by Abbie Frost
‘And look, look at these. They’re what that bastard, Liam, gave him. I bet he forced Dad to take them all.’
‘Mo, you’ve got to calm down and think rationally. How could Liam do that? He hasn’t been here.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe he has been here all along. Or maybe he got Rosa to do it. You saw how much she hates my dad – maybe she did it herself.’
Hannah knew all about this madness, about grief and guilt tearing you apart from the inside. ‘Listen to me, why would Liam or Rosa want to hurt Sandeep? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘He knew something about them, knew something that linked them to this house. Dad told me he had been thinking back and was sure he remembered meeting Liam all those years ago.’
‘And?’
‘He thought Liam was the doctor who changed his story about Rob’s injury. And that was after he found out Rob worked here. At this house.’ He glanced around the room. ‘If it wasn’t for this fucking house he’d still be alive. All I know is he would never kill himself. You talked to him, you know what he’s like. Do you seriously think he would do it?’
She sighed and pointed to the vodka bottle. ‘I don’t know what to think. Maybe he did it by mistake, perhaps he was desperate to sleep, to stop thinking about stuff, and he just miscalculated, forgot how many pills he’d taken. I mean, it would be easy.’
His laugh sounded manic. ‘You hardly knew him at all. He never drank – never – and it’s just fucking obvious that someone did this to him. The idea of him having vodka hidden in his room is mad. Someone put it here.’
Hannah bit her lip. She couldn’t tell him that someone – probably Sandeep – had stolen it from her. Mo crouched by the bed.
‘Here, feel this.’ He tapped the sheet. ‘It’s soaked, completely soaked, as if someone drugged him and then poured that drink down his throat. And why is the pillow on the floor? I’ll tell you why: the bastard probably suffocated him.’
She forced herself to touch the soaking duvet and inhale the smell of vodka. Sandeep had seemed far from suicidal. Angry, moody, constantly complaining, but not suicidal. Even if he hated this house, he had told her that revisiting his memories was helping.
All the fight seemed to have left Mo and he stood there swaying, suddenly ten years older, shaking his head. He turned away and staggered into the corridor.
‘I don’t care if you believe me, but I’m done with this place. If Dad didn’t want to kill himself when Mum died, there’s no fucking way he would do it now. I’m not waiting for Liam. I’m not waiting for the police: I’m going to get them.’
Hannah went after him. ‘You can’t leave now, not in the dark in the middle of a storm.’ She tried to keep her voice level. ‘Wait until the morning. Let’s try to get the wifi working, then we can phone the police.’
‘I’m not waiting. I have to report this now. Someone killed him, you know that? Fucking killed him.’
Before she could say anything else he went into his own room and slammed the door. She heard him rummaging around and then he emerged, pulling on his coat, a little calmer now. They stood in silence for a moment, staring at each other. Then he smiled and it was as if a cloud lifted and the old Mo was suddenly with her again.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you like that, I just lost it for a minute.’
She reached out for him. ‘I know. It’s the shock. I’m so sorry.’
He took her hands and their eyes locked. ‘Dad was right. There’s something very wrong about this place. You should come with me.’
‘I can’t … I can’t leave the others, and I’m not risking it in this weather. You shouldn’t go either, you know what happened to Rob. You said it yourself: the storm’s only getting worse.’
He looked away. ‘You’re right, it’s best if you stay here. I can make better time on my own, get help faster.’ Their eyes met again. ‘But, Hannah, I’m right, you know I am. Two people dead in two days. Don’t tell me you think that’s normal. There’s a killer here, I’m telling you, and you need to be careful. Don’t trust anyone, especially not Rosa. She’s lying about something, I’m sure of it.’
Before she could reply, he kissed her on the forehead, then ran downstairs. He paused for a moment at the door, turned to look up at her. With a smile, he pulled back the locks and heaved open the door, letting in a sheet of water and wind, like a sailor opening the hatch of a ship. And then he was gone, out into the wild night.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The others must have heard him leave because they were all – only three of them now, Hannah realized – standing by the drawing room door.
