The Piper (20 page)

‘Please!’ he cried, but he didn’t know who or what he was shouting to. He studied Daisy for a moment more, then lifted a fist and brought it down hard on her chest and this time, she sat up with a loud cough and threw up more water. ‘Ow!’ she rasped, staring at him blankly. ‘That hurt!’

‘Daisy!’ he gasped. ‘Oh, Daisy…’ He put his arms around her and pulled her to him, crying tears of relief.

‘Was I dreaming?’ she whispered, beside his ear.

‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘A very bad dream. But you’re awake now.’

‘Then why are you crying?’ she asked him. He didn’t know what to tell her, so he just hugged her tight and told her that everything would be all right.

When he looked up again, he saw that now a great fire was burning at the Grange, blazing up through its collapsed roof, a fire that must have been visible for miles. And next, he heard a sound, the juddering, rattling sound of a cart approaching at speed. He made out a dark shape lurching towards him across the uneven ground and, after a few moments, he could discern the hulking figure of Adam, hunched behind the reins. Adam pulled Bessie to a halt and jumped to the ground. He ran over and threw himself to his knees beside Peter, his eyes wide and staring.

‘The house,’ he gasped and Peter saw that he was crying like a child. ‘It’s all gone. I tried to help, but the flames … they beat me back. They’re gone too. Mr Sheldon, Mrs B … and Sally. Poor Sally. All gone.’ He looked at the figure that was cradled in Peter’s arms. ‘Miss Daisy?’ he whispered fearfully.

‘She’s all right,’ Peter assured him. ‘I thought I’d lost her, but I … I got her back again.’ He pointed into the trees. ‘I saw him, Adam. The Piper. Sally was with him …’

Adam stared at him for several moments, not understanding. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘No, no, that’s not … possible.’

‘I saw her,’ Peter said again. ‘He took Sally with him.’

Adam shook his head and his eyes filled with fresh tears.

‘I … I didn’t really believe,’ he said. ‘I thought they’d all gone mad. I never really believed anything would ’appen.’ I never…’ He stared helplessly at Peter, a look of anguish on his face. ‘And now it’s all gone. The Grange … everything.’ He got to his feet and helped Peter up. He stooped and picked up Daisy, who lay in his arms staring around as though she didn’t have the first idea where she was or how she had got here. Adam carried her to the cart and set her up in the seat, where she sat slumped and bewildered. Peter scrambled up beside her, while Adam ran round to the back and got the blanket. He climbed up beside them and draped the blanket around them both. Peter put an arm around his sister’s shoulders and she snuggled against him in stunned silence. She was shivering now.

‘Where are we going?’ whispered Peter.

‘To Hythe,’ said Adam. ‘I’ll drop you at the police station.’

‘And … you? You’ll stay with us?’

Adam shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to leave you there.’

‘But … where will you go?’

Adam shrugged his shoulders. ‘The Lookers’ huts,’ he said. ‘I know where all of them are. If I stay on the move, they won’t find me.’

‘But … you’ve done nothing wrong. Why…?’

‘There’ll be questions,’ Adam told him. ‘Questions I’ll never be able to answer in a hundred years.’ He placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. ‘Please don’t tell them where to look for me.’

They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then Peter nodded. Adam cracked the whip, urged Bessie round in a wide circle, and headed back towards the road. They galloped into Hythe in the moonlight, neither of them saying a word to each other, until finally, Adam dropped Peter and Daisy outside a brick building with a blue lamp burning outside it. He looked down at them for a moment and said, ‘I never believed. Not for one moment. If I had, I’d never have gone along with them. You know that, don’t you?’

Peter nodded. ‘I believe you,’ he said.

‘Keep safe,’ whispered Adam. He snapped the whip again and the cart clattered away. Peter watched as it vanished into the darkness. He stood where he was for a moment, holding tightly onto Daisy. Then he led her across the road to the blue lamp.

By then, she was almost catatonic, and he wasn’t much better. The police carried Daisy to a bunk in an empty cell, where they got her dry and wrapped her in blankets. She fell instantly into a deep sleep. Then they made Peter a cup of hot, sweet tea and asked him questions about what had happened out at the Grange, what he had seen out there. He could only stare at them in silence. He didn’t speak to a soul, not until they’d driven him and Daisy back to Dagenham and they were safely back in their mother’s house. It was only when he saw Daisy smile for the first time in days, that he knew it was really over and he could finally relax.

Then he went up to his room and slept for two whole days.

The silence in Grandad Peter’s room is oppressive. They sit there, looking at the window and the gloomy garden outside. For a long time, they don’t say anything.

‘I had no idea,’ says Helen at last. She’s aware that her eyes are full of tears. Grandad Peter is sitting beside her, looking at his hands, as though trying to puzzle them out.

‘Why would you?’ he murmurs. ‘I’ve never really spoken of it since it happened. And if I had, what would people have thought? That I was mad, no doubt. That I needed to be locked away for my own safety, and the safety of others.’ He shakes his head. ‘They all died in the fire. Sheldon, Mrs Beesley, poor Sally. When I think of her, chained to the bed in that room as it filled with smoke …’ He closes his eyes for a moment as if to try and dispel the image, then opens them again. ‘A fire that I started,’ he adds. ‘It burned so fiercely there was hardly anything left of their bodies. As for Adam, I don’t know what happened to him, I never saw nor heard from him again. I told everyone that Daisy and I had been out of the house when the fire started. That I didn’t know how it was caused.’

Helen frowns. ‘And no questions were asked?’

