The House on Widows Hill

by Simon R. Green

  ‘Yes …’ said Freddie. ‘You told me the door was locked, earlier on …’

  Lynn looked at her incredulously. ‘Then why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘Because I’d forgotten!’ said Freddie. And then she stopped herself and frowned. ‘How could I forget something like that?’

  ‘Because you’re upset, about Arthur,’ said Penny.

  ‘Of course I’m upset! But I haven’t lost my mind … I think this house is messing with our heads.’

  Tom fixed me with a cold stare. ‘Did you bring the keys with you?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ said Lynn.

  ‘Because I thought it was more important to come after you and make sure all of you were OK,’ I said. ‘But all we have to do is get the keys from Arthur’s pocket and unlock the front door, and then we can be on our way. If you’re sure that’s what you want.’

  Freddie looked at me suspiciously. ‘Why wouldn’t we want to leave? Arthur just died, right in front of us!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He did. Don’t you want to know why?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Freddie. ‘I do.’ Her voice was suddenly very cold.

  ‘I just want to get out of here,’ said Lynn. ‘Before something else happens.’

  ‘Then let’s go and get the keys,’ I said.

  Lynn, Freddie and Tom looked back down the long empty hall, to where the door to the far room was still standing open. None of them looked at all happy about going back to a room with a dead body in it. I gave them some time to make up their minds, but none of them moved.

  ‘I didn’t see anything actually dangerous in that room,’ I said finally. ‘Did any of you?’

  There was a slow shaking of heads.

  ‘We all panicked,’ I said kindly. ‘Which is completely understandable, given the circumstances. But the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that Arthur’s death had anything to do with this house.’

  ‘He died after the door opened on its own,’ said Freddie. The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by a cold resolve as she concentrated on the situation. ‘He looked at the dark in the door, and he died.’

  ‘We all looked into the dark,’ I said. ‘And we’re still here … And besides, how could darkness kill anybody?’

  ‘He died of fright!’ said Lynn.

  ‘It wasn’t that scary,’ I said flatly. ‘And Arthur was a reporter. He didn’t strike me as someone who scared easily. There could be all manner of reasons for what happened to him. We don’t know anything about his medical history.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Tom. ‘Occam’s razor: always go for the simple answer.’ He took a deep breath and made a visible effort to steady himself. ‘We’ve been letting this house get to us. We need to find those keys.’

  ‘And then get the hell out of here,’ said Lynn.

  Freddie looked down the hall to the far room. ‘I don’t like the idea of leaving Arthur here on his own.’

  ‘He’s dead!’ said Lynn. ‘We can’t help him. We have to help ourselves.’

  Freddie glared at her. ‘What is wrong with you? Anyone would think this was your first haunted house.’

  Lynn glared right back at her. ‘I never saw anyone die right in front of me before! And I don’t want to watch it happen again.’

  Tom looked at her sharply. ‘You think that’s a possibility?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Lynn.

  ‘Let’s get the keys,’ I said.

  They all nodded, but still none of them moved. In the end, Penny and I had to lead the way back down the hall, with the others following on behind. Penny leaned in close, so she could murmur to me.

  ‘What happens once we’ve got the keys? If they really are murder suspects, how do we stop them from leaving?’

  ‘I have something in mind,’ I said.

  I entered the far room with Penny right beside me, but the others only got as far as the doorway, then stopped. They stood bunched together, looking anxiously at Arthur’s body to make sure it was still where it had been. And perhaps to reassure themselves that it wasn’t about to sit up and call them names for rushing off and leaving him. I knelt down beside Arthur and searched quickly through his jeans pockets. There was no trace of the keys anywhere.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Tom said finally, taking a single cautious step into the room.

  ‘He doesn’t have the house keys on him,’ I said, standing up.

  ‘But … we only left him alone for a few moments!’ said Freddie.

  ‘He must have them somewhere!’ said Lynn.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said. ‘But he doesn’t.’

  ‘What could have happened to them?’ said Penny.

  ‘Someone must have taken them,’ I said.

