The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps Page 5

  Window after window, street after street, she peered through foggy panes of glass and read menus that offered her cod and potato in its various disguises, served with mushy peas, pickled egg, curry sauce, gravy. A sign on the front door of the Plough Inn said ‘Sorry, no food today’. A bistro that looked promising wasn’t open till the evening. The Tandoori place near the station was good, but she’d eaten there yesterday, and besides, she wanted something instantly.

  She ended up eating a banana-and-ice-cream crêpe in a café across the river. They served it with the ice-cream folded inside the pancake rather than on top, so the whole thing was already a lukewarm mess even as she made the first incision with her toothless knife. Chasing the disappearing warmth, she ate too fast, then felt sick.

  If she’d been one of Saint Hilda’s nuns, she reflected, she would have dined on bread and wine, in the company of friends. She would have drawn a circle in the air and someone would have silently handed her something wholesome, and there wouldn’t have been this Top Forty gibberish blaring into her ears.

  Dream on, dream on.

  She paid for her pancake and crossed the bridge to her hotel, still haunted, to top it all off, by the fantasy of Magnus cresting the horizon with an umbrella held aloft.

  Siân’s nightmare next morning was an ingenious variant on the usual. In this version, she had just a few precious seconds to find where her severed head had rolled and replace it on her neck, before the quivering nerves and arteries lost their ability to reunite. Her consciousness seemed to be floating somewhere between the two, powerless to guide her headless body as it groped and fumbled on the floor, its gory neck densely packed with what looked like gasping, sucking macaroni. Her head lay near the open door, inches from the steep stairwell, its eyes fluttering, its lips dry, licked by an anxious tongue. With a bump, Siân woke up on the floor next to her bed.

  I really am losing my mind, she thought.

  Still, looking on the bright side, she’d slept quite well, and for an uncommonly long stretch of hours. Buttery-yellow sunlight was beaming through the velux window, flickering gently as seagulls wheeled over the roof. The screaming was over, and breakfast would be served downstairs. Most cheeringly of all, she’d made good progress last night on Thomas Peirson’s confession.

  Before going to bed, she’d managed to liberate the whole of the outermost page. Aside from those ‘o’s and ‘e’s already lost to the corrosive ink, there’d been no further mishaps; she’d proceeded with the utmost gentleness, ignoring the pangs of indigestion and … and whatever that lump in her left thigh might be. The lump was more palpable and more painful all the time, but she refused to let it terrorise her. She’d made a solemn vow, when she’d finally walked out of that hospital in Belgrade, feeling each clumsy step reverberating through the cushioned mould of her prosthesis, that she would never lie in a hospital bed again, ever. She would keep that vow. And if she was condemned to die soon, at least she’d die knowing she’d done a good job on this confession.

  A hastily scribbled transcript of what she’d unwrapped so far was lying on the spare pillow of her double bed. Pity it had to be written on a cheap little notepad with a Star Wars actress on the cover, but that was the only writing paper to hand last night, and she was so impatient to share Thomas Peirson’s secrets with Mack that she simply couldn’t wait. He would be in seventh heaven when he saw this. He was just the sort of guy who’d be keen on murder mysteries, she could tell.

  She scooped yesterday’s skirt off the floor and held it up to the sunlight. It was well and truly ripe for the laundromat; she would wear something fresh today. To celebrate the first page.

  All the way to work, the cheap little Star Wars notepad burned a hole in Siân’s jacket pocket, and her ears were cocked for the sound of Mack’s voice, or the heavy breathing of Hadrian. Neither sound came to her, however, and she joined her colleagues at the dig, tilling the soil for human remains.

  At lunch-time, she wandered down to the kiosk and had a peek out into the world beyond the abbey grounds. Nothing. She considered going down to Loggerhead’s Yard and actually visiting Mack at his house, but that didn’t feel right.

  After all, he might kill me, she thought – then blinked in surprise at the idea. What a thing to think! Nevertheless, she’d rather wait until he came to her.

