The House on Cold Hill

by James, Peter

  Desperate for them to arrive, and feeling powerless, he attempted to turn his focus back to the urgent task of sending apologetic, damage-limitation emails out to all the other classic car dealers to whom the unfortunate Cholmondley email had also been copied. After that he sent a holding response to a query from a criminal law firm in Brighton who were looking for a new website design – the recommendation had come via one of Caro’s partners in her firm. He couldn’t deal with it properly now, his mind was all over the place, and his hands were shaking so much he was struggling to type.

  Shortly after 6.00 p.m. Ollie heard a deep metallic boom, some distance away, like two giant dustbins that had been swung into each other. Then, after another quarter of an hour, he was again distracted from his emails by another sound, this time the wail of a siren in the far distance. When they had lived in Brighton these sounds were part of the ambient noise of the city. But out here, they were rare.

  It was getting louder. Closer. Then it stopped, abruptly, only a short distance away. He glanced through the tower window overlooking the drive, and looked down towards the lane. Although it was only a quarter past six, it was already growing dark – there was perhaps another hour of daylight left, if that. He could hear another siren now, then a third one as well. A few moments later Ollie saw slivers of blue light moving fast, glinting through the trees. Then they all halted.

  Although he couldn’t actually see all the way to the end of the drive from here, he estimated, with deepening dread, that it was roughly where the emergency vehicles had stopped. His office door opened behind him. He swivelled round and saw Caro, looking anxious. At the same time, he heard yet another siren.

  ‘Ols, something’s going on. I hope there’s not a fire or . . .’

  He nodded. ‘Shall I go and take a look?’

  ‘It sounds really close – like on the road outside. Whatever’s happening might be stopping the vicar and this minister from getting here. They were due fifteen minutes ago, weren’t they?’

  He glanced at his watch and saw she was right. ‘I’ll jump on my bike and go down and take a look,’ he said.

  The wail of yet another siren added to the din.

  ‘Be careful, Ols.’

  He hurried downstairs, out through the atrium door and strode towards the shed where his bike was kept. As he pedalled down past the field of alpacas, careful not to let the flapping legs of his jeans catch in the chain, misty drizzle stung his eyes and he regretted not having put on a baseball cap. Nearing the gates, he saw a blaze of strobing blue lights directly outside them.

  He braked and dismounted, his heart in his mouth.

  Ten yards or so down the hill a tractor was halted, at an odd angle. Beneath it he could see the remains of a small purple car. It looked as if the tractor had T-boned the car, ploughing straight across the passenger compartment, which was almost crushed flat. A crimson ribbon of blood, widening as he looked, was spreading across the wet tarmac.

  It was the same tractor he had seen before on a number of occasions, belonging to the local farmer, Albert Fears. He saw several police cars, two ambulances with masked-out windows, a slab-sided Fire and Rescue truck, and a group of police officers in white caps, two of whom were kneeling beside the purple car.

  The car he recognized. It was the one he had seen, twice, on Saturday.

  The Reverend Roland Fortinbrass’s Kia.

  ‘Please stand back, sir,’ a woman police officer said to him.

  ‘I – I live just up there,’ Ollie said, lamely, unable to take his eyes from the carnage. ‘I’m expecting visitors,’ he added, looking at the car again, and unsure why he said that.

  ‘They’ll have to park and walk, sir, we’re closing the road until the Collision Investigation Unit have been.’

  Ollie saw the figure of the farmer, Albert Fears, sitting hunched and forlorn in the back of one of the police cars.

  Fortinbrass and the Minister of Deliverance, Benedict Cutler, were in that purple car. He knew it. And he could see from the way the passenger compartment had been flattened, like a sardine tin that had been stamped on, that no one in there could be alive.

  That asshole farmer Fears, he thought, feeling sick. Staring at the blood again, he thought for a moment he was going to throw up.

  He shivered.

  TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE ARE ON THEIR WAY!

  THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK. THEY’RE DEAD. YOU ALL ARE.

