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Maura could hardly contain the snigger that threatened to unleash Cheryl’s further wrath. ‘You’ll be good company, won’t you, boy?’ she said to the dog, ignoring the puce colour that had started to creep into Cheryl’s face.
The woman’s temper dissipated as quickly as it had boiled. ‘Well, yes, I suppose he can stay – but I won’t have him on the furniture and I don’t want him upstairs. She won’t tolerate it if you let him upstairs.’
A moment later it was as if it had never happened. Buster lay on a blanket under the table while Cheryl poured her trademark weak tea and Bob speculated on the identity of the body.
‘Eh, what if it’s her? What if the old boy did her in and stashed her in the woods?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, man. Drink your tea.’ Cheryl was having none of it. She turned to Maura. ‘Don’t you go listening to any of his nonsense. There’s enough going on without any of it getting furled by gossip.’
Maura gave Cheryl a weak smile and wished she would bugger off so she could ask Bob what he meant. He seemed somewhat excited, as if something had rattled him and made him overanimated. She got her wish a few minutes later when, noticing that Bob was making moves to leave, Cheryl seemed to decide it was safe for her to get on with her work. Once she was out of the kitchen, Maura was free to ask. Bob’s response was not what she’d been expecting.
‘His missus – Gordon’s. She disappeared, oh, I dunno, twenty, thirty-odd years ago? Perhaps longer. Maybe it’s her. Maybe she didn’t leave him. Maybe he bumped her off and buried her down the way. There’s plenty of gossip about it in the village, I can tell you.’
She was completely taken aback by this, not least because she couldn’t imagine Gordon ever having been married. Despite his mental health issues, he displayed an eccentric streak of obvious long duration and, in Maura’s opinion, seemed to operate from a place fuelled by a deep-seated self-obsession. Not that these things precluded marriage, but they made it less likely in her experience. ‘Did you know his wife?’
‘Me? Nah, know of her, though. It’s Connie you want to talk to. She knew her. Have a chat with her, she’ll tell you all about the Hendersons. You don’t want to listen to them in the village – I only said that to wind Cheryl up.’ He said it with a conspiratorial wink, as if it was Maura’s one desire to go digging into the family’s past and irritate Cheryl. ‘Look after the old boy, won’t you? Me and him been pals for a long time, haven’t we, Buster?’ The dog thumped his tail against the floor at this. ‘Gonna stay with the nice lady and keep her company, aren’t you, boy? Your old man’s got things to do.’ Buster ambled over and allowed his master to fuss him, revelling in the attention and slobbering to prove it.
‘I’ve never had a dog, Bob. What do I do with him? And who’s Connie?’
Her question made Bob chuckle and shake his head from side to side in a motion that smacked of bemusement. ‘Keep him off the furniture when Cheryl’s about if you can and for God’s sake don’t let him upstairs or she’ll do her nut. Other than that, not much – he’ll potter around after you. I brought some food for him. He’ll have that in the morning and evening, but other than that, not too heavy on the treats – don’t want you getting fat, do we, boy?’ He petted Buster again, who responded with the kind of adoration only a dog can display. ‘I’ll pop in to take him on his W.A.L.K in the mornings. If he’s whining by the door it means he want a pee, or the other… I’ve left you some poop bags too. He won’t stray far from the house, he’s a good old boy.’ He bent to stroke the dog’s head. ‘Connie is Cheryl’s mum. You should go and have a chat with her – she loves a natter – only don’t let on to Cheryl. They don’t see eye to eye most of the time. Funny set-up that, never could fathom it.’
Maura nodded. She didn’t relish having to pick up the poop – it was bad enough having to deal with Gordon’s toilette. ‘Thanks, Bob, you’ve been really kind.’ He had been, and she did appreciate it despite her reservations about caring for Buster, who was the least aggressive creature she’d ever come across – as a child she’d owned more terrifying guinea pigs. As for Cheryl’s mother… well, that might be something she’d willingly avoid if talking to her would irritate Cheryl. Besides, she wasn’t sure she did want to know anything more about the Hendersons. There were some stones it was better not to turn over.
Bob shrugged and put his hand on the door handle. ‘Don’t take much, does it, love? Not enough of it about in my opinion and it’s a rare thing around here. The Hendersons don’t deal much in kindness.’
Maura watched him leave and admitted he was right: there wasn’t enough kindness in the world. She should know; she’d been one of the worst culprits in its demise. She had been kind to no one in recent times, least of all herself. She had spent far too long hating the world and thinking it hated her too. But that’s what happened when the people you loved dumped on you and then died on you. You got depressed and you got mean. It was time for that to stop.
