‘And then, one night, he just vanished. With his two sons. Gave the staff – cook and housemaids – an extra evening off and they came in late and tiptoed up to bed so as not to disturb the family. The following morning, the housemaid takes in the early morning tea – no one there, the beds not slept in. After a day going hairless, they brought in the police.
‘No signs of forced entry, no signs of violence. Only one thing missing – the lovely new model steam-yacht they’d spent the previous three days fiddling with, ever since it came from Ross and Makepeace. It had its own little four-wheeled cart for conveying it about, and that was found by the shore of the Pond.
‘The Police dragged the Pond of course, for three days, but nothing unusual turned up. They thought the family had done a flit, and contacted Wheeler’s solicitor, who was as puzzled as they were. The one thing he knew was that Wheeler had made most of his money speculating on the stock exchange. They waited for the usual things then – creditors to turn up, withdrawals from the bank – nothing. Wheeler didn’t owe anybody anything, apart from Ross and Makepeace. He never tried to draw his money out, and there was close to £30,000 in the bank – that’s about three million by today’s standards.
‘After that – not a sign of them from that day to this. After seven years, the solicitor had them presumed dead, by the court, and that’s when Ross and Makepeace must’ve finally been paid.’
‘Was there any will?’ I managed to get out at last.
‘No will – no known relatives, though one or two people tried it on in the East End, and one man went to prison for attempted fraud. All the money went to the government in the end, under the intestacy laws. What do you make of that?’
‘Phew,’ I said feebly. ‘Are you coming home now?’
‘No, I’ve managed to contact a reporter on the current local paper. We’re going for a drink in about quarter of an hour. He wants to write up our dig, but I’m going to pick his brains about Abbeywalk . . .’
‘You will come straight home after that?’ I asked anxiously.
‘I suppose so . . .’ She sounded reluctant, still high on the thrills of the chase. ‘Why – are you all right, Morgan?’ There was a tinge of contempt in her voice, that stung.
‘I’ll manage – till then.’ I was aware of the sky outside growing dimmer still. The swallows had gone to their nests. ‘Take care, Hermione.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m used to handling reporters.’
She rang off.
But it wasn’t reporters I was worried about.
Soon after dark, the phone went again. I’d been off the couch once, to go to the loo, and make myself a sandwich I didn’t want, and put all the lights on and drawn the curtains. I felt so weary, so helpless. Things were happening to me; I wasn’t happening to anything.
It wasn’t her; it was James.
‘Mr Morgan, I want a word.’ James at his most formidable; the other side of him, Holy James. As usual I wondered what had happened to the cheerful rogue who could swap the white painted dial of a long-case clock for a repro brass-face, sell the thing for twice the money and not turn a hair . . . nobody like James for being two separate halves.
‘I’ve put our case to some friends of mine who know about such things. Who’ve spent years studying them . . .’
‘What case is this, James?’ I said very coldly. Really, I was worried about Hermione, and what she was getting up to, out there in the dark.
‘That steam-yacht . . .’
‘I told you not to mention that to anybody, James. You promised . . .’
‘There’s some things too important for our human promises. The Lord . . . I went to Him in prayer and he told me to go and tell them . . .’
Oh, these impossible people who go to the Lord in prayer. Why does He always seem to tell them to do exactly what they want to do anyway?
‘Very convenient . . .’
‘Now don’t be like that, Mr Morgan. I know you’re an unbeliever, but we can’t allow that to hinder the Lord’s Work. We think that real evil is at work here. Not just human wickedness, but Evil Incarnate that must be trampled down before it spreads. They’re prepared to . . .’
‘Look, James, can’t this wait? I’m expecting an urgent phone call . . .’
‘Not as urgent as this, Mr Morgan. Our adversary the Devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. My friends have told me such things you wouldn’t believe. Right here in Birmingham. The kind of stuff that never reaches the newspapers . . . this could . . . this is . . . a matter of life and death, Mr Morgan. More important than life and death . . .’
‘You sound like Bill Shankly talking about football . . .’
