The Piper (17 page)

‘… then on my birthday, my mummy bought me some red velvet ribbons for my hair.’

A short pause.

‘Yes, they were. Red’s my favourite colour.’

Another pause
.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I think that’s a strange colour to like. I …’

Pause.

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you!’

Peter pushed open the door as quietly as possible. Daisy was sitting on the far side of the four-poster bed. She was facing away from him, looking towards the window, where a row of dolls gazed blankly back at her. Daisy carried on talking.

‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it!’

Pause.

‘Of course I know how to dance!’

‘Daisy?’

Peter took a step into the room and Daisy looked back over her shoulder in surprise. She smiled delightedly. ‘Peter! You’re back. They said you’d gone for the night. They said I wouldn’t see you till tomorrow.’

‘I bet they did.’ Peter closed the door gently behind him, then walked around the bed and sat down beside her. ‘Who … who were you talking to?’ he asked her.

‘Oh, just Tillie.’

‘Daisy, listen to me. Tillie is a doll.’

‘Shush!’ Daisy looked very serious. ‘She doesn’t like it when you call her that.
She
thinks she’s a little girl.’

Peter began to smile, but then the smile faded abruptly when he realised that she wasn’t fooling around. Her expression was deadly serious. And then it came to him, something else he’d read in the professor’s book.

Captain Micheaux had bought dolls from a local trader. Dolls he’d intended to take back to France.
Gifts for his daughters
. It was easy to imagine how his murderers might have taken the dolls as souvenirs and given them to their own children. Dolls that would become family heirlooms, handed down from generation to generation. One of them could certainly have ended up here at Sheldon Grange. Had the captain’s spirit somehow found its way into those dolls?

He felt a cold ripple of fear trickling down his spine, making the short hairs on his back of his neck stand up.

‘Daisy. I asked you this before,’ he said. ‘How… how do you know she’s called … Tillie?’

‘She told me. She says that’s the name Miss Alison gave her.’

‘Miss … Alison?’ Peter thought he also remembered that name from Professor Lowell’s book. Instinctively, he reached into his knapsack and took it out. He began to flick through the pages, looking for the right chapter.

‘What’s that?’ asked Daisy.

‘A book.’

‘I can see that, silly, but what book?’

‘It’s a history of the Marsh, written by a local professor.’

‘How did you get it?’

‘He gave it to me. Professor Lowell, his name is. See, his name’s on the cover. I met him when I was out on the Marsh with Adam and he told me to read it …’

‘You met a
writer
?’ Daisy looked astonished. ‘Tillie, Peter says he met a writer. Imagine that!’

Peter glanced up for a moment and looked at the doll, dreading that he might see some kind of animation in that white china face. But she sat there with her companions, staring back at him, her eyes impossibly green, her tiny white teeth set in a mocking grin.

‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘I think it’s jolly exciting too!’

‘Daisy, please stop talking for a moment. I’m trying to read.’

Then Peter found the bit he was looking for.

… on 7th September 1874, a descendant of Jeremiah’s, Oliver Sheldon, the latest owner of the Grange, lost his only child, an eight-year-old daughter, Alison. Again, she drowned in the canal in an almost identical scenario to her ancestors. Accounts of the time claim that she went out, barefoot, in the middle of the night. Some people suggested she might have been sleepwalking …

Dread spilled through him in an icy flood. He closed the book, and when Daisy reached out her hands for it, he let her take it from him. She studied it for a few moments, clearly disappointed. ‘This isn’t a story book,’ she said.

‘No. I told you, it’s history,’ he murmured, his voice toneless.

‘Tillie wants to know what kind of book it is,’ said Daisy.

‘It’s … the truth,’ whispered Peter. ‘Simple as that.’

‘Tillie says you’re lying. She says it’s all made up.’

‘Never mind what
she
says!’ snarled Peter, and was shocked by the anger in his own voice. Daisy recoiled from him and he put a hand out to reassure her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I … I didn’t mean to shout.’ He looked around for something else to talk about, something to blot out the horrible thoughts that were writhing and coiling like a nest of vipers in his head. He noticed a white nightgown lying on the bed, one that he’d never seen before. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

Daisy looked down at it and seemed to relax a little. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she said. ‘It’s an old one of Miss Sally’s, she’s too big for it now. Mrs Beesley said I could have it. I’m to wear it tonight.’

