Out of Sight (16 page)

Poppy wanted to ask Marley if she saw all the color but decided not to push her luck.

“We’re looking for an angel with long hair but no headdress,” Poppy said. “We just started.”

Immediately, Marley looked in one direction after another, obviously seeking out angels where she already knew they stood, or knelt, or sat. “I don’t remember one like that.”

Mario snuffled his way across the gravel path, lifted his head as if listening, and streaked out of sight again.

“That dog is weird,” Sykes said. “Cute, but weird.”

“He’s lovely,” Poppy told him, watching the exit of the lovely, weird animal. “At least he moves as if he’s got a purpose. Look at all of us standing here, not knowing what to do next.”

“And the dog does?” Sykes sounded tolerant but amused.

Poppy started out, looking at one statue after another until she assumed the other two were also looking. Then she took off after Mario. When she could, she would have a dog of her own.

A tiled pathway ran in front of all sides of the build
ings fronting the courtyard. The lowest floor housed storerooms, some with barred windows, all with very large doors painted green.

“There are some on the door and window lintels,” Sykes said, catching up with her.

She frowned. “Oh, you mean angels? Those things mostly look like gargoyles to me.”

“Most of them are,” Marley said, appearing around the next corner.

“Why is this blocked off?” Poppy checked out a concreted-up area in one wall. It was hard to tell if there had once been a door there or if the bricks had needed repair.

“Don’t know,” Marley said. “It was always like that.”

Scrabbling sounded and they all searched for the source.

Sykes shrugged, but more scratching and scrabbling followed.

Poppy stared at the foot of the patched wall, pointed, then got down on her knees. A gap the size of a tennis ball showed where the wall met the tiles.

“This is where the noise is coming from,” she said.

Both Marley and Sykes came to take a closer look.

“Ew, mice,” Marley said, leaping back.

Several animal whiskers poked through the hole. Grubby whiskers.

“Not mice,” Poppy said. “Mario.”

“Damn dog.” Sykes went to the nearest door and slid it open on rusty tracks.

They all crowded inside only to find a high-ceilinged, empty and very dusty space. Exploration showed it didn’t extend to the repaired section of wall.

Single file behind Sykes, they left the place, closed the door and headed for the one on the other side of the patch. The door into this one revealed piles of broken pieces of furniture.

“Don’t laugh,” Marley said. “But I store some of my stuff here.”

Poppy knew Marley was a restorer, particularly of lacquer, silvering, gilt and various exotic finishes.

Sykes was already examining the exterior wall. He worked his way to the corner and threw up his hands. “I’m damned,” he said. “Know what I think? There’s a space between this room and the one we were just in. It looks like it was walled off years ago and I don’t see any way in.”

Marley looked stricken. “There has to be. Mario’s in there and he didn’t crawl through that little hole.”

“O
kay,” Sykes said. “Stop panicking, you two. We’ll get him out.”

“Who’s panicking?” Marley said.

He crouched beside the hole, poked a finger through and felt Mario’s tongue giving it a lick. “I am,” he said. “Shoot, I’m going to have to break in there and if I’m really unlucky, I’ll hurt him in the process.”

“Cool it,” Poppy said.

“
Cool
it?” Sykes and Marley replied in unison.

“He got in there somehow, didn’t he? He’ll get out again when he’s ready.”

“If he can find the way in and out again,” Marley said. “You know how that goes sometimes. Sort of like a maze.”

Pascal’s voice thundered through the courtyard, “Where are you? What’s going on?”

To Sykes it seemed as if the soft whispering sounds around them rapidly rose to hoarse bellowing. “Over here,” he called back. He dropped his voice and added, “Do we have to tell him?”

“I’m not lying to Pascal,” Marley said.

David accompanied Pascal, his arms behind his back and his step tentative.

“Hey, David,” Sykes said. So far he hadn’t found anything in the boy to dislike—other than the multiple piercings.

“Hey,” David said.

“Is your dad dragging you into a family fracas already?” Poppy said.

The boy laughed politely.

