The smell of damp was worse up here. It reached down my throat, making me gag. Ameena seemed unaffected as she crossed the landing, making for the half-open door.
She stopped when she reached it, moved to push it the rest of the way open, then hesitated. For a long time, she didn"t look as if she was going to make any further movement.
*Want me to go first?" I asked, adding please say no, please say no, please say no in my head.
*No."
*Thank G.o.d!"
She shot me a scowl.
*Sorry," I mumbled. *Didn"t mean to say that out loud."
With a shake of her head, Ameena put her palm against the door and gave it a nudge. It swung open a little, then caught on the carpet, forcing her to step closer and give it another shove. It opened with a low, ominous creak.
The glow of a streetlight shone in through the bedroom window, and I remembered that none of the upstairs windows had ever been boarded up. I"d lain awake in bed countless times when I was younger, convinced I"d seen shadows moving within the bedrooms of the Keller House while I was closing my own curtains.
And now, here I was, my own shadow moving across the mould-stained wallpaper, and through the window, across the garden a" my house. My bedroom. My curtains. I stared into my darkened room, wishing I could transport myself back to one of those nights, lying in bed, Mum a.s.suring me the Keller House was empty.
I hoped she was right.
*Hey, check it out!" Ameena"s voice broke the spell and I turned from the window. She was sitting propped up on a single bed, her muddy boots leaving marks on the yellowing covers, her back resting against the padded headboard. *Bagsy the bed."
*You can have it," I said, queasy at the thought. *There could be anything crawling about in there. I"ll sleep on the floor."
*Oh, like that"s better?"
I looked down and winced. The carpet was a mess of mould and mouse droppings. Mushrooms sprouted from the soggier patches, all of them different shapes and sizes, all of them probably deadly.
A fat black insect with a shiny back scuttled past my foot. I watched it scurry across the carpet, through a clump of the mushrooms, and into a dark hole in the skirting board.
*We should check out the other rooms," I said, fighting the urge to scratch my skin until it bled. *They might be less..."
*Revolting?"
I nodded. *Hopefully."
*Right then," Ameena said, swinging her legs off the bed and taking a kick at the closest mushroom crop. *Lead the way, kiddo."
Of the three remaining upstairs rooms, one was another equally filthy bedroom, one was a small box room with nothing in it, and the last was a bathroom so horrific we both agreed never to speak of it again.
The box room was where we settled in the end. It was completely bare a" exposed wooden floorboard, unpainted plasterboard walls a" and, as a result, hadn"t decayed as badly as the other rooms. It also looked straight on to the side of my house, meaning we could see if anyone came or went through the front door or the back. The perfect place for a stakeout.
I stood at the window, looking across the gardens to my house. In the past twenty minutes I"d seen just one car pa.s.s along the street. I"d ducked as soon as I spotted the headlights, but the car didn"t slow down as it continued along the road and turned the corner at the far end.
*Anything?" Ameena asked from right behind me. I hadn"t even heard her approach.
I shook my head. *No. Looks deserted."
*We expected that," she said, as tactfully as she could. *I"m sure she"s fine. Your mum. There"d have been something in the papers if she"d... if her condition had changed."
*I know," I replied, still not taking my eyes off the house. *I want to go over."
Without looking, I could guess at Ameena"s expression. *That"d just be stupid," she said. *You"d get caught."
*Who by?" I asked, gesturing across to the house. To my home. *There"s no one there."
*They"re bound to be watching, though. Think about it."
*I won"t be long," I told her. *I just want to see it. Maybe get some clean clothes."
I stepped back from the window, still not looking at her. She caught me by the shoulder. I stopped, but didn"t turn. *Don"t do it," she said. *You can"t help anyone if you"re locked up."
*I"m not helping anyone now," I said, shrugging myself free. *I won"t be long. There"s no one coming."
