You Can Trust Me

by Emma Rowley

  My face says no, and I know I am not going to like this at all.

  “Arson. Joey likes to set fires.”

  * * *

  I walk down the path quickly, as the door shuts behind me.

  “Hey, Nicky!” I keep going, my head down, and there’s another shout from the road: “Nicky!”

  It’s Joey. I can see him out of the corner of my eye as he jogs over—he must have seen me, or my car, from his house.

  He catches up with me as I reach my car door. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  I look away, then at him. “What do you want, Joey?” I say neutrally.

  “Have you just come out of there? Pete Gregory’s?”

  I nod.

  “I thought we were going to see him together,” he says, aggrieved.

  “Yes. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

  He looks unsure, picking up on my tone. “So, did he tell you anything good?”

  “Not really. But is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  For a moment we bristle like two dogs ready to fight, then he starts to back away. “Sod this,” he mutters, and turns round.

  At that my temper flares. “Because he did tell me something about you!” I call out. “That you’re an arsonist.”

  He stops. “Oh, that,” he says weakly. His shoulders droop a little.

  “Oh, that,” I mimic. “You didn’t think you might mention it? I don’t know, before I tell an ex-policeman that you said I should talk to him about a massive house fire?”

  He turns back to face me. “I wasn’t sure he’d know about me. That all happened when I was still at my mum and dad’s. And it’s not like . . . I mean, I never hurt anyone.” He lifts his chin, defiant. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It was ages ago.”

  “Oh no. Nothing at all. Except it made me look like a crank. And when I said I didn’t believe him, he told me I could check with your grandmother!” After the session with Gregory, that amused dismissal on his doorstep was the final, humiliating straw.

  “I’m sorry,” he offers. “Don’t say anything to her. I could talk to him, explain you didn’t know . . .”

  “For God’s sake,” I say under my breath. “I’m not wasting any more time on this.”

  “Hey—no—I did think that fire was weird! That something else happened there that night. I do have history in that area, I know . . .”

  I say cruelly: “I bet you wish you started it.”

  He looks crestfallen.

  I make an effort to be adult. “Look, Joey. If I’d known . . . it’s my fault as much as yours. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”

  “We can sort this out . . .”

  “Good-bye, Joey.”

  I get in my car and slam the door. In my rearview mirror, he just stands there, a tall, thin figure by the side of the road. I don’t look back again.

  * * *

  My anger stays high as I set off for Olivia’s house. No wonder Joey didn’t want to just turn up on the old policeman’s doorstep without his gran putting in a word. I was lucky he didn’t kick me out as soon I mentioned Joey’s name. And of course! Another knot in this tangle untwists. That’s why Joey’s grandmother has been so unhelpful. Marie must have thought it was a terrible idea, to pique his interest in fires again.

  But I am upset with myself as much as with Joey, for listening to him in the first place, letting myself get carried away.

  I really thought I was getting somewhere for a moment, before the policeman laughed at me. But I’ve gotten nowhere, have I? I’ve hit a brick wall.

  And, if I am honest, I am increasingly embarrassed.

  Because what did I have to present to Pete Gregory, really, but rumors and half-baked theories and a feeling that there is a story here? The whole sorry mess collapsed like wet papier-mâché after just one sensible conversation.

  Even Olivia’s coldness, her hostility . . . yes, she is protective of her past, her pain. But that doesn’t mean there is any mystery here.

  It is time to be rational. Sensible. The truth is I have conjured a story out of smoke and ashes—and now it is drifting away with the wind.

  By the time I arrive back at the house, I am too fed up to try to persuade Olivia to talk to me again. What a waste of time this week is turning out to be.

  Chapter 32

  The rest of Thursday stretches dully into the evening, as I sit hunched over my laptop in my bedroom. There is no point in moping. I need to get something together to show Olivia before I go. But the writing is a struggle. Something is not clicking . . .

  When someone knocks on my door, I am surprised to see Olivia with a tray of food: crackers, paté, a glass of wine. I didn’t realize what time it was, but it is getting dark outside.

  “Thanks,” I say. “That’s thoughtful of you.”

  “Annie thought you would be hungry. I won’t bother with a meal myself, Josh is out . . .” She looks tired, blue-gray shadows under her eyes. “I’m sorry that we’ve not had another session today.”

  “That’s OK,” I say. “Do you think you’ll be ready for one tomorrow?”

  “Let’s make a call in the morning. If you don’t mind.”

  I nod, resigned. “Of course.”

  Tomorrow is Friday, the end of the working week. If Olivia doesn’t want to give me any time, I’ll be off first thing, promising to continue our sessions over Skype. I can be home by the afternoon.

  The thought soothes me, as I get ready for bed: this is my last night in this house.

  * * *

  When I wake, sweating, it takes me a second to realize where I am.

  I was dreaming, I am almost sure of it, but I never remember my dreams. I breathe into the darkness, waiting for my pulse to slow, and glance at the screen of my phone: 3:14 a.m. I shouldn’t have had that wine: I always sleep badly after alcohol.

  Or was that definitely what woke me?