So,
Sykes thought,
if Pascal had told Poppy about his son then the fatherly instincts were already in full bloom.
“Have you met Marley, yet, David?”

“Yep. And Anthony and Gray.”

Pascal beamed. “So what’s all the racket about out here?”

Sykes looked silently at the ground and he didn’t hear either Poppy or Marley rush to explain.

“Oh, you might as well know. Mario’s got himself into a jam. He’s in there.” Sykes pointed to the small hole at the base of the wall. “We can’t find where he got in and I doubt he can remember, so it looks as if I’ll have to start knocking down walls.”

Puffing with exasperation, Pascal headed for the door on the left.

“You won’t find him in there.”

Pascal halted and set off for the door on the right. This time they didn’t say anything and he went inside. They heard the overhead light snap on and very soon, Pascal’s exclamation.

Out he stomped, glaring at them as he went by, and back inside at the door on the left.

This time he didn’t say a word but emerged after a few minutes and stood before the patched wall. “Walled off,” he muttered. “This bit. It’s always looked like this and I never thought anything of it. How big is it in there, d’you think?”

“Six or seven feet wide,” Sykes suggested. “And probably the same depth as everything else on this side.”

“Poor little Mario,” Poppy said. “We’d better keep talking to him. We can push food through if we have to.”

“I want Gray to get home,” Marley said, sounding forlorn and not at all like herself. “It’s getting dark. He’ll figure out how to get him out.”

Poppy elbowed Sykes in the ribs and gave him a sideways smile.

He knew when he was being told to bury his ego.

“Easy enough,” Pascal said. “We’ll knock the wall down.”

“You could kill Mario,” Marley said.

“Not if we take a pickax, stick it in that little hole and work till it’s bigger. Dogs are smart. He’ll back off while we’re making a lot of noise and dust.”

“Hey, fella!”

They all turned to David who dropped to his knees at the edge of the nearest planting bed and gathered good old Mario into his arms.

“How did you get back out?” David said. “We’re gonna change your name to Houdini.”

“O
kay, folks. Disaster averted. We can all go home.” Sykes stood against the patched wall and raised a hand as if to wave the rest of them off. He settled a hand on the back of Poppy’s neck.

“No, no, no,” Pascal said, turning up one corner of his mouth. “Not this time, my friend. Don’t forget I know all about your ego. You want to find out what’s inside that space and you want to do it all on your own. Then you’ll announce it to the rest of us so we can tell you how brilliant you are.”

“Maligned,” Sykes said and kept a straight face. “No such thing. It’s getting late and we all have more important things to do. Maybe we should wait till Ben and Willow come home before we fess up to almost losing their dog.”

“We didn’t almost lose him,” David said, still holding the happily settled Mario. “He went in there and got bored. So he came out.”

Sykes avoided congratulating him on saying the
obvious. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll take him up with me if you like.”

Mario launched himself from David’s arms and Sykes had to catch him. “Whoa. Welcome, I guess. You’d think he understands what we say.”

Nobody was moving.

“I’ve got an idea,” Pascal said. “You said something about a pickax, Sykes. If you know where one is, why don’t you get it. There’s a heavy flashlight in Willow’s store at the end—if the Mean ’n Green group hasn’t nicked it.”

Mean ’n Green was Willow’s concierge company, run in her absence by one Zinnia, and assistants Chris and Fabio. Chris and Fabio had almost been Embran casualties, together with Caroline who was now Chris’s constant companion.

As soon as Pascal set off, Sykes said, “The rest of you don’t need to hang around. I’ll let you know if we find a stash of Rembrandts in there.”

Marley leaned her back against the wall.

David widened his stance and put his hands behind his back. Without the sunglasses his eye was a mess.

Poppy smiled up at Sykes. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you here on your own to work. You must be tired after all you’ve been though.” Her voice was sweet but the look she gave him, definitely suggestive.

“Okay, okay.” He shook his head, gave Mario to Poppy and went back into the storeroom to the left of the concreted wall where he thought he had seen a
pickax. He found it too quickly and actually considered saying he hadn’t found it at all. “Shape up, Millet,” he told himself under his breath.