She glanced down at the dog and smiled at him ‘Time to ring the agency, I think, mate, and find out what the flipping heck is going on here.’
Having retrieved her phone, she sat in her car for a long time while Buster snuffled around in the undergrowth. She hadn’t called the agency; instead she had picked up a message from her older sister, Denise. Well, less of a message, more of a lecture. Denise had demanded that she let bygones be bygones. She demanded that Maura forgive Sarah, who was truly sorry, and insisted that Maura had to tell her where she was immediately. Finally, she had stated that she expected Maura to pull herself together after all this time and move on with her life.
Maura had listened to it twice, just to get the full nuance of her sister’s righteousness. Denise had always been bossy, had always defended Sarah and had always assumed some weird form of older-sibling dominion over Maura’s life. At thirty-eight, Maura had had enough. She sent a text saying it was none of Denise’s business where she was, that she was moving on, and that Sarah was Denise’s problem, not hers. She pressed send with grim satisfaction.
Once the text was sent she scrolled through to the number for the agency and hesitated. Breaking her contract would mean going back home, having to sit in that house, waiting for Denise to ring or visit with a list of demands and instructions that suited everyone but Maura. It would mean having to sit with the black bags that contained Richard’s belongings, wondering whether she should burn them or take them to a charity shop. It would mean going back to being unable to make the decision to do either. It would mean crawling back into the rut she’d been trying to escape for months.
It would mean leaving the Grange just when things had started to get interesting.
Chapter Six (#ulink_195319d2-51ae-5e06-9443-48d216f2847f)
Little heaps of pills stood like small cairns on the kitchen table; Maura had been trying to make sense of Gordon’s medication. He was asleep again and, apart from the one peeing incident shortly after she’d arrived, was proving to be the model patient. Too model. So model she was beginning to question why she had been engaged at all. Gordon didn’t appear to need a nurse, just someone who could prepare his food to his exacting standards and who could also dish out his pills in the order he preferred. And what a variety of pills there were. So far she had identified two major tranquilisers, an old-fashioned antipsychotic, two different benzodiazepines, a statin, a low-dose aspirin, what appeared to be a proton pump inhibitor, three possible sleeping tablets and a load of herbal nonsense she couldn’t identify at all. There were no packets or bottles to help, and neither was there any prescription or list – just a blue box with different compartments for various times of day, all of which were stuffed to the gunnels with pills. There wasn’t even a sticker on the box to tell her which pharmacy had dispensed the medication. All she did know was that the man she was caring for was being doped to buggery and beyond. He was barely able to maintain a simple conversation and it struck her that this had less to do with his mental state than it did with the fact that he was perpetually drug-addled.
After Cheryl had gone off to the supermarket that afternoon, Maura had rung and asked to speak to Dr Moss, only to be unhelpfully told he’d gone on leave. Her call to the local GP and request to speak to an NHS doctor had been met with a casual and patronising “I’ll see what I can do”. It had angered her, not only because she wanted to discuss Gordon’s medication, but also because she knew the receptionist hadn’t taken her seriously. No one did any longer, or so it felt. She was known at the surgery, previously as a professional, but more recently as a patient. Her rather spectacular “breakdown” had set the grapevine on fire. Now, rather than indulging in the usual banter, the staff at the surgery tended to frown at her sympathetically, speak quietly and pat her on the head (in a metaphorical sense) until she went away and stopped bothering them. It seemed to Maura that, if the mental-health nurse went mental, a point of no return had been reached. She doubted, even if a court of law had declared her sane and issued an edict, that Barb and co., guardians of the reception desk, keepers of notes and makers of appointments, would have believed it. In their eyes Maura was irreversibly flawed and permanently delicate – not to be trusted and to be treated with kid gloves for evermore.
With a sigh she piled the pills back into their little plastic reservoirs and closed the box. Without the say-so of a doctor, she could take no decisions regarding which ones she should cut out. It was an ethical dilemma she had no choice but to tolerate for the time being. Just as she’d had to tolerate Poole that day. What kind of twisted bastard was fate to put him in her path again, for crying out loud? The same kind of twisted bastard that allowed human remains to be uncovered at her place of work, she supposed. Her grandmother had often been known to use the phrase “there’s no peace for the wicked”; though Maura knew it to be prophetic in meaning, she often wondered if it was also retrospective. She felt she must have been abominably wicked in some former life to be experiencing so little peace now. Perhaps this was purgatory after all.
