“There was a murder there,” she said. “Right there in that house. Do you know about it?”
She had a Scots accent. I felt surprised by this without knowing why. I wondered if she had been watching me, noticing my presence over the weeks as I had hers.
“A murder?” I said. “Aren’t you a bit young to know about things like that?”
She looked at me as if I were stupid, which I suppose I was. “It happened ages ago,” she said. “There’s nothing there now.” She gave her stones another bash then dropped them in the dirt at her feet.
“I’m there,” I said. “That’s my house.”
She turned and gawped at me. Her eyes were bright with amazement, as if what I’d just told her was the most incredible thing she’d heard in her short life.
“No way!” she said.
I nodded. “There aren’t any ghosts, though; it’s just an ordinary house.”
“Do you believe in ghosts, then? I mean, really?” She edged towards me along the bench. I felt her hand brush the seam of my jeans. Roy and I had discussed having children once or twice but it seemed a long time now since we’d had a proper conversation about anything. I remembered Roy had been keen on having kids, though. I was less sure.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know I’ve never seen one.” I thought of Roy and me, the remnants of our past that stalked us daily. But these were not the kind of ghosts the child was after.
“Here, ghosty-ghosty!” she cried. She raised her hand and waved up at my window, her fingers spread like the limbs of a small white starfish. Then suddenly and without warning, she jumped off the bench and ran away down the main path that cut through the allotments and then joined the road. The man with the Jack Russell was coming. I watched the girl circle the dog, then dart in to pat its chocolate-coloured head. The man with the missing fingers did not look up.
A sheet of newspaper flapped across the ground by my feet. Rig Disaster Claims More Lives.
That story was three weeks old. For the people who made the papers it was already over.
When I looked back down the hill the Jack Russell man was still there but the girl was gone.
What she’d said, though, that preyed on my mind. I knew children made up stories constantly but I knew also that these rarely came out of nowhere and I wondered if there might be some truth in it. If she had not known where I lived when she first spoke to me, why would she invent things about my house?
No one had said anything about a murder when we first bought the place, but it’s hardly the kind of thing an estate agent is likely to advertise. I felt a flicker of something, a stir of interest, like a piece of string uncoiling deep in my gut.
I thought I might finally have found my next book.
Roy was out when I got home, as he so often was. When he wasn’t staring at his photographs in the front bedroom he was on one of his walks, endless, meandering rambles along the roads and country lanes that skirted the town. On those days it was as if he was afraid to be inside, as if our house had become a symbol of confinement and oppression. I had worried about this at first, concerned he might cause or become the victim of an accident. Now I was simply relieved to find him gone.
I booted up the computer and googled our address. I was amazed by how many results there were. The usual estate agents’ adverts and map references, but the majority of hits seemed to relate to a woman named Allison Rand. I had never heard of her before, but a few quick searches found me the information I needed. She was forty-five years old, and had taught history at one of the local secondary schools. She had been convicted of the murder of her two infant daughters.
There was a verdict of cot death on the first child, but when the second had died eighteen months later and in identical circumstances Allison Rand was arrested and charged. Steven Rand, her husband and a teacher at the same school, divorced her and sold the house. Allison Rand protested her innocence throughout.
The case had an air of desperate tragedy about it but Allison Rand seemed more like victim than villain, and in any case it didn’t feel right. The girl on the allotments had said the murder had happened a long time ago, yet the Rand case was in the relatively recent past. My first reaction was of disappointment, but the more I read, the more I wondered if there wasn’t an article in it at least, something I could sell to a magazine on the back of my last novel.
“How I Came to Live with a Murderess”, that kind of thing.
It was a cheap trick but at least it was something. It might even help me break out of my block.
If Allison Rand would talk to me, that was. The idea of making contact with her was strangely exciting, and once again I felt that stirring, that sense I was on to something. I felt better than I had done in weeks.
I wrote to Allison Rand, care of the governor of the secure mental hospital where she was being treated, and asked if I could come and see her. There was no reply so I wrote again. After about a week I received a terse reply from the governor’s office, informing me of the visiting hours and that I was free to put in a formal request. I had the feeling I was in for a long wait, so I took a chance and wrote to Allison Rand personally. As an afterthought I enclosed a copy of my latest novel. Not long afterwards I received a brief note from her, telling me she had added my name to the list of approved visitors. I sent her a postcard by return, informing her that I would come the following week.
I didn’t tell Roy what I was doing. He was due to return to his unit in a couple of days. On the day I confirmed my appointment with Allison Rand, he returned to the house after dark, stinking of beer and cigarettes. He looked sheepish, almost guilty, and for the first time since he’d come home he seemed eager to talk.
“I’m sorry, Marian,” he said. “I’ve been acting like an arsehole. I don’t know who I am any more.”
He was always conciliatory when he wanted sex. I had come off the pill while he was away, and felt a rush of annoyance with him for his thoughtlessness, for the selfish way he assumed I would be ready to patch things up the moment he felt he needed a little comfort. Where had he been when I needed comfort? I didn’t refuse him, though. I told myself it was because I couldn’t face another row, and that was true. But mainly it was because I still loved him. I supposed I always would.
