The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (32 page)

The Shadow King! Ralf tingled with fear. Was this the monster come from its grave to unleash its terrible revenge on the people of King’s Hadow? The Fear in his gut screamed ‘Yes!’ but his whirling brain told him ‘No’. It was people! Two people carrying something! The Muntons? There was something bad, something unspeakably evil out tonight but it did not come from the strange wobbling shape that had now reached the other side of the lane. It was somewhere else. Frozen, Ralf watched as the humped shape was swallowed by trees.

At that exact moment, a moaning cry echoed from the wood. It was the most despairing, anguished sound Ralf had ever heard and it chilled him to the core. His heart pattered but his feet seemed stuck to the hard packed ice. This is Fear, he thought. Real terror – the kind most people only read about in books. It gripped him now and, as it did so, a sense of ‘wrongness’ consumed him. Whatever it was, it was behind him.

Slowly, slowly, neck prickling, sweat beading on his forehead, Ralf forced himself to turn and face what lurked there. And when he did, he wished he hadn’t.

Shadows boiled from a Fall at the edge of Sparra’s Pond. They moved with a speed that Ralf didn’t think possible, leaping from the dark water to bound forward in long strands. In that awful moment Ralf knew three things: He knew that the Shadows were alive, that though they could not see him they knew he was there and most terrifying of all, they were coming for him.

A sense of hopelessness rolled over him. A fleeting sadness that he’d made such a mess of it and then, a moment when he thought suddenly of the others. He had a second of utter madness as he thought of Seth and how he would never believe this. Ralf almost laughed.
He would die here, consumed by Shadows that his friend would insist did not exist! His friends. The thought of them almost hurt but it was the thought he needed. Shadows rippled towards him but with a desperate, howling shout he tore his feet free of the ground and Shifted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Christmas Conundrums

Crisp, winter’s air filled his lungs and his legs pumped rhythmically over ice and snow. He felt he hardly touched it as he flew towards the safety of church. But the scene that met his eyes made the Fear rush back. The graveyard was in uproar. People were rushing blindly to and fro, calling and shouting.

‘Valentine!’

‘When was the last time anyone saw her?’

‘Val!’

Panting, Ralf skittered to a halt. Valen? He fell to his knees. What had happened to her? It made him feel sick to think of it.

‘Hie! I say!’

The jovial call came from behind the church wall, bringing everyone to a standstill. ‘I say! Could one of you chaps give me a hand? I think my arm’s about to drop orf!’

Captain Keen appeared out of the darkness, carrying a limp Valen over one shoulder.

Villagers rushed forwards and she was lifted, by many pairs of hands from his back and lowered gently to the ground. Rosie Kemp wafted smelling salts under her nose and Valen’s eyes flickered open.

‘I saw...there was someone...’ Her voice was faint but in the silent church it carried.

‘You’re crowding her,’ said Rosie. ‘Stand back.’

Ralf couldn’t. ‘Where Valen?’ he asked, crouching beside her. ‘What did you see?’

‘The Hall,’ she said, sitting up. Shoving away the smelling salts she got to her feet. ‘Someone was coming out of the Hall. I went over. I called, but they must have doubled back.’ She shook her head to clear it but her eyes clouded and her hand went to her face. ‘I was going to shout but then – then everything’s blank! I don’t remember what happened!’

Ralf suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead. Whoever was doing this had used the same trick twice in one night.

‘What?’

But Ralf was already running and everyone turned to stare. What had come over him? ‘It’s a diversion!’ he yelled back at them as he darted out of the church door. ‘Oldest trick in the book!’

He crossed the Green at a sprint and crashed through the door to the Village Hall a second ahead of Valen and about six seconds ahead of everyone else. Someone flipped the light switch.

The people of King’s Hadow gasped in unison.

The Hall resembled the inside of a slaughterhouse. The tables and food were all as they were, except that over the top of everything, thickly spread and dripping in red rivulets to puddle on the floor were, what looked like, about four hundred pints of blood.

‘Oh my –’

‘Look at the walls!’

Ralf tore his eyes away from the carnage that was the remains of their supper and saw something that made his flesh creep cold.

The same ten symbols had been scrawled on the walls again and again, some high up and some low, each symbol huge and badly formed like the scribblings of a small child:

Ralf and Valen stared at the message in horror because, unlike the rest of the people in Kings Hadow, they could read it.

