House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  Table of Contents

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Chaz Brenchley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Chaz Brenchley

  The Keys to D’Esperance Series

  THE KEYS TO D’ESPERANCE

  HOUSE OF DOORS *

  HOUSE OF BELLS *

  The Selling Water by the River Series

  BRIDGE OF DREAMS

  RIVER OF THE WORLD

  * available from Severn House

  HOUSE OF BELLS

  Chaz Brenchley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2012

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2012 by Chaz Brenchley.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Brenchley, Chaz.

  House of bells.

  1. Horror tales.

  I. Title

  823.9'2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-264-1 (Epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8156-4 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  She had never really believed in the guru.

  She was a firm believer in herself, in all her guilt and grief.

  And in the noble art of running away, geographical distance, that too.

  It had seemed enough, once. Behind her, back in London, where everything was loud and immediate and unbearable. Get away, get far away, be somewhere else. Somebody else.

  It had seemed all too wonderfully attractive, if she were honest.

  She could be honest, sometimes. If she was paid enough.

  ‘Money’s not an issue.’

  Well, of course he’d say that. For him it was not, it never had been. He’d been born to it: the Honourable Anthony Fledgwood, son of his father, junior lordling and newspaperman. Editor to one of his father’s rags; entitled to appear in the very social pages that he published. Entitled? Determined, rather. Which was how Grace had bumped into him tonight, as it happened: at that kind of party where one only went to be noticed.

  For him, it was his stock-in-trade; for her, a professional engagement.

  Those weren’t quite the same thing, though it was easy sometimes to confuse the two. Confusion was something that she traded on.

  Had traded on, in the past. No longer. The cost was too great.

  That night her host Dr Barrett was her employer, though he was too polite to admit it. Certainly he was far too polite to call her a hat-check girl, though really he might as well. It wasn’t that kind of establishment, but even so.

  By her own definitions, it was a bell, book and candle night. She and the other girls were there to answer the door, serve drinks, listen to the conversations – and contribute too, in a wide-eyed admiring kind of way – and then go home with anyone who wanted them. It was a literary party – hence the book in ‘bell, book and candle’, coming handily between the doorbell and the night light: she could still amuse herself with her own bitter wit, even if she found little enough to laugh at any more – so there was likely to be a queue of hopefuls. In her own case, it was likely to be a long one. Notoriety will do that to a girl.

  Notoriety will fill a room, too. Fill a party. She was one of the reasons the place was so hot tonight. A better reason – she thought – than the Soviet poet whose new book was being launched, whose embassy watchdogs stood four-square on either side of him in bad suits, glowering. In a spirit of perversity, she had ignored the poet and tried to charm the watchdogs. Having achieved nothing but a more severe glower, she was devoting herself now to their torment: sashaying by with a sway of miniskirted hips at every opportunity, trailing literati and gossipmongers at every step; bringing them the virtuous and regular orange juices they had demanded, spiked with lethal quantities of vodka they knew nothing about; sending anyone she could to murmur bright nothings into the poet’s hairy ear, just a little too softly for his minders to overhear.

  The vodka might be wasted effort – they were Russian, after all, and built like brick outhouses: so far they were showing no effects at all, despite the heroic quantities of Stolichnaya they were innocently imbibing – but she thought she was winning on all other fronts. Even outhouses had libidos, seemingly. They watched her come and go and come again. They watched everyone, of course; it was their job, just as it was her job – a part of her job, one of her jobs – to be watched. But even so. They watched all of the girls most of the time, which probably wasn’t their job at all. But even so. She didn’t think they did it indiscriminately. She thought they discriminated absolutely. In her favour, if it was a favour to be so coldly lusted after. She could feel their chill hunger follow her around the room like the eyes of a sinister portrait in some cheap Hammer Horror flick: dark and empty and meaningless and deadly.

  Deadly to her spirits, at least, if she would let it be. But, of course, she wouldn’t. She’d go on goading them, however she could manage it, for whatever mean pleasure it might give her. Already they were eyeing their charge askance, frowning after the purveyors of those whispered messages, half inclined to whisk him swiftly back to the embassy. Or else to durance vile, if life in the USSR wasn’t already vile enough. A little more of this, a little more purpose to it, and she thought she really could make them believe that MI5 was trying to seduce him. The game was all the more enjoyable because they didn’t know the rules. They didn’t even know they were playing.

  She had decided, quite some time ago, that all of life was a game. It was how she got through. She had lost a couple of rounds, quite catastrophically – but how could that matter in the long run, or the short run, or at all? It was just a game. She could be a good loser and start again. Nothing left to lose now, after all . . .

  ‘Grace, girl! Amazing Grace. Still strutting your stuff, then? Of course you are. I’d be proud of you, if I had any right to be. If you were mine.’

