The Secret of Crickley Hall (26 page)

Cally expelled a frightened cry at the sound and jerked away from the cupboard doorway, her hands flying to her face. Gabe hadn't noticed; he was too busy shining the light through the gap he had made. The partition was still partly attached to the right-hand stanchion, but by holding back the bottom edge and crouching even lower he could see there was something behind the false wall. Something that obviously had been
hidden
back there.

30: THE PUNISHMENT BOOK

Eve gathered up the two plastic bags full of shopping from the back seat of the Range Rover. She hadn't bought much from the supermarket in Pulvington, but enough to justify her visit to the town. She had been too distracted to concentrate on a full shop, so had bought only essentials that would get her family through the rest of the week. She would tell Gabe the supermarket was too busy and too noisy for her to stay long.

Overhead the sky had clouded up again, dulling the afternoon and promising an early dusk.

She closed the car door with an elbow and, logoed shopping bags in either hand, she made her way across the bridge towards Crickley Hall. There was a thin green slime on some of the damp boards, which made the bridge slippery, and she went with care. The river below looked angry and brown with loose soil that had broken off from the riverbanks further upstream and she wondered how much more rain it would take to make it overflow; she was sure the level had risen since that morning. Halfway across she glanced up at the Hall's rooftop windows as if expecting to see small colourless faces peering down at her. There was nothing there, though; nobody was watching her. Nevertheless, she felt exposed.

Dejected because her visit to the psychic's crafts shop had proved so disappointing, Eve took the path leading across the muddy lawn to the house's front door, her boots crunching on the sparse gravel. Her head was bowed, not with the physical burden of her load, but with the mental burden of her despair. She was helpless, powerless on her own to make the vital contact that she knew her lost son was seeking, unable to complete the telepathic link between them by herself. What could she do now? Consult another psychic? That would take time and there was an urgency in her that she herself did not quite understand. Somehow she knew it was important to find Cam soon, before… before it was too late… She would have to look for another psychic, then.

Perhaps irrationally, she could not face having to explain herself to Gabe. She was only too aware of his frustration with her, no matter how well he concealed it, and she feared that her endeavours now would finally end his patience with her for not coming to terms with their loss. But she would never accept it, not while there was still a chance, not when there were signs…

Eve went past the front door, making for the kitchen door instead, so deep in her own thoughts that she failed to notice Gabe standing by the table through the window. She turned the corner and laid one of the shopping bags on the step so that she could use her key, but Gabe beat her to it.

'Hey,' he greeted, reaching for the shopping bag in her hand. He took it from her, then stooped to collect the other one.

'Hi,' she returned as she stepped inside. 'Has Cally been okay? She didn't bother you while you were working?'

'She's the best, no problem at all. She's taking a nap right now.' Gabe frowned. Eve seemed to be avoiding his eyes as she unzipped her coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

'Chester?' she queried over her shoulder. 'Anything?'

'Uh-uh. Still missing.' He silently cursed himself for using the wrong word: too many connotations. 'I rang the police again, but no stray dog's been spotted or turned in,' he said quickly, to move from the 'missing' word. 'Told me they'd get their patrolman for this area to keep a lookout.'

For the first time she noticed the old gardener sitting quietly and unobtrusively on the other side of the kitchen table. She was feeling too low to be surprised.

Eve greeted him with little enthusiasm. 'Hello, Percy.'

'Missus.' He nodded his head without smiling at her. His cap was in his hands on his lap, but he hadn't removed his storm coat.

'Percy was outside working on the flowerbeds,' said Gabe, 'so I called him in to take a look at this stuff.'

Now Eve saw what was on the kitchen table. Curious, she moved closer.

A book of about the size and proportions of an accountant's ledger lay next to a long wooden stick. Its stiff black cover was dusty—someone, probably Gabe, had obviously wiped it with his hand, for there were streaks across the surface where the black was more intense. The cover's corners were wrinkled, as if battered by wear, and a label, yellow with age, had been glued onto it. Written on the label in neat capital letters that, although faded, were still legible, were the words:

PUNISHMENT BOOK

Eve realized then that the wooden stick lying next to the book was a thin bamboo cane, one end of which was split into even thinner slivers of at least six inches in length. It was the type of cane that in a different era, some teachers used to beat disobedient or unruly schoolchildren. And just in front of Percy, as if he had been studying it before Eve came in, was a creased black and white photograph. But it was the Punishment Book that really drew her attention.