‘Nos Darras Eos Appen,’ Valen whispered hoarsely.

For the first time since she had arrived in King’s Hadow there was real fear behind her eyes.

‘Nos Darras Eo
s Appen,’ Ralf repeated in the Old Speech. ‘The Black Door is open.’

‘Clear the room, please Minter.’ Burrowes’ voice was calmly efficient.

‘You heard the Inspector, ladies and gents,’ the sergeant coughed out. ‘Best to wait over in the church and then he’ll have questions for you, I’m sure.’

The villagers, still gaping at the carnage in front of them, were reluctant to move.

‘But what does it mean?’ Tom Arbuckle
’s whispered question spoke for the whole village. No one answered him. Ralf’s mind raced. Everyone had been accounted for. Almost everyone had been in the church – except Brindle. That instant, the information Hettie had given them earlier in the day crystallized in his brain.

‘Grab her!’ Walter Sedley cried and for a moment Ralf thought that Brindle had somehow given herself away, but it was only Hettie fainting again. The vicar was a second too late to catch her and she crashed nastily to the floor.

‘Ah! Miss Brindle. There you are!’ the vicar exclaimed, as the Post Mistress entered the Hall. ‘Perhaps, you could stay with Hettie when we’ve taken her over to the church? You know her best, after all.’

Brindle’s lip curled but she could hardly refuse. Ralf glared after her and as she left he saw something. On the back of her overalls, behind one solid knee where she wouldn’t be able to see it, was a livid splotch of red.

As they were herded back towards the church, Ralf anxiously scanned the graveyard for signs of Seth and Alfie. Leo nudged him and nodded to their left at a sudden blur in the darkness. A second later, the two boys, emerged from the side of the porch to casually join the back of the group. They looked out of breath but otherwise unscathed and Ralf gave a sigh of relief. Seth gave him a pointed look and the moment they were inside they found a quiet spot near the font to talk.

‘The Muntons weren't on
The Lot's Lady
,’ he said.

‘
And they weren't here, either,’ said Alfie. ‘We’ve so got to do something about them. They’re dodgy as hell and slippery as a bucket of cat guts!’

‘Nice image,’ said Valen.

‘Thanks,’ smiled Alfie. ‘I been workin’ on it. After what we’ve just found on
The Lot's Lady
they’ve got to be our number one suspects.’

‘But suspects for what?’ said Valen. ‘The boats being cast adrift? The fish in the pond? The dolls? The ghosts? This…mess?’

‘They’re black marketeers,’ said Seth. ‘Plain and simple. There’s crates of stolen stuff on board that boat.’

‘And handy with the fireworks too, there’s a huge box of bangers in the wheel house!’ interrupted Alfie.

‘But that’s not the half of it!’ said Seth. ‘They’ve also got about a dozen vials of chloroform on board!’

‘Chloroform?’ Valen repeated. ‘Isn’t that the stuff they use to put people to sleep?’

‘Yep,’ said Seth. ‘Chloroform’s quite a powerful anaesthetic. Lethal in the wrong hands. Who knows what they’re doing with it.’

Valen’s eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Knocking me out, for a start!’ she cried. ‘They wouldn’t have got past me any other way!’

‘We have to tell Burrowes,’ said Leo. ‘They can’t muck around with that stuff. They could kill someone!’

Leo was absolutely right, Ralf thought. Though telling Burrowes would mean admitting they’d been snooping aboard
The Lot's Lady
, he didn’t really feel as if they had a choice. The way Seth had explained it, having Gadd and Oyler in charge of that much chloroform was rather like allowing a couple of toddlers to play with a hand grenade.

Ralf itched to speak to the
detective and he could see the others were jittery too but the night seemed to stretch on interminably. Burrowes dismissed the women and children from the Manor early on but then, using Minter as messenger, he called villagers over to the Hall in ones and twos for questioning. It took hours.

Eventually the waiting crowd thinned and it was their turn. The boys huddled in the church porch as Valen was escorted to the Hall with the Hatchers. She emerged a short time later looking angry and stepped out to walk back towards the others. Minter wasn’t going to allow that, though. He headed her off and she was led, grumbling, back home with Mrs Hatcher clucking over her all the way.

It was the same with Alfie and the Sedleys, Seth and Winters and eventually Leo and all the Arbuckles. By the time Ralf and Hilda were called, the church clock was softly chiming three.

