An Unquiet Place

by Clare Houston

  Alistair put the phone down immediately. It rang again and he picked it up, but only held the phone to his ear, not saying anything.

  ‘You did it. You did it. She’s dead and you did it.’

  He jammed his finger onto the switch hook, cutting the call. The menace of that ‘You, You, You’ sent a racing shiver along his arms. He put the receiver down on the table next to the phone and jumped at the loud knock on the front door behind him.

  His father poked his head around the door. ‘Your mum has dinner ready. She says there’s enough if you want to come over.’ Registering the shock Alistair knew was on his face, Neil said, ‘You okay?’

  ‘I just got a call. You know, threatening, like before.’

  ‘But it’s been years! Why now?’ Neil’s face clouded with anger.

  ‘Because I might be finding out what it’s like to be happy again. Of course something would start now.’

  ‘Alistair!’ Neil said sharply. ‘The universe is not out to get you. This is a person. A messed-up person, yes, but your life coming right at last has no bearing on it.’

  He pushed his hand into his hair. ‘I know, Dad. It’s just so perfectly timed.’

  ‘Put caller ID on again, like the cops told you to do before.’

  Alistair tugged on the hair gripped in his fist. ‘It’ll be the same. A private number. Untraceable. And we know who it is, don’t we?’

  ‘But we can’t prove it.’

  ‘No, we can’t. Come, Dad, let’s go eat.’

  The table at the cottage was laid and Sarah ladled thick stew into bowls. Her crusty bread sat on a board, cut into thick slices for dipping into the stew. They sat and Neil said grace, Alistair taking comfort in the routine he had known his whole life. When they began to eat, Neil put his utensils down and looked across at Sarah, concern etched on his face. ‘Alistair had a call tonight, like before.’

  Sarah took a moment to understand, and then stared wide-eyed at Alistair. ‘After all these years? Why would she start again?’

  Alistair covered her hand with his large one. ‘Esme is unhinged, Mum. The day Marilie died, something clicked out of place. Hoping she’d get over her daughter’s death might have been too much to ask.’

  ‘No, you never recover from losing a child, but clinging on to the idea that you killed Marilie is insane!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alistair. ‘And the least I can do is weather a few phone calls. I might not have killed Marilie, but I was responsible for her. Esme expected me – as I did – to protect her daughter. I failed in the worst possible way.’

  Neil slammed his hand on the table, making Sarah jump in her seat. ‘Rubbish!’ he said. ‘You cannot protect anyone from harm in this world. Bad stuff happens in spite of you. There are no guarantees. We go by the grace of God, all of us! To think you can protect yourself, your wife, or your children is beyond arrogance – it’s blasphemy.’ After a moment, Neil collected himself. He picked up his fork and began to eat again. Alistair and Sarah followed, but the chink of utensils on bowls was loud in the silence which hung over the table.

  ‘Well, Alistair,’ Sarah said, trying hard to restore the balance between them, ‘how was your day at Surrender Hill?’

  ‘Good,’ he said softly. ‘The story came back to me easily, which was a relief. It’s been so many years since I told it to people. It reminded me how much I loved doing it.’

  ‘Maybe we should look at those plans again,’ said Neil. ‘It was a sound concept for a business.’

  Alistair looked across the table at his father. ‘What about the guest house?’

  ‘Building is a pain in the arse, but we can do it. The books look good this year, don’t they? We could hire a manager when it’s done. Leliehoek is growing its tourism industry – maybe we should think about taking a piece of that pie.’

  ‘There’s a lot going on right now, Neil,’ said Sarah. ‘Let’s see how this camp investigation turns out first. It might be a boon for a guest house, or it might not get off the ground at all.’ She turned to Alistair. ‘What’s the news of Hannah’s brother?’

  ‘He’s here in Leliehoek. We’re meeting to talk about a way forward.’

  ‘Remember your sister arrives this weekend.’

  Neil took another slice of bread and reached for the butter. Alistair watched him change his mind at Sarah’s fierce glare and dunk the bread, unbuttered, into his stew. ‘Suzanne would also be interested in the camp story – maybe she should tag along.’

