Strange Tombs

by Syd Moore

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Unless this Angela alibis him.’

  A head popped between our shoulders. It was accompanied by a sharp citrusy aftershave that smelled both expansive and expensive.

  ‘Listen chaps,’ Monty whispered. ‘I’m afraid I have to be off. Tabby seems fine. I’ve given her the Christmas present, which should keep her safe and sound, but I’d like you to watch out for her tonight, all right? She’s not as young as she used to be. I’ll be expecting you to ensure her safety.’

  ‘Aren’t the police going to be around?’ asked Sam. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Possibly he was as daunted as me at the responsibility.

  ‘Yes, but you two are going to be inside the building, aren’t you?’

  We looked at each other. Sam mouthed ‘study’.

  I nodded. ‘Yep.’ Wherever I lay my vanity case that’s my home.

  ‘Jolly good. I’ll leave her in your capable hands, then. Do give me a tinkle tomorrow with any updates.’

  Despite all external signs to the contrary Monty really could be quite an Essex geezer sometimes. Always countering favour for favour. Not that I would ever get involved in such behaviour, of course.

  Which made me think of Big Ig and then immediately gave me another idea. ‘Monty, I will most definitely look after Tabby tonight. You can guarantee my utmost vigilance.’ I took a breath. ‘If you get me an appointment with Araminta de Vere.’ Despite evidence to the contrary I hadn’t forgotten about my biological mum.

  Both Sam and Monty blinked hard and stared at me.

  ‘Please? She knows more about Celeste than she’s letting on.’ I shrugged. ‘I’m thinking, what with the whole thing about her being in prison for trying to burn me alive, she might not be inclined to accept a visit from me. But if you make the appointment, Monty, and pull a few strings in that way that you do so very well …?’

  Monty’s features became taut across the top half of his face, betraying a frisson of irritation. But it was visible for only a fraction of a second before the good-natured and pleasant façade was pulled up again. ‘I applaud the seamless segue from my aunt’s wellbeing into your jaunty request,’ he said with a smile that was probably not natural.

  I fluttered my lashes and also smiled in a way that was not natural. Yet these kind of gestures are a language of their own. One that Monty was fluent in. ‘And, Mr W, can you do me another favour please? Take the whisky decanter for testing too? Last night’s shot was, by rights, far too strong. It flattened me more quickly than a trio of Buttery Nipples. And seriously,’ I said out the side of my mouth, ‘I know how to handle my Buttery Nipples.’

  Monty’s eyes widened. ‘The mind boggles,’ he murmured.

  ‘Never backwards with coming forwards,’ Sam whispered under his breath. ‘But she’s got a point.’

  ‘Come on then Ms Strange,’ said Monty, jerking his head towards the door. ‘You’d better show me which decanter you’re talking about.’

  Which was good timing because Bobby was doing some high-octane glowering while Scrub turned the screws on Cumberpot.

  Sam and I followed the agent out. I didn’t want to stay in the seminar room anyway – I don’t enjoy seeing grown men cry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was late. Almost midnight. Sam and I were trying hard to remain alert despite the dim lights and quiet house.

  My colleague had taken up position behind the desk, where I had so magnificently failed to stay awake last night.

  I was on the chaise. To start with I had got into my sleeping bag, but it proved so cosy that I climbed out of it for fear I’d doze off early again. Instead I’d pulled the fleece over and kept watch on the garden out of the window.

  It wasn’t particularly nice out there. Dark inky clouds obscured the moon. The evening had been a wet one, and inconsistent, with sporadic showers and a limp drizzle. The lawn looked very moist and the line of trees that edged the garden seemed blacker than before.

  Both Sam and I had remarked that we felt it unlikely the bell-ringer would return tonight, particularly as he, or she, had no bell. And it was very soggy underfoot. And there were two panda cars in the drive.

  At the same time, we were aware that tonight was the last night of the course. If the murderer was going to strike again this would also be their last chance.

