The House on Cold Hill

58

Two alpacas trotted over through the misty gloom, as Ollie stopped again for a rest, halfway up the drive. He was feeling so exhausted that if he’d had his phone with him, he might have called Caro and asked her to come down and pick him and his bike up in the Range Rover. But in his haste he’d left it up in his study.

He had a bug, clearly. He needed to go to bed when he got home. Maybe he should have gone to bed over the weekend to shake it off.

He was feeling sick and feverish. Images of two crushed bodies, bleeding, maybe some of their internal organs exposed, went round in his mind. Friendly, caring Roland Fortinbrass. Crushed. The Minister of Deliverance whom he had not met. Crushed.

The house loomed ahead in the starless darkness. He could see the yellow glow of the hall light, and the one up in his office. Drenched in perspiration, he wheeled his bike, treading carefully in the darkness, round to the back of the house. There were more lights on here — the atrium and the kitchen, their bedroom and Jade’s room. In the weak glow from the windows he put the bike back in the shed, then went into the atrium.

‘Hi, darling!’ he called out.

Then he saw the two suitcases in the hall, by the front door.

‘Caro?’ he shouted.

‘I’m up here,’ she shouted back.

He climbed the stairs and went along into their bedroom. Two more large suitcases lay on the floor. She was folding clothes into one of them.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

‘I tried to get hold of you, you weren’t answering your phone.’

‘I left it up in my office.’

‘The old lady from Garden Cottage called me. She told me about the accident — the vicar’s car. She said there are two people in it. I think we both know who they are, don’t we?’

She turned to face him.

He walked over to her and put his arms round her. ‘We’re going to get through this, darling.’

‘We’re leaving. Now. Jade, you, me, Bombay and Sapphire. We’re not staying another night here.’

‘I don’t feel well, I need to go to bed.’

Breaking gently away from his arms, she walked over to the bed and put her hand on it. ‘You’re going to sleep in this? Touch it, Ollie. Touch it!’

He followed her and touched the counterpane. It was sopping wet. He touched the top pillow and it was sodden.

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Look at the walls,’ she said, pointing with her finger.

They were glistening with moisture.

‘We could sleep in the drawing room again.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘All the bedding is sopping wet. Jade’s room is the same. We don’t even have a dry towel in the house. We need to leave, now.’

She closed up her suitcase. ‘Get packing. Just take whatever you need for tomorrow. Mum and Dad are expecting us, she’s making some supper.’

‘Caro, this is—’

‘This is what, Oliver?’

His head was swimming. ‘Darling — OK — give me an hour, I’ve got to get some stuff together up in my office.’

‘No, we’re going now. I’m taking Jade and the cats. You come on when you’re ready. I’ll make sure we keep some supper for you.’

There was no point arguing. ‘OK,’ he said, thinking about the news report he had heard earlier today on his way back from Cholmondley’s showroom. ‘Take the Range Rover, will you?’

‘I don’t like driving it, you know I don’t, it’s too big for me.’

He held her again in his arms and tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away. ‘Please, tonight, take it. I’ll bring the Golf.’

‘Why?’

‘Because...’ He hesitated, not wanting to tell her what he had heard on the radio. ‘You can get all the stuff in there more easily.’

She shrugged. ‘OK.’

‘I’ll give you a hand loading it.’

‘No, get on with your packing. Jade’ll help me. OK?’

‘OK,’ he said, reluctantly.

He lugged her suitcase down into the hall and placed it by the front door with the other cases. As he turned round he saw his daughter coming towards him holding the two cat baskets.

‘OK, my lovely?’

‘Are we coming back soon, Dad?’

‘Soon.’ He kissed her, then climbed back up the stairs. He stopped on the landing to get his breath back, feeling giddy and as if he was about to throw up. He took several deep breaths, then carried on up the tower stairs and into his office.

He walked over to his desk and sat down in his swivel chair in front of his computer, completely exhausted and half-expecting to see another message on the screen.

But there was nothing.

He closed his eyes. It felt like a steel band was tightening round his chest. He sat there for several minutes, dozing fitfully.

A ping from his phone startled him.

Down below, he heard the crunch of tyres on gravel, and the sound of a car receding.

He dozed again for a few moments. There was second ping.

Only half aware, he reached forward for his iPhone, picked it up and looked at the display. There was a message from Caro.

‘Noooooooooooooo!’ he yelled, jumping up from his chair with his phone in his hand, and throwing himself down the stairs, along the landing, down into the hall and to the front door. He raced out on to the driveway. ‘Caro!’ he shouted. ‘Caro!’

The Range Rover sat there, dark and silent. Red tail lights were moving away from him, disappearing down the drive, over the brow of the hill.

‘Caro!’ he screamed. ‘Caro!’ He ran after her, breaking into a sprint, the tail lights receding further and further into the distance.

The police would stop her at the bottom, he thought. The accident. The road would still be closed. They wouldn’t let her pass. Oh God, please don’t!

As he ran on down past the field of alpacas he lost sight of the lights. Still he kept going, his chest tight, the steel grip tightening, tightening, tightening. The pain was excruciating.

It worsened.

Worsened.

Like daggers pushing into his chest and then twisting. He could not breathe.

Then, all at once, he felt unseen hands pulling him backwards.

‘Noooo! Lemmego!’

It felt as if he was running against an ever-tightening elastic band. Running, fighting for breath.

‘Lemmego!’

The faster he ran, the more the band hardened, tightened. The more the daggers twisted.

And suddenly he was treading air as if he was treading water.

The pain stopped.

He was being dragged backwards.

‘Nooooooooo!’

He was pedalling air. Floating. Rising skywards.

‘Noooooooo! Caro! Caro! Caro!’

Something was pulling him back towards the house. Faster and faster. Accelerating. Accelerating.

He saw the silent Range Rover right below him. He was going to be smashed to pulp against the front of the house.

Then, suddenly, he was in the kitchen. Everything was calm. All the pain around his chest was gone. Caro and Jade were seated at the table looking at him, and smiling. They were bathed in shimmering green light, as if a powerful lamp was shining behind each of them.

‘Darling!’ Caro said.

‘Dad, epic!’ Jade greeted him.

‘Welcome home!’ Caro said.

Jade nodded, enthusiastically.

The television on the wall was switched on. There was an aerial shot of emergency vehicles. A lorry at a skewed angle on a country road he recognized as being on the way to Caro’s parents. The remnants of a Volkswagen Golf lay on its side a short distance away.

‘See!’ Caro said, happily. ‘That’s us! The dead have no more fears! We’re in a good place now, aren’t we, Ols?’

‘We can stay here forever now, can’t we, Dad?’ Jade said.

As he looked at them both, they began to fade, the light behind each of them dimming.

‘Come back! Come back!’ he cried out.

His own voice was becoming weaker.

Then a stranger, a smartly dressed man in his late thirties, with slicked-back fair hair, wearing a grey suit with loud socks and buckled loafers, came into the kitchen, holding a clipboard with a notepad on it, a digital measurer and a camera.

He took several photographs from different angles.

‘Excuse me, who are you?’ Ollie asked.

The man ignored him, as if he had not seen him. He began to ping a laser off the walls, measuring the width and length of the room, jotting them down on his pad.

‘Hello?’ Ollie said. ‘Excuse me, hello?’

The man moved on, without responding, through into the scullery.