  Alistair didn’t like the thought of Suzanne being anywhere near Joseph. ‘Let me handle the meeting first, see where it’s going.’ He collected the plates and stood, pushing his chair back to take the dishes to the kitchen.

  His mother called from behind him. ‘There’s a rhubarb crumble on the table and a jug of custard. Please bring them through.’

  Alistair smiled at the thought of his father. Sarah made the crumble for Alistair because she knew how much he loved it. She deliberately ignored her husband’s grimacing face across the table. Alistair loved that their relationship exhibited these small wars; loved even more that Neil submitted to her with good humour, allowing the small victories which made Sarah feel she was in charge.

  Alistair knew that his father’s strength, when you met it, was ironclad. That, when it came down to the line, Neil was the backbone of the family. He had seen it on the day Marilie was killed. His father, sitting in the driveway, holding Alistair’s face together while he quietly organised the scene. Staff were sent running to call emergency services and bring blankets for Alistair. Sarah was made busy packing a hospital bag for Alistair, grooms dispatched to catch the horse and restore order in the stable. Neil had held Alistair in his arms on the driveway for the whole time it took the ambulance to arrive, allowing him to keep hold of Marilie’s body for as long as possible.

  When her parents had arrived at the hospital, Neil had shielded Alistair from their grief and their rage. Alistair knew he would not have come through the trauma without his father carrying him. He owed him his life.

  He had said as much one day in the shed while they were working on a tractor. Neil had simply looked at him and said, ‘You are my son, whom I love.’ Alistair had choked on the thick tears which had risen with those words, and Neil had squeezed his shoulder, then bent down to continue working.

  Now, Alistair returned to the dining room, touching his dad’s shoulder as he passed. Neil looked up and grimaced at the sight of the desert. ‘My most favourite pudding, Sarah, you shouldn’t have. You really shouldn’t have.’

  Sarah tapped him on the hand with her serving spoon. ‘This house does not revolve around you, Neil.’

  But everyone, except perhaps Neil himself, knew it did.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Hannah and Joseph were met by Alistair’s dogs in full force on Monday morning. Their barking and jostling had Hannah hanging onto her car’s wing mirror for balance. Joseph knelt down to put his arms around the two Labradors and was knocked flat onto his bottom by Grant. Laughing, Hannah watched as he attempted to bat the dog’s profuse licking away with his hands, but it was only Alistair’s stern command which had the dogs sitting obediently next to Joseph. Alistair couldn’t help grinning at Joseph and the three dogs lined up in the dirt. He offered Joseph a hand up and pulled him to his feet.

  Joseph dusted himself off and held out his hand again to Alistair. ‘We haven’t met properly. I’m Joseph Harrison.’

  As Alistair gripped his hand, Hannah could see him assess her brother. She hoped he would see Joseph like she did, completely secure in himself and completely likeable. What some might consider arrogance was actually self-assurance and good humour. In allowing himself to gambol about with three exuberant dogs, Joseph couldn’t have endeared himself to Alistair in a better way.

  ‘Come in,’ said Alistair, gesturing to the front steps, and following Hannah and Joseph inside. ‘Go straight into the kitchen – we can sit there.’

  Hannah passed what she glimpsed
was a lounge, then entered a room which had been remodelled as an open-plan kitchen-dining room. It had been decorated in formal greys and blacks, a modern minimalist style. The windows were empty of blinds or curtains, the walls blank, apart from the odd starkly painted canvas, unframed. Hannah wasn’t convinced the style suited the old house or Alistair at all. The black granite kitchen counters were clear, no piles of papers or smudged recipe books, no dumped handbags. Empty.

  ‘Wow,’ said Joseph, coming into the room. ‘Who tidies for you? I could do with someone like that in my house.’

  ‘You don’t have a house,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Someone to follow me around then and pick up after me,’ said Joseph cheerfully.