  I still, straining to hear. The house is old—or its foundations are, at least—and it is always settling and groaning at night. I’ve had enough of it. I can’t relax.

  I try to make my mind go blank, to lull myself back to sleep, but it’s impossible, the day’s events crowding in on me—and my thoughts start to run on familiar paths, replaying the interview with Pete Gregory, that encounter with Joey outside.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been quite so harsh. But if it hadn’t been for Joey, telling me how he’d had to take his photos of the house down, suggesting that there was something more to the fire, loving my interest, the attention . . .

  I should have known he was unreliable. Unstable, even.

  All that effort, only to hit a brick wall.

  In the darkness, my tired mind starts to wander, making odd dreamy connections.

  Joey’s photos showed bare brick walls, before they were covered in plaster and paint and wallpaper again, so you’d never know . . . if these walls could talk.

  I prop myself on one elbow, the thought not yet fully formed.

  Then I flick on the bedside light, swing myself out of bed, and go over to my suitcase. I unzip the pocket, pulling out the sheaf of Joey’s photos that told me nothing.

  But that’s not what I’m looking for now. I want the piece of paper at the back, the floor plan, from the planning application for the restoration work. The one that Joey annotated to show where he had taken his photos in the wreckage of the house.

  I barely glanced at it before. Why would I? I was there in the house. Everything was right in front of me. But I wonder now if he might have posted the floor plan on his website along with the photos.

  Yes, on balance, I think he would have; he is thorough. So this is the floor plan that the Vanes got him to take down, along with the photos.

  No, not the family, I correct myself, Olivia was the one rebuilding. She would have been the Vane named on the application. Of course she wouldn’t want those h
orrible photos made public. But was there anything else she didn’t want strangers to see?

  I stand there for a moment, in the dim light of the lamp, looking at the neat little diagrams of each floor—just the walls and spaces, very basic. Squares and lines.

  Then I start to walk to the door. Because I see it now, what I missed before.

  * * *

  It is darker than the other night, the moon behind clouds. I know my way, where things should be, but still my mind makes strange shapes out of the shadows around me. So I am already tense as I try to creep down the stairs without a noise.

  I relax, just a little, when I finally make it to the kitchen at the end of the house, knowing any sounds I make will be more muffled from those sleeping above. I turn to check behind me, but no one is there in the dark hallway. No one has woken.

  I’d better not turn on the kitchen lights, though; I don’t want company.

  And now I pull open the cellar door, because this is where I have been going all along, take another step—and my foot connects with nothing but air.

  Idiot. I steady myself on the doorframe, my heart pounding. It’s so dark in here that I misjudged where the stairs were. I could have broken my neck.

  I fumble for the cellar light switch, flustered now. Wasn’t there one just this side of the doorframe itself, on the kitchen wall, and—

  Yes, there it is, just where it was supposed to be.

  I click it on, the brightness so dazzling that it takes a split second to focus on what’s in front of me.

  The face is white as paper, eyes like black holes, hanging three feet from my own.

  Chapter 33

  I recoil, throwing myself backward so I hit the open cellar door, sending it banging against the wall with a thud, even as I am realizing what I am looking at.

  It’s just a clown mask, Halloween gear, hanging by its elastic from a shelf in front of me. There is a Santa hat, too, a loop of fairy lights, other decorations stored down here—I saw them all before. I just forgot they were here and my brain translated the face as something quite different, a threat.

  My heart is still thundering, the pulse beating in my ears, and I take a moment to re-compose myself, listening to see if anyone in the house has woken.

  I hear nothing. But I make myself wait a little longer.

  Then I take the first step, pulling the door to behind me, so that just a thin strip of light from the cellar cuts across the kitchen floor. I can’t quite bring myself to shut it. Then I go down the stairs, gripping the banister to my left. At the bottom, under the bare bulb, I look at the paper in my shaking hand.

  * * *

  It is easy to miss at a glance.

  The sheet of paper shows four shapes: the first two—the main floor and the upstairs floor—follow the same sprawling footprint. The attic space is a smaller set of boxes, while another diagram shows the cellar layout: three rooms, off this little hallway.

  And that’s it, but for a little detail—a line of dots in a square that someone has barely bothered to mark on the floor of the biggest cellar room. A place like this is full of nooks and crannies, after all.

  But I understand what it means now. That there is another space down here, deep in the heart of the house. I just have to find the way in.

  * * *

  I know there are no stairs or doors or anything like that, from when I looked around before. And as I go into the room, the one with the table tennis table and dartboard, I still can’t see how . . .

  Then I remember how I noticed before that the carpet doesn’t go right to the walls. And when I bend down to lift its edge, it comes away easily. I roll it back a few yards to expose an old brick floor: small thin bricks in a herringbone pattern, so smooth and shiny with age that I am sure they were not part of any rebuild.

  I’m inside the old house, I think, the house that burned down.

  The door should be about here, but the plans are rough. So I shuffle the table back, to clear the way—I am sweating now, despite the chill in the air—then roll the carpet back farther until I see the dark wood blackened by age, or perhaps smoke. Age, I tell myself.

