by Peter James
‘Mr Morrison?’ Charley said, trying to smile politely.
His expression became increasingly hostile, his gnarled hands trembled. Yet through the hostility and shaking she saw sadness welling in the small yellowing eyes; sadness and tears.
‘Go away,’ he said, his voice quavering. ‘Leave us alone. Go away. We don’t want you here.’
He stepped back smartly and shut the door.
Tom came home that night. It was late, past midnight, dark, and Charley was sleeping lightly, fitfully, when the door clicked. Ben barked.
‘Hi, darling.’
Her heart trembled as she heard him walk across the floor, felt him sit on the bed, take her hand. His hand was cold, as if he had been out walking in snow, and she squeezed it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘That’s OK,’ she murmured sleepily.
He leaned over and she smelled strong, musky perfume on him, smelled his breath, which was foul and stank of smoke, not cigarettes or cigars but of burnt straw and wood. He kissed her.
His lips were hard and cold.
She recoiled in shock. The smell of burning and perfume got stronger, more pungent, filled her nostrils. The cold, hard lips pressed into hers, as if they were trying to grind them to pulp. She tried to pull away, pull back, but his arms gripped her around the neck, pulling her in towards him, tighter, tighter.
She shook her head, cried out, heard Ben snarling, cold pins and needles stabbing her body. The room was freezing. She smelled his breath, foul, the ghastly burned smell; the pressure of his hands was getting tighter, tighter. She tried to get out of bed, then realised she was out of bed, was standing up; smashed into something.
His hands tightened more. ‘Tom!’ Her voice emerged as a gargled cry. She thought her neck bones were going to snap. It was getting harder to breathe, Ben’s barking was deafening. She kicked out, but her feet were barely touching the ground. She was breathing in short gasps, standing on tiptoe. She threw her hands up, spun round, fell forwards, cracked her head against something; fell sideways. The pressure around her neck got worse. She stared wildly, looking up, but could only see the moon through the window.
The moon.
The window.
The window was in the wrong place.
Then she was aware of the silence. Of the breeze of cold air. The fierce grip around her neck.
Not hands. It was not hands around her neck; it was something soft that felt hard, was cutting into the skin. It was all right if she stood upright, stood upright on tiptoe and did not move, then it was just all right, just bearable.
The grip around her neck tightened.
It was silk. She tugged at it. The smells had gone. Something silk was knotted around her neck. She stood on tiptoe, as high as she could and tried to loosen it. She found a knot and tugged, but it was too tight. She stumbled and the knot choked her again. Ben barked in fury.
‘Help me.’
She put her hands up above her head, felt the silk stretched taut. Where the hell am I? I want to wake up now. Please wake up.
But she was awake. She knew that. She was awake and dangling on the end of a silk noose. Someone had tied it around her neck. Someone in the room.
Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the moonlit gloom. She could see the bed, empty; the archway to the bathroom; Ben. She was standing with her back to the wardrobe. She tried to move away, but the noose around her neck jerked sharply. She clawed at it with her fingers, tried to loosen it but it was getting tighter all the time and she was shaking in panic, gasping for air, having to force herself up on tiptoe to breathe.
She pushed her hand out behind her, found the wardrobe door handle and pulled it. It swung open, thumping her, and she stepped back a few inches, grabbed at the dresses she knew were behind her, felt the polythene covers, heard the rustle of the clothes, the clatter of the hangers. She ran her hand down towards the floor of the wardrobe. It was high, several feet off the ground, with drawers below, but she could not reach down far enough, the noose would not let her, jerked her back up.
She tried again, stretched her arms as far as she could reach, the noose choking her; her fingers touched a shoe, knocked it a few inches sideways, out of reach. She tried again, found it again, was just able to grasp it with the tips of her fingers. She had to fight for breath and for one moment thought she was going to black out. Then her fingers touched the shoe again and she lifted it up.
Holding on to it carefully, gripping it hard, she hammered the heel against the inside of the wardrobe door. She heard the tinkle of breaking glass, transferred the shoe to her left hand in case she still needed it, then cautiously raised her right hand up to the shattered mirror and felt around until she found a loose shard.
