“The poor bird!” Ellie exclaimed, gazing up at him with huge eyes. “They pulled its wings off!”
***
“You want a biscuit?” asked Sonia Garland. “I only have plain Hobnobs.”
“No chocolate?” asked Buster, plaintively. “Have a heart, missus! I’m a working man, I need the energy!”
Sonia handed him a cup of tea and wagged a finger at him.
“Diet comes first, Buster. You need to lose weight! I compromised today—I put one sugar in your tea.”
“Oh, great,” he grumbled, taking a sip. “At least you put milk in.”
Sonia gave an exaggerated shudder.
“You English ruin good black tea with cow’s milk! You are all bonkers! A nation of bonkers people!”
Buster put the tea down on an old table. He gestured around the cellar. It was illuminated by a single Old Style light bulb. He explained, at length, that the wiring seemed to be okay but the plumbing was debatable.
“You don’t want your septic tank overflowing first time you get a big rainstorm.”
“No, I do not!” Sonia retorted, looking shocked. “Why would anybody want that! You are a bleedin’ nutcase, mate!”
Buster had to laugh, as he usually did. Sonia Garland’s grasp of English was almost perfect, and she loved using familiar expressions—especially the rude ones. But she sometimes took things he said in a too literal way. Or maybe she was just playing a game of her own, trying to cheer him up?
Buster thanked her for the tea, promised to do what he could, and picked up his mug. As she was about to go, he called her back and accepted a couple of Hobnobs from a Tupperware box.
“Nothing like a good dunker,” he said with relish, dipping a biscuit into his tea.
Sonia rolled her eyes at the cellar roof.
“You get a nice biscuit, you dip it in your bloody tea,” she said. “It falls apart. Crazy!”
“You don’t understand the ancient art of biscuit dunking, Sonia,” he insisted. “If you want to be truly British, you have to understand these traditions.”
“Ha, that is a load of old cobblers!” she retorted. “Lunch is at one, be on time! I will make some nice vegetarian pasta, keep that cholesterol down.”
“Oh God, can’t I just have pie and chips?” he complained.
“No,” she said simply. “Eat what you’re given, mate, this is not a bloody Hilton Hotel.”
Buster wanted to bicker with Sonia a little longer, but she was already climbing the cellar steps, a busy young homemaker and interior designer. Buster told himself that he liked verbal sparring with Tim’s missus because she was an attractive young woman. And she was, but that wasn’t really it.
No, it was really because Buster didn’t like being alone in Haslam House.
As soon as Sonia had gone, he felt his heart rate start to rise. He continued to check out pipes, wondering if the whole place had been plumbed by a lunatic. In some places, there were signs of real professionalism, but overall, it was a bit sloppy. Then he wondered if the signs of hasty workmanship were down to something else.
He conjectured that the work might be slapdash because somebody else had not wanted to be alone down here. A workman like Buster, not wanting to spend any more time than he had to in the gloom of the cellar. A bloke who got creeped out. For no apparent reason.
Get a grip, you idiot, he told himself. You’re a grown man. There’s nothing spooky here, there’re no such things as ghosts. It’s just another old place that needs fixing up.
The copper pipes he was tracing led across the ceiling into a dark corner. Buster took out his flashlight and focused it on the problem. The copper pipe gleamed brightly enough. But it might have been a little corroded around where it vanished into the brick wall. It was not clear, though, from the floor level. The ceiling was a little too high.
“Buggeration.”
He looked around for something to stand on. He could, of course, simply go back upstairs for a small folding ladder. Tim and Sonia would want him to do that. But manhandling a ladder down the narrow stairway would be awkward. It would be easier to drag the sheet-covered table over and stand on it. If it would hold his weight. Buster Bloodvessel was his nickname, and he had earned it one pie at a time over many years. Sonia, he reflected ruefully, was right about the diet. As was his doctor of course…
Let’s just get this bloody job done and get out, he told himself.
