‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Her face as she tipped it up to look at him was white and her eyes wide. He reached in and she took his hand and clung for a long moment before she let go. ‘It is horrible in here. There are bones.’
Theo leaned over. ‘No there aren’t.’
Laura looked down. ‘So there aren’t – it’s a ladder! Oh, how foolish, I put out my hand and it closed over a rung and it felt just like a long bone must do.’ She shivered. ‘I could hear earth and stones falling, but they’ve stopped now.’
Theo leaned over further. ‘That ladder looks sound. Quite new, in fact. If you set it upright, can you climb out?’ She had cobwebs in her hair and a dusty smudge across her nose and he just wanted to reach in and haul her up into his arms.
‘You climb down,’ she said. ‘Now I can see and I know I’m not sharing this with a skeleton, I want to explore.’
‘If you go down, Theo, then so do I,’ Perry announced. When they were all three in the trench he peered into the darkness. ‘You first, Theo, then Laura – if you must,’ he added darkly. ‘If Waggett keeps watch and Jed stays here with one end of the rope and we take the other, then he can haul us out if there’s any problem.’
‘What about me?’ Will had made his way painfully down the path and was on his knees looking into the tomb.
‘You stay there,’ Theo said. ‘And offer up prayers that no-one else sees Laura in this rig-out.’
As he hoped, that startled an indignant laugh out of her. He hadn’t liked the paleness of her face when he had looked down at her in that grave cut. He tied one end of the rope around his waist and wriggled past her. It was a tight fit and the feeling of her body in its male clothing was both strange and disturbing. ‘Keep at least two feet behind me,’ he ordered brusquely to cover up his reaction. ‘If more earth starts to fall, turn round and get out immediately, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Theo,’ she said with a meekness that was clearly meant to mock. ‘You had better have the lantern, don’t you think?’
‘Of course.’ Pressing past her had put the damned thing out of his mind. He took it from her and held it up. ‘There’s definitely a tunnel.’
‘How far does it go?’ Perry asked from behind Laura.
‘Not very far at all. Three or four yards, perhaps. I think I can see stone.’ He bent and edged forward, listening every few steps for the sound of the walls or roof giving way. Then the earth around him became cut stonework and the edge of the tunnel finished abruptly. One step ahead was nothing but a dark, echoing space.
‘I’ve found the crypt,’ he called back as he swung the lantern out into the void. ‘The tunnel cuts through the wall of the church.’
‘Can you get down?’ Laura asked.
‘There’s another ladder. I’ll try it if you stop pushing me and I don’t go in head first.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Laura protested. ‘It’s Perry treading on my heels.’
‘Change places then.’ Theo knelt down and gave the head of the ladder a firm shake. It seemed sound enough.
Behind him he heard a spirited argument going on, then scuffling, then Perry spoke right behind him. ‘Is it safe?’
‘I think so. You hold the top, I’ll go down.’ The ladder was solid under his feet and he landed safely about eight feet down on a stone floor. ‘Pass me the lantern.’
Perry handed it down and he looked around.
‘Nothing here – some broken wood here by my feet – looks like an old ladder, a damaged cask over there. That newer stonework must be what blocks the steps up to the aisle. No coffins, thank goodness. The air smells fairly fresh which seems strange.’
‘There’ll be pierced stones somewhere to ventilate it,’ Perry said, surprising him with his knowledge. ‘There was a problem with them getting blocked by earth at Fellingham church and we had to get stonemasons in because of the damp. Does the crypt go right under the church? I can’t see.’
‘I think so.’ Theo peered past some pillars. ‘Yes, it is the same plan as the church above, I think. Nothing exciting – just more rubbish in one corner.’
‘I’m coming down. Laura wants to see and she’ll push me off in a moment.’ He joined Theo and Laura appeared at the edge, knelt down and pulled a face.
‘I was expecting piles of casks or chests of gold. How disappointing.’
Theo walked over and kicked the scattered cask staves. ‘This looks like a brandy cask, it was small. But there are no marks on it. What’s under that old tarpaulin, Perry?’
It covered a low mound about six feet in length that ran away from the wall just below the opening they had come through. Perry took hold of a corner, flipped it back and swore, one violent, vehement word.
Laura tried to scream but no sound came out. She tried to look away, but found she could not. The body lay staring up at her, the skin yellow and tight to the skull, the mouth open in an obscene laugh, greyish hair straggling from the peeling scalp. What made it almost worse was that this was clearly a clergyman. His dusty black garments still clung in tatters to the skeletal limbs, a grey wig of the style of half a century before had fallen to one side and once-white clerical neckbands lay on his chest.
Theo shot up the ladder, pulled her to her feet and away from the entrance and pushed her unceremoniously back along the tunnel, into the cut beneath the tomb. Somehow, she found herself out in the light and the air, secure in Theo’s arms as he knelt on the grass, holding her tight. She clutched him, too shaken to try and be brave.