‘He’s insane,’ Rosa said. ‘Completely insane, going out in this. He’ll be back soon, I’m sure he will – he won’t get far.’
Chloe was taking in rapid sips of air, and Lucy put her hands on her slender shoulders, looking into Chloe’s eyes. ‘Your mother’s right. Mo will be back soon and we’ll be all right. We’ll stay together in the warm down here for now, until the heating is on again.’
‘But what if he doesn’t come back?’ Chloe’s voice echoed in the cavernous hall.
Her mother put her arm around her. ‘He’ll be back, you’ll see. Why don’t we all bring the bedding down and sleep in the drawing room, next to the fire, like a sleepover. It’ll be fun. But first let’s sort out some dinner. Come on.’
The others filed into the kitchen, but Hannah sat on the bottom stair, so tired and miserable she could go no further. She listened to the distant thunder growing ever nearer, to the voices talking quietly in the kitchen.
Dark thoughts began to creep into her mind, even as she tried to quash them. Not to blame? Of course I’m to blame. Maybe Mo wasn’t the only one to blame, maybe this was partly her fault. She had done it again, first Ben, then Rob, and now Sandeep. All victims of her stupidity.
Could Sandeep have killed himself because he couldn’t bear his traumatic memories of this house, memories that Hannah had forced him to relive? But it was more than that: she had made him feel guilty, pretty much told him that he hadn’t tried hard enough to investigate.
And even before that – so long ago – somehow she had driven her own father away. Ruined her parents’ marriage.
Now Mo was out there in the raging storm, without a chance in hell of making it. Even a local like Rob had fallen to his death, and that was on a calm evening. She should have tried harder to persuade Mo to stay. Her hand hovered over her forehead, the place he had kissed her. She thought about the way he had looked into her eyes, his gruff voice full of sadness, the way his body had felt in her arms as they crouched on the floor.
She sat there for a long time and stared into the dusk-filled hall and out through the tall windows. Listened to the wind try to tear down this old house piece by piece.
‘Hannah?’ Lucy said. ‘There you are.’ She was standing by the bannister, but Hannah hadn’t heard her approach. ‘Come and have something to eat.’
When Hannah didn’t respond, she came to sit beside her. ‘We’re all upset,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But there’s nothing we can do. We all need to stay together downstairs tonight, then leave first thing in the morning. The storm will have blown itself out by then, and the journey back to the road will be easier if we all do it together.’
Hannah swallowed. ‘What about Sandeep?’
‘The guards will be here in the morning, and they’ll sort everything out. We might have to go to the station, but we can stay in a hotel somewhere in town.’ Lucy continued speaking, filling the silence. ‘There’s no way we can make it to the village tonight, not in this. And we’re perfectly safe here, as long as we stay together.’ Her voice was strong now, as if the louder she spoke the more she would believe her own words.
They all ate together in the kitchen, sharing the pizzas that Rosa had dug out of the freezer. They ate with their hands and talked in whispers, as if they didn’t want the house to know they were here. The heating was still broken, but thankfully the oil-fu
elled Aga kept the room warm.
Lucy and Hannah tried to make everything seem normal, talking about what they would do tomorrow once they had left the house, but it was impossible to ignore the absence of the three men. Rosa kept quiet and checked her phone repeatedly, as if it was a sacred text that might guide her to salvation. As if it might suddenly come alive with a message from Liam. Each time she stared at the screen and sighed, her jaw clenched, not seeming to notice how this upset Chloe.
The thunder sounded closer now, the crack and flash of lightning louder and more frequent. But they carried on as if they could hear nothing, even when a particularly loud smash sounded somewhere nearby. They didn’t want to acknowledge that none of them had any idea what was happening out there on the hills, or even in the dark cold bedrooms above.
