The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  Which is ridiculous, of course – they have every right to be there. It would have upset her once, to see how timid and subservient she has become. She and Harold always felt like the outsiders in the cul-de-sac, but at least when he was alive they could brave it out together. Laugh about it, even. Now that she’s alone, it feels as if the street really does belong more to them than to her. They always look at her with disdain and annoyance: an elderly lady who doesn’t matter. By hiding from them, Margaret knows she is accepting that, but the truth is, she does feel like an irrelevance in comparison. Harold used to tell her that nobody could make you feel inferior without your consent. Perhaps this means she has given hers.

  I miss you so much, Harold.

  I know you do, dear.

  They spend so long out there, just standing around their cars, as though staking out territory. The children – a boy and a girl – are both about ten years old, but there is an air of superiority about them, as though they know they could be rude to her if they wanted and nothing would happen. The father has close-cropped hair, a stocky frame and a black leather jacket. He reminds her of the stern action heroes on the covers of the spy thrillers Harold used to read. Margaret can picture him wearing a hard hat, and imagines him as the kind of inspector who walks on to building sites with a clipboard. The type who can reprimand rough men and have them listen to him.

  The mother seems to pay little attention to anyone. She always looks immaculate. She has heels and make-up and long blonde hair, and she wears a pair of designer sunglasses, even in winter. Margaret has never once seen her smile.

  When the street is finally deserted, Margaret ventures outside with the bag of rubbish in her hand. Before putting it in the bin, she glances around, and then up, and that is when she sees them.

  Wasps.

  Oh please, no.

  I can’t deal with this on top of everything else.

  There are only a few of them right now, darting around the corner of her bedroom window, but they are close to the hole in the eaves.

  There has been a break in the wood there for as long as she can remember. Over the years, birds have sometimes made their nests there, and Margaret has cautiously learned to enjoy those occasional visits. Waking on a sunny morning, it can be nice to hear them: the gentle tick of their feet; the muffled thrum that sounds like collective sighing. It’s like having guests. They always warm the house somehow.

  But wasps are different. Little buzzing curls of spite and malice, just looking for an excuse to sting. She stares up at them now, the sinking feeling becoming worse. It is the corner of the house closest to the footpath between her own house and the neighbours, and when they see the wasps, they will expect her to dispose of the nest. The woman alone is temperamental and precious enough to demand it. Margaret can imagine her wafting at them, disgusted, like royalty accosted by the poor. But they will bother Margaret as well. In this heat, she can hardly leave the bedroom window closed the whole time.

  Another challenge. Another hurdle.

  Just thinking about it robs the energy from her heart.

  You can do it, love.

  I don’t know if I can.

  Margaret turns away, awkwardly hefts the full bag of rubbish into the wheelie bin, then gently closes the lid. The bushes behind it are very overgrown: yet another thing to worry about. The buds are out, at least, tiny but colourful, as though the whole ugly mess is making a fumbling attempt to be pretty.

  A bee is clambering around the nearest bud. Margaret leans closer and stares. It is very small, and its black and orange fuzz looks grubby. Homeless is the word that springs to mind. A bumblebee, but one much leaner than the heavy, circular creatures she remembers from long-ago childhood gardens, as though the species has fallen on hard times. She watches as it moves around the bud, its legs bright with pollen … and then suddenly it’s gone, darting to another bud.

  Margaret’s gaze tracks it, but finds another on the way. Then more. Now that she is looking, in fact, the foliage comes alive with industry. As one bee leaves the bushes, she turns her head to follow its flight, up past her face and towards the top corner of the house. It circles around the burgeoning nest for a moment, then curls in. Another shoots straight out, as though spat, before zigzagging boozily down.

  Not wasps at all.

  She watches them for a few moments, almost hypnotised by the pattern of them against the sparkly brightness above, but then the sound of an approaching vehicle snaps her back into the real world. It might not even be the neighbours, but Margaret takes no chances.

  She retreats quickly inside.

  ‘Maggie? Are you here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she calls. ‘I’m in the study.’

  Kieran has let himself in, as he usually does. Margaret can hear him moving around downstairs: the heavy sounds of him kicking off his boots and shrugging off that thick coat he always wears, regardless of the heat.

  She turns her attention back to the computer.

  It sits in the centre of the antique desk in Harold’s study, alongside an inkwell and a feathery quill. The latter were affectations: he never used them for writing, and the black ink has long congealed in the glass bulb. But he used the laptop, and after his death last year, Kieran tried to show her how it worked.

  It was old, he told her, sighing impatiently, as though the machine had already presented him with a problem. She had no idea why it mattered that it was old. It was certainly bulky – black and thick – which Kieran seemed to dislike as well. To Margaret, that just made it seem durable. It was something that would last, like a well-made leather briefcase.

  It was actually easier than she’d expected. Kieran set up a home screen for Google on the internet, and explained that she needed to type what she was interested in into the box in the middle. He showed her how to use the different tabs. It wasn’t so hard.

  ‘What you up to?’

