The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

by Derek Landy

  THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE

  Derek Landy

  PUFFIN

  Contents

  About Derek Landy

  Books by Derek Landy

  THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE

  About Derek Landy

  Derek Landy is far too modest to talk about any awards or accolades his books may have won. He will not, for instance, mention the fact that his first book, Skulduggery Pleasant, won the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book of the Decade Award AND the Red House Children’s Book Award, or that his second, Playing With Fire, won an Irish Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, or that his seventh, Kingdom of the Wicked, is his mother’s personal favourite. He could go on, all the way to The End of the World, which is the title of the story he wrote for World Book Day 2012, but he is, above all, a humble man. The penultimate book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, Last Stand Of Dead Men, was recently published by Harper Collins.

  He lives in Ireland with a variety of cats, a German Shepherd and a geriatric Staffordshire Bull Terrier who keeps peeing on the kitchen floor because he think it’s funny.

  Visit Derek’s blog for up-to-date news: www.dereklandy.blogspot.co.uk

  Books by Derek Landy

  Skulduggery Pleasant

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire

  Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom Of The Wicked

  Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men

  The Maleficent Seven

  1

  ‘Well now,’ said the Doctor, looking at the monitor with widening eyes, ‘this is interesting.’

  Martha Jones hurried over to join him at the console while the TARDIS wheezed and whooshed around them. ‘What is?’ she asked, peering at the screen. ‘Fog? What’s interesting about fog? Where are we?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ the Doctor said, speaking so low he was almost muttering. ‘We’re not where we could be.’

  ‘Don’t you mean we’re not where we should be?’

  ‘No. I mean what I say. We can’t be here. We can’t have landed here. Last time I passed this way, this was empty space.’ He took his sonic screwdriver from his jacket – the brown pinstripe today, with the blue tie. He scanned the instruments and frowned. ‘There’s no malfunction,’ he said. ‘The readings are accurate, so this is definitely a planet. Breathable atmosphere, too.’

  The scanner readings meant nothing to Martha, and the monitor still showed fog. ‘When did you last pass here?’ she asked. ‘Maybe the planet was destroyed in the intervening years, or shifted its orbit or something.’

  The Doctor was too caught up in his own thoughts to answer, so Martha sighed, grabbed her jacket and pulled it on as she strode to the door. She knew him well enough by now to realise that he was going to go outside anyway.

  She turned the latch, and the Doctor snapped his head round. ‘Martha, wait –’

  She opened the door and stepped out, and her head swam for just a moment. When it cleared, the fog was gone. ‘Huh,’ she said.

  The Doctor joined her. Sunshine, green grass, blue skies. A few white fluffy clouds. Birds sang. It was close to midday, judging by the position of the single sun.

  Martha looked around. ‘That fog disappeared fast.’

  The Doctor didn’t respond. Instead, he started walking up the nearest hill, following the sound of voices. They got to the top and saw four children walking towards them – two girls and two boys, all around eleven or twelve. The tallest boy carried a picnic basket, and they were dressed like they belonged in the 1950s – on Earth.

  ‘Hello there,’ the Doctor said, smiling brightly.

  The children stopped without looking at him and frowned, like they’d heard something from far away.

  Martha stepped in front of them, waving her hand. ‘Hello? Yoo-hoo? Can you see us?’

  The tallest boy’s eyes moved, found her waving hand and focused. Then he looked up, saw her and smiled. ‘Oh, hello!’

  ‘Hi,’ Martha said.

  Now the others were looking at her and the Doctor, and they were smiling, too.

  ‘Gosh, new people!’ said the dark-haired girl. ‘We haven’t seen new people in simply ages! What are your names?’

  There was something about her face that snagged on Martha’s memory. All of their faces, actually. ‘I’m Martha,’ she said, ‘and this is the Doctor.’

  ‘Hello, Martha,’ they all said together. ‘Hello, Doctor.’

  Martha gave them a smile and glanced back. ‘This is kind of weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very,’ the Doctor said. ‘Where are you children off to?’