Pascal arrived outside the door as Sykes emerged with the pickax.

“We’d better go through from the inside,” Sykes said. “Keep the rain from getting through the outside wall.”

Leading the way, Pascal chose the storeroom on the right because it was empty and switched on a big and brilliant flashlight as he went. Bricks in the added wall looked as old as the rest but Sykes didn’t comment.

“Maybe they changed their minds when they were building the place,” Marley said.

“Could be the spans were too wide or something,” Poppy added.

“Mmm” was all Sykes said. He wasn’t sure what he thought except that the space was damn strange.

“Now,” Pascal said. “I wonder where the best place would be.”

The rest crowded in behind Sykes. If he swung the pickax, he’d kill someone.

“Eye-level,” David said. “Doesn’t make much difference but that way it’ll be easier to look in there.”

Sykes placed the pointed end of the pickax against the wall and gave a significant look around to make them all back off.

“Lower,” David said. “Marley wouldn’t be able to see through there without a ladder.”

Muffling a retort about smartass kids, Sykes moved
the tool down the wall and gave an experimental tap. Dry old mortar crumbled away easily. He tapped again and broke straight through. A bump with the end of the handle sent first one, then two abutting bricks through to the other side.

“What can you see?” Marley said.

The look she got from Sykes only make her snigger.

He used the straight edge of the pickax head and pulled the next brick in his direction, stepping out of the way when it fell. Four more and there was enough room to put an arm and a head through. “Flashlight,” he said without meeting Pascal’s eyes.

He got the rubber-coated flashlight slapped into his palm and aimed the business end through the hole.

Carefully, he put his head into the space and gradually swept the light beam around then swept it carefully back and forth. Cobwebs draped his hair and he couldn’t brush them away.

He felt hands on his back.

“What’s in there?” Poppy said. “What do you see?”

Sykes worked himself forward until his head was all the way through and looked all around. “I’m damned,” he said.

“What?” It was a chorus.

Slowly, he withdrew. He made for the door and fresh air. “Stinks in there. Stale.”

“Well?” Pascal demanded.

“Nothing,” Sykes said. “Nada. Not a thing. It’s empty. Except for rat droppings.”

“Y
ou don’t think one of the others will have the same idea?” Poppy whispered, although there was no way anyone but Sykes could hear her.

They had turned on the light in Sykes’s living room, waited half an hour and now stood in the dark hall near the front door, listening for any movement outside.

He held Mario who bristled with attention. “Knowing how we are, anything’s possible. Marley won’t go down there without Gray. Or I don’t think she will. Pascal’s the one who might sneak back, but he said we’d wait till morning to take another look.”

“Sneak?”
Poppy said. She guessed most people justified their own actions. “What are we planning to do, if it’s not to sneak back?”

He leaned across and kissed the end of her nose. “That’s different,” he said. “We could wait in the living room.”

“No. We have to be able to look for lights in the windows without being seen.”

“And we do that, how?”

“Look through the mail slot.”

He grunted. “I don’t even know if it still opens. It isn’t used.”

Tentatively, Poppy took hold of the flap and lifted. The thing creaked enough to make her wince, but it did open. She bent down and peered through. “Everything’s dark.”

“They could all be waiting to go back to that storeroom and investigate some more.”

Poppy snorted. “So we all bump into each other down there. Then we all look stupid.”

“You’ve got a point.” Sykes was quiet for a moment. Then he said. “I think it’s important for me to go on my own—with Mario.”

“Why?” She crossed her arms.

“It’s hard to explain but…Poppy, I think I’m the one who should do this. Can we leave it at that?”

“I’m coming with you. Don’t talk about that anymore.”

He puffed out an exasperated breath.

“Are you sure no one will see light when we open this door?” Poppy said.

“As close to no light as possible,” he responded.

He looked through the mail slot himself, then turned his ear to it and listened.

Poppy almost started tapping her toe but stopped herself.

“I’m going now,” Sykes said, standing up.

“Good.” She wouldn’t say anything argumentative but she also wouldn’t miss any action.