  He shivered again at the memory of those words, just a short while ago.

  God, what the hell was happening? Was he responsible for this somehow? Was his mind somehow controlling events?

  He tried to rationalize. It was clear what had happened. Fortinbrass had been driving up the hill and turning right into Cold Hill House. Albert Fears had been thundering down, recklessly as usual, in his tractor. Either Fortinbrass had misjudged the farmer’s speed, or he’d stalled the engine. Whatever.

  He felt deep, black despair seeping through every cell in his body. What was he to do now? Ride back up to the house and tell Caro that their big hope had just been snatched away? She needed help. They all did, but Caro most of all right now. Who could give it to her? Her mother? Her mother would be best.

  Or what about Annie Porter, he wondered?

  His kindly neighbour would understand Caro’s shock. She would probably be seriously shocked herself, and he was surprised, with all the commotion, that Annie hadn’t come out to see what was going on. Especially remembering how angry she was about the reckless speed at which the farmer, Albert Fears, always drove his tractor.

  ‘May I come past?’ he asked the officer.

  She escorted Ollie hurriedly past the crash site. As he wheeled the bike he glanced back at the scene in horror. His view of the wreckage was partially blocked by fire officers, one wielding a hydraulic cutting device, like giant bolt-cutters, and paramedics who were kneeling, peering in through the windows. There were shouted instructions, intermittent static crackle and bursts of voices from radios.

  Bile rose in his throat. Swallowing hard, he jumped back in the saddle and freewheeled a short distance down the lane, swinging across and stopping by the front gate of Garden Cottage. As he dismounted again he noticed, to his surprise, that the gate had been painted – a brilliant white. He wondered when she had done that – must have been over the weekend, he decided.

  He leaned his bike against the fence carefully, and noticed that, in addition to the new paint, the gate was no longer sagging and had new hinges as well. As he walked up the short garden path to the front door he saw it was also newly painted, a gloss navy blue. There was a small, shiny brass lion’s-head knocker, where before there had just been two empty clasps. She’d really had a makeover on the cottage, he thought, rapping hard, hoping this did not mean she was sprucing the place up to sell it and move away. He liked her a lot.

  A few moments later the door was opened by a pleasant but weary-looking woman in her twenties, holding a grizzling, puce-faced baby in a spotted babygro. A male voice called out from another room, above the sound of a television, ‘Who is it, Mel?’

  Ollie suddenly realized the interior looked quite different. Annie Porter’s antique furniture and her framed nautical pictures and photographs on the walls had gone. Instead there was a gilded mirror and three watercolours of cricket scenes on newly decorated walls. It all looked so completely different from when he had last been here, just days ago, that he wondered, for a moment, if in his confusion he had come to the wrong house.

  But that was impossible: this was the only cottage for a good three or four hundred yards.

  Wasn’t it?

  ‘Yes?’ the woman said, sounding mildly irritated, and he realized he had just been standing there, looking around. Was she Annie Porter’s daughter, or perhaps niece, he wondered? Were she and her husband doing a makeover of the place for the old lady?

  ‘I just popped in to have a word with Annie – is she in?’ he asked.

  ‘Annie?’

  No
w he was really wondering if he had come to the wrong house. ‘Yes, Annie Porter.’

  She was pensive for a moment. ‘Annie Porter? You mean the old lady who used to live here?’

  Ollie felt a strange sensation, as if the ground was moving very slightly beneath him. ‘Used to live here? This is Garden Cottage, isn’t it?’

  The young woman was staring at him very strangely. ‘Yes, this is Garden Cottage. But we’ve been almost a year. We bought this as an executor sale, after Mrs Porter died. You didn’t know she’d died?’

  ‘Died? That’s not possible!’

  ‘I think she’s buried in the village churchyard.’

  The cottage seemed to sway even more. He felt the ground rising beneath his feet, tilting him. He touched the door frame to support himself. ‘I’m Oliver Harcourt – my wife and I live just up the lane– in Cold Hill House. I saw Annie here only a few days ago. I don’t understand – I – I—’

  The young woman continued to stare at him very strangely. ‘Kev!’ she called out, suddenly, with slight panic in her voice. ‘Kev!’

