Part 5 (2/2)

Catching her breath, she wandered towards the cul-de-sac where the Doctor had frightened off the monsters the previous night. It all looked so different in daylight. A normal, boring housing estate, the same as thousands of others across the country; well kept, quiet and disappointingly free of the sound of children playing. Rose cursed under her breath. A man out in his driveway, cleaning his car, was watching her suspiciously. She smiled at him in what she hoped was a disarming and friendly way and kept walking. She'd do a quick circuit of the area, just in case.

A gust of wind sent a ripple through the trees at the edge of the estate, dead leaves swirling across the road. Rose struggled with the zip of her parka again. Daylight had had no friendly, softening effect on the wood, which still clung to the hillside, dark and ominous. Rose peered into the darkness. Surely the kids weren't stupid enough to be playing in there?

She turned away, intending to head back down to the village, when she caught the sound of laughter through the trees. The kids were were playing in the woods! playing in the woods!

Suddenly the prospect of exploring the lighthouse with the Doctor seemed the better option to Rose. Wis.h.i.+ng that she had a couple of his everlasting matches with her, Rose stepped into the wood, straining to hear where the laughter was coming from. She crept forward, wincing at each rustle of leaves or crack of dead branches. The laughter had been replaced by whispered conversation and loud ssshhs now, and Rose could smell wood smoke.

A loud crack made her jump and, in an explosion of wet leaves and thras.h.i.+ng undergrowth, a figure in baggy jeans and a sweats.h.i.+rt burst from the trees in front of her, tearing through the wood and vanis.h.i.+ng into the safety of the estate. From where the figure had emerged, Rose could see a jumble of corrugatediron sheets, badly camouflaged with dead branches. A wisp of smoke curled into the air from behind it before being whipped away by the wind.

51.Rose peered over the corrugated iron and five frightened faces looked up at her. She gave a deep sigh of relief.

'I told you it wasn't a monster!' One of the girls punched a boy on the shoulder, the boy Rose had seen Ali with earlier. 'I told you! They only come out at night, don't they?'

The boy glowered at Rose before saying, 'Nearly gave us a heart attack.'

Rose laughed nervously. 'You and me both! Who was doing the world speed record?'

'That was Dai Barraclough.' Ali was smiling. 'I think he wet himself.'

The kids dissolved into giggles. Rose slipped round the corrugatediron sheeting and crouched down next to Ali. The kids had made a crude shelter in the lea of a tall oak tree. A small pile of wet twigs smoked fitfully and the floor was strewn with sweet wrappers and drinks cans.

'This is where you all hang out?' asked Rose.

Ali nodded. 'It's our hideout. We're a gang. You've got to do the dare to join.'

'Well, it looks like I'm a member, then.'

Ali's eyes widened. 'You went into the house?'

Rose nodded. 'Uh-huh, Saw Mr Morton and his creepy nurses.'

'Really?' Ali was obviously impressed.

'Yeah, really. And if I'm a member of your gang, then I hope you don't need to keep secrets from me.'

Ali regarded her for a moment, then stood up. 'We'll need to take a vote.'

She motioned to her friends to follow her and the five children went into a huddle on the other side of the clearing. There was a lot of loud whispering, then Ali turned and came back to where Rose was sitting.

'We've decided you can join. I told them that you're OK, that we can trust you.'

'Thank you.' Rose smiled.

'But not your friend. He's too old.'

Rose giggled. 'You're more right than you know!'

The other children joined them.

52.Ali pointed at each in turn. 'That's Baz Morgan. He lives in one of the new houses. We play football at his house sometimes. The girls are Sian and Jane Evans. Their mum runs the baker's. Dai is the boy who ran off. You talked to him this morning.'

Rose nodded. The blond kid with the att.i.tude. She wasn't sad to see the back of him.

'Yeah, didn't think he liked me.'

'And this is Billy Palmer.' Ali pushed her friend forward. 'He saw stuff at the rectory.'

Rose held out her hand. 'h.e.l.lo.'

Billy shook it solemnly. 'Hi.'

'What sort of stuff did you see?'

Billy shrugged. 'Just vans at first, delivering stuff. Equipment. Computers and things. Then the people in the masks appeared. Didn't see them arrive. . . They were just there one morning. Me and Dai had snuck into the courtyard at the back, were trying to see through the window into the cellar. They nearly saw me. Had to hide behind the bins. That's when I saw the bad stuff.'

'Bad stuff?' Rose felt the hairs on her neck stand up. 'What sort of bad stuff?'

Billy looked nervously round at his friends. 'Bags. Black bin bags. But there was a smell and. . . red stuff. One of the bags was leaking and I saw red stuff come out.'

'Blood?' Rose thought back to the pools of blood on the sh.o.r.e, the Doctor's suspicion that someone was 'cleaning up after their pet'.

'I think so. We didn't hang around to find out. We legged it for the tunnel.'

'Tunnel?'

'We found it,' announced Ali proudly. 'None of the grown-lips know it's there. Going down the tunnel's another dare.' Her face fell. 'Only Billy and Dai have been brave enough to go down it so far.'

Rose's mind was racing. She wasn't certain that Ali was right about them being the only ones who knew about the mysterious tunnel. Parents did tend to know more about what their children got up to than they let on. But whether Morton knew about the tunnel was 53 another matter. He certainly had no interest in the upkeep of the house and the fact that the kids were able to get into the grounds via some secret entrance probably meant that he had even less of an interest in the history of the property.

It seemed the perfect way to get a closer look at the house without Morton knowing.

'Can you tell me where this tunnel is?'

'Sure.' Ali caught hold of her hand. 'It's this way. Come on. I'll show you.'

The Doctor trudged down the s.h.i.+ngle towards an extraordinary tangle of rubbish piled up on the beach. From a distance it looked like a heap of flotsam deposited by a particularly high tide, but as he drew closer he could see that there was some kind of method to the madness, glimpses of what must once have been some sort of large beach house or holiday home protruding through the debris.

Tarpaulins stretched out over the roof were held in place with clumsy cl.u.s.ters of knotted rope, walls were patched with pieces of driftwood and the sides of packing crates, window frames were splintered and rotten, and from a tall metal pipe towering over the structure a thin trail of smoke emerged, whipped inland by the offsh.o.r.e breeze.

Behind the house what had once been a sizeable fenced garden was now a jumble of salvage from the sea. Oil drums, plastic buoys, fis.h.i.+ng nets and lobster pots lay among huge piles of driftwood, with brambles snaking through them. A wreath of lifebelts hung on the twisted remnants of a children's swing, and underneath everything the Doctor could just make out the shape of what looked like an old Triumph Herald, its bodywork rusted and corroded after years in the sea air.

From inside came the sound of singing and the smell of cooking. The Doctor stepped up to the shabby front door, straightened his coat and knocked firmly. There was a m.u.f.fled curse from inside, followed by the sound of movement. A few moments later the patched and battered door swung open and Bronwyn Ceredig peered out at him 54 suspiciously with those brilliant grey eyes of hers. She was wearing a long floral dress, with a striped ap.r.o.n tied around her waist. Her long grey hair was pulled back in an untidy bun and little half-moon spectacles perched precariously on the tip of her nose.

'Yes?'

The Doctor smiled his broadest smile.

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