‘You can scoff, Mr Morgan. But I don’t think you’ll go on scoffing for much longer. Something could be happening this very night. I wouldn’t want some other poor soul drowning themselves in the Wheatstone Pond . . .’
That touched a vital nerve. And in my pain and terror, I said something very rude about him and his religion.
There was a long and nasty silence, then he said, slowly, and keeping his temper with a great effort, ‘I feel sorry for you, Mr Morgan.’
Then there was a click, and the dialling tone resumed, and in the silence that followed, it felt like I’d turned away my last friend.
And for what? For daring to say out loud what I’d only been thinking? Why do we modern people mince words in such a mealy-mouthed way? If there was not Evil Incarnate in that house, there was the next best thing to it, and no amount of clever, reasonable psychological jargon was going to make it go away. I saw again, vivid in my mind’s eye, those tiny skeletons, and, in the face of them, clever reasonable psychological jargon was dumb.
I began to pace up and down, while Suki watched me with impassive curiosity. Why do we pace up and down, exhausting ourselves?
Before I had time to entirely exhaust myself, the phone rang again.
Oh, how good it was to hear her warm, living breathing voice.
‘Morgan? There’s some more stuff come out. D’you know, of those seven suicides in the Pond, over the last five years, four of them had bed-sitters at Abbeywalk? As Mike said, he knows it’s bed-sitter land, and bed-sitter land is bad for suicides, but this is not just coincidence. The reporters know; they talk about it among themselves. That last little girl who used to come into your shop, Margie Duff, she had a bed-sitter there. She’d only been in it three weeks. The only tenant. But it was cheap; she couldn’t afford anything better. Morgan, you still there?’
I was. But the world was reeling about me again. Little Margie Duff, with her hopeful little smile, who so wanted to be liked, approved of. What had happened to her in that house? It was unbearable to even contemplate . . .
‘I’m still here,’ I said.
‘I’m just going up there to have a look around. I won’t be long . . .’
‘Don’t! For God’s sake, don’t!’
‘Steady, Morgan. Don’t panic. I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll be home inside an hour. I’ll fetch in a takeaway . . .’
‘You won’t be able to get into that house. It’s locked up solid. I’ve tried it.’
‘Then no harm can come to me, can it? I just thought there might be a broken window in the basement . . .’
‘Look, I can organize a way in for you. I’m sure Mossy can arrange it. We could do it properly, together. Tomorrow night, if you like . . .’
‘I happen to feel like going up there tonight, Morgan. On my own. I’m a big girl now. I’ve been looking after you today, remember? So how come you think you can organize my life?’ The phone rattled, and I heard her say, over her shoulder, ‘All right, Mike. Just another half, then. I have to be getting on . . .’ Then she said, ‘I’m going to have another drink with Mike. I’ll be home by eleven. Take care. And you could feed Suki. It’s long past her time. I wonder she hasn’t been pestering you . . . See you.’
‘Hermione!’ I shouted. �
�They have a homewatch scheme up Belvoir Road. They’re very twitchy. If you get arrested for burglary, it won’t do you much good with the City Toy Museum . . .’
Then I realized I was spinning my lies to the dialling tone.
Chapter 11
I shall never understand myself. I am so many different people. One minute I was a scared timid doormat, and the next I was moving like a whirlwind. Shoes on, raincoat on. By the phone in her kitchen, a card for a minicab firm was pinned up. And, miraculously, they answered straight away.
‘I want a cab to Wheatstone – fast. And I’m willing to pay for speed.’
There was a hint of a smile in the man’s voice. ‘Got just the man for you, squire. He’ll be with you in two minutes.’
I rummaged frantically until I found her big torch; shoved a small bottle of brandy in my pocket and picked a big heavy walking-stick, with a knob of brass for a head, from the umbrella rack by her front door. That stick was deceptive; like so many things Victorian it had thoughtful hidden depths. Reverse it in your hand, hold the bottom ferrule, and it becomes a club that will easily cave in anybody’s skull. Victorian footpads didn’t have it all their own way . . .
