by Peter James
‘Police – detectives? What about?’
Detectives. He felt a sudden chill. What had happened, had there been an accident? His parents? Brother or sister?
He went downstairs and saw a tall, thin, unsmiling man in his thirties, in a sharp suit, and a smartly dressed woman in her late twenties, he guessed.
‘Good evening,’ Ollie said.
The man held up a warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Robinson of Eastbourne CID and this is my colleague Detective Constable Louise Ryman. Mr Oliver Harcourt?’
‘Yes.’ His mind was whirring. Police always made him nervous.
‘We’re sorry to intrude on your evening, would you mind if we had a quick word?’
‘Not at all – come through.’ He led them into the kitchen and ushered them to chairs at the table then, joined by Caro, sat opposite them, moving her laptop and briefcase and the papers she had been working on aside.
‘So,’ he asked. ‘What’s the reason for your visit?’
‘Would it be correct that you’ve been in contact with the Reverend Robert Manthorpe of number two, Farm Cottages, Beddingham, recently?’ asked DC Robinson, producing a notebook.
‘Yes – I – went to see him yesterday.’
‘And what time would that be, sir, and what was the reason for your visit?’
‘It was mid-afternoon, before I picked my daughter up from school.’
The detective constable made a note in his book.
‘Why are you asking?’ Ollie looked at the female detective. She stared back at him stonily. DC Robinson gave nothing away, either.
‘Can I ask you why you’re here? I really would like to know what this is about.’
‘If you could just finish answering my question, sir?’
‘Maybe you’d like to answer mine?’
‘Ols,’ Caro cautioned.
‘Would you prefer that we arrested you, Mr Harcourt, and brought you in to Eastbourne police station? Or would you like to cooperate?’
Caro interjected. ‘As a solicitor I know you have no grounds to arrest my husband and we are within our rights to ask you to leave.’
‘I’ll give you one more opportunity to answer my question, Mr Harcourt,’ the DC said, blankly and unemotionally.
‘I went to see him at the suggestion of our local vicar, the Reverend Roland Fortinbrass,’ Ollie replied sullenly.
‘May I ask why?’
Ollie hesitated, intensely disliking the officious tone of the man, and the hostile stare of his sidekick. ‘Because we are having problems with this house, and I wanted to know if he had heard of any problems here when he was the vicar of this parish.’
‘I see,’ the detective constable said, writing it all down and flipping over to a new page in his notebook. ‘Exactly what kind of problems?’
‘We think this house may be haunted.’
Ollie watched him as he wrote this down, interminably slowly, lip-reading as the DC mouthed every word he wrote.
Then Robinson looked back up at him. ‘Is anyone able to verify the time you arrived and left the Reverend Manthorpe’s house, Mr Harcourt?’
‘I picked up my daughter, Jade, from school in Burgess Hill at five thirty that afternoon,’ Ollie said.
Again he had to wait while Robinson wrote this down.
‘Can you tell us what this is about?’ Caro asked. ‘Has something happened to the Reverend Manthorpe?’
‘Yes,’ DC Louise Ryman said. ‘Something has.’
37
Friday, 18 September
Caro blanched. Her eyes half closed and Ollie thought for a moment she was going to faint.
Both detectives were staring at her, uncertainly.
‘Is he all right?’ Caro’s eyes darted to each of them in turn, almost feral with desperation.
The detectives shot each other a glance. ‘The Reverend Manthorpe’s neighbour was disturbed by his dog barking all through the night,’ Robinson said, his tone less hostile now. ‘When it didn’t stop this morning, the gentleman became concerned, as his neighbour always walked it first thing, and he called the police. The Reverend Manthorpe was subsequently found dead in his house, and we’re trying to establish who the last person was to see him alive.’
Caro grabbed Ollie’s arm to steady herself. ‘God. Dead? Not another. I don’t think there’s much more I can take.’
Both police officers looked at her, curiously.
