Terror in the Night

by J. M. Robinson

  Excitement agreed with Graham. He was eating better and losing weight. He didn’t sweat when he walked around at night to turn on the lights anymore, although more often than not he delegated that onerous task to Charlie. He’d had to get Agnes to let in some of his trousers and shirts, even his shoes felt too big for him.

  The murder of Nicholas Sutcliffe and the other fire wardens was as far from being solved as it had ever been. Graham had personally searched the shed later that same day and found nothing to suggest who might be responsible. They had also cleared through the wreckage of Miss Nighthorn’s cottage and hadn’t even been able to turn up a body (or the charred remains of one). The old woman hadn’t been seen since though so it seemed reasonable to deduct that she was dead. But it was perplexing. A problem with a solution that he thought he knew but couldn’t quite get to.

  He thought about it constantly. A persistent mouth ulcer that he couldn’t stop rubbing with his tongue. It all linked together somehow. If he just worked out the next step he felt as if everything else would fall into place.

  A knock on the door broke his train of thought. He looked up but Charlie (ever so keen to prove himself police material) was already on his feet, hand on the door handle.

  “Detective Kable?” said a strangers voice on the other side of the door.

  “Detective Kable is busy. Can I help you with something?” It was the agreed response, don’t tell them you’re a police officer but let them think it. Take down their name and their business, tell them you will look into it. It filtered out the crazies and the time wasters, of which there were more in the village than he had realised.

  “It’s extremely important,” said the stranger but that was what they all said wasn’t it. “I’ve travelled from Lunden to see him.”

  More fool you then, thought Graham before he could start to speculate why someone would travel from Lunden to see him.

  “I’m from Scotland Yard,” said the stranger.

  “Charlie,” Graham said. The boy looked back at him but kept the door mostly closed so that the man couldn’t see in. “Show him in and why don’t you stretch your legs for a bit.”

  “How far should I stretch them?”

  “Give us twenty minutes.”

  “Yes sir,” he said and turned back to the stranger. “Detective Kable has just become available,” he said and held open the door. For a moment there were three of them in the tiny room. Graham was forced to stand but even the new slimline model version of him was bigger than the average man and the three of them were squashed in a most inappropriate way until Charlie squeezed past the stranger and made it outside.

  The stranger turned out to be Mr William Hayes, a man who described himself as ‘quite high up in the business of things’ at Scotland Yard. He looked a few years older than Graham, his hair was silver and he had combed it straight back across his head. His eyes were sunken and his skin loose, he carried a little extra weight but you would be hard pushed to describe him as fat. Graham gave him Charlie’s seat and asked him what his business was. It was a measure of how little he expected to get out of the twice yearly letters he sent to Scotland Yard asking for a job that he didn’t connect Mr Hayes’s arrival to them.

  “We have received your application for a job,” said Mr Hayes.

  Graham considered asking ‘which one’ as he had been sending them for the last ten years, each time receiving a polite but firm ‘no thank you’ in response. He had begun to think himself cursed to spend the rest of his career in the sleepy town of Odamere. The latest application, however, sent just two days before the fire had not yet been dismissed.

  “We would like to offer you a commission,” said Mr Hayes.

  For a moment Graham couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

  Mr Hayes opened the briefcase on his lap and pulled out a small pile of papers. “You have been very persistent with your applications. The commissioner jokes that he can set his watch by them.” He smiled but Graham was too dumbstruck to return the gesture. “We are only sorry that we have been unable to accommodate you until now.” He handed the papers to Graham who managed to raise his hand and take them without dropping them immediately on the floor. “Of course we understand that you have business to attend to here, perhaps a month will be long enough?”

  Thoughts raced around his head. Ten years ago he and Agnes had discussed going to live in Lunden but that was before Bridget had been born. She didn’t even know he had continued sending applications. The village was finally coming to life and, although it was terrible to see people he had known all his life committing and becoming the victims of crime, it was impossible for him to deny that it was exciting. He was thirty-five years old now and he hadn’t even been to Lunden for six years, hadn’t lived there since he was eight, he didn’t know the beats and maybe it was too late for him to learn.

  He looked down at the papers on his knee. The printing was small and tidy, at the top each page was headed ‘New Scotland Yard’. “What’s this?” he said.

  “It’s the conditions of your employment, a contract. It’s a new thing we’re doing.”

  Graham nodded and looked back at the documents. “I will need to read this.”

  “Take your time. My train isn’t until this evening,” said Mr Hayes. The chair creaked as he leaned back in it and crossed his legs at the knee.

  Graham realised that he expected him to read it now. He turned back to his desk and cleared a space, ignoring the pieces of paper that fell on the floor. He leaned over the document and began to read.

  An hour later the papers were signed. They offered him a very generous salary and to help with his relocation; finding somewhere to live and that sort of thing. They would even put him up in a boarding house until a suitable property was found. He shook Mr Hayes by the hand, a smile was on his face by now, the dream he had held for half his life was coming true at last.

