by Ali Carter
‘Ah yes, I remember now… I’d just returned from a week-long après-ski bender.’
‘Well,’ Daniel turned to George, ‘I think it’s time we were rewarded.’
‘Come on then George,’ said Archie, ‘let’s go and get a bottle.’
‘Mind if I come too?’ I said. ‘I love a cellar.’
Archie’s face was full of surprise. ‘No, of course not, do come.’
‘Good call, Susie,’ rang out Daniel as we left the room. ‘Fontaburn’s cellar is quite something.’
Archie led us through the front hall, into a stone-floored boot room where, hanging high up in glass cases, there were beautiful purple and yellow quartered jockey silks, the colours glowing despite the poor lighting. I held back to look at them as the boys went through a vaulted door below and, by the sound of things, down a stone staircase.
‘Do you own a racehorse?’ I called out, but no answer returned.
I followed after them, the air temperature dropping as I descended into the humid cellar. Wow! What a space. Dovetailing out in front of me were unbelievably impressive Tudor brick vaults. They went on and on, lit by dim orange mock-lanterns dangling just above head height. I didn’t venture far in. It was the architecture, not the contents, I’d wanted to see. The dusty wine bottles stacked on their side meant very little to me, whereas the ecclesiastical character and true feat of structural engineering, holding up the vast weight above, really was quite something. I was so happy I’d asked to come too.
I could hear Archie and George shifting around boxes in search of what I’d call an evil spirit. I’ve only ever experienced absinthe in a sorbet and the effect it’d had on my behaviour then made me certain I didn’t want to drink it neat tonight. Drunk Susie only comes out when I’m with my bestest friends, the ones who’ve seen me through my twenties and have remained by my side.
‘Got it,’ I heard Archie say and it wasn’t long till I could make them out, coming towards me, George holding a bottle in the air.
‘Chop, chop, Susie,’ he said hurrying me up the stairs. No matter that I was blocking his exit, I stopped in the boot room to look up at the silks one more time.
‘Nice aren’t they?’ said Archie who was right behind me.
‘Do you own a racehorse?’
‘I used to part own one but not any more. Sadly, my co-owner died.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, well, no disrespect to him but it gave me an out. I never took to gambling.’ Archie looked up at the silks. ‘Topping colours, don’t you think?’ he said with a cheerier tone. ‘We used to say “purple and yellow he’s our speedy fellow”.’
‘Get a move on,’ said George, and before any more questions could be asked he’d harried us back to the drawing room.
‘Who wants some?’ he asked, showing off the emerald bottle.
Hailey downed her champagne and held up her glass, ‘I do!’
‘Not in there,’ said Daniel. ‘Terribly uncouth.’
‘Uncoooouth,’ rang out Hailey much to Tatiana’s conceited amusement.
Stanley jumped up and retrieved some shot glasses.
‘Over here,’ said Charlie who’d taken Archie’s seat on the sofa.
‘Tatiana?’
‘Of course,’ she said and Stanley handed her a glass.
‘Susie?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Not for me either,’ said Primrose.
Stanley plonked himself down on the sofa next to me, throwing his head back with alcohol-induced ease.
‘Primrose tells me you paint. I’d love to see some of your stuff.’
Stuff you I thought, but then I considered what an ineffectual soul Stanley was, and knew he didn’t mean any disrespect.
‘Is there a regular class you go to? Primrose has a group she sometimes travels to Tuscany with – rather more shopping and sunbathing goes on I reckon, but then again it is a holiday.’
‘I don’t go to a class. I mostly paint outdoors or in the studio at home.’
‘And how come you’re in Norfolk?’
‘I’ve been commissioned to draw a series of racehorses near here.’
‘Fancy that! Who for? I love racing.’
‘Aidan McCann.’
‘Gosh, you must be good. He’s a king in the racing world.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Not personally, but I should think our paths will cross in time.’
‘Do you own a racehorse?’
‘No, no, although it’s funny you should mention it as racing is the main reason we wanted to live here.’
