The back door swung open, banging against the wall and a shadow crossed the threshold, followed closely by the physical body that hesitated in the doorway.
Chase steadied herself, sucked in a deep breath.
The figure was too dark to make out; she reached for the light switch, prepared to see Belinda standing there, armed with cakes, or worse. Much worse.
She tightened her grip on the knife.
Flicking the switch, light flooded the room, chasing the shadows away and Chase let out a loud cry as she confronted the intruder: a gangling teenager covered in mud who looked more scared than she was.
His mouth dropped open and he stumbled back. “Where’s my granddad? Who are you?” the boy demanded before he saw the knife and took a further step back, his expression fearful.
“What are you doing breaking into my house?” Chase demanded in return, her voice shaking almost as much as her legs.
“Your house? I’ve got a key. This is my granddad’s house. What have you done to him? You ...” he visibly gulped, “You haven’t killed him, have you?” He looked at the knife and took another step back.
“Don’t be stupid.” Chase lowered the knife slightly.
“Granddad,” the boy shouted.
“Look, there’s no one here, especially not your granddad. This is my house. I won it.”
“Won it? Don’t talk stupid. You can’t have. My Granddad lives here.” The boy’s face contorted in confusion.
Chase remembered the diary. “Did your granddad have a dog?”
“Samson. Where is he?”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’d better come in.”
The boy eyed her warily and Chase put the knife back on the draining board.
“I won’t hurt you. Look, come in and shut the door.” She backed away and after a contemplative moment, the boy stepped inside, although he didn’t shut the door.
“Come into the lounge.” Chase was anxious to sit down as the adrenaline that had flooded her body ebbed away, leaving her feeling drained.
Without seeing if he followed, Chase walked through to the lounge, collapsed onto the settee and watched the boy cautiously enter the room, his gaze darting nervously around, as though he expected someone to jump out on him.
“My name’s Chase.”
“Peter. But people call me Ratty.”
“Well, Pete ... Ratty, sit down.”
Ratty shook his head.
“Okay.” Chase sighed and quickly explained the circumstances of how she had moved in; about the competition, about Jane, about Moon. She didn’t mention bizarre Belinda, or her pregnancy, which was an intimate matter that she hadn’t come to terms with herself yet. She showed Ratty the diary, watched his pained face as he read it, and then listened in silence as he explained about the fog and the hunters or whatever they were. She didn’t believe it, putting most of his tale down to youthful exuberance.
He must have been mistaken, perhaps scared at being lost and embellishing the tale to make it more interesting and to deflect from his fear. Youth was the great pretender.
When he had finished, Ratty sat down, as though telling the story had taken a weight from his shoulders and he could now relax, safe in the knowledge that the information was in the hands of an adult.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Do?” Chase frowned. “Well, I think I should tell someone that you’re here. Your parents will be worried about you.”
“No, I mean about the fog and the armed men.”
“Ah, that.” She nodded her head. “Well, it’s quite a story.”
“Story! It’s not a story. That’s what happened.” His lower lip trembled.
Chase could see Ratty was becoming agitated. “Would you like something to drink? Perhaps something to eat, you look famished.”
Ratty licked his lips. “Well, perhaps just a glass of water and a piece of toast.”
“Water and toast. I may not be the best cook in the world, but I’m sure I can rustle up something better than that.” She walked into the kitchen, quickly shut the back door and locked it. She still hadn’t forgotten about Belinda, and as she prepared a meal of pasta with tomato sauce and vegetables, she kept glancing warily out of the window, but only her own pale reflection stared back, ghostly and surreal. She hadn’t mentioned to Ratty that she had also seen a figure in the fog, afraid that it would only fuel his fertile imagination.
But something was going on. Of that she was sure. Thoughts bounced around her head like a pinball.
When the meal was ready, she poured a glass of orange juice and called Ratty through.
He stepped into the kitchen, warily eyeing the back door that was now shut before fixing his eyes on the food and sitting at the table.
As though his fear was forgotten, he devoured the meal in a matter of minutes and drank another two glasses of juice before wiping his mouth and saying he was full.
Chase finished her own meal, thinking about what Ratty had said. He certainly seemed to know the house, and he did have a key. He also knew about the dog, Samson, but it didn’t make any sense. Why did he think his granddad still lived in the house? The last entry in the diary had been in June, one month ago. Where had the author gone after that? Had he moved away and just forgotten the diary? Or was he dead? She didn’t like to voice this last option to Ratty. He looked serious enough, and she honestly believed he believed his story. But, thinking of Belinda, she knew looks could be deceptive. Perhaps he was delusional. Perhaps he had run away from a secure home. Or perhaps she was just being stupid, having been left badly shaken by Belinda and the news of the pregnancy.
