time at all he was there.

  Philip Arthur Gordon Kemmis sat in the armchair next to his bedroom window. He’d taken more pills than he should have done. These were the ones that were supposed to damp down his anxiety and fend off hallucinations. They didn’t always work. Sometimes, even though his mind was swimmy and unfocused by the drug, he saw figures walking from the castle to the gatehouse where he lived. He looked out of the window into the darkness. Yes, not too dark to see. A shadow moved with such an ominous intent towards the gatehouse. That’s the body language of a murderer, he told himself. An assassin moves like that when they’re closing in for the kill.

  Philip told himself to stay awake. The safety of those who lived in the castle grounds depended on him tonight. It was his duty to protect them. He decided he should warn David Brown in the neighbouring apartment that a menacing figure approached the gatehouse. He attempted to rise from the chair. His limbs felt so heavy … The pills had dissolved into his bloodstream and were melting consciousness away.

  ‘Don’t you come here!’ He directed the order at the figure on the driveway. ‘Don’t you dare …’

  His eyes closed, and his head rolled back as he sat there in the chair. Philip’s breathing wasn’t relaxed. It made a crackling sound in his throat. What’s more, his body twitched as he slept.

  The walker approached the gatehouse. The shape of Philip Kemmis’s head was visible as he slept in the armchair. The figure passed by in the darkness. At one window it glanced in to see the sleeping boy. A picture of a woman lying in a bed was on the floor. Words were visible on the drawing: The grave worms are hungry, Mother.

  The walker continued. It passed a line of cottages between the forest and the meadow. Midnight was long gone now. Only foxes, badgers and the other night creatures were awake. They darted away from the walker. It was as if an oppressive force had descended on to the landscape. Animals retreated to their burrows. Bats deserted the area as if alarmed by an unseen predator. Stars vanished as thick cloud flooded the sky. And the breeze gave a ghostly cry as it died away.

  TEN

  The rainfall of the previous night had been heavy. The trees that spread their massive branches over the lane, as if trying to imitate a green tunnel, dripped water on to John Tolworth. He held a plastic file over his head to prevent his hair getting soaked. The time was coming up to ten on that Saturday morning. Even though he didn’t start work until Monday, he decided to visit the lab where he’d be based. This was in the castle itself. He was looking forward to his month’s tenure here. The work on the Egyptian artefacts interested him in its own right. What’s more, this was a beautiful part of England; there’d be plenty of free time to spend with his family, either relaxing at home, or walking through the countryside, or visiting the beach, which was no more than fifteen minutes away by car. He felt good: yes, he was going to like it here.

  He even relished the commute to work. This would involve a ten-minu
te stroll from the cottage, following this lane for a couple of hundred yards, before taking a path that led uphill to Baverstock Castle. There’d be no battling through crowded stations to find there were no vacant seats on the train.

  ‘This, as the saying goes,’ he murmured to himself, ‘is the life.’

  Rabbits hopped across the lane. Even though water dripped on to him from saturated leaves, he glimpsed blue sky through the branches. The weather was improving. Perhaps they’d have a barbecue on the lawn later.

  John noticed the oddity straight away when it presented itself there, in a patch of soft mud, at the side of the road. A footprint. A bare footprint. He clearly saw individual toes splayed out. That’s strange, he thought. It’s summer, but would anyone walk barefoot along a road, even a private road like this one? He raised his eyes, following the line of footprints. The footprints stopped at a pair of bare feet. Startled, John looked up and found a pair of bright eyes glaring at him.

  John immediately recognized the man standing there. ‘Philip? Philip Kemmis?’

  The man flinched back as if expecting John to scream abuse, or even to attack him.

  John’s scalp prickled; the man’s frightened reaction unsettled him. ‘Philip, it’s me, John Tolworth. You remember me, don’t you? We knew each other when we were boys.’

  Philip Kemmis stepped out of the gloom. He wore a black sweater with black jeans. His feet were bare. Red lines ran across the top of the pale skin of his feet. Scratches from brambles and thorns, John surmised. He’s hurt himself walking around barefoot. Philip bared his teeth – John believed the man was trying to smile, only he was so frightened that the expression became a snarl.

  Taking another step closer, Philip suddenly said, ‘Yes, yes, I remember you, John. I was eleven the last time I saw you … You would have been …’

  ‘Ten.’ John lowered the plastic file that he’d been using to shield his head against the dripping branches. ‘How are you?’ Yes, a polite thing to ask, and perfectly normal, as a rule.

  However, Philip made a sound that seemed like a failed attempt at laughter. ‘Mixed fortunes. Had to sell the castle. Falling down around my ears it was. I’m still “Lord” Kemmis, though. Couldn’t sell the title. Oh … and I lost this, too.’ He held up an arm.

  John saw that the hand ended at a bare stump. The wrist tapered to a point; its flesh was puckered with scars.

  Philip tried to smile. ‘Believe me, old boy, their bite is definitely worse than their bark.’

  John decided he couldn’t let yesterday’s incident pass without raising it now he was face-to-face with Philip. ‘When I arrived here yesterday you ran at the car and started hitting it. What was all that about? Did I do something to make you angry when we were children?’

  ‘Far from it. You were my friend, John. I was trying to help … I saw them in the car with you.’

  ‘My family?’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t have seen what they really were. No one does.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Philip, I don’t understand what you mean. Who did you see in the car?’

  ‘Ha. Who did I see in the car? What did I see?’

  John felt a degree of confusion along with increasing anger. He remembered how much this man had frightened his son and daughter when he pounded the windows with his fist. Then he’d been wearing black gloves, no doubt to conceal the fact that one of his hands was artificial.

