The Black Room (14 page)

“Lorn! Where are you? LORN!”

It was Bando's voice. And as she recognized it, she realized why it sounded so close. He was down in the storeroom, very near the wall, and his shouts were coming straight through the secret passage. Because she'd left the entrance open.

Turning around, she began to run back the way she had come. He mustn't find that entrance. He mustn't come through. And she had to stop him shouting, before anyone else came down to see what was going on.

When she reached the rough stones of the new wall, she flung herself down onto her knees, going feet first into the passage. As soon as she was in, she pulled the loose stone after her, to seal the entrance. Then she wriggled backward as fast as she could, desperate to get through.

Speed made her careless. Once she was in the passage, she stopped listening and thinking, and all her energy went into moving. She had no idea why Bando was blundering around the storeroom in the dark, but as long as he was on his own, she was sure she could stop him from suspecting anything.

She hadn't counted on coming out right beside him.

He'd given up shouting. He was standing in the dark, leaning against the wall, and as she slid out of the passage, her legs brushed against his ankles. He yelped and bent down to push them away.

“Get off!” he said, sounding panicky and disgusted.

Then his fingers closed around her right ankle, and she felt him hesitate.

“It's all right, Bando,” she hissed. “It's only me.”

But it was too late. He'd found the entrance to the secret passage. She heard him catch his breath as he turned toward her, and his voice was shrill with panic.

“You've been through the wall, haven't you?
You've been in the tunnel!”

17

BY THE TIME TOM GOT BACK TO THE PLACE WHERE THEY'D left their bikes, he was so tired that he could hardly stand. As he slid down the embankment, he didn't know how he was going to climb the rickety fence.

But Robert was there, waiting for him in the dark. Robert hauled him over onto the waste ground and guided him across it.

“Are you OK? I thought you were never coming. What happened?”

“I went down—I saw—” Tom couldn't dredge up the right words to explain. His exhausted brain refused to work. He wasn't even sure how much of what he'd seen was real and how much was imagination.

Robert gave him a careful look. “Save it,” he said. “We can talk tomorrow. You need to concentrate on getting home while you can still cycle.”

“But that house—”

“Tomorrow.” Robert bent down and unlocked the bikes. “If we start talking now, we'll be out till midnight—and there'll be too many questions to answer. Come around tomorrow morning, and then we can try and make sense of it all.”

For once, Tom was happy to be ordered around. He wobbled his way home, with Robert cycling carefully behind him, and went to bed as soon as he got in—before his mother had time to notice the state of his clothes.

Maybe it would all be clear and ordinary in the morning. He was just overreacting because he was so tired. There had to be a simple explanation for what he'd seen. There had to be.

 

“HOW DO YOU KNOW IT WAS A SECRET ROOM?” EMMA said. “And not just a hole under the floor?”

That was the question Tom had been asking himself ever since he woke up. He'd been so sure, last night. But what had he actually seen? Just a dark space with a trapdoor. It was probably the place where they kept their barbecue.

He shook his head. “It's not
what
I saw. It's the way they covered it up, with the rug and the television. It's a pointless place to put a television. And they seem desperate to keep people out. There's a hedge
and
a fence
and
blinds
and
a security light.”

Emma shrugged and sat back on her bed. “So maybe they keep their money under the floor instead of putting it in the bank. It's a nutty thing to do, but it's none of our business.”

“Except that Lorn's in there somewhere,” Robert said.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Just because that woman looked a bit like her?”

“She looks
exactly
like her. And there's the plait, as well.” Robert chewed at his lip. “It's weird, Em. You've got to admit that.”

“Maybe you're the one who's weird,” Emma said. But it was a joke. Even Tom could tell that. She looked carefully at him. “Tell us again, Tom. Why are you so sure there's something strange about this hole under the floor?”

