Last Rites

by Shaun Hutson

  She was due to leave Walston in less than three weeks and the prospect filled her with excitement. Not because she wanted to get away from home because she’d always loved how close her family had been but because she saw the move to university as the next chapter in her life. The beginning of her career in medicine. Perhaps, she told herself, she would return to Walston to practise once she’d qualified as a doctor then she could be surrounded by her family once more. However, in the meantime, the years of study she faced were years she relished. She was looking forward to the freedom that university life would give her. Sarah was looking forward to increasing her number of sexual partners. She’d had just two boyfriends in the last four years and she was anxious for more. Being at university, away from the strictures of her home life and the restraints imposed by living in such a closed community, she was excited at the prospect of sleeping with many more men and, she thought, smiling, women too if she felt like it. Away from home she wouldn’t be judged and her every move wouldn’t be watched the way it was in a small town like Walston. She wanted to indulge, that was the best word she could think of to describe her yearning for more sexual experience. And, once she got to university, she intended to indulge fully.

  Sarah slowed down a little as she attempted to change the CD in the car, glancing into the glovebox where her brother kept his discs. She finally selected one and put it into the player, adjusting the volume again as she drove.

  A lorry passed her going in the other direction, barely able to squeeze past on the narrow country road. Sarah swerved slightly, fearing for a second that she was going to scrape her brother’s car against the juggernaut as it passed. She gripped the wheel tightly as the car bumped into the mud at the side of the tarmac, wet earth spraying upwards as the wheels churned through it. Perhaps, she thought with a smile, she should run the vehicle through a car wash before she got home. Her brother wouldn’t be happy if his pride and joy was filthy when she returned it. There was a petrol station on the road she was now driving along, she remembered, and she was sure they had a car wash there. Two birds with one stone, Sarah thought, smiling.

  She guided the car around a corner, slowing down slightly to negotiate the bend. There were trees and hedges on either side of the road here and the tarmac bent and twisted sharply to the right and left for the next three hundred yards. She eased off the accelerator, aware that there was another car approaching her from behind. She could see the headlights in her rear-view mirror as the vehicle drew nearer.

  Sarah shook her head, irritated at the stupidity of the other driver. He was less than ten feet from her back bumper and seemed intent on getting past despite the hazardous nature of the road. A motorbike swept past in the other direction, the rider swaying precariously as he took the bend.

  Still the car behind her stayed close and Sarah now realised with disbelief that he was going to try and overtake her. She thought for a moment about speeding up, making him wait but then she relented and pulled slightly to one side, allowing the other vehicle more room. He shot past like a bullet, brake lights flaring as he struggled to negotiate a bend just ahead.

  Sarah cursed him under her breath and drove on, astounded at the other driver’s impetuosity.

  The road was now straightening out once again and she pressed her foot down a little harder on the accelerator. There was a high brick wall about two hundred yards ahead marking the entrance to one of the local farms.

  Sarah pressed down harder on the gas, the car speeding up. She turned up the volume on the car stereo, sound filling the vehicle as it increased in speed. She was humming along to the music, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove.

  She floored the accelerator.

  The car was doing seventy when it hit the brick wall.

  43

  Walston, Buckinghamshire

  Mason carefully descended the stone steps into the cellar, the single unshaded bulb that hung from the roof of the subterranean chamber lighting his way.

  He was pleasantly surprised that the cellar didn’t smell damp. It wasn’t thick with the webs of long-dead spiders and there wasn’t a layer of dust on the floor so thick that it covered his feet. As he stood three steps from the bottom and surveyed the large expanse of underground room, he was relieved to see that it had been well maintained. The possibilities for storage were endless but, Mason thought, there was ample scope for turning this below-ground area into something more inviting.

  You’ve got a study and living room and two bedrooms as well, how much living space do you need? You’re on your own. It’s not as if you need to turn it into a playroom for Chloe, is it?

  He forced the thought from his mind and descended the last three steps to the floor of the cellar.

  To his right and left, the shadows were deep but not so impenetrable that he couldn’t see what looked like wall-mounted shelves. Mason crossed to those closest and noticed that there were several canisters of propane gas there. He also saw a camping stove and some metal tent pegs. Perhaps his predecessor had been a fan of the great outdoors, he mused. Beneath the shelves, there were some old, discarded wellington boots and some empty cardboard boxes, one having housed a portable TV. There were a couple of paint tins and a roller, the white paint having long ago dried up and set. Mason saw more empty cardboard boxes and some battered wooden stepladders propped in one corner.

