What Lies Beneath

Chapter 1

Ella Haywood was in the delicatessen counter queue at the supermarket when she heard the news that ripped open her life and brought her childhood nightmares gibbering back.

She had not been expecting those particular ghosts to come boiling out of the past while she was waiting for her farmhouse Cheddar to be cut and weighed, but a gossipy shopper just ahead of her was telling anyone who cared to listen that Priors Bramley was to be reopened – imagine that, after all these years they were going to let people back into the Poisoned Village.

The Poisoned Village. The words fell on Ella’s mind like hammer-blows and for several minutes everything else was blotted out. Priors Bramley, the tiny village abandoned fifty years earlier when a government department had planned to route a motorway through it, and had peremptorily rehoused all the residents elsewhere. The motorway had never been built, though, because another department had seized on the deserted village for an experimental site. Priors Bramley had been drenched in an ill-judged and macabre cocktail of chemicals, which meant the village had had to be sealed off. And no one had been there since.

The gossipy shopper knew all the facts. That long-planned motorway was finally going to be built, she said, very self-important, and in a few days, Priors Bramley would be decontaminated. People would be able to walk down the village street again, right up to the gates of Cadence Manor, if they wanted.

‘Always providing they aren’t worried about breathing in whatever’s still lingering on the air,’ said a sepulchral voice from the end of the queue.

‘Oh, nothing’s lingered there for years,’ said the gossipy one cheerfully. ‘The authorities simply forgot to take down the barbed wire and the notices, that’s all. It’s a piece of the past being reclaimed,’ she added romantically.

‘Reclaimed and then bulldozed and covered with concrete,’ said the pragmatist, to which the shopper tossed her head, said some people had no soul, and went off with her veal and ham pie.

Back at home, panic clutched at Ella’s stomach. She pictured in her mind’s eye Cadence Manor – huge rusting iron gates, the sunshine glinting on them… Ivy-covered walls, crumbling brickwork and an air of brooding desolation… The images rose up sharply, and with them came the memory of her mother declaring the Cadence family had been a bunch of villains, never mind they were supposed to be respected city bankers, rich and influential. ‘Not to be trusted,’ she always said. ‘Not a one of them.’

Still, what had lain behind those festoons of barbed wire all this time surely could not damage Ella – not now. There was nothing she need do about it. Derek would certainly have agreed with that if he knew what was beyond those spiky defences, which he did not. But one of Derek’s philosophies was that you never troubled trouble until trouble troubled you.

Amy, their granddaughter, had once asked Ella how she had put up with Gramps’s little sayings for so long, but Amy’s generation did not understand about marriage – not the permanent kind, such as Ella had entered into. Amy thought that because Gran was young in the 1960s she must have had a permissive, flower-power time, but flower power and the permissive society had never actually reached Bramley, and Derek was then, as now, an auditor at the County Council, and a rising star in the local Operatic Society as well, so flower power and permissiveness had never really been an option.

Amy was coming to stay in a couple of weeks’ time, at the start of the Easter holidays. It would be nice to see her and hear about her life at university; Ella always listened round-eyed to Amy’s tales. None of the things Amy described would have been remotely thinkable in Ella’s own life. But then some of the things in Ella’s life would not be remotely thinkable to Amy – it was important to remember that.

By that evening, Ella felt better. Probably all that talk about opening up the village and finally building the motorway was just a rumour, or an item on a vague council agenda and unlikely actually to happen. There could be protest groups at the destruction of green belt – all kinds of things that would prevent the whole thing.

But the next morning a council leaflet slapped through the letterbox, horridly explicit. Government approval had been given for the revival of the 1950s motorway scheme, said the leaflet, and added firmly that this was very good news for everyone. The motorway would not actually go through Priors Bramley, but a link road would, which meant the demolition of the major part of the village. Preliminary plans could be inspected at the council’s offices between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. any weekday. Local residents could be assured there was no longer any danger from the chemical trials carried out in the 1950s, but to be on the safe side a team of decontamination experts would go in on the tenth of this month. The information about there being no danger was repeated so many times Ella thought most people reading it would keep their windows and doors closed for the next six months.