Soon the heat from the Aga wasn’t enough to keep a chill from spreading through the room and Hannah stood up to check the kitchen radiator. It was still cold.
‘Why don’t we move to the drawing room?’ she said. ‘Mo brought in plenty of logs, we can get the fire roaring.’
They filed out of the kitchen and into the drawing room, closing the door behind them, making sure they stayed close together. They pulled out blankets from a cupboard and moved the sofas closer to the hearth, while Hannah threw logs on the fire. She raked out the heap of ash and shifted the embers with the poker, remembering how Mo had done the same just days ago. The basket wasn’t as full as she had hoped, but she couldn’t face venturing outside to the log shed to fill it. When a particularly strong gust of wind rattled the window, Hannah imagined the storm rolling in off the Atlantic; nothing between Mayo and America except miles and miles of surging waves. Lucy seemed to have drifted off to sleep in her armchair, but Chloe and Rosa were talking quietly.
Chloe suddenly stood up, her blanket falling to the floor. ‘What was that?’ she said.
‘What?’ asked Hannah.
Rosa put a finger to her lips.
Something buzzed nearby, then crackled. The lights flickered above them.
Lucy sat up, her eyes wide.
Then, as if Hannah had known it was going to happen, all the lights went out.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chloe and Rosa both screamed, and then fell silent. In the glow from the fire, Hannah could see them holding each other.
‘Is everyone all right?’ said Lucy.
Hannah stood up. ‘I’m fine.’ She remembered the matches were on the mantelpiece, groped for them and struck one, using it to peer around the room.
‘What happened?’ asked Chloe.
‘It’s probably just the storm,’ said Hannah. ‘We need to find a candle or something, then we can check the fuse box.’
‘There’s a couple of torches in the kitchen,’ Lucy said, taking the box of matches from Hannah, striking one and heading out into the dark hallway. They watched the faint glow of her match disappear into the gloom. After what seemed an age, a thin beam clicked on in the kitchen and Lucy reappeared in the doorway with the torches.
She sat on the sofa and laid two torches between them on the coffee table. The pale-yellow beams shone upwards, playing across their faces. The light distorted their features until their eyes looked enormous, their noses twisted out of shape, as if they all wore crude masks.
Rosa took one of the torches and went back to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later. ‘No bloody candles,’ she said. ‘What a place.’
A log shifted in the grate, and eventually Hannah sighed. She stood up and stretched, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘Well, I guess I should try to get the fuse box working, see if we can fix the lights.’
‘Don’t go,’ muttered Chloe. ‘Can’t we all just stay here together?’
‘It’s worth a quick look, I’ll only be a minute, and the fuse box is just through that door.’ She pointed into the hall. ‘I won’t go far.’
She grabbed the torch, and nobody spoke as she opened the door. The hallway seemed darker than she remembered, the only sound a ticking clock and the insistent wind. Stepping carefully, the torch gripped tight, she went to the door that led into the green corridor.
Before she had time to think, she pushed it open and found the fuse box. Flicked the switches. Closed her eyes and waited for the lights to come on. Nothing. She swore and tried again, her hands slippery on the torch. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to look down the corridor towards the padlocked door.
Shit, shit. Damn thing. She flicked the switches again, but still nothing happened. The house remained in darkness. Hurrying back out into the hall and closing the door, she felt her heart rate return to normal.
Lucy was loading another log onto the fire when she got back to the drawing room.
‘No luck,’ she said. ‘It’s not the fuse box.’
‘There must be some way of getting the lights back on.’ Rosa pulled herself up from the sofa. ‘A generator or something. And where is the boiler for God’s sake?’
Hannah slumped in an armchair and stared into the flames. She imagined sitting here helplessly all night, listening to the house fall apart around them. Hoping not to hear footsteps on the stairs, praying not to hear a little girl crying through the walls.
The fire crackled and she thought about what Mo had said. Could Rosa really have killed Sandeep? And what about Lucy? Hannah knew nothing about either of them, not really. Could they have murdered Rob too? Paranoia crept across her mind like a bad memory, as if the house itself could control her thoughts.