  Alistair avoided Hannah’s gaze. ‘My wife had the house done. She wasn’t the homey type, though, and we always had someone cooking for us. Now I eat with my parents a lot. Still, it’s a waste of such an enormous kitchen. Please.’ Alistair gestured to the plain dark wood table. Hannah and Joseph settled there and he put the kettle on the hob, taking three mugs from a cupboard. ‘Tea or coffee? I can use a plunger if you’d prefer.’

  Hannah smiled. ‘I got into trouble several times overseas, asking if I could make coffee with a plunger. People thought I was about to whip out the old toilet plunger.’

  Alistair’s mouth pulled up at the corner.

  ‘I’d love a decent cup of coffee,’ said Joseph. ‘Hannah’s place has every possible type of tea, most of them disgusting, but neither of us can figure out the coffee machine.’

  ‘I’ve taken to drinking my coffee at Kathryn’s,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Better than this will be, no doubt,’ said Alistair, slanting a smile at Hannah.

  Hannah pulled Rachel’s journal and her own notebook from her bag.

  ‘So this is the famous journal,’ said Alistair, reaching for it across the table. He began turning the pages gently, scanning the tightly cramped writing. ‘How do you read this?’

  ‘Hannah is a language master,’ said Joseph. ‘The Afrikaans department had high hopes for her until the English department grabbed her for her PhD – you could say another Anglo-Boer War was fought over her,’ he said, laughing as he poked her in the shoulder.

  ‘How do you know all that?’ said Hannah, poking him back, surprised he had been keeping track of her life.

  ‘I have eyes and ears everywhere,’ said Joseph.

  She poked him again. ‘You have women in universities everywhere, you mean, who would tell you anything to stay in your favour.’

  ‘They have their uses,’ said Joseph, returning the poke with a grin.

  ‘So,’ Alistair gestured at the journal, ‘where do we go from here?’

  ‘Right,’ said Joseph, clearing his throat and putting on a serious face. Hannah shook her head at him, wondering if they would ever relate to each other as adults.

  ‘Right,’ said Hannah, taking over and opening her notebook. ‘We have the journal written by Rachel Badenhorst. When I visited Silwerfontein, I found photographs of her and her family, and a marriage register including her parents and her brother. Wolf’s wedding took place after the war, and his grave is in the cemetery in town. And then,’ she paused, not sure how Joseph and Alistair would react, ‘there are Kobie’s stories about Goshen.’

  Alistair lifted his eyes from the journal to her, one eyebrow raised. ‘You can’t base an excavation on ghost stories.’

  Joseph linked his hands on the table and began tapping his thumb thoughtfully. ‘The paranormal and archaeology have always been linked. When you’re dealing with the dead, it’s obvious that people’s fascination with the paranormal will be fed. What are the stories?’

  ‘Kobie’s been on the farm his whole life,’ Hannah said. ‘He speaks of the smell of sewage or the smell of smoke when there’s no fire. He says he’s heard keening on the wind. Says he and his sister have seen two different women in Boer clothes. I believe he’s telling the truth – at least, he believes it’s true.’

  ‘It’s complete nonsense,’ said Alistair strongly. Hannah looked down at her hands on the table, feeling her heart shrink a little, and glad she hadn’t mentioned her own experience on the plateau.

  ‘There are some archaeologists who are into “ghost science”.’ Joseph punctuated the words with his fingers. ‘I’m more pragmatic than that. Chances are that stories of the camps have been passed down the generations in some form or other, and placed a sense of expectation in Kobie’s mind, whether he remembers hearing the stories or not.’ He smiled at Alistair’s frown. ‘We mustn’t discount stories – they might have begun in reality. Besides, a few ghosts here and there are very helpful for funding.’ He winked at Hannah before continuing, ‘Why this specific site on Goshen? What do you call it? The plateau?’

  Hannah began thoughtfully, ‘When I first asked Alistair’s mother, she just assumed I was talking about the plateau. Kobie’s stories are based up there, and then, when I went up with Alistair, I saw the line of gum trees which Rachel references in her journal.’

  Joseph’s interest sharpened. ‘What trees?’

  ‘She describes how the camp children planted a windbreak. A line of gums stands on the plateau, with no other apparent purpose.’

