Shadow of a Doubt

by Michelle Davies

  The second squeak is louder.

  I let out a cry; the noise is coming from the hallway, just like before. Only this time, instead of moving slowly up the stairs towards my bedroom as it did most nights, it’s coming closer to where I am now.

  Panic surges through me, but my body ignores my brain’s frantic commands to stand up and get the hell out. It’s as though I’m pinned to the floor by an invisible force. When a third squeak resonates from the hallway, closer still, I try to shout a command to leave me alone, but only a wordless rasp comes out. Fear has paralysed every part of me, although the voice of nine-year-old me is screaming blue murder inside my head.

  Limey Stan’s been waiting all this time for us to return.

  I hear the door between the hallway and kitchen swing open and then the clatter of the plastic boxes skidding across the floor. Powerless to do anything else, I squeeze my eyes shut. It seems a crazy thing to do, but it’s what I did when Matty died beside me – I was too scared to look then and I am too scared to look now.

  Limey Stan has reached the doorway to the lounge. I can hear him breathing, a shallow, ragged noise that is as menacing now as it was then.

  He moves forward. Barely three paces must separate us now.

  I squeeze my eyes tighter.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cara

  Yet when he speaks, Limey Stan’s voice sounds nothing like the guttural growl I’ve committed to memory. It is softer, higher and surprisingly polite.

  ‘Excuse me. How did you get in here?’

  My eyes fly open. The man addressing me from the doorway resembles nothing of Limey Stan. For one thing, this man is dark-skinned, of Asian descent, and I’ve always been certain Limey Stan was white. I slump forward and bury my face in my hands, somewhere between crying and laughing, as relief courses through me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ the man asks, his tone firmer this time.

  ‘I could ask you the same,’ I shoot back, finding my voice at last. I have no clue why this stranger is here or what his intentions are, but his presence is not threatening: if anything, he looks concerned.

  ‘I saw the light on and came to check it out, because this place is meant to be empty.’ He peers at me through narrowed lids. ‘Hang on – Cara?’

  To my amazement, he breaks into a grin.

  ‘It’s me, Tishk!’

  He takes a step forward into the room. The sudden movement makes me feel vulnerable in my position on the floor and I scuttle sideways like a crab. His face falls.

  ‘You don’t remember me. I’m Tishk Shakoor, from next door. You and Matty were friends with my little brothers …’

  He stops abruptly. I use the pause to clamber ungainly to my feet.

  ‘Of course I remember you,’ I say, and I feel a flicker of something I have not felt in a long time: delight. There aren’t many people connected to my childhood that I have good feelings about, but Tishk is one of the few. He was older than me, by about seven years, but it didn’t stop me having a huge crush on him as a kid. I think he knew – I wasn’t the only girl locally to adore him and all of us would giggle and blush profusely in his presence, even Lisa – but he was sweet about it and always chatted to us. He even taught me to tell the time because I found it confusing and my parents had given up trying. It was one of the best afternoons of my childhood when he did that.

  We stand awkwardly for a moment and I don’t know whether he expects me to shake his hand or hug him. In the end, I do neither and shove my hands in my coat pockets.

  ‘I didn’t know your parents were still living next door.’

  ‘They’re not. After they retired, they moved to the Midlands to live with Amir and his family. They kept the house though and I’m living there for the time being.’ He hesitates. ‘I’m really sorry about your mum. She was a lovely lady.’

  I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t. ‘How are your mum and dad keeping?’ I ask.

  I always envied the Shakoor kids for how their parents were. It wasn’t just that they were always around, unlike our dad, who worked away most of the week, but Mr and Mrs Shakoor were present. Most of the time, Mum was impenetrable to me, a daydreamer lost in her own thoughts. Sometimes I’d have to say the same thing five times before she registered I was talking to her, let alone standing in front of her. She was never quite all there.

  ‘They’re good, thanks. Older, but healthy.’ He pulls a face. ‘Sorry, that was insensitive of me.’