  She strolled back to the abbey remains. The fine lunch-time weather was luring visitors to the site – not just tourists, but also the children of English Heritage staff. Bobby and Jemima, the son and daughter of one of the kiosk workers, were running around the ruins, shrieking with laughter. At seven and six years old respectively, they weren’t worried that their scrambling feet would erode the stonework of the pedestal stubs littering the grassy nave. They were so young, in fact, that they could even kiss each other without worrying about the consequences.

  ‘Hi, Bobby! Hi, Jemima!’ called Siân, waving.

  The children were mucking about near the vanished sacristy, lying down flat and jumping up in turn, pirouetting gracelessly.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Siân.

  Jemima was swaying on her feet, dizzy after another spin; Bobby was lying in a peculiar hollowed-out depression in a rectangle of stone, staring up at the sky.

  ‘We’re tryin’ to see the wumman jumpin’,’ he explained.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The ghostie wumman that jumps off the top.’ Bobby pointed, and Siân followed the line of his grubby finger to the roofless buttresses of the abbey. ‘You spin three times, then you lie in the grave, then you see her.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’ said Siân.

  ‘Nah,’ said Jemima. ‘We’ve not spinned ’ard enough.’

  And the two of them ran off, laughing.

  Siân looked down at the hollow in the stone, wondering what it used to be before it served as a toy sarcophagus for superstitious children. Then she peered up at the abbey buttresses, imagining a woman moving along them, a young woman in a flowing white gown, her bare feet treading the stone tightrope with all the sureness of a sleepwalker.

  ‘HUSH!’

  Siân almost jumped out of her skin as the dog shouted his greeting right next to her. She staggered off-balance, and did a little dance to regain her footing, much to Hadrian’s delight.

  ‘Honestly, Hadrian,’ she scolded him. ‘Who taught you that trick?’

  ‘My dad, I suppose,’ said Mack, ambling up behind. He was dressed in black denim trousers and a grey Nike sweatshirt with the sleeves gathered up to his elbows; he looked better than ever.

  ‘That’s right, blame the departed,’ said Siân.

  ‘But it’s true,’ he protested. ‘I’m just a foster carer, stuck with a delinquent orphan. Aren’t I, Hadrian, eh?’ And he patted the dog vigorously on the back, almost slapping him.

  ‘You didn’t need to pay £1.70 to meet me,’ said Siân. ‘I would’ve come out eventually.’

  He laughed. ‘Sod that. I want to know what that confession says.’

  ‘One page a day is the best I can manage,’ she cautioned him.

  ‘I’ll take what I can get.’

  She pulled the notebook from her jacket pocket, flipped Princess Whatsername over and immediately began to read aloud:

  Confession of Thos. Peirson, in the Year of Our Lord 1788

  In the full and certain Knowledge that my Time is nigh, for my good Wife has even now closed the door on Doctor Cubitt & weeps in the room below, I write these words. In my fifty years of Life I have been a Whaler and latterly an Oil Merchant; to my family I have given such comforts as have been allow’d me, and to God I have given what I could in thanks. All who know me, know me as a man who means harm to no one.

  Yet, as I prepare to meet my Maker, there is but one memory He sets afore me; one dreddeful scene He bids me live again. My hands, though cold now with Fever, do seem to grow warm, from the flesh of her neck – my beloved Mary. Such a slender neck it was, without flaw, fitting inside my big hands like a coil of ancho
r rope.

  I meant, at first, no more than to strangle her – to put such marks upon her throat as could not be mistaken. Despoiled tho’ she was, I was loath to despoil her more; I would do only so much as would spare her the wrath of the townsfolk, and secure her repose among the Blessed. So, I resolved only to strangle her. But

  She looked up at him.

  ‘But?’ he prompted.

  ‘That’s it, so far. A page-and-a-bit.’

  Mack tilted his head back, narrowed his eyes in concentration.

  ‘Maybe he thought she was a vampire,’ he suggested after a minute. ‘Maybe he strangled her while she was sleeping, thinking she was going to sprout fangs when the sun came up.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ sighed Siân.

