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‘You reckon he bought all of ’em?’ he asked. ‘If we could find even one ’e didn’t. Has ’e really got enough money to do that, and buy all the stuff for machines an’ that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Monk said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll go and see Rathbone tomorrow. He might have some idea.’
He turned to Scuff. ‘Maybe you could take a day off school. Stay here.’
‘Can I too?’ Worm asked eagerly.
‘You don’t go to school,’ Scuff pointed out.
‘Yes, I do!’ Worm said instantly, although they all knew he didn’t.
‘Then tomorrow you can,’ Monk said immediately. ‘Scuff will teach you.’
Worm’s face lit up with pleasure. He turned to stare hopefully at Scuff.
Scuff knew when he was beaten and he shrugged ruefully. Perhaps actually it wouldn’t be so bad. ‘I’ll make you work,’ he warned.
Worm gave him a dazzling smile.
Chapte
r Twelve
HESTER WAS lying rigid on the bed, terrified, but she had no idea why, or what it was that paralysed her with such fear. She wanted to struggle, to reach out in the darkness, very slowly, and see what she touched, but she could not move.
She strained her ears and heard nothing but a faint dripping, slow and very small. There was no other sound at all, not even her own breathing.
She tried to move her feet, but a tightness around her ankles held her feet. She jerked her hand. That too was tied at the wrist. Then, like a horror taking shape in front of her, she realised she could not move because she was tied down, wrists, ankles, and a band around the chest.
She jerked at them roughly, and they grew even tighter. She could still see nothing; hear nothing but the very faint drip. And then that too stopped. She was weak. Her mouth tasted dry. There was a sore place on her left arm, just inside the crook of the elbow, where the veins were close to the surface . . . That was what she could smell! That faint, warm coppery odour in the air – blood!
Who was bleeding so much that she could taste it in the back of her throat? She must help them, before they bled to death! Again she tried to sit up, and moved barely an inch before the band around her chest tightened. It allowed her room to breathe no more.
Then a terrible realisation came to her. She tried to put it out of her mind, but it was there all around her in its reality. They wanted her to live, to supply blood. There was someone who needed it. Like the old legend of the vampire who died unless he drank from human veins. It was his food, his life.
Just like Maggie and Charlie, she was kept alive to supply blood for someone. Radnor? Had she taken the children’s place, as a punishment for not saving them, for not seeing that Rand was stopped?
She tensed her muscles again, but there was no strength in her. She was fading; it was getting harder to keep conscious. The smell of blood was stronger, filling every breath she took, choking her.
Was she dying? Had he bled her to death? Of course. Why not? There were always more people. The world was full of people. What was one more or less, in the scheme of things? It mattered only to those who had loved the dead person; the rest of the world went on exactly as before.
What happened to the dead? They would bury her body, of course. You can’t leave corpses lying around. People would ask questions. And they would rot and smell awful. But what would happen to her? Who was she inside? Would she go on into another world, like sleep? Were the ministers of the Church right, or was it just darkness, like this? No sound, no sight, no movement? An endless silence, alone. And getting colder. She could not feel her feet any more.
Was she dead now? She didn’t feel real pain, just an aching – and a slowly growing knowledge of being utterly alone! That had been Radnor’s terror, hadn’t it? Ceasing to exist?
She had no idea how long it was before she was aware of something touching her arm, something warm. She drew in her breath in horror, and heard her own voice crying out.
She tried to wrench her arm away. The hand let go of its grip on her, and she moved. The restraints had gone.
There was light beyond her eyelids, and warmth. She opened her eyes very slowly, dreading what she would see.
‘Hester!’ It was Monk’s voice, urgent, edged with fear.
She looked up at him. He was close to her, his hand near her arm as if he had just let go of her. She was in her own bedroom, in her own bed.
Very slowly she sat up, moving her feet, her legs. There was nothing holding her, no restraints at all, except where she had tangled herself in the sheets.
She looked at Monk again. He was fully dressed.
