Spiders Read online

  The second talk was about openness in the group. Abbie felt uneasy and actually did listen to most of it. Apparently there should be no secrets in the group, and nothing should remain hidden. ‘We are naked before one another,’ said a woman. As everyone had their clothes on, Abbie hoped this was a figure of speech.

  Today’s talk was about the ‘Golden Planet’ and how it was going to be ruled by thirteen exceptional people, led by the ‘chosen one’. There was something about these people not knowing at first that they were special. Complete madness. Abbie began to glaze over again. Someone had been watching too much Doctor Who . But she had to pretend to pay attention. Her dad was paid to keep an eye on these lunatics, and she had no choice but to play along, though she wanted to scream at them for being so stupid.

  As they stood up to leave, another family came over. ‘Hi, we’re Robert and Andrea. This is Noah.’ The boy, also about sixteen, looked shyly at Abbie.

  ‘I’m Mark, and this is Annie.’ There were smiles from all, even – just about – Abbie.

  ‘I thought that was really interesting,’ said Robert. ‘We’ve been here a couple of weeks and I must say it’s excellent to receive such nutritious teaching.’

  Nutritious teaching? Abbie groaned inwardly at the phrases the group used. They had their own way of speaking that was almost as daft as their ideas.

  Noah stared at Abbie, briefly forgetting his embarrassment.

  ‘I find,’ Robert continued, ‘that the longer we stay here, the more we understand of this world and the need to escape.’

  Abbie smiled and nodded the moment they looked at her. She wanted to escape too. But not quite in the way Robert intended.

  The meeting ended and they went their separate ways. Abbie had a long walk back to her room, going through the main entrance hall, up the wide stairs, up another set of stairs on the right, then left down a long corridor with windows that overlooked Loch Dreich. At the end she had to go left again to reach her room. It was a maze. She dragged her feet, fed up.

  Later Abbie went outside with her father and they sat, slightly apart, by the water.

  ‘I think this is a really wonderful place,’ he said. ‘I like the bare rocky mountains. It reminds me of your mum.’

  ‘Yeah. S’pose. How long do you think we’re going to be here?’ Abbie whispered.

  ‘We may need to stay a little longer than I anticipated.’ Her father looked distant. He had been spending a lot of time talking to others in the group, or reading the group’s materials, or gazing into space.

  Abbie was feeling a bit unsettled, but wanted to hide it. Confusion wasn’t a feeling that she was familiar with. It must be because she was so bored. She thought she heard a noise behind her, but turning, saw no one there.

  Again: a scuttling sound. Still she could see nothing.

  Abbie’s father looked ahead at the wind blowing ripples on the loch, and for a few seconds they seemed to make the face of his dead wife. Another sign , he thought.

  Behind them, under swelling clouds that were about to deliver rain, stood Castle Dreich.

  A few days later, Noah plucked up the courage to approach Abbie. ‘Hi, Annie.’

  Abbie had decided he was wet, but she tended to think all boys were either weak or unpleasant – or both.

  ‘Hi, Noah.’ She mustn’t be rude or sarcastic. ‘Have you met the other kids here?’

  ‘No. Not really. I certainly haven’t spoken to any of the chosen ones.’

  Abbie didn’t understand. She was about to ask what he meant when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a spider scuttle across the floor. She caught sight of its long legs tapping erratically, making it veer unpredictably, approaching her – and then darting away. She held her breath and felt her skin buzz with fear. She hated being afraid of something so small.

  ‘Annie?’ said Noah, looking at her closely. ‘Have you seen something?’

  ‘No, it was just . . .’ She could hardly say it – even the word made her insides cold. ‘Just a spider.’

  ‘Oh.’ He didn’t make fun of her.

  Abbie couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling. ‘What was that about some of the other kids?’

  ‘I’m really not supposed to say,’ Noah said awkwardly. ‘Bolleskine knows that you’re new.’

  Without thinking, Abbie flipped into her usual impatient and aggressive tone: ‘Noah – don’t be stupid. What do you mean?’

