The House on Cold Hill

50

As he stared, rooted to the spot, feeling as if his stomach had turned into a block of ice, the words faded. An instant later there was a tearing sound above him like someone ripping up a sheet of stiff paper or cardboard.

His eyes shot to the ceiling. A spider’s web of cracks was appearing, spreading out in front of his eyes. Moments later, a small chunk of plaster, accompanied by a shower of dust, fell down on his head and on to the keyboard.

He looked up again, shivers rippling through him, at the tiny area of exposed rafter.

As suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The cracks did not grow any bigger. No more dust fell.

He stared up again, shaking uncontrollably, thinking, thinking, thinking.

Jesus, what the hell was happening?

He went down to the first-floor landing, where he could smell the aroma of roasting meat from the kitchen and hear the music pounding out of Jade’s room, then walked along to the yellow room, and back into the en-suite bathroom. He looked at the old-fashioned enamel bathtub, with brown stains below the big old taps and around the plughole. Then he stared at the tiled walls. He went through into the blue room next door, and over to the wall which should adjoin the bathroom, and rapped hard on it, to see if it was hollow.

But it was solid.

What the hell was behind that tiny window? What room? Who was in there?

As he went back out onto the landing someone barged into him, sending him flying forward, crashing down onto the threadbare carpet.

‘Hey!’ he said angrily, thinking for a moment it must be Ruari.

Then, as he looked around, he realized there was no one there.

‘Lunch!’ Caro shouted out from downstairs. ‘Lunch!’

‘OK, darling!’ he called back, his voice shaky, hauling himself up onto his knees.

‘Tell Jade, Phoebe and Ruari to come down,’ she called back.

He stood up, looking around and up at the ceiling. ‘Yes, OK, I’ll get them.’

‘It’s on the table!’

Jade was full of excitement, at lunch, about the music video, showing them all a clip on her phone and talking about her party next week, and the labradoodle puppy they were going to go and see. Ruari, whom Ollie and Caro liked a lot, was his usual chatty self, talking about football and in particular Brighton’s bitter rivals, Crystal Palace. Ollie and Ruari both agreed that Crystal Palace looked like they were going to struggle to avoid relegation from the Premier League this season.

‘Jade says you’ve got a ghost here,’ Ruari said suddenly, with a grin. ‘That’s pretty cool.’

‘I think most old houses have ghosts of some kind,’ Ollie replied. His plate of food sat on the refectory table in front of him, virtually untouched. Roast pork and crackling was one of his favourite dishes, but right now he had no appetite.

‘Epic,’ Ruari said, nodding his head. ‘Just epic.’

Then Ollie saw a shadow moving in the doorway to the atrium. Hovering. Just as it had hovered before when he’d been in the drawing room yesterday morning with the vicar.

‘Excuse me a second.’ Ollie stood up abruptly and strode over to the door and out, across the atrium and into the hall. The hairs rose on the nape of his neck. A short distance along, at the foot of the stairs, facing away from him, stood the translucent silhouettes of a woman and girl. From behind they looked like Caro and Jade. He ran towards them and, as he reached them, they vanished. There was nothing there. He stood, shivering, looking all around and up the stairs.

Nothing.

Shaking all over, wondering again just what was going on in his head, he went back into the kitchen and saw Caro frowning at him. Jade, Phoebe and Ruari were giggling over some private joke.

‘Thought I heard a car,’ he said, lamely.

As soon as lunch was over, Ollie excused himself and went back up to his office, glancing around nervously with every step he took. Then, as he entered the tower room and looked up at the ceiling, he stopped and stood still in disbelief.

The cracks had gone. The ceiling was intact, as it always had been.

He sat down at his desk and buried his face in his hands. Oh God, he thought, again. Oh God, what’s happening to me?

Then he looked at his keyboard, turned it upside down and shook it. Dust fell out.

Dust from the ceiling earlier? Or had it been there for a while?

He listened for some moments to the sound of rain pattering against the window. Then, opening his eyes, he saw on the display of his mobile phone that he had a missed call and a voicemail from Cholmondley.

He snatched it up and listened to it.

Cholmondley’s voice was terse and the message brief. ‘This is Charles Cholmondley, Mr Harcourt. One twenty, Sunday. Will you please call me and explain just what the hell’s going on now?’

He took several deep breaths, then pressed the button. The phone was answered after just one ring, as if his client had been sitting with it in his hand, waiting.

‘Charles!’ he said, as disarmingly as he could. ‘Just got your message.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to explain?’

‘You got the email from my IT manager?’

‘I’ve got an email from a Mr Chris Webb, signing himself as your IT manager, intended for someone else, I believe.’

‘Pardon? Someone else?’

‘Is your organization so inept — or should I say your IT manager — that you can’t even address an email to the correct recipient?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Ollie said, totally confused. ‘He emailed you to explain the problems we’ve been experiencing. You see—’

‘My name is Charles Cholmondley, Mr Harcourt. The email your man has sent me was written to a Mr Anup Bhattacharya.’

It took several moments for his words to sink in. Ollie shook his head. No. No. They couldn’t have done. They’d been so careful, so incredibly careful.

‘He’s been receiving malicious emails, apparently, this Mr Bhattacharya. Someone who has a grudge against him, and has hacked your system to attack him. Was there some other reason why Mr Webb sent it to me?’

Shit! Ollie thought. Shit, shit, shit. So much for his carefully constructed plan to calm the man down. How the hell did he dig himself out of this one?

‘Perhaps you should be more careful who you are sending emails to, Mr Harcourt.’

‘Let me try to explain, Charles, please.’

A few minutes after he ended the call, he saw an email had come in from Bhattacharya. It was the one Webb had sent to Cholmondley. There was a curt message from his Indian client at the top.

Ollie checked his Sent Messages box. Both the messages, to Bhattacharya and to Cholmondley, had been sent correctly. So how the hell had the wrong one ended up with each of them?

He phoned Chris Webb and told him what had just happened.

‘No way,’ Chris replied. ‘I double-checked, knowing how sensitive this was. There’s no way those emails went to the wrong people. It’s just not possible.’

‘I checked too. It may not be possible, Chris, but it’s happened. OK?’

‘I’m telling you, it’s not possible. Hold on a sec, will you?’

Ollie listened to the putter of a keyboard. Then Webb came back on the line.

‘You there?’

‘Yes,’ Ollie replied.

‘I’d blind-copied myself on both emails, Oliver. They’ve both come through. The one to your client, Cholmondley, was sent to Cholmondley’s address. The other one to Bhattacharya — that was sent to his address. There is no way each could have received the other’s email.’

‘Well, they have, Chris. How do you explain that?’

‘I can’t. I don’t have an explanation. Maybe there’s some problem with your address book. Or...’

‘Or?’

‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’