  Scrub hadn’t yet decided whether or not she wanted the residents to continue their stay ‘in town’. As that might require their transferral en masse to the Premier Inn in Chelmsford and a large accommodation bill, I thought it was probably unlikely.

  So I had eschewed wine at dinner and instead made a cafetière of strong coffee, which we were topping up from an electric kettle lent discreetly by Sophia.

  I was necking the dregs from my third cup when Sam said, completely out of the blue, ‘Why do you want to see Araminta de Vere?’

  I pulled my face away from the window and stared at him. Over the tops of the monitors, his big dark eyes put me in mind of a hound. ‘Why? What do you mean “Why”? Why shouldn’t I?’

  Sam shrugged and sat back into the leather chair, but his eyes were still keen. ‘Er, most people prefer not to see their attackers. That woman did try to kill you.’

  I rested my coffee on the window sill and folded the curtain back so that there was no light leaking out. ‘I know she tried to kill me, Sam,’ I said. ‘I was there at the time.’

  He continued to stare, without any blinking, like he’d just had some training from Bobby Brown.

  I sighed. ‘I want to see her because I think she knows who my father is.’

  Sam held my gaze. ‘You know who your father is.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not like that. My biological father.’

  He opened his mouth, looked about to speak, closed it, then opened it again. ‘But don’t you think there’s a good reason you don’t know about him? I mean where has he been all these years?’

  My turn to shake my head. ‘His absence doesn’t necessarily suggest disinterest. Mum and Dad said that Celeste didn’t tell them about her boyfriend. Perhaps there was a good reason for all the secrecy. And Araminta de Vere, when she was dragging me across the lawn …’ I said, casually, ‘… she said that night she chased Celeste, she was in the car with “her partner”. Araminta kept saying “they”. “They lost control of the car”, “they skidded off the road”, “they hit the tree”. Not to mention her insistence that “they didn’t go in the brook” when she was present. There’s a lot there that I need to understand.’

  ‘But the police report said that only Celeste was found.’

  I rolled my eyes and waved my hand. ‘Tsk, tsk. Come on, Sam. You’ve met Monty. You know how some information can be “forgotten” in reports. And this was decades ago when people were careless and easily bribed. Have you not seen Life on Mars?’

  He breathed out heavily. ‘But you were drugged.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You might have remembered it incorrectly.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Which is one of the reasons I need to see her. Go over it again.’

  ‘But she might not tell you the truth. She hasn’t for years. What reason has she got?’

  ‘None,’ I agreed. ‘You’re right. But it’s not going to stop me trying.’

  Sam rubbed his forehead then sat forwards and switched his gaze to the monitors. ‘Why do you need to find him?’ he asked eventually.

  I thought about it. ‘Because I feel obligated to.’

  ‘To him?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. The gods. Last night they told me to.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He jerked his chair even closer to the desk and put his elbows on it. ‘Perhaps you should have a sleep. You’re still not better are you?’

  His assumption bothered me. ‘I am,’ I said so you could hear the petulance. ‘I was thinking – even if my vision last night wasn’t real – it still came out of me. Out of my head. So what I saw, last night, the god. It’s a part of me that’s trying to tell me something.
And the more I think about it the more I feel I should try to find out who my real dad is. It might help me unearth what happened to my mother. Celeste,’ I explained, in case he was in any doubt.

  ‘But what if you do find him?’ he persisted. ‘Have you thought about what that will mean?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘If I find him, I’ll have to say hello won’t I?’

  Sam sighed and sent me a weak smile. ‘But,’ he said gravely, ‘he might be dead.’

  ‘He might be alive.’

  ‘He might be alive and not want to say hello back. He might have a nice life with a new wife …’

  I was getting fed up with this. ‘Look, Sam, why are you trying to put me off?’

  ‘I just care about you, Rosie. Very dee––’

  ‘Shh,’ I cut him off and sat up.

  Sam winced. ‘I was just about to tell you how I—’

  ‘Sam, shut up,’ I whispered and put my finger to my lips for emphasis. ‘I just heard something.’

  For a moment he looked very annoyed. Then he said, ‘Oh,’ and held his hands up. ‘Where?’