Grandad Peter shrugs. ‘There was a war on. Things tended to get overlooked in those troubled times. People had bigger fish to fry. I imagine the only man with any idea of what really happened was Professor Lowell, but he was already an old man when I met him and I believe he died only a few months later. You know, I actually tried to find a copy of his book a few years back, but I had no luck with that, even using the Internet. Like so many other things connected to the story, it has disappeared without trace. Swept under the carpet. As far as I’m aware there have been no more female heirs to the Sheldon family. The bloodline stopped right there when the Grange burned down. But …’ He looks troubled. ‘Sometimes I can’t help but ask myself. What if the curse somehow transferred itself to us? Through Daisy, I mean. After all, she cheated the Piper.’

‘Daisy,’ murmurs Helen. ‘How come I’ve never heard of her?’

‘She stopped using that name soon afterwards,’ says Grandad Peter. ‘Thought it was too childish, I suppose. I dare say that you’ve heard of Aunt Margaret, though.’

Helen stares at him. ‘What, Auntie Margaret from Australia?’

He smiles. ‘Yes. She emigrated out there when she was nineteen. Met a young army chap and married him. You remember she used to send you presents every Christmas, when you were little? Boomerangs … toy koala bears …’

Helen nods. ‘I’ve still got them somewhere. In a box in the attic. I never met her. I think Dad has some photos of her, though. We were always talking about going over there to visit but … I suppose we just never got around to it. And she never came back to England?’

‘No. She was … a bit of a loner. Her husband died young and she … well, she preferred her own company.’ He smiles, ruefully. ‘Remind you of anyone?’

Helen nods. ‘I suppose so.’

‘I think what happened to us out on the Marsh made us that way. Mistrustful of strangers. Slow to make friends.’

Helen looks worried. ‘And … she died, didn’t she? Quite a long time ago, I think. I was still only little when it happened.’

Grandad Peter nods. ‘Oh yes. It was some years back. But she died of natural causes. Nothing sinister. There was talk about some of us going out to the funeral but … it stayed talk.’

‘That’s terrible,’ says Helen. ‘Somebody should have gone.’

‘I expect you’re right. But it was hardly convenient. She didn’t even live in a city. Preferred a little place in the Outback. We used to exchange letters now and then. And I spoke to her on the phone, once or twice, though it cost a fortune. She never wanted to talk about what happened to us on the Marsh. I brought it up once but she changed the subject. That was the last time we spoke, I think.’

‘But … to be forgotten like that.’

‘She’s not forgotten,’ says Grandad Peter. ‘She’s with me every day.’

Helen gazes at him for a moment, then thinks she understands. ‘Well, I … suppose memories are like that, aren’t they? They stay with you.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Does Dad know? About what happened to you on the Marsh?’

‘I never told him any of it. I suppose I didn’t want to burden him. I’m already beginning to regret telling you.’

‘Oh no, please don’t feel bad. I’m … glad that you told me. It makes me feel … special.’

He forces a thin smile. ‘Just the same, I think it’s best if the story goes no further,’ he says. ‘It’ll be our secret, if you don’t mind. I’d prefer that.’

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Whatever you think.’

He sighs, looks at her.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Now you know everything that happened on the Marsh. Still interested in doing that school trip?’

Helen looks at him. ‘I … I don’t suppose it would be the same area or anything,’ she says. ‘I’m not a Sheldon, either. And I’m older than eight. So … what are the chances?’

There’s a short silence. ‘I wouldn’t like to estimate them,’ he says. ‘But I’d be worried to death every day that you were there.’

She considers for a moment. ‘I think I’ll be taking my name off the list,’ she says.

She glances at her watch and is momentarily surprised to see how late it is. ‘Whoa! I need to get going! Dad will be wondering what’s happened to me.’ She gets up from the rocking chair, reaches for her jacket and slips it on. Then she walks across to Grandad Peter, leans over and pecks him on the cheek. ‘You take good care of yourself,’ she tells him. ‘I’ll come and see you again, soon.’

He looks up at her and his expression is as grim as ever.

‘Next birthday, perhaps?’ he says.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘Sooner than that. Next week.’

‘Don’t feel you have to,’ he tells her.

‘I want to,’ she assures him. She reaches out and squeezes his hand, then buttons her jacket. ‘And … happy birthday,’ she says, but under the circumstances, it seems an incredibly inappropriate thing to say.

‘Take care on that bicycle,’ he warns her.

She gives him a last smile, slings the empty rucksack over her shoulder and goes out of the room, closing the door gently behind her.

Grandad Peter sits there for a long time, gazing out of the window. The wind is getting worse out there, bending the branches of the trees.

‘Did I do the right thing?’ he asks at last.

A pause.

‘It just seemed like the best thing to do, that’s all. She needed to know and I needed to talk about it.’

Another pause.

‘Yes, Daisy, it is a lovely cake, isn’t it? Perhaps we’ll have a slice of it with a cup of tea, later.’

Pause.

He smiles fondly. ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’

Beside him, the empty rocking chair begins to move.

Most of the elements in this story have been invented … but not all of them.

Operation Pied Piper
really happened. Thousands of children from the major cities of the British Isles were sent out to stay in the countryside with people they didn’t know. You can read some of their true accounts here:

www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/evacuees_01.shtml

Sheldon Grange and its inhabitants are fictitious.

The Royal Military Canal
really exists – and large sections of it were dug by French prisoners of war. You can read about it here:

www.royalmilitarycanal.com/pages/index.asp

So far as I’m aware, Captain Micheaux did not exist.
The Church of St Leonard’s
in Hythe is also genuine – and you can visit its Crypt where there really are the thigh bones and skulls of thousands of unidentified people. You can read about it here:

www.stleonardschurchhythekent.org

But don’t waste too much time looking for an inscription in French …