  John took a step forwards. ‘You really did scare my family. Why did you do that?’

  ‘Even though I haven’t seen you in thirty years, I still consider you to be my friend. You were the closest friend I’d ever had.’ The barefooted man became even more jittery. ‘That night … everything went wrong. This happened.’ Once more he brandished the shocking stump of a wrist. ‘Since then, I’ve been trapped in a living hell. Pills, nightmares! I try to hold it together, but I know I’m losing the battle. They’ll win in the end!’

  With that, he turned and sped away through the trees. John could have believed he was watching a wild animal flee in terror. He shook his head, both baffled and shocked by this strange meeting. ‘They’ll win in the end.’ The man’s statement was a peculiar one; disturbing, too, as if he was locked in a battle with an implacable enemy.

  The bizarre encounter left John shaken, even a little sick to his stomach, if truth be told. His old friend seemed such a tragic figure. John could only conclude that Lord Philip Kemmis had been affected by some mental illness. The man’s peculiar statements, including, ‘I saw them in the car with you,’ reinforced John’s opinion that Philip was unstable. John was still thinking about his childhood friend when he arrived at the castle.

  Greg Foster, attired in a white shirt, blue tie and grey trousers, held a ladder while a man worked on a CCTV camera above the main door. John told Greg that he planned to take a look at the lab where he’d be working before he started on Monday morning.

  ‘Good idea.’ Greg beamed happily. ‘Take the main staircase to the next floor, turn left and you’ll see signs marked “Technical Laboratory”. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thanks, Greg.’

  ‘Oh, and you’ll find Samantha Oldfield there, our osteoarchaeologist. Can I ask you to introduce yourself? I’m going to be tied up here. I’m chief ladder holder. Are you OK up there, Alan?’

  ‘If you can just keep your foot pressed down on the bottom rung of the ladder. She’s sliding a bit.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry.’ Greg placed his foot on the rung. ‘Only another twenty-two cameras to go. See you later, John.’

  John headed upstairs, as directed, and found the lab without any trouble. The Technical Laboratory, as it was described on the door, had been formed from a large room with views over the driveway to the gatehouse. There were long tables that appeared to be covered with objects; however, these were shrouded with white sheets so John couldn’t tell what was there. He supposed they’d be various historical artefacts waiting to be cleaned-up and restored before going back on display in time for the castle being opened to the paying public. He noted the usual array of equipment that would be found in a lab like this – microscopes, computers, storage trays, shelves of files, display boards full of photographs, charts, printouts of emails, an invitation to a barbecue (today’s date, and: ‘Bring bottles, cans, cake.’). There were also the usual notices written by exasperated members of staff that hinted at past lapses in lab etiquette: ‘DO NOT BRING SANDWICHES INTO THE LAB PLEASE!!!’ ‘BREADCRUMBS CONTAMINATE RESULTS.’ ‘HANDLING ARTEFACTS? THEN WEAR GLOVES – ALWAYS, ALWAYS!!!’

  A female voice breezily sang out from across the room: ‘There’s no CCTV going in here, and let me know when you start drilling the walls in the corridor. I don’t want comparatively modern dust getting mixed up with my ancient dust. That ancient dust is my life’s work.’

  John turned to see a woman of around forty with blond hair striding towards him, carrying a mug of coffee. She wore a white lab coat, yet John could tell she had an amazing athletic build. She was tall, too, and reminded him of Greek statues of Diana the huntress. He could just picture her in a forest hunting down a stag with a bow and arrow.

  ‘Your ancient dust is safe.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not the CCTV man.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m John Tolworth.’

  ‘Oh, the papyrus man? You’ve been hired to do the impossible, haven’t you? Gosh, have you seen the state of the papyri? They must have been ripped into a million pieces.’

  ‘Me and my computer software have achieved the impossible before.’

  ‘Sorry, should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? Osteoarchaeologists, such as moi, spend so much time with the dead that we forget how to be socially polite with the living. I’m Samantha Oldfield.’ She thrust out her hand. ‘We’ll be neighbours as well as colleagues.’

  He shook her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Samantha.’

  ‘Of course, I shouldn’t be here, we’re not obliged to work weekends, but this work is compulsive. It’s like having an
unfinished jigsaw. I can’t resist popping in and tinkering. Besides, I’m waiting for DNA test results on my specimens.’

  ‘From the mummies?’

  ‘Indeed so. I’m excited as a wee child waiting for Christmas Day. I think my family of mummies here will spring amazing surprises. Coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks. I had one just before I came out.’

  ‘You will come to our barbecue this afternoon? We’re convening at three, and there will be food and drink, plenty of drink. My husband is on a mission this morning to buy kegs of cider, that potent stuff they brew on farms here.’

  ‘Thank you, yes, that’d be great.’

  ‘Of course, bring the family. I’ve got two sons. My youngest is pining for someone of his own age to talk about computer games and air rifles and all that boy-stuff.’

  ‘We’ve got wine and beer. I’ll bring that over.’

  ‘Super.’ She beamed cheerfully. ‘Just a warning, though. If my husband invites you into his recording studio, make any excuse you can and stay away.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He composes music using the Found Sound Process.’ She pushed her blond hair from her eyes. ‘Do you know what Found Sound is?’

  ‘Not really, other than I guess it’s found.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She gave a pretend shudder of horror. ‘Tom records sounds in the environment – car engines, wind in the trees, dogs’ barking, you name it, then he processes the sound, slows it down, speeds it up, and generally manipulates the hell out of it, then he puts all those weird noises together to form music – of sorts. Tom is a lovely man, but if you find yourself in his studio he’ll talk about Found Sound until you surrender the will to live.’