Now she’d had time to absorb the fact, knowledge of an unexplained death and the presence of the bones weighed heavy. Someone had lost their life near the Grange and had been buried on its land, and in the not-too-distant past. The thought brushed her spine with icy fingers and fluffed the hairs on the back of her neck, making her shudder. A movement that engaged the attention of the drooling Buster, who nudged at her elbow and whined for her to get up and follow. His pawing at the back door made her realise he needed to go out.
Not entirely confident that Buster wouldn’t go haring off into the back of beyond, and that she would have to face Bob and explain the loss of his dog, she quickly checked that Gordon was still asleep and that no one had left the gas on before following the dog outside.
The air was crisp and quiet, the low hum of the building site no longer intruding on the peace. Even the birds seemed to have sensed that something had shifted in the fabric of the landscape, and though she could see them flitting through the trees, she couldn’t hear their chatter. All she could hear was Buster, sniffing and snuffling in clumps of weeds and occasionally raising his leg to pee on them. She guessed at foxes, that they had left their scent in the yard and that Buster was establishing his territory in a vain attempt to obliterate their smell. She hoped to God he didn’t find any fox poo; her last experience of dog-sitting had involved a shit-covered dog, an extensive, all-pervading stench, and scrubbing the house for an hour while a soggy, freshly shampooed dog ran riot around her. She definitely didn’t “do” dogs.
Bored of the yard, Buster began clawing at the gate. Not having explored the outside, Maura was curious as to what lay beyond it too. Once through the gate, Buster bounded down the path, ears bouncing and flapping as he cantered ahead. It was obvious to Maura that he knew exactly where he was going and she followed dutifully, wondering if their roles hadn’t been reversed. Wasn’t she supposed to lead the way?
It didn’t take long for her to realise that Buster was going home. They were in the orchard, a scrubby, neglected place full of gnarled fruit trees with more canker than leaves. Bob’s bungalow wasn’t difficult to spot, though the word bungalow suggested far more glamour than the ramshackle structure she was confronted with. The building was essentially a badly rendered cinder-block box with a pent roof and some mismatched windows. In fact, it looked more like a large garage than a home.
Outside the door, Buster began to sniff the ground, showing that somewhere in his mongrel mix there might be a bit of ancient bloodhound. It took him a moment or two to find the scent of his quarry, but once he had he was locked on and running. Maura quickened her pace and followed, fervently hoping that he hadn’t scented rats or rabbits or something else likely to lead them both an un-merry dance. Fortunately, the object of his focus was Bob, who was leaning on a fence post, puffing on a shoddily rolled cigarette and obscuring the view with pungent clouds of smoke.
‘I think he wanted to come home,’ Maura said as Bob turned.
‘Did he now?’ Bob said as he bent to scratch the dog behind the ears, his face pinched as he squinted against the smoke leaching from the drooping cigarette that clung to his lip. ‘I been watching the goings on down there,’ he added, pointing at the building site where Maura could see that a large area had been cordoned off. ‘Not much going on at the moment. They’ve put a tent up over the bones by the look and there’s a load of bods in white overalls milling about.’
‘SOCOs I expect,’ Maura said.
‘Eh, whatto’s?’
Maura laughed. ‘You need to watch more telly, Bob. Scene of Crime Officers. They make sure any evidence is handled properly and that the scene is preserved while investigations take place.’
‘Ah, right. I don’t watch much telly – bit of snooker when it’s on. Don’t mind a bit of that Attenborough feller sometimes, though. Mind you, they’re going to be dealing with another body soon by the looks of him.’ He pointed to a heavy-set man in a long coat. Maura could see by his stance that he was riddled with tension, and his face was red with barely contained frustration. He looked like a football manager who’d just seen his team relegated by a series of own goals in the last match of the season.
‘Who is he?’
‘Perlman, the landowner. Not happy that proceedings have come to a halt by the look of him, not happy at all.’
Maura had to concede that the man looked like he might explode at any moment. ‘Definitely not happy. It looks like the press have started to turn up,’ she said, as an inappropriately dressed woman, followed by a cameraman, picked her way across the mud towards the cordon. ‘We’ll be famous in a few hours.’
Bob chuckled. ‘Hope she don’t try to interview Perlman. By the look on his face, they’ll have three bodies to deal with, not one!’
Maura smiled, but felt a pang of guilt at the gesture. Someone was dead and she and Bob were observing the scene with amusement, not even having the grace to show detached curiosity. ‘I suppose we ought to be a bit more dignified about this. Perhaps we should go before that reporter spots us and thinks a bit of local colour might enhance the story.’
