The Dynamite Room Read online

  “Did you take my mother’s money?” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My mother’s money, under the floor.”

  “We don’t have time for this. You have to remember what I told you. I’ll help you find your mother,” he said, “but only if you do what I told you to do and say what I tell—”

  “Did you take my mother’s money? From under the floor. There was a floorboard.”

  “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She stared at him, hard.

  “You’ve got to do what we agreed,” he said. “I need you to listen to me.”

  She could see it in his face. She could tell from his eyes that he didn’t know what she was talking about. If he had found the money he would have taken the documents as well. She wondered if they were what he had been turning the house upside down for—a handful of marriage certificates and birth certificates that were now hiding in her gas mask box.

  She turned back to the window. If he hadn’t taken the money from under the floorboard then her mother must have done so herself, and if her mother had taken it that might mean she was still alive—that she had gone from the house of her own accord.

  “Lydia, this is serious. If they ask, you tell them I’m your father. You understand? We’re in a defense zone. We have to get through.”

  The young soldier ran to help lift the gate, whilst the other stood back from the Hillman Minx as it drove under the raised trunk. It was only as its exhaust pipe dragged and clattered along the road that she remembered meeting it on the lane no more than four or five days ago. It was the man who had scared her with his pockmarked face. He had told her that she wasn’t supposed to be there, that everyone was gone, and that she would get herself shot. She wished now that she’d gone with him, that none of this had happened.

  Heiden edged the car forward to where the soldiers were and wound down the window. Spats of rain blew in and a head appeared. The man had red rugged cheeks and his hair dripped from under his cap. His shoulders were sodden through, his nose slightly puckered as if he were about to sneeze. She could barely look at him.

  “Dreadful night,” said Heiden.

  “It’s only supposed to be authorized personnel in here, sir,” the man said. “I need to see your papers.”

  “Papers?”

  “Yes. Your clearance permit, sir. You’re not supposed to be in here without a clearance permit.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I’m afraid they didn’t give me one.”

  Something changed in the other man’s voice. “Right. Well then, can I see your identity card please, sir?”

  “I don’t have it, I’m afraid. I’ve misplaced it.”

  “‘Misplaced it’?”

  “Yes, but I’ve got my certificate of service, various other documents and bits and pieces…I’m in the navy…” He took a small selection of papers from his pocket and handed them to the soldier who rifled through them, shining his torch over a photograph and then into Heiden’s face. “You still need a permit, Lieutenant Commander…” He looked at the document in his hand. “…Pendell.”

  He shone the torch into the car and swept its beam over Lydia.

  “Hello, what have we here? Under no circumstances, sir, are children allowed into the testing area. No members of the public, and no children, under any circumstances. It’s extremely dangerous.” It sounded like he was spouting from received instructions.

  He held the torchlight into her face and then swung it so it glared at Heiden.

  She squirmed in her seat. She couldn’t breathe and it was too hot, even with the window open and the rain coming in.

  Heiden moved his hand across his stomach as if to scratch then laid it there, resting. The soldier flicked through the various certificates and bits of paper again and then handed them back. “I think perhaps you ought to get out of the car, sir.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  Heiden opened the door and got out. The rain splashed off the door frame and into the car. She was suddenly cold and shaking. She needed to pee.

  The man left at the gate watched. She glanced over her shoulder to see if any other cars were coming, but the road behind was empty and dark.

  Outside, Heiden said something about Lydia running away and having to be fetched from the house. He kept calling her his daughter. She stared at her knees, her hands pushed between them. There was something about an escort. It was the escort that had the permit but he’d been called out somewhere else, an emergency.

  “Ahh, that will be Shingle Street,” said the second guard. “We found a German soldier on the beach there this afternoon.”

  “Good Lord. Dead, I hope,” said Heiden. He laughed. But the guardsman didn’t find it funny.

  “And where are you going?”

  “The Cotswolds. We have a house there. Nice and quiet. That’s where my wife is.”

  “I see.” He paused. “No permit. A misplaced identity card.” He sucked air in through his teeth. “Who did you say your escort was?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t remember the chap’s name. Barnes or Burns or something.”

  “Bridges?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Bridges.”

  Judging by the soldier’s grunt he didn’t think much of the man.

  “Right,” he said. “Well…I better just have a look at your daughter’s identity card as well. You have got that, I suppose?”

  “Lydia has. Yes.” He smiled.

  The soldier leaned into the car, resting one hand on the driver’s seat so he could lean across to her. She bit her teeth together.

  “I need to see your card, miss,” he said. “No need to be afraid. Won’t take a moment and then you and your pa can be on your way.”

  She took her card from her gas mask box and handed it to the man. Her hands were trembling but he didn’t seem to notice. While he was studying it he spoke to Heiden.

  “You’re in the navy then?”

  “Yes. I’ve just come back from Norway.” He leaned casually against the side of the car.

  The soldier snorted. “A ruddy fiasco that was, I ’eard.”

  “Yes, rather.”

  The soldier returned the card to her and pulled back out, one hand holding the top of the door rim, his head still leaning in.