She did not take in much of the scientific information about decontamination or the original chemical experiment – she had never been very good at science at school. A boys’ subject, her mother used to say. Concentrate on the cookery classes: that’s what will get you a husband. In those days getting a husband had been the prime goal for girls. Ella sometimes wondered what her mother would have thought of Amy, currently rioting through three years at Durham University, studying archaeology and anthropology.

She threw the council’s leaflet in the bin, but when even Derek began to talk about the Poisoned Village being opened for the new motorway, Ella knew the past was surging forward, and it was a dark and dangerous past. She would have to do something.

Entries From an Undated Journal

The time has come when I will have to do something…

Because in seven days I’m going to die.

There! I’ve written it at last. I am going to die. And now I see it set down on the page, it’s suddenly and dreadfully real.

I’m afraid of dying but I’m equally afraid of going mad while waiting for death – and by mad I don’t mean those spells of darkness that sometimes close down over me like a stifling curtain… They never lasted long, those darknesses – no, I’ll amend that – they never seemed to last long, and in any case it’s important to remember I always managed to fight my way back up into the light.

By going mad, I mean the real thing. The tumble all the way down into an endless, unforgiving blackness – the blackness you see staring out of the empty eyes of the poor creatures locked away in Bedlam: drained, husked-out fragments of humanity who were once people. So let’s make it very clear at the outset that I was never mad in that way.

I’m hoping that writing everything down will stop me speculating what’s ahead. (Will it be quick? Will I struggle?) And although I don’t suppose anyone will ever read this journal, you never know, so I’ll write it as well as possible. I used to have the way of turning a good phrase at one time – it’s vanity to say it, but I don’t care – although I never had any romantic dreams about writing books. But I’ve had my romantic moments, that’s something else I’d like understood.

I’ll count the seven days ahead of me, of course, although I’ll try not to count the hours. But there’s a clock in here and I can hear it ticking the seconds away. I suspect I might have to find a way to muffle that clock before the end.

I don’t think it will be a very comfortable death and if I had any courage I’d find a way of putting a swift and clean end to myself beforehand. But there are no sharp knives here, no cut-throat razors, no pills that could be downed in huge quantities. No gas ovens to turn on or lengths of rope to fashion into a noose. And there’s just a chance I’ll escape, and although I was never a gambler in the accepted sense, I’m certainly going to gamble on that tiny chance.

I’ll think I’ll be reasonably comfortable in the time that’s left. It’s knowing what’s ahead that might tip me over the edge. That and the ticking clock. I could simply not wind it, but then I might lose all track of the days and I don’t think I can do that.

Perhaps I can pretend the ticking is something else – something small and unthreatening and friendly? A small mouse behind the wall, or an energetic house martin building its new home under the eaves somewhere. Yes, I’ll create a pretence that it’s a house martin, flying to and fro.

Actually, when I look back I can see I was always very clever at pretence. I certainly fooled all the Cadences – the entire smug, self-satisfied clan. Or did I? I’d have to say there were times when I wondered if Crispian sensed what I was thinking. He had a way of looking at people, a sort of speculative appraisal.

I knew from quite an early age I was going to kill Crispian Cadence, and I suppose if you’re intent on killing someone, it’s possible your victim might sense danger, even without realizing the exact nature of the danger.

Danger. It was remarkable how anything I ever had to do with Crispian always spelled danger.

The Present

Ella’s mother used to say anything to do with the Cadences, no matter how remote, always spelled danger.

Faced with the unsealing of Priors Bramley, Ella was forced to admit her mother had been right. This was a danger she wanted to ignore, but other people were involved – two other people to be exact, and both were still here living in Upper Bramley. She invited them to her house that evening, confident they would accept; they had always looked to her for guidance and leadership, right from childhood. Derek would be safely out of the way because he had a rehearsal with the Operatic Society. They were doing The Mikado this year, and Derek was playing Nanki-Poo, the hero. He was a bit stout for the part, but Ella would make sure he slimmed down in time. Some people said he was a bit old as well, but there was nothing anyone could do about his age.

She tidied and polished her sitting room, which Derek still called ‘the lounge’ despite all her reminders, opened a bottle of wine, and set out a few canapés. They were actually bought frozen from the supermarket, but no one would know that. Arranged on good china plates they looked home-made and quite classy.

Clement Poulter was the first to arrive, and although he was not exactly nervous, he was certainly not very comfortable. Ella noticed a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead and the top of his head where the hair was thinning.

