Chasing the Dark

by Sam Hepburn

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  Doreen closed the door, eyeing the box. Before she could say a word I made a dash for my room, kicked the door shut and laid the box on the bed. I must have sat there looking at it for at least half an hour. Stupid really. The worst thing I could ever imagine had already happened to me and I was getting spooked by a cardboard box. Forcing myself, I stretched out a fingertip, nudged up the lid and sneaked a look.

  If I hadn’t been so angry I’d have laughed. No wonder the cops couldn’t find the hit-and-run driver. They couldn’t even get the right ‘effects’ back to the right family. Inside was a holdall, but it wasn’t Mum’s. I lifted it out. A jab of misery snuffed out the fury. Mum’s bag, the black squishy one she carried all the time, was lying underneath it. Tugging back the zipper, I caught the faint, familiar smell of her, which got stronger as I took her things out one by one. Her empty purse, a trashy romance called Love Me Do, a biro, a make-up bag bursting with little tubes and brushes, a bottle of her perfume and a crumpled tissue with a lip-shaped smudge of lipstick in the corner. Just for a second I pretended she was standing behind me and when I turned round she’d be tying her hair back or buttoning her coat and telling me not to mess with her things.

  The silence in that room was crushing my lungs. I threw open the window, and stuck my head out, gulping air, trying to get a grip. But my hands were still trembling as I scooped Mum’s stuff back in her bag and stuck it in the bedside cupboard along with her old copy of Kidnapped and a couple of newspaper reports I’d saved about the crash.

  It wasn’t much to show for a life.

  I locked myself in the bathroom. That way, Doreen wouldn’t hear the jerky sobs coming out of my throat. It was a long time before I came out again and opened the holdall. Inside it was a slim silver laptop, pretty new by the look of it. I booted it up, stared at the flashing Enter Password instruction, turned it off again and fished around in the holdall. I pulled out a pen, some loose change, a soft black notebook and a glossy pamphlet about some big energy summit. I thumbed through it, looking at the photos of the speakers. It didn’t matter if they were men, women, French, Chinese, Russian, American or British, they all had identical cheesy smiles and looked like they’d been stuffed. I flipped open the notebook. Except for a few scattered dates and a list of mobile numbers, it was just a jumble of squiggles like some kind of shorthand. Ramming my fingers into the pocket of the holdall, I dug out an envelope. I read the name on it. Once. Twice. Three times. Ivo Lincoln. It didn’t mean the cops weren’t jerks. It just made the mix-up a bit less random. I reached in the bedside cupboard for the newspaper cuttings, looking for the bit I’d read about Lincoln’s dad. There it was: Professor Ralph Lincoln of St Saviour’s College, Cambridge.

  I went downstairs and asked to use the phone. Doreen got a bit shirty at first but gave in when I told her who I was calling. Directory enquiries put me through to something called the porters’ lodge. This grumpy bloke said the Professor had taken time off for personal reasons. I said I’d call back. It wasn’t just that Doreen’s ears were flapping. There are some things you just can’t leave in a message.

  Doreen was doing the catering for some retirement do that night. George was very quiet while he heated up the lasagne she’d left us and he didn’t say much till we’d almost finished eating it. Then he said, ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’

  I shook my head. He got out his wallet. I shut my eyes. This was it. He was about to kick me out. I was going to end up in care. I felt something being pushed into my hand. I opened my eyes. It was a twenty-pound note. George looked at me all sad and red-faced.

  ‘You only had to ask, you know.’

  He got up and started clearing the table.

  ‘George . . .’ I felt so guilty I just wanted to tell him everything. But I couldn’t.

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  ‘I’m sorry. It was for . . . a mate. He had an emergency.’ My voice had gone wobbly with fear. ‘Are you going to tell Doreen?’

  He shook his head and headed for the kitchen. ‘We both know what would happen if I did.’

  CHAPTER 4

  The tramp wasn’t waiting in the dining room that night. I found him lying sweating in the cellar with his knife in one hand, my mobile in the other and Oz curled up next to him sound asleep. A single candle flickered in the corner, burning low. The tramp was gasping and flinching, murmuring something over and over that sounded like ‘tee gneeda paganaya’.

