Martha expected him to come bounding up and clip her round the ear for being so cheeky to him, but he didn’t. She listened again, only this time she heard a scratching and a dragging sound. She had no idea what it was but it sounded like something much bigger than Joe. Getting cross now she folded her arms and shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Joseph, I’m going to tell Father if you don’t come out of there right this minute and play dollies with me. You promised you would. Don’t be so mean.’

Still there was no reply and Martha felt scared. What if he’d fallen over and hurt himself in the dark? It would serve him right but he could have at least called out and told her he needed some help. Worried now, she began to suck her thumb and turned to run and find her father. She didn’t have to go far as he was striding along the corridor towards her.

‘Martha, what have you been doing in the cellar? Why is the door open?’

‘It was Joe not me. We are playing hide-and-seek and I told him I wouldn’t look for him down there or in the attic but he’s still gone down. Only he’s not answering when I shout to him.’

A look of alarm crossed her father’s face and he moved her to one side and leant forward to tug the light-pull and illuminate the steps.

He ran down them and began to look around for Joe, who was nowhere to be seen. He shouted, ‘Joseph Beckett, if you don’t show yourself now you will not be able to sit down on your bottom for a week. I mean it.’

There was no reply. He looked at the drain in the corner that led into the sewers and saw that the iron grating was out of place. It had been moved and not put back properly and his head began to pound. Surely a nine-year-old boy wouldn’t have the strength to move a heavy iron cover on his own and then move it back again? He ran towards it and fell to his knees, looking down into the black hole. ‘Joseph, are you down there? Are you stuck? Do you need help? If you do, then answer me, boy. I won’t be mad at you. Just tell me if you are down there.’

A scuttling, scratching sound made him jump back. It sounded as if there was nothing more than rats down in that hole. But who had moved the cover? Unless it was the builders who hadn’t put it back properly and he’d just never noticed before. He stood up, taking one last look around the cellar, and then he ran back up the stone steps to Martha who was now crying.

‘He isn’t down there, Martha. Now where else could he be? Why don’t you show me the places he likes to hide in the attic? Maybe he’s fallen asleep and can’t hear you shouting.’

She nodded her head and grabbed hold of her father’s hand, leading him up the stairs to the attic, but she knew in her heart that Joe was down in that cellar somewhere because she had heard him crying down there.

They checked the entire house, and by this time her mother and father were panicking. Martha had been told to sit in the kitchen with Mary after she’d shown her father all of Joe’s hiding places and he was nowhere to be seen. Martha watched Lucy put her coat on and go outside to check the gardens in the pouring rain, but she could have told her not to bother. There was no point. Joe was in the cellar somewhere, except she didn’t know where; her father came in with Davey, the gardener, who doubled up as the caretaker when it was winter. They both had lanterns in their hands and were going down into the cellar to look for Joe. Her mother had come into the kitchen to sit with her and was very quiet. She didn’t speak a word and her eyes were watering, and all Martha could hear was Mary saying over and over again, ‘Don’t you worry, miss. He won’t be far. Up to no good as usual. They’ll find him. You just wait and see.’

After the third time her mother screamed at Mary, ‘Shut up, please, just shut up. Where is he? He can’t have just disappeared.’

Martha had never heard her mother shout at anyone, not even her father, and this scared her more than the thought of Joe being down in the cellar.

Her mother grabbed her hand. ‘Where is he? Where did you last see him, Martha? This is very important. He might have hurt himself and need our help.’

‘I was in here. He begged for one last game of hide-and-seek and ran off. When I went to look for him the cellar door was open and I heard him down there, but he was crying, and then it went quiet and he didn’t make another sound.’

Her mother stood up and ran to the cellar and her husband and Davey.

James was down there scratching his head in disbelief. Between all three of them they pulled out every box, case and trunk to search inside them. James looked at the old wooden crate he’d brought in here one evening before he, Eleanor and the children had moved in. It looked as if the lid had been ripped off and put back on. A ball of fear lodged in the base of his spine and he had to force his feet to move towards it. Had someone been down here and taken the thing from inside it? Perhaps Joe had caught them stealing it and they’d taken him as well.

Another thought crossed his mind and he tried to block it out, but he couldn’t. He had an uneasy feeling about the empty crate, which should have contained the supposed, magnificent, one and only captured Windigo in the whole world, and now didn’t. He tried to think who knew about it and when the last time was that he had looked at the packing crate, but he couldn’t remember. James knew it was a long time ago. He’d moved it in under the cover of darkness with help from Archie, one of his most trusted workers, and he’d sworn him to secrecy.

If Eleanor had known he’d brought that thing into their home she would have been beside herself. It terrified her. She’d made him promise that he wouldn’t bring it anywhere near their house, but it was worth a lot of money and he didn’t want to leave it lying around the amusement park until the building that was going to house it was finished. It wasn’t alive. It was dead. At least it looked as if it was dead. In fact, he didn’t even believe that it was real. He had no idea who had made it, or how, but it was a very good piece and one of its kind. So why could he not shake the uneasy feeling that the monster’s disappearance had something to do with his son who was now missing?

He thought back to the night he had first set eyes on the creature, as he’d walked down the cobbled street and, for the second time in ten minutes, asked himself what he was doing. Why did the man who had the piece he wanted to add to the display of his sideshow of freaks and monsters want to meet in a dark back alley in Piccadilly? He knew he should have sent one of his employees but he needed to see the thing for himself, to see if it was real or at least looked realistic, because the asking price had been a lot of money and this wasn’t exactly one hundred per cent above board. There were no shipping papers from America. where it was from, to go with the skeleton. In fact there were no papers at all. This was a strictly take a look and pay cash on the spot deal.

He stopped and looked at the blackened door in front of him. This must be the one. As he lifted his hand to knock it opened a crack. The smell of stale ale and something that had gone off escaped, making him take a step back. ‘Who is it?’

‘Mr Beckett.’

There was some shuffling and fumbling and then the door opened wide enough for him to step through. For a moment he contemplated turning around and walking away. For all he knew he was about to get beaten and left for dead.

‘I thought you were. I can tell by your fancy clothes and the sound of your shoes on the stones outside that you’re not one of us.’

James, who had never looked down on anyone in his life, even though he had been brought up the son of a businessman, thanked God that he wasn’t one of them – whoever they may be.

‘Come in before someone sees you.’

He forced himself to step inside the dark hallway and tried not to flinch as the man slammed the door behind him.