‘I suppose this is about the reopening of Priors Bramley,’ he said.

‘It is,’ said Ella, firmly. ‘I thought we should have a little meeting about it. Just the three of us. In case of any… awkwardness that might be ahead. They really are going to bring it out of quarantine, aren’t they?’ She had tried out several acceptable phrases before lighting on this one, which seemed to reduce the whole thing to nothing worse than a dose of chickenpox.

‘They are,’ said Clem, nodding. ‘They’re going to fumigate it, sterilize it, disinfect it – however you want to word it. But I’m seeing it as the village being brought out of purdah.’

‘Whatever you call it, it’s being done on the tenth,’ said Ella, before Clem could become carried away with one of his annoying fantasies.

‘I know. We were sent a poster to display in the library. I’m going to arrange one of my little exhibitions – the village before they poisoned it.’ Clem liked arranging little exhibitions at his library; he always had one for the Operatic Society’s productions, with photographs of the cast and notes about the plot. ‘I shan’t call it that, of course,’ he said. ‘Just “Old Bramley”, or something like that. And it’d be a shame not to make some kind of written record of Priors Bramley before they demolish it. There’s masses of material lying around. Remember that local ghost story about people hearing organ music from within the old church on some nights? I do love that tale, don’t you?’

‘That’s just people’s imagination,’ said Ella. It was typical of Clem to miss the threat in all this – to focus on unimportant details: the stupid ghost tales that had grown up about the village, and his diaries, which he was always telling people about.

‘Yes, but people like a ghost story,’ Clem was saying. ‘Specially something about a really old church like St Anselm’s.’

St Anselm’s church. Despite the warm April evening, Ella shivered.

‘If you walk to the highest point of Mordwich Bank you can see the sun glinting on the stained-glass windows,’ said Clem. ‘It looks sort of remote and unreal. The lost church in the Poisoned Village.’ He contemplated this phrase approvingly for a moment. ‘It’s absolutely classic English ghost stuff.’

‘Derek says the only people who hear anything are the ones walking home from the Red Lion late at night,’ said Ella tartly. She had never told Derek or anyone else that she sometimes dreamed she could hear the organ chords, menacing and achingly lonely.

‘Yes, but it’s still a good story,’ said Clem. ‘Is Veronica coming?’

‘Yes, of course. She should be here by now.’

‘Oh, she’ll be late. She always is – she likes to make an entrance.’

But Veronica was not particularly late, although Ella was sorry to see that as usual she was overdressed for the occasion.

‘I see you’ve got some of those frozen canapés,’ said Veronica, having ostentatiously arranged her unsuitably short skirt over her thighs. ‘They’re good, aren’t they? I bought some last week for a – a friend who was coming to supper.’

There was no call for Veronica to bat her eyelashes in that simpering fashion: it was clear she meant a man. Nor was there any need for Veronica to say the canapés had been on special offer. ‘Two for the price of one; they’re very cheap, aren’t they?’

Ella handed Veronica a glass of wine, and said, ‘We need to talk about Priors Bramley.’

‘I thought that was why you phoned,’ said Veronica. ‘It’s a bit worrying, I suppose. It’s good about the motorway, but opening up the village made me feel quite shivery. Didn’t you feel shivery, Clem?’

‘Well, personally I seldom shiver over anything these days.’

‘Did either of you ever tell anyone what happened that morning?’ said Ella.

‘Oh God, no.’ But Clem poured himself another glass of wine with a hand that shook.

Without even being asked, thought Ella, annoyed, but she only said, ‘Veronica?’

‘I’ve never told a soul,’ said Veronica at once. ‘Not a soul. We said we’d take it to the grave with us, and I shall do so. We made a pact, don’t you remember? We swore on all we held sacred never to tell.’

‘I don’t think we did that exactly,’ said Ella. ‘There’s no need to be so dramatic. What we did was to promise each other we would never tell anyone.’

The promise had been made over fifty years earlier, when the three of them were children. It had started with a dare, although afterwards none of them could remember whose idea that had been.

A plane was going to fly over Priors Bramley that Saturday in order to drop a small explosive device. But it was not a bomb, people said firmly. It was the planned and precise dispersing of chemical substances; a geological and botanical experiment. Whatever it was called, it was quite a big event for the area; people talked about it avidly. It helped balance the shock the Priors Bramley residents had received when they were told they had to leave their homes.