A middle-sized car turned in at the mews, and went past me like a rocket. I chased after it wildly, as it did a tight three-point turn; it nearly knocked me down twice; then I fell through the held-open door, and squirmed to arrange myself in the narrow but deep bucket seat. As I groped for a safety-belt, the acceleration hit me like a fist.
‘Where to in Wheatstone, squire?’
‘Belvoir Road; know it?’
‘You show me, eh?’
It must have been about ten. The wide tree-lined roads of inner London were amazingly empty under the high yellow neons. Everyone who was driving anywhere had got there, and it was not yet time for them to set out back home. The car cornered in a way that left my stomach skidding sideways.
He seemed to be doing about ninety down the straights.
‘Golf GTI is it?’ I asked, to show I wasn’t terrified.
‘Nah. Lancia Delta 4x4. There’s only about four hundred of them in this country. Me insurance is £1400 a year . . .’
I glanced at him sideways. He was very small and very trim; the kind of trimness that PE instructors had, when I did my National Service. Big pectorals under a grubby ELF T-shirt. Jeans, trainers. Short dark curly hair, and three days growth that was not designer-stubble.
He cut across a number 13 Hammersmith bus at the lights, with less than a foot to spare. ‘I only do this to pay for this bugger,’ he said. ‘She’s worse than a wife. Eats me out of house and home . . .’
I reached into my wallet and tossed two tens on to the dashboard. They immediately fell off, on to the floor, among a heap of oily rags. But he nodded and gave a grunt of satisfaction. I felt he was a good bloke to have on my side.
‘Ever have bother with the police?’
He grinned, a far-away remembering grin. ‘No contest. They’re underpowered. Suspensions as soft as shit. Policemen can’t drive . . .’
Should tyres be making that screeching noise?
‘We’re in Wheatstone, squire,’ he said warningly, after a bit. My startled wits saw my own shop flashing past. I managed to stammer out, ‘Straight on past the Park gates. Then first left . . .’
It was a leap, from a world of physical terror, to one of mental terror. ‘Fourth on the right,’ I said. ‘Would you mind parking in the drive? With your headlights full on?’
He grunted, discouragingly. I said, ‘I’ll pay you for your waiting time.’
He grunted again, contentedly. We screeched to a stop, and he flicked on full beam.
He had quartz-halogens, of course. They made the whole crazy front, with its glass canopy like a helmet, seem to burn with orange fire. Behind the house, the outhouse where the suitcases lay was outlined like a solitary flame.
I got out stiffly, and hefted my stick. Left to himself, he flicked the courtesy light on, and settled to a book on car maintenance.
I walked up to the front door and tried it. What a relief to find it locked hard. I gave it a couple of kicks, to make sure; more out of spite, really. The echoes faded away inside. It sounded like the hall floor and staircase were bare boards.
Encouraged, I walked around and tried the back door. It was softly illuminated by the headlights reflecting off the outhouse. Locked hard. I kicked twice again; ran my torch over the windows, downstairs, upstairs. No broken glass.
No more doors. No broken windows. There were steps down to a cellar. No open windows there, either; though some kind of monstrous white growth of fungus was oozing out of the brickwork. I was very glad there was no point to venturing down those steps . . .
So, we’d beaten her to it. She’d still be finishing her last drink with Mike. She couldn’t possibly be inside . . . Could she? So why was I imagining her, tiptoeing up those dark stairs? Suppose the front door had swung shut behind her? She’d be trapped . . .
Irrationally, I turned to the front door, to try it again.
It swung open, under my hand, as I tried the handle . . .
All the confidence I’d built up over the last half-hour just collapsed. I only had enough left to push the front door open, shine the torch in, get a glimpse of a wide bare stair leading up into darkness, with a cardboard box, poised to fall, about halfway up. Then the door swung shut on me again. I swear there was malice in that door. It would always swing shut; it might lock behind you . . . somehow I knew it was a trap.