Bob nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Don’t feel real, though – to think I’ve been living in spitting distance from that body all this time and never had a clue.’
‘Why would you?’ Maura was puzzled. There was a strain in Bob’s voice that didn’t fit his casual and detached words.
Bob shrugged, ‘Dunno. But I must have walked across the top of it a million times. When the land belonged to the Grange, that is. I’d be trespassing now. I’m surprised old Buster never caught a sniff of it – he likes a bone. Poor sod’s got a lousy sense of smell, though; just goes through the motions these days, bit like me.’ He laughed, but the humour was thin and taut, like an elastic band at the point before it snaps.
They had reached the “bungalow” by then and Maura had to suppress a shudder at the thought of Buster dragging a muddy femur up the path with drooling relish.
‘Coming in for a cuppa?’ Bob asked.
‘Better not. Cheryl will be back soon and she’ll have a ten-ton hissy fit if I’m not there too. Besides, his lordship will be awake soon, demanding his fish-paste sandwiches for tea. I think it’s fish paste today anyway.’
Bob rolled his eyes and gave her a weak grin. ‘A woman’s work is never done, love.’ He reached inside a small lean-to that seemed to serve as a porch and produced a lead, which had a sobering effect on Buster, who hung his head as if in defeat. ‘He don’t like the lead but it’s the only way you’ll get him back with you. Best have him there tonight. I’ve fixed the window but the putty’s still wet, so it isn’t secure. Not that it stopped that rock before.’
He bent and clipped the lead to Buster’s collar and handed it to Maura, who thanked him and towed the reluctant dog back towards the house. All the way back her mind was on Bob. He seemed haunted and she couldn’t help but feel for the man.
If it hadn’t been for the dog suddenly perking up and showing interest, she might have missed it. A sudden flash of movement in the trees near the gate that induced a low, menacing growl from the dog and caused him to strain on the lead. The vegetation was dense near the house. The remains of a garden had sprawled in the absence of tender, loving care, creating an abundance of leggy shrubs and greenery that anything could lurk in unseen. After the previous night’s fright, Maura was wary and called out ‘Who’s there?’ but there was no reply, despite Buster’s continued growling insistence that something of interest was in the bushes. Maura rationally decided to assume it was a squirrel or a cat that he’d sensed, though her instinct told her it had been much bigger. She could hardly claim to have seen anything as such – but the flash of perception had settled in her brain as more than just a stray cat on the prowl. Eager as Buster seemed, she dared not let him off the lead. There wasn’t time to go haring after him again, and whatever it was seemed to have gone. She could sense no further movement and doubted anything other than an animal could have remained so still. With some effort she dragged Buster through the gate and bolted it behind her, on principal more than anything else. One bolted gate could not secure an area that was open to the world on the other side.
Buster seemed to settle once beyond the gate, but she didn’t let him go until they were inside the kitchen and were being greeted by a surprisingly benign and cheerful Cheryl.
‘Hello there, been for a walk, have you? I’ve checked on Mr Henderson; he’s still dozing but I expect he’ll be awake soon. He seems quite taken with you, Maura. Well, I say that – he hasn’t tried to bite you yet!’ Cheryl followed this with a tinkling laugh that Maura supposed was meant to denote some level of camaraderie, but which was in fact somewhat startling. She could have joined in and said Gordon had tried and been given short shrift, but Cheryl’s quixotic temperament was becoming profoundly unnerving.
Instead she began to unload some of the carrier bags that littered the table in a bid to be helpful. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll do it. I got you some nice ready meals to keep you going, by the way. Can’t expect you to survive on fish paste and soup too, can we?’ There was that laugh again, edging Cheryl’s words with a tinge of something hard to pin down but which gave Maura the sense of a pill being sugared.
The reason for Cheryl’s unnatural buoyancy was soon revealed: she had a date, with a man (not that Maura would have assumed differently, but it was said pointedly, as if to imply that the said date was a living, breathing, gender-specific being), and she needed a favour. Up until this point Cheryl had been coy about the proposed assignation, cupping her frizzy curls as though they were perfectly coiffed coils of gold, rather than the mousy results of a failed home perm. But business was business and Cheryl, even under the influence of perceived flattery, couldn’t sustain the bonhomie for long. ‘The thing is, it’s mother. She doesn’t like being on her own at night – so I was wondering if I could bring her here for the evening. I mean, she’s no trouble. She’ll sit and chat for hours, so it might be company for you too, only she’ll show off rotten if I leave her on her own to go out. I could drop her off and pick her up later?’