  A harried-looking man in his late twenties, in a grey T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, came out into the hall. ‘What is it, Mel?’

  She pointed at Ollie. ‘Kev, this man doesn’t believe me that we’ve been here for months.’

  He frowned, tilted his head at her then stared directly at Ollie, frowning again, and asked her, ‘What man?’

  56

  Monday, 21 September

  The woman with the baby turned and went back into the house. As she did so, Ollie heard her say, ‘There was a man standing there, Kev, I promise! I saw him! He told me his name – Oliver Harcourt. He said he lived up the lane in that big house, Cold Hill House.’

  ‘Mel, there was no one there,’ her husband replied.

  ‘I didn’t imagine it!’

  ‘Your postnatal depression. Maybe it’s playing tricks on your mind?’

  The door closed behind her.

  Ollie stood still for some moments. What the hell was going on? Was he trapped in the middle of some elaborate conspiracy to drive him insane? Annie Porter dead?

  Impossible.

  ‘I think she’s buried in the village churchyard.’

  He climbed back on his bike. The sirens had all stopped. There was complete almost ethereal silence, just the last twitters of birds as darkness fell. His head spinning, he rode on down into the village. He passed the cottage that always displayed the ‘Bed & Breakfast’ sign. The sign was gone. Then he braked hard as he reached the smithy. It was no longer a smithy. Instead a large sign outside proclaimed: YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE.

  When had that happened? It must have been in the past few days, because he’d not seen that earlier in the week.

  Moments later, as he pedalled on, something struck him as different about the front of the pub. It had been spruced up, painted a lighter colour that was hard to make out in this light – white or cream – and ‘The Crown’ pub sign had gone. In its place was a larger sign, in elegant script.

  BISTROT TARQUIN

  He braked hard, locking up the back wheel, and stared, blinking in confusion. Several smart cars were in the car park; the place looked expensive and rather precious.

  He rode on, pedalling urgently to increase his speed, as if trying to ride back into sanity. As he saw the lychgate of the church ahead of him he dismounted and propped the bike up against the flint wall.

  Moments later, as went in through the gate, a short, very serious-looking man in a tweed jacket and dog collar came out of the church and headed down the path towards him. As they crossed, Ollie asked him, ‘Excuse me, do you know by chance where I can find the grave of a lady called Annie Porter?’

  The clergyman walked straight past him without any hint of acknowledgement, as if he had not seen him.

  Ollie turned. ‘Excuse me!’ he called out. ‘Excuse me!’

  The man went out through the lychgate and turned left towards the vicarage.

  Rude bastard, Ollie thought.

  The more recent graves were towards the rear, behind the church, he recalled. That was where he had found the O’Hare family, and there had been quite a bit of open ground beyond them, no doubt to accommodate more graves in the future. He hurried up the path, anxiously, and although it was steep, he was pleased that neither the exertion of the cycling, nor of this fast walking, was giving him the breathlessness and tightness in his chest he’d been experiencing just recently.

  He reached the grand marble headstone of the O’Hare family, then saw a further row of headstones beyond it that he didn’t recall from his previous visit here.

  He shone his phone torch along the newer headstones and then stopped, in disbelief, as he read the inscription.

  2016? Ollie thought. This was not – not possible. Somehow, whatever was going on inside his messed-up brain, he was seeing into the future, or at least imagining he was. But suddenly, it no longer seemed to matter. It didn’t bother him, he was just mildly curious – as if he had become aware in a dream that he was dreaming. He would wake up in a few moments and everything would be fine. Back to normal.

  Out of curiosity he moved along to the next headstone. It was a similar size to Annie Porter’s, but it looked more expensive, a fine white marble.

  Then, as he read the carved inscriptions, he felt the ground suddenly dropping beneath his feet, as if he was in a plunging elevator.