Setting his mug of tea down on the floor, he leaned heavily on the table. It seemed solid enough, no perceptible wobble. He judged it to be a nice bit of basic old-fashioned carpentry. And he would prop it right into the corner for extra stability. Yes, that would work. He dragged the table over the dusty floor and shoved it into position. Then he put his big toolbox down by the table so he could clamber up more easily. His flashlight, standing on the table, flickered a little before recovering but with less radiance. The underpowered bulb seemed to become dimmer, too.
Buster did not like the way the shadows in the cellar grew, seemed to jump toward him when the light dimmed. He resolved to check the pipe and then vamoose. There’d be plenty to do upstairs with young Carl when the lad came back from the suppliers. Or maybe go and check the septic tank, well away from the house itself.
He heaved himself up onto the table and knelt for a moment. Then he grabbed his flashlight and stood up slowly. The pipe, now that he could see it at close range, seemed fine. He gave it a speculative clink with the flashlight handle. The sound echoed around the cellar. From the clear note, he judged the metal undamaged.
“Great,” he said. “Job done.”
Buster got to his knees. The flashlight flickered again and died. The forty-watt bulb popped at the same moment. Shadows rushed in. And they were whispering darkly. He’d been in the dark many times before; it was no big deal. But his heart was beating very fast now, and the pounding of his blood was in his ears like an inrushing tide.
Or was it something else, some other sound?
Buster got down clumsily, groping blindly for a footing, and his toolbox skidded sideways under one boot sole. His leg was suddenly at forty-five degrees, and he fell onto the pockmarked concrete. He landed so badly that the force of impact went right into the base of his spine, bypassing his well-padded rear. The pain was excruciating. He yowled like a child and slumped against the wall.
“Oh, bloody hell!”
Buster had to try and get up. It would not be easy. The pain was now subsiding into a dull throb, but he was feeling every second of his fifty-two years and every ounce of his two hundred and sixty plus pounds. He clutched at the table, got onto his knees, started to rise. The sound in his ears was not blood, he knew now. His heart was pounding, not whispering. Behind the racing motor of his unhealthy body was something else, a chorus of voices that sounded angry about something. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. He didn’t want to know.
They were right about this place, he thought, remembering talk in the village pub—stories he had scoffed at. It is a bad place.
He could not get up. He slumped again and groped for his phone. It was in his back pocket, and the screen was cracked. But it still worked. It was locked, and he thumbed in the security code. No, that was not it, he tried once more. His mind was clouded, he couldn’t remember the damn code.
“Oh, come on!”
Now the voices grew louder, more insistent. Buster still couldn’t understand what they were saying but with the sound came a feeling. It was a wave of bleakness, a sense of futility. He suddenly saw himself as others must, a fat old fool whose best years were way in the past. A man with two failed marriages and three grown-up kids who never called, who were embarrassed by their old dad.
No, I’ve got to get up…
He strained again, trying to lift himself with one hand on the tabletop, the other on the floor. It was stupid, and it didn’t work. He fell again, just a few inches, but the lance of pain stabbed through his protesting body. The phone went dark, and the shadow
s rushed in. He felt a tide of despair rush over him. Amid the incomprehensible whispers, now he heard a few words of English.
“Why should you be free? You sneered at the spirits!”
A woman stood over him, pretty in a pinched, anemic way. She was wearing some kind of fancy dress, an old-fashioned dress. She leaned down, and her eyes bored into his soul as his heart began to falter.
“There are such things as ghosts!” the woman hissed with malign triumph.
“I… know…” Buster croaked. “Help… me…”
“No,” she said, her face moving closer. “No, it is too late for help. It wants you, the Old Darkness. It wants us all!”
***
“She got a bit upset, so I just let her watch some telly,” Tim explained. “It always takes her time to adjust to a new place.”
Sonia gave him one of her half-pitying, half-warning looks then shrugged.
“We’re all a bit stressed out, I guess,” she said. “That bloody dog is not helping.”
They were standing in the front doorway. Trixie, the greyhound, was sitting in the drive about ten yards away, gazing up at Haslam House. The dog had persistently refused to come inside except for meals and then whined and scratched until allowed out again. Tim had given up after a couple of days and made Trixie a kennel.