  ‘It’s okay. So, are you living on your own next door?’ It’s a blunt question, but I want to know if there is anyone else I need to expect.

  Tishk nods. ‘Yep, it’s just me. The family visits regularly and Amir often stays when he’s down for work.’ He pauses. ‘He won’t believe it when I tell him you’re back. Seriously, it’s such a nice surprise to see you again.’

  As he beams at me, it registers that Tishk is even better-looking now than he was as a sixteen-year-old. He must be forty now, or nearing it, but his hair’s still dark, to the point of almost being black, except for this one streak of silver running through his artfully styled quiff. He has a beard now too, although it’s more stubble than hair, and he looms over me in height.

  ‘How come your parents didn’t sell up when they moved away?’ I ask.

  ‘They decided to keep the house as a rental investment. It’s worked out well for me because when they moved, I decided to give up my job to do a PhD and I needed somewhere cheap to live while I did it. Mum and Dad said I can live there for the time being and they’ll sell up when I’ve finished.’

  Clearly there’s more to the story, such as where he was living before, but Tishk doesn’t elaborate. His gaze strays to the bay window and mine follows it. The curtains that hang there now are sill-length and beige in colour. I imagine the burgundy velvet full-lengths, among the folds of which my brother was smothered, were either kept as evidence or destroyed.

  It upset a lot of people that I was too young to be charged in relation to Matty’s death, my parents and wider family included. But, believe me, if I’d had a choice, knowing what I know now, I would much rather have faced the inside of a courtroom and taken my chances in front of a judge than gone to the Peachick. In juvenile detention, I might’ve been able to stand up for myself; in the Peachick, any resistance to authority was medicated out of me. Hospital was the wrong place for me because there was nothing wrong with my mind and I told the doctors at the Peachick over and over that it wasn’t my fault Matty died. Looking back, it’s a wonder they ever let me out, but after two years of being there, a new doctor arrived to assess me and he declared I was well enough to re-enter society as long as it wasn’t anywhere near home. I still don’t know why I ended up in Morecambe of all places, though.

  Tishk and I both look away from the curtains at the same time and our eyes meet. I expect to see revulsion reflected in his, as I did in Jim’s at the cemetery, but instead he looks sad.

  ‘We all missed you afterwards. It was never the same round here without either of you.’ He hesitates and his lips pinch and twist as though his mouth can’t quite work out how to form its next sentence. ‘You know, none of my family ever believed you were responsible for Matty dying.’

  I am shocked and say so. ‘Everyone else did,’ I add.

  ‘In Islamic culture, we don’t believe in ghosts – we recognise what’s known as “jinn”, a spirit that appears in either human or animal form that can be good or bad but isn’t the spirit of anyone who actually existed, so not your grandparents or someone else from your family,’ says Tishk. ‘My parents always said your house must’ve been visited by a jinn that was pure evil for Matty to die.’

  I am astounded Mr and Mrs Shakoor believed I didn’t do it. That makes them the only adults who did.

  ‘Why were they so sure it wasn’t me?’ I can’t help myself asking.

  ‘They thought you were a good kid.’

  Tishk says it with such magnanimity that I am overwhelmed. If
only more grown-ups had reached the same conclusion as his parents. Instead, they all believed the lies about me being hateful and aggressive towards Matty and towards other kids at school. Lies, manufactured to condemn me, because I don’t remember my temper being any worse than any other child’s and I’m pretty sure I was on the receiving end of as much bullying as others were. Certainly when word of Limey Stan started to spread – I blame Evie for that, because she told the other girls in our class what I’d confided to her about being woken up – I was picked on mercilessly.

  ‘But what about afterwards, when people were gossiping and all the stories came out about me?’ I ask Tishk.

  At the Peachick, I was not allowed access to newspapers or televised news, so it was down to my social worker, an earnest young woman called Marie, to inform me that someone close to the police investigation had leaked the details to the press and given them my real name. The publicity surrounding the so-called ‘Heldean Haunting’ effectively killed off Cara Belling and forced me into a lifetime of hiding.