‘My wife’s very upset,’ Ollie explained. ‘Someone she knows dropped dead yesterday – and now this.’
‘The Reverend Manthorpe’s neighbour is the local Neighbourhood Watch coordinator,’ DC Ryman said, also more pleasantly now. ‘And he had made a note of a Range Rover car that was parked outside the house the previous afternoon, which we established was registered in your name, sir, although at an address in Carlisle Road, Hove. We understand from the occupants that you’ve recently moved?’
‘Yes, I meant to update the DVLA – sorry.’
‘That is technically an offence, sir, but we’ll ignore that. I’m sure that’s in process?’
‘Yes, I’ll get on to it, thank you. Can you tell me anything about how he died?’
‘I’m afraid not at this stage, no,’ DC Robinson said. ‘How did the Reverend Manthorpe seem when you saw him?’
‘Fine. Elderly and a bit frail, and he told me his memory wasn’t too good, although it seemed pin-sharp to me. I was asking him about his time here in Cold Hill as vicar. He was a very nice old boy. The dog sat on the sofa with me for most of the time. Jasper.’
Robinson made some further notes, then he said, ‘We won’t keep you any more tonight. If we need you to make a statement, could you come into Lewes police station sometime?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Ollie answered. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really very shaken by this. We both are. Please let me know what you find out about – how he died.’
He saw the two detectives to the door and watched them hurry through the rain, climb into a small grey Ford, and drive off. When he returned to the kitchen Caro was still sitting at the table, her face drained of colour, shaking her head.
‘What the hell’s happening, Ollie?’
He stood behind her, put his arms round her, bent over and kissed her on the forehead, smelling the fragrant scent of her shampoo. ‘Just a horrible coincidence. Horrible.’
He kissed her again, went over to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and opened it. Then he took two clean glasses out of the dishwasher, poured wine into them and carried one over to Caro. ‘Want me to bring my stuff down here and be with you?’
She shook her head and sniffed. ‘I’ll be OK.’
‘Did you find any curry menus?’
‘No – if I give you their names, could you have a look and order for me? I’ve got to get this document done and off.’
‘Sure.’
She scrawled the names down on the corner of a sheet of paper, tore it off and handed it to Ollie.
He climbed the stairs up to the first floor, heavy-hearted, carrying his glass of wine. It was just a coincidence, as he’d said. Just a bloody awful coincidence and shit timing. And those bloody detectives, did they need to be so officious?
He heard music pounding from Jade’s room at the far end of the landing. Wasn’t she supposed to be getting on with her homework? He shrugged. It was Friday night, she had the weekend ahead, but she wasn’t likely to get much done with Phoebe staying over. Let it be. He carried on up to his office.
As he went in, he stared at all the boxes he had still to unpack. He would make that his weekend project, he decided. To get the whole sodding room straight, ready for the week ahead. A week of working on The Chattri House and of hard-selling. He stared out of the windows, at the pelting rain and rapidly failing light – 7.30 p.m. and it would soon be dark. Winter was approaching. He looked forward to clear frosty days, and perhaps some snow. To blazing logs in the huge inglenook fireplace in the drawing room. They would put all this shit behind t
hem, they really would.
He sat down at his desk, put the glass down beside him, tapped his keyboard to bring his computer screen to life and entered his password. Moments later all his files appeared, against the plain sky-blue background he had chosen years ago.
Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped.
He sensed someone standing behind him.
The temperature seemed to drop even further.
He spun round in his chair. But there was no one behind him; no one in the room. The door was closed.
He turned back to the screen, and as he looked at it, all the files once again suddenly disappeared. They were replaced by a message in large black letters.
KINGSLEY PARKIN. THE REVEREND BOB MANTHORPE. WHO’S NEXT? JADE? CARO? YOU?
An instant later the words vanished. Then his normal icons came back into view.
His skin crawled. It felt as if someone was very definitely in this room with him.
Someone.
Or something.