With her forefinger and thumb she broke it away, lifted it above her head and started sawing through the twisted silk.
The grip slackened, just a fraction. She carried on sawing, then suddenly the last strands snapped, and she fell forward on her face.
She lay there, shaking, gulping down air, lay there for several minutes before she was able to move, to crawl to her knees and turn on the bedside lamp.
Blinking against the brightness, she stared fearfully at the wardrobe. Part of her black silk negligee hung limply from the latticed carving on the top of the wardrobe. The rest was knotted around her neck.
She shivered with shock and with fear, as she realised what had happened, what she had done.
She had tried to hang herself in her sleep.
She had taken the negligee out of the bottom drawer, out of its carrier bag, had stood on the small chair Tom usually folded his clothes on, tied the top of the negligee around a carved scroll on top of the wardrobe, tied the other end around her neck, then kicked the chair away. It was lying on its side.
Going mad. Did all that in my sleep. Mad. I dig up lockets in my sleep. I killed a dog in a previous life. I try to hang myself. Maybe I am dead now. A ghost.
Can ghosts make people do things?
It’s possible. There is evidence.
Her blood flowed slowly, so slowly it felt as if it had stopped; droplets fell through her veins one at a time like condensation from the roof of a cave. She put her hand out and stroked Ben, needing to touch something alive. He felt like a statue.
Steam came out of her mouth. The room was as cold as a deep freeze and getting colder. She walked across to the open window, pushing her way through the coldness as if she were walking underwater. She put her hand out to close the window and realised it was mild outside.
It was only cold in the room.
A creature shrieked in fear, its cry echoing around the darkness. It was half past three. Tiny ghosts glinted in the darkness above her, and the big moon ghost slid silently in the track it had long ago etched in the sky, coating the lake with a sheen, like ice. Fear etched its own track silently down her back.
She shoved the broken glass from the mirror carefully under the wardrobe so Ben would not tread on it, then dressed in jeans, a fresh blouse and a sweater. Ben’s tail wagged.
‘No, we’re not going walkies, chappie. Come on!’ She spoke more cheerily than she felt, grabbed her handbag, walked out of the room leaving the light burning, and down the landing, snapping on lights as she went downstairs, picked up Ben’s lead without stopping, opened the front door, went out, waited for Ben then shut the door behind her, walked over to her car and held the door open for Ben.
She scraped the dew from the windows, started the engine, and drove up the drive, fast, bounced along the lane, the car lurching, the suspension bottoming. Rabbits scattered as she rounded the bend past Rose Cottage and she noticed Hugh’s Jaguar parked outside his barn.
She stopped at the end of the lane, the Citroën’s feeble headlamps picking out the hedge across the road, and massaged her neck; the muscles were agony. She pushed the gear lever forward and pulled out into the silent road.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A street-cleaning truck droned
past, its brushes swirling against the King’s Road kerb. The mannequins in the shop window opposite stood in arched poses, clad in street-fashion clothes in acid-house hues, glaring demonically out at the darkness through their Ray Ban sunglasses.
A trickle of crimson light leaked from the dark sky and dribbled down the grey precast walls of the high-rise block that towered above. Laura’s windows were up there. Seven floors up. She tried to work out which they might be, but it was still too dark.
A spiky-haired girl in Gothic clothing, bombed out of her mind, stomped down the pavement repeating to herself ‘Manic-manic-manic-manic’, as if it were the key to the universe.
A police car drove by, the two policemen peering in through the Citroën’s windows, and Charley remembered she had been drinking last night. The car drove on.
She climbed out of the Citroën, walked to the entrance of the apartment block, looked down the name panel and pressed Laura’s bell. They might not be there; might be away for the weekend. There was no response. She was about to press the button again when there was a crackle, and Laura’s voice, barely recognisable it sounded so tired: ‘Who is it?’
‘Charley,’ she said.