  Noah smiled uncomfortably as his parents came within earshot. ‘Good to talk to you, Abbie. I’ve heard Bolleskine speak very highly of your father. He said that he’s making rapid progress.’

  Bolleskine was still a shadowy and aloof character to Abbie. He was always surrounded by people, subtly guiding the life of the castle, dispensing advice, moulding and inspiring people. He refused to be called Leader – in fact, he refused any title at all. He was just Bolleskine. Abbie wasn’t even sure if that was his first name or surname. When she first saw him in the castle, he said only one thing: ‘Less of yourself, young Annie. Empty yourself so that you can journey with us.’

  Abbie had thought it was a ridiculous thing to be told, especially in such a patronizing way, with his hand on her head. He was like a creepy uncle. But her father had simply smiled approvingly.

  It was Abbie’s rebellious nature, multiplied by boredom, which made her intrigued by the locked doors. She was being told YOU MAY NOT ENTER. You may not . . . these were tempting words. And there were lots of locked doors in the castle, which was much larger than she had first realized.

  Abbie’s room had a view of the loch and was on the side of the castle away from the front door. But she had no idea what lay elsewhere in the building. She had heard mention of the tower, the roof and the cavern. At unpredictable times of the night, she could just about hear cars coming and going, and the rotors of a helicopter, but she had never seen anything.

  Then one time she saw that the large door at the end of the corridor on her floor was open.

  Abbie had had a nightmare. She had never had one in her life before she arrived at Castle Dreich. It was about spiders – in this case one huge spider. Its legs drilled into the bed on either side of her and its thorax drooped down towards her chest. Abbie swung her head from side to side and flailed her arms against the mattress, then kicked out, sending bed sheets across the room. The spider chuckled, its raspberry-red eyes full of malice.

  The nightmare lingered into the time when she thought she was awake. Then the spider shattered like glass.

  Abbie lay on her bed and panted, wiping sweat away. Spiders are becoming an obsession – get over it , she told herself. There are bound to be spiders out here in the middle of the countryside.

  She padded to the bathroom that she shared with a couple of other single women. On her way back she didn’t go into her room but was drawn towards the locked doors. Perhaps she had heard movement.

  Just before the stairs that took her down to the main staircase she saw a door on the right that was ajar. Abbie pushed at it with one curious finger.

  The first thing she noticed was that the colour was different: dark red walls rather than mild yellows. The lighting was poor. About three paces in on her right was a mirror; and another a little further on. Then steps going up.

  She could hear someone shouting, but it was far away. Abbie stopped and strained to hear, peering into the gloom up the stairs.

  ‘I’ll do anything to make them go away. I don’t want to see them any more.’ It could have been Noah’s voice.

  ‘Abbie?’

  She turned around and saw Bolleskine. He was very close. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She folded her arms in front of her pyjamas – out of embarrassment? For protection?

  He didn’t ask for an explanation. ‘Don’t be shy or nervous. We have nothing to hide here. You and I have hardly spoken. But I hope that will change. The future is exciting, and I want you and your father to be part of it.’

  Abbie felt some of her certainty return. ‘I�
�m going back to bed now.’

  He didn’t move out of her way. He wasn’t exactly blocking her, but he made no attempt to move.

  There was more shouting in the background. Frantic and distressed, but difficult to decipher.

  It sounded a bit like: ‘Get them away from me! Get them away!’

  Pushing past Bolleskine, she said curtly, ‘Thank you.’ Abbie was not going to be intimidated.

  Bolleskine chuckled. The same sound as the spider.

  Back in her room, Abbie looked at the lock on her door. If only she had the key. She put her back against the chest of drawers and forced about six inches of it in front of the door.

  It was then that she thought back to what Bolleskine had said. He had said Abbie , hadn’t he? Maybe she was mistaken. He must have said Annie . Yes, Annie .

  Eventually she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  The next day, Abbie’s father was given permission to log into a website operated by a national newspaper. Using the name thenewsman , he posted a comment on an article about banking:

  There is nothing that can be done now to stop this sort of greed, except to report wrongdoing and hope that the authorities will use all their power to fine or imprison the guilty.

