Chapter 30 - Awake From Slumber

Blake had not planned on bringing along the children to his examination of the Countess' estate. But all morning, Maggie had plagued him with her demands to be taken along.

"A want to look into the eyes of that woman at least one more time," she pleaded over breakfast.

"Please, I can be helpful. I know the grounds of her estate well, if she tries to trick you I shall see through her lies."

When Blake still refused, for next hour she presented him with reason after reason, and eventually persuaded him to take her along. Tom then refused to stay in Blake's home and demanded he be taken along with Maggie too. And with the thought of being all alone in a peeler's crib - as if it were haunted by some ghostly spectre - Jack too demanded he be allowed to go back with them to Little Serrant.

The carriages arrived at the entrance to the Countess' estate some hours later. The gates were locked and members of Blake's team, two uniformed constables from the carriage in front, disembarked and had to force open the lock of the gate.

Soon the horses were speeding their carriages down the pathway, which led to the grand house on top of the small hill. Maggie couldn't remember the first time they had entered the Countess' estate many months before. She was tired and had awoken to find herself looking up at the Countess' beautiful home in a shroud of darkness.

She felt a shiver of reluctance as they moved ever nearer to the house. She had never wanted to return, but knew she had to. She felt the demands of the dead pressing upon her once more.

As the carriage turned to approach the entrance to the Countess' home, she saw the Countess - with Whitmore and Sexton either side of her - being escorted down the front steps towards her own, awaiting carriage. Maggie felt a hollowing out of her stomach as her eyes, for one single moment, met the Countess' again. Could this pale, weak old woman be responsible for all the things Maggie had imagined? All those despicable crimes she outlined to Detective Blake? It didn't seem possible, and Maggie felt all the things she thought had happened, had in fact only occurred in some feverish part of her imagination.

The carriages carrying Blake and his men stopped behind the Countess' carriage. Blake turned to Maggie and the boys and said, "Stay put. I think this could get complicated. Our friend Mr Whitmore is a most difficult individual."

Blake stepped from the carriage and walked to where Whitmore and the Countess stood. They were about to climb inside the carriage. Up to this point the Countess' party ignored the two carriages carrying the children and a dozen or so police. But once Blake walked towards them, the Countess motioned to the two men to help her inside the carriage.

Once she vanished from view, Maggie's attention turned to the Blake and Whitmore, who were in deep discussion as they left the Countess inside her carriage, and walked back up the stairs to the main entrance of the house. She could tell, merely from his posture, that Whitmore was furious. He pointed at Blake, then back towards the carriage and she overheard him saying, "We are leaving this instant. And there is nothing you can do to stop us."

Blake held out a piece of paper, the warrant to search the premises she guessed. At this provocation, Whitmore snatched at the paper and began to read. After a few moments he turned away from Blake and let the warrant fall to the ground. He strode back to the carriage and with the aid of Sexton accompanied the Countess back inside the house.

Blake returned to the carriage and looked to Maggie. "So where then is this folly you have spoken so much about. We need to get over there swiftly and search before Whitmore finds a way of obstructing our investigation."

The boats returned from the folly about an hour or so after Maggie had directed Blake and his men and explained what they would need to negotiate their way around the hazardous building. The folly was one part of the Countess' estate she had no desire to see again. Maggie and the boys stood with a couple of Blake's officers, while he and a handful of men crossed the lake to begin their search.

Once Blake and his men had set off for the folly, Whitmore and Sexton emerged from the house and stood opposite the children and the two remaining police officers.

"He won't find anything, you do know that don't you, young lady," said Whitmore, smiling at Maggie.

A little time later, Blake and his men disembarked and stood on the jetty where Whitmore and Sexton stood opposite - like adversaries - watching Maggie and the boys' every move. The two uniformed officers had moved and stood between the two parties.

Blake walked towards Maggie. "I'm afraid there is nothing over there to suggest any of the things you told me actually occurred," he explained.

"Did you not see the names scraped onto the walls, the bath full of blood..."

Blake held his arms aloft, "Maggie, Maggie -yes I saw the names and to me they look like the etching of children up to no good. In and around London you will see such markings and defacements on walls and buildings."

"What about the bath?" she further inquired.

"Maggie, it simply that; a bath." He looked at her and saw the disappointment so apparent and unhidden. "I don't know what the place was used for in the past, neither do I think I want to know. But as for the charges of foul deeds -"

"Blake, your decision to investigate this nonsense could cost you your career, you do realise that?" called Whitmore, striding over to confront Blake.

Maggie turned away and walked off to the edge of the jetty. She felt uneasy in the man's presence.

"Why a detective in the finest police force in the world would believe the lies of such a girl - the daughter of a terrorist and a murderer! - is quite beyond belief," he exclaimed.

"Sir, I-" Blake began.

"What other stories has this girl been telling you, Blake? Has she told you of the circumstances surrounding her own mother's death? Maybe that is the clue behind her warped imagination and these vile allegations against my guardian. It wouldn't surprise me if she was in contact with her father and this is all part of his depraved plan to ruin this country."

