Candleman (3 page)

‘You’re rambling,’ snapped Dr Saint. ‘Now, just a final couple of words about last night, if you can both bear it.’

Theo looked around him. Here he was, in his room, back with the
Three,
the eternal trio that governed his life. But last night had been different. He had escaped the monotony – met new people. And killed one of them.

It wasn’t my fault, he told himself. I warned them about my gloves and they wouldn’t listen. Terrible things happen to people who don’t listen – he had learnt that from his books of fairy tales.

‘Now, Theo – you told us you heard the intruders crashing around, but you stayed in your room the whole time.’

Theo nodded. Yes, he had told Dr Saint that.

‘But you were awake from the first crash onwards, when they broke in and knocked out Mr Nicely?’

‘I tried to stop ’em, sir!’ Nicely protested. ‘Four or five of them overpowered me!’

More lies, Theo noted.

‘I was frightened,’ Theo said. ‘They bashed the door of my room in and had a quick look inside. They didn’t spot me in the shadows. Suddenly the police turned up and they fled.’

‘So,’ summed up Dr Saint, ‘when I found you standing in the doorway of your room, that was as far as you went all night. Of their criminal activities you actually
saw
nothing. But didn’t you hear anything unusual?’

‘Banging, crashing, footsteps on the stairs,’ Theo replied. At the mention of the stairs, he couldn’t help giving his guardian a searching look. Dr Saint seemed unsatisfied, troubled.

‘Nothing that would explain a pool of revolting slime in the hallway?’ Dr Saint said.

Theo shook his head. Just in time he remembered to show polite curiosity in other people’s interests. ‘It sounds fascinating. May I see it?’ he asked.

‘No,’ blurted Mr Nicely. ‘Horrible slime is not for you, Theobald Saint. Disgusting oily substances are not a suitable sight for the ward of the most respectable gentleman in London. Slime indeed!’ Mr Nicely tutted. He turned to his employer. ‘Possibly some home-made explosive cocktail that went wrong, sir. They may have been planning to blast their way into a vault or safe on the premises.’

‘We may never know,’ muttered Dr Saint crossly. ‘But the Deep-Clean Team from Good-As-New Carpets have had a devil of a job shampooing it out.’

‘I’ve said a million times, sir,’ Mr Nicely observed, ‘we should have CCTV all over this place and my mate Doogie from the old Horse Guards Regiment watching screens all day.’

‘Empire Hall is the seat of a charity, Mr Nicely!’ replied Dr Saint, turning on his heel to leave the room. ‘Why on earth should we have to put up with oafish security guards and nosy television cameras …’

Their voices died away. Clarice gave a funny bobbing curtsy and left too. Theo munched his morning bowl of seeds in thin milk. A long, empty day awaited him, while the
Three
went about their business. He would be left alone for hours. He went and found his mystery birthday present.

Theo opened the box, where the globe lay in its shredded paper like a glass egg in a nest. Who could it be from? He shook it and watched, as once again the black flakes swarmed inside. Had it really been meant as a message? Had the sender known that a shadow was about to pass over Theo’s world? And if someone really cared about him, why hadn’t they included a simple note or something?

Then it struck him.
The shredded paper.
Theo pulled the packing out of the box. He studied the strips closely by the light of the window. There it was – a glimmer of writing. The silver ink that had shown up so clearly on the black wrapping paper was barely visible at all on the white shreds.

Long years of confinement had made Theo adept at methodical tasks. He laid out all the strips of crumpled paper, silver-line-side-up, and started to piece them together. It was a fiddly business, but he had an idea. He prised open the framed photo of Mr Nicely, slid out the glass and used it to flatten the strips. It wasn’t long before he had pieced together the words:
Theo. You are in danger and must get out! Come to the graveyard alone!–A Friend.

‘What are you doing, young master?’ Mr Nicely shouted from the hallway. He had found Theo standing by the study window that looked out on the back lawn.

‘Just enjoying the view,’ Theo sighed. He hadn’t been surprised to find the window was securely locked.

‘You don’t want to go opening them windows,’ chuckled Mr Nicely, putting a firm hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘What have I told you since you was a nipper? Keep away from the winders and never set foot in the garden … There’s something on the roof that wants to eat you!’

