She grasps my hand. “Well, there’s one blessing, at least. If Sidney had lived, you may never have been born, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Sidney. A siren goes off in my head.
Sidney was a fairly popular name in those days, and Smith is a very common surname. But what are the chances of my hearing about two separate Sidney Smiths who both lived in the Manchester area, both fought in the war and were both killed at around the same time? It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.
I don’t want to upset Grandma Edna any more, but there’s one thing I just have to know.
“What happened to his family?” I ask. “Did you ever hear anything more from them?”
Grandma Edna shakes her head. “Only that their house was bombed. As far as I know, his parents and sister were killed. So many people died that year. So many friends.”
I squeeze her hand again. It’s another one of those moments where there’s nothing I can say that won’t sound cheesy, or patronising, or belittling, so I decide it’s better not to say anything at all.
Eventually, she breaks the silence. “Perhaps I’ll make us a cup of tea,” she says. “What do you think?”
“I’ll do it,” I say hurriedly. “You stay here.”
I rush off to the kitchen before she can object.
The rest of the morning passes peacefully enough. I help her make lunch, before checking my watch and finding that I need to get home. I say goodbye, promising her that I’ll be back as soon as possible. This time, I’m going to do my very best to keep my promise.
I spend the drive home in a state of reflection. At one point, I realise I’m doing fifty in a forty zone and have to brake sharply; after that, I make more effort to concentrate on the road.
It’s obvious that this is more than a string of coincidences. It’s all coming together at last – why I felt such a strong connection to Hamilton House, why that article was left on our kitchen table, why I’m being targeted rather than Jamal or Annemarie.
To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure on that one. Yes, I’m related to the woman Sidney loved, but I’m not related to him. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. His own family were all killed, so naturally he’d look to Grandma Edna’s instead. The only thing that puzzles me is why he didn’t contact her rather than me. Was he afraid he’d scare her? Did he think she’d forgotten him?
I doubt it, somehow. I think something else is going on here.
My alleged connection to the “other side” must be a contributing factor. Clemency’s proximity might even have something to do with it. I find it hard to believe that I just happened to stumble across her right when I needed her.
Of course, there’s still a multitude of unanswered questions in my head. For instance, I’m no closer to working out why Sidney took those things from the flat. It might have been nothing more than an attempt to attract our attention, but once again, I think there’s more to it. He could have taken more obvious things, things which would have been more conspicuous, but he didn’t.
Another thing is confusing me. If Sidney is just trying to get my attention, then why does Clemency keep saying I’m in danger? Does he have a reason to dislike me? Does he want to hurt me?
But why should he? Grandma Edna never did anything but love him, and he never met me in life.
I’m so preoccupied that I almost drive right past Hamilton House, and end up braking sharply again. This isn’t like me at all; I must be really distracted.
I have so much to tell Jamal about, and Clemency, too. Although knowing her, she’ll turn around and be all, “What, you mean you didn’t know Sidney was in love with your grandma back in the forties? Why did it take you so long to figure it out?”
Then again, she was the one who told me I should go and visit Grandma Edna. I won’t be too surprised if it turns out she knew all along.
Chapter Seventeen
As usual, Clemency pleads ignorance, and I’m not about to waste my time trying to figure out whether she’s telling the truth.
She does, however, tell me something else – something useful this time. When I mention that Sidney’s family moved to Manchester after he enlisted, Clemency says, “They didn’t live in the same Hamilton House as you do.”
“What?” I say incredulously. “Then…”
“Let me finish,” she says calmly. “They lived on the site of the current Hamilton House, but as you already mentioned, it was bombed. They were killed, and the house was destroyed. It was rebuilt at a later date.”
“Oh,” I say. “That makes sense now.” Earlier on, Jamal said Hamilton House didn’t seem to date back as far as the forties. He’ll be really smug when he finds out he was right.
I’m about to ask Clemency exactly how she knows this, but then I remember that she knows pretty much everything, so I keep quiet.
*
“Pity,” Jamal says, when I pass on the information the next morning. “That means none of us are sleeping in his room.”
“Why is that a pity?” I say, shuddering. “I’d probably never have slept in my room again if it had turned out to be his.”
Jamal laughs. “Well, you can rest easy. It sounds as if he never actually visited the house, so even if it hadn’t been bombed, you’d have nothing to worry about.”
“It’s strange, though,” I say. “He basically haunts this place, and yet he never came here in life. I thought ghosts haunted places that meant something to them.”
“I don’t think he’s haunting the house,” Jamal says. “I think he’s haunting you.”
“But why? What did I ever do to him?”
“Hey, don’t ask me. I’m still getting over the fact that he and your grandma were a couple. Hey, look what I found!”
He turns his laptop around, showing me the black-and-white photograph on the screen. It’s an old-fashioned residential street. Jamal zooms in on a largish house, roughly in the centre of the terrace.
“Where’s this?” I ask. Then I see the caption. It reads, Kingston Road, Manchester, 1935. The sign on the house is just barely legible. It reads Hamilton House.