  ‘We’re having a picnic!’ the smallest girl said proudly. ‘Mother and Father usually come with us, but this year they said we were old enough to go by ourselves! We’ve never come this far down the path, however. I do so hope we’ll be able to find our way back!’

  ‘We should be able to,’ the smallest boy said. ‘It’s a straight path.’

  ‘We’ll let you get back to your picnic, then,’ the Doctor said, and they were immediately assailed by a chorus of spirited goodbyes that actually made Martha take a step backwards. And the next moment the children were walking again, and chatting and laughing among themselves as if they had never been interrupted. The path they were on continued down the hill, swerved gently round an old country cottage and disappeared into the woodland behind. The whole thing looked like a painting on a cheap postcard, and with the kids in the foreground it reminded Martha of …

  ‘The Troubleseekers,’ she said.

  The Doctor looked at her. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The books. The Troubleseekers books. Have you never read them?’

  ‘The Troubleseekers,’ the Doctor said. ‘Thirty-two children’s books, written by Annette Billingsley over the course of fifteen years from 1951. No, never read them. They were rubbish. Rip-off of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. Ah, Enid Blyton. I met her once, you know. Odd woman. Unusual ears.’

  ‘Well,’ Martha said, speaking quickly before the Doctor could go off on another one of his tangents, ‘I read the Troubleseekers. I devoured them. From the Troubleseekers Oath printed on the title page to the list of the other books at the back – I read every little bit. And this – this here – is the cover of The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage. It’s the first one I ever read. This house, this angle, this time of day … everything. And those kids. I know them all. The tallest one is Humphrey; he’s the no-nonsense leader. The girl with the dark hair is Joanne, but she insists on everyone calling her Jo because she’s the tomboy. Then there’s Simon; he’s always trying to prove himself, so he gets into the most trouble. And the youngest is Gertie. She makes scones lathered with jam.’

  ‘Jam-lathered scones. I see.’

  ‘And they’re usually shadowed by … ah, there he is.’ She nodded to a nearby tree where a child was hiding, peeking out at them occasionally. ‘The little fat boy.’

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What?’ Martha said defensively, keeping her voice down. ‘That’s how he was described in the books. Don’t blame me. This was 1951. Everything back then was blinkered, sexist and ever-so-slightly racist. It was a backward time.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said the Doctor, ‘because 2007 has none of those things.’

  Martha ignored him. ‘The little … overweight child wanted to join the Troubleseekers, but he’d always prove too annoying, and every time they’d send him away he’d run off and tattle on them. What was his name, though? It�
��s on the tip of my tongue. It was a nickname, something everyone called him, even his aunt and uncle …’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘Was it Fatty, by any chance?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Martha, nodding. ‘Fatty. Yes, that’s him.’

  ‘Children can be so cruel,’ the Doctor said. ‘Children’s writers can be even worse.’

  ‘Doctor,’ Martha said, having no other choice but to ask the question, ‘are we … are we in a book?’

  ‘We’re not in a book. We can’t be in a book.’ The Doctor looked around. ‘We might be in a book.’ He started walking. Martha followed.

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘It’s happened before,’ he said. Then shrugged. ‘Well, sort of. Long time ago. Well, not that long, relatively speaking, and since time is relative, relatively speaking is how we speak, is it not?’ The Doctor plucked a daisy as he walked, held it up to the sun, examining it. ‘It was essentially a pocket universe where fictional characters were real. I met all sorts of people. Gulliver, Cyrano de Bergerac, the Three Musketeers, Medusa. Even Rapunzel. However …’

  ‘However?’

  ‘Travelling to the Land of Fiction meant leaving our own universe, and we haven’t done that.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  He stopped walking and let the daisy drop. ‘The air tastes funny in other universes. Like boiled cabbage and wet dog. So, we’re not in the Land of Fiction, but we do seem to be in a land replicating a work of fiction. Can you remember how this particular story ended?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Martha. ‘You read more than three Troubleseekers books and they all blur into one big rose-tinted mess.’