“She doesn’t like this place either,” he said. “But there’s nothing majorly wrong with it, that’s what I find baffling. When it came so cheap, I assumed…”
Sonia gave him her look again, and he subsided into uneasy silence. She was being sensible. They had invested in the house, and now they had to make good on that. They were lucky they’d persuaded Buster to come and stay here to work for a few days, given the locals’ attitude.
Tim stepped out from the shadow of the doorway, turned to peer up at the front of the house. It was a faded red brick edifice. The current house was Victorian, resolutely unbeautiful but solidly constructed. An earlier Haslam House, dating from the Georgian era, had burned down. That one had replaced the original Tudor mansion that had fallen into neglect and been demolished.
I don’t like you, Tim thought. And you don’t like me. But I suppose we’re stuck with each other for now.
Trixie began barking frantically, something she did now and again for no apparent reason. Tim looked down at the dog then back up at the windows. Something had the greyhound’s attention. Tim took a step back and shaded his eyes. Was there someone at an upstairs window? No.
“Stupid dog!”
He reached into his pocket and took out an old cricket ball, threw it across the untidy lawn. Trixie raced after it, bounding through the untidy greenery. They played fetch for a few minutes until Sonia called him in for lunch.
“Whatever spooked her,” Tim told his wife, “it couldn’t have been much. Where’s Buster?”
“Still down in the cellar, I guess,” Sonia said.
She walked out of the kitchen to the cellar door and shouted for the workman. There was no reply.
“He’s nodded off again,” Tim said, half-jokingly. “He was in the pub last night.”
Ellie, who had been quietly working her way through a bowl of mac and cheese, shook her head emphatically.
“No, he’s not asleep. He’s gone with the lady. The lady with the trick slate.”
Tim looked at Sonia then back at his daughter.
“What lady do you mean, sugar?” he asked. “And what sort of slate? You mean roof tiles or something?”
Ellie shook her head.
“She wouldn’t like it if I told people her secrets.”
Husband and wife looked at each other. Then Sonia, still calling Buster’s name, walked out of sight, down into the cellar.
Chapter 3
“That’s it? That little wall?”
Tara was disappointed. She had expected something larger. But the small gray line of the wall might have been overlooked if they hadn’t both been looking for it.
“Yup,” Anita said. “Doesn’t look like much, but an Emperor ordered it built to keep the barbarians out. It didn’t work, obviously. I mean, here you are!”
Tara smiled wearily then looked out of the carriage window again. The train, snaking its way north from the city of Newcastle, was not far from the border now. They had passed castles, villages, some small towns, and a lot of sheep. The northern English countryside, which had seemed boring at first, had grown on her. In the June sun, the hills and valleys were decked out in a dozen shades of green and brown, and here and there were splashes of purple and yellow from abundant wildflowers.
It had a low-key kind of beauty, this Anglo-Scottish borderland. But Tara thought that it was worth getting to know. The Roman Wall, though, was another matter. It seemed kind of dumb.
“So, this emperor, Hadrian, built a stone wall right across the narrowest part of the island,” she said. “Fine. But it’s too small to keep anybody out. Was it way taller in Roman times? Or were the barbarians all tiny and feeble due to god-awful British food?”
Anita sighed and began a lecture on Hadrian’s Wall. Britannia, the Roman province, consisted of modern-day England and Wales. Most of the mainland was inhabited by tribes that accepted Roman rule, reluctantly or otherwise. To the north, in the region then called Caledonia, many tribes remained untamed. The Romans tried, in Anita’s words, “to clobber these independent Celts on several occasions, but never quite managed it.” Sometimes, the Romans suffered heavy losses on these punitive expeditions, thanks to guerilla warfare. Hence, the need for a barrier on their northernmost frontier.
“Nope, I still don’t get it,” Tara protested. “The Celts could just climb over the damn thing, right? It’s like, four feet high, tops!”
Anita rolled her eyes and started to explain the tactical situation in the second century CE, using the remnants of their lunch. A force could cross the wall and head south, but the purpose of raids was loot—they burned and pillaged, took hostages and slaves, looted property, and stole cattle.