  ‘Or something got to him,’ said Lynn.

  We all turned to look at her. Freddie had joined Tom inside the room, but Lynn was still standing in the doorway, staring unblinkingly at Arthur’s body. Her heavily made-up face looked more like a mask than usual.

  ‘What do you mean – something?’ said Tom.

  ‘Whatever it is, it doesn’t want us to leave this house,’ said Lynn.

  ‘Ghosts aren’t renowned for picking people’s pockets,’ Freddie said acidly. ‘If whatever’s here wanted to stop us leaving, I think it would have done something more … dramatic.’

  ‘Taking Arthur’s keys feels a lot more like human intervention to me,’ I said.

  ‘But there’s no one else in the house who could have taken the keys,’ said Freddie, frowning.

  ‘The house took them!’ Lynn said loudly.

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ said Freddie. She didn’t even glance at Lynn, her gaze fixed on Arthur’s unmoving form.

  ‘It could be treasure-seekers,’ said Penny. ‘Someone who got into the house before us, and has been messing with our heads ever since, so we’ll leave and they can get on with their search.’

  ‘Someone murdered my Arthur?’ said Freddie, her voice suddenly quieter and more dangerous.

  Tom was already shaking his head. ‘There can’t be anyone else here. My motion-trackers would have picked them up.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Freddie. ‘Because your bits and pieces have proved so reliable this far.’

  ‘What about the undisturbed dust on the floor?’ I said to Penny.

  ‘That’s so obvious it must be misleading!’

  I smiled at her. ‘I love the way your mind works.’

  ‘We have to get out of here!’ Lynn said loudly. ‘This investigation is over, cancelled on account of sudden death. It wasn’t any treasure-seeker who killed Arthur. There was no one else in the room but us, and we were all holding each other’s hands. The presence I felt killed Arthur, by frightening him to death. And it will kill all of us if we don’t get out of here!’

  ‘The front door is locked!’ said Freddie.

  ‘Then we need to call for help,’ said Lynn.

  She got out her phone. Tom and Freddie did, too. They all seemed relieved at having something practical to do. Penny started to reach for her phone, but I caught her eye and shook my head.

  ‘Allow me to remind you all,’ I said patiently, ‘that Arthur told us earlier it was almost impossible to get a signal up here.’

  ‘But we’re in a major city!’ said Tom, shaking his phone vigorously. ‘We can’t be that far from a tower!’

  The three of them strode around the room, holding their phones up high and even pressing them against the walls and the nailed-shut window, but they couldn’t manage a single bar between them. Penny gave me a hard look.

  ‘This is really not a good time to be looking smug about us being cut off from the rest of the world.’

  ‘I’m just rattling their cages a little,’ I said.

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘To see what happens.’

  ‘I think I’ll stand well back,’ said Penny.

  One by one the others gave up on their phones.
Tom seemed particularly annoyed that his precious technology had failed him again. Freddie looked as if she was just one misjudged comment away from taking out her frustrations on whomever was closest. Lynn looked seriously upset as she put her phone away.

  ‘We’re on our own,’ she said. ‘Trapped in this awful place, with no way out.’

  She sounded more than ever like a small child lost in a dark forest. This evening hadn’t worked out the way she thought it would. What should have been another triumph had turned on her viciously. Freddie’s hands had closed into fists, but every time she glanced at Arthur’s body the anger would leave her eyes, replaced by a gleam of unshed tears.

  Tom was the last to give up on his phone. He kept trying different things, as though hoping for some last-minute miracle, and then he suddenly stopped and pressed his phone hard against his ear. He stuck a hand in the air, to get our attention.

  ‘What is it?’ said Penny. ‘Have you got through to someone?’

  ‘I can hear a voice,’ he said. And from the way he said it, we could all tell this wasn’t a good thing. We all crowded in around Tom as he stood there, listening and frowning.

  ‘Is it … Arthur?’ said Lynn.

  We all looked at her and then turned back to Tom, but he was already shaking his head.

