The House of Canted Steps

by Gary Fry

  Mark suppressed such speculation and cuddled up closer to Nina. Gayle would come to the agency tomorrow, and whatever followed was out of his hands. There was little else he could do. He was Lewis’s father and no one else’s.

  5

  “Do you want me to drop you off at the library?”

  “That would be nice, thanks. I’m running a bit late.” Nina had just put on her makeup and was gathering her coat from the entrance hall. “What have you got planned today?”

  “Oh, just the same old same. I’ll see if Jenny’s taken any evaluation bookings for this afternoon, but I think my morning’s pretty…free.”

  “You hesitated. Why?”

  “Well, Gayle’s coming, isn’t she? To be taken to the house I mentioned yesterday.”

  Before sleep last night, Mark and his girlfriend had talked about the property, but he hadn’t told her about what he only thought he’d seen in that photo of the exterior. A dreamless sleep had refreshed his mind, scrubbed it of ridiculous suspicion. Today he felt more positive about his life, as if everything would work out well in the long run.

  He held open the door as Nina exited and then followed her downstairs and out into a chill, overcast morning.

  The car started first time, as it always had; Mark was glad about that. What with rent and utility bills, as well as the maintenance money he paid his ex-wife every month, he didn’t have much spare cash. Nevertheless, he could be in a much worse position. Far better, too, he thought, and considered Justin-the-restaurateur’s likely income. That the man could sell one house—Mark’s previous home—for around one-forty and up his mortgage to two-eighty made Mark feel both envious and annoyed.

  As these thoughts took hold, ruining his good start to the day, he found himself wondering why Nina hung around with such a loser. But this thought also made him feel affection for her, and while driving towards the center of Hantley, he put out a hand to hold hers above the handbrake between gear changes. In his peripheral vision, he saw her smile, still happily engaged in the first flush of romance; they’d been together only four months.

  After dropping her off in a side street near the library, he promised to bring home a takeout later, and Nina’s smile grew broader still. Then she paced along the pavement with a youthful spring in her stride. She was one of those women who could eat anything and not put on much weight. Her short, graceful figure made Mark’s heart lurch, and again he felt unworthy of her.

  But while driving on, he considered what he had to offer. He worked hard, and despite efforts to the contrary, he was considerate of others. The latest sod-the-client routine he’d been trying to kick off in his job was destined for failure, he simply knew it. Before long, something would happen to draw him back to his usual responsible business practices. And perhaps that had already occurred.

  Pulling his vehicle into the car park a short walk from his office, Mark realized that his fickle mind had returned again to the house in Nester Street. However much he tried persuading himself otherwise, he knew something was deeply amiss about the new property on Addisons’ books.

  He entered the agency, bade good morning to Jenny, politely answered her usual inquiries about his life, and then retreated to his office where Ben, his apprentice who’d been out valuing properties the previous day, greeted him with an affectionate grin. They got along well together. The lad was going to make an excellent estate agent.

  “All right, mate?” Mark said, unshouldering his jacket and hanging it on the back of his seat. He sat at his PC, powered it up, and then searched his desk for something he quickly discovered wasn’t there. After Ben had issued a cheerful reply, Mark said, “Hey, have you seen a pile of printed photos? I left them here yesterday.”

  The man turned in his swivel chair, tapped the inkless end of a biro against his teeth as if in thought. “Oh yeah, I think I saw Jen shredding some earlier. Why, you didn’t need them, did you?”

  “Not…especially.” But Mark moved quickly back through to the main body of the premises to consult his colleague about the pictures.

  “Sorry, I thought we’d finished with them, Mark,” Jenny explained, but couldn’t keep her eyes on him. “I was just…trying to keep the place tidy. I’m afraid I…wiped them off the camera’s storage card, too.”

  It didn’t matter, did it? Mark mustn’t make a big deal about it. He reminded Jenny to always ask him about items she found in his office, and then returned to his desk, pinching his lower lip with a tense hand.