“Now,” Anita said. “Imagine this baguette wrapper is the wall, and this cup is the raiding force. They can easily get over when they are traveling light, like a regular army. But…”
She filled the cup with empty milk pots and a crumpled napkin.
“Now they are burdened down with loot and are moving slowly, and the wall—remember—has a ditch on both sides, plus lookout stations spaced out, one mile apart. So, our slow-moving Celtic bandits are stuck at the wall for hours, maybe days. By this time, the Roman garrison commander has had time to amass his infantry and cavalry…”
“Or pats of butter and pots of jam, as some might call them,” Tara observed.
Anita burbled on, explaining that after the wall was built, the raiding game was not worth the risk for the Celts. And then she threw in, quite casually, that Hadrian’s Wall had also inspired the author of A Game of Thrones.
“He visited these parts,” Anita said, “and got the idea for a much larger one across a fictional island a bit like Britain. So there.”
“Seriously? He got the idea from that itty-bitty thing?”
Tara craned her head, but the ancient imperial frontier was miles behind them now.
“Well, I guess it’s a lot easier to build big amazing stuff in works of fiction than in real life—who knew?”
The train pulled into the station at the small border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which gave Tara the chance to talk about its history. So far as Tara could make out, this meant battles, sieges, and massacres, with a little light witch-hunting on the side.
“The legend says,” Anita said with relish as they heaved their luggage from the rack, “that when Edward Longshanks recaptured Berwick from the Scots, the river ran red with blood! Isn’t that great?”
“Not for the fish,” Tara pointed out, wobbling slightly as the train juddered to a halt. “Just for information, did anything remotely peaceful ever happen ’round here?”
“Not so’s you’d notice,” Anita replied.
&n
bsp; The train journey had, despite Tara’s fears, been pleasant enough. The first bump in the road came at Berwick station, when Tim wasn’t waiting for them. Anita tried to call her brother, but it went straight to voicemail. They stood around for a few minutes, and then Anita pointed at a row of taxis outside.
“We can get there under our own steam, it’s only about twenty minutes.”
“I can’t afford…” Tara began.
“Tim will pay!” Anita insisted.
It turned out to be more like half an hour, but they got there. Anita had gotten worked up along the way, as more calls went unanswered. She wondered if there’d been an accident of some kind or if little Ellie had gotten sick? Tara tried to calm her down, pointing out that people sometimes just got distracted when they had a lot to do. But when the taxi turned into the drive and had to swerve onto the grass to let an ambulance get by, she feared the worst.
“Oh, thank God!” Anita exclaimed, staring at the group outside the house. “They’re all there. I know it sounds awful but I’m so glad it’s not Tim or Sonia or Ellie.”
Introductions were hasty. Tim explained that one of their workmen had had a suspected heart attack. Sonia told him to pay the cabdriver then calmly showed Tara and Anita to their rooms. Ellie was delighted to meet Tara but was clearly shy with strangers. Tara befriended Trixie the greyhound, and this proved a good way to get Ellie to open up a little.
The girls checked out each other’s rooms. Tara, more organized than her friend, helped Anita finish unpacking and then discussed the situation. There was now only one workman helping the Garlands with the house. It was a big job for three, even though much of the tougher jobs were complete.
“We can muck in—isn’t that how you say it?” Tara pointed out.
Anita pouted.
“Some holiday. But you’re right, we should at least offer. And this Carl bloke is young, apparently. Might be worth spending time with, doing sweaty manual labor.”
Tara’s eye roll was perfunctory. It was a crisis, after all. After unpacking and freshening up, the visitors went back downstairs. Sonia had put the kettle on and was bustling about with Ellie following her mother around. Ellie took after her mother. While Tim had Anita’s looks—dark hair, brown eyes—Sonia was very fair, with pale blue eyes and a thick rope of blonde hair plaited and hanging down her back. Ellie, Tara noted, was now tugging a large cuddly panda. She asked the name of the toy.
House of Whispers: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Mortlake Series Book 2) Page 4