Tom didn't know where to start. There was the way Mr. Armstrong had driven Robert away. Twice. And there was the woman, with her scrubbing and talking to no one. And—

“There was a tray,” he said slowly. He'd almost forgotten it until that moment, but now he could see it clearly in his mind. Bright, colored plastic, with food smeared across it.

“I saw that, too,” Robert said. “It was just someone's supper.

“But you didn't see it afterward. All messed up with food.” Tom shook his head. “Mr. Armstrong wouldn't have done that, would he? Nor would the woman. You ought to have seen how she cleaned up afterward. And there was something else on the tray, too, when we first saw it. Something not connected with food. But I can't remember—”

He screwed his face up, trying to picture how the tray had looked when they first saw it, but the images slid away too quickly to grasp.

“Here.” Emma pushed a piece of paper at him. “Try and draw it. That's what I do when I can't remember something.”

Tom scrawled a rectangle on the paper and then a circle inside it. “That's the dish. Bright red plastic, with a spoon to match. And there was a dishcloth here. It was folded up in the beginning.” He sketched it in. “And over
here—
” His pen hovered over the paper, but he didn't know what to draw. “There was another bright thing—but not red. Yellow, maybe. And tall.”

“I remember that.” Robert nodded. “It was a drink. One of those plastic sports bottles with a top you can suck.”

“Oh, yes.” Tom was vaguely disappointed. He'd been certain it was something odder. He drew another, smaller, circle on his diagram and frowned down at the space that was left. “Oh, and there was a pair of scissors, too.”

“Scissors?”
Emma said. “What were they for?”

Tom shrugged. “No idea.”

Robert reached over and took the pen out of his hand. “They were for cutting,” he said in an odd voice. Carefully he drew in the scissors—and then another circle next to them. “Don't you remember, Tosh? There were three bright colors. Red and yellow and—”

“And blue,” Tom said slowly. That was it. The thing he'd been trying to remember. “There was a ball of
blue wool
on the tray. Just like—”

“Just like the wool she used for that braid on the sports bag.” Robert put the pen down, very carefully, on Emma's bedside table. He stared at the diagram. “Was it still there when you saw the tray again?”

Tom shook his head. “Only the scissors.”

“Lorn's in that house somewhere,” Robert said stubbornly. “We've got to go back and look again.”

“But how can we?” said Tom. “They've already threatened you with the police. They've even got a picture of you.”

“What do you want me to do?” Robert said fiercely. “Walk away and forget all about it? Suppose there's something
really
bad going on in that house? If there
is
a room under the floor, maybe Lorn's a prisoner down there. A
hostage
.”

“Oh come on, Robbo. You're getting carried away. It's not going to be anything like that,” Tom said. And he laughed—but it was a nervous laugh. Robert was getting things out of proportion. Just because there was a hole under the floor, it didn't mean—

But Robert and Emma weren't laughing. They were both looking at him with sad, steady eyes. Almost pitying.

“How come you're so sure?” Emma said. “You think bad things never happen?”

“You think all the stuff you read in the papers is fiction?” said Robert.

Tom shuffled uncomfortably. “No, of course not. But it doesn't happen everywhere, does it? Not all the time. There's probably a very dull explanation for all this.”

“Let's find out,” Emma said briskly. “We're not going to discover anything by talking. We need to figure out how we're going to take a look inside that secret room.”

“So how are you going to do that?” Tom said. “Knock on the front door and ask them to let you in?”

Emma raised her eyebrows at him. “What's the matter? Scared?”

Her voice was starting to get spiky. Hag-like.
She hasn't changed at all,
Tom thought.
She wants to tell both of us what to do.

“Of course he's scared,” Robert said impatiently. “You'd be scared, too, if you'd seen that man. But it doesn't mean we're giving up. We want to find out what's going on inside that house, just as much as you do. Don't we, Tosh?”

“If we can,” Tom said cautiously.

“We need a double-pronged attack.” Emma leaned forward and lowered her voice. “If we skip school tomorrow morning, and I borrow Helga ...”