  He walked around the cellar, moving his gaze over all the detritus of his predecessor’s life. There were more shelves but this time piled up on the floor with their brackets, waiting to be mounted. Maybe Usher had been a bit of a handyman when he wasn’t teaching, Mason thought, trying to picture what kind of man had possessed not just his job but his new home before he had.

  Why so curious? He probably wouldn’t give a damn what kind of person had taken over his position. Why so inquisitive about him?

  Mason found another large cardboard box, the lid open. He peered inside and found several jigsaw puzzles. He smiled to himself. Perhaps Usher had also enjoyed the more sedentary diversions offered by such a pastime as much as he’d evidently embraced the vagaries of camping. Mason pulled one of the puzzles free. It was of a Victorian-looking doll. A strange subject for a man to choose, thought Mason. He saw a price marked on the jigsaw box. Two shillings. Perhaps this and the other puzzles hadn’t been bought by Usher at all. Maybe they’d been shifted down to the cellar from the cottage above to prevent clutter. Maybe that was what had been done with the camping gear too. Mason reminded himself that he was still no nearer to discovering anything about the man who had lived and taught here before him.

  He moved to the rear of the cellar and found a large noticeboard with a year planner on it. More likely, he assumed, to belong to Usher. There was an empty fish tank next to it. Then more boxes. Cardboard and wood. These were stacked as high as the ceiling. Wedged one on top of the other like bricks with seemingly no room to pull them free or open them. Many, he noticed, were also sealed with thick tape.

  What the hell was in those?

  An empty and discarded freezer, the lid open and gaping to reveal some dead moths and spiders at the bottom. Beside it there was a broken hoover. Everywhere in the cellar, the signs were of items that had passed their usefulness. The whole subterranean chamber was filled with the residue of past and unfathomable lives.

  He passed the stacked-up plastic garden chairs, pausing a moment when he found another cardboard box, this one piled high with magazines.

  The unshaded bulb that lit the cellar flickered and Mason glanced up at it, wondering how long it had been there or, more to the point, how much longer it was going to last. Then he turned his attention back to the magazines.

  He pulled the first three out of the box. There was a copy of GQ and two music magazines. Mason assumed, glancing at the dates on them, that they had been bought by Usher. He pulled at the pile nearest to him and saw that the magazines were actually in order by month of publication. He smiled, realising that his predecessor had obviously been
something of a hoarder. Mason dug deeper among the neatly stacked magazines, wondering if their subject matter might give him his elusive clue that he sought to Usher’s character.

  You’re doing it again. What’s the big deal about what he was like? What difference does it make?

  Mason chuckled to himself as he pulled a copy of Penthouse from the pile. Still smiling, he flipped it open, inspecting the array of girls within. There were more copies of that magazine and some less sophisticated examples of the genre closer to the bottom of the first box. Mason glanced at the covers then stuffed them almost guiltily back into the cardboard containers where they’d been stored.

  The next open box had some jump leads in the bottom and some hardback books.

  It was the last box, the one pushed right against the wall, that Mason seemed most interested in. There were several unmarked video cassettes inside.

  Porn?

  He smiled to himself again then noticed that there were also some smaller cassettes like the kind that would be used in a camcorder.They were scattered on top of some carefully folded shirts and trousers. Mason lifted some clear and noticed that there were sheets of paper jammed down the side of the clothes. He pulled some of it free.

  There was writing on it.

  Mason, for some unaccountable reason, felt his heart pumping a little faster. Was he, he wondered, about to find out something significant about his predecessor? Was he going to uncover some deep dark secret about the man who lived here before him? He opened a folded sheet up and scanned the words there.

  It was a shopping list.

  Mason laughed out loud, the sound reverberating within the cellar.

  Really earth-shattering. An amazing discovery. Now you know that Usher liked beefburgers, cornflakes and Lucozade as well as being fond of porn, popular music and fashion. That’s a major breakthrough.

  Mason tossed the sheet back into the box, shaking his head in the process.

  He was about to close the box and leave the cellar when there was a dull pop from behind him.

  The light went out.

  ‘Shit,’ Mason muttered, pretty sure that he hadn’t got any spare bulbs in the house. He headed for the steps that led up into the kitchen, grunting when he collided with one of the cardboard boxes in the now Stygian gloom. The box toppled over, spilling its contents across the floor in front of him but, in the blackness he now found himself in, Mason had no idea what he’d accidentally upended. He dropped to his knees and realised that it was more paper.

  He decided to check it out after he’d replaced the bulb.

  Mason actually had his foot on the bottom step when he heard the sound of tentative footsteps from above him and, in that split second, he realised that there was someone else in the house.

  44

  Mason paused on the steps for a moment, wanting to ensure that the noise he’d heard was actually the creaking of the floor above him. In the darkness of the cellar, sounds seemed to be amplified and, when he heard the same noise seconds later, he was sure.