  ‘Excellent,’ the Doctor said, beaming. ‘Then we’ll get to solve this one for ourselves. Come along.’

  They walked down the hill after the Troubleseekers, who didn’t even look round at the sound of their footsteps. Not the most alert kids ever, in Martha’s opinion. Maybe the Doctor was right. Maybe the books were absolute rubbish.

  Martha didn’t care. She had loved them when she was younger. After the Troubleseekers and stuff like that it was all Harry Potter and His Dark Materials and then she was reading adult books and trying out the classics … but the Troubleseekers is where it all began.

  She glanced behind them. Fatty was following, running from tree to bush to tree, doing his best to keep out of sight and failing miserably. She suddenly felt sorry for him, this poor kid desperately wanting to be part of the Troubleseekers.

  ‘Let’s stop here for our picnic!’ announced Humphrey.

  ‘Oh yes, let’s!’ squealed Gertie.

  ‘I’m famished!’ cried Jo.

  ‘Spiffo!’ yelled Simon.

  ‘Seven hells,’ muttered the Doctor.

  ‘Simon, we’ll put the blanket down,’ said Humphrey. ‘Girls, you start unpacking the basket, and then we’ll all tuck in!’

  Martha stood beside the Doctor and they watched the children settle down to a feast of scones and jam and ginger beer and apples and cakes and ham sandwiches and more cakes and pies and Cornish pasties and custard tarts. Gertie and Jo took so much food out of the basket that Martha began to suspect it had some TARDIS qualities of its own.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

  ‘We should have brought our own picnic,’ the Doctor responded, nodding.

  ‘Those cakes look delicious.’

  ‘Don’t they? And I’ve never wanted a ginger beer more than I do right now.’

  Something caught the Doctor’s eye and he started walking. Martha let her gaze linger on some jam tarts that looked like the nicest jam tarts ever baked, then she turned away from the Troubleseekers and Fatty and reluctantly followed. There was an elderly woman on an old-fashioned bike cycling towards them. She had grey hair, a floral dress with a light cardigan over it, and a contented smile on her face.

  The Doctor stood in the middle of the path, hands on hips with his legs wide apart. The old woman continued to cycle.

  ‘Um,’ Martha said.

  A butterfly passed in front of the old woman, and she turned her head and watched it flutter.

  ‘Hello,’ Martha said loudly. ‘Hello? We’re standing here. Hello!’

  ‘It’s going to take her a moment to register our presence,’ the Doctor said. ‘We don’t belong in this story, after all.’

  The woman kept up her slow pedalling rhythm and got closer and closer. Only at the last moment did her eyes focus, and she saw the Doctor standing in her way. She squealed and twisted the handlebars, veered off the path and plummeted down the hill. Martha ran up to the Doctor, and they watched the old woman topple off the bike with a panicked squawk and roll to the bottom of the hill, where she came to a gentle, sprawling stop.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Martha called out.

  ‘I’m fine,’ the Doctor said. ‘She didn’t even hit me.’

  Martha glared, then hurried down to the old woman just as she was sitting up.

  ‘Be careful,’ Martha said. ‘You might be injured.’

  The old woman looked around, frowning, and stared at Martha for a few moments before she saw her. A shaky smile broke out. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, dear. I’ve taken worse tumbles in my time, and I dare say I’ll take worse again. But if you could help me to my feet I’d be ever so grateful.’

  Martha got behind her and lifted her up as the Doctor joined them, wheeling the bike by his side.

  ‘Look what I found,’ he said cheerily.

  ‘That’s my bicycle!’ said the old woman. ‘Thank you so much, young man.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the least I could do,’ the Doctor said, all charm and smiles. ‘I’m the Doctor; this is Martha. You are …?’

  ‘Mrs O’Grady,’ said the old woman. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Mrs O’Grady,’ the Doctor repeated. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a first name, would you?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ said Mrs O’Grady. ‘Mrs.’

