The Midnight Clock
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Synopsis
Millie has seven days to save Annie Driscoll from a terrible fate.
Millie doesn't know how or why she has been brought into Annie's life.
But she's sure of one thing: Annie has already been dead for 68 years.
Struggling to come to terms with her uprooted life, Millie is living with her father and his new girlfriend in a building which used to house the most famous women's prison in the UK. The only remnants of that place is the old prison clock in the hall - a clock that has long been silent.
When the clock begins to strike again one night, Millie meets a young, terrified woman in a cell. Annie cannot see her, but Millie realises that she may be the key to changing Annie's fate - a fate that was sealed in 1955. But is there enough time for justice to be done?
The Midnight Clock is an immersive, imaginative novel for young adults in which past and present collide.
Release date: March 7, 2024
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages: 80000
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The Midnight Clock
Jamie Costello
He closes the door and motions me over to the other side of the sitting room, which is still full of unpacked boxes, so we won’t be overheard. ‘Millie.’ That comes with the slightly crooked and patronising you’ll-understand-when-you’re-older smile I’ve seen a lot of recently.
‘Stop looking at me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re being so patient because I’m being immature for not just fitting in with what you want. I don’t have to be “older” –’ I do air quotes to irritate him – ‘to know a dick move when I see one.’ I fold my arms and glare at him.
‘I didn’t say that—’
‘You don’t need to. And I understand already – you’re a selfish twat.’
‘Millie. I can’t just change everything because your mum’s decided to extend her holiday.’
‘Right, so this is Mum’s fault.’
‘I didn’t say that. But Skye’s given up her place – I can’t just tell her to find somewhere else until you can go home. And anyway,’ he cranks the smile up a notch, ‘this way you can get to know each other.’
‘I don’t want to get to know her.’
‘Millie.’
‘And stop saying my name like that! It’s really annoying.’ It’s pointless carrying on this conversation, so I stomp off to my room.
So much for my first night at Dad’s new flat. Aunt Saff was staying with me at our house the first week Mum was away, but then she decided to stay on in Greece for a while and Saff had to go back home to Cornwall. They were never going to let me stay in Dalston on my own, so Dad had to rush out and buy me a bed.
I guess Skye was always going to move in with him, only it wasn’t meant to start while I was staying. I’ve met her a couple of times: massively awkward meals in restaurants with him doing this weird ‘Jolly Dad’ act because he’s so nervous, and then telling me how the situation is ‘far from ideal’ – like it’s some sort of natural disaster and not totally his fault.
Although … If Skye’s here, maybe it’ll stop Dad trying to explain it to me all the time. He does it like he’s helping with a maths problem, not trying to justify leaving Mum for a woman twenty years younger who mostly talks in inspirational quotes. Last time he tried it I ended up calling him an old perv, so it wasn’t exactly my finest hour, either. He looked so upset that I felt terrible, but kind of glad at the same time because of the way he treated Mum, so then of course I hated myself again.
The flip-flop emotions are real. I don’t want to be angry all the time when there’s nothing I can do about any of this. At least having to revise for exams will stop Dad trying to take me out for treats to try and make it up to me, as if I’m six, not sixteen. He’s already given me £20 – guilt money, left on the pillow with a post-it note saying ‘Love Dad xx’ – like that makes up for anything. Having my own room is a relief, though, because it’s not like this is a big flat and at the moment there isn’t even a sofa I could sleep on.
It’s OK for Mum. Her friend Cathy’s got a villa with an actual private beach, which is where they’re staying. I completely get it, though – even without the private beach – because Mum’s been really unhappy, and I’m in favour of whatever makes her feel better.
My room has quite a high ceiling, but it’s tiny: just enough space for the bed and the other thing Dad bought, which is this really horrible-looking Disney Princess chest of drawers. I’ve got no issue with sitting on the bed all the time, but there’s nowhere to hang anything except a hook on the back of the door. This place used to be a prison before they converted it, so maybe this was one of the cells – except I think they knocked most of it down and started again. Mum said Dad had really lost it when I told her he’d bought a flat here, because … well, creepy. Voices trapped in the walls. Guilt and fear and sadness, all of that. Not that it seems to bother Dad – he even kept the big old prison clock that was on the hall wall when he bought the flat.