  “You’ve almost got your father into a whole pile of trouble,” he said. “Running away like that…And you’ve quite a drive to the Cotswolds. That’s my wife’s neck of the woods. Where in the Cotswolds is it?”

  She looked at him. She couldn’t think. She opened her mouth to try to form a word, a name, anything, but there was nothing there.

  “Not sure? Bourton-on-the-Water, is it?” said the soldier. “Moreton-in-Marsh? Chipping Norton…? Stow-on-the-Wold?”

  She shook her head.

  “Your house then, is it?” said the soldier.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You been before?”

  “Yes, lots of times. Lots.”

  “But you don’t know where it is?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She glanced desperately at Heiden, her cheeks burning, but the soldier caught their eyes.

  He stared at her, then leaned in closer so that his voice was almost a whisper. “Is everything all right, missy?”

  She clamped her teeth together and nodded but her eyes were already filling—she couldn’t help it. His smile slipped and for what seemed like an age he looked at her and she saw he was frightened too, and then, slowly, he lifted his hand from the driver’s seat, the heel of his palm still down but his fingers raised to her in secret reassurance.

  He carefully pulled out from inside the car. “Sorry, sir, but can I see your papers agai—”

  There was a sudden shot and Lydia shrieked. Behind the door the man slumped heavily to the ground. She threw herself forward and pressed her head into her knees, wrapping her arms over herself. Shots came suddenly, fast and hard, and there was shouting; flashes of light played agains
t the back of her eyes. Bullets panged off the metal, and the windscreen shattered, glass coming down over her. Bent double, she fumbled for the door handle as the shards of glass fell from her, and she pushed it open, tumbling out onto the side of the road. She scrambled onto the verge and into the ditch, and then, running as fast as she could, she stumbled down a bank and ran away into the woods and the dark mass of the night.

  She ran on, hugging at her stomach, half breaths and sobs bursting out from between her clenched teeth. Her clothes were heavy and sodden to her skin. Her feet dragged like iron, and when she could run no more and walk no more, when every muscle was worn out, she fell to her knees and felt the dirt beneath her hands and the rain still pummeling against the back of her head.

  The edge of the road that she had found herself on was wet and hard. She was sweating and panting. She had no idea how long she’d been running. Nor did she know quite where she was—just that she was out on the heath somewhere where Alfie had caught butterflies. The heath was sodden through and scented, the broom and heather rolling out into the dark and beyond, while above her the sky was black and cavernous, stuffed from end to end with cloud. The gunshots were the only sound she could hear now, still echoing in her head and making it hurt as if the echoes alone were striking holes into her skull. She pulled herself back up onto her feet and tried to stumble on.

  Tuesday

  At some point during that long night, with the road spanning out endlessly in front of her, she had found herself unable to go any further and had collapsed on the edge of the verge, taking breathless lungfuls of air. She had stared, she didn’t know how long for, out into the empty blackness, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, gently rocking herself, and the night clinging to her, dark and cold and wet. Not a single light could be seen. No sound could be heard but her breath. There had just been the gray fields rolling on like carpets of ash and the occasional scattering of trees standing like cloaked figures waiting for her to struggle up onto her feet again.

  Through the village, down the middle of the road, past the blown-out petrol can and over the window glass blasted from Pringle’s shop…She gave little thought as to what might have happened there. Gun practice. Bomb practice. A whole village cleared to become a testing ground. Trainee soldiers rushing through. She herself walked through the empty streets as if she were passing through a dream, her feet barely touching the ground, heart barely beating. Everything was desolate. Deserted. The front doors were sandbagged. Gardens were given to weeds. Vegetables going to seed. If there was gas, let it take her. Let it get into her mouth, her throat, her stomach and lungs, and let it sparkle there. Let her know nothing of what was to come until her whole body was succumbed to it and everything turned black.

  She left the village behind, and the lane rolled on ahead of her. From above came the drone of a plane. She was going home. She had always been going home. Even in the silent nights in Wales when she’d lain in bed she had imagined walking home along the lane, the sound of tractors churning in the fields, cars cheerily tooting their horns as they passed, great tits and jenny wrens zipping along the hedgerows. When she got back everything would be different. She was quite certain of that. Alfie would be asleep in his room. Mother and Father would be in theirs. She could slip into Alfie’s bed unnoticed and sleep for a hundred years; his breath washing over her skin, an arm around her, his heart beating into her back. She’d sit on her father’s lap like she used to, or walk out into the snow with him. She’d take him by the hand. And everything would be warm and light. The sun would glow from deep within her and shine out of her wings.

  She crunched up the drive, past the tin can now filled to the brim with water, and then stopped outside the house and looked up at the closed shutters and the patches of moss on the roof. Moonshine washed out from behind the clouds, giving silver lines to the house, to the edges of the walls, the guttering and windowsills. She stood on the steps and tried the door. Locked. She walked across the drive and onto the lawn, now wet and soggy beneath her feet. The stone cherub was heavy, and she struggled to edge it this way and that until she could see the key hidden beneath. She picked it up and cleaned it against her dress, then walked back across the lawn, feeling as if she were in a dream.