  ‘It’s a voice … but it doesn’t sound right,’ he said slowly. ‘Like the kind of language you hear in dreams. Words you can’t understand, trying desperately to tell us something important …’ He shuddered suddenly. ‘Just the sound of it makes my skin crawl.’

  Freddie snatched the phone away from him and pressed it against her own ear. She listened intently and then scowled.

  ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  She thrust the phone back into Tom’s hand, and he listened again.

  ‘It’s gone,’ he said. He looked at his phone. ‘No signal.’

  ‘Maybe there never was,’ said Freddie. ‘Maybe … the house really is trying to talk to us.’

  Tom turned off his phone and put it away. Everyone looked at everyone else.

  ‘How could a voice get through, when none of us could get a signal?’ said Lynn.

  ‘You’re supposed to be the expert when it comes to unexpected voices,’ said Freddie.

  Lynn looked at her coldly. ‘Phones are science. I don’t do science.’

  Tom went over to his monitor screen.

  ‘All the readings are in the normal range,’ he said slowly. ‘Nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary.’ He looked back at us. ‘Lynn is right. We can’t stay here. Whatever’s in this house almost certainly killed Arthur, and it might kill again … Maybe we could smash the window, get out that way.’

  ‘I already checked it,’ said Freddie. ‘Dozens of nails, a heavy wooden frame and really thick glass. You’d need a battering ram just to make a dent in it. And I’d be willing to bet the upstairs windows have been treated just the same. Malcolm Welles wasn’t taking any chances.’

  ‘Staying here isn’t that bad an option,’ I said. ‘All we have to do is get through the night and wait for the people coming to pick us up in the morning. They can smash in the front door and let us out.’

  Everyone thought about that.

  ‘We should be safe enough here, as long as we stick together,’ said Tom.

  ‘Safe?’ said Freddie. ‘Arthur died in this room!’

  ‘We can always barricade the door,’ said Tom.

  ‘You think that will keep the dark out?’ said Freddie.

  ‘I won’t stay in the same room as a dead body!’ said Lynn, her voice rising dangerously.

  We all looked at Arthur, still lying on his back where he’d fallen. We hadn’t even got around to arranging him decorously or closing his eyes. Lynn only looked at him for a moment, before turning her face away.

  ‘Why are you so bothered by a dead man?’ Freddie said bluntly. ‘You talk to the dead all the time, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s different,’ said Lynn. ‘I deal in spirits, not … remains.’

  ‘We’re safer in here than anywhere else,’ said Tom. ‘We have the cameras to watch over us, and motion-trackers to warn of anyone approaching.’

  ‘None of that helped Arthur,’ said Freddie.

  ‘My instruments can also provide a complete record of everything that happens here!’ said Tom.

  ‘You mean in case none of us survives to tell the story?’ said Lynn.

  ‘You had to go there, didn’t you?’ said Freddie.

  ‘This room could be the only really safe location in Harrow House,’ said Penny.

  Freddie looked at her sharply. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The darkness was able to fill that doorway,’ said Penny. ‘But it couldn’t enter the room.’

  ‘I felt something in here with us!’ said Lynn.

  ‘You’re the only one who did,’ said Freddie. ‘And you weren’t in the calmest frame of mind.’

  ‘The darkness didn’t move one inch beyond the doorway,’ said Penny.

  ‘Perhaps just the presence of my instruments was enough to keep it out,’ said Tom.

  ‘Or my protections,’ said Freddie.

  ‘We can’t be sure the dark had anything to do with Arthur’s death,’ I said.

  ‘We can’t be sure it didn’t,’ said Tom.

  ‘I am not staying in here with a dead body!’ Lynn said loudly. ‘Couldn’t you at least move it to another room?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s going to get up and bother anyone,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ said Lynn.

  We all looked at the body. It didn’t move.

  ‘If Arthur could get up, he’d have done it by now,’ said Freddie. ‘He would have thought it was funny.’