  I reached out to stroke Oz. The tramp’s eyes sprang open and he made a feeble lunge at me with the knife. ‘Ya zamochoo tebya!’

  Who knows what he was on about but he wasn’t happy and he wasn’t speaking French or German, I knew that much.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s me, Joe. Remember? I’ve brought you medicine.’

  He took a minute or two to calm down.

  ‘Antibiotics and painkillers.’ I said.

  I sat him up and made him swallow a couple of tablets. He didn’t want any of the lasagne I’d brought him and he slumped back, shivering and banging his teeth together while I made a fuss of Oz. I tried to tempt him with some dog biscuits. Weirdly, he wasn’t that hungry. Maybe he’d been at the salami when the tramp was asleep.

  ‘How this work?’

  I turned round. The tramp was clutching my mobile, making trembly stabs at the buttons.

  ‘Where’ve you been for the last decade?’ I said, trying to be friendly.

  He gave me a bleary look. ‘In hell.’

  Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. He’d got a number scribbled on a scrap of newspaper. I punched it in and showed him how to make a call. When I told him we’d have to go upstairs to get a signal he groaned and said, ‘Later, Joe. I go later.’

  ‘You got a name?’ I said.

  He frowned for a minute as if he wasn’t sure, then he said, ‘Yuri’.

  The sound of it seemed to upset him. He grabbed my hand. ‘You no tell. They find me, they kill me.’

  I wanted to believe he was crazy or lying, but the fear coming off him was like something you could touch.

  ‘OK. I swear.’

  ‘You get me new clothes, Joe?’ He wasn’t threatening or ordering now, just asking. ‘I go to London.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, though the shape he was in, I couldn’t see him making it as far as the back gate.

  He huddled down on the mattress, sweat dripping off his face.

  ‘I’m taking Oz,’ I said, getting ready to run if he tried to stop me.

  ‘You come back tomorrow?’ he murmured.

  I stared at him, lying there, half dead with only me to help him, and heard myself say, ‘Yeah’.

  He let out a wheezy grunt. ‘Do not come in day. Maybe someone see you.’

  ‘OK.’

  I stuck around till he fell asleep but left when his nightmares started. I had enough of my own to deal with.

  If Yuri hadn’t told me to stay clear of the house in daylight I’d have gone back next morning to see if he was OK. He was right, though. I couldn’t chance some nosy dog walker spotting me going through the back gate and calling the cops, so I took Oz for a walk on the other side of the woods. He raced off, and I let him go. The trees along the path were tall and thick. One of them had keeled over with its roots in the air and its insides rotted out. It looked like I felt – empty and useless. I slumped against it, picking off the soggy bark and thinking about that creep Eddy Fletcher going round badmouthing Mum, accusing her of seeing Ivo Lincoln on the sly. Not that I’d have blamed her if she had. The stupid thing was, she’d never have cheated on Eddy because for some totally screwed-up reason that no one in their right mind could work out, she was crazy about him. But even I could see that her being in Lincoln’s car that night was a bit weird.

  A rumble like a muffled bass beat shook the ground. I swung round looking for Oz. Just as I heard a faint barking I spotted a horse and rider way off through the trees. I crashed towards the noise, speeding up as the yaps turned into squ
ealy yelps. The rest of the soundtrack said it all. A screeching whinny, angry shouts and a sickening thud. I burst through the bushes. The horse was standing in a little clearing, all snorting and agitated, while Oz rushed around with his hackles high, barking at a boy on his backside in the dirt who was yelling: ‘Shut up, you stupid dog!’

  ‘He’s not stupid, he’s frightened. Oz, stop it. Come here!’

  The boy turned round, his riding hat tipped sideways over his straggly blond fringe and his long freckly nose quivering like he’d just got a whiff of something rank.

  ‘You’re right. It’s you who’s stupid. If you can’t control your dog, keep him on a lead.’

  Talk about up himself. He looked about fifteen but he sounded like Prince Charles.

  ‘Yeah, well he’s more used to cars than horses,’ I said, sticking out a hand to help him up.

  Ignoring it, he struggled to his feet. ‘So why don’t you both go back where you came from and leave civilised people alone?’