I was under the impression they (or Primrose to be exact) had chosen this area so as to be close to Archie but maybe it was all rolled up into one. Who knows… this was a hard crowd to read.
‘Are you planning to buy a racehorse?’ I asked, trying to make sense of how his and Canny’s paths would ever cross.
‘No.’
‘You just like it, do you?’
‘Like what?’
Stanley was losing track of the conversation, probably drunk.
‘Racing?’
‘I love it.’
Thankfully I was saved any more chat by Primrose who dragged her husband up and announced to the room ‘We’re off to bed.’
George seized the moment to recite, ‘Good night? ah! no; the hour is ill / Which severs those it should unite.’
Daniel joined him, ‘Let us remain together still, / Then it will be good night.’
‘Very good,’ said Primrose with a sarcasm only ignorance could produce.
‘We’ll see you all in the morning,’ said Stanley, tripping on the claw-and-ball foot of the sofa.
Then came ‘Night,’ in unison from everyone other than George who muttered, ‘Very well then philistines,’ his knowledge of the Romantics incongruous with his being.
Once Stanley and Primrose had left the room George suggested we all play ‘a very English drinking game’. Archie nudged Hailey’s shoulder as if to say ‘this one’s for you’.
No way did I want to play a drinking game. ‘I’m going to turn in too, thank you so much Archie.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ he replied, attempting to push himself up.
‘Sleep well Susie,’ called out Daniel.
I scampered upstairs, thrilled to have been released from whatever chaos might follow.
It was all fine getting to the first-floor landing but I couldn’t find a switch to turn on the lights for the second flight of stairs.
There was a mahogany console table along the corridor with a side lamp, which I switched on. Surrounding it were a collection of tortoiseshell photograph frames, each containing a single portrait of a smiling individual. All strangers to me, all different ages and grouped together like this they gave off a nostalgic air. I rubbed my finger on what looked like a stain on the table but was actually a small patch without dust. Surely the only explanation for this was that a frame must have been recently removed.
I looked along the wall for another switch but couldn’t find one and my spooked heart beat heavy as I felt my way up the final flight of stairs. My room was first on the left. I grasped the knob, flung the door open and flicked on the light.
It was jolly chilly inside; the curtains hadn’t been drawn nor the sheets turned down. Vicky must have missed me off the list. I stood at the end of the bed trying to fight off the unsettled feeling inside me but the tick-tock from the silver clock on the dressing table was making it worse.
My goodness, it’s one o’clock in the morning. Well done Susie for lasting so late!
I drifted in and out of sleep, unable to completely nod off. Even the Woman’s Hour podcast, usually my fail-safe method for sending me into a deep slumber, hadn’t done the trick. I’d held back on absinthe but there was enough red wine in my system for me to be tasting it and breathing it in at the same time. My room was cold but the bed was huge, with a good old horsehair sunken mattress that had sheets so tightly tucked into the sides
that I was building up quite some heat between them. The excess space around me brought on fantasies of Toby.
My mobile had no reception and I so wanted to know if he was coming to stay tomorrow. Harrumph. Perhaps there was hope at the window.
In a desperate schoolgirl manner, I put a towel over the sturdy radiator, heaved myself on to it and held up my telephone as high as I could. I peered out the window. It was almost four a.m., the rain had stopped falling at last but something sparked an outdoor light and its beam lit up the bottom storey of the wing opposite mine. Crikey, spread like a starfish across the inner bottom window ledge was a figure in a pair of pale-blue and pink stripy pyjamas. The type wives buy their husbands from mail-order magazines. I narrowed my eyes trying to get a good impression, but the middle bar of the long window was obscuring his head. Zzzzzz went my telephone out of my hands, me toppling after it on to the floor.
One new message, Toby Cropper.
Hi Susie, cracking walk. Would love to stay
tomorrow. Thanks! Will text from Cromer. Toby x
My heart skipped a beat and just as its rhythm was settling back an ear-deafening alarm pounded through the house. Damn drunken behaviour. I was now in a fluster, I didn’t have my dressing gown with me and this lacy nightdress was not for sharing.
