by Roz Watkins
‘And why had you burnt it?’
She looked away. ‘No reason. We often use scrap paper to start the fire.’
I waited, but she pursed her lips and made it clear she was saying nothing more.
‘Okay. Before we go, could we have a quick look in the basement?’ I didn’t actually know what was down there, but was now imagining an insane, wild-haired relative living in the bowels of the rock.
‘Oh,’ Kate said. ‘Do you think it’s relevant? I don’t know why we didn’t get rid of it. I used to think it was an interesting feature, but now…’
‘Can we go down?’
Chapter 19
Kate rose stiffly and reached for a huge key hanging on the kitchen wall. ‘I know this is silly because there’s nothing valuable in there, but I like to keep it locked.’
She led us into the hallway and shoved the key into a heavy oak door on our left. The key clunked and she pushed the door open. It creaked like something from a horror film. Kate flipped on a light, illuminating worn stone steps plunging downwards. A moist draught touched the hairs on my arms. I shot a look at Jai, and he raised his eyebrows.
‘I’ll be in the kitchen,’ Kate said. ‘I can’t look at it since… you know. It’s on the back wall, straight ahead.’ She shuddered and walked away.
I tried to make myself step firmly and confidently, even though I had the urge to creep. Jai followed close behind. The light bulb was near the top of the steps, and as we walked past it our bodies cast shadows which danced on the walls.
I reached the bottom and took a step into the musty room. The back wall of the basement came into view. I stumbled away from it, knocking into Jai. He grabbed onto my arm before hurriedly letting it go.
‘What the hell?’ Jai’s voice seemed too loud in the echoey space.
‘Another one,’ I whispered.
It was very similar to the image in the cave house, but rather than being hewn into stone, it was painted in faded black onto the lime-washed wall. The pose was the same – axe raised high, grinning skull, skeletal body hunched forward.
‘A Grim Reaper in the cave where he died,’ Jai said. ‘A Grim Reaper in his basement…’
I steeled myself and walked over to the image. It looked at least decades old. ‘And a book full of sketches of the Grim Reaper by the other dead man who fell off the cliff outside.’
‘It’s actually creeping me out a bit,’ Jai said. ‘I’m not surprised his wife won’t come down here.’
We took photographs and left. Kate was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the floor.
‘Thanks.’ I handed her the huge jailer’s key. ‘Do you know the origins of that?’
She looked up and stared through me for a moment, before taking the key. ‘What? No. It’s always been here. Horrible isn’t it?’
‘Why didn’t you show us this when we were here on Monday?’
She stood and we walked into the hallway. ‘Oh. I didn’t see the relevance. And Beth hates people seeing it. She reckons it perpetuates this whole curse thing. She says if we… sorry, I… ever want to sell the house, people need to stop going on about it being cursed.’
‘And what’s your view on the curse?’
Kate hesitated. ‘I thought it was rubbish, of course. But now… I’m not so sure.’
‘Did you say the man who originally built the house died?’
‘Yes. He was actually one of Peter’s ancestors. It was built in Victorian times.’ She glanced at us as if to gauge whether we were interested. I gave her an expectant look, and she carried on. ‘He threw himself into the quarry. A strange little man from the bookshop in town called round when we first moved in and told us about him.’
‘Does anyone know why he killed himself?’
‘He was some kind of Victorian industrialist, and he’d had this house built but it wasn’t so near the edge of the quarry then. Apparently it was surrounded by beautiful rhododendron gardens. Anyway, something went wrong and he lost his money, and sold off chunks of his garden to the quarry company. They were still quarrying at this end in those days and they chipped the ground away around it, which is why the house is now perched right on the edge. His family and friends turned against him and he ended up throwing himself to his death.’
‘Poor man,’ I said, picturing him tumbling over and over as he dropped into the quarry.
‘I know,’ Kate said. ‘So many people have died.’
*
We stepped out of Kate’s house into the mist of grey drizzle that plagued high places in Derbyshire. Some creature was making the noise the BBC use to indicate you’re in the countryside and possibly about to get murdered.