  He moved as quickly as he could up the stone steps, careful not to crack his head on the ceiling as he drew nearer the hatch that led into the kitchen beyond.

  Mason pushed open the flap and stepped out.

  Kate Wheeler screamed.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she panted, stepping back, one hand to her chest.

  ‘Not quite,’ Mason grinned.

  ‘You scared me,’ she told him.

  ‘I can see that. You scared me too. I heard someone up here and thought I’d got burglars.’

  ‘Sorry. I came to say hello. Welcome to the school. Hope you’re settling in. All that.The front door was open so I walked in. Sorry.’

  ‘The front door was open?’ Mason repeated, frowning. ‘I thought I shut that after Grant left.’

  ‘It’s shut now. I closed it behind me. Perhaps the hinges need adjusting,’ Kate smiled. ‘Did you say the headmaster had been here too?’

  ‘Part of his duties I suppose, welcoming a new member of staff.’

  Mason looked at her, once again struck by her good looks. He swallowed hard, surprised at himself for feeling so instantly and intoxicatingly attracted to her.They were feelings he had thought dormant for so long, to have them return with such vehemence now unsettled him slightly.

  ‘Geography and games, right?’ he stated. ‘That’s what you teach.’

  She nodded.

  ‘For almost seven years now,’ she told him.

  ‘The headmaster told me,’ Mason admitted.

  ‘And you’re a history teacher?’

  ‘Somebody’s got to be.’

  ‘At least you get this place with the position. That’s a perk.’

  ‘What about you? Where do you live? At the school or in the town?’

  ‘I’ve got a flat in Walston. Nothing very grand.’

  ‘Where are you from originally? Which part of Ireland?’

  ‘Dublin. My family moved here when I was fifteen.’

  ‘Are they still here now?’

  ‘My mum died five years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry. What about your dad?’

  Kate swallowed hard.

  ‘He isn’t well,’ she began. ‘He has Alzheimer’s. He’s in a home in Walston.’

  ‘Sorry I asked,’ Mason sighed as the kettle boiled.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she told him.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘He’s been getting steadily worse for the last six or seven months. I see him as often as I can. But there’s nothing I can do to help him.That’s what makes it worse. I just feel so helpless.’

  Mason nodded and poured boiling water into a mug, dropping a tea bag into it.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he offered. ‘I was the same when my daughter died. I couldn’t sit there beside her bed just watching her die. I know it sounds terrible but I got to the stage where I couldn’t even go to the hospital. We knew she wasn’t going to get better. I didn’t want to see her like that. I still hate myself for it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t.’

  He shrugged, pushed the mug of tea towards her then retrieved a bottle of milk and the bag of sugar from the worktop and placed them on the table nearby.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t unpacked the milk jug or sugar bowl yet.’

  Kate smiled and helped herself to both.

  ‘Are you married?’ she enquired. ‘If you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he smiled. ‘We’re separated. The business with my daughter was just too much. I think my wife blamed me, resented me or was just plain bloody angry with me for not doing more.’ He sighed. ‘It broke us up.’ He took a sip of his tea.

  An uneasy silence descended, eventually broken by Mason.

  ‘Shall we change the subject?’ he offered. ‘You obviously didn’t come here this afternoon to watch me wallow in self-pity, did you?’

  Kate managed a smile.

  ‘Tell me all about the school,’ Mason went on. ‘Which teachers to steer clear of. Which kids I should watch out for. Who gets pissed at staff parties. Which parents I shouldn’t ask for their autographs. That kind of stuff.’

  Kate chuckled.

  ‘What’s the headmaster like?’ Mason enquired. ‘He seems like a decent enough guy.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And the kids?’

  She regarded him evenly over the rim of her mug as she sipped her tea.

  ‘Watch out for Andrew Latham,’ she said, quietly.

  Mason shrugged.

  ‘One of the older boys,’ she continued. ‘He’s in one of your classes on Monday.’

  ‘Have you been checking up on me?’

  ‘I just thought you should know about Latham. Forewarned is forearmed as they say.’

  ‘What exactly should I watch out for?’

  ‘Him and his little group. There’s usually five of them with him. Always the same ones. Two girls, Jo Campbell and Sammi Bell. They’re beautiful. Stunning. And they kn
ow it. Watch yourself with them.’

  ‘Jail bait? Flirt with the men teachers, do they? That kind of thing. I’ve seen it before, Kate.’

  ‘Not like this, you haven’t,’ she snapped. ‘These kids are different.’

  ‘Trust me, they can’t be any worse than the ones in the school where I used to teach.’

  Kate sucked in a deep breath and sipped at her tea again.