  ‘He smells bad!’ said Lynn.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s what happens when people die,’ I said. ‘Everything just lets go …’

  Tom looked at me sharply ‘How do you know so much about dead bodies?’

  ‘Penny and I have had some experience in that area,’ I said.

  ‘I always knew there was something peculiar about you two,’ said Tom. ‘What are you, really?’

  ‘We’re security,’ I said.

  And they all just nodded and accepted that. Security is one of those magic words that people tend not to challenge, if only because they just know they won’t like the answers.

  ‘I suppose we could put the body in another room,’ said Tom.

  ‘I think the police would want everything left just the way it is,’ I said. ‘So as not to disturb the crime scene.’

  ‘What crime?’ said Lynn. ‘You think they’re going to arrest the house?’

  ‘But if it wasn’t the house,’ said Penny, ‘someone here must have killed Arthur.’

  They all looked at her and then at each other. I could see the new idea taking hold in their minds.

  ‘No one here had any reason to kill Arthur,’ said Tom. ‘And anyway, none of us even touched him. He just collapsed and died.’

  ‘For no reason,’ Freddie said slowly.

  ‘Either someone moves him or I’ll go to another room and stay there on my own,’ Lynn said stubbornly.

  ‘That might not be safe,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t care!’

  I looked at Tom, and he shrugged.

  ‘My cameras recorded the moment of Arthur’s death. That should be enough for the police. We can shift him, between us.’

  ‘No,’ Freddie said immediately. ‘You stay where you are, Tom, and watch your screen. I’ll help carry him. So I can be sure he gets treated with some dignity.’

  Tom shrugged. I took Arthur by the shoulders, and Freddie took his legs, and between us we got him off the floor easily enough. He was heavy; the dead always are. But the living always have their way. Freddie and I carried Arthur out of the room, down the hall and into the left-hand room. We then settled him in a chair, arranging him so that he seemed to be just sitting comfortably. Freddie closed Arthur’s eye
s, with a gentle touch.

  ‘So he won’t know he’s in the dark, when we close the door,’ she said.

  She caressed his cheek once and then strode out of the room without looking back. I followed her out and closed the door carefully. Not because I thought Arthur was likely to get up and go wandering around, but so I’d be sure to hear if anyone tried to get to the body and destroy any evidence that might be on it.

  Freddie and I walked back to the far room. Lynn and Tom didn’t ask any questions. I looked at Penny to see if anything interesting had happened while I was gone, but she just shook her head. Lynn was curled up in her big chair again, her arms wrapped tightly about her as she stared at nothing. Tom was staring at his screen, as though hoping it might yet provide some answers. Freddie chose a chair as far away from Lynn as she could get, and dropped heavily into it. She looked at the spot where Arthur’s body had been, but still didn’t shed a tear. I closed the door, picked up the heaviest chair I could find and jammed it against the door. Tom looked round from his screen.

  ‘Expecting company?’

  ‘Just being careful,’ I said.

  ‘You really think a chair will be enough to keep out whatever’s in this house?’ said Tom.

  ‘Better than nothing,’ I said. I went over to join him. ‘Call up the recording of Arthur’s death. I want to see exactly what happened.’

  ‘You were right there with us,’ said Tom.

  ‘But like the rest of you, I was distracted by the darkness in the doorway,’ I said. ‘Show me.’

  ‘It was bad enough watching him die the first time,’ said Lynn from the depths of her chair. ‘I don’t want to see it again.’

  ‘Then look away,’ I said.

  Freddie turned around in her chair, studying me rather than the screen.

  ‘How do you think Arthur died, security man?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘But it is possible we might have missed something the first time round. Something important.’

  Tom shrugged, found the right moment and set the recording in motion. We all watched the seance and the events leading up to the door full of dark. It was oddly affecting to see Arthur being so animated, with no sense of what was about to happen. I watched the others watch him. Lynn was leaning forward in her chair, fascinated in spite of herself. Tom seemed more interested in the readings on his screen. Freddie never once took her eyes off Arthur. Penny watched me, to see if I would spot something that everyone else missed.