‘Christ, that was sinister,’ Jai said. ‘I’m not surprised she’s gone off the house. I wouldn’t live there on my own.’
I smiled. ‘Scared of ghosts?’
‘Don’t try and tell me you weren’t freaked by it. I saw your face.’
I laughed. ‘Let’s walk down to the marketplace for a coffee and a think.’
Jai squinted at the sky. ‘Leave the car here?’
‘Yeah. We can cope with a bit of rain.’ Even though I had a cluster of exciting new injuries to complement my long-term limp, and would most likely have been shot if I’d been a horse, I liked to walk. You noticed things when you walked. Besides, it was a relief to be outside and not in a grim basement surrounded by rock and ominous pictures.
We arrived at the town square – Georgian buildings crowded around a cobbled marketplace like teeth that needed braces. And a coffee shop in a nice old building that hadn’t had its windows ripped out.
I pushed through the swing door and took a gorgeous breath of coffee-infused air. Chunky tables sat on wooden flooring planks, and chalkboards listed bounteous varieties of coffees and exotic paninis. A jumble of old-fashioned, carved walking sticks sat in a wicker basket by the window. At the counter, I surveyed a selection of muffins each the size of a small child’s head.
‘A skinny latte,’ I said. ‘And one of those lemon things, the ones with “heart attack” drizzled on them in yellow gunk.’
Most of the tables were occupied. Young people peered at phones and avoided conversation, and a harassed-looking woman corralled two blonde, androgynous toddlers in a corner. We sat ourselves near the window, in a flurry of damp coats and scraping chair legs.
Briefly, I luxuriated in the sheer pleasure of sitting in a coffee shop with a muffin and a latte, even a stupid skinny one. But soon, the transitory joy of the first few mouthfuls passed. My rising panic about the confusion of the case and lurking unease about Mum and the step-falling incident returned.
‘I should have let Richard kick me off this damn case,’ I said, rubbing the bump on my head.
‘He’s not as bad as you think, you know.’ Jai took an enormous bite of panini. He’d chosen a caramel latte and a slab of cheesecake for afters, in the manner of skinny men.
‘Sorry?’
‘Richard. He’s had some difficult personal stuff going on.’
‘I don’t think he’s that bad.’ I took a swig of the latte. Should have gone for full fat. I’d read the low-fat craze was making us fatter anyway.
‘Did you know his daughter used to be his son?’
‘No, you’re kidding!’
‘I shit you not. The photo on his desk – Natasha. Used to be William.’
‘She’s way too hot to have been a man.’
‘What are you saying? Actually, William wasn’t even Richard’s son – he was his wife’s kid, but it was Richard who was supportive of the sex–change thing. The wife couldn’t handle it.’
‘Jesus. How do you know all this?’
‘Well, not through Richard. He keeps it very close to his chest. One of my friends knew him through a golf club. This friend told me Richard used to hang around with some people he met at church, but when it came out that William wanted to be Natasha, most of them dropped Richard and his wife like a stone. My friend was one of the few not to disown
them, but then he’s an atheist and doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the son-daughter stuff. He said it was shocking how the others behaved.’
‘And Richard stood by the kid?’
‘Yes, even when his wife freaked out. I think Richard had always been a casual Christian, you know, weddings and funerals and stuff, and had never really thought about it that much. Whereas his wife and her friends were on the more serious – well, bordering on loony – side.’
‘Jai… Surely you were brought up religious?’
He hit me with his full-on big-brown-eyes stare. ‘I was. I ditched the turban and the beard a long time ago, but sort of hung on to the religion. But then when I wanted to marry an English girl… Oh, you know, it all turned nasty with my family. And I suppose I blamed their religion for it. Anyway, it emphasises for me how decent Richard was about the Natasha thing.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I can imagine how my parents would have reacted if one of us boys had decided we wanted to be a girl.’
One of the blonde children removed a walking stick from the wooden basket and bashed it repeatedly on the wooden floor, as if to applaud Richard’s actions. His mother mouthed an apology generally at the room.
