The Secret of Cold Hill

by Peter James

  Coincidence? Sure, it could be. Or had they all been together in an accident?

  Had the Harcourts lived in the village? They must have done, or in the area, in order to be buried in the village churchyard, surely – unless they had some other connection to the place.

  Who the hell was the man who’d said he was the vicar? Why had he been here?

  The media was rife with warnings about identify theft, internet fraudsters. It had to be that, didn’t it? The only possible explanation. Some creep, posing as Fortinbrass, intent on insinuating himself into their lives before, at the appropriate moment, starting to milk them of cash.

  But a very stupid creep. Did he really think he wouldn’t get found out in this parish?

  He paused in his thoughts.

  What if phony Fortinbrass was behind all the strange shit that had been happening in their house? Somehow making it all happen, then lo and behold, he conveniently rocks up claiming to be able to produce a Minister of Deliverance who would clear away the malevolent spirits?

  For a large cash sum, doubtless.

  ‘Nope!’ Matt Johns’ voice suddenly intruded into his thoughts.

  Jason picked up the phone. ‘Hi.’

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Johns said. ‘These numbers – I can’t see anything.’

  ‘But it’s been happening – I haven’t imagined it.’

  ‘Beats me. I suggest next time it happens, take a screenshot and send it to me immediately.’

  ‘Sure, OK, I will.’

  Johns disconnected. Jason sat down in front of the screen, opened his browser, typed in ‘Roland Fortinbrass’, and hit return.

  The first hit was a Church of England website listing vicars. He scrolled down, through the alphabet, until the Fs. The browser had highlighted the name: Reverend Roland Fortinbrass, MA.

  He clicked on it. After some seconds he was taken to an obituary in the Church Times.

  The Reverend Roland Michael Fortinbrass, of the parish of Cold Hill. Dearly beloved husband of Angela and father of Christopher and Lucinda. Tragically killed in a car accident on 21 September 2015.

  Beneath was a photograph.

  He double-clicked to enlarge it.

  Instantly a familiar image appeared. A tall, lean man, in a jumper, dog collar just visible below a rather weak face. Floppy, thinning hair.

  The man who had been in their house yesterday.

  But who could not have been.

  46

  Tuesday 18 December

  Jason sat, staring at the dead vicar’s face, then saved a copy of the picture to his desktop.

  Dead for many years.

  Not possible.

  Just not possible he had been in their house.

  A wild thought crashed, clumsily, through his mind. What if Fortinbrass had a twin brother who was now masquerading as him?

  He felt a strong draught, as if the door behind him had opened. Slowly, suddenly very scared, he turned.

  The door was closed.

  He turned back to the face on his screen. If he showed it to Emily when she came home, she would totally freak out – but he couldn’t keep it from her. Whatever was going on here, they had to face it together and deal with it together.

  Then he had an idea. Grabbing his phone, he took a photograph of Fortinbrass’s face. It triggered another thought. He walked over to his unsold work, stacked against the far wall, turned around the sketch of the woman he’d done yesterday and photographed that too.

  Just as he turned it back, face-in against the stack, there was a sound downstairs. Emily was back a lot sooner than he thought – he was sure she’d told him she would be having lunch out with Louise.

  He heard footsteps below him, on the first floor.

  Clump. Clump. Clump.

  Hers?

  He went over to the door, opened it and called down, ‘Em!’

  Silence.

  ‘Em?’ he called again, louder.

  No response. He crossed to the window and looked down. Emily’s van was not in the driveway. Over the road, the Penze-Weedells were still struggling with the stepladder. As he looked at them, he heard the footsteps again.

  Clump. Clump. Clump.

  He tensed. They were like the ones he and Emily had heard upstairs on Sunday, when they were in the kitchen.

  He stood in the doorway, peering down the spiral staircase, waiting for them again, and for whoever was down there.

  But nothing happened.

  He relaxed. As he’d thought, it was just the oak flooring moving, drying out or expanding, or whatever. He scrawled a note for Emily, in case she came back before he returned, added a couple of kisses, and put it on the kitchen table. He debated whether to take his bike, peering out of the window to check the weather, but it was raining even harder now.