The butler hadn’t wheeled out that old family legend for years. Maybe the bang on the head had shaken up the contents of his well-regimented brain a bit.

When evening fell, and Theo had eaten his millet and greens, he was left alone to study his books and listen to the quiet flow of the traffic as it ceaselessly circumnavigated Hyde Park. He had been in the Mercy Tube and was now feeling suitably sick.
That rotten feeling in your guts is us showing we care for you,
Dr Saint had reminded him. Theo was no longer so sure.

He pulled back the curtain and looked out into the night. His own reflection stared back at him in the tall windowpane. He looked at himself, considering his face in a new way. Up till now he had always been the invalid, the pathetic one, never someone who could be special or admired.

But now, when he looked at his tall, gaunt reflection he didn’t see himself. He saw the Candle Man.

There was a light tap at his door. Clarice was standing there, with a finger to her lips. She beckoned him. Theo was too surprised to act, but the maid grabbed him and pulled him into the corridor. She pointed down the hall, where two doors were open, one into the kitchen, and another beyond that into the garden. She pushed him towards the exit.

With his heart pounding, Theo blundered through a dark scullery and stumbled outside. The cold night air hit him, as he found himself on a gravel path. Clarice gestured to the rear garden wall, where a gate was standing open. It led to the back of the cemetery.

Theo was about to head down the garden when Mr Nicely emerged from a side passage. His smart waistcoat was unbuttoned, he was sipping from a brown bottle and humming a little song. Theo turned, but Clarice had disappeared and shut the back door.

The butler hadn’t seen Theo yet, but he was drawing nearer. There was no way Theo could cross the lawn without Mr Nicely seeing him. Theo stepped into the shadows by the wall. Here he found a pile of crates. He climbed up on one, then on top of a big wheelie bin, and from there on to the low scullery roof. With luck, Mr Nicely would pass by beneath him without seeing him at all.

Theo held his breath. Then something flew down off the roof and carried him away.

M
r Nicely stopped on his way up the main staircase of Empire Hall and paused on the top landing. Something caught his eye and he peered out of the window into the darkness beyond.

There, glimpsed through the cage of branches that cut off the mansion from the graveyard, was a tiny light. It had the frail but bright presence of a single candle flame.

Dr Saint sat in his plum-coloured dressing gown, and took his glass of evening sherry from the silver tray proffered by his butler. Mr Nicely lingered at the doorway.

‘Well, what is it?’ snapped Dr Saint.

‘It’s …’ the butler’s voice faltered. A strange light in the graveyard wasn’t worth troubling his master over.

‘It’s what?’

‘It’s – err, ten o’clock and all’s well,’ said Mr Nicely. ‘I’ve done my rounds and locked up for the night. Not a burglar in sight.’

‘Just as it should be,’ said Dr Saint, sipping his sherry. ‘Nice night, Mr Nicely.’

‘Saintly dreams, Dr Saint,’ said the butler, and headed off for bed.

Theo was dropped over the cemetery wall and landed in a bank of wet nettles, his elbow cracking against a stone vase. A thumping of slow wings faded into the night air somewhere above him. He lay still in the cold and damp, his heart pounding, as the seconds passed.

The Something on the Roof has decided not to eat me.

Theo sat up and looked around. He saw a glowing candle on a tombstone in front of him. Suddenly, a dark figure stepped in front of it.

‘You’re … you’re
him,
aren’t you!’ the figure said. There was awe in his voice.

Theo was so bewildered, all he could do was nod.

‘Did … did you see the garghoul that dropped you here?’ breathed the young man. From what Theo could tell, the stranger was barely older than him.

‘No,’ said Theo. His terrifying flight had been something of a blur.

‘We’d better move,’ the dark figure said. ‘Follow me!’

They raced down an avenue of yew trees, then threaded their way through a thick woodland, slanting gravestones marking every twist and turn of their way. Theo was led, at a speed he had never moved before, into the obscure depths of the Condemned Cemetery. Here the statues grew more outlandish and giant mausoleums rose up among the trees. The starry, frosty night lent a half enchanted, half ghoulish light to the landscape.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the stranger as Theo paused to pant and overcome the urge to be sick. ‘Your captors won’t really expect you to be here. Still, we don’t want to take any chances.’

