Figures of Fear Read online

  Dawn was unable to speak. She sank down on to her knees, her hands crossed over her breasts like a religious supplicant, and all she could do was whimper.

  The black-faced man stood over her. She was too frightened to lift her head and look up at him, and all she could see was his black, ragged trousers and his burnt lace-up boots, with smoke leaking out of them.

  He seized her upper arms. His fingers were blistered and rough, and he gripped her so tightly that she felt that he was trying to twist her arms out of their sockets. With a deep grunting noise he hoisted her up off the floor and flung her backward across the bed. Immediately he climbed on top of her, straddling her hips. He glared down at her, with his black flaking nose only an inch away from hers.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know who you are.’

  ‘Oh, you really are a bitch, aren’t you?’ he growled at her, and she felt his spit prickling on her face. ‘You don’t even know who I am? You knew who was I right enough when they came asking questions about your babby. You knew who was I then, all right.’

  Dawn dug her heels into the mattress and tried to kick herself out from under him, but he clenched his thighs together even tighter and then he slapped her across the face, twice. Her eyes burst out with tears and her cheeks felt as if he had set them on fire.

  ‘Bitch!’ he said, each time he slapped her. ‘Bitch!’

  With his left hand he kept her shoulder pinned against the bed, while he reached down with his right hand and started to tug at his belt buckle.

  ‘Might as well do it, if I’m to be blamed for it!’ he spat at her. ‘Might as well relish what I was punished for! What do you say, bitch? What do you say to that?’

  He wrestled his trousers halfway down to his knees. The hair on his thighs was thick and crisp and scratchy. She felt his hardened penis press against her leg, and that felt rough and dry, too, as if he were jabbing at her with a wooden rolling pin. He grabbed the hem of her cotton nightshirt and tore it upward and sideways, so that the buttons were pulled off.

  Dawn struggled furiously, but the black-faced man was far too strong for her. She screamed, again and again, or at least she thought she did. All she could see was his white eyes, staring down at her, and all she could smell was his burnt body hair and his charred woollen clothes, and all she could feel was his weight bearing down on her, crushing all the breath out of her, crushing her ribcage.

  He forced her thighs apart, and pushed one knee in between them. As he did so, however, somebody rapped against the window, very sharply. The black-faced man hesitated, and looked around, although he still kept Dawn pressed down on the bed.

  The rapping was repeated, and then Dawn heard a muffled voice outside the window say, ‘Dawn? Dawn? It’s Jerry! Are you awake?’

  ‘Jerry!’ she called out, but the black-faced man immediately covered her mouth with his horny, claw-like hand. ‘Mmmffff! Jerry! Jerry!’

  Jerry rapped again. ‘Dawn? It’s me, Jerry! Are you awake?’

  The black-faced man hesitated for a few seconds, and then he heaved himself off her, and stood up, pulling up his trousers and buckling his belt.

  ‘I’ll get my revenge on you one day, you bitch!’ he told her. ‘You just wait and see!’

  With that, he stalked back round to the wardrobe, opened the door and climbed inside. He closed the door behind him and Dawn heard the key turn.

  Shaking, she slid off the bed. She knelt beside it for a moment, breathing deeply, and then she managed to stand up.

  ‘Dawn? Are you there, Dawn?’

  Unsteadily, barely able to keep her balance, she went to the window. Jerry was standing outside, precariously perched on the edge of a wooden planter so that he could reach up and rap on her window.

  ‘What is it?’ he shouted, through the glass. ‘What’s happened?’

  Dawn pointed toward the bedroom door to indicate that she would let him in. He jumped awkwardly down from the planter and she went to the front door and opened it for him. She put her arms around him and clung on to him and sobbed so hard that it hurt.

  Gently, he walked her through to the living room and sat her down on the couch.

  ‘What’s happened? Look at you, your nightie’s all torn! And look at your face! You look like somebody’s been hitting you!’

  ‘He came out again. That black-faced man. There’s no way he could have unlocked that wardrobe door – not from the inside. But he did, and he came out again. And I dropped my phone and I tried to get away but the key got stuck. He pushed me on to the bed and he was going to rape me.’

  Jerry stood up. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m going to settle this, once and for all.’