Sykes opened the door a couple of inches and with great caution.

They waited again and then he slipped outside with Poppy behind him. He closed the door with equal care.

“The stairs can sound like gongs if you’re not careful,” he whispered into her ear.

Poppy nodded and they set off, single file, not stopping until they walked inside the empty storeroom to the right of the walled-off space.

Poppy put her mouth to Sykes’s ear. “We’ve got to be careful with the flashlight. It could show under the door.”

He nodded and slid the door shut painfully slowly. “If they see it, they see it. We can’t pack the whole door. I’ll try to keep the light away.”

They looked at each other in the faint upward glow from the flashlight Sykes aimed at the wall. Then they looked at Mario who continued to be all bristling whiskers and bright black eyes.

“Put him down,” Poppy said.

Sykes did so and Mario promptly sat between them, looking from one to the other.

“They don’t have long memories, do they?” Sykes said. “He’s probably forgotten all about what he did earlier.”

“We don’t know which side he got in from,” Poppy said.

“David picked him up outside this one.”

She wasn’t convinced that proved anything.

Sykes began running a hand from brick to brick along the length of the wall, pressing as he went. Poppy followed him, taking the next row.

“Maybe he’ll get bored watching us and go in there,” Poppy said.

“We could have brought something he likes to eat and pushed it through the wall outside.” Sykes kept moving. “If he could smell it in there he might go after it.”

“Shall I go get something?”

Sykes said, “No, one thing at a time.”

Poppy knew they worked there a long time. Her fingertips grew sore from the rough bricks but she kept going. “Hey.” She stood still. “There’s no reason we can’t just knock enough of the wall out to get in there. That’s what they’ll do tomorrow.”

“Noise.” He turned and rested a hand on the back of her neck. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to find anything that’s in there myself. There are answers I need that would make a big difference going forward.”

“Like what?”

He sighed. “Like whether or not I’m the family curse who should be shunned, or if I need to be ready to take things over around here.” He repeated the old theory that because he didn’t have red hair or green eyes like the rest of the Millets, he could bring catastrophe to them as the only other Millet with his coloring had supposedly done.

“That’s ridiculous,” Poppy said. “I bet it was nothing
to do with Jude. And if anyone says there’s something wrong with you, just send them to me and I’ll fix their opinions.”

Sykes swung her against him. “I think I got myself a champion. But for what it’s worth, I agree with you. So does Pascal. He wants me to start taking over. And we have to find the angel we keep being reminded of, and the Harmony, whatever that is—and I think that if it exists, it’s important. And there are some missing pages from a book of rules that might answer all my questions.”

“Or not.”

“Or not,” Sykes agreed. “I just want a chance to find out if there really are any answers and it’s not all just a big flimflam.” He rubbed his lips back and forth on her brow and they clung tighter, shivering.

Poppy’s eyes were just above Sykes’s shoulder level and she peered into the gloomy room. “Where’s Mario?”

Sykes released her and abandoned caution with the flashlight. He swept it around the room. The little red dog wasn’t visible.

“He can’t get out of here,” Poppy said, bemused. “Mario,” she whispered loudly. “Come boy.”

Nothing moved and Sykes kept sweeping the light around.

They both caught their breath at the same time and headed for the farthest corner, the one between the back wall and the wall opposite the one where they had been searching.

Shadows gave a different perspective. The wall to the right sloped inward toward the back, meaning the room got narrower there.

Poppy hurried to the corner. On the ground she saw a small pile of debris and crouched to look at it.

“It doesn’t really meet here. It’s only an illusion that it does.”

Sykes pressed his shoulder against what appeared to be a gap, turned his head sideways. Gradually and with difficulty, he disappeared.

On her feet at once, Poppy followed.

In front of them steps rose, barely wide enough for one person to climb with a lot of caution and hanging on to the walls either side. The space was minute and went almost straight up.

“Why didn’t anyone find this before?” Poppy asked.

“They weren’t looking.” Sykes’s voice came echoing down to her. “Maybe if Marley had used this storeroom instead of the other side, she would have seen it, but I don’t think so. Look on the bright side, someone had a reason for going to great lengths to hide something.”

