Naomi's Room

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  I switched on the torch. The flight of steps continued upwards, uncarpeted now, rising to the floor of the attic.

  ‘Is anyone up here?’ I called out in an unsteady voice, exhibiting a bravado I did not feel. No one answered. Intently, I listened for a sound of scurrying or the beating of wings. But there was nothing, only silence.

  The torch beam picked out old wood panels, scarred by generations of discarded furniture and heavy boxes, stained by cold and damp. Thick cobwebs hung like tattered banners in the high reaches of a dark cathedral nave.

  I set my foot on the first step and began to climb. It was cold up there, as cold as it had been in Naomi’s room. My hand shook a little as I climbed, sending the torchlight scampering about among cobwebs and naked rafters.

  As my head came level with the floor, I tensed, not knowing what to expect. The light picked out odd, frightening shapes and cast peculiar shadows in every direction. Nervously, I moved the beam about, locating and identifying the contents of the attic one by one: three tea-chests containing bric-a-brac, a dressmaker’s dummy that had belonged to my mother, old rubber waders, half-used cans of green and white paint, a chair, an ancient chest of drawers deemed too heavy for our bedroom, a coat-stand, a dartboard, my old fencing mask and foils, some shelves. Dust and cobwebs covered everything, as they should in an attic that has not been opened for years.

  I stepped on to the floorboards and swept the beam along them, looking for tracks or footprints in the dust. The light showed nothing but a layer of thin grey dust no matter where I shone it. I walked about, going from object to object, finding everything undisturbed. The very possibility of footsteps began to seem absurd.

  The light played across the wall furthest from me, revealing momentarily the shallow bay where the window lay. I wondered briefly why no light was coming into the attic from the outside, then, as the beam moved back, remembered that I myself had closed the shutters when last up here, in order to keep the unheated space fairly well sealed from the elements. Seeing the shutters still firmly closed as I had left them, I found myself doubting more than ever the veracity of Lewis and his photographs. How on earth could he have taken a photograph of anyone, even a ghost, standing at this window?

  I stepped across to the shutters and pulled on the metal bar that pinned their two wings together. It gave reluctantly, then flew up all at once. I pulled the left wing back; it creaked on unoiled hinges, then bent and folded not quite flush against the wall. The right wing was more difficult. As I worked at it I glanced through the window.

  For what cannot have been more than a few moments, the scene beyond the glass seemed to shift in and out of focus. Nothing was quite as it had been; only the basic contours of the front garden and the road beyond it remained. The trees and bushes, even the precise proportions of the lawn were utterly changed. The houses opposite could not be seen at all. I thought I saw someone . . . or something . . . move on the lawn, just on the edge of my vision.

  In those moments, I experienced not merely visual disturbance, but an inner feeling that I could only describe as an acute sense of menace, an overpowering sensation that a tremendous force of malice was threatening me. The next instant, my vision cleared, the garden and the road resumed their accustomed lineaments, and the feeling of menace was at once replaced by one of simple unease.

  Hurriedly, I left the window and traced my way back to the stairs. I could not understand what had happened, but put it down to the strain I had been under and the sleepless night I had just spent. At the bottom of the steps, Laura was waiting for me. Her face bore an anxious expression. As I approached her, a spasm of anger flew through me. I very nearly lifted my hand to strike her, to punish her for playing these games, for lying, for adding to my burdens. But the feeling passed almost as quickly as it had come, leaving only a faint aftertaste, a frisson of violence beneath the surface of my thoughts.

  ‘There’s nothing up there,’ I said, and turned to close the attic door.

  ‘But I heard . . .’

  ‘Please, Laura. We’re both overwrought.’ I turned the key. It felt solid and heavy in my hand, my fingers found it curiously familiar, as though I had been long accustomed to its use.

  She was facing me when I turned, the same expression of mute anxiety on her face.

  ‘You think I imagined them. The footsteps.’

  ‘There was nothing up there, Laura.’ I did not call her ‘darling’ as had been my custom. ‘No sign that anyone’s been there. No footprints. Nothing.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘You know that’s not important, Charles. It doesn’t matter whether or not there are footprints. The sounds I heard were real enough. Maybe they weren’t physical, but they were real.’

  ‘Please, Laura,’ I interrupted her again. ‘We both need some rest. Let’s go downstairs. You’ll feel better after breakfast. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  But there was. I knew there was. Turning the key in the lock, I had felt more than its familiarity, I had felt the sense of menace again, this time redoubled in force. And as it had left me, I had remembered something. I had remembered where I had seen the two little girls in Lewis’s photographs.

  9

  Lewis telephoned later that day to say he had something else to show me, something important. I hung up on him. He tried again, several times, until I left the receiver off the hook. By then, of course, I knew he was telling the truth, that his photographs were not impostures, but images of people no longer living. No longer living, that is, in any proper sense of the word. But I wanted things to end there, I wanted the dead to stay dead. I could not bear to think that they might mingle with the living. More than anything, I now perceive, I wanted to give my own feelings a decent burial. Left above ground, they could only be an abiding torment to me.