“We should have kids,” he said before he fell asleep. His arm lay across my shoulders and for the first time in many months he seemed fully relaxed. “Wouldn’t that be great? A house like this needs kids in it.”
I had been on the verge of sleep myself, but his words had me wide awake again. For some reason I found it disturbing, shocking even, that he should make a connection between the house and having children. For a moment I considered waking him, telling him about the Rand case, but I didn’t do it. I knew how crazy it would sound if I did, and Roy had enough craziness in him for the two of us.
I thought instead of the girl on the allotments, her baggy cardigan and too-big skirt. I wondered if her mother knew she was skipping school.
“You write about murder, then? That’s what you do?”
We were in the hospital visitors’ lounge, a large, light, square room overlooking open countryside. We had been talking for about half an hour, the usual introductory pleasantries followed by my own vague questions about hospital routine. It was all basic stuff, background material at best, and I found the constant presence of the male security staff disconcerting. Yet in spite of these restrictions I found myself enjoying the conversation. The newspapers had portrayed Allison Rand as a plain-faced, mousy little woman, the archetypical dried-up blue stocking. In reality she was much more attractive, with small hands and firm cheeks, her grey eyes articulate and clear. She was like a bird, I thought. A wren perhaps, or a hedge sparrow. She was dressed simply, in clean faded jeans and a check cotton shirt. If I hadn’t recognized her at once from her photograph, I would have assumed she was an off-duty nurse.
She was clearly an intelligent woman. Her question about murder came completely out of t
he blue.
“I write crime novels,” I said. “I don’t suppose I can tape this?” I had been obliged to leave my phone at reception, along with my purse and my car keys, but I still had my iPod, which also had a Dictaphone function. Rand glanced furtively in the direction of one of the uniformed male nurses and then raised an eyebrow. I lifted my hand to push back my hair and, as I lowered it again, I brushed my fingers against the iPod’s tiny ‘on’ switch. Rand’s neat, lipstickless mouth curled in a half-smile.
“I don’t mind what you do,” she said. “But I don’t think I’ll be much use to you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I haven’t committed a crime. I’ve never even stolen stationery from the school supply cupboard.” She gave a harsh laugh, and for the first time I saw the brittleness beneath her apparent composure. “I enjoyed your book, though I didn’t expect to. Perhaps it’s true what they say, that deep down we’re all in love with violence.” She folded her hands in her lap and clenched them together. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I’m going to anyway. I didn’t want children. I don’t mean I actively disliked them, but I enjoyed my studies and I enjoyed my job and later on I enjoyed being married. I didn’t want children to change things, as I knew they would. But Steven was keen, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. We didn’t conceive, though. Years went by and nothing happened and in the end I stopped thinking about it. Then suddenly there Sophie was.
“I loved her from the moment I knew I was pregnant. One day there was my old life, and the next there was this new one, something I had never guessed at, something that swallowed the entire world as I had known it, but I didn’t care. What I cared about was Sophie, and when she died I stopped caring about anything. Even when I got pregnant again with Alana I didn’t care, because I knew already that I would lose her too. Perhaps there’s a writer out there somewhere who can convey what that feels like, but I doubt it.”
She took off her glasses. The round, wire-framed lenses reflected the red Formica surface of the table, twin versions of Mars. Without them she looked both younger and more desperate.
“What do you mean, you knew you would lose her, too?” I said. I felt she was holding something back, either because she felt guilty or because she didn’t judge me worthy of knowing. I wondered if it was this way she had of acting superior even when she didn’t mean to that had turned the jury against her. I knew the actual evidence had always been minimal.
“It was the house,” she said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began polishing her glasses. It crossed my mind then that she was guilty after all. That she had killed her two baby girls, and doing it had driven her insane.
“Noticed what?” I said. In the whole of the hour I’d spent with her she had not made a single reference to the fact that I was living in what had once been her home. Now it seemed it had been at the forefront of her mind all along.
“Why do you think I agreed to see you, to talk to you like this? I did it because I felt I should warn you, that I could do that at least. There’s something in that house, and it killed my daughters.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Believe me or not, it’s up to you. Just don’t bring any more children into that house.”
She put her glasses back on, becoming the sane and matter-of-fact ex-teacher I had met when I first arrived. What she was saying was so out of kilter with the way she looked I found myself wondering if her madness wasn’t contagious.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I said. “Are you talking about ghosts?” I remembered the child from the allotments, calling up at my window and waving her hand. Ghosts were just a game to her.
Rand smiled.
“Ghosts have no physical power over reality. All they can do is manifest themselves, cast an influence. That’s what the experts will tell you anyway. I know you only came here for a story and I suppose you think you’ve got your money’s worth. Don’t think I don’t know how I sound. But I’ve done my best to warn you and that’s all I can do.” She paused. “All life’s disasters sound insane if you try and explain them out loud, have you ever noticed that? I would never have believed a word of this if it hadn’t happened to me.”
