Stillwater

by Maynard Sims

  “I wanted to see his reaction.”

  “Well, now you have, and it’s probably going to cost me my job. Thanks very much. I went out on a limb for you by arranging this meeting in the first place. Edward Falmer’s going to go ballistic.”

  Beth shook her head. “I don’t think Franklin will tell Falmer,” she said.

  “And you’re sure of that, are you?”

  “Pretty certain. Please, James, don’t be angry.”

  He slowed to a crawl to encounter a humpback bridge, and turned to look at her. “Beth,” he said, struggling to get his anger under control. “I know you’ve been through a lot since you moved into Stillwater, but you can’t go around throwing wild accusations you can’t substantiate.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But something dreadful happened at that house. I’m sure of it, just as I’m sure that Jessica’s trying to show me exactly what it was.”

  James glared at her, and said nothing more on their journey back to Suffolk.

  He pulled up outside Stillwater, pausing only long enough to help Beth out of the car, then he was back behind the wheel, and gunning the accelerator, leaving her standing there, supporting herself on her crutches.

  “James, wait!” she called, but he didn’t slow down. “Fuck it!” she said, and entered the house.

  She lowered herself into her wheelchair, tossed the crutches aside and wheeled over to the office.

  Almost without thinking she picked up the phone, and dialed Miranda.

  Her agent answered on the first ring. “Beth, I wasn’t expecting you to call. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, Mirri. Fine. I just phoned to…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Beth?”

  “I just phoned to…” Beth drew in a breath. “No, Mirri. I’ve just blown it.”

  “Blown what, hun?”

  “Just about everything.” And then she dissolved into tears.

  Miranda sat on the other end of the phone line, and listened while her client and friend sobbed. It was something she hadn’t heard since the day doctors had pronounced that Beth could be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. “Beth,” she cooed between sobs. “Calm down. Tell me what’s happened.”

  Ten minutes later Miranda had finally pieced together why Beth was so upset. “So how have you left it with him? Is James going to call you?”

  Beth had stopped crying, but her breaths were ragged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so. He was bloody angry. Fuck it, Mirri. I knew I shouldn’t have got involved. Warning bells were sounding in my head from the outset. I don’t do relationships. I’m no good at them.”

  “That’s crap, and you know it. Give it time. He’ll be back in touch,” Miranda said. “Did you really accuse Bernard Franklin of murdering his wife?” she added incredulously.

  “Uh-huh. Pretty dumb, eh?”

  “You must have had your reasons.”

  “I thought so at the time. Oh, Christ, Mirri, what’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re overwrought, that’s all. How’s the book coming along? Are you having problems with it? That can be a stressor.”

  “No. It’s going well,” Beth said and, as if to reassure herself, she tapped a key on her computer, and watched the screen glow into life.

  She stared at it, not really comprehending what she was seeing. She was looking at a virtually blank page. There was a heading: CHAPTER ONE, and then nothing. Of the twenty thousand words she had written there was no trace. She hit another few keys, opening menus, searching her document files, but there was nothing.

  “Beth? Beth?” She could hear Miranda’s voice coming from what seemed a long way away.

  She pressed the phone to her ear. “Mirri, sorry. I’ll call you back, okay.”

  “Okay, hun. I’ll…”

  Beth disconnected, and started scouring her computer files for the missing chapters of her novel.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?” Miranda said.

  “I mean the novel’s gone, deleted, erased,” Beth said, anger banishing any further tears.

  “You didn’t back it up?”

  “It was on a USB stick.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “It’s empty, Mirri. There’s nothing on it.”

  “Beth, did you forget to back up the file?”

  “No. I didn’t bloody well forget. You know how paranoid I am about losing work. When I first started writing, years ago, I had a long-hand original, and when it was typed up it was done using two carbons. I was reluctant to move to a word processor in case something like this happened, so I made a point of backing everything up twice.”

  “So you used another USB stick?”

  “One I keep on me at all times. It’s on my key ring.”

  “And?”

  “Empty.”

  Miranda sat back in her office chair, and tapped her teeth with end of her pen. “Beth, I’m coming up to see you.”

  “Really, Mirri, it’s not necessary.”

  “Well, I think it is. If I leave now I can be with you by six. Do you have wine?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “No buts. I’ll see you at six. And I’ll be staying over.”

  “Pour the wine,” Miranda said. She was sitting on one of Beth’s leather chesterfields, her long legs tucked underneath her. She was smoking a cigarette, and dropping the ash into a saucer on the coffee table.

  Beth reached out, and poured two glasses from a bottle of Merlot. “This really wasn’t necessary.”

  Miranda sucked in smoke, and exhaled through her nose. “Will you stop being so bloody independent, and let me do what I can to help you? What can I do?”

  Beth gave her a long-suffering look. “Well, to start with you can give me a cigarette. I bought twenty after you last came, but I’ve smoked them all. Now I’m out.”