  ‘Jerry, no! He’s really, really strong. He’ll hurt you.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Where did he go? Back into your wardrobe? I bet it has a false back, or some secret compartment, and he’s been hiding in it.’

  ‘Please, Jerry, no! Let’s just go back to your place and come back tomorrow. Then we can see if he really is hiding in the wardrobe and if he is we can call the police.’

  But Jerry said, ‘Sorry, Dawn. I’m not letting anybody get away with hurting you and trying to rape you. I don’t care how bloody strong he is! I don’t care if he’s King bloody Kong!’

  With that, he went through to the bedroom, marched up to the wardrobe and hammered on it, hard. ‘Right! You in there! I’m warning you! You’ve got a count of three to come out and show yourself! If you don’t I’m coming in after you, and I’m going to find you, mate, even if I have to chop this wardrobe up into firewood!’

  Dawn stood in the bedroom doorway watching him as he turned the key in the wardrobe door and opened it. The wire coat hangers softly jingled for a while, and then stopped jingling.

  ‘Right, then! You’ve got one – two – three!’

  He waited, but no black-faced man stepped out of the wardrobe. Almost half a minute went by, but all they could hear was the traffic outside in the street. Dawn said, ‘Perhaps this was a dream, too. Oh, God. Perhaps I need to see a psychiatrist.’

  ‘You can’t slap your own face, Dawn, especially in a dream. Look at you. In the morning you’ll have two black eyes.’

  He reached into the wardrobe and parted Dawn’s dresses and coats. He banged on the back of it, much harder than he had the night before. Then he took out all of Dawn’s shoes and boots and thumped with his fist on the floor.

  ‘If you’re hiding under there, you’d better show yourself, quick!’

  He thumped on the floor again, and then turned to Dawn and said, ‘Bring me a knife, would you? Any old knife.’

  Dawn went to the kitchen and came back with a carving knife with a broken tip which she always used for cutting up vegetables. She handed it to Jerry and said, ‘He’s not actually in there, is he, under the floor? There’s not enough room, surely.’

  Jerry dug the broken knife blade into the side of the wardrobe’s plinth. Carefully, he pried a board upward, but underneath there was only a dark, empty space, containing nothing at all, not even spiderwebs. He peered inside and then shook his head. ‘Not in here,’ his voice sounding hollow. ‘Wouldn’t really be room enough, anyway. You’d have to be a bloody midget to hide in here.’

  ‘You see?’ said Dawn. She felt as if her brain were bursting apart into a thousand glittering fragments, like a mirror being smashed in slow motion, and she had to sit down on the side of the bed. ‘I was dreaming it. Or else I am going mad. I think I’m going mad.’

  Jerry sat down next to her and put his arm around her. ‘No, sweetheart, you didn’t dream it, and no, you’re not going mad. To be honest, I wasn’t too sure if I believed you yesterday about this black-faced man, but I was lying in bed tonight and I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking to myself, Dawn’s not the hysterical type, not at all. In fact you’re the most level-headed girl I ever went out with. Why do you think I came round here at two o’clock in the morning? I just wanted to be sure.’

  Dawn gave him a
kiss, and snuggled in closer to him. ‘But if I’m not dreaming him, and I’m not going mad, then what is he? He felt real, and he really hurt me, but how can he be real if he can disappear like that? Perhaps he’s a ghost or an evil spirit or something. He kept saying that I was a bitch. He said he’d got the blame for something I’d done, but I couldn’t really understand what he meant. Something to do with a baby.’

  Jerry said, ‘I’m sure that it’s something to do with the wardrobe. How long have you been living here now?’

  ‘It’ll be a year at the end of September.’

  ‘And when was the wardrobe delivered?’

  ‘A month ago. Less than a month.’

  ‘And you didn’t see this black-faced man before then?’

  Dawn shook her head.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Jerry. ‘Tomorrow we’re both going to throw a sickie and we’re going to drive up to Oxford and see your Aunt What’s-Her-Name.’

  ‘Selina. But what for?’

  ‘Let’s find out where she got this wardrobe. Maybe it used to belong to a coven of witches. Or a stage magician. I’ll bet that’s it. I’ll bet you it belonged to The Great Lumbago or somebody like that, only he got trapped inside it.’