  Walking out to his car, he heard Claudette, with her back towards him, calling out to her husband, who was again on the top step of the ladder, looking like an accident waiting to happen. ‘Maurice! Maurice, I really don’t think—’

  He climbed into the car, shut the door and drove off quickly, threading around Lakeview Drive and along towards the estate entrance. As he reached it, a tractor thundered down at reckless speed. Albert Fears again – busy today, Jason thought. He must lurk here and snap a picture of him; he would make a great subject for a painting. Angry Man on Tractor. Perhaps towing the trailer full of sheep, with the barking collie at the tailgate?

  Just as he drove between the two stone pillars and pulled out onto the lane, a huge 1960s red and white Cadillac convertible swept up the hill towards him. It slowed, indicating right, making to turn into Cold Hill Park. The driver had a big cigar in his mouth, the woman sitting beside him looking excited, peering through the windscreen. Two kids jumped up and down in the back.

  New arrivals, he wondered?

  That was pretty much confirmed a few seconds later, when a massive removals lorry trundled up the hill. Great, he thought, another family moving in, another house going to be occupied! The whole estate would have a very different feel once all the properties were being lived in.

  Jason drove down into the village, passing the 30 mph sign at this end of the village, then the village store, the pretty cottage on the left with the picket fence and the BED & BREAKFAST – VACANCIES sign and then the smithy. He slowed when he reached the Crown, and turned left down the side of the pub and into its almost empty car park at the rear. Hurrying through the cloying drizzle, he passed a man in an apron standing outside smoking a cigarette, and entered through a side door.

  He found himself in a narrow corridor that didn’t look like it had been painted in a century, and reeked of the toilets a short distance along. The corridor zig-zagged and as he passed the kitchen the smell improved to one of bacon. He pushed a door at the end and entered the saloon bar.

  There was a very different vibe from the bustle of Sunday – everything felt faded and tired and rather cheerless, not helped by it being cold, the fire in the grate as yet unlit. The ingrained smell of beer, old carpet and polish was even more noticeable than when he and Emily had been here on Sunday, because it was now so empty.

  Lester Beeson, the massive landlord, towered over the room from behind the bar, wiping a glass and discussing something intently with the man Jason recognized instantly as the miserable farmer, Albert Fears. How had he got here so quickly, he wondered?

  The old countryman sat on a bar stool, in his tweed cap and leather-patched jacket, holding a pewter pint tankard. Doubtless his own, Jason thought – it was that kind of a pub.

  Ping-beep-bloop-ping. Ping-beep-bloop-ping.

  The gaming machine continued its forlorn mating cry, urgently flashing away as if desperate to attract someone’s attention. But there were no likely candidates here at the moment. The only other customers were an elderly couple at an alcove table. Both of them wore brightly coloured cagoules, starkly contrasting with their grey countenances.

  The man, with wisps of grey hair on his head,
sported a hearing aid the size of a golf ball; the woman wore her hair in a bun, atop a face that wasn’t made for smiling. They sat opposite each other, the man hunched, the woman primly upright, each eating a ploughman’s in silence, as if they had long run out of anything to say to each other. Their mournful faces reminded Jason of two goldfish in a bowl. They’d make subjects, he thought, pulling out his phone and pretending to send a text, but instead discreetly photographing them.

  The landlord clocked Jason and gave him a welcoming smile. Fears just stared at him through tiny, aggressive eyes.

  ‘Mr Danes!’ Lester Beeson said. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A Diet Coke, please.’

  ‘Ice and lemon?’

  ‘Thanks. Could I also have a lunch menu?’

  ‘The restaurant’s not open today but we have the bar snacks menu available.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Fears was still glaring at him. He gave the farmer a smile but got no reaction.

  When Beeson set his drink down on the counter, Jason said to him, ‘I’ve a couple of photographs of people, I wonder if you might know – or have known – them?’

  ‘Let’s have a butchers.’