  After several minutes, during which Ben brought him a mug of milky tea, Mark said, “Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention that my ex is coming down this morning. She wants one of us to show her and…her new boyfriend around a new place we have on the market. Could you do it? I have Head Office to fend off with the month-end figures.”

  “What time, mate?”

  “About tennish?”

  “Yeah, that should be fine. I’ve another appointment at twelve, so it’ll fit in well. Where is this new pad?”

  Once Mark released the sigh of relief he hadn’t realized was building inside while lying (he’d dealt with the month-end figures the previous week), he told Ben about the house and then returned to his private reflection, using his computer to access Google.

  Jenny had been scared of those printed pictures, and that was why she’d got rid of them. Mark had realized this, but hadn’t wanted to admit he was also scared of the property. And what could he do to eliminate such fears? Well, maybe try what these days everybody else did at times of duress: scour the Internet.

  He typed “Nester Street” into the search engine and clicked Search. Addisons’ own website came up at the head of the page—GENUINE BARGAIN! REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE!—but little else seemed helpful. The only link mentioning the street name in the context of Hantley was a brief, unilluminating essay about a mid-twentieth-century factory pioneer called George Hughes, who’d once been a big wheel in the town.

  George Hughes.

  George…Hughes…

  Something about this name resonated with Mark, but he was unable to figure out what. If this guy had once lived in Nester Street, Mark wouldn’t be surprised. Those were nice, big houses, entirely becoming of a wealthy man. But this thought brought back bitter reflections on Justin-the-flash-bastard, and Mark had had enough. He closed down the website, and while doing so, looked at the framed photo of his parents beside his monitor. He knew that given his lowly background, he’d done as well as possible in life, and that if this hadn’t been enough for Gayle, that was her problem. Then he tried distracting himself with real work.

  His ex-wife arrived when she said she would: ten o’clock sharp. She’d rarely been so punctual during their marriage, especially during her covert affair with Justin…But Mark suppressed these borderline aggressive thoughts and greeted his son, who’d already entered the agency carrying his mobile phone.

  “My daddy bought it for me,” he was telling Jenny, whose idea the phone had actually been. But this would remain a secret; his colleague was sensitive that way.

  “Hey, that’s a nice one, isn’t it? So much better than my old thing!” Jenny said, and then turned to say hello to the boy’s mother, who, hugely pregnant and making no attempt to disguise the fact, remained standing in the doorway for a specific reason: Justin’s sleek Porsche was idling at the curb outside.

  Mark stooped to hug Lewis and rewarded the pride the boy had displayed when referring to him a moment ago with a kiss.

  “Morning, champ,” he said, deciding to build on the good spirits he and Gayle had established the day before. “Tell me, how’s your remote-controlled car running? Any punctures? Head gasket okay?”

  “Daddy, you’re silly!” his son replied, responding to the smile Mark had built into the comment, which was actually intended to overrule the grimace he felt like wearing.

  His ex-wife nodded approval, and when Ben emerged from the office, Mark stood and said to Gayle, “As I told you last night, I’ve got things to do this morning. Bu
t my laddo here will show you around the house.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The sports car revved in the street. When Mark glanced outside, its smoky windows revealed only a dark shape hunched at the steering wheel.

  Jenny produced the key Mark had handed to her yesterday and passed it to her other colleague.

  “Right, guys, follow me,” Ben said, and when he reached the doorway, he added, “Wow, nice car. Mine’s parked across the road, but it’s not a patch on this one.”

  “It’s a porch!” said Lewis, following the younger estate agent outside, where Gayle had already begun climbing into the cramped sports coupé. Then Mark’s son entered, clambering across his mom’s swollen lap (why, with another child due, did the fools have a two-door vehicle?) and into the rear. “Bye, Daddy!” he called before the passenger-seat door slammed shut, and then Mark felt as if the boy was irrevocably lost to him.