  The next day Superintendent Ruthven turned up on our doorstep. There had been no disturbances during the night. At my insistence, we kept to our bedroom, though neither of us slept. Laura was keyed up, expecting the sound of prowling footsteps from the room above. Just before three o’clock was the worst time, for we both expected to hear that scream again. When the moment passed and all remained silent, we relaxed somewhat. I fell into a light doze, but Laura – so she told me later – remained wakeful until dawn. No footsteps sounded above our heads. In the morning, I ventured into Naomi’s room. Nothing more had been touched.

  Ruthven brought with him a large plastic bag containing Naomi’s coat. Unlike her other clothes, this was not stained with blood. We confirmed the identification for him and he replaced it in its bag for return to his forensic laboratory.

  ‘Where was it found?’ I asked.

  ‘In a church,’ he said. ‘An Anglican church called St Botolph’s. It’s in Spitalfields, off Brick Lane – not far from the spot we found Naomi herself. We’ve got people going over the place now, but we don’t expect to come up with anything. It’s an old church, hardly used. A curate from another parish comes in to do a weekly service. That’s about all. A few old folk attend. Some vagrants. Anybody could have left your daughter’s things there.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you . . .’

  ‘No, in the church, I mean. Whereabouts in the church?’ For some reason I could not explain, it was important to know.

  He looked at me oddly, as though my question had revealed a perspicacity he had not suspected.

  ‘In the crypt,’ he said. ‘They might not have been found for years, but something went wrong with the boiler. When the caretaker went down to take a look, he came across the coat. It had been left on top of one of the tombs. Whoever left it there must have broken in. Or had a key. It’s given us a line of inquiry at least. We needed one after all this time.’

  I invited him in for tea, but he shook his head. He was dressed in a raincoat and a dented grey hat, almost the stereotype of a policeman, except for his eyes. I can still remember them, their blueness, their acuity, their hoodedness. He kept something bur
ied beneath them, buried very deep yet at times visible if you knew what you were looking for. I knew. I understood. I had it buried inside me as well.

  ‘How is your wife?’ he asked, preparing to leave.

  You are meant to say, ‘Bearing up’, but I did not.

  ‘She suffers a lot,’ I said. ‘She’ll never get over it.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t. People think you can, but it isn’t possible, it scars your life.’

  He meant his daughter, of course, though I did not know at the time. The verb he used was curious but apt. Death leaves wounds that never heal properly. And yet . . . even then I thought he meant something else by it.

  ‘If there’s any news . . .’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be the first to know.’

  The following day, Lewis’s letter arrived. It was just a short note really, accompanying two photographs taped between a couple of sheets of thin cardboard.

  ‘Please get in touch,’ he wrote. ‘I took these the day I visited you, before I came in. The first was taken with an ordinary lens, the second with the zoom. I believe you are both in danger. We need to talk.’

  I cut the tape and slipped the photographs from their makeshift wallet. The first was another contact print showing the front elevation of the house. I looked at it closely, knowing where to look now, guessing what I might find, but not quite suspecting the truth of it. A chill crossed my heart as I made out the unmistakable image of a face in the attic window. The shuttered window, the one I had opened only two days before.

  I picked up the close-up. It makes my blood go cold even now to think of what it revealed. Not the pale, grey woman, not one of the little girls, not Naomi. But Laura’s face, white and cold, staring down as though from a great height.

  That night the hauntings began again. I think of what took place that night as a loss of innocence. Each stage in those events represented some form of loss: a loss of love or faith or self-respect. But innocence is like trust: once gone, it can never be restored.

  What do I mean by innocence? I was, after all, a grown man by then, a grieving father. I had experienced disappointment, disillusionment, hard knocks – all the paths by which we come to worldly wisdom. Or, if not wisdom, a sort of understanding. But, for all that, I was innocent enough at heart. I mean that I harboured a belief in an essential current of goodness running through things, I saw a shape, a pattern to the whole, even if life in its particulars seemed at times shapeless or inchoate, even if children died in pain. It was, I suppose, a religious sense of the world, though I did not formulate it in theological terms. A sterner theology, a dogma, might have seen me through what happened. But my innocence was not made of such iron stuff, nor so well defended. It was half-formulated, lax, too much in tune with the times and too little with the experience of generations.

  I was wakened from an uneasy sleep a little before three. Laura was asleep beside me. On this occasion, it was not a scream that woke me, but something far more insidious. As I woke, I felt as though there were some great pressure forcing me down. I found it hard to breathe. My thoughts were confused, I could feel panic welling up inside me for no apparent reason. As I lay struggling to pull myself upright, I heard what sounded like breathing. Not Laura’s breathing, but quieter than that and further away. I thought it was coming from the foot of the bed.

  With an effort, I heaved myself up against the pillow.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I whispered. I was certain that someone was standing at the foot of the bed, watching me intently. Beside me, Laura stirred uneasily in her sleep. There was no reply. The sound of breathing continued. I strained to see, but there was only darkness, plain and impenetrable.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked again. ‘What do you want?’ Shaking, I reached out my hand to switch on the bedside lamp. Nothing happened. Again and again I flicked the switch, but the light would not go on.