"Sir, I had to follow up –"

"You're just a simple bobby, Blake. They may have taken you out of uniform but you don't understand what's at stake here. This great nation and its empire is the most noble thing man has undertaken since civilisation began. We are not going to surrender it to a host of rabble-rousers and uneducated workers. We don't govern by the mob in England, Blake. Some are chosen to govern in the interests, and on the behalf, of the many."

"I understand one thing, Sir," began Blake. "And that is the law should apply equally to all –"

"That's why I'm here: to protect everybody. I'm here to protect the Queen and the pauper. I cannot and will not allow my country to be terrorised by these people." He turned to look at Maggie.

"People like her father. Whatever the cost, I'm willing to pay it," said Whitmore.

"Any price?" asked Blake.

"Any price. And if you are quite finished with us here, ex-detective Blake, my sickly Mother has a train to catch."

"Where is it she is going?" asked Blake. "We still have some other areas of this case we wish to pursue. I'm going to instruct my men to question all of the servants next."

"Do what you wish, Blake. We are leaving, now. I've been patient with you thus far. My Aunt is leaving for the continent tomorrow. But first we must travel to London. She is to stay at a spa for a number of months, in the hope of revitalising her failing health."

"I will need the address to contact her if -"

"We are leaving this instant," replied Whitmore, "and don't think you've heard the last of this. I expect a full apology and I will see to it myself, personally, that a full investigation into your role in this disgrace is begun immediately."

Whitmore turned and, followed by Sexton, walked back to the house. Maggie turned and glowered, staring intently at every step they made towards the house. She felt such a fury of injustice catch in her throat; she was unable to form into words why these people should not be allowed to leave, scot-free, as she saw it. She looked back at Blake and marched back down to the edge of the jetty, stood alone and stared out across the water. Blake approached her and began to speak, but she was unable to listen. Her mind was drifting back across the lake, back to the tower and then below the tower and to the place where she felt certain young children - children just like her - had lost their lives in a most cruel and gruesome manner.

"So Maggie, you see there is no evidence. Without a body, you cannot prove anything untoward occurred here," Blake was saying when Maggie retuned him in.

No bodies...the words drifted through her mind. It was obvious, she thought, they would not leave the bodies inside the folly. So where would the bodies be hidden? For some reason, her mind drifted back to the dredges that trawled The Thames. Of course, she thought, the bodies have been cast into the lake.

"The lake," she said turning to Blake. "They have dumped those poor children's bodies into the lake!"

"Maggie, please," replied Blake. "We can't do any more. We don't have any equipment either to search the lake."

"Of course we do. All you need is some ropes and hooks - like the dredgers use on the river in London. I'm sure if you dredge the lake, you will find evidence of the terrible crimes she has committed here."

The Countess' carriage, with Sexton driving and Whitmore aboard, began its journey away from the house. It moved up the gravel path and towards the gates of the estate. They were leaving for the continent and there was nothing Blake nor the police, or indeed anyone else, could do to change that small matter.

Meanwhile, Maggie, unaware of the Countess' departure, stood at the other side of the house - looking out on to the lake, as all three boats, each containing officers from the Metropolitan Police force cast off and began dredging the lake. She took Blake's officers to the model farm and there they had collected the necessary ropes and hooks to help in their work.

She was reminded of her days upon the Thames, scavenging. She recalled how late at night, once one set of scavengers had finished picking its way through the items left upon the mudflats, another set in boats would take to the dark water and search out the dead.

The glare from the sun was still fierce as it reflected off the surface of the lake. Maggie could see the boats positioned at different intervals across the water, with police officers impersonating the ragged men who foraged on the Thames.

She was perched upon the top stair, which led up to the back of the house. The same place where months earlier the Countess warned them of the dangers of the folly, as she introduced them to their new home. Below her Thomas and Jack played cards and viewed her with increasing uneasiness, as she joined her hands in prayer and whispered the same words to herself over and over: As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

The first bundle of bones and rags emerged from the water just after 5pm. She heard a cry from one of Blake's officers upon the lake. She looked up and out across the water. The officer was halfway across the lake, as if heading for the tower. He had the hook attached to the rope pulled taut, his straight back heaving at something beneath the water. He and his colleague were shouting back to Blake, who was sat in another boat closer to the Maggie's side of the lake.

Blake and the occupants of the other two boats rowed towards the vessel where the officer stood, waving and shouting. When they arrived alongside the other boat, Blake looked over the side and supervised as two men pulled a small, dark bundle from the water. Maggie witnessed the transfer of the watery object from one boat to another. Then Blake's boat, with whatever the packaged contained, headed back towards the wooden jetty.

Maggie, alert and eager throughout, jumped from her perch and ran to the bottom of the steps, calling to the two boys to follow her. She raced, with the Jack and Tom in pursuit, to meet the boat as it rowed dolefully back to land. As she reached the jetty, she began to slow, realising what it was she was running to meet. She came to a halt mid-way across the wooden boards. The fear of what the boat contained left her petrified, as it closed in on the landing dock. Tom and Jack stood behind her, waiting on her next move.

Finally, the boat docked and Blake disembarked. He indicated to his men in the boat to wait, while he sought out the children - who were stood rigid on the middle of the dock watching his every step towards them.