  She hears his weight thudding up the stairs, and turns to see him entering the study. As always, she is struck by the size of him. He is too large; he dresses to hide it, but not well. His jeans don’t fit, and the T-shirt – a grotesque yellow smiling face covered in worms, with crossed bones behind it – only draws attention to the bloated barrel of his chest. Just from coming up the stairs now, his cheeks are red, and his forehead is speckled with sweat, with a strand of long black hair plastered across it.

  ‘I’m online,’ she tells him. ‘You would be proud of me.’

  Kieran crosses over and peers down at the screen. This close, she can smell him. She loves him a great deal, but she does worry about him.

  ‘All right.’ He is breathing heavily. ‘Wikipedia. Bees.’

  ‘Bumblebees.’

  ‘Right. Why the interest?’

  Margaret tells him about the nest. Kieran listens politely enough, but doesn’t seem all that interested. That’s all right, of course. It’s how a lot of their conversations go. She’s grateful he keeps coming round at all.

  ‘Right.’ He’s got his breath back now. ‘Well, I’m going to stick the kettle on. Have a quick fag while I’m down there. Is that okay?’

  ‘Of course. I’m nearly finished.’

  She listens to the creaks as he heads back downstairs, then turns her attention to the screen again.

  She is pleased with herself for researching this, and also relieved by what she has discovered. Bumblebee nests are reasonably small, she has learned – often fewer than a hundred creatures – and usually only last for a few months. There is no danger of them swarming, because swarming is a way of gathering a colony together before moving to new territory, and a bumblebee nest simply dies. The only survivors are a few young queens, which head off to find new homes and begin fresh nests of their own.

  She remembers her mother telling her that bees and bumblebees rarely sting because it kills them to do so, but it turns out that isn’t true. Bumblebees can sting more than once, but are unlikely to do so. In general, they are peaceful creatures, and won’t attack unless the n
est is threatened.

  So she doesn’t need to get rid of them, and, in fact, she shouldn’t: bumblebees are good for a garden, and also in decline. But there is something else, and it is this she focuses on now. According to the information in front of her, they usually make their nests at ground level. Two floors up, in an attic, is not unheard of, but is far from ideal. Which means the nest they are building is precarious. To Margaret, it feels as though they have arrived here as a place of last resort, a refuge. And they are welcome. She has no idea if the nest is going to thrive or fail, but whichever, it will not be down to her.

  She turns the computer off and goes downstairs.

  In the kitchen, she finds Kieran pacing angrily back and forth, a furious expression on his face. He peers out of the window, shakes his head, then walks back towards the front door.

  ‘Kieran?’

  ‘That … man next door.’

  He turns and paces angrily towards her. Margaret almost takes a step back.

  ‘Can you believe it? I can’t believe the … cheek of him.’

  The pauses are him moderating his language. Kieran has a great deal of resentment inside him, and he swears a lot, often without thinking, but he knows Margaret disapproves of it. As he reaches her, she puts her hand on his arm, and he’s trembling.

  ‘Kieran, what happened?’

  ‘They all pulled up when I went out for a cigarette. There’d obviously been some sort of argument between them. I don’t know. The three of them are trailing in. The kids. That painted-up … woman. He’s following them up the path. And he just turns to me and shouts at me to get the lawn cut.’

  ‘The lawn?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s glaring over the fence at me, and he shouts it. Get your … lawn cut. Like that. Like it’s a threat or something.’

  He starts shaking his head. Margaret is alarmed.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I was too surprised to say anything much. It was just so aggressive, the way he said it. I was like, what? What are you even talking about? He just glared at me some more, like I was disgusting. With absolute contempt. And then he went inside and slammed the door.’

  Like I was disgusting. Margaret knows how much that will have upset him. How out of place he always felt at school; how badly he was bullied, despite or perhaps because of his size. In truth, she feels it on his behalf. She knows how they make her feel. The contempt is even there in the form of the family, isn’t it? Two successful adults, with a girl and a boy. They’re a perfect vein of gleaming silver in the messy rock of society. A stark contrast to the old lady living across from them, with her misfit great-nephew, the pair of them making their ungainly, piecemeal way through life.

  Margaret rubs Kieran’s arm gently.

  ‘It won’t have been about you,’ she says gently. ‘It will have been the argument they were having. He’ll just have been taking it out on whoever was nearest.’

  ‘You didn’t see him.’ Kieran shakes his head again. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  The garden has actually been on her mind. The grass hasn’t been cut since early last year, before Harold died, and is now so thick that it has coiled up and collapsed on to itself.

  ‘Well, it is very overgrown.’

  ‘It’s none of his business,’ Kieran says. ‘It doesn’t affect him at all. Doesn’t make any difference. It’s up to you how you keep your garden.’

  She gives his arm one last rub. When she removes her hand, he heads back towards the door. This time, he starts to open it, alarming her again.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For a cigarette. I was so … annoyed, I just put that last one out and came in.’

  Margaret glances out of the window. The properties are separated by a footpath and a fence, the front doors facing each other. The door opposite is open now. She can see the woman moving around in her kitchen.

  ‘Maybe you should wait.’

  ‘No, to hell with that. This is your house, Maggie. I’m not scared of having it out with him if he wants to.’