With sunny rooms and no bars on the windows, you’d never know it used to be the biggest women’s prison in the country. The only thing here that isn’t new and shiny is that clock. I must have gone past this place hundreds of times on the bus coming home from school, but I never even thought about it. Dad said they’ve had loads of famous prisoners here, although I didn’t recognise any of the names he mentioned.
It feels weird, knowing that. Most of my friends think it’s cool, but they don’t have to sleep here. It’s good they think that, though, because it sort of makes up a bit for the five years when Dad was the constipated man in the Laxulite ads. I didn’t even tell Yasmin, but of course someone had to recognise him so about thirty seconds later the entire school knew, and it was just really …
Urrgh, I can’t even. So funny, right? Dad was an actor before he gave it up and started writing children’s books. Mum’s an illustrator, so she did the pictures – a whole series about a panda cub who lives in a village full of pandas who are farmers and have shops and things, and the little panda has very basic adventures where he’s always home in time for tea. The books have been translated into about forty languages and made into cartoons, which is why Dad could afford this place. Actually, I think Laxulite maybe paid for some of it, as well – plus, we get a lifetime’s supply of the stuff. This fancy box arrives once a year, at Christmas, with pictures of holly and reindeer and everything, which is just unbelievably wrong. Let’s just hope he’s remembered to tell them his new address, because if it’s sent to our house Mum will probably find a way to feed him the whole lot when he finally comes over to collect the rest of his stuff.
I hope whatever new arrangement we have when Mum gets back isn’t going to end up like I’m this piece of property and they’re fighting over who gets to have it when. I was properly relieved, though, when Dad left, because the atmosphere at home had been horrible for ages. During lockdown it was just … No words. Not that it’s been exactly great without him, because Mum’s pretending to be cool with the whole thing when she really, obviously isn’t – but it’s better than having that hair-trigger feeling the whole time, just waiting for the next explosion. Plus, I couldn’t bear to talk to anyone about it while the whole build-up to him leaving was going on. Yaz kept asking me what the matter was and I just felt like I couldn’t go there because if I did then I couldn’t carry on pretending everything was going to be OK. I don’t blame her for being pissed off at me, though, because sad people aren’t exactly fun. I know she’s dying to see what it’s like here. I feel like it’ll be too awkward with Skye right now, so I’ll give her a virtual tour, to try and make up for everything …
I bash the pillow – which helps a bit, so I do it some more. Why can’t stuff just go back to the way it was before, when everything was OK with Mum and Dad? Or maybe not totally OK, but more OK than this, anyway. FML.
Dad knocked on the door about three hours ago to say dinner was ready, but I said I didn’t want any. I’m too angry to be hungry, and I don’t want to see either of them, but I am dying to pee, and it’s been quiet for about the last twenty minutes, so I reckon they must’ve gone to bed …
I clean my teeth, then stand under the shower for ages, trying to get myself calm enough to sleep. On the way back to bed I stop to look at the prison clock. It’s fixed to the wall, quite high up, and has a round face in a wooden frame, and Roman numbers. Dad’s put up these two neon signs he got from a junk shop on either side of it. There’s a blue one saying ‘Casino’, which is OK, and an orange one saying ‘Massage Parlour’ which I’m really hoping I can get him to take down, because eww.
Weird how he managed to get those but forgot to buy any furniture – I mean, priorities, much? I suppose they must switch off, but Dad’s left them glowing eerily in the dark. I’m surprised how dull the clock looks in comparison, but when I look closer I realise it’s because there’s no glass, so the neon isn’t reflecting. There’s obviously supposed to be, because there’s a sturdy wooden frame, but it must have got broken.
The clock face must have been white originally, but it’s greyed with dirt and age, a kind of off-cream. The Roman numerals are painted on, and the hands are thin and black. The name of the clockmaker – SMITH & SONS – is in little letters above the centre, with something else just below that’s so small I have to stand on tiptoe to read it:
Only Now
That totally sounds like something Skye would say – supposedly so significant but actually just really annoying because, if you think about it for more than a nanosecond, it doesn’t mean anything at all.
Also, ‘Only Now’ is a pretty horrible idea for prisoners, because then you wouldn’t want it to be ‘only now’ – you’d want it to be the future, when they let you out. Prison is even called ‘doing time’, like time itself is the punishment.
I reach up and touch the place in the centre where the hour hand and the minute hand are joined, so it’s like the place where time begins. I don’t know why I need to, I just do. I expect it to be cold and hard, because metal, but it’s not. Instead, it’s warm against my fingertip – and alive, like another fingertip, as if a hand were reaching through the clock to touch mine.