  Jason showed him the image of Roland Fortinbrass that he’d taken off the website.

  The landlord clearly recognized him instantly. ‘That’s our late vicar, God bless his soul.’

  ‘Roland Fortinbrass?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He died in 2015?’

  Beeson thought for a second.

  The expression on Albert Fears’ face changed suddenly from hostile to uncomfortable, and the farmer and the landlord exchanged an odd glance.

  ‘That would be right,’ Beeson said. ‘2015.’

  ‘He wasn’t very old – how did the Reverend Fortinbrass die?’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Again, the farmer and landlord’s eyes met. ‘A very unfortunate accident.’

  ‘I killed him,’ Fears said, suddenly, with no trace of remorse in his voice, just bitterness. ‘And the poor sod with him. Bloody fool turned right across me path in me tractor. I didn’t have a chance to touch the brake pedal. Hit him side on, crushed him. Yeah. A man of the cloth and all.’ He sipped his pint.

  There was a brief silence before Fears went on. ‘What hope does that give the rest of us, when God can’t even look after his own, eh?’ His mouth twitched, as if nervously seeking some solidarity, or even sympathy from the two men.

  Although shocked by the admission, an irreverent quote popped into Jason’s mind. He saw an opportunity to break the ice with the old man. ‘Well, wasn’t it H. G. Wells who said, I never drive a motor car in France, because the temptation to run over a priest would be too great.’

  ‘Don’t know no Wells bloke,’ Fears said.

  Beeson smiled uneasily, and said to Jason, ‘The other?’

  He flicked to the photograph he had done of his pencil sketch of the woman, and held it up. ‘This. Do you have any idea who she might be?’

  The landlord took the phone, expanded the image with his huge fingers and studied the face of the woman with short, dark hair. ‘Do you have any actual photos of her?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  He frowned. ‘Looks familiar but I can’t place her. She from this area?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He stuck the camera in front of Fears’ face. ‘Know this lady, Albert?’

  ‘No, but I’d like to. Heh!’ He fleetingly gave a lecherous leer before becoming surly again. ‘Hear you’ve had another accident up your place – yesterday?’

  ‘Another?’ Jason queried.

  ‘Someone killed, I heard.’ He made a cut-throat sign with his hand. ‘Head clean off.’

  Beeson nodded, clearly aware of the news.

  ‘I saw it,’ Jason said. ‘I saw it happen.’

  ‘It’s cursed, that place,’ Fears went on, ignoring him. ‘They shouldn’t have called it Cold Hill Park, they should name it Death Park. Cos that’s what happens to everyone who goes there, they die.’ He leered again, showing his nasty, stained, predator teeth.

  ‘You saw it?’ the landlord asked.

  ‘Yes, I was just looking out of the window.’

  ‘So, tell me what happened; there’s all kinds of rumours flying around the village. What did you actually see?’ Beeson asked.

  Jason told him all the details he could remember, while the old farmer listened, too. When he had finished, Fears said, ‘See, I told you, that place is cursed. Death Park, that’s the right name for it.’

  ‘Why do you say it’s cursed?’ Jason asked him.

  Fears looked at his face for some moments, as if reading something that was written on it. ‘You’d have to be stupid not to realize. Everyone dies there. Like I told you, everyone who moves in is dead by forty. So are people who work there. Cursed, I’m telling you. All the couples, in my time, who bought the big house all died, and all before they were forty.’

  ‘How?’ Jason asked.

  The old man smiled as if he was enjoying himself, enjoying having his moment in the sun. ‘There was the O’Hares, back in around 1983 I think it was. They weren’t even the first deaths I remember, though.’

  ‘Who owned it before them?’

  ‘That would be Lord and Lady Rothberg. Both bed-ridden by accidents long before they died. They’d had the place since the end of the war. It were taken over in the war by the Defence folk for accommodation for Canadian soldiers and aircrew. A couple of pilots was killed when an upstairs floor collapsed, so my grandad told me. Dry rot – the place was riddled with it. They moved all the Canadians out and boarded the place up as unsafe till the Rothbergs fixed it up. It sat derelict for years after the O’Hares. There were arguments about tearing it down, but it was a listed building – so the arguments went on for ages. They tried to get English Heritage, or the National Trust, one of them to take it over, but they weren’t interested.’ Fears drained his tankard.