There was silence, then the click of the lock and the buzz of the mechanism. Charley pushed the glass-panelled door and went in, across the foyer and pressed the button for the lift.
The lift door opened immediately with a clang that echoed in the stillness. The door shut and the lift moved upwards, clanking past each floor, and stopped at the seventh. She stepped out into the corridor, went to Laura’s front door and knocked softly.
There was a rattle of the safety chain, and the door opened. Laura stood there in a limp nightdress, her hair dishevelled, her skin the colour of porridge.
‘I need to speak to Tom,’ Charley said.
‘He’s not here,’ she said.
Charley looked at her disbelievingly.
‘Want to come in?’
Laura closed the door behind them, and they went through to the kitchen. Charley looked down the passageway to the open bedroom door for a sign of movement, a sound. Was Tom hiding in there somewhere, silently?
‘Coffee?’
Charley nodded. Laura switched on the kettle. ‘He’s not here, I promise.’ The kettle hissed.
Charley sat down wearily at the kitchen table. Laura sat down opposite; they stared at each other in silence for a moment.
‘I need to speak to him,’ Charley said.
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘I thought —’ Charley twisted her wedding ring. ‘I thought you —?’
Laura wiped her face with her hands. ‘God,’ she said. ‘I feel awful.’ The water boiled and the kettle switched itself off. ‘What a mess.’
Charley watched her, anger rising up now through her fear and tiredness. Laura poured coffee and took a milk bottle from the fridge. Charley glanced around the kitchen, hoping she might spot some evidence of Tom; a pen or a tie or something.
‘I don’t know what the hell you must think,’ Laura said, handing Charley a mug and sitting down again.
Charley did not reply.
Laura looked into her coffee. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t think either of us did. I don’t know how I can explain it.’ She rested a finger on the rim of her mug. ‘I’ve been so unhappy recently — the last few months — everything’s so bloody shitty. Bob’s been a bastard, and the boutique’s going badly.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ve made a real fool of myself. So’s Tom.’ She shrugged. ‘Not much of an excuse.’
‘Where is Tom?’ Charley eyed her coffee but did not feel like drinking any.
‘I don’t know. We spent two nights — Wednesday and Thursday — after he — left you.’ A smile crossed her face like a twitch. ‘It was pretty disastrous. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
Charley stood up; too much was whirring through her mind to cope with. She saw Laura looking at her neck, and turned away, examining a postcard of Tangiers clamped to the fridge door with a Snoopy magnet. She did not want Laura to think she could not cope, that she might have tried to — hang herself?
She stumbled on her own thoughts; could not think of anything to say. She did not want a row, not now, nor a confession. She felt a sense of relief that Tom was not here. Apart from that she was numb. ‘I’d better go,’ she said, and walked back down the passageway.
Laura followed her to the door and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Charley. I’m really sorry,’ she repeated.
* * *
Charley pulled up outside the nursing home and let Ben out of the car. They walked into the park opposite under the crimson veins of the breaking dawn.
Ben ran happily around and she sat on a dewy bench, closed her eyes and hugged her arms around herself. The air was mild, but she felt a deep coldness that would not melt away. Her head dropped and she dozed for a while, and woke to find Ben’s damp nose rubbing her hands.
Her feet were wet from the grass, her white slip-ons sodden through. She stroked Ben, lolled sideways and slept more. Someone walked by with a dog, but she kept her eyes shut, trying to rest, to savour the drowsiness which for the moment blotted out the fear and the pain.
At half past seven she stood up, clipped Ben’s lead on, put him back in the Citroën and crossed the road to the nursing home.
The night nurse was surprised to see her, and Charley smiled back lamely, knowing she must look a wreck, then climbed the stairs with an effort, walked down the landing and went into her mother’s room which was silent and dark, with the curtains still drawn.
She closed the door gently and stood listening to the quiet breathing, so quiet it sounded like the whisper of an air-conditioning duct.
She wished the bed was bigger so she could lie on it too and snuggle up to the old woman, the way she used to as a child when she was afraid of the dark, when she used to go into her room and sleep with her arms around her. Safe.