'My God,' she said, 'what
is
this?'

Gabe waved a hand that took in all the items laid out on the otherwise unoccupied kitchen table. 'It's some interesting stuff I found earlier. Know where they were?' The question was rhetorical; he went on. 'Behind a phoney wall inside the landing closet.'

He told Eve about the now familiar noises he and Cally had heard coming from the upstairs cupboard, the loud knocking sounds, and how he had discovered the black-painted false wall that some time in the past had been used as a hideaway. 'It wasn't very deep, just enough space for the book and cane. Oh, and the photograph over there by Percy.'

Gabe picked up the cane with the split end and sliced it through the air, bringing it down hard on the black-covered book.

Swish-thwack!

Eve flinched at the harsh sound it made. Dust billowed up from the book.

Gabe lifted the bamboo cane again and this time brought it down gently onto the palm of his hand. 'See how the ends splay out when they hit. Now imagine it hard against a kid's hand, or leg, or butt. You'd have to be a sadist to use it.' There was no humour in Gabe's tight-lipped grin.

'Cribben?'

'Yeah, Augustus Theophilus Cribben. Cribben, custodian and headmaster to those evacuees back in '43. This place was supposed to be a safe haven for 'em, out of reach from those German bombs that were blitzing the big cities in the last world war. Huh! Some haven.' Gabe indicated again, this time pointing the cane at the big black book. 'S'all in there, written up, all the things he did to those kids, everything recorded in detail, dates and all.'

Percy spoke up and there was a bitterness to his words. 'The man was evil, cruel. Oh, a good Christian all right, an' highly thought of by some in these parts. But they didn't know, not the authorities, nor our own vicar, who wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't take notice, always insisted Cribben were a God-fearing man who believed in strict discipline for children. Well, Cribben might've been God-fearing, but he were no good! Wrong in the head, to my thinking, righteous but wicked underneath. Him an' his sister both. Magda Cribben was a cold-hearted woman, in her way just as cruel as her brother.'

Percy's pale watery eyes had become moist and they stared straight ahead, looking neither at Eve or Gabe as he remembered the past.

'Nancy told me about the things that went on in Crickley Hall behind closed doors, but I don't think she knew the half of it. Otherwise she'd have done something about the situation. Instead she just up an' left. Or so we was told.'

Now he did look directly at Eve, his eyes troubled. She remembered his tale of Nancy Linnet, the young teacher who had become his sweetheart all those years ago, and Eve couldn't tell if the regret in his eyes was for Nancy and their doomed relationship, or for the children who had suffered so much in this place. She picked up the black book from the table and opened it.

God, Gabe was right, she thought, staring at the neat, rigid handwriting: there were names and dates, punishments accorded as well as the reasons for them, all written down in dulled-by-time blue ink. The reason for punishment was the same in every case: misbehaviour. And as far as Eve could tell, none of the children appeared to have escaped it, for all the names she remembered from the church's memorial board were mentioned, some more than others. And the dates started around late August 1943, apparently soon after the evacuees had arrived at Crickley Hall.

Eve turned several pages, glancing at the names and punishments, the latter of which were marked down 4, 6 or 10, presumably denoting the number of strokes of the cane that were dealt out each time.

'It goes on page after page,' remarked Gabe as he returned the cane to the table. 'Seems not a day went by without some of the kids being disciplined. Percy tells me there were other kinds of penalties for misbehaviour too, like making the kids stand on one spot in the hall all day, wearing nothing but their underwear.'

'Nancy tol' me about the punishments.' Percy shifted awkwardly in his seat. 'She said the children often went without food for the day, or was forced to take cold baths. Sometimes, when Cribben were in a rage, he laid about them with the thick leather belt he always wore, but mostly he used the stick. Nancy tried to put a stop to it, but the Cribbens wouldn't listen, said the kiddies was being purified, atonin' for their sins, like.'

Eve considered the page she had stopped at. This boy Stefan Rosenbaum is mentioned more than most; he seems to be on nearly every page. Didn't you tell me he was Polish and could hardly speak any English? Wasn't he just five years old?'

The old gardener nodded. 'Five years.'
Foive yers,
it sounded like.

'But why was he punished so much? Was he that naughty?'

