Page 14 of The Cut

‘Five may keep a secret if four of them are dead.’

Ben’s ghostly face, drained of blood, leans forward into the flickering candlelight. The gathered fellowship sits inside a ‘pentagram of power’, chalked on to the stone floor in charcoal.

‘Is that how it goes? I thought—’ Ben raises a finger to silence Annie. She bites her lip.

‘Sshh.’

On the upturned beer crate in the centre of the cavernous ruin is a broken saucer containing tea lights, and plastic cups into which Dave Patel carefully pours full measures of Diamond White.

As he hands one to Annie, his fingers accidentally brush hers and he smiles with embarrassment before picking up his camera.

She gags on the sweet, fizzy cider as Ben’s voice echoes off the damp stone walls of Blackstone Mill.

‘Listen! (Listen!) (Listen!)’

Ancient rusty hinges creak and the candles gutter as a gust of cold air rushes in through the crack between the two huge, rotting oak doors braced with iron struts.

Dave’s video camera slowly finds each frightened face, brushed with slivers of candlelight in the blackness: Chris, Ben and then Annie.

Dave tilts the lens down to capture frantic hands finding each other in the dark.

Ben’s voice trembles with excitement. ‘By the power vested in me, I decree that Blackstone Mill belongs to us.’

The camera scans the vast hall, searching for something that might be hiding back there in the gloom.

Shadows on the wall, 74 cast from the candlelight, point towards a dank pool in the flagstone floor that seems to be sucking in the light, pulling everything into an abyss.

Outside, the rusty barbed-wire fence and the ‘keep out’ sign that has been ripped off its nails shiver and creak as the shadow of two long bony fingers reaches around the door, penetrating the crack.

‘Who’s there?’ Ben blows out the candles and the circle closes. The shadow slowly stretches across the floor, like a hand clawing for its prey. A metallic rasp shatters the silence.

‘ No. STOP . Please don’t! ’ Patel’s camera whips up to find Annie on her feet, back against the wall, hands over her eyes.

Ben stands and squeezes her hand, laughing. ‘It’s OK, it’s only Lynette with the gear, look.’

‘It’s me, you nutters. Give me a bloody hand, this thing weighs a ton.

’ The top of a ladder pokes through the door, and is swiftly followed by Lynette Davis, overloaded with bags and equipment.

‘Tell you what, why don’t you lot just sit there on your fat arses and I’ll break my back over here?

’ She slings a huge rucksack down on to the stone floor.

‘All right, Fatima Whitbread, chill out.’ Her brother, not lifting a finger, ducks into a corner, unzipping his fly and taking a leak.

‘Outside, you filthy animal!’ Ben boots Chris in the backside, and Chris turns and sprays over Dave.

‘Oi, watch it, that’s bloody disgusting!’ Patel dives out of the way as a drunk Chris stumbles past Lynette.

Annie leans into Ben, whispering through the darkness, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

‘Trust me, this is going to be the icing on the cake. We’re finally going up there.’ Ben picks up Lynette’s rucksack and opens it. ‘Or, at least, one of us is.’ 75

The camera darts from Ben to Annie, then to Chris’s backside mid-pee. He turns and splutters, ‘Wait, what? Who? Who exactly is going up?’

Finally, the camera lands on a flustered Lynette. ‘Don’t look at me, I can’t do it.’ The contents of her rucksack spill out on to the floor. ‘It’s my dad’s climbing gear. Not that he’s used it in about a decade, fat git.’

‘Who are you calling a faggot?’ Chris is back, wiping his hands on his jeans.

‘Everyone, just shut up and listen. We get to the first floor and figure it out from there. OK?’ Ben drags the ladder over to the rotting rafters, where a small section of new wood and sheets of chipboard have been nailed down to create a platform.

With the ladder secured against the sturdiest-looking beam, Ben starts to climb.

As he reaches the top, he stands heroically, Maglite held aloft like a lightsaber. ‘My fellow Jedi! Who is next?’ He shines the beam down at the four nervous faces below. Selecting them one by one, Lynette, then Annie, then Chris climb the ladder. Leaving just Dave behind at the bottom.

‘Come on up, I’ll hold the ladder for you.’ Chris is now at the top with his hand out, gesturing for Dave to go next. Dave stares up in horror then steps tentatively on to the first rung.

‘I … I need to get going … my dad said I needed to be back before nine.’ Dave glances to the door, stomach churning with anxiety.

‘If you don’t get your bony arse up here right now , Patel, you are out of this gang.’ Ben’s voice is serious.

Annie rolls her eyes. ‘Come on, Ben, you know he doesn’t like heights.’ The ladder shifts and creaks as Annie glances back to see Dave already braving the climb.

‘See, my Jedi Initiate just needed a little persuasion.’ Ben flicks a glance to the others and winks. 76

As Dave nears the top rung, he glances back over his shoulder to survey the twenty-foot drop beneath him, and the ladder suddenly detaches from the beam and swings out into mid-air.