Halfway to the door, I stopped, as a blue light lit up the room. It faded quickly, then brightened again. The pattern repeated, over and over, and I knew what was happening even before Ameena spoke.
*Cops," she said, matter-of-factly.
I crossed to the window. *Here?"
*At yours."
Ameena stood to one side of the window frame, leaning out just a little to watch what was happening below. I took the opposite side and peeped out.
A single police car stood outside my front garden, its blue light flashing, its headlamps blazing.
*No one coming, eh?" Ameena said. I didn"t meet her gaze.
*What"s it doing?" I asked, my voice a whisper, as if whoever was in the police car might hear me.
Before Ameena answered, the driver"s door opened and a woman in a police uniform stepped out. From here she looked young a" mid-twenties, maybe a" but it was hard to tell for sure.
She glanced along the street and up at my house. I pulled back, expecting her to look our way, but she didn"t. Instead she walked around to the other side of the car and opened the rear door. I almost cried out as a familiar head of grey hair bobbed up into view.
*Nan!" I said, wishing I could bang on the gla.s.s, wishing I could run to her. *It"s my nan!"
Ameena didn"t reply. I tore my eyes away from Nan long enough to see the worry on Ameena"s face. Only then did the first stirrings of panic begin.
*Why"s Nan here?" I wondered aloud. *Why would they bring her to the house?"
*Maybe she"s picking something up for your mum."
*At this time of night?"
*Maybe it"s something she really needs."
*But why send Nan? She doesn"t know where things are. She can barely think straight these days." It was true. Dementia had been devouring Nan"s memories for years now. Sometimes she didn"t recognise any of us, herself included.
*Maybe..." Ameena began, but nothing followed it. She was all out of maybes.
The policewoman let Nan take her arm. I watched them shuffle slowly up the path. It was the policewoman who unlocked the door. I kept watching until they both disappeared inside.
*What if something"s happened to Mum?" I asked, feeling the panic rise up into my throat. *What if they"ve come to sort out all her stuff ? What if she"s..."
*They"ve left the lights going," Ameena said, cutting me short. I looked down at the car. Sure enough, the blue light was still flashing and the beams of the headlamps still cut through the gloom. *They can"t plan on staying long."
*Why"s it flashing?" I asked. *I thought that was just for emergencies."
Ameena shrugged. *Don"t ask me."
We didn"t speak again for a while, just watched for Nan and the policewoman emerging. Eventually, we got tired of standing and sat on the floor, taking it in turns to raise up on to our knees and look over at the house. Lights had come on in all the rooms, but other than that, there had been nothing to report.
*How long"s that been?" I asked.
*About an hour," Ameena said. *Give or take ten minutes."
I looked at the car, its lights still burning. *Her battery"s going to go flat if she doesn"t get a move on."
Ameena yawned. *Mine too." She lay down on her side, propping her head up on her hand. *Think I"m going to get some rest. You should too."
*I"m fine," I said, forcing my heavy eyelids open to prove my point. *I"m going to keep watching."
*Wake me up if anything happens," she answered, rolling on to her back and interlocking her fingers behind her head. *Hey, cool," she said, looking past me, up towards the cloudy night sky. *It"s snowing."
I raised my eyes in time to see a tiny white dot drift by on the other side of the gla.s.s. Another fell a moment later, then another, and another. In just a few minutes, the sky was filled with a hundred thousand falling flakes.
*It"s heavy too," I said, but Ameena"s only reply was a soft snore. *No stamina," I muttered, then I yawned, rested my chin on the windowsill, and settled in for a long, lonely stakeout.
I woke up with my forehead against the cold gla.s.s and soft January sunlight in my eyes. Several centimetres of snow were piled up on the window ledge, so white it was almost glowing.
*c.r.a.p!" I cursed. I tried to stand up but my legs were numb from being folded beneath me and I quickly fell back down again.
*What? What"s wrong?" Ameena asked, wide awake and on her feet before she"d finished speaking.