Clem’s Great-aunt Rose had lived in a cottage in Priors Bramley all her life. ‘She had to move out, though,’ he said, as they walked out of Upper Bramley that Saturday morning. ‘She said she doesn’t mind giving way to progress, but she doesn’t hold with folk careering along roads at fifty miles an hour. And the money they gave her wouldn’t buy a dog kennel, never mind a decent house for folk who had to put up with six years of fighting Hitler.’ He put on a voice like a cross old lady when he said this, and Veronica giggled nervously.

‘The lady in the wool shop told my mum she’d spent all those years dodging German bombs and now they’re going to drop one right on her own village,’ put in Ella.

‘It isn’t a real bomb, though, is it?’ said Veronica worriedly. ‘It’s only to spray chemical stuff into the village to see what happens to the plants and things. Then they’ll build the road. We had a letter through the door telling us about it.’

‘So did we,’ said Clem. ‘But my father says they aren’t telling us the truth. He reckons it’ll be ages before they get round to making the motorway, and he says they’re experimenting with nerve agents, like that place near Boscombe Down. They’ve got laboratories and whatnot there, and it’s all really secret.’

‘What’s a nerve agent?’

‘I think it’s stuff they might want to use if there’s a war. My father doesn’t think it’s a good idea at all; he says those things make people really ill or grow two heads. He’s pretty worried about the Russians, though. Well, he’s pretty worried about a lot of people in the world.’

‘I don’t want an atom bomb to be dropped on Bramley,’ said Veronica. ‘Atom bombs burn your bones. I heard my parents talk about it.’

‘They aren’t dropping an atom bomb,’ said Clem in exasperation.

‘Whatever they’re dropping, they aren’t doing it until midday, anyway,’ said Ella. ‘So we could walk through the village one last time, couldn’t we? I’d like to do that.’

‘I would too,’ said Clem eagerly. ‘I could write about it in my diary. Did I tell you I was given a diary for Christmas?’

‘Yes, about a million times.’

‘It’d be a pretty good thing to write. “The Last Day of a Doomed Village”, that’s what I’d call it. And it could be an adventure for Ella’s birthday.’

Ella’s tenth birthday was the day before, which was important because of being double figures. Veronica’s mother had said it was a landmark, and added it was a pity Ella’s mother had not let her have a party.

‘She’s got too much to do to be having parties,’ Ella told her friends. ‘But she’ll make sandwiches and we can have a picnic on Mordwich Bank. After the dare, I mean.’

Veronica was still not sure about the bomb, but they generally did what Ella said on account of her being the eldest, so she said it would be a good thing to walk down the village street on its last day.

They set off at half-past ten, which Clem thought would give them masses of time for the dare.

‘I had to tell my mother a lie about where we’re going,’ said Veronica, as they went over the old railway bridge, which was called the Crinoline Bridge, and from there into Sparrowfeld Lane, which was fringed with big horse chestnut trees, and where they came to collect conkers every autumn. ‘And I had to promise we weren’t going anywhere near Priors Bramley, on account of the plane and the bomb.’

‘It isn’t a bomb—’

‘Well, whatever it is, how long will we be doing this dare?’

‘Not long. It’s twenty to eleven now,’ said Ella, who had been given a watch for her birthday. ‘We could do the walk in half an hour and we’d be in Mordwich Meadow for half-past eleven easily. We’ll see the plane go over while we eat our sandwiches.’

They went down Mordwich Bank towards the village in its saucer-shaped piece of land. For several weeks the area around Priors Bramley had buzzed with all kinds of activity – people moving out of their shops and houses, like Clem’s great-aunt Rose, and men unwinding immense rolls of barbed wire to fence the village in and keep people out, and nailing up notices that said ‘Danger!’ and ‘Keep Out!’.

‘It’s very quiet,’ said Veronica nervously as they went round the curve in the lane.

‘That means we’ll hear the plane coming.’

‘Good, because I don’t want to be sprayed with poison or grow two heads.’

‘It’s just for the plants, I told you. And you’d better take that red hair ribbon off,’ said Ella suddenly. ‘It’ll show up on the hillside, and we don’t want to be seen.’