Peter nodded. He was sure now that his suspicions were right. He knew exactly what was going on here and the knowledge filled him with absolute terror. He was shaking, his whole body shuddering with the realisation of the terrible danger Daisy was in.

She was looking towards the window again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I
will
, won’t I?’ She smiled at Peter. ‘Tillie says I’ll look just like Miss Sally.’

Peter felt something click at the back of his skull. He got up from the bed and walked across to the window. He picked up the doll with his left hand and unlatched the window with his right. It might have been his imagination but he thought he felt the doll’s soft body vibrating in his hand – and then there was a brief stinging sensation at the base of his index finger. He grunted and flung the doll out of the window. Then he stared at his hand. A bright trickle of crimson was pulsing from a tiny wound in the fleshy fold at the base of the finger.

‘Why did you do that?’ wailed Daisy. She was sitting on the bed, looking distraught.

‘I didn’t like her,’ said Peter, closing the window and turning back to face his sister. ‘I don’t like dolls that talk. You shouldn’t like them either.’ He showed her his injured hand. ‘I cut myself,’ he said.

‘But … now Mrs Beesley will be angry with us! She said we weren’t to touch the dolls!’

‘We won’t tell her.’ Peter paused to suck at the wound on his hand, the warm, coppery taste of his own blood filling his mouth. He sat down beside Daisy. ‘I’ll get you another doll,’ he assured her. ‘As soon as we’re home.’

‘It won’t be able to talk like Tillie,’ she told him.

‘If we were home, you wouldn’t
want
a doll like that,’ he assured her. ‘You’d see how wrong it was. It’s this place. It makes bad things seem natural.’ He put his right hand on her shoulder. He felt like crying but knew that he mustn’t break down in front of her. He had to stay strong if they were to have any chance of survival. ‘Daisy, listen to me. Tomorrow, we’re leaving. You and me. We’re going home.’

She brightened up at this news. ‘But … we’re supposed to stay here.’

‘I know. That doesn’t matter.’

‘How… how will we get there?’

‘I don’t know, yet. On the train, I suppose. We’ll walk if we have to. And tonight … tonight I’m going to stay here with you.’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’ She looked worried again and he realised that his fear was infectious. He forced himself to smile.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he assured her. ‘I’m … looking after you, that’s all. Like a brother should. Like Mum asked me to. And … it’ll be fun, won’t it? Just the two of us. I’ll read you a bedtime story.’ She nodded. He leaned closer to whisper. ‘But listen, Daisy, this is really important. Don’t say anything to anyone about us leaving. Do you understand? It’s to be our secret. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’ll pack up our cases and we’ll sneak out.’

Daisy looked excited. ‘It’ll be an adventure,’ she said.

‘Yes. An adventure. Our secret.’

He started at the sound of a knock on the door.

‘Children? Your supper’s ready.’ Mrs Beesley’s voice – cold, harsh, hateful.

‘We’re coming,’ he called out. He looked at Daisy again. ‘Remember, now. Not a word to anyone.’

Then they went downstairs for supper.

‘Now,’ said Mrs Beesley, smiling her phoney smile, ‘how about a nice mug of hot milk before bedtime?’

Peter looked across the kitchen table at Daisy. She was nodding eagerly enough and, after a moment’s thought, he agreed too. Despite everything that had happened, he found that he was ravenous. Even the generous portion of meat and mashed potatoes Mrs Beesley had given him for supper had failed to fill him up. He supposed that the long walk across the Marsh must have given him an appetite. Funny how you could be scared half out of your wits and still feel ready to eat. Night had fallen now and the wireless was once again playing a succession of syrupy dance tunes. Peter understood now why she usually had music playing at night. To drown out any other sounds the children might hear. The sound of a pipe playing out in the darkness.

There’d been no sign of Adam since they’d returned. He’d kept himself to himself out in the stables, far from the reproachful eyes and vengeful voice of Mrs Beesley. Peter could imagine him sitting out there, sipping at his bottle of ‘medicine’, no doubt dreading the moment when he would have to account for his failure to keep Peter away from the Grange. Peter realised Adam was much more wary of Mrs Beesley than any curse.