  I haul the carpet all the way off it. There is a metal ring set toward one side of the trapdoor, cool to the touch.

  I expect resistance as I pull, but it swings open easily, the hinges silent. I stop it from banging against the table, resting the open door against one metal leg.

  I can smell earth and damp inside, but can’t see anything except steep wooden steps, almost a ladder, and a patch of bare earthen floor. I wish I had brought my phone with me for its flashlight setting. I didn’t think this through.

  But this is OK. There will be plenty of light from the bulb overhead. Before I can spook myself further, I turn around and descend the wooden steps as quickly as I can, feeling the grain of each smooth, flat board under my hands.

  As my bare feet touch the ground I spin around, braced for another surprise, as my eyes adjust to the dimness—but find nothing but bricks and the earthen floor.

  It is cold in here. It’s just a little space, the arched walls the same neat herringbone brick as the floor above: I could almost touch the sides if I stretched my arms out wide.

  An old wine cellar? There is nothing in here now but an old cardboard box, pulled an inch or two away from the walls so the damp can’t seep in.

  A wide strip of brown masking tape holds the top folds down. I unpeel it carefully, but it has long ago lost its stickiness . . .

  The light overhead flickers for a second.

  I look up, holding my breath.

  Everything is still. But I want to hurry, I am going have to bend the cardboard folds a little, they are slotted around each other . . .

  And I can smell something—can I be imagining it? But it is there, so faint. The acrid tang, thin as a ghost, of smoke and fire.

  Careless now, I tear open the box.

  Chapter 34

  There is not much in it. Just junk, on the face of it. But my heart starts to thud as I sift through the contents.

  A set of small wooden bowling pins. A small badminton racket. These must have been kept outside. A white mug printed with a Disney princess has come through almost unscathed, but for the long cracks in its glazing—it must have been found among the rubble inside the house. And here is a book that I pick up carefully: a children’s Bible, its blackened edges stuck together.

  I knew that photo album, pieced together by other people, couldn’t be all Olivia had left of her life before. This is what I couldn’t find when I searched the house above me—these old secrets, hidden below . . .

  I freeze, lifting my head. Did I hear something, feel something in the air—a breeze? All the hairs on my arms are standing up.

  But nothing changes.

  I turn back to the box. I suppose the focus after the fire would have been to retrieve any valuables that survived, jewelry, or silverware. So I wonder who collected all this, things with only sentimental value, if that. It’s like no one has looked at them since . . .

  Gingerly I lift up one of the bowling pins: underneath is an old soccer ball, still holding air. But there is something else under that, chunky under my fingertips.

  I pull it out: it’s a small silver frame. The glass protecting the photo is smeared with dirt, but I can see the family inside. Why isn’t this in the album upstairs?

  I fiddle with the metal fastenings at the back, stiff with age, and open it up.

  It is a lovely family shot, as they all were before the fire. Elsa and Alex, him smiling, golden, her all big dark eyes; and between them a young Olivia, maybe ten or so, a black velvet bow in her hair, and—

  It must be a movement in the corner of my eye that makes me look up, because I didn’t hear a sound. The trapdoor swings toward me, shutting out the light.

  I shoot my hands up to catch the underside of the trapdoor before it slams shut completely, stretching to hold it open. For a second, I expect to feel pressure against it. Then, driven by inst
inct, I clamber up the steps quick as I can, one hand keeping the door open, to see . . .

  No one is there.

  I shouldn’t have left it propped open like that, leaning against the table leg. Lucky I caught it—I don’t know how easy it would be to open from the inside.

  I shiver, wanting to get out of there right away. But I make myself arrange the door so it can’t swing shut again, then go back down to replace things as they were.

  I dropped the frame when I caught the trapdoor, and the glass cracked—so I thrust it to the bottom of the box facedown, then fold the soft cardboard back into place, arranging the tape on top as if it came loose. It’s the best I can do.

  Then I scramble up the steps again, shut the trapdoor, roll out the carpet, and push the table back. I am standing back, checking how it all looks, when I hear it: the faint moan that I register as the hinge of the cellar door at the top of the stairs as it swings slowly back toward its frame.

  But that’s OK, too. There wasn’t a Yale lock or anything that would click shut . . .

  And then, with the softest of plinks, all the lights go out.

  * * *

  The darkness is total. I can’t see anything, not even the hand I bring to my face. The switch was on the wall outside the cellar, to control all the lights, but did I see any down here, too? There must be one in each room, surely . . .

  I start to walk around the edge of the room, one hand on the cold wall to orient myself. I just need to find the doorway, and then I will be in the hall, the stairs over to my left.

  Who turned off the lights?

  Don’t think about that. Maybe they were on a timer.

  But my breathing sounds too loud in the pitch black, and it takes longer than I expect to find the doorway out of the room: wasn’t there just this one wall here, not this corner, too? I don’t feel a switch anywhere.

  If only I had left a light on above in the kitchen, to signal where the edge of the cellar door might be. But it’s OK, I’ve found the doorway of this room now, so it’s just a few steps more to the cellar stairs.