  ‘Tony.’ His hands were on her hips, his voice was in her ear; he was here, then. Well, of course he was here. He was a player too: on his father’s behalf, and his own. If those were different. Neither man – nor any of their newspapers’ avid readers – would have the least interest in a Russian poet, but there were other attractions tonight: the Beautiful People, the buzz of fashionable London. And herself. The Honourable Tony’s readers were very much interested in her. Likely, he’d have a photographer stationed in the street outside. No matter. She knew a back way, if she was leaving with compa
ny, if she wanted to keep it a secret. Or she could be bold, leave by the front door, keep her face on the front page. If she chose to play it like that.

  She leaned back against the familiar comfort of his body and said, ‘You wouldn’t want me, darling. Your dad would disapprove.’ She was fine on the front page, selling papers at 6d a time; not so good on his son’s arm at a nightclub. Appalling across the dinner table in the family home; worse across the breakfast table next morning. Unthinkable within the family, permanent, married.

  Just as well that had never been on the cards, then. Not a legitimate move.

  Tony made a noise that was obviously meant to mean bugger Dad, but it wasn’t very convincing. Everything he had – money, position, access: that last particularly, every open door – he owed to his father. There had never been any question of a split between them. Even before she disgraced herself utterly, finally, irrecoverably.

  She was still a player, but the game was different now. All she had to play for was survival. He was out of her reach. He probably always had been; it was just that she knew it at last.

  Still. He had a tight grip and a firm body. A tight grip on a firm body, which was hers. His father wasn’t here. If anyone was watching – apart from the Russian goons – she didn’t care, and apparently neither did he.

  Of course, people were watching. People were always watching. There was probably somebody here who was being paid to watch her, and not by Tony or any of his rivals. When once you’ve been a trouble to the government, they don’t ever quite let you run free. Mr Wilson would be keeping an eye on her, she was sure.

  She still didn’t care. She tried not to think about it much; it was too strange, knowing that the Prime Minister read reports on what you did, who you saw. Who you slept with.

  She tipped her head back on Tony’s shoulder, so that she could squinny sideways at his face. ‘Love the moustache, darling.’ No doubt Daddy would disapprove of that too, but he shouldn’t. It suited the shape of Tony’s face, and made him look older at the same time. Not too much older; not too old for the velvet suit she stroked her cheek against. Not too old for her, either. Just old enough. Responsible. A newspaperman. Son of his father . . .

  Oh, bugger the old man. She could say that – or at least think it – with more vehemence than Tony. Remembering that particular, dreadful breakfast.

  She wouldn’t let him spoil this evening too. Besides, she was here to work, not to lament past losses. Nor, strictly speaking, to tease the embassy bulldogs. Tony was legitimate, exactly the kind of man she was here to amuse. If she could play him somehow to her advantage in the doing of it, then she’d be well ahead. Scoring all down the line, both ways from the middle. If that made any sense at all. She didn’t know much about sports. Her games were more complicated, and mostly played in the dark.

  He seemed entirely willing to play along. His hands wanted more than a cuddle, but that was minor; there were cuddles and more for the asking, all through the flat. Presumably, he was hoping to play her too, looking for a score on his own behalf. She’d expect nothing less.

  She’d best show dutiful as well as willing, in case mine host was watching. She did still want to go home with her pay packet in her handbag. That at least, whatever else she took with her, whatever detours she made on the way. She peeled herself determinedly out of his hands and smiled up at him. Hat-check girl, she reminded herself, but he wouldn’t be parted from his trademark Nehru jacket, nor his cap. These days they were everywhere, since Lennon had appeared in one, but Tony had his first. It was absurd to be so defensive on his behalf, but she still was. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Yes, why not? And fetch yourself a glass of whatever coloured water the good doctor is allowing you, and then come and talk to me. In here –’ with a sideways jerk of his head towards a closed door – ‘where we can be private.’

  ‘Tony, it’s a party. There’s no such thing as private.’

  ‘That’s Barrett’s study. There’s a reason why he shuts the door.’

  ‘There is. I know. He thinks it’ll keep people out. Which would technically include you too – but, as it happens, what I also know is that there are at least half a dozen people in there already. They think closing the door will keep the smell of dope in, but it’s a party. There’s no such thing as private. Everyone knows.’

  ‘Grace. Fetch the drinks. Leave the people to me.’

  So she did that, coming back with one bottle of Pol Roger and two glasses, because she was damned if she would let Tony or anyone catch her drinking a hostess cocktail. He was absolutely right, of course, that was exactly what she should be doing; but if she got tipsy and misbehaved, it would only add to her legend. People would talk, The Daily Messenger and other papers would gossip, and Dr Barrett’s party would be discussed all over. Even more than it was going to be already. It would be epic; he’d be thrilled.