  ‘My parents took no notice of what was said,’ Tishk answers. ‘They believed you, and so did the rest of us.’

  He appears genuine, as though he really does believe I am innocent. I suddenly think of Anne and wonder if I was wrong to storm off like I did without talking it through. I at least owed her that.

  ‘You were petrified of Limey Stan being in your house,’ he goes on. ‘I know that because Amir told me you couldn’t sleep because you were so scared of all the noises at night and things shifting around. He said one time you were so tired you had a nap while sitting on a swing up at the Rec.’

  I falter. ‘Amir told you that?’

  ‘Yes, he was worried about you. He told me what was going on and asked me to keep an eye on your house at night.’

  ‘How could you do that? It was happening well after midnight.’

  Tishk grins sheepishly. ‘I wasn’t always the model Muslim son everyone thought I was. Sometimes I’d sneak out at night to meet up with my mates and stay out late. Amir knew but never said anything.’

  I laugh, shocked by his confession. ‘What if your parents found out?’

  ‘That’s the irony. They wouldn’t have minded. Well, they wouldn’t have liked me being out on a school night, because they were sticklers for passing exams, but they wouldn’t have minded the friends I was hanging out with. They’re third-generation Pakistanis born in England and believe we should live our lives in whatever way makes us happy. They’ve supported all our choices as adults,’ he adds. ‘Amir’s wife is a white-Canadian Christian and both my sisters are unmarried and live with their boyfriends.’

  ‘What about Raman?’ The youngest brother, he was Matty’s best friend out of school.

  ‘He’s single, like me.’

  I make no reaction to the remark and instead steer the conversation back to that summer. ‘Did you ever keep watch on our house then?’

  ‘Only in passing, but I never saw anything.’

  I want to talk to him more about what he remembers of that time, but I don’t trust myself not to say the wrong thing and I certainly don’t trust him yet. Yes, I knew him all those years ago, but I don’t know him now. What’s to stop him repeating this conversation to others? For all I know, he could be recording me right now, on the phone he’s holding.

  ‘Well, thanks for checking on the place,’ I say, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Oh. Right. Mum’s solicitor gave me the keys. She’s left me the house.’

  Tishk’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep, and I am as surprised as you are.’ I pause. ‘Hang on, how did you get in?’

  ‘Spare key. Your mum gave it to me after she had the front door changed, just in case she locked herself out, or for emergencies.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Three years ago,’ he says with a smile. ‘My PhD is a slow work in progress – I actually moved back to start work on it a year before that.’

  If Mum gave Tishk a key, that suggests they were on good terms. Good enough to chat regularly? ‘Did she ever mention me?’ I blurt out.

  He shakes his head a fraction too quickly. ‘We didn’t speak much, only in passing really. My parents said after your dad’s accident, she kept to herself. I didn’t even know how ill she was until an ambulance arrived one day because she’d collapsed with pneumonia. I came round to see her after she was discharged and that’s when she said she’d been diagnosed with cancer a few months before. She went into the hospice not long after.’

  I think about Mum collapsing and then I remember the ambulance that came to the house for me and suddenly I’m assailed by nausea. The effects of the wine are profound now and I gulp down a deep breath.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Tishk asks, frowning.

  I decide there is no point lying. ‘Actually, I think I’m drunk.’

  ‘I guessed as much.’

  ‘That obvious?’

  ‘The swaying is a giveaway, as is the empty wine bottle I found in the porch.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m not judging. It can’t be easy coming back to this place after all this time and after your mum’s died. Look, why don’t you come next door with me and I’ll make you a coffee?’

  ‘I can’t. I need to sort this mess out. I think the place has been burgled.’

  Tishk reacts with shock. ‘No way.’ He looks round the room. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘The house was always immaculate when we were kids. Mum worked as a housekeeper for a time and keeping things spick and span rubbed off on her. Even if she wasn’t well enough to tidy and clean it herself, I would’ve thought she’d have got my aunt or someone else to help.’ I think about the state of the back garden. ‘Maybe she let her standards slip when she was sick, but this still doesn’t look right, does it?’

