The House on Cold Hill

44

Ollie sat, stunned, staring at the email. He was utterly bewildered and feeling sick deep inside. And close to tears. Just what the hell was happening? He had imagined the vicar; he had imagined Jade and her friend in the garden. Was he now sending emails that he had no recollection of? Should he go and see a doctor?

Another email pinged in, and his spirits sank even lower still when he saw it was from Bhattacharya.

He could scarcely bring himself to open it. His hands hovered over the keypad, his fingers trembling. His whole body was shaking. Normally when he was stressed he’d go for a run or a bike ride. But he felt too sapped right now to do anything other than sit and think and stare.

Chris Webb would be able to find out where the emails had really come from, wouldn’t he? That would be the solution. Get him to show they were being sent from someone outside, who was using this address, and then he could go back to Cholmondley and Bhattacharya.

Unless.

But he didn’t want to go there. Not down that line of thought.

He did not want to entertain the possibility that he might have been the sender.

Or someone or something here in his office with him.

He looked up at the ceiling with a start, as if he again sensed something there, looking down, mocking him.

Then he opened the Indian restaurateur’s email. It was every bit as bad as he expected. A litany of food hygiene regulations each of his restaurants had allegedly broken. And a livid reply from Bhattacharya.

For a moment he thought he was going to throw up at his desk. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to think clearly. Then he dialled Chris Webb.

‘Chris, I have an absolute emergency here. There have been more emails to those same two clients, and they’ve been copied to other potential clients. You’ve got to help me, we have to do something — my business is being destroyed.’

‘More emails?’

Ollie could hear a roar in the background, as if Webb was watching a football or perhaps rugby match on television. ‘Yes, in the past hour — while I’ve been sitting in front of my bloody computer. I just don’t know what’s going on. You’ve got to help me, please, could you come over?’

‘OK.’

‘I’d really appreciate that. How soon can you come?’

‘I’ll be with you in about forty-five minutes. Meantime, what I suggest you do is disconnect from the internet — or, even better, switch it off completely until I get there. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, right away, thank you.’

Ollie stared at the keyboard, then at the screen, as if scared something new might have appeared while he’d been talking to the computer guru. He did as instructed, selected Shut Down from the Apple menu and clicked on it.

He waited until the screen was dark and the machine was silent, then stood up, went downstairs and out into the garden, feeling desperately in need of some fresh air to try to clear his head. The sun in the clear blue sky barely registered, nor the warmth of the air, or anything around him as he walked down towards the lake, his heart like a massive weight inside his chest. He felt as if all the energy had been sucked out of him and he was just a dark, discarded husk.

He stood and stared bleakly at two mallards, a male and female, paddling seemingly aimlessly across the water. Just what the hell was happening to them all? Had they made a terrible mistake moving here — not just taking on more than they could cope with financially, but coming into some unfathomable darkness?

Should they just move out and put the place on the market? It was something he had considered several times in the past few days. And yet, it seemed absurd to give in, and give all this up, just because of — if Bruce Kaplan was right — some energy at large in the place. Both Bob Manthorpe and Caro’s strange client who had died, had advised requesting the diocesan exorcist — Minister of Deliverance — to come and clear the house. Maybe that was all it needed. And everything would be OK after that. The vicar had said this morning he would put in a request to the Sussex Minister of Deliverance and get back to him as quickly as he could.

His phone vibrated in his trouser pocket and began ringing. He pulled it out and saw a mobile number on the display he did not recognize.

‘Hello?’ he answered.

‘Ah, Oliver, is this a good moment?’

It was Roland Fortinbrass.

‘Yes, it is, thank you.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’