They had to do something, they couldn’t sit here all night. ‘I know,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘I know what I’m going to do.’ Everyone turned to face her. ‘There’s only one thing left, one place that we haven’t looked. One bit of the house that none of us have tried. Down the end of that corridor, the padlocked door.’
‘No way,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘How do we know that?’ Hannah stood up. ‘The boiler has to be in there, it’s the only place left. We might even find the router.’
Lucy stared at the flames for a moment and then shrugged. ‘All right, but I think you’re wrong: I think we won’t find anything. It’s probably a dead end, some storeroom.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘You can’t go on your own, though, it’s not safe. I’ll come with you.’
‘What? You can’t both go – it’s stupid – what about us?’ Chloe sat up, her eyes wide.
‘You’ll be fine. Just stay here by the fire, keep warm, and we’ll be back soon.’ Hannah gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
‘But how are you going to get the door unlocked?’ Chloe asked.
‘There might be a hammer in that storeroom Mo found next to the kitchen. Remember he said there were a load of old tools in there? I’m going to check it out.’
No one responded, so Hannah threw another log on the fire and checked her torch was still working.
‘Take both the torches,’ Rosa said with a frown. She held up her hand when Hannah went to protest. ‘You’ll need them more than us. We’ve got the fire.’
Lucy reluctantly picked up the second torch and, with a final smile at Chloe, they opened the door and went back out into the dark.
The storeroom turned out to be bigger than she’d expected, its walls lined with cleaning products and old ladders. The light from their torches flickered over a wooden chest of drawers in one corner, a row of plastic petrol containers, a stack of half-rotten wellies, then something that looked like a metal toolbox. Lucy stepped over to it, flung open the lid and rummaged around inside.
‘Bingo,’ she held up a hammer.
Back in the hall, their footsteps echoed as they walked towards the corridor. They stopped outside the door. The thin beams of their torches seemed to flicker hesitantly, as if the wind outside had the power to reach all the way into the house, to blow out their lights, to shroud them in perpetual darkness. Hannah could hear Lucy gulp beside her, as she stepped forward and pushed open the door.
Lucy wedged
it ajar and together they walked down the corridor, the sound of their footsteps rebounding off the walls, the beams of their torches playing over the green walls. Looking back over her shoulder, Hannah could see a rectangle of charcoal grey from the hallway, contrasting with the deep black of the corridor.
Passing Lucy her torch, Hannah stepped towards the door, took out the hammer, lifted it high, and brought it down against the padlock with a smash that reverberated in her ears. A shocking sound, metal crashing on metal, like an explosion in the cramped space.
She kept going, each smash louder than the last, and it didn’t take long for the chain to break and the mechanism to fall to the floor. She kicked it away, took another deep breath and shoved the hammer into her waistband.
Lucy suddenly put a hand on her arm. ‘Are you sure? What if it is dangerous?’
‘It’s all right, trust me,’ Hannah said, twisting the door handle with a sweaty hand and flinging open the door.
Nothing. Just a small space, another section of corridor but much shorter this time. Lucy’s breathing sounded louder now, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
‘It’s nothing, just a cupboard. An empty cupboard.’
But Hannah took her torch and stepped towards the door at the back. She wasn’t giving up now.
It was cold in here, and quiet; the sounds of the storm just a muffled murmur. When she turned the handle of the inner door, nothing happened.
‘Leave it, Hannah,’ Lucy said, her voice soft. ‘Don’t.’
Ignoring her, Hannah pulled out the hammer and stepped back. Aimed just above the lock and brought it down with all her force. The door creaked and shifted. She tried again and was rewarded with a loud snapping sound inside the lock. She threw her weight against the door and it flew open.
Something clicked and buzzed. Her heart thudded in her chest, her palms felt suddenly sticky with sweat. And then – another buzz – and they were both blinded by a burst of light.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