  Miranda reached into her bag, and took out an unopened pack of twenty. She tossed the pack across to Beth. “Knock yourself out,” she said. “Do you need a light?”

  “I’m good,” Beth said, quickly peeling back the cellophane and taking out a cigarette. She lit it with the green plastic lighter she’d bought at the supermarket. She drew in deeply, and blew the smoke out in a thin stream. “I still say it wasn’t necessary coming all this way.”

  “I think you’d better tell me everything that’s gone on since you moved in here, up to and including your novel being wiped from your computer. Leave nothing out.”

  By the time Beth had finished, the first bottle of wine was gone, and the second started.

  “I’m worried,” Miranda said, as she filled her glass.

  “About? About what specifically?”

  “About you.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”

  “Are you still taking the tablets Dr. Meadows prescribed?”

  “That was different,” Beth said hotly. “And a long time ago.”

  “It was still a breakdown, and it was only two years ago.”

  Miranda moved across to Beth’s sofa and sat down next to her, taking her hand in hers. “Listen, Beth, don’t be defensive. I’m here to help, not to criticize. I’m as anxious to get to the bottom of this as you are. But look at the facts. The phenomena you’ve experienced, drowning in your own bathroom, being attacked by your wheelchair—neither of which, you say now, actually happened—point to a person struggling with her own inner demons. And now your novel mysteriously disappearing…”

  “But you read some of it yourself. You know I’ve been writing.”

  “And I also know that what I read was nothing like anything I’ve read of yours before. It was a ghost story, Beth, for God’s sake. And, lo and behold, you now find yourself living in a haunted house.”

 
“It is haunted, by Dolores and Jessica,” Beth said.

  “Or, has your subconscious tricked you into thinking that, creating a living environment that mirrors what you’re writing?”

  “No!” Beth said, refilled her glass and lit another cigarette from the butt of the first, puffing furiously.

  “So, are you still taking the tablets?”

  Beth shook her head. “Dr. Meadows took me off them six months ago. I’m fine. He said I didn’t need them anymore.”

  “And yet, here you are demonstrating his diagnosis was premature.”

  “Fuck you, Mirri! This is not all in my mind. It’s real. And I thought you, as my closest friend, would be with me on this.”

  Miranda squeezed Beth’s hand. “Beth, I am with you, but you must see that what you’re telling me is pretty hard to swallow. Especially for someone who has been with you for a long time. I’ve witnessed, firsthand, some of your darkest moments. Watching your last breakdown was a terrible, and a scary time for me. It was like you were traveling down a very dark tunnel, and I wasn’t sure you were ever going to come out the other end.”

  “But I did…I have.”

  “Hmm. We’ll see.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m staying for a few days.”

  “Really, Mirri. It isn’t nec—”

  “If you say it isn’t necessary, Beth, I swear I’m going to slap you. I’ll decide what is or isn’t necessary. And I think it is. If this place is haunted—I can’t believe I’m even saying that—then I want to give the ghosts a chance to show themselves, to me. Then I’ll support you with every fiber of my being.”

  “And if they don’t show?”

  “Then I’m going to call Chris Meadows, and get you back on the program. Deal?”

  Beth regarded her friend for a long moment. When Mirri wanted to she had balls of steel. It was why she was so good at her job. And, judging from the look on her face, the balls were in place, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Deal.”

  “Good.”

  By ten o’clock Beth was yawning.

  “I think you should turn in,” Miranda said.

  “What about you?”

  “There’s a 1940s Bogart and Bacall movie on soon. I’ll watch it before I call it a day. But you need your sleep.”

  “Christ, this is like living with my mother,” Beth muttered, as she headed to the bedroom.

  “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs…”

  “Miranda, shut up,” Beth said.

  “Love you,” Miranda called to the closing bedroom door.

  Miranda waited ten minutes before fishing her phone from her bag and dialing a number.

  The phone on the other end of the line rang three times before it was answered. “Yes?”

  “James? It’s Miranda Stiles.”

  “Hello. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “I get the sarcasm. Please, Jimmy, I’m sorry to call so late, but I needed to talk to you. It’s about Beth.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “She told me what happened today. You’ve got to understand, she’s had it pretty rough over the last few years.”

  “Are you phoning to try to justify her behavior?”

  “No,” Miranda said. “What did Mr. Falmer say?”

  “Nothing. Franklin hasn’t phoned him yet. Maybe Beth was right and he won’t. I don’t know, but it’s tough having the sword of Damocles hanging above your head.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to make things awkward for you.”

  “Well, she did.”

  “She’s sorry, Jimmy, really sorry. But she gets these ideas in her head and develops tunnel vision.”

  “Okay,” he said, but the doubt was obvious in his voice.

  Miranda paused, and lit a cigarette. “Will you give her another chance?” she said after drawing deeply, and filling her lungs with smoke.

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here,” he said.

  “Well, will you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “She’s my friend,” Miranda said. “And I care about her. I want to see her happy.”