What she needed – what they needed – was a good night’s sleep. It was too late to tell anyone Ratty was here now, and she didn’t fancy going out in the dark, not when Belinda might be out there somewhere. Just in case her luck had changed, she checked her mobile phone again, but there was still no signal available.
“What do you say to a good nights sleep?” she said, throwing the phone down. “Then tomorrow we can sort this out.”
As if warmed to the idea, Ratty yawned. “But what are we going to do? Where’s my granddad?”
Chase didn’t know what to say. “There must be a reasonable explanation.”
“You do believe me, don’t you?”
Chase looked at him across the table and smiled. “Of course I do. Now come on, you can have the spare room.”
Having shown Ratty to the spare bedroom, Chase retired to her own room and propped the dressing table chair under the door handle, jamming the door shut, just in case Ratty really had escaped from a secure unit. She knew she was being foolish, but after the day she’d had, being foolish was the least of her worries.
***
Tears rolled down Ratty’s face as he slept and he woke in the morning feeling upset and miserable. He dressed quickly and ran downstairs, hoping to see his granddad sitting at the table, his granddad who had charmed him with wartime tales, his granddad who had been commended for bravery, his granddad who had taken a German machine gun post by himself, his granddad who used to playfully scare him with ghost stories, his granddad who helped him with his homework.
But he wasn’t there.
Even his belongings were gone. The furniture, the photographs, the mementoes, the ornaments, the pictures Ratty had drawn for him aged six and which had been framed and hung on the wall, the clothes, the smell, it was all gone. It was as though he had never existed. All that was left was a memory, and even that was faded. He couldn’t remember his granddad’s face, couldn’t remember what the twinkle in his eye looked like, couldn’t remember what the smell of his pipe tobacco was like. He was angry with himself, angry that he could forget what the person he loved, looked like. Screwing his eyes up, he tried to conjure up his granddad’s image in the darkness behind closed lids, but all he saw were spots of luminescence, and even those disappeared, replaced by tears that he quickly wiped away.
Movement
upstairs: the squeak of a bedspring. The creak of a floorboard. The sound of someone being sick. The flush of a toilet. Ratty held on to the hope that it would be his granddad that walked down the stairs, but it wasn’t.
“Morning. Did you sleep well?” Chase asked, walking into the kitchen wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
Ratty shook his head. “I want to know where my granddad is.”
“So do I.”
“He wouldn’t leave, not without telling us.”
“Have you eaten anything?”
Ratty shook his head.
“Right, first things first. A cup of tea, then breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I don’t function without my morning cuppa.”
Ratty watched her as she brewed the kettle. He was still wary of the strange woman in his granddad’s house. What was she doing here? It didn’t make any sense. How could she win the house in a competition when it belonged to his granddad? His head spun with questions.
“By the way, were you here earlier in the day yesterday, looking through the window?” Chase asked.
“No. Why?”
“Oh, it’s probably nothing. Do you know any of your granddad’s neighbours, like the woman down the lane, Belinda?”
“Yes, I know her. She’s that old lady.”
“And what’s she like?”
“Oh, you know. Old but nice, I suppose. Why?”
“No reason really. Here you are, would you like sugar in your tea?”
Ratty shook his head and gratefully accepted the steaming brew.
“Is there any chance you’re mistaken, you know, about your granddad? Could he have moved out and you perhaps forgot he’d moved somewhere else?”
Ratty glared at Chase. “I would know if my granddad had moved. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
“No, no, of course not. It’s just... I don’t know, strange.”
“You can say that again.”
“Those men you said were in the fog.”
“Hunters,” Ratty said, sipping his tea.
“Hunters. Did you catch any of their names?”
“No. Why, don’t you believe me?”
“I do.”
“No you don’t. I can tell. But then why should I believe you? Why should I believe that you won my granddad’s house in a competition? Don’t you think that sounds just as stupid to me?”
Chase considered this for a moment. “I suppose when you put it like that, it does.”
“And it’s not just my granddad. Your friend’s gone too.”
“She’s only gone home.”
Ratty shook his head. “You’re stupider than me then if you believe that. Can’t you see there’s something going on? They’re covering something up. They brought you here for a reason.”