  He stomped after his horse, brushing the dirt off his trousers and muttering, ‘Chav’.

  ‘Prat!’

  He gave me the finger without even bothering to turn round.

  ‘C’mon, Oz.’

  I trudged off, wondering how Mum had dealt with stuck-up losers like Horse-Boy when she’d lived round here, and imagining all the snappy put-downs I should have come up with to wipe that sneer off his beaky face. Course, if my mate Bailey had been around we’d have had a laugh about it, taken the mick out of his voice, turned it into a running gag. Made it all right. But Bailey wasn’t around, and as far as I could see nothing was ever going to be all right again.

  As soon as I got back to Laurel Cottage I went through the bags of clothes Doreen had left in the shed for the jumble. I picked out a pair of golf slacks, a couple of shirts and a green V-necked sweater of George’s. The combination wasn’t going to win Yuri any style awards but it was a lot less eye-catching than the filthy-blood-stained-rag look he was going for at the moment. Back in my room I threw in a bar of soap, a nail brush and my phone charger. It was only when I was searching for a decent pair of socks to give him that I realised Doreen had been snooping through my stuff. Not tidying it, just moving it very slightly.

  Dinner that night was a kind of soggy rice pudding full of funny-looking mushrooms that smelled like they’d gone off. George raved about it, saying risotto was his favourite and no one could make it like his Dilly. But I bet you anything it was the remains of another catering job because I couldn’t see our Doreen being fagged to make anything ’specially for him. After the business with the wallet I’d been worried she’d notice he was upset with me, but he was trying to hide it by making a big effort to keep the conversation going. I helped him out by asking for a list of chores I could do round the house. He said he’d have a think and smiled at me for the first time since he’d found out I was a thief. But Doreen wasn’t smiling, no sirree, and there was an awkward silence before George flicked her a look and said, ‘Your aunt and I heard from the education authority today.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve found you a place at a local school – Park Hill High. Unfortunately they can’t take you until after the Easter holidays.’

  That was nearly six weeks away. Doreen downed her wine in one gulp like she was fortifying herself for the task of getting shot of me well before then. After that the conversation kind of ground to a halt. But George didn’t give up.

  ‘I haven’t seen your dog around,’ he said. ‘Is he OK?’

  I was ready for this. ‘He wandered off when we were in the woods but he came back as soon as he got hungry.’

  He topped up Doreen’s glass. ‘Did you stumble across Saxted’s notorious crime scene when you were down there?’

  I looked up, not sure what he meant.

  ‘In the woods. The boarded-up gates.’

  My pulse was racketing. ‘Oh . . . er, yeah. W-what is that place?’

  ‘There used to be a lovely old house in there. What was it called, Dilly?’ She shrugged. ‘Saxted Grange, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right, it had been in the Clairmont family for generations but it burned down in the sixties and Lord Greville Clairmont built a modern mansion on the site. I think his wife had a hand in the design – she was a famous model turned film actress – well, famous back then. Her name was Norma Craig.’

  My mouth went dry. I glugged down some water, trying to act like the name meant nothing to me. But that must be her – Norma Craig, the slanty-eyed woman in all those photos. She’d even signed her initials – N.C. – on the picture I’d found on the floor.

  George was on a roll now he’d finally found something to talk about, which was good because I wanted to know more.

  ‘They called the new house Elysium,’ he was saying. ‘That means Paradise in Greek, or maybe it’s Latin. Either way, it’s ironic when you think what happened there.’

  ‘Why? What did happen?’

  George chewed his risotto and pointed his fork at Doreen.

  ‘Dilly’s the one to ask. Her mother used to work there.’

  I shot a gobsmacked look at Doreen. ‘Nan used to clean that house?’

  ‘Don’t use that vulgar expression. She wasn’t your nan, she was your grandmother. And she was most certainly not a cleaner.’

  ‘What was she then?’

  ‘If you must know, she was a cocktail waitress.’

  George laughed. ‘According to your granddad, Pam Slattery mixed the meanest martini in the whole of Kent.’

  That so didn’t fit the warm fuzzy picture I’d always had of Mum’s mum baking, knitting and generally doing other nan-type activities.