I gave it another shove, full of spiteful force, so it banged back against the wall. I yelled in, ‘Hermione? Hermione?’
The house diminished my voice to an echoing squeak. But I felt I had done something foolish; somehow, hearing those echoes, I became convinced she was in there. And somehow, part of myself was now in there with her.
I looked round for something to prop the door open with. But there was nothing handy . . .
Except that cardboard box, half-way up the stairs. If I pushed the door a third time, and made a run for it, I could be back with that box before the door swung shut . . . I was sure I could.
I took a deep breath . . .
And then I heard two brief toots on the car’s horn. I spun round, and saw there was someone in a long white raincoat talking to the driver.
Hermione had a white raincoat . . .
I ran back.
It was Hermione, furious with me. ‘What the blazes are you doing, Morgan? You’ve got the place lit up like the Fourth of July. This your idea of a secret reconnaissance? I wonder you didn’t lay on a red carpet and the Brigade of Guards Band . . .’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘It’s not the right time. That house is . . .’
‘Be damned to the right time. I’ve come for a look, and I’m going to have a look.’ She pushed me aside, and made for the front door. It swung open, under her hand.
‘Don’t go in there!’ I yelled, grabbing her by the arm.
‘Leave go of me. Who do you think you are?’
We were wrestling now. She was punching at me, and it hurt. She was yelling her head off. I couldn’t hold her much longer.
And then we heard the police siren. We stopped, oddly in each other’s arms, listening.
The police siren was getting nearer. Much nearer.
It died, as the panda swept in at the gate and skidded on the gravel behind my minicab. Two car doors slammed, one just after the other. Footsteps on the gravel.
‘What seems to be the trouble, sir?’
We fell into stammering embarrassed farce. We both said different things, and I don’t think the young constable could make head nor tail of any of it. We collapsed into silence.
In which I heard the other officer talking to my minicab driver.
‘Lovers’ tiff, I reckon,’ said the minicab driver. And, at that same moment, I felt a patch of wetness spreading down the outside of my thigh. I groped for it, and smelt my fingers. Brandy. Our struggles must h
ave loosened the screw-top. As the heat of my body warmed it, I began to smell like a distillery. I saw the young constable’s nostrils work gently.
‘Are you in charge of a motor vehicle, sir?’
‘No,’ I said exasperatedly. ‘I came by that minicab.’
‘Very wise, sir. And have you been drinking, madam?’
‘I’ve had a couple,’ said Hermione. ‘But I’m not drunk.’
‘Would you accompany me to the patrol car, madam? I shall require you to . . .’
As I said, screaming farce. Except that before he led her humbly away, he leaned between us and tried that front door for himself.
It wouldn’t budge. He twisted the handle this way and that, put his shoulder against it, even kicked it. To no effect whatever. I knew then I’d missed a trap, by the skin of my teeth.
‘According to our records, sir, this house has been empty for some time . . .’ There was a question in his voice.
‘I was calling on a girl I used to know . . .’ It seemed the wisest thing to say.
‘Her name, sir?’
Without thinking, I said, ‘Margie Duff.’
He sighed, and relaxed. ‘I’m afraid she no longer lives here, sir. She died.’ I walked with him to the patrol car, while he tactfully broke the news I already knew. They’re pretty good, some of these young policemen; very compassionate; it must be the new training . . .
We found that Hermione had missed losing her licence by about a millimetre. The constable gave her a stern lecture on the evils of drinking and driving.
Which she nagged me about, all the way to her place.
Chapter 12
Mossy gently parked the car under some trees at the top end of Belvoir Road, eased the hand-brake on and consulted his watch.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘just on ten. They’ll all be settled into the big movie or the ten o’clock news. Nobody on the way out to make a cup o’ cocoa yet. ’Less we’re unlucky. Right, I’ll just go over it again. I’ll drop you down the road, two hundred yards apart. Walk nice and slow, as if you’re just out for a stroll. Don’t catch the one in front up, whatever you do. Go in the gate one by one – it’s less conspicious.
Spectral Shadows Page 18