He could feel he was being stared at. By unseen eyes.
He leaped out of his chair, looking wildly all around him. Up at the ceiling. At the closed door. Around at the walls.
Shivering, he stared back at the screen.
All the file names were there. At the top right was the Macintosh HD icon. Below it, Charles Cholmondley Classics. Below that, Chattri House.
Normality.
He had not imagined it.
‘WHO ARE YOU?’ he called out. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’
Shiver after shiver ripped through him. Then he felt perspiration running down his face. From being freezing, he was suddenly too hot. He went over to a window and opened it. Felt the cool, damp air on his face. Breathed in the sweet smell of wet grass. His heart was pounding.
There was something in here.
He stared up again at the ceiling. At the two bare light bulbs hanging from their cords. He broke out in goose pimples.
He shook his head. Get a fucking grip! he said, silently, to himself, thinking back on his conversation with Bruce Kaplan. Energy. Was there some energy thing going on?
Go with it and accept it, the professor had said.
Yeah, right, easier said than done.
There was a click. The room darkened and the computer screen went blank. He stared up. Both bulbs had gone out.
Another sodding fuse, he thought.
Hoped.
The goose pimples were spreading and hardening.
He grabbed his wine glass and left the room, slamming the door behind him, and hurried down the stairs to the first-floor landing. When he reached it, he looked back up. The lights elsewhere in the house were on, fine.
He was letting it get to him, and he mustn’t, he knew. He had to be strong. The last thing Caro needed was for him to start freaking out.
WHO’S NEXT? JADE? CARO? YOU?
His mind playing tricks on him. That’s all it was.
That’s all it was.
He carried on downstairs. Totally unconvinced.
38
Friday, 18 September
Graham Norton was strutting around on the television screen, in an outrageous checked jacket of the kind a 1930s racetrack bookie might have worn. He cracked a joke about one of his guests, Nicole Kidman, who they could see in the green room, waiting to come on, and Caro laughed. Seated next to the actress was a young hunk Ollie did not recognize.
He was just pleased to hear Caro laugh. Neither of them seemed to have done much laughing recently.
Their bedroom, reeking of fresh paint and new plaster, was dark, the curtains drawn, the overhead light off. He felt desperately tired, drained. Caro was tired, too. Just a few minutes ago she had dozed off, but now she was awake again, watching the show. He had always loved their Friday nights in, with the whole weekend stretching out ahead of them. A time to unwind with frivolous television. Past favourites had been Have I Got News For You and Peep Show and now this.
After a few more minutes he found himself drifting off, then woke up with a start, some while later. Graham Norton was teasing an American actor whom Ollie recognized, but could not remember his name.
‘Who’s that guy?’ he asked Caro.
He turned towards her and saw she was asleep again.
‘Guy?’ she murmured.
‘It’s OK, doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep, babes.’
She blinked, staring at the screen. ‘Nightcrawler. We liked that film.’
‘Jake Gyllenhaal,’ he said.
‘Yes. Shlake Shillenhaal.’ Her eyes closed again.
He picked up the remote and turned the television off. Then he reached out and pressed the switch on his bedside light.
As the room became almost pitch dark he rolled over, slipped an arm under Caro’s pillow, then nestled up to her and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Night, my darling.’
‘Love you,’ she said.
‘Love you so much.’
He lay, holding her, for some minutes, then rolled onto his back. As he did so he heard a faint click, somewhere close by.
Something sent another ripple of shivers through him. He thought back to the message on his screen up in his office, earlier. The feeling that something had been in the room with him.
He had that same feeling now.
Goose pimples spread down his body; hard, icy, sharp as pins.
Right in front of the bed a green light was moving towards them.
Moving closer.
Closer.
Human height. An ethereal human form.
He was gripped with terror.
Closer still.
Closer.
‘GO, GO, GO!’ he yelled.
‘Wasser?’ Caro stirred, then she screamed, too, a deep, almost preternatural terror in her voice.