I fiddled with my unused sugar packet. ‘Do you not have any belief then?’
Jai sighed. ‘Not really. I kind of abandoned it all. How about you?’
‘No belief. I seem to have the guilt of a Catholic though.’
Jai raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you have to feel guilty about?’
I hesitated. ‘Oh, Mum, mainly. She’s looking after my gran, and she seems a bit weird at the moment. Anxious about something, but she won’t say what. I should spend more time with her but work always takes over. And then… Oh, never mind. Family can be a bit weird.’ I couldn’t tell him the whole story. Not in a coffee shop in the middle of a murder investigation. ‘But Richard’s friends disowning him – that’s bad.’ I gave the mother of the stick-bashing child a reassuring smile.
‘Yeah, they were pretty hardcore. I think they were members of some group, euphemistically termed Life Line or something, which is basically anti-everything they don’t like the sound of. And that most definitely includes starting life as a boy and ending up as a blonde woman called Natasha.’
‘Oh God, I know that group. My friend Hannah went to a few meetings. They were trying to recruit disabled people to their anti-abortion views.’
‘Well, she wants to be careful. They can turn on you.’
‘So, what happened between Richard and his wife?’
‘They split up in the end. She stuck with her religious friends, and doesn’t have anything to do with Natasha or Richard. She still lives round here though. Works at the health centre in Eldercliffe.’
‘Not Vivian, the receptionist?’
‘Yes, I think she is called Vivian.’
‘I knew she was a nasty piece of work. We took a statement from her. She’d been dropping hints about Kate Webster being up to something but when Fiona spoke to her, she wouldn’t say a damn thing. It could just be that Kate’s willing to sign off abortions, and in the cold light of day Vivian realised the police didn’t regard that as the Devil’s work. I can’t believe she disowned her own son. Daughter, I mean. Now you’ve made me feel sorry for Richard.’
‘So you should. He’s intimidated by you.’
‘What?’ I paused with my muffin halfway to my mouth.
‘He worked his way up the ponderous route. He’s not dumb but he’s not sparkling either. You know he’s always trying to do The Times crossword? He fancies himself as a bit of a Morse but he’s not quite up to it.’ Jai shovelled his pudding into his mouth. I envied his casual, guilt-free relationship with cheesecake.
‘Is that what he’s always hiding behind his piles and cactus towers?’
‘Yes. He probably wouldn’t want you to see. Being a known smartypants with a law A level you did in a spare five minutes, and a poncy Oxbridge University degree.’
‘He does know there’s no Oxbridge University, doesn’t he?’
Jai laughed. ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure he does.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll try to be nice to him. But he does patronise me.’
‘I’m sure he does, but it’s clearly more complicated than him just being a sexist moron. I think he gets a bit mixed up knowing how to deal with you.’
‘Yeah, I’m so tricky.’ I wiped crumbs from my face. ‘Anyway, could you have a chat with the man at the bookshop who Kate mentioned? You know, about the Victorian ancestor. All this talk of curses and so forth, I wonder if it might shed some light.’
Jai nodded and scraped the last few blobs of cream from his plate.
‘Lick it if you want,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘You may have licked plates in Manchester.’ He was dying to lick it, I could tell.
My bag vibrated on my lap. I grabbed my phone. ‘Meg Dalton.’
‘It’s Fiona. The farmer opposite Peter Hamilton’s house saw a woman, not the wife, visiting him on his working-from-home days.’
‘Who was it?’
‘We’re looking into that. And I’ve spoken to a detective in Cambridge. He handled a case where a lad fell off a roof. A friend of Felix Carstairs and Peter Hamilton.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘He thought Felix and Peter were lying about what happened.’
Chapter 20
It was Saturday and Richard had promised to sack me if I didn’t have a rest. I decided to drive down to Cambridge to talk to the detective who’d been involved in the death of the student roof-climber. Although perhaps not technically a rest, I could take Mum with me to look at my old college and pretend it was a relaxing day out. I figured Mum would have calmed down enough about my fall that I could cope with a day of her company.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to drive?’ she said, before we’d even left her house. Uh oh, maybe I’d been wrong. ‘Your head. I’m worried about you. And remember how you were a couple of years ago? I don’t want you overdoing it.’