  They left the hut together and walked down the path towards his house. When he opened the kitchen door he found Agnes and Bridget sitting together at the kitchen table sewing. She looked up when they entered and when she saw him with a stranger she stood and Bridget did the same.

  Graham introduced them, told Agnes that Mr Hayes was from Scotland Yard and waited to see if she would work out the rest for herself. But she didn’t even know he was still writing them letters. “Mr Hayes has offered me a job,” he said.

  Agnes frowned. “You already have a job.”

  “At Scotland Yard dear,” he said and couldn’t keep the smile off his face any longer. “We’re moving to Lunden.”

  They all turned to look when they heard a chair scrape across the floor. Bridget wobbled from side to side for a moment and then the chair tilted to the left and she fell out of it. Agnes rushed to her and Graham hurried over. He could see white stuff dribbling out of her mouth and pooling under her head on the stone floor.

  “Bridget?” Agnes said, cupping her head to keep it off the ground. “Bridget honey are you alright?”

  “Bridget?” Graham said more forcefully.

  The little girl with the dark hair and pale skin opened her eyes and for a moment he didn’t recognise her. “Don’t go daddy. Don’t go.”

  An hour later she was in bed and Dr. Foster came into the kitchen carrying his medicine bag. “She’s asleep,” he said.

  Graham, Agnes and Mr Hayes sat at the table, a fresh pot of tea in front of them. “Is she going to be alright?” Agnes said.

  “She’ll be fine,” Dr. Foster said. “She’s just overtired and anxious.”

  “Thank you doctor,” Graham said, standing up and shaking his hand. He guided him to the door.

  “I should be going as well,” Mr Hayes said.

  “Won’t you stay for dinner Mr Hayes?” Agnes said.

  “That’s very kind of you Mrs Kable,” he said. “But I must get back to Lunden tonight.”

  She nodded and Graham returned from seeing the doctor up the path. “Are you leaving
?” he said.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Shall I walk you to the station?” Graham said. They hadn’t had a chance to properly discuss the arrangements for his moving to Lunden, the few words anyone had spoken had been regarding Bridget and her haunting command of ‘don’t go’. Of course they had passed it off as the unintelligible remark of a child, because really there was no such thing as a premonition, but it still left him ill at ease.

  “I think you should stay here,” Mr Hayes said. “You should be with your family. I will send a letter detailing the arrangements.”

  “Thank you,” he said, relieved that the spook hadn’t changed the offer of a job.

  They shook hands and Graham watched him walk down the path to the street where there was a horse and cart waiting for him. When he turned back around he found Agnes sitting at the table pouring them both a fresh cup of tea. She sat down at the table. Without needing to be asked Graham sat down as well, there might not be any such thing as a premonition but he did believe a certain kind of telepathy grew between husband and wife when they had been married for long enough.

  “Are you very upset?” he said.

  She shook her head slowly so he knew that she was. “It’s a big change Graham. All of our friends are here.”

  He thought about Nicholas Sutcliffe. Not all of their friends were still there. “We can make new friends,” better friends, he thought, Lunden friends.

  “Will it be the same though?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It won’t be the same but it might be better.”

  She smiled. “What do you think Bridget...”

  “No...” he cut her off and glared at her across the table. “She was unwell. She didn’t know what she was saying.” He was not prepared to give the idea air to breath and grow. There was no such thing as premonitions just as there was no such thing as witches and curses. It was all a lot of nonsense cooked up by superstitious fools.

  Agnes nodded and sipped her tea. They waited for Bridget to wake.

  CHAPTER 5

  A MONTH PASSED VERY QUICKLY. THE NEW LIFE in the village continued to build and every day Graham expected to find some new, previously unimagined, crime had been committed. He was rarely disappointed. Through it all though they somehow found time to take Charlie to Wreathing where he could be sworn in as an actual police officer. Of course he wouldn’t be able to run the whole operation in the village but he could take care of business until someone new could be appointed.

  There were no breakthroughs with the big case: the fire, the three murders, but Graham no longer expected there to be. He had other things to focus on now and thought that it would be neatly swept under the carpet when he left. What were a few unsolved crimes in a country where there were thousands? Of course another way of looking at it was three unsolved murders in a village where there hadn’t been another one for more than three years.

  Plans were made, letters were exchanged between himself and Mr Hayes. His transfer to Scotland Yard was planned and a boarding house was arranged. They packed up their things and he was glad to see that Bridget made no great protest about leaving. In fact she seemed to have forgotten all about her little episode in the kitchen. That was good, he thought.

  Two days before they were due to leave a letter arrived from Wreathing. He was sitting in the kitchen reading the Lunden paper that had been sent to him by Mr Hayes ‘to familiarise yourself with the city’ when it was slid under the door. He barely glanced at the letter until he had finished reading the story about a vicars daughter who had been missing for the last ten years.

