Free Broken Voices (Kindle Single) by Andrew Taylor Page B

higher.’
    ‘All right.
It’s here somewhere. I’m sure.’
    ‘For God’s sake
be careful.’
    We advanced
slowly into the ringing chamber. In daylight, it was bright enough — there were
great windows on all four sides. It occupied the entire internal area of the
tower. I looked up, remembering from my last visit a floor of huge, roughly
trimmed planks on the network of beams. I couldn’t see anything at all above
our heads. A sense of futility washed over me.
    ‘You won’t find
anything here,’ I said. ‘This is stupid. It would have been better to come in
daytime, if you had to come at all.’
    ‘It’s not
stupid. Anyway we agreed — we’d have been seen if we’d come in the day.’
    ‘Well, you’re
here now. Hurry up and find it.’
    ‘We can search
with the lantern. Maybe... maybe there’s a loose stone or a board that lifts up
or—’
    ‘And maybe pigs
fly,’ I interrupted. ‘You can look if you want. I’m staying here. But don’t
take long or I’ll leave without you. And I’ll leave you in the dark.’
    Faraday took
the lantern from me and held it up. All it did was emphasize how much darkness
there was. He looked so forlorn, holding up the lantern, so pathetic, like one
of those sentimental engravings my aunt had in her drawing room with titles
like ‘His Father’s Son’ or ‘The Light of the World’.
    He went down on
his hands and knees and crawled slowly across the room, examining each board.
He was such a ridiculous sight, a black blob on all fours, an enormous
nocturnal insect. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. Most of all, I wanted to
escape from the Cathedral, go back to the Sacrist’s Lodging, crawl into my bed
and pull the covers over my head.
    Suddenly,
Faraday raised his hand. ‘Did you hear it?’ He was so excited he forgot to
whisper. ‘And there it is again.’
    I thought he
had gone mad. ‘What?’
    ‘Those notes — the
music I heard. Those four notes.’ He sang them to me in his pure treble voice:
‘La-la-la-la.’
    ‘I can’t hear
it.’
     ‘Shh — there’s
more. Listen.’
    He tried to
sing the new notes but this time his voice betrayed him. He croaked like a
frog. Not that it mattered one way or another to me because the la-la-la-la was
just noise as far as I was concerned.
    Anyway, I
didn’t believe him, not really.
    ‘There’s
something here,’ he said in a different voice, excited and breathless. ‘I think
it’s moving. Yes, it does. It’s showing me where to look.’
    I couldn’t see
what he was doing because his body was in the way. ‘Rabbit! For God’s sake,
come back! You must be near that trapdoor if you’re not on it already.’
    I had a sickening
vision of the trapdoor breaking free, Faraday falling, just like Goldsworthy,
to the floor of the tower below.
    At that moment,
the lantern went out.

13
    ‘I’m scared,’ Faraday said. ‘I’m so
scared.’
    In the darkness
his voice seemed to come from very far away. I had not realized what a
difference that little lantern made.
    ‘It’s all
right,’ I said, though it felt all wrong. ‘Find the other candles. Light one of
those.’
    I heard a
scrabbling sound. Then silence. Then ragged breathing and more scrabbling.
    ‘Hurry up,’ I
said. ‘Come on, Rabbit, we haven’t got all night.’
    ‘I... I can’t
find them.’ He sounded further away than he had been.
    ‘Don’t be
stupid.’ I heard the panic in my voice. I swallowed it. ‘The ones from the
choir vestry. Remember?’
    ‘I put them
down when I was looking for the key. I must have forgotten to pick them up.’
    I bit my lower
lip and tasted blood. ‘We haven’t time for jokes.’
    ‘It isn’t a
joke. I’m sorry.’
    I nearly
shouted at him. But I knew there was no point. ‘You’ve got matches,’ I said.
‘Light one and find where I am. Walk towards me. When the match goes out, I’ll
say something. Come towards the sound.’
    There was
another delay. Then a scrape and a flare of light, shocking in its