  She doesn’t attempt to stop him. But she stays in the kitchen, watching his huge silhouette on the doorstep through the glass door. I don’t need this. I don’t want it. She just hopes the man doesn’t come out again and say something else. Please, no more complications. Not that Kieran would do anything if it came to it, of course. She knows that. It’s just grandstanding. It’s how men can be with each other.

  He’s a good boy really.

  Seven

  We were on our way back from the hospital – a third, reluctant interview with Julie Kennedy – when the call came through. Dispatch had figured we might be in the area, and they were right. A little before or after, and it would have been someone else who attended the scene, and that was something that would keep coming back to me later.

  As we approached the property that had been reported over the radio, I saw an elderly man waiting by the side of the road, looking anxious.

  ‘That’ll be him,’ I said. ‘What was his name again?’

  ‘Connelly.’

  Chris indicated and pulled in beside him. I leaned out of the window.

  ‘Mr Connelly?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you so much for coming.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ I got out of the car. ‘What’s the problem?’

  The old man filled in the details, some of which we’d already had from Dispatch. He was concerned about his neighbour, a woman named Sally Vickers. Her daytime routine was like clockwork, he informed us several times, but she hadn’t left the house for work this morning. Apparently they always had a chat, which I imagined was more at his instigation than hers. Her car was still in the drive. He’d tried knocking, and then rung her house number, but there was no reply. Having been following the news, he’d called the police.

  It was the kind of report that under different circumstances would likely have been brushed off by Dispatch. But in the current climate, we were encouraging everyone to be careful and check on their neighbours, and we had to take calls like this seriously. Especially because Sally Vickers was in her mid-twenties and lived alone.

  ‘I’m sure she’s fine, Mr Connelly. But we’ll check it out.’

  It was a double driveway, shared with the other, unattached neighbour. Sally Vickers’ side of that deal was noticeably better maintained than next door’s, smothered in a layer of fresh black tarmac rather than the pitted concrete beside it. I walked around her car, then moved to the rear of the house. Behind me, I heard Chris banging on the front door.

  The garden back here was as well kept as the drive: buzz-cut grass, with elegant flower beds edging the fence, the velvety reds, purples and yellows bright in the swathe of morning sun that caught them. She’s normally so reliable. Such a good neighbour. I told myself there was probably nothing to worry about – that even the most predictable and responsible of people forget to put their bin out sometimes, or oversleep, or neglect to tell their slightly annoying neighbour that they’re going away.

  The drive had sloped down as it went, so I found the kitchen door at the top of a set of stone steps, level with a raised wooden deck that stretched along the back of the property, all the way to the dividing fence with Connelly’s garden. I banged on the glass door first, not expecting a reply. Vickers would have responded to Chris by now if she was inside and able to. Then I slipped on a pair of gloves as a precaution, and tried the handle. As expected, it didn’t turn.

  I stepped on to the decking. The wood felt soft and giving beneath my feet, as though the planks there had absorbed long-ago rain and never fully dried out. The house had two large windows at ground level. Glancing up, I saw four smaller ones on the floor above.

  I moved to the nearest one, cupping my hands over my eyes and pressing my face close to the glass. There was no blind, and it was obvious that this was the kitchen. Metal taps looped up over the sink, close to the window, and I could see a counter and cabinets a short distance across the room. The kitchen was small – skinny, l
ike a galley in a narrowboat – and even in the relative gloom, I could see how clean everything was. I didn’t know her, but I was already imagining Sally Vickers washing up and wiping down meticulously after every meal; scrupulous about it.

  The window opened along the top, and was far too thin for anyone to fit through. Even so, I reached up on tiptoes and tried it. Shut tight.

  The second window was close to the far corner of the house. A tree was overflowing the fence from Connelly’s side, and it brushed against my shoulder as I peered through the glass. Sally Vickers’ living room ran the entire depth of the house, so that I could see the closed cream curtains on the front window at the far end. Again, the room looked polished and spare. No obvious clutter …

  But the fact that I could see it at all meant that the curtains back here had been left open.

  Despite the heaviness of the mid-morning heat, a chill ran through me as I realised that. It had taken a second to register; it’s always easier to notice what is there as opposed to what isn’t. Why open only one set of curtains in the morning? Or why close only one set at night? Especially if you’re going away.

  This window was side-hinged, and currently flush with the frame. But it was large enough, just about, to fit through. I stared at it for a moment, my ears ringing slightly, then gathered myself together and reached out to test it. I got my fingers into the join and pulled.

  It won’t open.

  But it did.

  A flare of panic went up in my chest. Easy, Zoe. While it was still possible that there was an innocent explanation, I knew in my heart that we had another scene here. That we’d stumbled on it fresh.

  Keep calm and think.

  I turned to one side and shouted – ‘Chris! Round here, now!’ – then back to the window. I eased it as wide on the hinges as it would go, and leaned inside carefully, looking around. There was a round glass table close by, clear apart from some paperwork piled neatly at one side. Further in, a long brown leather settee was backed up against one wall, opposite a large flat-screen television mounted over the fireplace, with a coffee table in between. At the far end, by the opposite window, a closed door. Presumably that led to the hall and the stairs.