*I fell asleep," I explained, furious with myself. *I missed them coming out!"
*Um... no you didn"t."
I looked down at the front of my house. The police car was still there. Its headlamps were dim and the blue light had been covered by the snow that continued to fall. The car hadn"t moved all night.
*That"s weird," I said. I looked to Ameena for rea.s.surance. *That"s weird, right?"
She nodded. *That is definitely weird."
The lights were still on in the house. I studied all the windows in turn, trying to make out any movement within them. Nothing. As far as I could see, the house was completely still.
*Why would they still be there?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. *It"s been hours. They should"ve come out long before now."
*Kyle." Ameena spoke the word quietly, but I couldn"t miss the tremble in her voice.
*What?"
She didn"t reply, just nodded towards the back garden. Towards the streaks of dark red that coloured the snow.
I was out of the room in a heartbeat, bounding down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The electricity tingled across my scalp, and this time I didn"t resist. I imagined the board being torn from the front door, pictured the wood and the rusty nails being yanked sharply away.
The board gave a crack and fell outwards as I approached and a dim, watery light seeped in. I hurried outside and found myself stumbling, knee-deep, through snow. I hesitated, just for a moment, wondering how this much of the stuff could possibly have fallen in one night, but then I was running again, heading for the fence, no longer worried about being seen.
Ameena crunched along behind me, struggling to keep up. The snow slowed me down, but I reached the fence in no time and vaulted over it.
I plopped down into the marshmallow whiteness of my garden, staggered forwards, then set off running again, making for the back door. The snow was falling heavily, making it hard to see more than a few metres in any direction. I was running through the red streaks almost before I saw them. Their slick wetness sparkled atop the snow, slowly taking on a pinkish hue as more flakes fell.
I looked up, blinking against the blizzard, and saw the back door stood ajar. Not bothering to wait for Ameena, I crunched up the stone steps, through the open door, and into a blood-soaked warzone that had once been my kitchen.
an? Nan?"
I raced through the kitchen, past the upturned table and the broken chairs, past the blood-spattered cabinets and the shattered gla.s.s.
*Good grief !" Ameena muttered, appearing at the back door just as I charged through into the living room.
*Nan, where are you?" I called. My voice was absorbed by the silence of the house. The living room was a mess, but not in the same league as the kitchen. The coffee table was in pieces and the TV was face down on the carpet, but there was no blood. No Nan, either.
I made for the stairs, then pulled myself together enough to collect one of the legs of the broken coffee table. It was a short piece of wood a" about forty-five centimetres from top to bottom a" but it was thick and it was heavy and I"d be able to do some damage with it if I had to.
*Any sign of her?" Ameena asked, joining me at the bottom of the stairs. She"d had the same idea as me, and now carried a knife she"d lifted from the wooden block in the kitchen. She held it with the blade flat against her wrist, half-concealed, but ready to strike.
*Not yet," I said. I called up the stairs. *Nan? Nan, are you up there?"
A groan. A whimper. Faint, but there. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard it again, three-quarters of the way before I realised it had come from the living room.
I turned, bounded back down half a dozen steps, and that"s when I realised I had been wrong. There was blood in the living room. So much blood.
It started on the wall just by the kitchen door, a metre and a half off the ground, and streaked straight upwards a" a thick smear of it in one continuous line across the ceiling.
The trail stopped almost exactly above the couch. The whimper came again and I took the last of the stairs in a single leap. Ameena was already pulling the couch aside. I saw the police uniform before I was halfway there.
She lay on her back, her hands on her belly, one eye wide open, one battered shut. Blood pumped through her fingers, ran down her arms, seeped into the carpet, drip, drip, drip. Half of her face was a swollen mess of purple and black. Her one open eye stared upwards, but not at the ceiling, at something beyond the ceiling that only she could see.
Her breathing came in shallow gasps, two or three a second, in-out, in-out, in-out.