  “I sympathize, sorry, Miranda, but…”

  She didn’t hear the rest of his response. The electric light at the top of the stairs came on, and chased away the shadows. The sudden burst of brightness startled her. She stubbed out her cigarette, and walked across, to peer up the stairs.

  There was nothing to see, but she was suddenly aware that the atmosphere in the house had changed. She shivered, as the temperature dropped suddenly.

  On the phone James Bartlett was still speaking.

  “I’ll call you back,” she said, and disconnected, dropping the phone into the pocket of her shirt.

  “Right,” she said to herself. “Let’s lay this ghost to rest once and for all.”

  Slowly, tentatively, she started to climb the stairs.

  At the end of the landing she paused. She’d been up there once before, before Beth moved in, and it was just as she remembered it—the mismatched furniture, the paintings hanging on the walls. But when she was last up there all the doors had been closed and locked—she’d tried a few of them just to be sure. Now every door was open, and light poured from each of the rooms.

  She moved along cautiously. She didn’t really believe in ghosts, especially Beth’s ghosts—they were a symptom of something much darker going on in her best friend’s mind—but the silence and solitude of the countryside unsettled Miranda. She was a city girl born and bred, comfortable walking the London streets in even the more shady parts of town, but rural Suffolk was alien to her, and she felt her senses heightening, her fight or flight instincts coming to the fore.

  The meowing of a cat startled her, and made her freeze in her tracks. It seemed to be coming from the end of the landing. Pressing her back to the wall, she edged along until she reached the last room and then, drawing in a deep breath, she leaned sideways and peered past the doorframe.

  “Teddy!” she said, to the ginger cat sitting on a small circular rug in the center of the room, licking its paws and cleaning itself.

  But the cat was dead, wasn’t it? Or was that yet another of Beth’s fantasies? No. She’d seen it dragged from the open drain. The cat was—or had been—dead.

  She crept into the room quietly, so she wouldn’t alarm the cat, and sank gently to her knees, slowly reaching out to pet the animal. As her hand stroked the cat’s fur she whispered soft words of encouragement. And then she touched something wet, and she withdrew her hand sharply. Holding her hand out in front of her face she stared incredulously at the blood covering her fingers. “Teddy?” she said, for the first time noticing the jagged tear in the cat’s orange fur, and the deep and bleeding wound in its side.

  With a hiss the cat sprang to its feet, and raced past her, and out of the room.

  Miranda pushed herself to her feet, and stared all around. In the corner was a dressing table, one drawer pulled open. She walked across to it, and took out the sheaf of photographs lying on the neatly stacked pile of clothes.

  Bringing them back to the center of the room, underneath the bare light bulb, she started to leaf through them, noticing the high-backed wicker chair, the rapt expressions of the young men sitting at the feet of the figure in the chair, and the figure herself, exquisitely beautiful, staring malevolently out of the photograph.

  “And now you know the truth,” a silky voice sounded behind her. Miranda spun round, dropping the photographs to the floor. The room was empty.

  “Go, now!” The voice sounded again.

  Leaving the photographs scattered on the floor, Miranda fled the room, ran back along the landing and down the stairs.

  P
ausing only to grab her bag, she ran from the house, threw herself in behind the wheel of her car and twisted the key in the ignition. Within seconds she had driven back along the lane and hit the road, skidding on the tarmac, before straightening out and flooring the gas pedal.

  As the road wound its way through the wood, Miranda slowly started to calm down. Her breathing was slowing, and gradually she was regaining control over herself. As her self-awareness returned, a slow-growing anger started to build up. How could she just run out like that? All she’d seen was a bloody cat and a handful of photographs. The voice had spooked her, sure, but that could just have been her imagination. Miranda saw herself as tougher that that.

  Beth needed her, and she’d run away at the first obstacle. She slowed the car to a stop, turned around in the lane, and headed back to Stillwater.

  And now you know the truth. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  A bend in the road was coming up. She slowed slightly to take it safely. She was very aware she had drunk too much to be safe behind the wheel. The last thing she needed was to end up in a ditch. Her headlights lit the road ahead, and beyond it, through the trees, she could see the weed-covered surface of Stillwater Lake. She’d started to turn the wheel to steer the car into the bend, when the steering wheel was wrenched from her grasp. Her foot was knocked from the accelerator, and the pedal pressed down to the floor.

  The car lurched forward, and in the same instant the temperature inside the car plummeted. Ice crystals crackled across the windscreen, blinding her, and the steering wheel was jerked savagely to the right. For a moment she felt that she was flying, as the car left the road, and then, with a sickening thud, it hit the ground and careened wildly, plunging down the steep embankment toward the wood.

  Two saplings were ripped from the ground as the car ploughed on over them, but they did little to slow the momentum of Miranda’s Audi R8. The ancient oak tree the car smashed into next barely shuddered as the Audi hit it full on. Miranda didn’t make a sound as the impact forced the car’s engine through the dashboard, bursting the airbag and crushing her to death in her seat.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven