Nope. That didn’t work.
There was nothing remotely wrong from what I could see, so what was going on? It seemed like the problem might be with the main power console and if that were the case, then I wasn’t qualified to fix it. I stood up, ready to go back downstairs where I knew the main power console was, to check it over, but a tapping sound stopped me.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was light, barely audible, but it happened again.
‘Hello?’ I called out. The dead-end hallway was ahead of me. It always confused me because there should have been another room there. It made sense that there would be, but there was nothing.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
‘Is someone there?’ I asked the darkness.
Silence answered back.
‘Screw this,’ I said, backing away towards the stairs.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
‘Okay, what the hell? If this is Harry messing around … very funny. Ha. Ha. I told you not to sneak in here again.’ Harry was the young boy around eleven who liked to break into people’s homes and barns and leave graffiti everywhere. I’d caught him on several occasions with a brick in his hand. Annoyingly, he was the son of one of the local cops, so he seemed to get away with everything.
Silence.
‘Harry?’
Silence.
‘Not Harry?’
Tap. Tap. Tap.
‘Shit …’ I whispered, reaching to the bag on the floor and pulling out a big wrench.
I held the wrench above my head, ready to strike if necessary. I crept forwards, one small step at a time. I didn’t understand. Where the hell was the sound coming from? I think it was coming from behind the wall, but … there was no door there, so how would anyone get behind it?
‘Um … can you tap again?’
Nothing. Not for several long seconds, and then …
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Itwascoming from behind the wall.
I lowered the wrench, stepped close and pressed my ear against the wall, listening, waiting. I held my breath, but the tapping didn’t come again. I scanned the area with my phone, searching for something that didn’t quite fit. Anything.
I knocked on the wall three times.
Wait. How did I not notice that before?
The wall wasn’t built from stone like the majority of walls in this old farmhouse. This was made from plasterboard. Someone had built a fake wall in the hallway, potentially covering up a whole other room I’d never seen before. Granted, I hadn’t spent a lot of time at Rosemore Cottage recently, only popping in from time to time to help clean it ready for the next visitors or fixing bits for Dad, but even he hadn’t noticed the fake wall. Had he? Did he do this?
Holy shit.
Was someone trapped behind it?’
‘Don’t worry! I’m going to get you out!’
I raised the wrench above my head once again and slammed it against the wall.