  ‘Can I buy you another?’ Jason asked, keen to keep him talking now he had started. But the old farmer gave him a venomous smile. ‘Take a drink off you? That’d be like supping with the Devil.’ He turned to Beeson. ‘Eh, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Another pint, Albert?’

  Fears shook his head. ‘Got me tractor to drive.’ Then he turned back to Jason. ‘I don’t want no drink bought by you. See, I’m not telling you this stuff because I like you – I don’t like you and I never will. I’m telling you because you asked and I’m a polite man. We’re all polite folk around here – unlike the riff-raff in your horrible new estate. But we’re not worried about you lot, too much. You’ll all be dead soon, just like them Molloys, and the Harcourts and the O’Hares before them. The O’Hares all crushed to death in that big fancy Cadillac of theirs.’

  Jason frowned, thinking of the coincidence of the car he’d seen turning into the estate earlier. ‘Cadillac?’

  ‘Great big thing – from the sixties – beats me what kind of an idiot wants to bring one of them things up a country lane.’

  ‘Did they have an accident, then?’

  Fears nodded, almost gleefully. ‘Oh yes, they had an accident all right.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.’ Fears looked down, as if studying runes in the bottom of his tankard. ‘You’ll know when it starts happening to you. Time goes all wrong.’ He looked up and gave him a malevolent smile. ‘Time slips.’ He made a chopping motion with his right hand. ‘Time-slips. Time goes all peculiar on you. That’s what they’ve all said. It goes out of kilter. They’ve all said that.’

  ‘Time-slips?’ Jason frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll know. You’ll know.’

  ‘They’ve all said? Who is all?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  ‘Is that what caused the accident – with Roland Fortinbrass? Something to do with timing? Did he misjudge it? Get the timing wrong? Did he turn across your path because he thought he had more tim
e?’

  Fears peered back into his tankard.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t buy you at least a half?’

  ‘I’m very sure, thank you. Like I said, I don’t want no drink from a dead man.’

  47

  Tuesday 18 December

  Half an hour later, Albert Fears left the pub without saying goodbye. Jason sat at a table and took a bite from his soggy roast chicken and bacon sandwich. It had been served up a while ago, but he hadn’t wanted to step away from the old man, who was in full flow. He ate slowly, barely noticing the taste as he mulled over everything Fears had told him.

  A rock promoter with a young family had bought Cold Hill House in 1983. He had builders working there for months, discovering more and more what a money pit the place was. Eventually, part of the house had been made sufficiently habitable to move into, but on the morning he and his family arrived, part of the roof, which hadn’t yet been touched, collapsed, bringing down an avalanche of masonry on their car; an old, classic Cadillac convertible, crushing them all to death. It was witnessed by the removals men, who had pulled up in their lorry behind them.

  It was a weird coincidence, he thought, that he’d seen an old, classic Cadillac barely an hour ago, turning into the estate, and followed by a removals lorry.

  The O’Hare family.

  The name inscribed, four times, on the family mausoleum he had photographed in the graveyard earlier, and which he checked now on his phone. Johnny, Rowena, Felix and Daisy.

  Once again, Fears had told him, the partially condemned ruin had remained boarded up and empty for years. Because it was a listed building, and one deemed to be of architectural significance, a steady stream of developers who wanted to demolish it and build an entirely new house on the grounds were refused permission.

  Finally, a property man with deep pockets bought it and began extensive renovations. He died in a paragliding accident. Then his company was wiped out in a big property crash. A few years later, in 2015, it was bought by a couple – he’d made some money selling a technology firm, his wife was a lawyer, and they had a young daughter. They’d only been moved in a short while when the mother and daughter were killed in a car crash – and he died of a heart attack on the same day.