  When he was done he sipped the last of his tea and only then did he finally retrieve the letter. He carried it back to the table and opened it absently, already searching for another story in the paper.

  When Agnes came in laden with bags twenty minutes later she found him still sitting there with a pale face still staring at the piece of paper the envelope had contained.

  “Aren’t you due to meet Charlie?” she said, swinging her hips to close the door before turning to get a proper look at him. “Graham what is it?”

  He looked up from the letter, he hadn’t noticed her come in. She put down her bags and came over to sit beside him, taking his hand in hers. The look of concern on her face brought him part way back to himself.

  “Agnes,” he said and then cleared his throat before starting properly again. “Agnes there has been a change of plans.”

  “A change of... I don’t understand.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure he did either but there it was, in black and white and it was co-signed so he had no choice but to comply. “I’m to stay in the village for another week. They’ve found a replacement and as I haven’t left yet they have asked me to stay on and show him around.”

  “Graham that’s...”

  He could tell from the smile on her face that she didn’t understand. That old husband and wife telepathy meant that he knew she wasn’t excited about going to Lunden. If anything the idea terrified her. He squeezed her hand. “I need you to go ahead without me,” he said. “You and Bridget. There are things that need to be arranged.”

  Her smile turned into a frown and then a grimace. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” he said in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Mr Hayes will be waiting for you in Paddington, he will help with all the arrangements.”

  “But Graham...” she trailed off. He knew the real reason she didn’t want to go, she was scared and understandably so. He did not think that Agnes had been further than Wreathing in her whole life. Born and raised in Odamere she had only rumours and hearsay about Lunden to go on.

  “You can do it Agnes and it will only be for a few days. By the time you get everything arranged and settled in I will be there. You will hardly have time to miss me.”

  She nodded but she looked sad. He knew she would get over it. Soon enough the three of them would be settled in their new home. He would have the excitement of policing in the big city and she would have new friends. Lots more than she did in the village. Maybe she would join a society, go out visiting. In the evenings they could go to the theatre and the races. Everything was going to be perfect.

  CHAPTER 6

  THERE WERE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE SHE LOOKED. MORE PEOPLE than she saw even at Church on Sundays. A hundred different voices all of them talking too loudly so they could be heard over the sound of the engine. Thick steam drifted across the wooden platform, she could barely make out the carriages through it.

  Men in business suits carried cases and ladies in long dresses held parasols despite it being night. Men in blue overalls covered in grease walked along the platform carrying tool boxes. There were children running in and out of the steam like little ghosts.

  Graham stood beside her but for once his presence didn’t bring her comfort because she knew that he would leave her. He held Bridget in his arms, they had given their luggage to a porter and he had asked the carriage driver to wait because he ‘wouldn’t be long’.

  She stopped walking and he looked back at her. “It’s this way,” he said and she just nodded because she knew which way it was but didn’t want to go.

  He carried Bridget onto the train. It took her a moment to navigate the steps in her long dress and follow him aboard. She had never been on a train before. She had seen them the time when he had brought her to Wreathing. They had sat in a little cafe and watched the steam billow around the platform like something was arriving from another world.

  She found him standing at the door of their compartment. He had put Bridget down and already she was climbing onto one of the high backed brown leather seats. A man sat by the window with his nose in a small book. He looked up, saw her and stood.

  “This is Mr Park dear,” he said as if they were old friends. Then to Mr Park, “my wife, Mrs Kable.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Mr Park said. He offered her his hand but she didn’t want to take it. His soul was cold and not in the way Graham somet
imes was, he seemed to radiate an icy coolness. But manners were manners and she took the offered hand. It surprised her to find it as warm as if it had been in a glove.

  “It’s nice to meet you Mr Park.”

  “Mr Park is also travelling to Lunden,” Graham said.

  “May I have a word with you?” Agnes said through gritted teeth. She thought that other men might not be so comfortable having their wife and child travelling with another man they did not know but, despite his big city dreams, Graham was, at heart, a simple man. He was used to life in a village where you knew everyone and a stranger was just someone you hadn’t shared a drink with yet.

  They stepped into the corridor so that she could still see Bridget in the compartment over Graham’s shoulder. Mr Park had sat back down and out of sight but Bridget was staring at him. “Yes dear?” Graham said.

  “I thought you said we had a private compartment?”

  “You did,” he said. “Now you don’t.”

  She scowled at him. He really could be the most infuriating man at times.

  “Mr Park has an emergency to attend to in Lunden. There were no other tickets available.”

  Agnes wondered when this had been arranged. Had Graham known that she would be sharing the compartment with this Mr Park and if he did what did he know about him?

  “The train operator contacted me this morning and asked if I would be willing to share our compartment. Without me travelling with you I said there would be plenty of room.”

  She nodded, at least she understood now even if she wasn’t pleased about it. But what was the use of telling him, she didn’t want them to part on bad terms.