  Joseph turned to Alistair, who was looking down at his hands on the table, a frown drawing his brows down. ‘What do you think, Alistair? About the plateau’s being the site?’

  ‘It’s a creepy place, for no reason that I ever knew before now. The trees? I don’t know. Anybody could have planted them, I suppose, down the years.’

  Joseph must have heard Hannah’s intake of breath, because he turned to her and said, ‘No, Han, it’s good to have a devil’s advocate. It means we can’t make assumptions without looking at all the angles. And sometimes,’ he shrugged, ‘struggling with something produces more exciting results than what was simple and obvious.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ said Alistair, ‘but are you the right person to be doing this investigation? I mean, shouldn’t we be getting a South African War historian to do it? Do you know enough about the period to run a project like this?’

  Joseph laughed. ‘Good question! Historians and archaeologists are two different beasts. Archaeologists use scientific evidence. There are archaeological processes which we follow, and our conclusions are based on what we find, rather than the archival record. An historian cannot run a dig. I’ve been doing a bit of phoning around in the last few days. There is only one archaeologist working on camp excavations in South Africa. He’s a goldmine of information, and was very interested in partnering with me to look at this site. He’s overseas at the moment. He’s going to do some teaching there, so he can’t get back for a while. Are you happy for me to work with him but be the hands on the ground?’

  Alistair nodded, but the look on his face told Hannah he was feeling this snowball was rolling already and there was little he could do now to stop it.

  ‘Besides,’ said Joseph, ‘this is all presuming there is anything to find.’ He winked again at Hannah, who had looked up sharply.

  She felt a bubble of excitement begin to build in her as she stared at her brother with new eyes. She had always assumed he was so far above her in intellect and success that he would never credit her for anything of her own. But now, sitting here, perhaps she had misjudged him. He was taking her seriously. ‘Where to now?’ she said.

  ‘I think we need to take a two-pronged approach. One is the site, which is my domain, and the other is the recorded evidence. Hannah, that journal is key, so you need to make copies, perhaps translate it so that we lesser mortals can read it. It needs to be combed for any detail, no matter how small. References to time, physical landmarks, food, water supply, fuel, shelter, anything we might find remnants of. And then you will need to go further afield to the archives to find any connections with the official record.’ He paused to take in their reactions. Hannah was smiling, almost vibrating with excitement, but Alistair, with his arms folded in front of him, had
a frown of worry creasing his face. ‘Are you ready for this?’ Joseph said.

  Alistair’s ‘No’ collided with Hannah’s ‘Yes!’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Joseph, his brows raised, ‘shall we go see the site?’

  The Hilux bounced as they climbed the hill behind the house. Alistair’s dogs ran with the pickup, Grant keeping up with the vehicle and the two Labs managing to lumber behind. Hannah sat in the middle, remembering her first ride in the truck with Alistair, painfully holding herself away from him. Now, she relaxed and let the rolling of the vehicle slide her between her brother and Alistair. At one point, he changed into lowest gear and his hand shifted to her leg to hold her in place as the truck ground over a particularly steep, rocky section of road. Her insides clenched at the feel of his hard hand on her skin, but it was gone too soon, both hands gripping the steering wheel and Alistair looking straight ahead as if nothing had happened.

  There was no doubt, she was attracted to him. The few times they had touched, by accident or that moment on the pavement outside her house, her reaction had been visceral. A physical tug which sat deep but made no sense to pursue. Too much emotional baggage on both sides to wade through. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it. And shouldn’t now.

  Todd had set the pace of their relationship from their very first meeting. He had been handsome in a smooth, trendy sort of way, and his charisma had pulled her into following him. She had never questioned why she had enmeshed herself in his life or exactly what it was that she liked about him. They were a couple from the moment they met. She had fitted herself around him, never asking herself if it was what she wanted. She went with the flow, drifting along rather than purposely choosing him.

  Now there was Alistair. And a slow pull towards a man who stood damaged but stood nonetheless. A man for whom opening his heart before her took great courage. But was she up to the responsibility? Was she ready for the intensity she was sure would come with getting involved with Alistair? Her heart skittered and shrank at the thought.