  ‘You’re asking the wrong person. I grew up in a household with two adults and five children, so neatness isn’t a concept I’m familiar with. Do you want me to call the police?’

  He holds his phone aloft, but I shake my head. Suppose Mum had lived in disarray in her final weeks – how stupid would I look if I reported it? Plus, I really do not want the police poking around. ‘I’ll see if anything’s missing first.’

  ‘How will you know?’

  I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be hurtful, but his question pierces my heart. Of course I won’t know, because I don’t have a clue what belongings my mum had. I hate that I don’t know. I turn away before he can see how upset I am and begin shoving the cushions back on the sofa.

  ‘Do you want a hand? I can stay and help. I’m working on a fifteen-thousand-word paper at the moment and I’m in no rush to get back to it.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ He sounds disappointed. ‘I’ll be off then, but if you change your mind about that coffee, pop over.’ He hesitates for a second. ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do with the house now it’s yours?’

  The words spill from my lips before I even realise what I’m saying.

  ‘I’m going to come and stay for a bit and get the place straight before I sell it.’ Am I? ‘The garden needs some serious work first.’ I hate gardening. ‘I’m going to ask for a leave of absence for a few weeks, unpaid if necessary. I think my boss will say yes.’ She will, because Jeannie’s lovely like that.

  He brightens. ‘So we’ll be neighbours again?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  He must sense my trepidation, or maybe my expression gives it away.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he says gently. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’

  ‘I know. The house looks so different now, it’s not the same place.’

  It is different, yes. But what I cannot bring myself to tell Tishk is that it still feels the same. Since we’ve been talking, the air around me has grown heavy and my body is ri
gid against it. I’m also experiencing the same sense of foreboding that had me cower beneath my bedclothes, waiting to hear the creak of footfall on the stairs, or the drag of a chair being moved across the floor without being pulled or pushed. It was unsettling and hostile back then and it feels exactly the same now.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to be scared of,’ Tishk says solemnly. ‘Not when I’m just next door.’

  If that’s true, why do I feel so frightened?

  Chapter Twenty

  Tina (Home)

  online

  You’ll never guess who Jim from next door’s just seen up at the cemetery!!!!!

  Who?

  Cara Belling. Bold as brass, visiting her brother’s grave.

  NO WAY! Did he speak to her?

  Cheeky cow had a go at him!!!! Jim told her she should admit what she did instead of making up shit about ghosts.

  Good for him. Can’t believe she’s had the nerve to come back.

  Her mum just died.

  Yeah, saw that in the paper. Poor cow.

  The mum, not CB. Anita was lovely.

  Jim said CB’s as hard as nails now. Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, put it that way.

  I’m really shocked she’s come back.

  I told Jim he should tip off papers, make a few bob. But he’s worried it’ll be traced back to him as he was the only person there. Council wouldn’t be happy. He’s made me promise to keep quiet, but had to tell u of all people!

  I’m glad you have!

  Do you reckon she definitely did it?

  Are u mad? Of course she did!

  Evie always thought she was telling the truth. They were so close as kids.

  E’s too nice for her own good. Will u tell her about CB being seen?

  I don’t know. Don’t want her upset with baby on way. Hopefully CB was making a one-off visit and I won’t have to worry about it.

  Here’s hoping.

  √

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cara

  Saturday sees me return to Heldean with Mustard in tow. The few days in between have been spent tying up loose ends at work, mainly because Donna’s relentless probing about where I was going slowed matters down considerably. My refusal to tell her anything beyond the bare minimum – there has been a death in my immediate family and I am taking a couple of weeks off – drove her to distraction and already I have had three texts since leaving the office yesterday asking if I am okay and proclaiming that if I ever want to talk, she is happy to listen. She is the last person in the world I would confide in about the situation I find myself in, but so conflicted are my emotions at the moment that I find myself thanking her for the offer.