  Once the two vehicles had fled, Jenny smiled sympathetically, but Mark was in no mood to chat. Something Lewis had said—the contextually incorrect, “It’s a porch!”—had drawn his thoughts back to the issue of houses, and particularly the one in Nester Street. He rushed to his office, shut the door, and then rifled the cabinet full of contracts Jenny always kept in impeccable order. Moments later, he had Eric Johnson’s paperwork, and more importantly his mobile telephone number. And despite realizing the man would be working, Mark was serious about dialling it.

  Nevertheless, it took him nearly an hour to pluck up courage to make the call. His problem wasn’t only that what he suspected about the property sounded absurd; it was also that it might look as if he was trying to scupper his ex-wife and her new family’s plans. He’d never considered himself mean-spirited, and doubted he did much out of spite. All the same, he remained inexplicably worried about his son, and this concern ultimately overruled all others. He hitched up his telephone and pecked in the number with a forefinger that wouldn’t stop shaking.

  “Hello?”

  “Is that Mr. Johnson?” The man had sounded anxious, as if reluctant to own up to his identity. He’d been little different when Mark had spoken to him yesterday. Mark quickly added, “Hi, it’s Mark Cookson from Addisons Estates.”

  “…Yes?”

  No warmth; in fact, something closer to wariness…But then Mark went on.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve started marketing your property and already have some viewers.”

  Now the voice grew animated, arguably too much so. “Oh, great. That’s super.”

  It was always risky raising hopes of clients this way, especially as the viewers were the people Mark was most eager to safeguard (well, one of them, anyway). But to achieve his goal, he’d needed to offer bait and must now capitalize on this.

  “There’s a minor difficulty, however. I’m afraid that in my haste yesterday, I forgot to ask you to sign a second form concerning payment of our commission.” No such form existed, of course, but this small lie didn’t trouble Mark. “I was wondering whether you or your…wife would mind meeting me at a mutually convenient place. I’m sorry about the inconvenience. But it’s a new form and I’m still working it into my routine. And it slipped my mind in your case.”

  The line went silent for some time, during which Mark reassured himself that speaking face-to-face to Eric Johnson was his best option. Mark couldn’t interrogate him here in his office, either over the phone or otherwise. His issue wasn’t formal business, Jenny might overhear, and it all felt devious anyway. By going directly to the man, he’d keep the matter private. The only people who needed to know about the conversation were himself and the vendor.

  At last Eric Johnson said, “Okay, but it can’t be at the…house. There’s a hotel just outside Hantley, on the A64 out towards York. Big red-brick place. I could meet you in the bar this afternoon at, say, two p.m. Any good? I have a…lunchtime meeting there anyway, and won’t be in a rush to be anywhere else afterwards.”

  “I know the place and I’ll see you there, Mr. Johnson,” Mark replied, and already knew—after detecting lapses in Eric’s speech, and the all-too-convenient location for their appointment—that something was dreadfully wrong with the house his son, his ex-wife and her new lover were thinking about buying at an insanely reduced price.

  6

  Mark combined his visit to the hotel with another property valuation on that side of town. He drove past abandoned factories on his way to this house, which was a modern dwelling, circa nineteen-sixties, and as likely to be haunted as any ghost might wish to occupy it. It was a shabby building, and when Mark assigned a low market value, the vendor—a rough-looking dude bearing more tattoos than a traditional circus performer—became aggressive.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Mark replied, trying to remain composed despite all he must deal with next, “but if that’s your attitude, I’m afraid we can’t do business.”

  “Well, fuck off out of it, then!” said this man, who’d told Mark that he worked in a nearby mill and had been struggling to pay his mortgage lately.

  Mark sympathized with this dilemma—it had never been easy for his parents to survive on his dad’s factory wage—but he refused to tolerate abuse. That was a company policy, a result of recent campaigns to protect workers’ rights. He bade a professional goodbye to the man and then left in a hurry.

