The Secret of Cold Hill

by Peter James

  The man drew on his cigar, the red glow brightening, removed it from his mouth, and blew smoke out.

  Holding his own unlit cigarette, Maurice crossed the road towards him. ‘How do you do? I’m Maurice Penze-Weedell – we’ve recently moved into number thirty-six, the house down at the other end.’

  As Maurice reached him, holding out an extended hand in greeting, the man vanished.

  8

  Friday 14 December

  ‘Probably a fox or a cat,’ Jason said, glancing out at the darkness after the alert ended and the security lights had gone out. ‘I bet those people in number thirty-six have a cat. They look like cat people. They’ve probably got a great fat thing called Tiddles or some stupid name.’

  Emily said, mischievously, ‘Or it could have been the neighbourhood weirdo?’

  They lay on the wide, soft sofa, their arms around each other, their bodies pressed tightly together for warmth against the cold draught that blew on them. ‘Well, if it was, we sure gave him a good show!’ Jason said. ‘I think Cold Hill village would have felt a small earth tremor.’

  ‘A small one? I’d say ten on the Richter scale.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Only ten?’

  She kissed him. ‘Probably higher!’ She kissed him again. ‘I love you so much. I love our new home.’

  The sharp female voice rang out again, loudly, right behind them.

  ‘What’s to love about it?’

  Emily broke free of his arms and sat up with a start. ‘What was that?’

  Jason, naked, stood and ran to the kitchen. To his amazement, the television was on again, at a loud volume. The same couple arguing.

  ‘What’s to love about it? I’ll tell you what’s to bloody love about it!’

  Jason strode over to the command box and pressed the green button. Instantly it turned red.

  He grabbed the remote from the glass-fronted cupboard below the television, which housed the Sky box and DVD player, and switched the television off. Then he went back to Emily.

  ‘I think that bloody command thing has a mind of its own. It must have some setting I haven’t figured out and put the television back on. I’ve switched the bloody thing off.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like the television,’ she said, shakily. ‘It sounded like she was right behind us.’

  ‘It did, I know. Maybe it got relayed through that speaker up there.’ He pointed at the wall. He lay down beside her again, slipping his arms around her, and kissed her. ‘Amazing, we’re finally here, in time for Christmas.’

  ‘We need to buy a tree tomorrow, and a load of decorations – all the ones we have are going to look a bit lost here,’ she said.

  ‘Yep.’

  They had previously lived in a two-bedroom terraced Victorian house in the North Laines district of central Brighton. It was tiny compared to this one and now seemed even tinier.

  Jason momentarily disentangled himself from his wife, stood up, filled their glasses on top of the packing case, passed one down to her then rejoined her on the sofa. ‘God, so much to think about.’

  ‘Like, what we’re going to eat tonight – I’m starving,’ Emily said.

  ‘Me too. Ravenous.’

  ‘Mum brought us over a pasta dish and salad, which are in the fridge.’

  ‘I fancy a curry – or a Thai. Why don’t we order one in?’

  ‘Nice idea, except we’re not in Brighton now – we’re in the bundu. I doubt anyone’s going to deliver.’

  ‘Good point. Hmm. Let’s go out for dins tomorrow – or how about for Sunday lunch? Maybe check out the pub in the village? See what they do? I saw it advertises home-cooked food.’

  ‘We can go there in the morning and see if we can book – if we like the look of it.’

  ‘And ask the shop to deliver papers – the estate agent said they would.’

  They lay still. Jason, exhausted, closed his eyes. Even though it was a brand-new sofa he began fretting about bugs. Panic started to set in. Shit, how had he become so carried away?

  Suddenly, Emily prodded him in the chest. ‘How amazing to do that spontaneously rather than by constantly calculating the right time of every month.’

  ‘Totes!’ He nodded and kissed her.

