Free Deceit by Deborah White Page B

the air was knocked out of her lungs.
    For a split second she couldn’t catch her breath and felt light-headed. Then, once she could breathe again, she noticed the silence. There was no sound of an alarm, or footsteps running, or anyone calling out. She picked herself up and winced as she tentatively rotated her shoulder. It felt sore, but nothing worse.
    She was in some sort of storeroom or larder and the door was open just a crack. She pulled it open wider. The door led out into a passagewaywith other doors leading off it. She opened the first one to her left and found stone steps descending to the cellars. The damp musty smell rose up on the cool air and there was a brief scratching noise and the sound of scuttering feet. A faint, high-pitched chuntering sound. Rats?
    She took the torch from her backpack and steeled herself to walk down into the darkness. Her back was rigid with apprehension. Fear that someone or something would slam the door shut behind her and lock it and she would be trapped. But she had to make sure Matthew wasn’t
anywhere
in the house, and that meant searching the cellars too.
    They went on a long way. Dust lay thick everywhere and cobwebs crossed her path. She called out Matthew’s name as she searched, but there was no sign anyone had been here.
    Back up the stairs in the passageway, she breathed a huge sigh of relief. It felt safer and less threatening up here. She checked all the other doors, but they just led to more cupboards, a downstairs loo and then the kitchen, which clearly hadn’t been used since that young policewoman, Emma, had made tea for her and Zac.
    Claire shuddered as she thought back over the events of that night. Mum and Micky had been rushed to hospital – and treated for poisoning! Robert had been responsible for that, of course.
    She remembered his hands around
her
neck that same night. Had he really tried to murder her too? It didn’t make sense, somehow; why would he want to kill her? Didn’t he need her and her ring to open the casket? To free the 21st spell that he believed would give him everlasting life?
    Zacharie had saved her that night, and she’d thought him wonderful – the only one who was on her side. It had been her fourteenth birthday. A birthday she would never,
ever
forget. It seemed like an eternity ago; a lot longer than two years, anyway.
    She steeled herself to open one last door… a much grander one at the far end of the passageway. She guessed it might lead into the hallway. She was right. Now she knew where she was and if she left the passageway door open, there was just enough light to see by. There was the fireplace and the stairs leading up to Robert’s study.
    Her legs trembled and felt weak at the thoughtof it. But she had to go up – because there might be something inside… some clue as to where he was hiding Matthew. She took each broad oak tread slowly, used the bannister rail to help pull herself up. Feeling its smoothness under her hand she thought how Margrat – her grandmother ten times removed – must once have done the same. And since she had read Margrat’s manuscript she had felt a strong connection with her and a kinship with Margrat’s maid, Martha, too. Martha, who had been loyal to Margrat even though she knew what her master, Nicholas Benedict, was capable of.
    The study door was closed, but even standing outside she could smell the herbs and spices, the cinnamon and flowers. Potent still, as if Robert had burned his incense only that morning. She hesitated… maybe the door would be locked? But no, she was able to turn the handle and walk straight in. The shutters were closed and since the window overlooked the street she knew she couldn’t open them.
    She switched on her torch. Flashed it around the room. It glinted off the glass bottles and cast shadows on the walls. The room felt unused.Abandoned. Running her finger along the shelves left a trail in the dust.
    She put the torch base down on the desk, so that