  The episode had emboldened him for the trickier task ahead. Heading along the A64, he found himself considering supernatural phenomena, the thing he now associated with the house in Nester Street.

  There. He’d admitted it. And it was this issue he wished to discuss with Eric Johnson.

  Mark was a dull old atheist who believed dead was dead and the universe made of only atoms or protons or whatever they were called. He’d once tried reading a book on quantum mechanics (when he was young enough to believe there were things worth knowing about life) and had switched on the TV half an hour later, having grown irrevocably confused midway through chapter one. Nevertheless, he was aware of some bizarre theories about the nature of reality, but for him it returned to the same time-honored question: did ghosts exist?

  At his Sat-Nav’s instruction, he took a left onto a slip road but then a roundabout obstructed his progress as vehicles passed from the right.

  “Come on, come on,” Mark said with escalating impatience, but he knew what its source was: apprehension concerning what he might learn from the vendor about the new property on Addisons’ books.

  After pulling into the car park of the large detached hotel (surrounded by countryside, it was six miles outside Hantley), he climbed out and made his way for the main entrance.

  He didn’t know what to think about the possibility of another life beyond this one and was unwilling to ponder the question as he spotted a bar behind the reception area. It was two o’ clock; a grandfather clock in the elegant lobby he crossed chimed the hour like a…no, he wouldn’t think that; it hadn’t sounded like a death knell at all.

  After entering the bar lounge, he saw Eric Johnson seated in one corner, a pint of beer on the table in front of him.

  Mark had brought his briefcase; he didn’t usually carry this to appointments, preferring a less formal appearance, which he’d learned over the years put clients at ease. But on this occasion, he must start out with business in mind. He paced across to the table, nodded a hasty greeting and then sat opposite, setting his case on the floor to one side of the chair.

  “Nice to see you again,” Eric said, after sipping at his pint no less edgily than he had a cup of tea in his home yesterday. “May I get you a drink?”

  “Yeah, thanks. A coke would be good,” Mark replied, despite wishing for something stronger—scotch, perhaps, or something similarly lethal to the nervous system.

  The man crossed to the bar, during which time Mark examined his surroundings. Only a few other people were in the hotel lounge, probably residents staying over on business. It was odd that Eric Johnson had no briefcase of his own, either under or on top of
the table. Hadn’t he said over the phone that he’d had a lunchtime meeting? The chemical company for which he worked must be unfussy about dress code, too, because he wore casual clothing: cotton pants and a baggy shirt. He returned, carrying a glass of fizzy coke whose chink of ice cubes sounded like old bones stirring. Then Mark realized he had to deliver his best performance since this strange affair had begun.

  “So,” said Eric, handing over the drink and retaking his seat, “about this form you want me to sign…”

  Mark gulped from the coke, taking a moment to consider the best way to proceed. Then, looking at the man’s open-collared shirt, he replied, “I expect you have to deal with the same kind of bureaucratic nonsense in your line of work.”

  Eric pinched his throat, but he was wearing no tie to offer similar respite. With a brusque tone, he said, “Look, we both know why you’re here. Neither of us is a fool. I didn’t believe your story for a second. So why not ask what you came to ask and we can move on. I don’t mean this maliciously, but I’ve…we’ve been through enough lately and I’m not prepared to add to our problems. And so please, tell me what you want to know about our house.”

  This might have been Mark talking about his own life; he certainly found himself empathizing with the man. But although their discussion would have nothing to do with business, Mark believed it should be conducted in a formal way. He had a problem; Eric might have the solution. Such was working men’s lives.

  “Okay, as I spoke on the phone, I thought my reason for meeting up again was a bit flimsy. So here goes.” Mark had decided not to belabor the point; he felt as jaded in life as Eric had clearly become. Then he asked quite plainly, “What’s wrong with your house?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s structurally sound. The surveyor’s report when we moved in three years ago came back peachy clean.”