  ‘Right, up – we’ve work to do. I’ve got to get my catering area in the garage sorted. I’ve that twenty-fifth wedding anniversary for eighty people to cater for in two weeks’ time, and you have to get your studio set up.’

  Getting to his feet, in a hurry to head up to the bathroom to shower, he said, ‘Don’t you think it was a bit ambitious taking on something like that so soon after moving in?’ He shrugged. ‘Just saying.’

  ‘We need the money,’ she reminded him. ‘And he’s a big television personality, on that antiques show. It could open all kinds of doors for me in the county. I discussed it with Louise, and she can prep a lot of the stuff at hers.’

  Louise Porter was her partner in the catering business.

  She prodded him again. ‘Go on – up, work! No slacking!’

  ‘I know.’

  He had two commissions, both portraits of clients’ dogs, one in oils and one a pencil drawing, to deliver before Christmas. He planned to do both of them over the weekend and Monday, then rush them to his framer. It was going to be tight, but they needed every penny at the moment. And he would have no let-up over the Christmas break – the gallery in London, the Northcote, which had brought him his success that had helped them to buy this house, was putting on a one-man show of his work starting on 8 February. He had promised them twenty-two paintings, the standard number for an exhibition. So far, he only had twelve that were completed and framed. He was going to have to work flat out for the next ten weeks.

  ‘Do that, my love, and I’ll get to work on everything else,’ Emily said. ‘I’ve got to start unpacking – like sheets, pillows, and our clothes. I’m fine with the catering, but not sure it was such a smart idea to invite my parents for Christmas lunch.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s ever a good idea to invite your parents to anything,’ he murmured, under his breath.

  Emily looked cross, suddenly. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing, darling.’

  ‘You did, your lips moved!’

  ‘I just said it’ll be lovely having your parents here for Christmas Day.’

  A female voice shouted out from the kitchen, ‘No you didn’t!’

  9

  Friday 14 December

  Emily and Jason both looked around in shock.

  He jumped up. ‘What the . . .?’

  ‘Who said that? Who said it?’ Emily asked. ‘Who is it, who is in here with us?’

  ‘I thought we’d turned the bloody television off!’ he ran through into the kitchen.

  The television was off.

  As he stared at it, Emily’s demeanour changed, and she stopped smiling. ‘It is off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did that voice come from?’

  ‘I don’t know, some glitch with the command box, I would think. Maybe it switched the television back on and then off again?’

  ‘Maybe it didn’t. Maybe there’s someone playing a game with us? Is there someone in the house?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Of course there’s no one here, babes!’

  ‘That voice – that was not the television,’ she said.

  They pulled on their clothes, then he fetched their glasses, refilled them, and they sat at the kitchen table. He sipped his drink in pensive silence.

  ‘What was it?’ she pressed.

  ‘Listen, we . . .’ He fell silent again, holding his glass in his hand.

  ‘We what? We heard it,’ she said. ‘We both bloody heard it.’

  ‘There has to be a rational explanation.’

  ‘Good. Tell me, I’m all ears.’

  ‘I think –’ he hesitated – ‘maybe the command turned on the television and then switched it off again. That must be
it.’ He sipped the remains in his glass. ‘Shall I open another bottle?’

  ‘I think we’ve had enough.’

  ‘I need another drink. Just one glass, OK? We can have the rest tomorrow.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask our uninvited guest to open it for us?’

  He laughed.

  ‘I’m glad you’re finding it funny, because I’m not.’

  ‘There has to be a rational explanation,’ he repeated.

  ‘I’m waiting for it.’

  He stood up and went over to the fridge, opened the door and removed the bottle of champagne he’d bought to celebrate their moving in, before finding the one the estate agent had left them.

  ‘Telepathy?’

  ‘Telepathy? What do you mean by that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe we’re in a heightened state, you know – moving home. It’s a pretty big and traumatic upheaval – probably more than we realize.’

  ‘So, we’re picking up each other’s thoughts via telepathy? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘As one explanation.’