'None of 'em was, Missus Caleigh. They was all good kiddies. Bit lively when they first arrived, but that were soon knocked out of 'em. No, Cribben had a special dislikin' for the little Polish boy.'

'Turn towards the middle of the book,' Gabe advised Eve and she did so.

The handwriting had changed: it was looser, sometimes a scrawl, sometimes too big, sometimes almost illegible. Still it went on, though, and she turned more pages, the handwriting changing dramatically as if the author was gradually becoming deranged, the punishments becoming more severe and more frequent. Soon it seemed like the hand of a lunatic. Ten strokes of the cane, fifteen, twenty. And Stefan Rosenbaum's name came up consistently. A five-year-old boy being beaten like this! Why Stefan, why so cruel to him in particular?

As if reading her mind, Gabe said, 'Now move on to some of the later pages. You'll see Cribben's handwriting gets even worse, like he's totally flipped. And you'll see why he picked on this kid Stefan so much.'

Eve leafed through the pages faster, no longer reading each individual record, absorbing the pages as a whole. And then she got to it. The true reason for punishing the same boy over and over again.

The scrawl had descended to an erratic scratching by now. But the word that stunned Eve was clear enough, for it was in spiky capital letters and gave the reason why Stefan Rosenbaum had been constantly punished. It simply said:

JEWBOY

31: THE PHOTOGRAPH

The word had been written crudely, almost brutally, as if its author was enraged—no, was
disturbed, mentally disturbed—
and the contempt it revealed was so unequivocal that Eve was shocked. She actually gasped.

'How could he…?' The words petered out.

Percy leaned towards her, one bony and calloused hand resting on the table between them. 'There's some people, them what went through the last world war, who like to forget it, don't like to be reminded of how the Jews was hated in them days. Lotsa people even blamed the war on the Jews, thought Hitler had the right idea when he tried to rid Germany an' other countries of 'em. An' that kind of bigotry ran through all classes, rich or poor. Even some royalty shook hands with Hitler afore the war got started.'

'But… but Augustus Cribben was a teacher,' Eve protested. 'And he was a guardian of the children. How could he be a bigot? His background must have been checked by the Ministry of Education and whoever was in charge of evacuation. Surely his sentiments would have been discovered.'

'How?' argued Gabe. 'They'd hardly ask him if he had a thing against Jews, would they? And even if they did, he only had to lie.'

'Oh, Cribben and his sister knew how to play the part, all right,' put in Percy. 'They was admired an' respected when they first came to Hollow Bay. They was looked upon as righteous folk; a little bit unsociable, mind, a little bit standoffish, but otherwise upstanding people as fer as the locals was concerned. Our vicar in them days were certainly impressed with 'em, like I told yer afore, missus. The Cribbens could do no wrong as fer as old Reverend Rossbridger were concerned. That's what broke him when the rumours went about after the flood.'

Eve shook her head in dismay. 'But to victimize this young boy just because he was Jewish. How did Cribben get away with it?'

'Things that went on inside these walls was kep' secret. Who would the kiddies tell? They was kep' away from outsiders an' when they was seen—like goin' to church Sunday mornins—they was always behaved, never spoke to no one. But they couldn't help the way they looked, couldn't hide the misery on their faces. Course, people hereabouts jus' thought the orphans was well disciplined an' didn't look any further than that. Folks didn't want to, the war brought 'em problems of their own.'

Percy's hand dropped to his lap again and he wrung his cap out as if in regret.

'Cribben and his sister, Magda, had the kiddies trained, y'see. Nobody could tell if there were anythin' wrong with 'em, save they was quieter than the local children would ever be. Cribben even had me rig up the swing that's still in the garden today so anyone passin' by would see the kiddies enjoyin' 'emselves. He only let them out there two at a time, mind, an' that were only at weekends. My Nancy told me it were Magda Cribben's idea, lettin' the kids play outside. She knew the things goin' on inside Crickley Hall weren't right, but she supported her brother. Afraid of him too. But her heart were stone. In her own way she were worse then him, 'cause she were a woman an' should've had more compassion for the orphans. Well, she pushed 'em on that swing, only it were like another punishment for 'em when nobody were passin' by. She pushed 'em too hard an' too high, so in the end they was terrified. An' Magda, she liked that, like to see 'em cryin' 'cause they was terrified.'