She sat in the chair beside the bed, breathed the familiar smells of freshly laundered linen and stale urine. Safe. She slept.
A tray clattered, Charley stared around, disoriented, coming awake slowly, her neck in agony, her back in agony too, stiff, so stiff she could barely move.
Bugger. The stove. She had forgotten to fill the Aga with coke. It would go out and she’d have to relight it; it was a bitch to light.
A nurse was propping her mother up in bed, the breakfast tray on the table beside her. The nurse turned towards her. ‘You’ve come early,’ she said breezily. ‘Missing your mum?’
She nodded.
‘My mum was in a hospice. I used to sleep in the room with her sometimes.’ She smiled. ‘You never think that time’s going to run out until it happens. Would you like something to eat? I could get you some cereal, eggs.’
‘Juice,’ Charley said. ‘Juice would be nice.’
The nurse held the glass of orange whilst her mother drank, tiny little sips. ‘Nice having company for breakfast, isn’t it, Mrs Booth?’
She stared blankly ahead.
After the nurse had gone out, Charley went through into the small bathroom and looked at her face in the mirror. Christ. Like a ghost. Her colour was drained, her eyes yellowy and bloodshot. She raised her head and looked at her neck. There were red marks and bands of blue bruising. Somehow she had been hoping that it was a crazy dream. That she’d wake in the morning and the negligee would be back in the carrier bag and everything would be fine and there’d be no marks around her neck.
She washed her face with cold water, dabbed it dry and turned the collar of her blouse up. Elmwood. She had fled from the house. Fled because of — madness? All part of the madness?
Poor thing; of course she couldn’t cope with her husband leaving her; pushed her over the edge.
Must be a terrible way to go, to hang herself in a room on your own, like that.
Voices murmured inside her head, snatches of conversations as if she were sitting on a bus.
She we
nt out and kissed her mother, stroked her downy white hair, tidied the loose strands. ‘Talk, Mum, talk to me. Let’s talk today, have a chat. It’s Sunday. Remember we used to go to the country on Sundays?’
The nurse brought in a tray. ‘I’ve popped some cereal and toast on, in case you’re hungry.’
Charley thanked her, and ate a little and felt a bit better. She drank her juice, sat beside her mother again and held her hand. ‘Who am I, Mum?’
There was no flicker of reaction.
‘Who am I?’
There was a yelp outside, then another. Ben in the car, maybe. She would have to let him out soon. ‘Who are my real parents?’
Silence. Another mournful yelp.
‘What did you mean, Lies death! Truth. Go back? Did you mean you haven’t told me the truth before?’
The old woman moved a fraction more upright. Her eyelids batted and her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, stared straight at Charley for a brief moment, then looked ahead again and closed her mouth, her jaw slackening, the way someone’s might after they have finished speaking. She sank back against the pillow as if she were exhausted by the effort.
Charley wondered what was going on inside her mother’s head. Did she in her confused state believe that she had actually spoken. ‘I didn’t hear what you said, Mum. Could you repeat it?’
But the old woman was still again, her eyes back to their normal intermittent blink; as if an aerial inside her had been unplugged.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘I don’t have an appointment,’ Charley said. ‘Is there any chance Dr Ross could see me?’
‘I’m sure Dr Ross could fit you in, Mrs Witney.’ The receptionist was a well-preserved blonde in her forties who always reminded Charley of James Bond’s original Miss Moneypenny. She shook her wavy hair and gave Charley a warm smile. ‘He won’t keep you too long.’
Charley walked across the dark hall into the seedy opulence of the waiting room. A mother sat with a small boy just inside the door. The room had not been redecorated in all the years Tony Ross had been their doctor. The plaster moulding was chipped and cracked; an ugly chandelier hung above a mahogany dining table spread with magazines, and the walls, which needed a lick of paint, were ringed with a jumble of chairs that did not match. The open sash windows behind the grimy lace curtains let in the fumes and the clattering roar of the Redcliffe Road traffic.