‘Oh, God, help me, HELP!’

‘HEY! What are you doing? STOP!’ Ben dives forward to grab the ladder as the cackling twins swing it further out into the dark void. Dave, screaming and barely clinging on, tries to find the wooden rungs with his flailing feet.

‘He’s sweating curry! I can smell it!’ Chris Davis pinches his nose as Lynette falls about laughing. ‘Eugh … gross.’

Annie shoulder-barges Lynette out of the way and yanks the ladder back hard against the rafter.

Dave scrambles to the top. ‘Bloody idiots,’ he mutters under his breath, shaking his head as he lands on the wooden platform, visibly trembling.

‘Yeah, you idiot.’ Chris kicks Lynette as she stifles a laugh.

Dave checks to see if his camera is broken. He scoots back across the platform to the brick chimney stack and points it at Chris and Lynette. Lynette sulks, flipping the bird at him, and Chris moons into the camera, performing like an idiot.

‘You really are a pair of absolute morons, aren’t you? Your dad must be so proud of his little piglets.’ Dave keeps the camera rolling.

‘Turn it off.’ Lynette is on her feet now, angry.

‘Make me.’ Dave zooms in closer.

Chris’s shaved head looms into the lens. ‘Go on back to your corner shop.’

In a flurry of rage, Patel boots him in the shin.

‘Ow … shit, that hurt.’

‘Oi! That’s enough, all of you, PACK IT IN!’ Ben’s voice ricochets around the cavernous stone walls. 77

Annie looks at them both in disgust. ‘Don’t say things like that! You’re awful people, just awful.’

‘Oh, come on, lighten up, it was only a joke.’ Chris Davis rolls up his jeans to inspect the cut and bruise forming on his shin.

‘It’s always “only a joke” with you lot, isn’t it? Until it isn’t. Come on, Dave, let’s go home. This isn’t fun anymore.’ Annie is kneeling in the corner, checking on Dave. She glares at Ben, who eyeballs both of them. ‘Ben? You coming?’

‘No way. I’m going to do what we came here for.’

Without waiting for her to answer, Ben moves swiftly to a broken section of the stone wall leading to the blackened firebox of the chimney stack. An upward draught seems to be sucking in the air, urging him to climb. ‘Lynette, help me with the light.’

The chimney is massive, at least fifty feet high.

The moonlit sky is just visible in the distance, as droplets of water run down the smoke-stained walls of the flue.

Ben hammers at the bricks with an ice pick, banging iron pitons from Davis’s climbing kit into the mortar to create steps.

He threads rope and secures finger grips, building a makeshift spiral ladder around the narrow square sides of the chimney.

Slowly but surely, Ben hauls himself up on to the lintel of a smoke shelf and stares up through the brick shaft to the sky above.

Broken pieces of masonry crumble down into the void below.

The distant sounds of hammering and heaving echo down the brick stack and out into the vast cavern as Ben finally summits, pushing himself up on to the chimney crown.

‘Hey, come on up, to the Crow’s Nest. I can see everything from here!’ His voice seems miles away.

Annie’s head cranes in through the broken gap. ‘Ben (Ben) … Ben? (Ben?)’ Her voice echoes off the walls. ‘I’m going home. It’s too dark. We’ll come back in the daylight, OK? (OK?)’ There’s no answer. Annie withdraws and starts to head back down the ladder. 78

‘Chicken shit,’ Lynette mutters, just as Annie is out of earshot and before her hand grabs the rope. ‘Room for one more up there? I’m going all the way, Ben.’

Annie waits at the bottom of the ladder as Dave jumps down the last few rungs, trying to style out some last-ditch bravado. ‘Glad to be back on terra firma … that was a close call.’ He checks the camera slung over his shoulder, wiping the lens with his sleeve.

‘I’m sorry about what they said. I hate it.’ She places her hand on his arm.

‘It’s OK, we’re used to it. All the names, all the games.’ He winks at her.

In the half light, Annie suddenly notices his deep-green eyes, perfect skin and jaw line, his beautiful black wavy hair. For a second, she can’t breathe. Dave moves his arm away from hers and flushes.

She inclines her head towards him. ‘Why do you film everything?’

‘I dunno …’ In the darkness, his eyes sparkle at hers. ‘It’s a documentary … of life, I guess.’

‘Hmm. Endless hours of nonsense, probably?’

‘Not always. Sometimes you catch something really special. Like now.’ Dave stands smiling at her.

A shaft of moonlight between moving clouds momentarily drapes Annabel Maddock in a gossamer cloak of ethereal white light. She smiles at him. ‘You missed it.’

‘Nah … it’s up here.’ He gently taps a finger to his head. As Annie turns, he secretly switches off the camera, held at his waist like a gunslinger. It’s all there on Dave Patel’s video tape, shot with a very specific camera. In truth, he never fails to capture what he needs.