‘I’m fine, Mum. Get in the car. Did you bring your sat nav?’ Mine was playing up and I thought we might as well use the one I’d given her for Christmas. I doubted it had enjoyed many outings. I probably should have been able to find my way to the college where I studied for three years, but I was suffering from sat nav-induced learned incompetence.
Mum baulked before getting into the car. ‘Have you got a big bruise?’
‘Yeah, bowling ball size.’ I opened the passenger door and shoved her in. ‘Come on, let’s forget about it and have a nice day, shall we?’
I got in the car and stabbed at the sat nav, accidentally bringing up the recent destinations. The last one was in Chester. ‘What took you to Chester?’ I asked while putting in the Cambridge details.
‘What was that, love?’
‘The last place you went with the sat nav. I didn’t know you’d been to Chester.’ I pulled away and headed out of Eldercliffe in the direction of the M1. I glanced at Mum and saw a flush rising up her neck and onto her face. ‘Are you okay, Mum?’
‘Yes, of course, Chester. Well… Oh yes, I lent it to Sheila next door when she went to see her friend.’
I could no more imagine Sheila next door using a sat nav than I could Hamlet. ‘Really? Did she manage to work it okay?’
‘Yes, I think so. Us older folk aren’t as dim as you think.’ She crossed her arms and took three audible breaths. ‘Anyway, remember when we came down here after you got your offer?’
I breathed in sharply, surprised she’d mentioned this. Our trip to Cambridge had been a rare, sweet day when Mum and Dad had seemed content in each other’s company. They’d spent my teenage years not so much together as trapped in different parts of the same web of grief and guilt. Eventually Mum couldn’t bear it any longer and had asked him to leave, and I’d spent many years suppressing my bubbling resentment over this. But that day, they’d sat in the front of the car chatting like proper parents whilst I bit my nails in
the back.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was a good day, although I was fretting I wouldn’t get the grades.’
‘Oh, you poor thing. You always so wanted to impress your father.’
I glanced at her. She rarely mentioned him and tended to stiffen and walk away if I did. ‘I wanted to impress both of you – not just him.’ I turned the wipers to intermittent. ‘Well, okay, mainly him.’ I stared at the rain smearing over the windscreen. ‘I do miss him, you know.’ My voice was quiet against the noise of traffic on the wet road.
‘Yes, of course. But it was his choice to move to Scotland.’ She looked straight ahead. Back to the usual.
I was too hot, and the car smelt of wet cat. How did I carry that smell around with me? Hamlet hadn’t even been in this car. I turned down the blower but the windscreen immediately steamed up. I pulled over to the inside lane.
‘I bet you don’t miss his moods,’ Mum said. ‘I still catch myself stacking the dishwasher the approved way.’
I had a flash of memory – Dad on one of his dark days. All of us creeping around him as if he was an unpredictable carnivorous animal. But because it was my fault about Carrie, it must have been my fault Dad had been so miserable, and Mum so distant. I knew this wasn’t really true, but it was a compelling story I told myself.
We peeled off the A14, headed into Cambridge, and found somewhere to park in a back street. We could wander around my old college before heading into town. The detective who’d been in charge of the enquiry into the student’s death had agreed to meet me in The Eagle for lunch, and Mum assured me she’d be happy sampling the tea shops.
I felt guilty and unentitled walking into Newnham, and even had my ridiculous CamCard to hand to prove my authenticity if challenged. But the porter laughed and waved us in. We stepped through the door from the Porter’s Lodge into the gardens – a sanctuary enclosed on three sides by delicate red buildings – and were hit with the smell of wet plants and clean air.
My mind shifted to our earlier conversation. ‘Dad wasn’t really that bad before he left, was he, Mum? I mean, everything was awful anyway after Carrie.’