The Facts of Life and Death

53

THE HOUSE WAS haunted and draughty and smelly and hung off a cliff, but when Ruby reached it, it felt like stepping into a safe haven.

But the moment she followed Mummy inside, a pulsing red light bounced off the walls.

Mummy cried, ‘Ruby! Oh my God! Turn it off!’ She rushed over and spun Ruby round and felt for the switch on what Ruby realized must be her LED light. Harvey bit Mummy and both of them squealed.

Ruby dropped the pack off her shoulders and found the little plastic button and the room went black.

‘How long was it on for?’ cried Mummy. ‘How long was it on for?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know! What if Daddy saw it?’

Mummy hurried to the glassless window. The floor there was always creaky and Mummy gasped and held the wall for support. Ruby ran over to join her.

Below them was The Retreat, still surrounded by shiny black water.

As they watched, Daddy came out of the front door and waded down the garden path, moving fast, as if he knew where he was going.

Ruby and Mummy held their breath.

Daddy went swiftly to the gate – and then turned and waded towards the Peppercombe path.

Mummy clutched Ruby’s hand. ‘He knows we’re here!’ She looked around the bare room and her voice cracked in desperation. ‘We have to hide! There’s nowhere to hide!’

‘I know where,’ said Ruby.

Calvin Bridge drove down the hill to Limeburn.

The normally dark, eerie lane was now treacherous too. Twice he had to steer around fallen branches, and once a branch crashed down into the ditch right beside them.

‘Shit!’ shouted King, and Calvin would have seconded it, but his mouth was too dry from fear.

They looked at each other, but Kirsty King wasn’t the type to go back, and Calvin wasn’t the type to go back if she wasn’t going back.

So he went on.

They passed the little car park where visitors parked and swung round the final corner down to the village.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said King in amazement. ‘Is that the sea?’

The flagstone in the hearth weighed a ton. Even with Ruby and Mummy trying to move it together. Their fingers could barely get purchase, and risked being squashed every time they lost their grip and dropped the huge slate. It wasn’t a job to do in the dark.

And Ruby didn’t even know what they’d find underneath.

Bare earth? Floorboards? A hole that was big but not big enough? Or a hole already occupied… ?

She didn’t have time to care. For now, she needed Adam’s ghost story to be true more than she’d ever needed anything in her life. Their lives depended on it. So she knelt and grunted alongside Mummy, while Harvey – free at last – twitched his nose at the edges of the stone, as if that would help.

Finally they got a good enough grip to lever the slab up and peer underneath, and Ruby felt her tummy flip over.

It was just as Adam had described.

The hole was not big, but it was big enough.

Who knew why it had been dug – for smuggling or family heirlooms or for hiding a priest – but Ruby no longer had any doubt that once the bones of a pedlar had been found here, curled up and grimacing and with knife-marks on his ribs.

She shivered all down her back.

‘Get in,’ said Mummy. ‘Quick!’

Ruby didn’t hesitate. She crouched down so she could slide under the flagstone.

Ching. Ching.

Mummy dropped the slab in terror and Ruby felt her heart stop.

Daddy had come to take care of them.