  ‘Well, Whitby is the town of Dracula, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not in 1788,’ she said, restraining herself from a more fulsome put-down.

  ‘I know damn well when the novel was written,’ he growled. ‘But maybe Bram Stoker was – what’s the word? – inspired by how everybody in Whitby was vampire-mad.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think the people of Whitby were worried about their menfolk drowning in the North Sea, not about Transylvanian bloodsuckers running around in black capes.’

  ‘They were pretty superstitious, though, weren’t they, these 18th-century Yorkshire people?’

  ‘I wasn’t alive then, believe it or not. But I think we can be pretty sure our man Thomas Peirson, if he strangled someone, wasn’t doing it because of a story that hadn’t been written yet by a novelist who wasn’t even born here.’

  Mack’s eyes went a bit glazed as something came back to him. ‘My dad showed me Count Dracula’s grave once, in Saint Mary’s churchyard. I must have been six.’

  ‘Naughty man. Were you scared?’

  ‘Bloody terrified; I had nightmares for days. I adored it, though. Nothing more thrilling than fear, is there?’

  She looked down uneasily. ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘OK, maybe one thing,’ he conceded. His voice was soft, deep, good-humoured; the tint of bawdiness in it was unmistakable.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Siân, blushing. ‘Why don’t you show me the grave?’

  The East Cliff churchyard may have been the final earthly resting place for hundreds of humans, but for Hadrian this grassy expanse of headland was Heaven. He dashed across the green, leaping over tombstones as if they were sporting hurdles provided especially for him, rather like those handsome black receptacles on the seashore embossed DOG WASTE. With such a huge playground to explore, he was quite content to let his master and mistress get on with whatever they were here for.

  ‘I don’t know if I can find it, after so many years,’ said Mack, shielding his eyes under the visor of his massive right hand.

  ‘Put yourself back in that little boy’s shoes,’ she suggested.

  He laughed, and lifted up one Size 12 foot. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  They both, at exactly the same time, recalled the moment when she’d lifted her prosthetic leg for him on the hundred and ninety-nine steps. The moment when the scales fell from his eyes, and she knew with perfect certainty that he was imagining her body and wondering how he’d feel about it if it were stretched out naked beside him.

  He reached out to her, cupped her shoulder in his palm.

  ‘Look, it’s all right,’ he said.

  She walked ahead of him, face turned away.

  ‘Lots and lots of these graves are empty, did you know that?’ she declared, in a brisk, informative tone. ‘Sailors would be lost at sea, and the families would have a funeral, put up a headstone …’

  ‘Ah, historical fakery again …’

  ‘Not at all. It preserves a different kind of history – the reality of the loved ones’ grief.’

  He hummed dubiously. ‘I’m not a grief kinda guy, Siân. Bury the dead, get on with living, that’s my motto.’

  She shivered without knowing why. She couldn’t remember if he’d ever spoken her name before today. The way he voiced it, exhaled it at leisure over his tongue, ‘Siân’ sounded like a noise of satisfaction.

  They wandered around for another five minutes or so, but failed to find the unmarked grave Mack’s father had told him was Dracula’s. What they did find was something Siân had read about in a book: an adjacent pair of gravestones – one oval and flat to the ground, the other a tiny upright miniature – which countless generations of children had been assured marked the graves of Humpty Dumpty and Tom Thumb.

  ‘My dad never told me that,’ said Mack.

  ‘Well there you are: another black mark against him.’

  They went to fetch Hadrian, who was merrily digging up clods of earth all over the place. Siân glanced at the weathered tombstones as she walked, reading the odd name here and there if it was still legible. Sea-spray and the wind of centuries had erased the finer details, and she wasn’t in the mood to study the stones closely, as she was getting peckish. But suddenly she did a double-take and stumbled backwards.

  ‘It’s our man!’ she cried. ‘Mack! It’s our man!’