  I pointed to the office ceiling. ‘Sounded like someone on the roof.’

  ‘The roof?’ Sam spluttered, then froze, as we heard a rapid scattering sound, lots of little knocks which came in quick succession, like gravel being kicked about up there. ‘But that’s the bedrooms isn’t it?’

  Sometimes I was surprised by his lack of observation. ‘This is a single-storey extension, Sam. Hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Oh.’ His eyes darted to the monitors. ‘Hang on. Look here – movement on the first-floor landing.’

  I swivelled my legs off the chaise longue and was about to say, ‘I’ll go,’ when we were both alerted to the sound of tapping. Although it could have been on the outside of the building it reverberated down the internal wall of the office.

  ‘Where is that coming from?’ Sam asked, then before I could answer said, ‘I’m going outside to find out. You take the landing.’

  I nodded and wrapped the fur fleece around my shoulders. As he buttoned up his coat I said, ‘Be careful though Sam. Right?’

  He grinned. ‘You too.’

  I watched him leave, hearing the quiet click of the latch on the front door, and had a quick peek at the monitors. Sam was right, there was something dark and curious moving about the first-floor landing. That particular camera lens was not sensitive so all I could see was a cloud-like shape crawling or writhing on the floor upstairs. Although I wasn’t immediately spooked, I did find my feet were reluctant to tip-toe out the door.

  They obeyed me though and within seconds I was at the foot of the stairs. I draped the fleece on the bottom post and slunk into the shadows, shifting the weight of my foot to the first step.

  As I lifted myself onto the second I thought I heard a snuffle. Something animalistic, like the breath of a beast, above me on the landing.

  My heartbeat, which was already faster than average resting rate, started to accelerate.

  Upstairs there was another noise. Something that I can only describe as a faltering cry, a fragile moan, as if a creature not of this world was lamenting its inevitable demise.

  No, I thought, what a silly notion. There will be, as usual, a rational explanation to all this. Maybe it’s the pipes. I forced myself up on the third step, then the fourth, then the fifth.

  By the time I had got to the turn on the stairs I knew it absolutely was not, no way José, the pipes. For the simpering was now accompanied by a deeper wail, and I thought I heard another person whisper, muffled and from further away, ‘Oh my love, let me in.’

  This is bloody ridiculous, I thought. We’re in the middle of Essex, not out on the wily windy moor. This was more likely to be a boy-racer trying for a bunk-up than Cathy haunting her Heathcliff.

  Not that it was likely to be a ghost at all.

  Because ghosts didn’t exist.

  Although …

  Sam, himself, was having doubts.

  ‘Shut up, Rosie,’ I told myself, almost on the landing. This was no time for close contemplation of life after death and the consequent existential implications that may or may not come with that.

  As I got to the top of the stairs I glimpsed something bedraggled and black, oozing up the side of a door, scratching its dark nails at the wood. It was a bizarre and surreal sight, which got even stranger: for the thing heard my tread on a floorboard. Although I halted immediately and held my breath to make no more sound, it became aware of my presence.

  I flinched as I saw in the darkness, the awful thing rotate its head, neck dangling before me. My lips let go of a scream.

  Just at that moment the door, which the thing had been scratching at, flew wide open. Light flooded the landing.

  ‘Rosie,’ said the silhouette framed in the doorway.

  I recognised the voice.

  Laura!

  Thank god it was just her.

  ‘What on earth,’ she said, looking down on the ground. ‘But what on earth is Margot doing on the floor?’

  I clocked the ‘spectre’ and realised that Laura was right. In the light from her room, a rather dazed Margot was half crawling, half sitting, now blinking at the ceiling.

  ‘I heard something …’ she said. ‘Tap, tap … I … where am I? Have I been sleepwalking again?’

  At once relieved, though still uncertain of what was going on, I let the air come out of my lungs.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s get her back into bed.’ And she knelt down and folded the old lady up in her arms.

  I went and got under Margot’s other shoulder, then we both heaved her up. ‘No,’ I said, and stopped her. ‘Do your bedroom and Margot’s both overlook the office and cloakroom downstairs?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ Laura nodded.

  ‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you downstairs into the day room.’ It was the safest place now, I thought, being at the back of the house. ‘There may have been someone up there, outside your windows. Sam’s gone to investigate.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Laura, startled. ‘I thought I heard a voice. Some knocking. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not. Do you think we should wake the others?’

  I thought briefly about Tabby, but then decided that she’d be safer up here on the other side of the house. ‘Let’s leave it for now.’

  ‘But, what if …?’ Laura began.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We should get her some water and check her over. Let’s try to get her downstairs.’

  We had been in the day room for just a minute when Margot came to.

  Laura was standing by the fireplace in front of the sword on the mantelpiece. I had propped Margot on the Chesterfield and was sitting at her feet arranging a blanket across her knees.

  ‘What a thing,’ Margot said, her voice clearly very shaky. ‘What a scare. I am quite unnerved. Rosie, dear, fetch us a whisky,’ she said, then turned to Laura. ‘I know you don’t like it dear, but think of it as medicinal now. We all need one.’

  Laura murmured assent, then a voice at the door said, ‘Best bloody idea anyone’s had all day.’

  It was Nicholas in a pair of silk pyjamas. Jocelyn was trailing behind him, yawning in a onesie with rabbits printed over it. She looked cute. ‘I’m in,’ she said.

  ‘Get five for all of us,’ drawled Margot.

  ‘You’d better make it six,’ said Tabby, who appeared behind Jocelyn and went straight over to sit next to Margot on the sofa. ‘What’s happening? What’s all the commotion outside?’

  ‘Outside?’ I said, surprised that there was something more dramatic going on elsewhere.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tabby. ‘Voices. Lights. I think the police are here.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, and thought about going to help, but Margot called out, ‘Quick Rosie, we need to calm the child,’ and nodded her head at Laura. So I turned back to the corner bar and saw the whisky in the bottle, not the decanter, which I remembered I had given to Monty to test.

  �
��I’m okay, thank you,’ said Laura. ‘I don’t like it.’

  Then the reason why I had asked Monty to test it came back to me and nearly knocked me over.

  A massive lightbulb switched on inside my head.

  The whisky.

  I knew it.

  My tolerance to Buttery Nipples was real and strong. I knew that too. Why had I even doubted myself?

  ‘Hurry, Rosie,’ said Margot again, and with one mighty internal clunk the penny finally dropped.

  ‘Good grief,’ I said, as I looked at the bottle and slapped my forehead. ‘It’s been staring me in the face the whole time.’

  ‘What has?’ asked Tabby, as I turned round to face her.

  ‘So obvious,’ I said. ‘But then you don’t always think these things through, do you? And we’re so conditioned by society. Plus, you know my insight thing – it’s been kind of muted. Since the summer.’

  Tabby’s face was blank.

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ Nicholas said in a low voice to Jocelyn who replied in a loud whisper, ‘Not a clue.’

  Another shade drifted through the door, a satin kimono with a fuzzy blue cloud perched at the top. ‘Why is everyone up? What’s all the noise about?’ Starla floated over to a chair by the table.

  Nicholas and Jocelyn shrugged.

  ‘Not sure. I was hoping she’d dish out that delicious whisky,’ said Nicholas.

  I laughed simultaneously whirling round and facing him. ‘You know, I did wonder if it was you who might be at the bottom of all this,’ I said to the silk-clad fop.

  ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Why on earth …?’

  ‘Because you’re so vile,’ I explained. ‘And tried to point the finger at everyone else. At The Griffin that afternoon when you were doing your nut about Cullen and Laura––’ I stopped as Nicholas’s face took on a proud and twisted grin. ‘You were making such a fuss I thought perhaps you were just trying to take the heat off. I mean, if anyone was going to play a cruel trick, for a laugh, you fitted the profile.’

  Nicholas’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped as he gave in to full-flowing indignation. I had him on the hoof so carried on. ‘But then, on Wednesday, you were clearly very unnerved.’