‘OLLIE! OLLIE!’
Closer still.
‘OLLIE!’
He flung his arm out for the light and sent the lamp, his glass of water and his clock radio crashing to the floor. ‘WHO ARE YOU?’ he yelled. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT? GO AWAY!’
Then he heard a small voice: ‘Woooooo, wooooo, wooooo! I am the ghost of Cold Hill House!’
Jade’s voice, he realized.
Then she said, ‘Chill, Dad! Mum! GOTYA!’
An instant later the overhead light came on. He saw Jade holding up a torch inside a transparent green outfit of some kind draped over her head, standing by the door.
‘Christ, Jade!’ Ollie said.
Jade pulled the robe up and off, revealing her face, and stood there, grinning.
Caro lay still, too stunned to speak.
‘That is really, really, really not funny, darling,’ Ollie gasped.
Jade jigged up and down. ‘I’m the phantom of Cold Hill!’
Ollie moved to get out of bed, then realized he was stark naked. ‘Joke over, OK!’ he said sternly.
‘You scared me,’ Caro said. ‘You scared the hell out of me, darling.’
‘I thought I’d wear this at my party. What do you think?’
‘I think you should go to bed, NOW!’ Ollie said.
‘But do you like it, though, Dad?’
‘Go to bed. I’ll tell you what I think in the morning.’
‘I did scare you, though, didn’t I? A bit?’
‘Just go to bed, OK?’
‘Wooooo, woooooo wooooo!’ She pulled the robe over her head again. ‘Wooooooo, I am the ghost of Cold Hill House. Wooooooooooo!’
She danced out the room, closing the door behind her.
Ollie turned to look at Caro. She was staring, wide-eyed, up at the ceiling. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s her way of dealing with it. At least she’s cool with all that’s been happening.’
‘Lucky her,’ Caro said.
39
Saturday, 19 September
Ollie barely slept a wink for the rest of the night. Caro tossed and turned beside him, awake much of the time also. He was thinking. Thinking. Churning everything over.
WHO�
�S NEXT? JADE? CARO? YOU?
Those words on his screen – where had they come from? He toyed with the possibility that it was another prank by Jade, but dismissed it. There had been something in his office, something dark and malevolent. Something watching him with unseen eyes. Some energy force?
He shivered. He was feeling it again now. That there was something here in this room, up on the ceiling looking down at them. Mocking them.
Hating them.
Or was he just losing the plot?
He took several deep breaths to try to calm himself – and to convince himself that this was all in his mind. He wanted to turn the light on, and go to sleep with it on, something he’d not done since he was a small child. But he did not want to disturb Caro any more than she had been already. And at this moment she seemed to be asleep.
He stared constantly at the green digits on his clock radio: 12.20; 12.50; 1.25; 2.12; 2.45; 3.15.
He had a headache that was becoming increasingly insistent.
Bob Manthorpe.
Dead.
The old cleric had seemed so alive, enjoying retirement. Could there possibly be any link between his visit and the man’s death?
Ridiculous. It was just coincidence. Unlucky timing.
He got up, went to the bathroom and swallowed two paracetamol. As he returned to bed, Caro asked him, her voice sharp, clear and wide awake, ‘Are you OK?’
‘Just a bit of a headache.’
‘Me too.’
He felt the bed move as she climbed out, heard her cross the floor, then the bathroom door close. He heard the toilet flush. The sound of running water. Then her footsteps approaching. Then the faint boing of a spring beneath them and the bed rocked a little. Sheets rustled.
Some moments later she asked, her voice quavering, ‘Ollie, what are we going to do? We can’t live like this.’
He reached across, took her hand and held it tight. ‘We’re going to deal with it. We’re going to get it sorted. Trust me. I know what we have to do.’
‘I’m scared. I’m scared for Jade, I’m scared for us.’
He swallowed, not wanting to tell her that he was scared too. He had to be strong for her.