  ‘The Clairmonts threw so many parties they had half the village in to help,’ George went on.

  ‘So go on, what happened up there?’

  George leant across the table. ‘A murder.’

  A shiver skidded down my back.

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘Lord Clairmont.’

  ‘Who’d he kill?’

  ‘The papers said he intended to kill Norma Craig, but the house was dark and he murdered the housekeeper by mistake. The story was splashed all over the headlines for weeks.’

  ‘What happened to Clairmont?’

  ‘He vanished. Most people think his millionaire friends spirited him out of the country before the police had even found his car abandoned on the coast.’

  ‘What about Norma Craig?’

  ‘She had some kind of breakdown, went off to a clinic in Switzerland and never came back.’

  I looked at Doreen. ‘Did the police interview my na . . . your mum about the murder?’

  ‘Why would they? My parents moved to Yorkshire months before it happened.’

  That was news to me. ‘I thought they’d always lived in Saxted.’

  ‘You thought wrong.’

  The lines round her mouth were getting deeper but I kept going. ‘So why did they leave?’

  ‘My father got a transfer up north for a while and stuck me in a school where I was bullied rotten.’ She paused but only to draw breath. ‘He told me to put a brave face on it so as not to upset my mother. Then, after Sadie came along they moved back and practically forgot I existed.’

  Get over it, Doreen. At least you had parents. And a home.

  ‘Is Clairmont still alive?’ I said.

  When Doreen didn’t answer, George said, ‘No one knows, but even after all this time the courts still won’t declare him dead.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because from the day he disappeared people have been claiming they’ve spotted him all over the world. Someone thought they sighted him last year in Goa. Some old beach bum got the shock of his life when the press turned up in helicopters and surrounded his hut. If you’re interested in the case your grandmother saved all the cuttings. They’ll probably be in that box of books I got down from the attic. Have a look.’

  Doreen chipped in then, reminding him it was time for some g
ardening show they wanted to watch, which was my cue to get lost. That was fine by me. I went straight upstairs and upended the box of books, tossing aside the old paperbacks, mags and cookbooks until I found a bulging scrapbook. I undid the faded ribbon and looked inside. Mum always said that Nan was a hoarder and it looked like she was right. Nan had stuck in just about everything from her time at Elysium – articles about Norma Craig, menu cards, pictures of a buffet laid out round an ice sculpture shaped like a bear, guest lists, wine labels, invitations, signed photos of old-time celebs like Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger and Cilla Black and a load of others I’d never heard of. There was one shot of the staff lined up with Norma and Clairmont on the terrace. They all looked so glamorous that if Nan hadn’t written their names and jobs round the edge you’d have thought they were guests. There was Jeff the chauffeur in a peaked cap and flash suit; Jean-Luc the chef, all dark hair and curly moustache; Nan with blonde, flicked-up hair and thick eye make-up; and Harry the gardener, who looked like he’d stepped straight out of Hollywood, right down to the chiselled features, muscly arms and torso-hugging T-shirt. It wasn’t that surprising. According to one of the articles Nan had saved, ugly people never got a look in with Norma Craig. She’d even had this stupid catchphrase, ‘only the beautiful’. What an airhead.

  I kept turning the pages. Suddenly Nan’s souvenirs stopped and the cuttings about the murder began. The papers had certainly got their money’s worth but what got me was that it was all Norma Craig this and Greville Clairmont that. No one gave a monkey’s about the woman he’d killed. It took me ages to even find her name. Janice Gribben. She was always just the housekeeper, like she was some stray dog that got run over in the street. And as for printing a decent photo of her, no chance. They’d all used the same side-on shot of her, caught in the background while Norma Craig was schmoozing some bigwig. Janice’s face was so small and blurry they’d had to circle it in red in case you missed it. She hadn’t been that old when she died, only twenty-nine – six years younger than Mum.

  I felt my insides churning. The papers had treated Mum exactly the same way. Occasional pub singer Sadie Slattery hardly got a look in while the articles went on and on about star journalist Ivo Lincoln killed in tragic hit and run. They were even setting up a bursary for trainee journalists in his name. What was anyone doing in Mum’s name? Half the papers hadn’t even spelled it right.