Maura looked at the plaintive expression on Cheryl’s face and at the pale grey eyes that twinkled with hope. Judgemental though it was, Maura doubted the housekeeper of Essen Grange received many offers of romance. She wasn’t an easy woman to like and her changeable moods seemed to drain any vestiges of attractiveness from her being. They had left wrinkles and furrows on her skin and a perceived spikiness in her manner that was hardly compelling. It would be cruel to turn down her request and ruin this opportunity. ‘Of course, no problem.’
It seemed as though Cheryl had already prepared an appeal in anticipation of being turned down. She looked as if she was about to argue her case further until Maura’s words registered. Maura almost smirked when the woman’s face didn’t know what to do with itself and went through a range of expressions before settling on one Cheryl clearly believed was gratitude, but which, to Maura, looked more like an unconfident look of surprise. ‘Oh, OK. Thank you.’ The words fell from Cheryl’s tongue as if she was wholly unfamiliar with them, and as if they consisted of the amalgam in a loose filling that she’d felt compelled to discreetly spit out.
Maura stifled a smile of amusement. ‘You’re welcome.’ With anyone else she would have probed, found out about the man who had asked her out on a date, discussed appropriate dress for the occasion and generally had a girl-to-girl chat. Where Cheryl was concerned, however, it felt as though it might be a form of mild torture to indulge in such a thing. Besides, the topic had changed to fish-paste sandwiches and the importance of cutting the crusts off and making the triangles equal to appease Gordon’s sense of order.
‘I wanted to ask you about his medication. He seems to be on a hell of a lot and unfortunately the doctor isn’t available to ask,’ Maura said after the sandwich lecture had dwindled and all subjects of the heart had been carefully skirted.
Cheryl was arranging the dainty triangles of bread on a plate. ‘I don’t know much about it, I just give him what’s in the pill box at the right times. Her ladyship always deals with all that.’
‘Do you know which pharmacy she uses?’ With Dr Moss away, at least she might be able to discuss the doses with the pharmacist.
Cheryl shrugged. ‘No idea. There isn’t one nearby so it would have to be one in town. Boots maybe, though to be honest I always had the impression the doctor brought them with him when he came.’
Maura raised her eyebrows – if that was the case it was extremely unusual. ‘Oh, OK. Perhaps it’s because they’re private patients.’
‘Probably’ Cheryl mumbled, distracted by the tray she was laying for Gordon’s tea. ‘But I wouldn’t go prying too much if I was you. Dr Moss doesn’t like questions from the likes of us. He’ll be wanting this in a minute. You going to take it?’
‘Sure.’ It felt like the most useful thing she’d done all day. Gordon was indeed waiting, staring pensively at the clock as if timing her. He seemed happy enough that his meagre tea had arrived a few minutes before time, but didn’t start to eat until the clock struck the hour. Despite his quirks and desire for routine, there didn’t seem to be that much wrong with him. The peeing thing had clearly been done to test her mettle, and now she’d proved herself he seemed quite content with her presence and in little need of nursing. Basic assistance was all he required. Maura had to wonder why Dr Moss had suggested her when an unqualified carer would have been much cheaper and just as capable. Perhaps he’d felt sorry for her and recommended her out of pity. The thought was of no comfort. Instead, it made her feel pathetic.
Back in the kitchen, Cheryl was making moves to go. ‘Right, I’ll see you tomorrow – make sure you lock everything up tight tonight, won’t you? Mind you, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble – there’s still police crawling all over.’
It was a fair point. The police presence was a distinct comfort now she’d decided to stay, but Maura locked the door behind her anyway, and drew the bolts just in case. Then she went to every downstairs room in the house, except Gordon’s, and locked the internal doors with the heavy black keys that nestled in their locks. Before she went to bed she would lock the kitchen-passage door too; at least that way no one would be able to get far into the house before she, or Buster, could raise the alarm. It was nice to know the police were still around, but they were a quarter of a mile away, through the orchard and guarding bones, not looking for intruders.
With Gordon settled, medicated and in his pyjamas watching TV, she was at a loss what to do with herself. Locking all the doors had given her a sense of claustrophobia, as if the house was closing in around her like an unpleasant old lady enfolding her into an unwanted embrace. In the cold quiet of the hall she felt as though the house was holding its breath in anticipation. Of what she didn’t know, but there was an unpleasantness about the feeling she didn’t want to dwell on.