  He stared, rooted to the spot. The twenty-first of September was today.

  57

  Monday, 21 September

  Ollie turned on his heel and sprinted through the churchyard, out through the lychgate, grabbed his bike and, without wasting time to switch on the lights, rode as fast as he could back up through the village.

  Then, as he approached the pub, he saw it was back to how it had been before. Slightly gloomy and shabby-looking, the sign, ‘The Crown’, in need of some maintenance. The smithy was still there, too, as it had been before. And the ‘Bed & Breakfast’ sign was back.

  Normality again.

  But he was shaking. He was scared rigid. He wanted to get back to Caro and Jade. Had to stop them from leaving the house. They must stay there, be calm, wait, get through the night and into tomorrow. To 22 September. To make sure what he had seen was just a dream, part of the weird stuff that was going on in his head, and not a time-slip into the future.

  He was finding the exertion of pedalling hard. A short distance up the hill, he stopped and dismounted, panting hard and sweating profusely. Then as he stood, slowly getting his breath back, a figure loomed out of the darkness, striding down the hill towards him, with a pipe in his mouth. Moments later he could make out the white hair and the goatee beard of Harry Walters.

  ‘Harry!’ Ollie said.

  Walters strode straight on past him as if, like the clergyman in the graveyard just now, he had not seen him. Then he stopped a short distance along the road and turned his head. ‘You should have listened to me. I told you to leave while you could. You stupid bugger.’ Then he marched on.

  Ollie dropped the bike and sprinted after him. ‘Harry! Harry!’ Then he stopped. Right in front of his eyes, Harry Walters had vanished into thin air.

  An icy slick of fear wormed through him.

  He turned and walked back up to his bike. As he stooped to pick it up, he heard the roar of a powerful car coming up the hill, fast. Then he saw its headlights. He stepped to the side of the road to let it past, although with the road closed ahead for the accident, it wasn’t going to get very far, he thought.

  As it drew alongside, still travelling at speed, too fast for this narrow lane, he saw it was a massive, left-hand-drive 1960s Cadillac Eldorado convertible. The driver’s window was partially down and Ollie could hear music blasting out. The Kinks, ‘Sunny Afternoon’.

  Then, as he watched its huge tail lights disappear round a bend, he smelled a rich waft of cigar smoke in the air.

  He remounted and pedalled on, wary of meeting the Cadillac coming
back down. It would not get through the police roadblock. Then, after only a couple more minutes riding, as he drew level with Garden Cottage, he had to stop again for a rest. What the hell was wrong with him, he wondered? Why was he so short of breath?

  As he stood panting he was distracted by the cottage gate. It was back to how it had been, shabby and hanging badly from its rusty hinges.

  He didn’t have the energy to ride any more, so he pushed the bike on up the hill. He was greeted by the grinding sound of cutting equipment as he rounded the bend. A blue and white ‘Police Accident’ sign had been placed in the middle of the road, and an officer in a yellow fluorescent jacket and white cap, holding a torch, stood beside it.

  As Ollie reached him, panting hard, and staring with a deep chill at the work going on around the crushed car, he said, ‘I live just up there – Cold Hill House.’

  ‘OK, you can come through, sir, but I’ll have to accompany you.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about what’s happened?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘I think the people in that car were coming to see my wife and me,’ he said.

  ‘Friends of yours, sir?’

  ‘The local vicar and another chap. I recognize the car. That tractor driver – he’s a bloody reckless idiot – tears up and down here like it’s a racetrack.’

  ‘But you didn’t witness the collision, did you, sir?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I think I may have heard it.’

  ‘Thank you, all right, if you could move along please, sir, there’s a hoist just coming up the hill.’

  ‘Yes – sure. Er – can you tell me, where did that Cadillac go, just now?’

  ‘Cadillac?’

  ‘Yes, a great big 1960s convertible – it went shooting past me a couple of minutes ago.’

  ‘It didn’t come up here, sir, I’d have stopped it. It must have turned off.’