Free The Lake House by Helen Phifer Page A

he’s not answering when I shout to him.’
    A look of alarm crossed her father’s face and he moved her to one side and leant forward to tug the light-pull and illuminate the steps.
    He ran down them and began to look around for Joe, who was nowhere to be seen. He shouted, ‘Joseph Beckett, if you don’t show yourself now you will not be able to sit down on your bottom for a week. I mean it.’
    There was no reply. He looked at the drain in the corner that led into the sewers and saw that the iron grating was out of place. It had been moved and not put back properly and his head began to pound. Surely a nine-year-old boy wouldn’t have the strength to move a heavy iron cover on his own and then move it back again? He ran towards it and fell to his knees, looking down into the black hole. ‘Joseph, are you down there? Are you stuck? Do you need help? If you do, then answer me, boy. I won’t be mad at you. Just tell me if you are down there.’
    A scuttling, scratching sound made him jump back. It sounded as if there was nothing more than rats down in that hole. But who had moved the cover? Unless it was the builders who hadn’t put it back properly and he’d just never noticed before. He stood up, taking one last look around the cellar, and then he ran back up the stone steps to Martha who was now crying.
    ‘He isn’t down there, Martha. Now where else could he be? Why don’t you show me the places he likes to hide in the attic? Maybe he’s fallen asleep and can’t hear you shouting.’
    She nodded her head and grabbed hold of her father’s hand, leading him up the stairs to the attic, but she knew in her heart that Joe was down in that cellar somewhere because she had heard him crying down there.
    They checked the entire house, and by this time her mother and father were panicking. Martha had been told to sit in the kitchen with Mary after she’d shown her father all of Joe’s hiding places and he was nowhere to be seen. Martha watched Lucy put her coat on and go outside to check the gardens in the pouring rain, but she could have told her not to bother. There was no point. Joe was in the cellar somewhere, except she didn’t know where; her father came in with Davey, the gardener, who doubled up as the caretaker when it was winter. They both had lanterns in their hands and were going down into the cellar to look for Joe. Her mother had come into the kitchen to sit with her and was very quiet. She didn’t speak a word and her eyes were watering, and all Martha could hear was Mary saying over and over again, ‘Don’t you worry, miss. He won’t be far. Up to no good as usual. They’ll find him. You just wait and see.’
    After the third time her mother screamed at Mary, ‘Shut up, please, just shut up. Where is he? He can’t have just disappeared.’
    Martha had never heard her mother shout at anyone, not even her father, and this scared her more than the thought of Joe being down in the cellar.
    Her mother grabbed her hand. ‘Where is he? Where did you last see him, Martha? This is very important. He might have hurt himself and need our help.’
    ‘I was in here. He begged for one last game of hide-and-seek and ran off. When I went to look for him the cellar door was open and I heard him down there, but he was crying, and then it went quiet and he didn’t make another sound.’
    Her mother stood up and ran to the cellar and her husband and Davey.
    James was down there scratching his head in disbelief. Between all three of them they pulled out every box, case and trunk to search inside them. James looked at the old wooden crate he’d brought in here one evening before he, Eleanor and the children had moved in. It looked as if the lid had been ripped off and put back on. A ball of fear lodged in the base of his spine and he had to force his feet to move towards it. Had someone been down here and taken the thing from inside it? Perhaps Joe had caught them stealing it and they’d taken him as