Fallen Skies Read online

  She slapped on the panel of the door with the flat of her hand and then she knocked gently. “Hello?” she said. Her voice was cracked and thin. She thought for a sudden foolish moment of terror that the whole household had moved away. They had stolen Christopher and hidden him, and now they had locked her in her room and cleared out. She would starve up there. She would thirst and then die, and no-one would ever search for Christopher. No-one would ever find him.

  Lily banged on the door more loudly. “Let me out!” she said. Her voice was stronger with use. This time she made a noise that people in the house could hear.

  On the other side of the door she heard footsteps and then the noise of a key in the lock. “Step back from the door, Mrs. Winters,” a cool authoritative voice said. “Step back and sit on the bed, please.”

  Lily, like a little mechanical doll, obeyed; and was sitting on the bed when the door opened and the strange woman in grey came into the room and shut the door firmly behind her.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  She seemed to think it quite normal that she should walk uninvited into Lily’s bedroom and inquire after her health.

  “Who are you?” Lily demanded. “I want to see my husband.”

  The woman smiled slightly. “I asked you how you are,” she repeated.

  Lily felt her grip on reality shifting and eroding. “I’m all right,” she said uneasily.

  “I expect you’d like a drink and something to eat. Throat dry?”

  Lily nodded.

  “D’you need the bathroom?”

  Lily nodded again.

  “I shall take you to the bathroom,” the woman said firmly. “But don’t try to go downstairs. We don’t want to go downstairs this evening. Just to the bathroom and back again. All right?”

  Lily found herself nodding, too puzzled and frightened to argue. “I want to see my husband,” she said quietly.

  “All in good time,” the woman said. “Bathroom first, yes?”

  Lily got up and the woman took her by the right arm and helped her walk across the room. She opened the door and guided Lily to the bathroom. At the threshold she stepped back and closed the door on Lily. The key was missing from the lock. Stephen’s shaving things and razor blades had gone from their usual place.

  Lily sat on the toilet and then washed her face and hands. Her skin felt tired and dry. She felt as if she were eighty or ninety years old. She wanted a bath but she could not face the effort of running it. She was aware of smelling of sweat and a strange dank smell of fear. She took a flannel and wiped her throat and her breasts, but she had no energy to wash properly. She cleaned her teeth and rinsed the stale drugged taste from her mouth. She felt deeply weary.

  When she opened the door the woman was waiting for her on the landing.

  “That’s better,” she said encouragingly. “Now back to your room and I’ll bring you up some supper, and then an early night.”

  “What time is it?” Lily asked.

  “Nearly bedtime,” the woman replied. She guided Lily through the door and sat her in the little bedroom armchair.

  “I asked what time is it?” Lily repeated.

  The woman smiled at her. “It’s been a very long and difficult day,” she said. “You stop worrying, I’ll bring you up a nice tray of something, and then you can have a good sleep.”

  “Have they found Christopher?” Lily asked dully. She knew they would not find him until they asked Stephen or Coventry where the baby was hidden. And no-one but her would ever ask Stephen or Coventry.

  “They’ll find him soon,” the woman said. “Now, will you sit there like a good girl while I fetch some supper?”

  Lily nodded, feeling her will slip away under the woman’s determination.

  The nurse went out of the room. Lily heard the key turn in the lock without surprise or even resentment. She was apparently imprisoned, and this woman was her jailer. She thought fleetingly of Charlie, who was the only person who would rescue her from this, and then realized that he too was locked up. Slowly, through her exhausted mind she traced the path that had led her to being imprisoned in her own room. Charlie was arrested, she was captive. The inspector had not believed that the car used in the kidnap was Stephen’s car. No-one was going to rescue Christopher.

  Lily forced herself up from the chair and went to the door and listened. The house was silent. She tried the door handle. It turned but the door did not open. She was indeed locked in. She went to the window, moving slowly as if she were wading through deep water. It was a sash window with a bolt in the middle of the frame, locking the top window to the bottom. Lily stood on the window seat and tugged at the lower window until it shifted. She pushed it up. It made a sharp grating sound. She froze, expecting to hear the woman’s return, fearful of her. But the house was as quiet as if they were all asleep. Or as if they had all, indeed, gone away.

  Lily leaned out of the window. She was three storeys up. Below her was the perilous drop to the well-cut front lawn and the basement wall. She would break her neck if she fell. To the left of the window was a solid ornate drainpipe, and below her window was Rory’s bedroom. Below that was the drawing room. Rory’s window spilled yellow light through a gap in the curtains. Lily glanced behind her once more, as if the bedroom door might have magically opened and spared her this ordeal. She was still hazy from the drug, neither miracle nor nightmare would have surprised her. She said quietly, “Christopher,” as if his name were a prayer, and slung one leg over the window ledge, and then the other.

  She perched on the ledge, feeling unsteady and fearful. The drainpipe was just out of reach, she would have to push off and stretch out for it. Only a sudden fear that the woman in grey would come back and push her, push her out of the window, off the ledge into nothingness, forced Lily forwards. She thrust out with one foot against the wall and reached with her arms for the drainpipe. She made it. She clung to the drainpipe like a monkey, but her grip was not strong enough, her muscles were still slack from the drug. She could feel herself, remorselessly, unstoppably sliding downwards. Her hands, her arms, the skin of her thighs burned as she slid, but then her scrabbling stockinged feet found a bracket bolting the drainpipe to the wall and she stood on tiptoes on the little metal bars and looked sideways.

  She was just a few feet above the level of Rory’s window. With a soft sob she slid a little further and gripped tight. Again, the window sill was beyond her reach. She would have to stretch out to it, but this time there was nothing to grab. Lily looked upwards. She could not climb back up. She looked down and knew that she could not hold on for the long slide to the ground.

  She stretched out, feeling her fear precipitate her into a sense of floating irresponsibility. She almost laughed from sheer terror. Then she launched herself from the drainpipe towards the window sill and felt the bricks and mortar suddenly scratch her palms as she grabbed the side of the window and lurched inwards, to the pane of glass.

  She perched precariously on the narrow ledge and peered through the gap of the curtain. Nurse Bells was just settling Rory to sleep, Lily recognized the routine. The glass of water put within his reach, the electric bell pinned to the bedcover, the final “good night” and then the switching off of all the lights except the little one by his bed. Lily made herself count from one to thirty, slowly, and then she tapped on the window, sidled into the gap of the curtains, and waved.

  Rory was sitting up cushioned by pillows. At the noise of her tapping he stared towards the window and his face grew suddenly alert as he saw her, and then recognized her.

  Lily mouthed, “Help me!” through the glass.

  Rory pulled himself upright in the bed and looked towards his wheelchair. He reached as far as he could, but his hands could not grip it. His legs, still paralysed, stayed immobile in the bed. Lily could do nothing but watch him, and feel her own muscles tremble with the strain and with the cold. In a little while the strange woman in grey would be back in Lily’s bedroom and then she would k