They pressed on, along the narrowest of tracks, clutched at by thorny branches. Theo’s elbow was smarting and his legs ached horribly. He had never been on a journey this long before in his life, even on his tenth birthday, when Mr Nicely had taken him to see the city dump and they had briefly got lost among the mounds of seagull droppings.

They soon emerged into a clearing where Theo saw a small tumbledown cottage. It looked abandoned, with paint peeling off the door and one window boarded up, but Theo could see a dim lamp was glowing through the tatty kitchen curtains. In a narrow hallway, the stranger pulled off his coat and tugged off his woolly hat to reveal a mop of fair hair. His round red face and bright blue eyes glowed with excitement.

‘Sam James,’ he said. ‘Society of Unrelenting Vigilance. It’s an honour to meet you.’

Before Theo could introduce himself properly, Sam pushed open a door and showed him into a small parlour. There, sinking into an armchair in the corner, was a shrivelled, ancient man, so old his skin seemed to be almost transparent in places, with long looping veins showing through. His face was a crumpled patchwork of lines and liver spots, his eyes so pale they had no colour at all.

The cemetery keeper,
thought Theo. He looked around and, seeing no one else, was relieved to find that there were only two rescuers. The endless tyranny of the
Three
who had brought him up had made him come to distrust that number.

The cramped little place was a stark contrast to Empire Hall. This was a home such as Theo had read about in stories, with a kettle on a small stove, a hairy rug draped over a shapeless sofa, a table littered with used cups and bowls. And a
television.
Theo eyed the forbidden apparatus warily.

‘Welcome home, Theo,’ gasped the old man in a strange gurgling voice that sounded like he was sucking in air rather than breathing it out. ‘I am Magnus James, Keeper of the Condemned Cemetery.’

‘Home?’ Theo was starting to have a strange sinking feeling.

‘Yes,’ smiled the old man, screwing up his tiny eyes, which made them leak some kind of gunge. ‘You will always be at home with the Society of Unrelenting Vigilance. It was we who left you that present – we who worked with Clarice. I won’t shake your hand,’ the old man added, nodding towards Theo’s gauntlets.

Theo’s head was spinning. He wondered how much this ancient being knew about him. Suddenly he remembered how important it was to be polite to new acquaintances.

‘I’m, err – delighted to meet you,’ Theo said awkwardly. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what I really need to know, above all else, is … who am I?’

There was a moment of silence. Sam looked at Magnus, as if hoping the cemetery keeper would say something. But the ancient figure seemed for a moment to be lost in a dream.

‘They – they call me Theo Saint,’ Theo said. ‘But I know that can’t be my real name.’

‘You’re the special one,’ Sam said, grinning. ‘We’ve been watching you for years, making sure you’re OK. And tonight, we actually rescued you!’ Sam pulled a brown bottle out of a musty cupboard and poured a fizzy yellow liquid into two glasses.

‘And to think the garghoul helped us pull it off!’ There was a strange note in Sam’s voice that made Theo feel uncomfortable, but he couldn’t quite place it.

‘The garghoul?’ gasped the cemetery keeper. He seemed surprised. ‘Well, well – the tide must be turning indeed!’

Theo was preoccupied by a
good-manners
problem. The two glasses on offer were so very different it was tricky to know which one it would be polite to take. In the end Theo took the smart but tiny sherry glass, leaving Sam the huge but cracked wine goblet.

‘This is what we’ve been waiting for, Grandad!’ Sam grinned, swooping on the goblet. ‘At last our Society has done something! After all these years of just being vigilant, we’ve finally sprung into action and rescued the prisoner! This is the best day of our lives!’

Theo frowned. He didn’t like being called the prisoner. Surely he had never been that? Magnus just stared into space, as if seeing faraway things, instead of what was in front of him.

Sam started singing a strange, merry song. Theo sipped the liquid. It was disgusting. Theo now realised what it was about Sam that was disturbing him. It was the happy note in his voice, the odd sound of delight.

Happiness, the most terrible thing,
Theo thought. The pursuit of happiness made people selfish and greedy – Dr Saint had always made that clear. Now Theo was starting to feel upset. It was past his bedtime and he was exhausted. It had seemed to him that a truly wonderful person must have left him that enchanting parcel with the gold bow. There was no sign of that person here. He was sure neither Sam nor Magnus could have written his name in such beautiful writing.