  He read over the submission. It was awkwardly worded, but would sit easily alongside the other criticisms of the banking system. Counting across the page, his finger fell on the third word, then the ninth, the seventeenth, twenty-sixth, and thirtieth.

  There is nothing that can be done now to stop this sort of greed, except to report wrongdoing and hope that the authorities will use all their power to fine or imprison the guilty.

  Nothing to report. All fine. Tomorrow the website and arrangement for his coded report would be different.

  Her father’s door was open, so Abbie walked in and looked at him over the top of the computer. She spoke in a whisper: ‘Dad, I don’t like what’s going on here. There’s a strange feeling that I can’t shake off, like I’m being watched. Sometimes I think I see things, but then when I look, there’s nothing there.’

  Her father tapped away on the computer, Loch Dreich large in the window behind him.

  She continued. ‘What is going on underneath us? In the cavern ?’ She shivered a bit. ‘It’s weird.’

  Mark Hopkins kept typing. ‘And what else do you think?’

  ‘I don’t like Bolleskine. He looks at me in a creepy way. He’s gross .’

  More typing. Faster.

  ‘I’m a bit worried.’ Abbie’s voice was much softer than usual. ‘Dad, are you listening? I think you should warn those people in London.’

  He didn’t stop typing. ‘Do you? Is that what you think?’

  Abbie moved closer to her dad. ‘I hear things and have bad dreams. It never happened to me before. I can’t work it out.’

  ‘I find it very difficult to concentrate when you’re in here.’ He glanced at his daughter as she leaned over the top of his keyboard. He focused on his screen, making her appear blurred, and finished writing his line:

  . . . of myself.

  Every line said the same thing, over and over.

  I must become empty of myself. I must become empty of myself.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  CHAPTER 10

  THE SNOW PLACE (SUNDAY 2ND NOVEMBER 2014)

  ‘I don’t like Jake Taylor. In fact I really don’t like him. But I didn’t do anything to hurt him.’

  Adam looked at the policeman, then at his parents, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘I don’t like Adam Grant. In fact I hate the little turd. But it wasn’t him. I was confused at the time, like I said, but there’s no way it was Grant,’ said Jake.

  ‘Well done,’ his parents said.

  ‘But in any case, Grant shouldn’t go around threatening people. He should be locked up.’

  Jake’s parents stared at the policeman and nodded in agreement.

  Adam sat round the kitchen table with his parents, the debris of a cooked breakfast scattered around them. They had exhausted the subject of Jake’s attack (and rescue), and it had exhausted them. A glance between his mum and dad signalled an attempt to end the conversation on a happy note.

  ‘Adam, darling,’ said his mum, ‘it’s been quite a year, so we’ve booked up the usual trip to Bulgaria and have decided that you can go on the school trip as well. We thought you’d like to know before you go to the Snow Place.’

  Skiing was the one proper luxury in the Grant household. Borovets in Bulgaria wasn’t a glamorous resort, but they went every year and Adam had become a good skier. To also get a place on the school trip to Aviemore was the answer to desperate prayers.

  The words spilt out of Adam: ‘That’s sick! Cool. Amazing. I can’t believe it.’ He hugged his parents in a way that teenagers rarely do. ‘Can I tell Megan and the others?’

  His fingers whirled over the touch screen on his phone.

  Mr Grant shared in Adam’s excitement: ‘You’ll love Scotland. It’s a place you’ll remember for the rest of your life.’

  The Snow Place was an indoor ski slope on the outskirts of London. The others had decided to get in some practice there before the Scotland trip, so it was ideal that Adam was now going too. Oliver had been keen to join them when he’d heard them talking about it, so was going to meet them there. The journey, as Adam expected and feared, was full of talk about Jake. Adam’s dad drove, saying nothing, though his eyebrows fell and rose as he listened to the conversation.

  ‘I’m not surprised someone smashed his face in,’ said Asa.