  He bounded to her side – him and Hadrian both. Standing somewhat skew-whiff on the ground before them was a tall headstone clearly inscribed THOMAS PEIRSON, WHALER AND OIL MERCHANT. According to the remainder of the text, he was the husband of Catherine, father of Anne and Illegible. He died, as he’d anticipated in his confession, in 1788, but there was no hint of him having done anything to warrant remorse. Not so much as a ‘God have mercy on his soul’.

  The discovery of Peirson’s headstone galvanised Mack, sending him sniffing around the other graves, squinting at the inscriptions. It was as if it hadn’t occurred to him before now that his treasure-in-a-bottle was something more than a bizarre relic – that it was still intimately connected with the world at large.

  ‘I wonder if his victim’s here, too?’ he was muttering, as he moved from grave to grave. ‘Mary … Mary … If only she’d had a more unusual first name …’ He bent down to peer at an epitaph, reciting the bits he considered interesting. ‘“ … in the thirty-fourth year of her age …” No cause of death listed, though … Shame …’

  There was something about his attitude that Siân found provocative.

  ‘Well, Doctor Magnus, this is a churchyard, not a hospital mortuary. These headstones are commemorations, they’re not here to satisfy your curiosity.’

  ‘What do you mean, my curiosity?’ he retorted, stung. ‘Of the two of us, who’s digging up dead bodies, poking around in people’s bones?’

  Siân turned on her heel, and began to walk away. How instinctively, how helplessly they argued with each other! The last person she’d argued with so much, she ended up declaring her undying love to – not to mention following him to a war zone and shielding him from the impact of an oncoming car. There was no hope for her; she was doomed.

  ‘Let’s not make a big thing of this,’ he said, catching up to her. ‘Can I take you out to lunch?’

  She tried to say no, but Hadrian was at her side now, rubbing his downy snout against her skirt as she walked, snuffling in anticipation of her touch. She allowed her hand to fall into his mane, felt his skull arching against her palm. Her stomach rumbled.

  ‘We could have a cup of tea at The Mission,’ she said. ‘They let dogs in there.’

  ‘The Mission?’

  ‘The Whitby Mission and Seafarer’s Centre. They run a coffee shop.’

  ‘Don’t be silly – I’ll drop Hadrian off at home and take you to a proper restaurant.’

  Determined not to argue, she said, ‘OK, then: Indian.’

  But his brow wrinkled into a frown. ‘Let me think …’

  ‘What’s wrong with Indian?’

  ‘I’d rather something more … um … unusual.’

  She took a deep breath as they began to descend the hundred and ninety-nine steps.

  ‘From a historical point of view,’ she said, trying to convince herself she wasn’
t arguing but only making an interesting observation, ‘you surely can’t get much more unusual than Punjabi food in a Northumbrian fishing town.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘The small-town Indian restaurant … it’s so … provincial.’

  ‘Well, we’re in a province, for goodness’ sake!’ she snapped. ‘We’re not in London now.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You’re the only person I know who says “for goodness’ sake”, even when she looks ready to clock me one.’

  ‘So? Does that make me cute?’

  ‘Yes, it makes you cute. And by the way, you’re dressed very nicely today. You’re looking fantastic.’

  Siân felt herself colouring from the hairline down. As his compliment sank in, so did the realisation that, God help her, she really had dressed and groomed herself with unusual care this morning. Her skirt, tights and boots were classy co-ordinates and, as her blush travelled further down her body, she was reminded that the neckline of the top she’d chosen was, for the first time in years, low enough to show off her collarbones.

  ‘Uh … look,’ she said, only a few steps shy of Church Street, ‘I’ve just realised: I don’t have time to go to a restaurant. I’m supposed to be back at work in five minutes.’

  He stared at her, mouth open, clearly and sincerely disappointed.

  ‘This evening, then.’

  She thought fast; there was a tightness in her throat, like hands pressing on her neck. ‘I’m going to be working on the next page of your confession this evening,’ she said breathlessly.

  For a few moments they stood there, eye to eye. Then he smiled, dropped his gaze down to his shoes in good-humoured defeat, and let her go.