‘Don’t panic,’ Archie’s call travelled through the house loud and clear. ‘All will be okay, please come down to the front hall.’
I slowly pulled on a jumper and my trainers, wound my way down the stairs and plodded through the sitting room with my fingers in my ears.
In the hall Daniel was standing with his back to the wall, staring at the floor, not speaking to anyone. George was in a heavy Tudor chair opposite, still dressed in his dinner clothes although bleary eyed as if he’d been asleep. Stanley, blasted Stanley, in stripy pyjamas, was leaning on the side table hugging Primrose who cowered in his armpit. Everyone, other than Daniel, acknowledged me but no one said a word.
Creeeek went the spare chair as I sat down. This drew an anxious look from Primrose. Her fringe was peculiarly damp and stuck to her forehead rather like a toddler’s fringe becomes when parents in the midst of a dinner party are slow to pick up the wails coming down the monitor. Primrose had either had a nightmare or, I thought, was a tad overreacting.
‘Finally!’ came Charlie’s exclamation as the alarm stopped and he and Tatiana stepped into the hall. I envied her linen dressing gown.
The shrill of the telephone sounded and Stanley, without a fraction of a pause for thought, stretched out his free arm and picked it up.
‘Stanley Gerald speaking.’
‘I think that’s probably best.’
‘No officer, not right here.’
‘Thank you.’
He hung up and informed us, ‘That was the police station. They’re sending a community support officer down.’
‘You fool Stanley,’ said Daniel.
‘Why?’
‘You should have got Archie.’
‘If there’s a burglar in the house the police need to get here quick. No time for a conflab.’
‘If it’s a false alarm, you’ve wasted everyone’s time.’
‘Daniel, lay off him,’ grumbled George.
A side door flung open. Archie was standing in its frame in the very same pyjamas as Stanley, his head nodding as he counted us. ‘Hailey? Charlotte? Where are they?’
We all looked at each other. ‘Stay here,’ ordered Archie.
‘Arch…’ whimpered Primrose but he’d gone.
‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ said George raising his head just enough for his bloodshot eyes to peer out from beneath his bushy brows.
‘Shh,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s Charlotte.’
Then the scream came loud and clear, hurtling down the back stairs, and into the hall, ‘HELP! Somebody, HELP!’
My immediate reaction was to tear upstairs after Daniel. We pounded along the corridor hurriedly looking in every room until we came to one with Charlotte standing in the centre of it, white as a sheet.
Daniel leapt to catch her wilting figure in his outstretched arms as she howled, ‘Hailey’s DEAD! She’s DEAD! She’s DEAD!’
Panic struck, I rushed to the bed. Hailey wasn’t breathing. I grasped for a wrist under the covers. Good God… there was no pulse. I moved my shaking hand to her neck, and my trembling fingers confirmed the worst.
‘She’s dead,’ I croaked.
Daniel let go of Charlotte and rushed around to the other side of the bed.
‘She simply can’t be,’ he said, reaching across the mattress towards me. ‘Let’s prop her up with some pillows.’
‘No!’ I said rather sharply.
Daniel’s head hovered over Hailey’s mouth and when he rose up again there was no doubt in his expression. Hailey Dune was indeed dead.
She was lying on her back under the covers. Her eyes, black with make-up, stared blankly up at the ceiling.
‘We must call an ambulance,’ I said.
Daniel sank to the floor and having chucked a sequin dress out of the way he reappeared with a mobile telephone to his ear. By chance it must have been lying at his feet.
I began to feel fuzzy, it was very warm in the room and as I took a step backwards my foot caught the strap of a stray bra. I toppled into the side table, knocking a small glass of water onto the floor.
Charlotte flinched and Daniel waved his hand as if to say just leave it.
I hung my head and stared motionless at a pair of lacy knickers lying on the floor – bare-shouldered Hailey must be naked under the covers.
Daniel’s call had been answered.
‘Fontaburn Hall. Yes. There’s been a death. Yes, dead. No. I’m sure. No. No one.’ He moved towards Charlotte and asked, ‘Age? Surname?’