Whoa! I am so not that sort of person. Being under the same roof as Skye must be getting to me already. Next thing, I’ll be coming out with the sort of crap that sounds like it should be on Pinterest in front of a bad photo of a sunrise.
I go back to my room and get into bed.
Right. Lights out. I’m done with today.
I really, really want to go to sleep, but I bet I won’t be able to, because now everything is unsettling, even the flat itself. These walls don’t look like prison thickness, but they better be, because I am not up for listening to Dad and Skye getting it on.
Wish I hadn’t thought of that.
Might try one of those mindfulness exercises that Mum does, except you’re supposed to be relaxed and right now I feel like I’m made of barbed wire.
Still, though. Deep breaths. Don’t think about prisons, or about Yaz pulling away from me, or about revision or about Dad and Skye …
In …
Out …
In …
Out …
I’m five again, in an abandoned fairground. There are trees growing through the rides, and towering above me, way, way too high, is a helter-skelter with the paint faded and flaking away. I’ve got to find Mum and Dad, otherwise – and I’m sure of this, even though I don’t know how I know it – they’re going to die. I run past the rusty Ferris wheel and the burnt-out dodgems and under the skeleton of the roller coaster, but I can’t see them anywhere. If I don’t find them, they’ll die, and it’ll be my fault … But then the helter-skelter begins to sway, the curvy slide sidewinding like a thick yellow snake, and it’s creaking and it’s going to fall, and suddenly they’re there, right next to it, and the creaking is getting louder and louder and—
Oh, God. That was horrible.
My heart’s thumping like anything, and even though I know it was only a dream – and you wouldn’t have to be a genius to work out what that one was really about – I can’t shake off the feeling.
Or the creaking noise, which is still going on. Please don’t let it be Dad and Skye because that would be gross.
Wait.
That’s not creaking. It’s something heavier, more mechanical-sounding.
Like an old clock.
Tick …
Tock …
Tick …
Tock …
What clock, though? There isn’t one, except the big thing in the hall, which I got right up close to and it was really quiet. But now it’s loud and insistent.
Tick …
Tock …
It’s like it’s trying to tell me something.
That’s not possible, obvs, but it’s still keeping me awake. And there was something weird about that clock. I know, because I felt it. Whatever it was.
No point in lying here getting annoyed; I’m going into the hall to have a look.
No ‘Casino’ and ‘Massage Parlour’ glowing out of the darkness, even though I don’t remember turning them off, just the faint outline of the clock. Tick … tock … tick … tock …
It’s so loud I’m surprised it hasn’t woken Dad or Skye, but maybe they’re already used to it. Or maybe – I sniff – they aren’t asleep, because I can definitely smell cigarette smoke. I really hope Dad hasn’t started again, from the stress or whatever.
My eyes are adjusting to the dark, and I can see that the clock says midnight. The face looks whiter now, cleaner, and it’s glinting … because the glass has been replaced. I suppose Dad must have done it after I’d gone to bed, and I didn’t hear it. That doesn’t seem likely, but—
Wait.
The hall’s starting to look different, somehow – longer, like it’s being stretched out into a corridor, and there’s a yellowish light, sort of foggy, at the end, which must be coming from the sitting room …
Except the sitting room is at the other end. That end’s supposed to be the wall.
‘What the actual—?’
I say it aloud to the empty, glowing hallway. The kitchen door isn’t there, either, or the bathroom door, or – when I turn to look – the door of my room, or Dad’s. It’s wall, all the way down, and it’s changed colour from petrol blue all the way up to grey on the bottom half and cream on the top, plus you can make out the shapes of the bricks underneath. And there’s a gritty feeling under my bare feet – not rugs on polished boards, but a stone floor.
It’s like the whole building’s been turned 180 degrees by a giant hand, because the doors are on the opposite side now. Three of them, spaced out, and then just bare wall down to the far end, where the sitting room used to be. They look like they’re made of metal, not wood: a dirty greenish colour, sort of seasicky in the weird, foggy light.
I can still see the clock on the wall – exactly the same, but with a glass cover over the face. Its tick-tock is quieter now, and there’s another sound, lighter and metallic, jangling. And footsteps, from where Dad’s bedroom is supposed to be.