It was fanciful thinking, born of feeling purposeless and the bad habit of mental filtering. She didn’t know why she’d come other than to escape an equal loneliness at home. At least here there were no reminders of Richard or Sarah – until Poole had shown his face, of course. God knew what she’d done to piss karma off to the extent that it had put him in her path again. It was as if all the fates wanted her tied to the past whatever her own choices were. Life wasn’t fair, and didn’t she know it.
There she is, making herself at home, getting to know people – making friends. Bloody dog lapping at her heels. Pathetic. There are no friends here, no one trustworthy, no one she can rely on. I should know. She’s in the middle of a nest of vipers and that fucking dog is nothing but a liability.
As if locking the doors will keep me out. I know this place better than any of them. I know all its secrets. I know all of theirs too.
I wonder if she knows that all the evil is inside with her? All she’s done is lock out the good.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_6314b8a2-1b2c-5164-8711-6ed57f408e00)
There seemed nothing left to do but kill time. As she climbed the stairs with Buster at her heels, thoughts about killing things led to thoughts about the bones and what the fates had determined for the person they had once been. Whoever it was couldn’t have anticipated a secret burial and subsequently being laid bare by a bulldozer for all to see. She paused on the landing and suppressed a shudder. It didn’t bear thinking about, but neither could she avoid it. The lights of the crime scene were all too visible in the distance as she peered through the landing window. Bob’s dwelling was visible too, light twinkling through the orchard’s gnarly trees. It was a comfort knowing he was there.
A bath was the order of the day, something to wash away the sense of oppression and feelings of despair. The thought of it was comforting, though the reality was a disappointment. The plumbing was old, the bath made of steel and the tank inadequate. Six inches of tepid water wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind and a rapid whip round with a soapy sponge to compensate didn’t induce the sense of relaxation she’d hoped for. Her own towel was still in her bag and she was forced to use one of the thin, rigid things that Cheryl had hung in the “guest bathroom”. Maura could only hope that the house’s other resident fared better with her ablutions. Gordon had to make do with strip washes and a downstairs toilet, she’d had to endure a Baltic bathroom, unsoftened by comfort or frills, and it made her curious to know how Estelle managed in this cumbersome, unpleasant house.
Maura was not nosy by nature, but it was hard to resist poking around at least a little bit – if only to find out more about the mysterious Estelle Hall. Her lack of curiosity had probably contributed to some of the naiveté that had led her into trouble before; she should learn to ask more questions instead of charging into things full of bravado. However, if she was going to spend weeks in this house, she wasn’t prepared to put up with prison-issue bathroom facilities. In pyjamas and dressing gown, her hair still damp and Buster trailing behind her in a benign, hangdog fashion, she decided to enter forbidden territory and explore Estelle Hall’s rooms. Cheryl had made it perfectly clear they were off limits, but Cheryl didn’t have to bathe in a bathroom that should have been in a museum, or entertain herself in a house that raised more questions than answers.
God knew why she was creeping about and trying to be quiet; it wasn’t as if Gordon would hear her, or care what she was up to. He only cared about his own few square feet of the house and acted as if anything outside of his room didn’t exist – which to him it probably didn’t. Neither was it likely that Cheryl, with thunderous face, would suddenly materialise to wreak revenge for her instructions having been ignored. Even Buster didn’t care and was just curious, sniffing at the door in anticipation of a new room to explore.
It was a disappointing powder-puff-and-cut-crystal boudoir, décor circa 1950, and much like Maura’s room, except this one was pale blue. The most surprising thing was the lack of personal items; the room was almost as generic as the other bedrooms with only the addition of a few nondescript old photographs and a silver-backed hairbrush to say it belonged to anyone. She had the impression that perhaps Estelle had felt like a guest too and had never felt she belonged enough to stamp her personality on the room. Either way, it wasn’t any of Maura’s business really, yet it felt sad and lonely and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for the woman. The lack of stuff was odd, though.
The en-suite was small, ran off the same water supply, and was no better than the bathroom she was already using – another disappointment. For a woman who didn’t stint on wages or private medical care, it seemed that Miss Estelle Hall was very frugal in every other area of life. She had spent no money on the house. Perhaps because it was Gordon’s money and she felt an overweening sense of responsibility for it? Or perhaps she was just plain stingy. It wouldn’t have killed them to install modern plumbing, or deal with the creaking floorboards that seemed to constantly heave with discomfort above her head. It was the kind of sound that might make someone of a nervous disposition fret they were not alone in the house, but Maura’s nerves were lying dormant, dulled by depression. She ignored the sounds and gritted her teeth against any further thought of them.