‘Early thirties, Dune,’ she mourned.
Daniel repeated the answers down the line. ‘Yes. Archibald Wellingham. Yes. Daniel Furr Egrant… FURR EGRANT. Yes! Okay. Of course. Thank you.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ said Archie as he entered the room.
Daniel hung up.
‘999. Hailey’s dead.’
‘Heavens above, you must be joking.’
Archie peered over at Hailey and then very quickly in a complete fluster he bent down to assure himself she wasn’t breathing.
‘She’s DEAD!’ cried Charlotte.
‘This is absolutely desperate,’ said Archie reaching to lay a small hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘What on earth happened?’
None of us had an answer.
‘ARCHIE! ARCHIE!’ came Charlie’s call. ‘Where are you? There’s a Police Community Support Officer at the door.’
Until this moment I certainly, and perhaps the others, had forgotten all about the alarm going off.
‘The burglar!’ cried Charlotte in desperation.
Daniel shot a look at Archie, begging him to give us the answer, but instead he gave an order, ‘We all have to join the others in the sitting room and wait for the ambulance.’ He stood at the door ready to marshal us out.
‘No,’ said Charlotte firmly.
‘It’s best not to interfere at this point,’ said Archie, taking my line on the situation. ‘There’s nothing you can do Charlotte.’
Daniel beckoned me over to help usher her out and as I held her trembling arm and walked her towards the door I felt hollow at the thought she’d lost her friend.
At that moment Charlie came rushing down the corridor at great speed. ‘What’s up? Charlotte?’ he put his arm around her shoulder. ‘What is it?’
Charlotte’s voice cracked and a flood of tears came out on Charlie’s chest, ‘Hailey’s dead.’
‘What the fuck?’ said Charlie at the top of his voice, pushing past us towards Hailey’s room.
Archie failed to grab his arm and Charlie went in to see for himself. Then immediately, taking the situation into his own hands, he marched towards us insisting we go downstairs. The sharpness in his voice made Charlotte
choke back her tears.
‘Has someone called a doctor?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Daniel.
‘What on earth is a plastic policeman doing here already?’ barked Archie.
‘It’s Stanley’s fault,’ said Daniel. ‘He answered the telephone call from the station, they’d got a message from the alarm system.’
‘But it was a false alarm!’ Archie took off ahead of us, downstairs and into the sitting room.
‘Pleased to meet you Mr Wellingham,’ said the PCSO with such bowed reverence you might be mistaken for thinking he was looking at his early morning round face in his shiny black shoes.
Archie, shaking his hand, apologised, ‘I’m sorry. My friend answered the telephone before I had time to tell him it was a false alarm.’
‘No problem, no problem,’ said the PCSO.
Charlotte’s grip tightened as I led her to the sofa opposite the ignorant others. She wouldn’t sit down and I could tell in her stare she was trying hard to get George’s attention but his heavy head wasn’t lifting. At last with a bit of pressure from Charlie’s hand on her shoulder Charlotte’s bottom lowered.
Stanley, opposite, straightened his back and was just about to defend himself when the PCSO drowned him out. ‘Better a false alarm than a burglar I’d say. Hello everyone, I’m Officer Wilson.’ He wriggled his shoulders attempting to lessen the restriction of the high-visibility vest in his armpits. ‘As I’ve been called here tonight…’ he stopped and looked at his watch, ‘… or should I say this morning, it being almost 4.30 a.m. and all, I’ll have to carry out the formal procedure.’
Archie crossed the room, flicked a switch and the chandelier above us lit up.
‘Magnificent,’ said Officer Wilson, holding his hands up as if releasing a dove.
Archie’s feet pounded on the floor as he strode towards the officer and whispered in his ear.
Wilson’s cheeky-chappy face dropped. ‘How absolutely terrible.’
I glanced at the others; simultaneously, fear grasped their expressions.
‘I have some terribly sad news.’ Archie drew in a sharp breath. ‘We went to fetch Hailey, and, well, there’s no easy way to say this. Somehow she died in the night. There was nothing any of us could do.’