  ‘So why is he all burnt like that? I could feel the hair on his legs was burnt. It was all crunchy and horrible.’

  ‘Maybe he was waiting for somebody to let him out of the wardrobe and he lit up a cigarette to pass the time, and he accidentally dropped it.’

  Dawn sat up and gave Jerry a slap on the shoulder. ‘Be serious, will you, Jerry? I’ve never been so frightened in my life. If you hadn’t knocked at the window he would have raped me.’

  Jerry said, ‘I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m trying to make a joke of it because I’m just as frightened for you as you are. I don’t believe in ghosts and spirits and stuff like that, I really don’t. But I believe you’re telling the truth and I can’t find any black-faced man hiding in that wardrobe, so what else can he be, except a ghost or a spirit? Or maybe some kind of horrible creature that we’ve never even heard of?’

  As they arrived outside Aunt Selina’s antiques shop, it started to rain almost laughably hard, drumming on the fabric roof of Jerry’s BMW so loudly that they could hardly hear themselves. Times Gone By stood on a corner of Windmill Road, a long, depressing street of semi-detached Victorian villas in Headington, a suburb of Oxford. Jerry parked in Margaret Road and opened the passenger door so that Dawn could scamper into the antiques shop doorway with her jacket held over her head.

  The doorbell jingled as they went inside. Times Gone By was a very small shop, but it was crowded with armchairs and occasional tables and whatnots and mirrors. On the side wall hung oil paintings of rural landscapes and decorative dinner plates and barometers, and at the very back of the shop they could just see long-case clocks and tall display cabinets and wardrobes, like the skyline of a wooden city. The whole shop was filled with a strong, musty smell of old upholstery and varnish.

  Aunt Selina came out from her little office, still holding a cup of tea in her hand. ‘Dawny! I wasn’t expecting you till much later! And this must be Barry!’

  ‘Jerry,’ Dawn corrected her. ‘There was hardly any traffic, I don’t know why. We didn’t leave till half past ten.’

  Aunt Selina was taller than Dawn’s mother, but just as thin. She had iron-grey hair cropped in an angular bob, and a face like an elderly eagle, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. Her eyes were as grey as two pebbles, and her eyebrows were plucked so fine and so high that they gave her an expression of permanent disbelief.

  She was wearing a long purple dress with a sagging grey cardigan over it, and her pockets bulged with crumpled tissues and dirty orange dusters.

  ‘You said you had a problem with that wardrobe I gave you,’ said Aunt Selina. ‘It doesn’t have woodworm, does it? I promise you I checked it thoroughly before I let the storage people take it.’

  ‘No, Auntie. Nothing like that. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly.’

  ‘Go on, Dawn,’ Jerry coaxed her. ‘We’ve come all this way; you might as well tell her.’

  Aunt Selina gave her a bright, encouraging smile, even though her eyebrows still made her look amazed.

  ‘Yes, come on, Dawny. Whatever it is, I swear I won’t be cross.’

  Dawn hesitated for a moment, and then she said, ‘It’s haunted. There’s a ghost in it.’

  ‘There’s a ghost in it? No! Are you serious? What kind of a ghost?’

  ‘A man. He’s black all over, like he’s been burnt. He’s come out of the wardrobe twice now and last night he tried to rape me. If Jerry hadn’t turned up and knocked on the window, I think he would have done.’

  ‘My dear Dawny! How dreadful! But what makes you think he’s a ghost, and not some horrible common-or-garden sex maniac?’

  ‘He went back into the wardrobe after he attacked her,’ Jerry put in. ‘But I checked it thoroughly myself, top to bottom, and there was nobody inside it. I even pulled up the floor.’

  ‘You’re sure he went back in there? He didn’t hide under the bed or behind the curtains or somewhere like that?’

  ‘I’m absolutely sure. I just want to know where the wardrobe came from. You know, if it’s got any kind of history behind it. I’m going to have to get rid of it, Auntie, I’m sorry about that.’