She felt excited but didn’t say so.

Mario’s face appeared as Sykes’s head cleared the top of the stairs and they stood, nose to nose, until Mario turned away again.

“He’s one weird dog.”

“Don’t let Willow hear you say that,” Poppy said. “Pascal says she’s crazy about him.”

Sykes crawled from the top of the steps into a tunnel,
and Poppy wasn’t far behind. Again, the space was claustrophobically small and went on far too long for Poppy.

“We’re going over the storeroom,” Sykes said. “You don’t have to do this, y’know.”

“Oh, yes I do. Hurry up.”

Eventually they reached the top of another flight of tiny steps. Sykes turned around and started downward.

Poppy had a headache and a stomachache. Tension did those things to her. She followed Sykes’s lead until they slid along another wall arranged to be an optical illusion.

They were inside the false space.

They faced each other. Sykes raised his hands and let them drop.

“We found a nifty hiding place,” Poppy said. “That’s something.”

“It would be if we needed a place to hide.”

“Yuck,” Poppy said. “Now we have to go back. I don’t like it in that tunnel.”

“I’ll be right there with you. Come on, dog.”

Mario stretched out at the base of the patched wall and rested his head on his front paws.

“Come,” Poppy said in her best dog command voice.

He didn’t move.

“He’ll be filthy from lying in all this dust,” she said, hunching over to scratch his head. “Not that he cares.”

“This was a window, not a door,” Sykes said abruptly. “Or a patch in the wall. Someone took out a window and blocked up the hole.”

Glancing up from Mario, Poppy looked straight at a very old but solid horizontal piece of wood. She touched it. “Because of this? You think this is a windowsill? The patch goes all the way down outside.”

“But not inside.” Sykes hunkered down beside her. “None of the other storerooms have windows.”

“Neither does this one, now.” Poppy smirked a little then met Sykes’s eyes and straightened her face. “Do you think this was all one big room once?”

“Could have been.”

Poppy used the old sill to pull herself up. She bent sideways and looked underneath. “It’s solid,” she said. “There should be windows in these spaces to make them lighter.”

“Safer not to have them if you’re storing valuables.” He got up and rapped the wood.

Frowning, Poppy knocked it, too. “Does that sound solid to you?”

Sykes knocked again. “Nope. But it’s probably wormy and falling apart.”

“Look at it.” The piece of dark wood, that was very much out of place, still held a luster.

On his knees this time, Sykes wiggled, pushed and pulled. “Maybe you could move, Mario,” he suggested. “It does feel a bit loose.”

Poppy took the sill in both hands and pulled it completely free of the wall.

“How did you do that?” Sykes said, taking the wood from her. “I must have knocked it free.”

Her very strong hands were something she didn’t usually think about. “You must have,” she said. Her brothers used to make fun of her unscrewing caps their father couldn’t move.

“It doesn’t look rotten,” Sykes said, turning the piece over and over. He held it out in front of him. “It’s perfectly finished.”

“Like a long box,” Poppy said. She touched the bottom and pressed. Nothing happened. The ends were solid.

The side closest to her moved, started to slide open, and she yelped.

“Careful.” Sykes didn’t hide his excitement. He turned the sliding side upward and slipped it all the way open. “I don’t believe it.”

Puzzled, Poppy picked up a roll of pages from inside. She could see writing on them and noted that they appeared to be torn from a book.

About a third of the box held a round case made of leather.

“The Harmony?” Sykes took it out reverently. He made a grab at it when it fell open.

Poppy glanced at him. “What’s that?”

“I’m not sure myself. I hope those pages tell me.”

“It’s another box,” Poppy told him. Her heart thudded. She was afraid to hold the roll of paper too tightly.

“This must have been where the Harmony was, but it’s gone,” Sykes said, and she heard his disappointment.

Through the walls, as if they were made of muslin, traveled an unnaturally cold wind. It blew hard, swirled around them.

Poppy heard wildly agitated voices whispering.