Chase laughed. “Now you are being silly. Why would they want to do that? It’s not as if I have anything important. I’ve got no money, nothing they could want. You’ve been watching too many films.”
“And you haven’t been watching enough. These things happen.”
“Not to me they don’t. Now what would you like for breakfast?”
Ratty stared out of the window. “I’m not paranoid, but they’re after me,” he whispered. “Walls have ears. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”
“They also have sausages. And that’s what we’re having for breakfast. Sausage, egg and beans. How does that sound?”
“Like you want to change the subject.”
“I could swear you sound like an old man, worrying.”
Ratty sighed and shook his head.
“Well you’ve got plenty of time to worry about things when you get older. You should learn to relax and not get these silly ideas in your head.”
“If I live that long.”
“Now that’s enough of that. Look, we’ll get this sorted out after breakfast and get you home. Then you’ll see how silly you’ve been.”
Ratty didn’t reply. He watched a crow strutting across the garden before someone knocked at the front door, startling the bird into flight.
Ratty noticed the knock at the door startled Chase as much as it had the crow (she looked like she would fly away too, if she could), and she almost dropped the frying pan she had taken out from below the sink.
Ratty followed her out of the kitchen, noticing that she hesitated before finally opening the door.
“Miss Black,” a man drawled.
“Drake. What are you doing here?”
“Just calling to see if you’ve heard from a young boy who’s gone missing. We thought he might turn up here, as this is where his granddad used to live.”
“What have you done with him,” Ratty vehemently said, stepping from behind Chase so he could see the imposing figure stood in the doorway.
“Peter Rathbone. We’ve been looking for you.”
Drake’s harelip sneer grew more pronounced.
“Where’s my granddad?”
“Yes, what is going on?” Chase asked.
“Going on, Miss Black, that’s what I was going to ask you. Are you usually in the act of harbouring runaways? Didn’t you stop to think that someone would be looking for him? Worried even? Why didn’t you tell someone he was here?”
“Runaways.” Ratty glared. “Who’s a runaway?”
“Now, now Peter. I’ve come to take you back. Your parents are worried about you.”
“And I’m worried about my granddad,” Ratty replied, putting on a show of bravado he didn’t feel when faced with the behemoth before him.
“Teenagers.” Drake raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Now you know your granddad left the village to live with you and your parents as he was getting too old to look after himself.”
“What are you on about? You’re lying. Chase, he’s lying. This is my granddad’s house. He lives here.”
Drake shook his head and gave a derisory nasal snort. “I’ll bet he’s been telling you all sorts of nonsense, hasn’t he. It’s a good job you’re old enough to know better, Miss Black.”
Ratty couldn’t believe what was happening. He could see from the expression on Chase’s face that she would rather believe Drake. His story was more acceptable.
“There you go Ratty, I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Chase said, smiling benignly at him.
“Nothing to worry about. You really are stupid.”
“That’s enough of that,” Drake barked, clipping Ratty round the ear and grabbing him by the arm.
“Hold on a minute.” Chase stepped forward to intervene.
“No, you hold on,” Drake spat menacingly, making Chase recoil. “Don’t you know it’s a crime to harbour a runaway minor? Do you really want to press the matter, Miss Black? Do you really want to be prosecuted for what you’ve done? Well, do you?”
“I ... I didn’t realise. I’m sorry.”
“Well, I just hope his parents don’t want to take the matter further.”
“But I’m not a runaway,” Ratty protested.
“So what are you doing here, Peter? Why aren’t you at home, where you should be?”
Ratty wanted to flee, but Drake still had a grip on his arm. “Let go of me,” he shouted.
“We don’t want to lose him again, do we? I’ll take him with me and let his parents deal with it.”
Ratty looked at Chase, imploring her to believe him, but he could see that it was too late. The illusion that is the wisdom of age had defeated him.
“Go with Mr Drake, Peter. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
Ratty noticed that Chase called him Peter, and he knew he was lost. She had succumbed to Drake’s brute threats. He screamed, struggling to break free, but Drake gripped him too tightly.
“Don’t worry, Peter. I’m sure Mr Drake will let me come with you, just to make sure everything’s all right.”
“No, Miss Black, Peter’s parents are eager to have him home. We don’t want to complicate the matter any further and I think you’ve done enough damage already.”
“I see.” Chase shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “I’m sorry, Peter, but I’m sure when this is all over, they’ll let you come and visit your granddad’s old house? And me, I hope, just to let me know everything’s okay.”
“Say thank you, Peter,” Drake said, shaking Ratty.
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