Skye? Better pretend I need the loo in case she thinks I’m doing something weird and gross like listening out for them …
Except, where is the loo?
And actually, why should I? I’ve got as much right to be here as she has – although ‘here’ doesn’t seem to be here any more.
And it isn’t Skye.
I cough so as not to startle the woman, but it’s like she doesn’t hear it. She’s maybe fifty – face lined and hard-looking with the hair scraped back into a tight little knot – and sturdy in a dark-blue jacket-and-skirt uniform, military-looking with a belt and silver buttons, and black lace-up shoes. She’s got a big bunch of keys on a chain.
Is she a security guard, looking after the flats? I could buy that if she was patrolling outside, but she doesn’t even look at me, just walks past near enough to touch and stops outside the second door. It’s slightly different from the others, with a small flat panel in the middle, the same dirty green metal, at head height.
Maybe she’s embarrassed. All I’m wearing is Dad’s Ramones T-shirt – I forgot to bring anything to sleep in – and a pair of knickers. Perhaps she thinks I’m drunk and she’s hoping I’ll just go away …
This better not turn into one of those dreams where you’re suddenly naked in front of a bunch of people.
Except I’m not asleep, am I? Or maybe I’ve been sleepwalking, and I just woke up.
‘Miss?’ It sounds stupid, but I can’t think what else to say. ‘Can you help me, please?’
She doesn’t even turn her head. Instead, she puts up her hand, flips the panel in the door downwards, and puts her face right up to it.
Must be a spyhole – but why? And what’s she looking at?
Maybe she’s deaf. ‘Miss?’ I say it louder this time, and she straightens her back and turns her head. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I just … ’ I falter as she steps away from the door and looks in my direction – and right through me.
It’s not a pretending-not-to-notice type of looking-through, it’s like I don’t exist.
She picks out a key from the bunch on the chain and puts it in the lock.
Can’t hear me, can’t see me. Which means I’m not really here – or not for her, anyway. But I can feel my feet on the chilly, gritty floor, and when I put my hand out and brush my fingers against the wall, I can feel solid brick.
She’s opening the door.
‘Evening, Florey.’
I can’t see who she’s talking to, but if she can’t see me, maybe I can get closer and the other person won’t see me, either.
‘Evening, Ray. Want to help me with the crossword? Annie’s not keen.’
Ray is taking up a lot of the doorway, but I can see round her. It’s a small room, painted the same as the corridor and lit by a bare bulb. There’s a high, barred window, and the floor is covered in brown lino. The furniture consists of a little table with a bowl and jug on top, a wooden table and three chairs, a cupboard, and a narrow bed.
The woman sitting at the table must be Florey, because she’s holding a pencil and has a newspaper spread out in front of her. There’s an ashtray there, too, which accounts for the smell. She’s also wearing a dark-blue uniform, but she’s younger and softer-looking than Ray, with little curls escaping from her scraped-back ginger hair. If she can see me peeping out at her from behind her big friend, she’s giving no sign of it.
It has to be a cell, which means Florey and Ray must be prison officers.
‘Come on, Annie.’ Ray’s looking over at the bed, and her voice is fake-jolly. ‘Take your mind off things. You’ll wear that bed out, sitting on it.’
Annie – whoever she is – doesn’t say anything, but just as Ray closes the door she stands up and I catch a glimpse of her.
I reckon she’s only a couple of years older than I am, but she looks like a lost child. She’s short and plump, with soft brown hair and cheeks that ought to be rosy – still pink, but the glow has gone – and she’s wearing a shapeless grey cardigan over a dull blue dress. Big blue eyes, kind of hopeful and confused at the same time – make me think of photos I’ve seen of dogs in shelters, waiting for someone to take them home and give them love.
For a split second before the door clangs shut, she turns and looks in my direction. I freeze, but she isn’t looking at me.
She’s looking into infinity.
‘So … What are you planning to do today?’
Dad’s grinning nervously over his coffee like he’s willing me not to lose it, but to be honest I’m not really concentrating because I keep thinking about last night. It’s funny, because I don’t usually remember dreams well, but that was just so vivid. I even checked round the flat this morning, but of course everything’s back to the way it was before I went to sleep. It’s only me that feels different.