With a sigh she walked from the room, calling a reluctant Buster to come with her. Something in the wardrobe had caught his attention and he was sniffing around the door with stubborn focus. ‘Come on, dog!’ Maura urged, but he was having none of it and she was forced to drag him away by the collar and shut the door to keep him out. God knew what was in there that had fascinated him so much. She was tempted to go back and look but felt she had intruded enough.
He followed her down the stairs with a detachment only dogs seemed able to manifest; once away from the object of his curiosity he was quite happy to move on. Maura envied him and wished she had the same ability. Moving on appeared not to be her strong point despite her best efforts and belief in mind over matter.
Gordon had fallen asleep in front of the TV and was slack-jawed and slumped in his chair. Even though there was a narrow single bed in the room, he refused to use it for anything other than an extra shelf for the magazines and newspapers he loved to hoard. Maura shook her head, switched the TV off and covered him with a blanket. She might not be able to persuade him to use the bed, but she could prevent him from freezing. He wasn’t fabulously stable on his feet, but he was mobile, so at least she didn’t have to worry about pressure sores – just falling.
The chain on the outside of the door still bothered her, and the story about his night wandering seemed to be a myth. With the sleeping tablets and plethora of other sedative medication, it was unlikely he’d wake until the next morning, or be able to move if he did. Sod it. She made an executive decision and left it off. With all the other downstairs doors locked he wouldn’t get far, even if he did surprise her and have a midnight mooch.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock, too early to go to bed, and she wanted a cup of coffee. Politeness had forced her to drink Cheryl’s feeble tea, but now she’d been left to her own devices, she needed a cup of the hard stuff. The problem was she’d have to go to the kitchen to get it, and the previous night’s assault was nowhere near the back of her mind yet. Even though Bob had replaced the window with thick glass he’d assured her wouldn’t break and she had Buster, she was still reticent about going in there alone at night.
Like the coward she was, she urged Buster through the door first and sent him trotting down the passageway with promises of biscuits – not that he understood her, but the encouraging and enthusiastic tone of her voice must have held some hope for him because he launched himself into the kitchen with no qualms at all. Relieved and thankful, Maura followed him in and switched on the light, which flickered and fizzed, plunging the whole downstairs into darkness as the bulb exploded and showered the table in glass. A bullet of terror ricocheted through her body as she clenched every muscle, ready to flee or vomit or pass out…
The passageway behind her was thick with a darkness that seemed as if it might have texture if she reached out to touch it. But she dared not – it was closing in on her thick and fast. As if to prove it, the air caught in her throat like something meaty and viscous. It tasted of fear and, as Buster wasn’t barking, she knew it was her own.
The pocket of time since the bulb had blown seemed inordinate. It was as though she had fallen into a dark rabbit hole and was still falling. The dog was too quiet. Everything was too quiet for senses that were notching up to high alert with every slow, extended heartbeat. The part of her brain that had somehow remained free of terror tried to tell her it had been seconds, not minutes, and that she could speak and move if she wanted to.
The other part, the big, weak, human part, just wanted to stand there for ever while she metaphorically shat herself.
Buster was having none of it, however. He’d been on the promise of something tasty in that kitchen and so far nothing had been forthcoming. With a needy whine he nudged at her hand with his cold nose, jolting her out of her panic by increasing it, and making her lurch to the side with shock while she emitted a guttural grunt of terror.
It dawned on her that Buster wasn’t scared. He wasn’t growling or barking or trying to raise the alarm in any way. It was just a bulb that had tripped the circuit. She tried laughing at herself. It was just a blown bulb and if it hadn’t shattered she would be fine. ‘Get a grip, Maura,’ she said out loud, projecting her voice into the darkness and willing it to drive the shadows away. It was just a blown bulb. No one was inside – they couldn’t be. The house was secure even if Maura’s equilibrium wasn’t.
The only response from the darkness was the sound of Buster panting. She could have sworn the house was having a laugh at her expense. She felt as though the whole place was smirking at her, revelling in the little surprises it was throwing her way. ‘It’s a house, it does not possess sentience,’ she said to Buster, who wagged his tail. ‘So, my little fur buddy, what do we do? Call your master or tackle this ourselves and prove we’re not wimps?’