  The key was stiff and reluctant, and it kept slipping in her hand. After a few tries though the mechanism clicked and she pushed open the door and, with relief, locked it again behind her. The house was black inside, and she crept silently into each room. The dining room. The study. The sitting room. Everything was dark and empty, the silhouettes of furniture looking barely there at all.

  In the kitchen the back door stood ajar, the wood around the handle splintered and wrenched apart. She froze in the doorway and listened. Her eyes hurriedly scanned the ceiling as if she might see someone through the plaster and rafters. She could hear no sound but the soft stirring of the trees. She paused, hesitating, then slowly reached forward, opened a drawer, and pulled a torch from it. She was not afraid, not anymore; she would no longer be afraid.

  She moved cautiously out of the kitchen, shining the torch through the hall, and then she crept her way up the staircase, feeling each wooden step give a little and groan as if she were slowly waking the house from its slumber. On two of the steps were spatters of blood, and there was a stain on the wall as if something bleeding had fallen against it. “Hello?” she called. “Hello?”

  She moved along the creaking corridor, the darkness giving way in front of her as she walked with the torch and then closing up again after her. When she reached Alfie’s door at the end she carefully opened it and shone the torchlight in, but the room was empty. She slowly made her way back, listening to the soft sound of her sandals along the wooden floor. Something skittered along a pipe and there was the judder of a shutter somewhere. For a moment she thought she saw a battered and bruised Button standing at the end of the hall with the tethered, gas-masked lamb on its wheels, but it was just shapes and shadows. The corridor was empty.

  She stopped at the bottom of the attic stairs and looked up into the darkness where the hatch had been lowered into place. She took a few steps up, tentatively shining the light against the heavy square lid.

  “Hello!” she called again. “Are you there?”

  She put the torch down and reached up to push at the hatch, but it wouldn’t move.

  “Are you in there? It’s me!”

  “Go away.” His voice was weary and sounded muffled.

  “No. Let me in.”

  “You have to leave.”

  “I don’t want to. Let me in.”

  She pushed at the hatch again but it still wouldn’t budge. She banged on it with the palm of her hand.

  “Please. Heiden. I’m sorry.”

  She took a step back down the narrow stairs and waited. After a while she heard the heavy scrape of the ottoman being pulled back, and then the hatch was lifted. A torch shone down into her eyes, blinding her, and his voice came again.

  “What do you want?”

  He watched her climb up through the opening and he closed the hatch after her, then pushed the ottoman back across with his left hand, the other limp and bloody at his side.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d taken a shot through the palm of his hand. It had been stupid of him to raise it, as if a raised hand, a stop, could have halted a bullet. Now the bones were shattered, tendons ripped, a bloody mess that he couldn’t even bring himself to look at. The pain, however, had numbed everything else, even his exhaustion. He shouldn’t have come back to the house. And now she was here as well, and he was oddly thankful.

  “You’re covered in blood,” she said. “You need something around your hand. Sit down.”

  He did, among a nest of jackets and coats on the floor, their damp smell, old and festering, lifting into the air. She left him there while she got a couple of tea towels from the kitchen, antiseptic from the bathroom, and a glass of water filled from the pump.
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br />   “Give me your hand,” she said when she returned. He held it out for her, raising it a little to try to stem the blood that was still running down his arm.

  He felt light-headed, exhausted now that he had sat down and the girl was with him.

  She squatted next to him and rested his hand in her lap, and studied it. For a moment he thought she might be sick but she wasn’t.

  “It’s a bit of a mess,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll live.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just…”

  The bullet had blown through everything and out the other side, so that even where the wound had swollen and closed up again, the torchlight still shone through and made the open flesh a translucent salmon pink, now awash with blood. His fingers were too painful to touch but he knew they had no life in them now, no longer his at all but just something he would lug around with him, dead and useless.

  She wrapped one of the tea towels around his hand as a dressing and tied it firm. He gritted his teeth, clenching his jaw, and snorting breath. He sobbed a little as she did it and then breathed hard and furious again. She said nothing to him.

  Once she was done, he wiped at his eyes and slumped back against the wall. Above him daylight was beginning to press at the window. If he couldn’t sleep, then let him die. He thought about his grandfather, about standing as a child between his grandfather’s legs, the old man showing Heiden how to hold the saw, bending it into an S, then pulling the bow across. This is called the sweet spot, his grandfather says. Where the saw is straight. This is where you play the note. With his grandfather guiding him he pulls the bow across and slowly bends and flexes the saw so that its note quivers in the air.

  When he woke again, she was still there watching him. He had no idea how long he had slept, or if he had slept at all. The morning sun had moved around the house and now bathed the attic in a warm, fuggy light. The air was full of dust and glitter. He had no feeling in his hand but the pulsing throb of pain. He saw how dirty she was, covered in blood. She had grazed her knees and the heel of her hand. Her eyes were red and bloodshot. Beneath the dirt and grime, she looked so pale it was as if she were barely there at all. She was vanishing in the sunlight, fading into the wall behind her, and as his eyelids lowered again she completely disappeared.