Mrs Beesley had been unusually talkative over supper, as though she was trying to fill the accusing silence that hung in the room. She’d told them how she’d worked here at the Grange since she was a young girl and how Mr Sheldon had taken her in when her parents had died and she’d been left penniless. She’d told them how she owed the Sheldon family everything. She’d even mentioned the late Mrs Sheldon, what a wonderful woman she was, loved by everyone who knew her; and how tragic her death had been. Nobody could understand how a skilled young horsewoman like her could have died the way she did, her horse stumbling out on the Marsh and throwing her. The horse had come down on top of her and she’d been crushed. Peter heard the words, but there was no surprise in any of it. With everything he’d learned it seemed somehow inevitable. The Piper inflicting his long cruel vengeance on the Sheldon family.

Daisy hadn’t had very much to say for herself all through the meal. She’d kept her head down, no doubt nervous about giving something away, about what had happened to Tillie or the secret plan to run away in the morning.

Now Mrs Beesley busied herself at the range, heating up a copper pan of milk. She seemed to take a very long time, hunched over two mugs. ‘I’m just addin’ a bit of sugar,’ she told them. ‘You Lunnen types likes your sugar, don’t you?’ She brought the steaming mugs over to the table and set them down.

Daisy gulped at her milk greedily and Peter took a small sip of his, before setting it down again.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked Mrs Beesley.

‘Er… nothing. I’m not that keen on milk, really.’

‘You should have said! I could make you cocoa, if you prefer.’

‘No, it’s all right,’ he assured her. He lifted the mug back to his lips and took another mouthful.

‘It’ll help you sleep,’ she said, as she walked back over to the sink. ‘You must be proper tired after that long walk across the Marsh. It’s quite a distance, that is. That’s why I told Adam to stop over in Hythe, give you a chance to rest.’

She’d obviously prepared her story while Peter was upstairs, but he didn’t believe her for a moment and knew now that he wouldn’t believe anything else she told him. Besides, he decided, sleep was the last thing he needed tonight. He forced down another mouthful but then, checking that her back was turned, he lifted the lid of the empty teapot on the table and quickly poured the contents of the mug into that. Daisy saw him and opened her mouth to say something, but he lifted a finger to his lips and she nodded.

Mrs Beesley filled the sink from the big kettle on the range and started washing the dishes from supper. ‘So, how did you get on with Adam today?’ she inquired.

‘All right,’ said Peter. ‘We went out to Thursby Lake first. And then we went into Hythe to post the card.’

‘It’s a pretty town, ain’t it?’ said Mrs Beesley.

‘Yes.’ He decided to do a bit of fishing. ‘Actually, when we were there, I visited the church. St Leonard’s?’

‘Oh,’ she said. Peter noticed with a twinge of satisfaction how her shoulders stiffened at this. ‘Did you now?’

‘Yes. It was while Adam was in the pub.’

Now she turned and looked over her shoulder. ‘I thought the two of you might stay there for the night,’ she said. ‘I told Adam, it would be nice for you to get away from the house for a while.’

‘I wanted to come back,’ he told her. ‘To be with Daisy. To look after her.’

‘I’m sure she’s well able to look after herself,’ said Mrs Beesley. She tuned away again.

Peter ignored the comment. ‘It’s an interesting place, St Leonard’s,’ he continued, studying Mrs Beesley’s back as he spoke. ‘The Crypt. Have you ever been down there?’

She shook her head. ‘No, and you wouldn’t ever catch me doing it, neither. I’ve heard about what’s down there. Enough to give you the heebie jeebies, it is. I don’t know why anybody would want to keep something like that where decent people can go and see it. In a place of worship too.’

‘What’s down there?’ asked Daisy brightly.

‘Bones,’ said Peter.

‘Bones?’

‘Yes. You know, skeletons. There are the skulls and leg bones of thousands of people, just … lying around down there.’

Daisy made a face. ‘That sounds horrible,’ she said.

‘No, it was actually jolly interesting. I spoke to the vicar. Reverend Latimer. I told him all about us and how we were staying here at the Grange.’

Now Mrs Beesley turned to look at him and Peter could see that she was far from pleased at this news. It was obvious that she’d wanted to keep the children’s presence here as secret as possible. Now the news had got out and in a place like this, such news would travel fast. Perhaps, Peter thought, it was a good thing that other people knew they were here. Maybe it meant that Mrs Beesley and Mr Sheldon wouldn’t dare to do anything to their visitors.