  Aunt Selina frowned, as much as her eyebrows would allow her to. Then she said, ‘Wait a minute. Ron Hackett did give me some notes about it, along with the invoice. That’s who I got it from, Ron Hackett. Well, you said you needed a wardrobe and I remembered seeing it in the corner of his warehouse. He got it from old Mister Chesney, who used to own a storage business in Risinghurst, before he died.’

  She went back into her cramped little office and rummaged around in her filing cabinet. Dawn and Jerry waited uncomfortably among her antiques, and Dawn began to wish that she had never come. She should have simply called a house-clearance firm and asked them to take the wardrobe away, whether they paid her anything for it or not. She just wanted to be rid of it.

  At last, however, Aunt Selina came out again, and she was holding up an old notebook with a marbled green cover. A folded invoice was attached to it with three elastic bands, but Aunt Selina took these off, opened the notebook and began to read what was written in it, silently mouthing the words to herself as she did so.

  ‘Well?’ asked Dawn, impatiently. ‘Is there anything about my wardrobe in it?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Aunt Selina. ‘Yes, there most certainly is. I mean, there’s not a lot, but it’s all about your wardrobe. This was written by Harold Chesney right back in October of 1930. I mean, just look how faded his writing is! Do you want me to read it to you?’

  ‘Yes, that would be a good idea,’ said Dawn, trying not to sound impatient.

  ‘Very well … let me see … “October thirteenth, 1930 … Jack Lewis came into the warehouse and asked if I could take away a wardrobe for him as soon as possible. I told him that my driver Leonard was up in Leicester and wouldn’t be back till the following morning. He said he didn’t mind what it cost, he wanted the wardrobe out of the house before it got dark. I telephoned Bill Leppard at the Morris plant at Cowley and he said he had a lorry available and could shift Jack Lewis’s wardrobe for him by half past three, although it would cost him £5. I thought that was a bit steep and said so but Jack Lewis didn’t hesitate and agreed at once.

  ‘“Bill Leppard brought the wardrobe around at ten to four. I must say it was quite a fine piece of furniture, burr walnut veneer, made around 1880. I asked Jack Lewis what he wanted for it but he said that I should just keep it in store for the time being and he would pay me whatever it cost. There were two ropes tied around it so that the doors couldn’t be opened but Jack Lewis said he wanted those to stay fastened at all costs. I asked him why but he wouldn’t tell me.”’

  Aunt Selina said, ‘That’s all he wrote. The rest of the pages are
all blank. Oh, except for this Jack Lewis’s address and telephone number.’

  She paused, and then she said, ‘My God! Do you know who he was, this Jack Lewis?’

  Dawn shook her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  ‘It’s his address, it’s famous. The Kilns, Headington Quarry. That’s the house where C.S. Lewis used to live. You know, the writer. Narnia, and all that. The Lion, the Witch and—’

  ‘The wardrobe,’ Dawn finished, and although she didn’t really understand why, she felt flooded by a deep sense of dread, as if they had come across a secret that nobody had ever been supposed to find out.

  They all went to a large noisy pub called the Britannia Inn for a drink and cheese sandwiches.

  After they had found a table in a corner of the bar, Aunt Selina said, ‘You must tell me more about this black-faced ghost of yours, Dawny. I’m fascinated!’

  Dawn said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t really want to talk about it. It was horrible.’

  ‘But supposing yours was the actual wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis to write all of those stories!’

  ‘That’s what scares me even more. I mean – it makes it all the more believable, doesn’t it? Why was he so desperate to have the wardrobe taken out of his house before it got dark? And why did he tie its door shut with ropes?’

  ‘I think he saw your ghost, too,’ said Aunt Selina. She laid her ring-encrusted hand on top of Dawn’s and gave her an affectionate squeeze. ‘I really don’t blame you for wanting to get rid of the wardrobe. If you like, I’ll ask Ron Hackett to take it back.’

  ‘But then he’ll sell it again, won’t he, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to some other poor girl.’

  ‘In that case, you really need to find out more about it. Where it originally came from, and who this black-faced man is, and why he was burnt. Now you’re up here in Oxford, why don’t you go to The Kilns and see if you can find somebody who knows a bit more about it? It’s a kind of study centre now for the life and work of C.S. Lewis. It’s only in Risinghurst, so it’s not very far.’