  And one thing was for sure, certain safe. Whoever she went home with tonight, it wouldn’t be Tony Fledgwood. So it didn’t really matter, did it? If she got sozzled?

  She found the study door ajar, the corridor outside more of a squeeze than it had been. Someone pinched her bottom as she wriggled by, but that was only to be expected. Almost to be played for, it almost counted as a score. Bruises only rise on living skin; she was a survivor, she could wear them with pride. See me? I was there, and now I’m here. I had that, all of that; now I have this. These. I fell a long way, but I’m still alive, still breathing. Still bleeding. See?

  Someone had thrown a chiffon scarf across the desk lamp; she slipped through the door into reddish light, the colour of sunsets. And the smell of bonfires, that too: a harshness in the air, a texture like tweed as she breathed it, rough and outdoorsy and scratching at her throat. A roach still burning in a brass incense-holder, the rising twist of smoke almost deliberately ironic.

  All those people in the corridor must have been the people in here before. Somehow Tony had chased them out. He sat waiting for her, solitary and almost imperial in this dusky light, on a white leather couch with his arm along the backrest. It wasn’t an invitation so much as an expectation. She would sit there beside him, and his arm would come around her shoulders as a matter of course, and—

  No.

  It was his right arm that lay flung along the sofa-back, and he was devoutly right-handed. She held out the bottle to him, and of course he reached to take it with that hand. She stood waiting while he fussed with wire and foil and cork, while he cast the odd amused glance up at her, while neither of them said a thing. When the bottle spurted foam, she was ready with a glass to catch it as he tipped. When both glasses had been filled and topped up as the froth subsided, she dragged a worn red pouffe out from under the desk and sat on that. Deliberately at his feet, to let him feel even more like an emperor dispensing favours; deliberately not within the ambit of his arm. Giving herself a little leeway, space for some feelings of her own.

  He said, ‘Well, then. How’ve you been, Grace?’

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. No, wait – you do know. If you read your own paper, you do.’

  ‘I know what we’ve been saying about you. That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Thanks for admitting that, at least.’

  ‘Be fair,’ he said, worrying at his moustache with his finger. That was new, of course. Previously, he would have taken his cap off and worried at his hair. ‘If you don’t talk to us, we have to take what we can get from other people. And we haven’t been as hard on you as the rest of Fleet Street is. Have we?’

  ‘No, Tony. No, you haven’t.’ Small mercies, something to be grateful for: a paper that was almost on her side. That would listen to her, at least. If the lawyers would only let her talk. She could have sold her story and made some real money, if she’d been allowed to. The Dentist, The Arms Dealer and the Diplomat: Jailed Call-Girl Spills All. Or: ‘It Was Only A Game,’ Says Playgirl. Or: The Chink in Her Amours, if they wanted to be clever.

  In
stead – well, this. Hat-check girl, trading on her notoriety. And snatching the chance to sit at Tony’s feet, just for ten minutes, when she should have been working the rooms, fetching drinks and laughing at jokes she didn’t think funny and dancing with oily strangers, waiting for one of them to grip her wrist and claim her for the night. It was understood, even by those who didn’t know she was being paid for it, that was what she was there for. She and all the other girls, but herself particularly. She was that kind of girl. Everyone knew it.

  Still, that kind of girl was sure to be flighty and unreliable, not always where she should be or doing what she was paid for. And besides, Tony was a guest here, and a significant one. Barrett couldn’t complain if she spent ten minutes closeted alone with him. Or if she spent an hour. Or if he was the one who took her home . . .

  No. Not that. Never again. She’d been quite clear about that, and so had his father.

  ‘So. How are you, pet? Really?’

  That shrug was becoming automatic, apparently. She stilled it, and found herself staring down at the bubbles in her glass. At least something was light and frothy and on the rise, the way she used to think life was. Her life, especially: she hadn’t ever thought much about anyone else’s, until that was all she had to think about, when it was gone.

  It was hard to talk, apparently, even to him. The longer she waited, the more her shoulders hunched under the weight of all that silence, all those words unsaid.

  He outwaited her, which was just mean. At last – talking to her knees, because she could, apparently, still not talk to him – she said, ‘I hate it. All of it. All of this,’ with one wild champagne-spilling gesture which might as well have been a gesture back through time to the girl she used to be, when she used to spill champagne for the sheer gorgeous hell of it. ‘I hate being the party girl that people pay for, because it gets their parties in the paper. I hate being so desperate I’ll go to bed with anyone for a hundred quid and a kind smile – and, actually, don’t bother about the smile. I hate that. I hate the way everyone thinks it, and I hate the fact that it’s true.’