“And here,” Jamal says, scrolling down the page, “it tells us most of the houses on the street were destroyed by a German bomb, just after midnight on the first of November 1944. So there we have it. That’s where Sidney’s family lived. If you read on a little, it says that most of the houses were rebuilt in the fifties.”
I scan the building for any similarities to the current Hamilton House, but can’t really find any. The original building is grander, better designed. I wonder if the Smiths were wealthy – perhaps that was why they wouldn’t have approved of Grandma Edna. I know her family often struggled to pay the bills.
“It was nicer back then,” Jamal remarks, reading my mind.
“Yeah,” I agree. “The whole street was.”
“That’s progress for you,” he says, snapping shut his laptop and pushing it away. “I’m bored. Want to go for a walk?”
“I guess,” I say. We put on our shoes and head out onto the street.
“Why aren’t you wearing a coat?” I ask. “Psycho.”
“It’s not that cold,” he insists. He’s not fooling me, though; I can see the goosebumps on his arms.
“There’s frost everywhere,” I point out. “That means it’s cold.”
He shrugs. “If you say so.”
In unspoken agreement, we head to the park. A comfortable silence hangs between us. I guess it’s strange that I haven’t been put off the place altogether, but I’m attracted to the life, the greenness of it. You don’t get a whole lot of that in the city. Maybe Clemency was right about me. Maybe on some level I need to be close to nature once in a while.
Maybe that’s what attracted Jamal here, too. I’m starting to wonder if he’s another one of those people. We’ve always had that in common, the longing to be outdoors. I’m surprised it never occurred to me before. That’s always been the main differen
ce between us and Annemarie. She’s not an outdoorsy type.
Despite that, Annemarie does remind me of Clemency at times. Not often, admittedly, but occasionally. Once they know you well, they’ll joke with you and tease you relentlessly, but until then, they’ll withdraw into their own minds when they’re with you. And they hate to have their names shortened, which makes life difficult, since they both have such long names.
“Look at you, being all deep and reflective,” Jamal taunts. “Care to share?”
“No,” I say, sticking my tongue out at him.
He laughs, and reaches for my hand.
I don’t know why I pull away. It’s almost like a reflex action; I could swear my mind doesn’t have a say in it. I’ve been hoping he’ll make a move for ages. I was starting to worry that he might have changed his mind, and wondering whether I should initiate something myself. It makes no sense for me to reject him now.
“What is it?” he asks, sounding injured. “Have I done something wrong?”
“Of course not!”
“Then what is it? I don’t know what to think anymore. Is...is there someone else?”
I wince. “As if. When have I ever…”
“Well, how should I know? It’s not as if I’m with you twenty-four seven. I’m not possessive or anything.”
“Look, I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just…”
Only then do I realise what the real issue is, and it’s something I’m not quite sure how to communicate.
“I’m scared of dragging you into this,” I confess. “The thing with Sidney, I mean. I don’t want it messing with your life as well as mine. If I’m in danger, then you might be too, and the closer you are to me, the more danger you’re likely to be in.”
Jamal snorts. “Is that really it? Because if so, please just stop it. Okay, so Sidney can be a bit annoying at times, but I’m having the most fun I’ve had in months. I mean, it lightens things up a bit, doesn’t it? It’s boredom relief. I’m glad I found out that there’s more to this world than what’s on the surface. And researching Sidney is way more interesting than researching the American Civil War.”
I eye him suspiciously. He seems genuine, but I’ve by no means forgotten how angry he got last time, after the strange music woke me in the middle of the night.
“Well, if you’re sure,” I say doubtfully.
“Of course I’m sure,” he scoffs. “Why would I have said it if I wasn’t?”
I smile. “People often say things they don’t mean.”
He considers. “Yes,” he says. “I think you might be right.”
We walk on a little further. He slides his arm around my waist, and this time, I let him do it.
A shower of autumn leaves tumbles down from the branches above like confetti. They catch in our clothes and hair, tickle our skin.
“Funny,” Jamal says. “There isn’t even any wind.”
I smile. Looking up through the branches, which remain unstirred by even the slightest breeze, I wonder.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’ve been thinking,” Jamal says.
“I’m afraid.”
He smacks my arm. “Shut up. Are you going to let me carry on or not?”
“Go on,” I say. “Enlighten me.”
“It occurred to me,” he says, “that Sidney might not be our threat.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Think about it,” he says. “Clemency keeps saying that you’re in danger, but she never said Sidney was the danger. And he has no reason to harm you.”
“Then what does he want to do? And why would he throw benches at me if he didn’t want to hurt me?”
“I thought that we might be dealing with two different – um, people – here.”
“As in a good one and an evil one?” I say, catching on.
“Exactly,” he says. “Sidney being the good one, of course. I reckon he was responsible for the more harmless things – missing ornaments, mysterious music and such – whilst the evil guy is the one who’s actually trying to hurt you, by throwing benches or whatever. He – or she, or it – is probably the danger Clemency is talking about.”
