Finn takes a metal pole with a hook on the end and detaches the latch on the attic door. The hinges creak as it opens and we all duck as a wooden ladder falls with alarming speed until it hits the floorboards.
It wobbles as Finn climbs it, followed by Dave. Debbie waits with me at the base and we both stare up at the dark hole they disappear into. She clutches my hand; I flinch but she doesn’t let go. Perhaps she’s human after all. Above us, one of them flicks a light switch but, a second later, there’s a ping and the bulb blows.
‘Do we have any bayonet lightbulbs left?’ shouts Dave, and Debbie calls back that she doesn’t think so. They use the torches on their phones instead.
‘I don’t like this,’ says Debbie nervously. She raises her voice up into the hole above us. ‘It’s an old house, Finn; it’s not safe up there. You should come down. We should wait until we know the floorboards are secure and then look around.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Finn shouts back and I hear him shuffling away from the hatch and along the ceiling directly above us. ‘Okay, I see the packing cases,’ he shouts, ‘but the lids are nailed shut.’
I grab a screwdriver lying on the floor and begin to make my way up the ladder.
‘What are you doing?’ asks a horrified Debbie.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Darling,’ she protests. I hate that she’s started calling me this. ‘You’re more than seven months pregnant. You can’t be climbing up there.’
I’m not used to her caring about my welfare, but regardless, I can’t stop myself from staring at her walking stick and sniping, ‘Well you certainly can’t.’ I continue my ascent. ‘I’ll stay at the top, I won’t go inside,’ I concede. ‘You stand on the bottom rung and keep it steady.’
I pass the screwdriver to Finn, who opens his mouth to complain about my stunt but knows from the look I shoot him that it’ll fall on deaf ears. Not only that, now that I’m here I’m staying put until I know for sure if I have blown that skirting board message out of all proportion.
He passes his phone to his dad and I take out mine from my pocket, turning on the flashlight and setting the video to record. Finn pushes the tool under the rim of the packing case and prises it open. He repeats the action on the next side. The torchlight catches the first few raised nails and it takes all his strength before it lifts. We look to one another through the gloom. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find in there, but my imagination is in overdrive. Every horror film that scared me to death as a girl is flashing before me, from clowns in drains to burns victims with razors for fingers. A tense Finn then pulls the lid off as his dad shines the light inside. They go quiet and my heart wants to beat its way out of my chest.
‘What is it? What’s in there?’ I ask. An eternity passes before he answers.
‘Just old rolls of wallpaper and cans of paint,’ Finn says, and my relief is palpable.
‘And the second one?’
That opens more easily. ‘Same,’ he says, and I now feel utterly stupid for making them go up there. I blame my bloody pregnancy hormones for having me up and down like
a yoyo. I don’t like looking irrational in front of Debbie, but to be fair, she was every bit as anxious as I was.
‘Okay,’ I say as Finn turns around. His torch catches the corner of the room, a wall, but there’s an odd, small gap where it reaches the roof. He doesn’t appear to have noticed it but I have. ‘What’s that?’ I ask and grab my phone.
‘What’s what?’
‘Behind you, direct your light in the corner like I am.’
He does as I ask. It’s more obvious with a third beam. ‘Huh. The house doesn’t end there,’ he says. ‘Dad, does that wall look like it’s been added?’
‘Maybe, but if it has been then it’s probably for insulation purposes,’ says Dave. ‘Back in the 1950s it was common to reduce loft space or lower it to keep it warmer.’
I’m not convinced and neither is Finn as he moves towards this additional wall and starts pushing at it with the palm of his hand.
‘We shouldn’t be messing around with that until we know how secure the floor behind it is,’ Dave advises. ‘You don’t want bricks crashing through the ceilings of bedrooms we’ve only just re-plastered.’
But Finn is now equally as keen to discover what lies behind it as I am. Eventually he finds one loose brick and dislodges it. It falls into the other side, landing with a thud.
‘What’s happening?’ asks Debbie below me, startled by the thump.
‘It looks like another room,’ says Finn, flashing his light into the hole. ‘And there’s something in there.’
‘Please come down, Finn, it’s not safe,’ Debbie says. ‘What’s inside?’ I ask.
‘I can’t quite see.’
Finn follows me down the ladder to borrow a mallet and a lamp from one of the workmen in the lounge. Debbie makes one more attempt at talking her son into not returning as he ascends it again but he’s not listening. And neither am I when I too reach the top rung. I point my phone
at Finn as he sets to work demolishing enough wall for him to enter and for us to see inside. The light from the lamp illuminates this hidden room. The first thing I notice is a chimney breast with missing bricks, creating a hole in the centre. Then I focus on several rectangular objects, standing on their sides on the floor. The closest one has a pair of others just like it set behind it, with a row of four arrayed beyond those two in the same fashion. The formation spreads out into a V, like a flock of geese mid-flight, only the objects are positioned on the floor.
‘Are they suitcases?’ I say, squinting.
‘I think so,’ Finn replies and I notice him inch away from them.
There’s seven of them. It’s hard to tell under so much dust, but they appear to be different colours, though all are the same size. And there’s a red letter embossed on each of them, a P.
‘What’s that in front of them?’ Before each suitcase is a small pile of something.
‘Clothes,’ says Finn. He turns to his dad, who’s now as apprehensive as his son. Finn picks up a bag and the dust makes him sneeze. ‘Kids’ clothes in a shrink-wrapped bag,’ he says sombrely.
‘Perhaps we should go back downstairs and leave this until another time,’ suggests the normally unflappable Dave.
I feel myself becoming light-headed. I can’t be sure if it’s my blood pressure or if I’m just winding myself up. Like Finn, the heavy air starts making me sneeze.
‘We need to look inside one,’ I say. ‘Why?’ he asks.
‘Because they’re in our attic. Open one.’
He reluctantly fiddles with the catches of one case until eventually it pops open. However, the lid is so tight and won’t budge no matter how hard he tries to pull it. In the end, Dave takes hold of the case while Finn yanks it. Then
the top opens up but with such force that Dave lets go and loses his balance, falling to his knees.
There’s an immediate smell of decay, but it’s not overpowering. Finn shines his light into the case but, to begin with, neither of us can work out what we are looking at. It’s a large, solid lump of something, dark brown in colour, almost black. Then I recognise fur and assume it’s a cat or a dog. No wait, is that hair? Yes it is. And I see it’s attached to a skull. A human skull, only small. It’s then that I realise it belongs to a child.
I’m looking at the mummified remains of a child.
My legs start to shake uncontrollably and I drop the phone on the rim of the loft hatch. But before I can steady myself, I’m falling backwards, all the way down, my wrist hitting the ladder before I land on the floor below with a heavy thwack and everything turns black.