It’s not exactly incredible that I should dream about a prison, but that girl’s face was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. And I remembered her name immediately – Annie – and the two prison officers, Ray and Florey, and everything right up to the point of seeing her as she stood up, but nothing else. It’s like a story that just stopped, halfway through, but I knew that something terrible was about to happen. Remembering it now is like a spike of fear, straight through me.
‘Earth to Millie.’ Dad’s waving at me from across the table. I must have a weird look on my face because he asks if I’m OK. Behind him, Skye is busy playing house. Dad and I are still in our dressing gowns, but she’s wearing an apron over her yoga stuff and has already made muffins – although I think that could be more to do with staking a claim on the kitchen than actually liking to cook.
‘I’m fine. I’ve got revision, so I’ll be in my room, OK?’
‘OK.’ Dad’s relief that I’m not rehashing last night’s conversation in front of Skye is evident. ‘I’m off to the shops, so if there’s anything you’d like foodwise, just let me know.’
‘Can’t think of anything.’ Well, I probably can, but not right now. I get up to put my plate in the sink.
‘That’s OK!’ Skye – big smile firmly in place – snatches it from me. OK, OK, OK – everything’s OK. Except it isn’t. ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower?’
Oh great, now she thinks she’s my mum. ‘I was going to.’
‘Sorry. Just … your feet.’
‘What about them?’
‘They’re sort of … filthy. Underneath.’
I lift one up to look, and she’s right. I know they were clean when I went to bed because I’d just had a shower, but now the soles are grey with dirt.
The hall floor is clean enough, and so are the rugs. Maybe I was sleepwalking. I know people do sometimes open doors and things in their sleep – although, if I went out of the flat, is it possible I could have opened the front door and retraced all my steps without waking?
‘No one’s been doing any filming here, have they?’
Dad shakes his head. ‘They’d have told us. Why?’
‘Just wondered. You haven’t started smoking again, have you?’
Skye gets there before he does – ‘No he has not’ – then looks at him like she’s suddenly unsure. ‘Have you?’
‘You know I haven’t.’ Dad turns to me, exasperated. ‘Stop it, Millie.’
‘Stop what?’
‘You know what.’
‘I wasn’t trying to make trouble, just … Look, it’s not important.’
I can feel Dad and Skye exchanging glances as I leave the room. I check the front door on the way to the bathroom, but it’s locked and the chain’s on. And the clock is ticking, very, very quietly.
Dad marches out of the flat with a fistful of Bags for Life. He tells me – in a square-jawed sort of way, like he’s the Protector of the Cave or something – to remember to lock up properly and take my keys if I decide to go out, because Skye has to go back to the house she used to share with her friends to collect the rest of her stuff (she works from home, doing PR for companies that make wellness kits and £100 scented candles). I don’t intend to go out, though – or not yet, anyway.
The first thing I do once they’ve both gone is sit down in the middle of my bed with my laptop. I’ll make a start on my revision in a minute, but first …
Sorry, Yaz, but I’m keeping this to myself until I’ve figured out what’s going on: the whole dirty feet thing, and the cigarette smoke – I mean, you don’t smell smoke in dreams unless your home has actually caught fire, so that has to be significant. If I really did go into the hall – which I must have done, because feet – that means I really did find it all different. I don’t want Yaz to think I’m losing it, especially after what happened with Dad and Mum – not to mention Kieran, which is a whole other story.
I’ve never been that into the unexplained or mystical – like Dad, which is partly what baffles me about him and Skye.
Plus, I’ve never thought much about whether I believe in ghosts. But can you have a ghost building?
I go online and find some old black and white photos of the outside of the prison. The front gateway is like a castle, with towers and battlements. I’d definitely have noticed that when I was going past, so it must have been pulled down at some point before they demolished the rest of the place to build these flats.
The photos of the inside show galleries of cells on either side of a space with iron staircases in the middle, and netting strung across. They definitely look more how I imagine an old-school prison than the plain-looking corridor that I saw last night.
I find a few plans of the prison, too. They look pretty old, maybe Victorian, and sort of like the outline of a windmill with the two lowest sails missing. The bits that look like sails – sticking out in a fan shape – are the different wings, with rows of cells on each side, and then there are more wings, jutting out horizontally from lower down the main column, and lots of other buildings dotted about the grounds.
I start reading the prison’s Wikipedia entry. It opened in the 1850s, so I was right about it being Victorian, but some of it was rebuilt in the 1970s, which was when they got rid of the castle-gateway thing. There’s an aerial photo of . . .
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