Burrowes sat at an unstained table. He’d nodded at Hilda as they came in but his attention was all on Ralf.

‘Right, suppose you tell me everything that happened tonight?’

Hilda started to answer but Burrowes held up his hand with a smile. ‘I think I’ll hear it from Ralf, if you don’t mind,’ he said.

Leaving out the undulating Shadows, which he knew might cast doubt on the rest of his story and probably his sanity too, Ralf told Burrowes what had happened in as much detail as he could. When Hilda heard how he’d followed Walter to Brindle’s, her lips compressed into a hard line but she held her tongue. He glanced up and her look told him everything. She’d say nothing now but, boy, would he be in trouble when they got home. He put that uncomfortable thought aside and finished his account with a question.

‘Have you spoken to the Muntons?’

‘Your friend Seth has just told me a proper tale about them,’ Burrows laughed. ‘But we have, in this country, Ralf, an institution of which I am rather fond,’ Burrowes explained. ‘The Law. The Law states that a man is innocent until proven guilty and I always abide by the Law.’

‘Please,’ Ralf begged. ‘Go and look on
The Lot's Lady
! They’re part of this. I know they are!’

‘What would you say if I told you that I was aboard
The Lot's Lady
earlier today and saw nothing there but nets and tackle?’ Burrowes asked, mildly.

‘That Gadd and Oyler somehow knew you were coming and hid everything they didn’t want you to see,’ said Ralf firmly. ‘They’re smugglers. For goodness sake, everyone knows it!’

‘They say they rowed out in their dingy to set creels near Scarth Point earlier.’

‘Setting creels?’ cried Ralf. ‘In this weather? Do me a favour! They were up on the Merle Farm Lane tonight. Carrying something they didn’t want anyone else to see,’ Ralf insisted. ‘Maybe they let off the fireworks as a distraction?’

‘Let off the fireworks? And how would they have done that and been on the Merle Farm Lane, just a minute or two later? How could
you
, come to that? I think we both know it would have taken you much longer than just a few minutes to get all the way out there and back.’

Ralf flushed. Burrowes was right
, of course, and there was no way he could explain that he’d Shifted. But the Muntons couldn’t have done! They couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Confused, he quickly changed tack.

‘What about Brindle, then?’ he countered. ‘She had blood on the back of her leg when she came in here. How d’you reckon that got there?’

Burrowes gave a small smile. ‘You noticed that too, did you?’ He turned his gaze to Hilda. ‘If he could just get past this nasty habit of jumping to conclusions, the lad might consider a career in the Force. A good eye. Even Minter didn’t spot that little detail.’

‘So, you asked her about it?’ said Ralf. ‘What did she say?’

‘I’m sorry to break it to you, Ralf but the clue turned out to be what we call a red-herring. Miss Brindle butchered one of her pigs earlier. Bound to get a bit mucky doing a job like that,’ he said.

Ralf and Hilda were silent. Ralf was seething with anger. How could the man be so stupid? Ralf was certain that Brindle had slaughtered one of her pigs. He would have put money, too, on the mess on the walls being pig’s blood.

‘We’ll have to check, I suppose,’ said Burrowes, as if reading his mind. ‘But it looks like that mess is pig’s blood too. Miss. Brindle was planning on making black puddings, you see, and had two buckets of the stuff set aside in her lean-to. Earlier this evening she saw the door was open and found that the blood was missing. She was just on her way to report the theft when young Sedley and his friend arrived.’

‘How convenient!’ Ralf sucked his teeth and turned his eyes away from Burrowes to stare at the grizzly message on the walls.

At the entrance, Minter gave a dry cough and when Burrowes spoke again his voice was quieter. ‘I am well aware of the situation that presently exists between you and Miss Brindle,’ he said. ‘You and your chums have got a nice little grudge against her and I’m sure it’s very satisfying to you. However, that’s as far as it must go.’ He glanced from Ralf to Hilda and back again. ‘We do not make unfounded accusations. We do not trespass on others property. We do not interfere in other people’s treatment of their animals. Is that understood?’

‘Yes!’ Ralf spat the word through gritted teeth. ‘Can we go?’

Burrowes nodded and as one, Ralf and Hilda rose and went to the door. Wait for it, Ralf thought.