The House on Cold Hill

33

‘Mr Simpson, the music teacher, has asked me if I’d like to play a solo in the school concert at the end of term!’ Jade said, bubbling with enthusiasm as she climbed up into the car.

‘Wow, that’s great, lovely! What are you going to play?’

‘Well, I’m not sure yet — he’s got a few ideas.’

‘I’m very proud of you!’

All the way home she told him about her day and about how much she liked her new music teacher. The discussion about ghosts they’d had this morning, when he’d been driving her to school, seemed to be gone from her mind — for now at least.

At a few minutes past 6.00p.m., as they drove up the drive and the house came into view, looking stunning in the evening sunlight, his spirits lifted. He was cheered and buoyed by Jade’s happy innocence and her growing enthusiasm for her new school. And she had added two more new friends, in addition to Charlie and Niamh, to the ones she wanted to invite to her birthday party, she told him.

He saw Caro’s black Golf parked outside the house, and then, as they drew closer, he saw she was still in the car, talking on her phone.

He pulled up beside her, and climbed out. Jade jumped down, clutching her guitar and rucksack, and ran happily to the Golf. Moments later, Caro ended her call and emerged, holding her briefcase. Jade hugged her and delivered the same excited news she’d given her father. Then they went inside and Jade disappeared up to her room.

‘How was your day, darling?’ Ollie asked.

‘I need a drink,’ she said. ‘A large one. Several large ones!’

They went through into the kitchen. Caro plonked her briefcase down on the floor. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got a good hour’s work to do,’ she said. ‘But I really do need a drink first. God!’

Ollie went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine, then began to cut away the foil. ‘Have you only just arrived home, darling?’

‘No, I got here about twenty minutes ago. I was waiting for you to come home. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry about what?’

She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. ‘I was too scared to come in here on my own. I–I didn’t want to be alone in the house.’

He turned to look at her. She was hunched over the table, looking deeply vulnerable.

He walked over and put an arm round her. ‘Darling, I understand.’

‘Do you? Do you really? Do you understand what it’s like to be scared to go in the front door of your own sodding home? Aren’t you scared? What’s going to happen tonight? Tomorrow? It’s like something doesn’t want us here. What the hell have we done? What have we got ourselves into? Do you think we should move? Ollie, what are we going to do?’

She was wondering whether she should tell him about the message on her phone that had appeared — then disappeared — whilst she was having lunch with Kingsley Parkin. But she still couldn’t be sure if she had simply imagined it. So she said nothing.

‘We need to sort this out,’ he said. ‘Sort the house out. Find out just what the hell is going on. I went to see the previous vicar here, a nice old boy called Bob Manthorpe. He said the house had a bad history but that all old houses have some tragedies in their past.’

‘And beds that rotate one hundred and eighty sodding degrees during the night?’

‘I still think there’s got to be an explanation for that.’

‘Good, I’m glad one of us does.’

He returned to the wine. ‘It’s not physically possible to have rotated — without being dismantled first. I took Bryan Barker up to the room earlier, and he had a good look at it. The nuts and bolts holding it together haven’t been touched in years — decades. They’re all corroded.’

‘I went to see someone too, today.’

‘Who?’

‘A client. I didn’t want to tell you about him because I didn’t want to upset you. He came to see me on Monday. He’s a new client, a weird guy, an old rocker called Kingsley Parkin — he had one big hit back in the sixties — who says he’s psychic.’

‘What was the hit?’

‘I can’t remember — not something I’d heard of. I think he said his band was called Johnny Lonesome and the Travellers — or something like that. Anyway, he started getting messages about the house when he was in my office on Monday — messages from my auntie Marjorie. Marjie. Remember her?’

‘Of course.’ The cork came out with a loud pop. ‘She was lovely, I liked her.’

‘She liked you, too. He knew her name, Ollie. Isn’t that strange? How did he know her name?’

‘What kind of messages — what was she saying?’

‘He said she was telling us to leave. To leave while we still could.’

Ollie wiped fragments of cork from the neck of the bottle, thinking. If Caro’s mother, despite being a magistrate, was a tad bonkers, her auntie Marjie had been seven miles north of bonkers. He’d genuinely liked her, but she really was wired on a different circuit from everyone else. ‘Did your auntie have anyone in mind to buy this place and pay us back all we’ve sunk into it?’