“You might just be onto something there,” I say thoughtfully. “But that still doesn’t explain why the bad guy wants to hurt me, or why he and Sidney both turned up at the same time.”
Jamal shrugged. “No idea. I’ve done enough thinking for one day. I wouldn’t want to push my luck.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Okay, you go rest your brain. Let me know if you think of anything else.”
As it turns out, I figure it out before he does. I start doing the washing up on autopilot, my mind in another place entirely. That’s when it hits me.
If I’m being pursued by something evil, and something benign is trying to attract my attention, then it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Sidney wants to make sure I’m aware of the danger.
He’s trying to warn me about something.
The feeling of triumph inspired by this revelation is quickly succeeded by discomfort. If Sidney was after me, it would be a little scary, but bearable. The idea that I’m being pursed by something darker and more malicious…that’s more difficult to deal with.
I peel off my rubber gloves and turn off the tap; my mind is too occupied for even the most mundane of tasks. I already feel a little skittish. Suddenly, I don’t want to be in the room alone.
“Jamal?” I call shakily, sitting down heavily on a dining chair. I don’t know why I’m so frightened all of a sudden. It’s not as if I’m at any more risk now than I was at any other time over the past couple of weeks.
“Jamal!” I yell again. This time, he appears in the doorway. At first, he looks a bit irritated with me, but when he sees my face, he quickly becomes concerned.
“Eddie? What is it?”
“It’s Sidney,” I say. “I think he’s trying to warn us about something.”
Jamal considers for a moment. “That makes sense. I think you’re probably right. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Well, you weren’t far off,” I say. “I…I know this is a bit pathetic, but I’m a bit scared. I mean, I must be in real danger, or why would he have bothered to warn me?”
“That’s not pathetic,” Jamal dismisses. “It’s sensible. He’s warning you because you need to stay and alert and take care of yourself. So that’s all you have to do.”
He rests a comforting hand on my shoulder. I feel a little better now. Jamal is right – I just need to be aware of the danger. There’s no need to get worked up about it – that won’t help anyway.
“I don’t think you need to worry,” Jamal reassures me. “But maybe you should call Clemency anyway, see if you can get anything useful out of her. If anything, she’ll be able to give you advice on how best to protect yourself.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I agree, looking around for my phone. It’s had more use over the past month than it ever had in the five years previous. I never used to turn it on before this September.
“You found out something else about Sidney Smith,” Clemency diagnoses, the minute she picks up.
“Yes,” I say. I think she might be losing the power to surprise me.
“So?” she says impatiently. “Tell me.”
“You probably know already.”
“That’s not the point.”
Privately, I wonder what the point actually is. I decide it’s best just to do as she says.
“We don’t think he’s behind everything,” I say. “Only the harmless things, like the music, and not the scary stuff, like what happened in the park. We think he’s trying to warn us about whoever – or whatever – is responsible for the scary stuff.”
“Good,” Clemency says, sounding satisfied. “You do have the right kind of mind for this. Wait a moment, I’m coming over.”
As usual, she hangs up without a goodbye.
“Well?” Jamal demands.
“She’s coming over,
” I say. “She’ll be here in a minute or so.”
I’m wrong – it doesn’t take her that long. Barely thirty seconds later, there’s a knock at the door.
“Shit,” Jamal says, almost jumping out of his skin. “How the hell does she do that?”
“Never mind that,” I say, going to the door. “How the hell did she get in? The front door should have been locked.”
Clemency strides in, without waiting for anything so trivial as an invitation. “Right,” she says, as businesslike as ever. “Where shall we start?”
“How did you get here so fast?” Jamal asks.
Clemency gives him one of her cryptic smiles. “I don’t know what you mean. And I hardly see how that’s relevant.”
I smile to myself. She was probably around the corner in the Hummingbird. Her running is not to be messed with. She may be totally calm and composed, but I wouldn’t mind betting she sprinted over here. It must be nice to be able to run without getting out of breath.
“Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” Clemency says, sitting down at the table as if she owns it. “Since you’ve already figured out most of it, it doesn’t make sense for me to keep information from you anymore. It wouldn’t do for you to be ill-informed.”
Jamal snorts. Clearly the irony of the statement is not lost on him. Clemency ignores him.
“Obviously, the concept of good and evil isn’t black and white,” she says. “But you came fairly close to the truth when you suggested that two separate beings were responsible for the recent events, one with more morals than the other. The more moral one is the one who was known as Sidney Smith in a past incarnation. This much you have figured out.”
“So what about the evil one?” I say. Maybe I should have said ‘the less moral one’, but that’s quite a mouthful.
“The other one,” Clemency says, “is what some humans would call a poltergeist. Those in the know prefer the term ’wraith’.”
My eyes widen. I must admit, it never even crossed my mind that we were the victims of a poltergeist, although on reflection, it does make a lot of sense. As much sense as these things ever do, anyway.
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