  ‘So, let’s go with that, for the moment, OK?’

  He nodded.

  ‘In which case, what you said about it not being a good idea to invite my parents to anything is not very kind – considering how much they helped us buying our first home, and always willing to help with this. A damned sight more than your parents have ever done.’

  He raised his hands. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t, I don’t know what you mean. Perhaps you’d like to elaborate?’

  He opened the bottle, stood and walked around to refill her glass. ‘Darling, I’m sorry, don’t let’s row on our first day in our new home. We’re both tired and I – you know. My parents aren’t well off – I’m grateful to your parents, yes, but it just upsets me the way they treat me like I’m a loser. They don’t get me.’

  ‘It’s not that they don’t get you. You know that Dad’s a blunt what-you-see-is-what-you-get Northerner. He doesn’t get art.’

  Jason knew Emily’s father had grown up on a council estate with his sick mother – his father had buggered off when he was four. He’d spent his childhood taking care of his mum, worked his way up, from doing a newspaper round to being a building labourer to the success he’d had as a property developer.

  ‘Tell me about it. I’ll never forget when I asked him if I could marry you, he looked me in the eye and told me he’d give me his approval the day I stopped pissing about painting pretty pictures and did a proper job, so I could look after his daughter.’

  ‘Well, that’s happening, isn’t it?’ she replied.

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  ‘Totally. I don’t just believe it, I know it! You are going to be massive, just keep the faith, keep believing in yourself the way I believe in you, my love.’

  They stared into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Just remember last March eleventh.’

  It was a date he would never forget for the rest of his life, no matter what happened subsequently. After several years of working in the attic of their tiny house, showing his work in a local gallery in Lewes, and being told that if he wanted to become a serious professional painter, he needed an exhibition, he had found the Northcote in London. The gallery had liked his work and had taken six pieces. They had sold four in the first month and then offered him a one-man show, and set a date of 11 March the following year. But they wanted twenty-two paintings.

  For months he had worked furiously, painting landscapes, dogs and his trademark characters drinking in pubs. He financed himself, in between these, with commissions for mostly animal portraits. Four months before the exhibition, he had the twenty-two pieces complete but unframed. But it would need an investment of over four thousand pounds to pay the framer. His only asset was his drum kit – his one recreation away from painting had been as a jazz drummer. Refusing to accept Emily’s offer of asking her parents, he had sold it to pay for the frames.

  On the night of the show the two of them had travelled to London by train. A bag of nerves, he had dressed smartly in a new velvet jacket, white shirt and chinos, and Emily was in a pretty dark dress. To save money on a taxi, they’d walked to the gallery from Victoria, which had taken far longer than they had thought, through the freezing night air.

  Finally, after walking along past closed shop after closed shop, selling furniture, light fittings, and interior décor, they’d seen the brightly illuminated gallery ahead. As they approached, his heart had sunk. There were just about forty people in there, holding glasses of champagne. In all his previous shows in Lewes, the gallery would have been rammed, with a good one hundred guests spilling out into the street. At those they’d invited all their friends, and asked them to bring along their friends, too.

  He remembered looking at Emily, flooded with disappointment, and saying, ‘Shit. This is embarrassing. This is a fucking disaster. I sold my drum kit for this? Maybe we should turn around and go home.’

  ‘We have to go in,’ she had insisted.

  Within moments of entering, and being hit by the smell of expensive perfume, a waitress had taken their coats, and another handed them each a glass. As they’d looked around, the gallery owner, Susan Burton, a middle-aged woman who had started the place with her property-developer husband, came over to them. ‘Jason, Emily, how wonderful to see you!’ she’d given them both air kisses, then announced loudly, ‘The artist himself, Jason Danes, is here, with his very charming wife, Emily!’

  Almost everyone in the room had turned around.

  Jason had wanted to hide.