He confronted them with mournful eyes. "It looks like we have found the corpse of a young girl. We shall keep on searching for a while more yet."

At this Maggie turned and ran. She ran far from the house, away from Blake and his men, away from Jack and Tom.

She needed to be alone.

When she stopped running, she found herself in a small wooded area. It was cool underneath the shade of the trees, where she eventually came to a halt. She sat beneath the tree and wept. Wept for all of the dead. For all those yet to be pulled from the water. But most of all, she wept for the one person who still held her to account: her mother.

***

Maggie wandered around the empty house. She opened the door and looked back in at the Countess' study. But did not dare step inside. She had seen enough of that particular place.

As she wandered, two of Blake's officers - taken away from dredging duties and ordered to search the house - called to her from the stairway. They beckoned her upstairs.

She followed and they walked her past the room she had once occupied, to the one next door. In all her time there, she had presumed it unoccupied. They showed her inside and took her to the wall bordering her own room. Then they pulled at a mechanism to the side of the bookcase, which, as a result, came away from the wall. They pulled it out and swung it halfway open to reveal an entrance to the other room next door. Her room. The empty bookshelf on her side of the wall was part of the same structure.

So this is how they entered that night and drugged the boys and me, she thought, as she stepped inside and looked around the room she had once slept in so serenely. A room that once made her feel so safe and secure.

Later she sat alone on the front steps of the house. Before leaving the two officers - who had found the secret passage - Maggie had directed them to the Countess' study in hope they might find more evidence.

Earlier Blake had told the children to move away from the lake, as the their tragic haul from the water continued apace. At the last count, five more bodies had been dragged from its depths.

However much she tried, Maggie couldn't fight the urge to follow her mind and venture among the terrible fates endured by the half-dozen corpses already pulled from the lake. They had been just like her, she reasoned: their lives too had once been filled with hopes and delights, with dreariness and heartache. Until they had met the Countess...

It could have been me, she thought.

Her mind followed their journeys, from experiencing the thrill of being saved from a life scavenging on the streets, or of routine filled with dull domesticity, to their ultimate destiny at the hands of the Countess.

It was her she thought: that cold-blooded murderer, channelling the spirit of a brutal, dead aristocratic from an age ago. She remembered how she talked of her obsession with Báthory. How she wrote so lovingly of her; how she had sat for days to paint her image - the very same image that hung ever so proudly above her chair in the study. Báthory had spoken to her, she claimed.

No doubt about it, thought Maggie. She was crazed. The Countess' sanity was lost to some sort of warped bloodlust - a mad quest to emulate a supposed blood relative from centuries ago.

And worse, it looked like she would escape justice.

Her mind then wandered back to the evening when she awoke and realised her mother had gone. Gone for ever. But she was distracted by a noise in the distance.

When she looked up, and out across the vast expanse of the Countess' estate, coming through the gate was a carriage. She stood up and followed it as it made its way down the path towards the house.

It looked like the Countess' carriage.

In the fading light, it was hard to make out, but it continued to move towards the house. Maggie was startled and turned to run to the back of the house to find Blake and his men, when, suddenly, she saw that behind the carriage - and to either side of it - there were three men on horseback. It looked as if the three dark figures had deliberately surrounded the carriage, as it moved closer to the house.

Maggie ran. She flew through the house to the entrance to the rear, to the lake, where Blake and his men were still trying to comprehend their grim find.

"The Countess' carriage is back! And there are men on horses, too. Quick! They're coming to the front of the house."

With officers in tow, she ran back to the front of the house, found Jack and Tom on her way and summoned them to join her.

At the front of the house she stopped. The carriage was pulling in towards the entrance. Hooves echoed as the darkly dressed men on horseback brought the Countess' carriage around to the front steps of the house.

The mounted men reminded Maggie of the stories of highwaymen, from the romantic tales she had once read. All three men were masked, with dark handkerchiefs covering most of their faces up to their eyes. All wore wide-brimmed hats turned down over their eyes. They also held pistols aloft in their hands and pointed them towards Sexton, the driver, in the box seat on top of the carriage. All the while he looked back to them, as if following their orders through some silent form of communication.

Maggie, Jack and Tom, alongside Blake and his men stood staring as the three armed men brought the carriage to halt at the entrance to the house. They indicated to Sexton to remain seated on top of the carriage and relax his grip on the stirrups. Nobody from inside the carriage moved. But Maggie could see Whitmore through the window, his face like thunder, as he looked back towards Blake and his men.

The men stood tall in the saddle, their pistols drawn and ready to fire. The safety Maggie had felt earlier, when surrounded by Blake and the other officers, departed. She felt only fear, as she looked to the terrifying men on horseback, and wondered about their intentions.

"Put your hands up to the air!" they shouted, as the rest of Blake's officers arrived.

"We have no weapons but we do intend to question you about why you are here and why you are armed," said Blake.

"You shall become aware of our intentions soon enough. But I doubt you are in any position to issue any orders here," shouted back the central figure of three. "So I say it again: put your hands up in the air!"

They all did, including the children.