  And now I became conscious of something terrible. The sense of menace I had felt before in the attic had returned, this time much stronger. The awful thing was that I experienced it in two different ways at once: I felt that I was the object of a dreadful hatred, of an unappeased anger that was reaching out for me with all its force. And simultaneously I felt it in myself, I felt hate, anger, malice, a gamut of raw emotions that all but choked me. I still found it hard to breathe. The darkness pressed in on me, relentless, tight as a sack, smothering me.

  Suddenly, I heard Laura’s voice on my left.

  ‘What’s happening, Charles? What’s going on?’

  I struggled to answer, but words would not form. I felt as though I were drowning in air.

  ‘What’s wrong, Charles? What’s wrong? Where are you?’

  Her voice seemed to come from a long way away. It was so faint I could hardly hear it. I tried to speak, but nothing happened. I could hear another sound now, a faint rustling like silk.

  Suddenly, a bright light exploded in my eyes. I blinked hard, then opened them again. For an instant, I thought I saw someone standing in front of me, someone tall and dressed in grey. Then I was breathing again and I could feel Laura’s hand on my arm and hear her voice clearly.

  ‘Charles, are you all right?’

  I nodded, gulping in air.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I . . . I must have been dreaming. It was as if I was being smothered. But it’s all right now. I’m fine.’

  But I wasn’t fine. Something had lodged itself deep inside me, something unspeakable. It was not a memory, but a sensation, a lingering awareness of the menace I had felt and a dark knowledge of something else already there, something that had been quiescent until then. The feelings of rage and hatred had not come from outside but had been in me all the time. I felt unclean, as though something filthy had touched me or entered me. When Laura reached out a hand to calm me, I pulled away from her. I had never done that before. She said nothing, but I knew my gesture had hurt her. It didn’t matter.

  In the morning, I rang Lewis. He had been waiting for my call.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he asked.

  ‘Heard? Heard what?’

  ‘It was on the news this morning,’ he said. ‘Ruthven has been found dead. Murdered. In the church where they discovered Naomi’s coat.’

  10

  ‘What happened?’

  Lewis and I were sitting in the study, facing one another across a low table on which I had placed a small folder.

  ‘His throat was cut. Savage, according to the report we had at the office. Nobody at Old Jewry knows why he went down to the church. They’d finished there, done all their forensic business, and given up. Seems they haven’t found anything yet. They think the coat got there by chance, nothing more. A vagrant may have come across it, taken it to the church.’

  ‘But why leave it in the crypt? What would be the point?’

  ‘The caretaker says vagrants go down there sometimes, the clever ones that know there’s a boiler. They don’t last long, though. The place spooks them. Nobody’s ever spent a night there, as far as he knows.’

  ‘Could they be related?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No, not who: I mean the murders. Naomi’s and Ruthven’s. Could there be a link? Could Ruthven have been on to something? Panicked the murderer into attacking him, perhaps?’

  Lewis shrugged.

  ‘It’s too early to say. There’s no record of a lead. They only shut down their operation at the church yesterday.’

  ‘When was he found?’

  ‘Early this morning. The caretaker went in to check the police had left things tidy. He got a bad fright. There was blood spilled all over one of the tombs. An old French tomb. A funny name: Petitoeil.’

  I corrected his pronunciation as though he were a student. ‘Petitoeil,’ I said. ‘It means “Little eye”. It will be a Huguenot name. Spitalfields was a major centre for Huguenot refugees at one time.’

  It was mid-morning. Lewis had come straight from London. I
watched him coming up the path towards the house, nervous, glancing around him, and looking up from time to time. I knew what he was looking at, looking for. He had his camera with him this time, in one of those large bags photographers carry.

  ‘Did you get the photographs?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Is that why you rang?’

  ‘No. Something else . . . Something else has happened.’ I told him of the incidents, keeping my narrative as plain and unemotional as possible. But I could see his eyes widen as the force of my words sank in. When I had finished, I picked up the folder.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘Something related to your photographs.’

  ‘I kind of thought it might be that,’ he said. He had an instinct, Lewis, a sixth sense. They say the Celts are a bit like that, a little fey, attuned to other dimensions. Sons of Arthur. Well, perhaps. Lewis had it at least. And lived to regret it.

  Out of the folder I took two sets of photographs. I laid them down side by side on the table.

  ‘I was disturbed,’ I said. ‘By the little girls. The ones in your photographs. Something about them kept nagging at me. They seemed familiar, as though I’d seen them before. Does that make sense to you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t place them at first, no matter how much I thought about them. And then . . . Just after I went up to the attic, the time Laura heard footsteps, I remembered.’

  I took a photograph from the first of the two small piles. In the foreground was Laura, several years younger, her arm resting on the stone balustrade of a low bridge. It could, perhaps, have been Cambridge, but it was not. The photograph had been taken on our honeymoon in Venice. A couple of months after we bought the house.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Look behind her.’

  Lewis picked up the photograph and looked carefully. Standing on the bridge, a few paces behind Laura, were two small girls, hand in hand, smiling at the camera.