‘I’m being serious, Ollie.’

‘So am I.’ He filled two wine glasses and carried them over to the table. ‘Look, I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about any of this. I can’t explain the bed, and I can’t explain what you saw in the mirror. But moving here is the biggest thing we’ve ever done. We can’t just walk away because some drug-addled old rocker with a fried brain is getting messages from your dead auntie. Is that what you want?’

‘Kingsley Parkin said that if we wanted to stay we should consider asking for an exorcism. But he’s offered to come out here himself and see what he picks up.’

Ollie sat down opposite her. ‘An exorcism?’

It was along the lines of what Bob Manthorpe had suggested to him earlier, although he had used less dramatic words, a Christian Service of Deliverance, he had called it. And he had told Ollie he knew a good person to do it if they decided to go that route.

‘Parkin said we should talk to the current vicar,’ continued Caro. ‘Apparently there’s an exorcist in every diocese in the country. They get called in when things happen that people can’t explain. Like they’re happening here.’

‘Bell, book and candle. All that stuff?’

‘I’m willing to give it a go. Do you have a better idea, Ollie? Because if so, tell me. Otherwise I’m getting the hell out of here.’

‘Listen, we mustn’t panic, that would be ridiculous!’

‘Like rotating one hundred and eighty degrees in the night is ridiculous? Like seeing an apparition in my mirror is ridiculous? Sure, I can accept that this move here is a big thing and massively disruptive. But we’ve moved into a nightmare.’

‘The old vicar chap, Manthorpe, was going to have a word with someone — someone in the clergy who’s had experience dealing with odd phenomena. But I don’t think it was quite as dramatic as an exorcist.’

‘Why not have an exorcist?’

‘I’m happy to have an exorcist — or whatever he’s called — come here. Let’s do it. Would that make you feel better?’

‘Would it make you feel better?’

‘If he can stop whatever’s going on here, yes.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort it. I’ll call Kingsley Parkin first and see how soon he could come out here. Maybe he can come this evening. Shall I do that?’

All the time they talked, Ollie continually glanced past her at the archway through into the atrium, looking for the spheres he had seen previously. He glanced around for them, with a shiver, every time he entered the atrium. An exorcist. He shrugged at the thought. But he had no better solution.

He also had a feeling there was more that Manthorpe might have told him, if he’d pressed, if he’d had more time and not had to leave to go and collect Jade. He suspected the old vicar knew more about the history of the house than he was telling. He would call him tomorrow and try to go and see him again, he decided. ‘Sure, call this Parkin chap,’ he said to Caro.

‘I’ll do it now. Let’s carry on this conversation later,’ she said. ‘We’ll make beds up on the sofas. But I’ve got to deal with something urgently for a client.’ Caro leaned down, opened her briefcase and pulled a thick plastic file-holder from it.

‘I’ve got something urgent to do too, for sodding Cholmondley,’ he said. ‘Want me to make supper tonight?’

‘That would be great, thanks.’

‘Stir-fried prawns? We’ve got some raw ones in the fridge.’

‘Anything.’

He looked at his watch. It was coming up to 6.30 p.m. ‘Eat around eight?’

‘Fine.’

As he removed the bag of prawns from the fridge, and poured some into a bowl, Ollie heard Caro on the phone leaving a voicemail message for Parkin. He filled the cats’ food bowls, called them, then carried his wine glass up to his office, sat at his desk, and switched on the radio to catch the closing news headlines.

Earlier that afternoon Cholmondley had sent him an email which he had only looked at, so far, on his iPhone. It was a photograph of a 1965 Ferrari GTO that had sold at auction in the USA for thirty-five million dollars a couple of years back. Cholmondley had now been offered its sister car with, he claimed, an impeccable provenance. He wanted star treatment for it on the website.

As the screen came to life, to Ollie’s surprise all the normal folders and documents on the desktop had vanished. In their place were the words, in large black capitals:

As he stared at them in shock, they suddenly faded away and all the folders and documents came back into view.

Then he heard Caro scream.