  ‘What a fully developed character you must be,’ the Doctor said, raising a sceptical eyebrow at Martha.

  She ignored him. ‘Do you live nearby?’ she asked, and the old woman nodded.

  ‘I live in the next cottage over.’

  ‘Then maybe you can help us,’ the Doctor said. ‘There’s a mystery to solve somewhere around here and we can’t find it. Admittedly we’ve only just started looking, but you seem to be someone who could know where it might be.’

  ‘A mystery?’ said Mrs O’Grady. ‘Heavens no, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I try my best to stay away from mysteries, young man. Terrible things, they are. They lead to all sorts of … answers.’ A shiver ran through her.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the Doctor. ‘So you haven’t noticed anything unusual?’

  ‘Unusual?’

  ‘Odd goings-on,’ said Martha. ‘Unexplained happenings. Noises. Criminal behaviour. Anything out of the ordinary?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs O’Grady. ‘Nothing. Apart from the strange lights in the woods.’

  ‘Strange lights?’ the Doctor said.

  ‘In the woods?’ Martha said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs O’Grady. ‘Every night I see strange lights floating through the trees. There are a lot of people saying it’s ghosts, but I don’t believe in ghosts. I finally came to the conclusion that they were strange lights.’

  The Doctor frowned. ‘That was your conclusion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That satisfied you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs O’Grady. ‘Because that’s what they are. Strange lights.’

  The Doctor looked her up and down. ‘What is it like, being you?’ he murmured. ‘What is it like to have such limited curiosity?’

  ‘I get by,’ Mrs O’Grady said, chuckling.

  ‘You never thought about investigating them?’ Martha asked.

  ‘No,’ Mrs O’Grady said, her eyes widening, like the very question filled her with horror. ‘You take my word for it; nothing good can come from going into those woods at night. Strange lights m
ean strange things. And who would want strange things apart from strange people? And we’re not strange people, are we?’

  Martha hesitated and looked at the Doctor.

  The Doctor smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not strange people at all.’

  They left Mrs O’Grady to continue on her merry little way, and Martha followed the Doctor to the haunted cottage. Now that she could see it up close, it didn’t look remotely haunted. It was kind of nice, actually. It was pretty and painted white and it had a thick thatch roof.

  ‘First rule of being a detective,’ the Doctor said as he knocked on the door, ‘is to observe. Observe the obvious, and observe the not-so-obvious. Observing the not-so-obvious is not as easy as observing the obvious, but if it were easy everyone would be at it.’

  The door opened. Martha observed that a man in his forties stood there. She observed that his face was long and that his moustache was neatly maintained.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Hello,’ the Doctor said, grinning broadly and pumping the man’s hand in the most enthusiastic handshake Martha had ever observed. ‘This is Martha Jones, and I’m the Doctor. Very pleased to meet you. You must be someone important to be working here. A red herring, perhaps? Or the villain of the piece? No, no, don’t tell me – let me figure it out. Your name?’

  The man did his best to get his hand back. ‘Cotterill,’ he said, somewhat sniffily. ‘I’m the caretaker here.’

  ‘The caretaker,’ the Doctor said, eyes wide in wonder. ‘In that case it is doubly good to meet you.’ He turned to Martha. ‘Caretakers and butlers. Watch out for them.’

  Martha adopted a smile that was far less manic. ‘Mr Cotterill, we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about the strange lights in the woods.’

  Immediately Cotterill’s face tightened. ‘Strange lights? What strange lights? There’s nothing strange about lights. They’re lights. What’s so strange about a light?’

  ‘What are they doing in the woods?’

  ‘I never said I saw them in the woods. I never said I knew what you were talking about. What are you talking about? Strange? Lights? Woods? What? I’m the caretaker. I take care of the cottage and the grounds. Not the woods. Not any strange lights. Not that there are any. But if there were some, I wouldn’t know about them. And I don’t, because there aren’t.’ His face twitched. ‘Any.’