  Adam was uneasy. A year ago he had been guilty of accusations levelled against him, though it was more complicated than that. He couldn’t help thinking of the knife and the gun and the fire and the explosion . . .

  ‘Adam? Adam!’ It was Megan, keen to say something, anything , to bring him back. ‘Which option shall we go for in Scotland?’ They had to choose one other activity in addition to skiing, which they all took for granted. ‘How about winter hiking?’

  ‘I’m going to do skating,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Snowballing for me!’ came Asa’s voice from the very back of the Volvo.

  ‘I don’t know, Meg,’ said Adam. ‘I’ll do whatever you’re doing.’

  The Snow Place wasn’t large, but it was the biggest in the area: nearly 200 yards of ‘real’ (if man-made) snow with two tow ropes dragging skiers to the top.

  Adam leaned on his poles at the bottom as Oliver and Leo slid alongside him rather awkwardly. ‘Good luck, guys,’ Adam said, and pushed himself towards the bottom of the lift.

  Then, immediately and unexpectedly –

  ‘Watch it, mate,’ shouted a boy in his late teens as he swept down off the slope, nearly colliding with Adam. He was wearing a baggy top and orange beanie. He added, over his shoulder, ‘You can’t cut me up like that. Prat!’

  Adam made his way forward again, this time alongside Megan, who was obliviously trying to blow smoke rings with her breath in the cold.

  Suddenly, and equally without warning, another skier in his late teens arrived and sent a shower of snow over them. Laughing to one another, the two older boys pushed in front and caught the tow rope back to the top.

  Adam, a graceful and fearless skier, looked very much the part in his black salopettes and ski jacket. To the others, bumps and lumps of snow were obstacles to be avoided, but for Adam they didn’t seem to exist. Only Rachel was anywhere near as good, but Adam could beat her to the bottom every time.

  They all relaxed. Leo put his skis into a wide V-shape and stayed as near to the edge as possible. Megan was trying to give him advice: ‘Push down on your left leg; now your right.’ But it didn’t help. Oliver was learning incredibly quickly: he had serious natural ability, just as at paintballing. Asa, wearing a jacket that was pink rather than red, and making repeated use of the phrase poetry in motion , spent most of the time cheering Rachel on.

  On the third run down, Adam – carving to his r
ight – somehow managed to lock skis with the same boy who had shouted at him earlier. Insults were exchanged as they fought to disentangle themselves before they became wrapped around one another and crashed in a heap.

  ‘You little prick,’ said the older boy. ‘You completely took me out.’

  Adam was indignant as he pushed his boot back into the binding. ‘You were going faster than me, so it’s up to you to avoid me .’

  The boy was pointing his pole at Adam. ‘Somebody needs to teach you a lesson,’ he said, poking Adam with the sharp end of it. ‘You should get out of people’s way.’ Another poke, which caught Adam in the neck. Then he swore, calling Adam a word that was rarely used, even at school.

  ‘Just leave me alone,’ Adam shouted, snapping in his other ski boot and skiing off.

  Still vaguely worried by what had happened to Jake, Adam spent the next fifteen minutes avoiding the boy, then realized he had gone.

  ‘Come on, let’s get a drink,’ said Megan, hoping that they would return for a happier burst of action before they had to leave.

  As they put their shoes back on, Asa could be heard saying something from the toilet, which was just off the boot room.

  ‘Keep searching and you’ll find it,’ said Adam, his old spirit returning, and getting an elbow in the ribs from Megan.

  Asa continued in a high-pitched tone.

  Megan shushed everyone. ‘Speak up, Asa.’

  ‘Come here; come here right now; all-of-you-come-here.’ It was a breathless, frightened voice.

  Leo, who had his shoes on, wandered into the toilet. Then his voice could be heard too. ‘Help! Come here now. And get help!’ Leo didn’t joke.

  Adam leaped up and took a few quick strides in their direction. As he entered he could see part of a lifeless face and a bloody hand poking out from under the cubicle. ‘Meg, get help!’