18

IT SOUNDED LIKE A BRILLIANTLY SIMPLE PLAN. I'll go to
the front door and distract them, and then you two can take a good look around the back. And if you can't find a way in
—
then maybe Helga will find one for me.
Even though it came from Emma, Tom was happy to give it a try. He was even prepared to cut school—because that meant Warren would be out. And one of his parents, too, with any luck.

The only problem was that Emma didn't have a clue about dogs. She thought Helga could be passed around like a parcel, and she expected her to trot along obediently, like a little wooden dog on wheels, doing exactly what she was told. The real Helga was a bit of a shock.

When Tom handed over her leash on Monday morning, Helga went crazy.

It wasn't Helga's fault. Tom had taken her for her usual early walk and then pretended to go off to school. When he came sneaking back—as soon as the house was empty—Helga thought she was in for a wonderful treat. Especially when she found they were going out again. She'd bounced through the front door, grinning ecstatically and licking any bit of Tom that she could reach.

And then he'd given her leash to Emma. Of all people.

She started barking reproachfully, straining at the leash and growling when Emma bent down to talk to her.

“What's gotten into her?” Robert said. “She's such a friendly dog. What's she got against Emma?”

Tom tried not to remember all the times he and Helga had shadowed Robert and Emma. The times he'd muttered and grumbled in Helga's ear.
Hag! Bite her ears off, Helga! Chase her into a bog! Rip up her tights!
Helga might not have understood the words, but she wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what Tom thought about Emma.

What he
used
to think.

“She's going to ruin the whole plan,” Emma said crossly. “Do something, Tom.”

There was only one thing Tom could think of. He edged cautiously up to Emma. “Sorry about this, but it's the quickest way.” He gave her a huge grin and then put a tentative arm around her shoulders.

“You might as well do it properly,” Emma said briskly. Without letting go of the leash, she turned around and gave him a quick, hard hug. “Do you think she's got the message now?”

Somehow Tom managed to catch his breath. “I hope so,” he said. And then—in case Emma took that the wrong way—“Just don't snap. She won't like that. Be nice to me.”

“That's going to be really tough,” Emma said. She grinned. “Anything to keep the dog happy, though.”

“She's not called The Dog. Her name's Helga.” Tom bent down and gave Helga a pat. “Go with Emma now. All right? She's a friend.”

Helga gave him a wary look, but she stopped pulling at the leash. She watched as Tom and Robert climbed onto their bikes and let them go without anything more than a whine.

“D‘you think she'll be all right?” Robert looked back anxiously as they cycled away.

“She'll be fine,” Tom said. “She's been on buses before.”

“I didn't mean Helga. I meant Em.”

That was a new one. Robert looking after Emma. Tom tried not to laugh.

“No need to worry about Emma,” he said. “We're the ones taking risks. We'll be lucky if we get through this without being caught.”

 

ONCE THEY'D HIDDEN THEIR BIKES ON THE WASTE GROUND, they were up on the embankment in a couple of minutes. Immediately, Robert began to thread his way through the brambles and the tangled hawthorn bushes. It took Tom a while to realize that they were following exactly the same track they'd used on Saturday night.

“How can you remember?” he hissed next time they stopped. “It all looks the same to me.”

Robert grunted. “Practice. Now shut up, or someone's going to hear us.”

He didn't stop again until they were level with the top of the cypress trees. Then he took out his phone to let Emma know they'd reached the back of the Armstrongs' house.

“Hang on a minute,” Tom muttered. “Let's have a look first.”

It was a shock to see the conservatory looking so—ordinary. He'd been thinking about it for thirty-six hours, almost without stopping, and it had grown and distorted in his mind, turning into an evil cartoon full of dark shadows and threatening corners. But it was just a conservatory. The windows were clean. The floor was polished. The furniture was neatly arranged, with the chair pushed in at the table and the television standing square in the middle of the red rug.