The first room they came to was on the left, so as they entered they expected to see a view to the west over open ocean, but there were no windows at all. The room was bare, just broken tiles and desiccated insects, but it had an internal door to another room which they went towards. This was a similar sized space, but had no external door back to the corridor, so they went forwards once more and into a third room, which did lead back to the long, green-tiled hall. Aleksey frowned as they emerged and folded his arms, looking both ways. ‘We’re on the right.’
‘Huh?’
‘We went into a room on the left and now we’re…here.’
Ben held his phone up, shining it back into the room they’d just emerged from. ‘Where’s Squeezy?’
‘That is never something I ask myself. Come. Let’s look upstairs and then get back to save the professor. He will be buying them cream teas in appeasement, I suspect.’
Ben chuckled. ‘You know what I’m going to say.’
‘You’re starving?’
Ben glanced swiftly around then kissed him. Just a brushing of lips, but it was a mistake, because Aleksey’s thoughts immediately returned to where they’d been on the quayside in Hugh Town. Ben poked his ribs. ‘You, mister, are entirely out of luck. Stairs.’
Thwarted, he trailed behind Ben, admiring the view, until they came to another room, this one to the right, and as it had some furniture, they went in. Ben glanced back and shouted, ‘Squeezy?’ but got no reply.
It was some kind of living room, for there were armchairs set around in a circle, interspersed with some rickety side tables. It had as much liveliness as a wake, so they moved on through another internal door to what appeared to be a tiny kitchen. Ben glanced back through the larger room then turned and walked towards the circle of chairs, shouting, ‘You fucking moron, where are you?’
Aleksey let the swearing go. Ben was allowed to swear at the idiot. He went out of the kitchen through the door exiting into the hallway. They were closer to the end now, where presumably the building took a sharp turn into one of the wings. He fished for his cigarettes and lit one, toeing the ground as he enjoyed the first drag. ‘Maybe this is all staff quarters and offices, and the children were on the top floor.’
He got no reply so glanced behind then went back into the kitchen and then through to the room with the chairs and then back out into the hallway. No one.
‘Ben?’ His voice echoed a little against the cold tiles. ‘Benjamin?’
Angry, suspecting an infantile joke being played, which had obviously been concocted behind his back when the other three had spied the cruise boat—something to do with damaged brains and ghosts—he flicked his cigarette away and stomped back the way they’d come, shining his light into the empty room with no windows. But it wasn’t that room. The one he illuminated had an operating bed in it: a raised metal frame with rotted leather straps hanging down.
He turned quickly and went back the few steps to the entrance to the kitchen where he’d stood smoking, but had to go a much longer way until he came to a doorway, and this led only to a small closet with a broken mop in it.
‘Ben!’
‘I’m here. Where the fuck are you?’
Somewhat relieved by this yell, he shouted back, ‘Exactly where I should be. Come back into the main corridor and stop being annoying.’
‘Iamin the corridor. Shine your light.’
Aleksey did, one way then the other. The light did not reach either end. ‘Did you see that?’ Silence. ‘Ben!’
‘Boss?’
Aleksey jumped at the distant voice. ‘You fucking moron. Where are you?’
‘Cheers for that. I’m here. I’m still here. I’ve been waiting for you two fuckers. Assumed you were shagging, so gave you a bit of space!’
Squeezy sounded as if he were behind the wall at the back of the closet. He heard light footsteps behind him and swung around, expecting to see Ben, but the long darkness was empty.
Biting his lip, he decided to walk to one end and get his bearings that way. He kept to one wall as he went forwards. When he passed a window, he glanced out, by his reckoning expecting to see the front of the grounds where they’d come in. He was more than a little alarmed to discover he was now on the top storey. There was a distinct drop to the ground.
He jogged to the end of the corridor, saw it turned ninety degrees into the wing and went that way. No stairs either up or down. ‘Ben!’
‘Where are you! Just fucking stay in one place and I’ll come to you!’
The voice appeared to be up ahead. He shouted back, ‘No. I’m coming to you. Stay there.’ No reply.
This floor was even more littered, and along with bits of furniture there were old clothes and curtains. He came to a door, which was shut. He cautiously put his hand on it and pushed.
He immediately wished he hadn’t, but then remembered he wasn’t afraid of anything, so shoved it all the way open and went in. It was a bedroom. Ten metal-framed beds, five on each side of the long room, were stripped bare under a single fly-splattered bulb. It wasn’t so much the beds that had given him an immediate jolt of fear—after all, he assumed children would have bedrooms—but the fact that each frame had a toy sitting on the rusting springs. And on the final bed, deep in the shadowy recesses at the back, there appeared to be someone curled up asleep. Or dead. That thought too had leapt unbidden into his mind as he’d eased open the door.