Soon afterwards the bell went and I had to leave. I told her I would come and see her again, not knowing if I meant it or not. I passed along the corridor to the exit, where a member of the security staff stood ready to claim my visitor’s pass. The view from the first floor was a swoon of greenness, and when I learned later that the building had won several industry design awards I wasn’t surprised. But when all was said and done it was still a mental hospital. There were security guards at all the entrances, and every outside window was barred.
I drove home slowly, taking the back roads to avoid the rush-hour traffic. As I turned into the narrow lane that led to our house a child dashed across the road in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, swerving instinctively, but when I stepped out of the car there was no one there. I cooked supper then made coffee and began playing back the tape of my interview with Allison Rand.
The house was quiet, so quiet, and when a knock came at the back door it startled me so much I almost fell off my chair. Roy and I had never mixed much in the town, and I had no idea who my visitor might be. For a moment I found myself wondering what I would do if I opened the door to find Allison Rand standing there, a knife in her hand, her lips stretched in a tight little smile. Such things were not unheard of. You read about them in the papers every day.
It was not Allison Rand though; it was the girl from the allotments. I had not spoken to her since the day she had mentioned murder in my house, although I had seen her up at the allotments a couple of times since, playing with the Jack Russell terrier on the unkempt patch of grass behind the man with the missing fingers’ wooden shed. She was wearing different clothes: a floral summer frock in printed cotton. There was something old-fashioned about it, and once again I had the feeling it had been altered to fit her. She had no coat on, no cardigan, though the evening was not particularly warm.
“I brought you something,” she said. “Look at this.”
She thrust something at me, a piece of paper. It was a newspaper cutting. I expected to see some faded headline about Allison Rand but I was mistaken. The cutting showed newspaper coverage of the trial for murder of a woman named Lorna Loomis. Part of the article was missing.
“You should have some warmer clothes on,” I said. “You’ll get goose bumps.”
She made a face, and I noticed that in spite of the evening chill her skin showed no sign of gooseflesh. It was the colour of chalk, sprinkled with pale brown freckles.
There was no photograph of Lorna Loomis. She had lived in the town though, the article said so. She was what used to be called a widow of independent means.
I shivered, then realized the back door was still open.
“Come in and I’ll make you a sandwich,” I said to the girl.
She lounged at the kitchen table, all elbows and knees. I noticed the way she looked at my iPod, her eyes wide, as if it were an alien artefact.
“Don’t touch that,” I said. I didn’t want her erasing Allison Rand’s interview by mistake. The girl started back at once, folding her arms beneath the table, and I realized I must have spoken more harshly than I’d intended. I supposed she might be accustomed to getting hit. Her reaction suggested it, though I hated to believe it was so.
“Do you like cheese?” I said. “Marmite?”
“I lo-o-ve Marmite,” she said. She stretched the ‘o’ length-wise, twanging the vowel in midair like a piece of elastic. “All my friends hate it, but that only makes me like it more.”
I laughed at that. The girl was clearly sharp as a flint. It wasn’t late, not yet, but it was getting later. I wondered who knew she was out, if anyone cared.
“Why did you bring me this?” I said. I picked up the cutting from where I had placed it,
on the kitchen table. It crackled between my fingers, brittle with age, and I realized that if I didn’t handle it more carefully it would disintegrate.
The girl bit into her sandwich and began to chew. “I thought you wanted to know,” she said. “About the murder, I mean.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s different in here,” she said. “It was darker before. A horrible green colour.” She stuffed the rest of the sandwich into her mouth and gulped it down. “I’d better go now.”
She left as she had arrived, through the back door. I stood at the sink and washed up her plate, feeling vaguely worried about what she might be going home to and wondering when she had been in the house before. The kitchen had not been green when Roy and I bought the house; the young couple we’d bought from, the property developers, had drowned the whole place in magnolia.
Perhaps Allison Rand’s kitchen had been green. I read the clipping again, the words about Lorna Loomis, who had been seen by three reliable witnesses outside the Gilmore public house, holding tightly to the hand of a child dressed in her school uniform of grey skirt and green cardigan answering to the description of Nancy Creel.
The Gilmore was still there, a heavy-set, half-timbered building at the end of the High Street. One of Roy’s favourite haunts. Nancy Creel, I supposed, must have been the murder victim.
Suddenly I remembered the incident in the lane earlier that evening, the child who had rushed across the road in front of my car. At least I thought that was what I had seen, but when I’d climbed out of the car the road had been empty. Empty of traffic and empty of people. I had dismissed the whole thing at the time, probably because I was still preoccupied with Allison Rand, but all at once it seemed sinister and frightening.
I went all round the house, putting the lights on in every room and checking the doors and windows.
A fat lot of good that’s going to do. I thought. Ghosts are famous for walking through walls, or haven’t you heard?
I should have found the thought amusing but I didn’t.
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books) Page 19