Though the passage was pitch-black, the kitchen was not. Watery moonlight was washing the room with thin light and shadows. Maura knew Cheryl kept a torch underneath the sink, and she also knew the electricity consumer unit was situated at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar. Although she hadn’t been down there, Cheryl had thrown the door open on her tour and had mentioned they sometimes had problems with the electrics and that the “fuses” were down there… Fuses. Maura hadn’t seen an old-fashioned fuse box in years but was pretty confident she could change one if someone had had the foresight to leave the right materials.
Wandering about the cellars of this creepy, half-arsed house in the dead of night was not her idea of fun. The simple solution would have been to phone Bob, but she had already disturbed him the previous night and, besides, she wanted to show the house it couldn’t beat her, ridiculous though the thought was. With Buster at her heels, she took a breath, went for the torch and followed its beam to the cellar door.
Cheryl kept the cellar locked, just in case Gordon went for a wander. The key was on a hook near the top of the architrave. It was a heavy old key and the lock was stiff but it gave in to Maura’s efforts and allowed her to open the door. The cellar greeted her with a waft of stale air that held the tang of mould; it was clear that damp and decay had taken hold down in the bowels of the house. It wasn’t surprising – everything about the place seemed to be on its last legs. The place was like a spiteful old man, glorying in self-neglect and festering with discontent. Much like its owner now she came to think about it.
Buster was not perturbed by this new adventure at all and bolted down the stairs full of enthusiasm for this new space and its new sensations. ‘Buster!’ Maura hissed, wondering why she was being quiet when she knew damned well it would take a full-frontal attack by mortar shell to rouse Gordon from his drugged slumber. The dog was gone. He had gleefully disappeared into the rambling tunnels and rooms of the cellar, exploring nooks and crannies the torch beam only hinted at.
‘Shit!’ Maura said as she reached the bottom and searched for him with her ribbon of light. Scanning up she could see that the cellar was lit, but only when the circuit was working. Buster would either come back of his own accord, or she could search for him with the lights on. Either way she needed to fix the fuse first.
Though she had recovered from the fright of the bulb blowing, her heart was still trying to find its normal rhythm and her imagination was still trying to hamper her confidence. Too many teenage years watching horror films had fuelled it with unknown horrors, and her subconscious held threats her rational mind could only shake its head at.
‘Get a bloody grip, woman!’ she said, training the torch beam on the fuse box and wondering why the thing wasn’t in a museum. It seemed Bob had done his best to make sense of the beast, or more like several beasts – there were four separate boxes and two meters, all looking as if they had been tacked on as afterthoughts. Fortunately, someone had labelled all the chunky Bakelite fuses so that it wasn’t too difficult to locate the one that had blown. In his wisdom Bob had also left a card of fuse wire and a pair of snips resting on top of the first meter. Maura blew a kiss into the dank air and said ‘Bless you, Bob’.
It was a fiddly job by torchlight and she had no idea which thickness of wire to use. Too thin and it might blow again, too thick and she might overload it and burn the house down. Deciding to take the centre ground, she plumped for the one in the middle and silently cursed Estelle Hall for her frugality. It was 2015 (for goodness’ sake) but Essen Grange seemed to be clinging on to the Dark Ages and still marvelling at Edison’s ingenuity. With her repair complete and the fuse reinserted into its slot, she climbed the stairs and flipped the light switch, breathing a huge sigh of relief when the lights came back on. Bob would be proud, but she’d need him to check she’d used the right amperage wire, and she’d also need to find his dog. ‘Buster, come on boy, biscuits…’
The mention of biscuits, a word that clearly had a resonance associated with pleasure for the dog, seemed to do the trick and he bounded out of the shadows and ran up the steps, straight past her and towards the kitchen. ‘Attaboy,’ she said with a smile. After locking the cellar door and replacing the key, she turned into the hall and stood in the centre, sticking one finger up at the house and poking her tongue out in a gesture of childish contempt at its efforts to thwart her.
The light from the kitchen passageway helped but it still took the torch to show her why the bulb had exploded. Water had dripped down from the light fitting. It occurred to her that the guest bathroom she’d used was situated above the kitchen and that something had leaked. Bugger! She dare not try and replace the bulb until she knew whether it was her own carelessness that had caused it, or whether it was a genuine leak that would need to be fixed. It wasn’t dripping any more, but a puddle of water had mingled with the broken glass on the table. She couldn’t see where the rest of the glass might have landed, and Buster was mooching about the room and snuffling. All she needed now was a dog with glass stuck in his paws.
The biscuit jar was near the door and she managed to lure him into the passageway with a hobnob, relieved to see he wasn’t limping or trailing blood. But he did have something in his mouth, which he gladly gave up in exchange for the treat.
