Bury in Haste by Jean Rowden Page B

head. ‘No. I told you, he was just a dark shadow. It was really dim.’
    Brook pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘It’s a start. If your eyes didn’t tell you anything more, what about your sense of smell?’
    ‘Hey, there was something.’ Joe’s eyes widened as he turned to stare at his friend. ‘Yes. When the man came in it made me think of the cottage hospital.’
    ‘Chloroform’s got a sweet smell,’ Deepbriar said.
    ‘This wasn’t sweet. I do remember something sort of sickly, but that was later, just before I passed out. The stuff this man smelt of was strong, not unpleasant but not nice. I don’t know, how do you describe a smell? It was just different, and it made me think of hospitals, that’s all.’
    ‘Disinfectant,’ his friend suggested. ‘Was that it?’
    ‘I don’t know. If it was, it’s not the stuff my Mum uses for the drains.’ Joe was despondent. ‘I told you I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything useful.’
    ‘It’s more than you told me before, and it could be a help,’ Deepbriar said encouragingly. ‘We’re really getting somewhere. What about this place you were in? You said it was big. How big? Like a barn?’
    ‘It wasn’t a barn,’ Joe said at once, then appeared to be surprised by his own certainty.
    ‘Why not?’ Brook asked.
    ‘Barns smell of hay, or animals, even when they’re empty. And they’re draughty. There was no air moving about at all. And it was really quiet. Every move I made set up a sort of echo.’
    ‘A cellar,’ said Deepbriar, looking triumphantly across at Harry Bartle. The young man was supposed to be collecting empties, but he’d come to hover at Joe’s elbow, listening with obvious interest. He nodded now, obviously impressed. And so he should be, Deepbriar thought, pleased with himself; his idea was paying off. Joe’s friend had persuaded him to open up, and they were getting some answers.
    ‘That’s it,’ Peter Brook said, laughing. ‘You’ve been rumbled Harry, you’re the one who did it, he was locked in downstairs with your barrels.’
    ‘Our cellar’s not quiet, and it’s not empty either, there’s barely room to turn round without knocking yourself out on a heap of crates. Not to mention the creaking floors, even when we’re closed there’s people walking about over your head.’ Harry shook his head. ‘The boards are so old, it’s a wonder we don’t all end up falling through from the kitchen.’
    ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Joe mused. ‘It was all sort of solid and dead quiet.’ He shivered. ‘I felt like I was shut up in a tomb.’
    ‘That suggests it was dug out of solid rock or built of stone then, which means it’s probably underneath a big house,’ Deepbriar said. ‘That’s got to narrow things down a bit. I think I’ve got a sort of lead on how they took you there, too. Old Bronc claimed he was knocked down by a big black car, though so far I’ve not found anyone else who saw it, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same vehicle that made the tracks I discovered in Wriggle’s yard. If only we knew where it went.’
    ‘So that’s why you’ve been looking for Bronc,’ Joe said. ‘The whole village has been trying to work out what he’s done.’
    ‘I just want a word, that’s all. Trouble is, he got all confused with a time he got knocked into the midden in the middle of Falbrough, but that was before the War. I’m sure we could jog his memory, given the chance.’
    ‘So, we find Bronc and get some answers,’ Brook said. ‘If only you hadn’t been out cold when you were in this car, we might have been able to work out how far they took you. Have you got any idea how long you were locked up?’
    ‘It felt like a week at least,’ Joe said sombrely.
     
    A sudden gust of wind blew a spatter of rain into Deepbriar’s face and he lowered his head, leaning hard on the pedals to propel his bicycle up to the top of the rise. According to Jenkins the lights of the ‘flying saucer’ had been