  But Susan had wheeled him, with Emily following in his wake, through the thin crowd to a couple – the handsome man, in his fifties and dressed in a loud chalk-striped suit, with the tan and demeanour of the super-rich, and his wife: a tall, elegant woman with a Chanel bag and classy bling.

  ‘Jason, I’d like you to meet my dear friends, Charles and Clarissa De Montfort-Montefiore. They are dying to meet you and they’ve just bought one of your paintings – can you tell them about it?’

  ‘Ah,’ Jason had said. ‘Well – thank you.’

  Shit! He’d sold one!

  ‘It is just so divine!’ the woman had said, in a New York accent. ‘Like you see this old man looking at his pint of beer and you just wanna sit down on a bar stool next to him and talk to him. He looks so interesting – like he has really lived life!’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘How did you ever conjure him up?’

  ‘He’s real,’ Jason said. ‘I was drinking in a pub in Lewes – in Sussex – near where we live, and I thought the same as you. Who are you? What is your story? I actually sneaked a photo of him with my phone.’

  ‘You did? That’s awesome.’

  He had felt a hand signal from Emily. Shooting a glance at her, not wanting to break eye contact with the one person here who was actually paying money for one of his paintings, he’d turned his attention back to Clarissa De Montfort-Montefiore. ‘Well, then I went up to him and just started chatting to him. I’ve always believed that everyone you ever meet in life has a story. Well, boy, this lovely old guy sure did. He told me he was one of the soldiers who liberated Belsen! He told me there was a senior female SS officer alongside the male Commandant, and just how scared he was of her, even though she was his prisoner. That she was just pure evil personified.’

  Emily had given him another hand signal, this one more urgent than the last.

  He’d ignored her and continued talking to the couple.

  Then Emily had given him yet another signal.

  He’d shaken his hand free, but she’d grabbed it again, insistently. She was starting to really piss him off.

  ‘What did he say about Belsen?’ Clarissa asked.

  ‘He said that after all this time he could still remember the smell. He said he wakes at least three times a week, in the middle of the night, with the smell in his nostrils.’

  At that moment, another coup
le had come over, friends of Clarissa and her husband, and interrupted them with hugs and greetings.

  Emily had seized the opportunity. ‘Look!’ she’d hissed at Jason and pointed at the walls.

  It took him a few seconds to register what she was so excited about. Then his heart had flipped. The red dots. The traditional art gallery marking next to a painting that had been sold.

  There were eighteen of them.

  Later, back home, Jason and Emily had stayed awake all night, too wired with excitement to sleep. They just kept counting up and then counting up again how much profit they had made.

  Almost twenty thousand pounds.

  ‘Shall we have supper about eight?’ Emily’s voice took him out of his reverie.

  ‘Sure, whenever, are you OK doing it tonight?’

  ‘Yes, it’s all prepared, I just have to bung it in the oven.’

  Back in the lounge, he picked up his glass before climbing the stairs to the first floor, where he entered the bathroom and washed his hands for several minutes, examining them carefully each time he dried them for anything he might have picked up from the sofa. Then he decided he needed to shower again.

  After an unusually short time in the cubicle, he dried and dressed, retrieved his glass and climbed on up and into his studio.

  It looked a total mess and he needed to tidy it up, quickly. Against one wall was a battered but comfortable couch, on which were stacked a number of his as-yet-unsold works. Two large packing cases, containing some of his painting materials, stood on the floor. Several tins of white paint from Homebase were lined up on a shelf – the only orderly arrangement so far in the room. In the middle of the floor was his easel – he hadn’t yet decided where in the room to place it permanently.

  He put his glass down on the trestle table that had long served him as his work surface, picked up the Stanley knife that was part of his essential toolkit for painting and set to work on the first packing case.

  As he did so, he suddenly became aware of a light on in an upstairs room of the house across the road. He looked out and saw a woman in her thirties, with long fair hair, a man of a similar age, with a shaven head and glasses, and two young children – a boy and a girl – all staring across at him.