The Charnel House in Copperfield Street
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The Charnel House in Copperfield Street
(Quigg #10)
Previously:
The Twelve Murders of Christmas (Novella)
Body 13
The Graves at Angel Brook
The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf
The Terror at Grisly Park
The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard
The Enigma of Apocalypse Heights (Novella)
The Corpse in Highgate Cemetery
The Lost Children of Bethnal Green (Novella)
The Charnel House in Copperfield Street
Coming in 2019
The Exhibits in Mrs Salmon’s Waxworks
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Tim Ellis
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Kindle Edition
Copyright 2018 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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Chapter One
Sunday, November 5
It was a cold dark day in Southwark, and the church clock was striking ten.
As part of his agreement with the Administrative Manager at the station – Mrs Morbid, as Mandy the trainee clerical assistant liked to call Mrs Morpeth – he was standing outside 66 Copperfield Street, which was where Mrs Morbid’s daughter, Regina Humblin lived with her husband Stanley and their three young children – Nellie, Briar and Baxter.
It had taken him thirty minutes on the tube to cross the River Thames by catching a District Line train from Hammersmith to Westminster, and changing to the Jubilee Line for the two stops to Southwark.
According to Mrs Morbid, there was something wrong with her daughter’s house – it was haunted, she said. As far as he could see, standing in the road looking up at the dwelling with his hands stuffed into his duffel coat pockets, it seemed a very nice place – well-cared for and expensive. It was a detached Victorian house set back from the road. There was a tiled plaque, high up, embedded into brickwork with “AD 1850” engraved into the tiles, which obviously referred to when the house was built. It had closed internal shutters at the windows, which he thought was a little odd, but then it was Sunday – the day of rest, and didn’t English people have a lie-in on Sundays?
Haunted! With what? Who? What did haunted actually mean anyway? Ghosts! Did he really believe in ghosts? He’d certainly come across some strange things in his time as a murder detective at Hammersmith Police Station, but ghosts! He wasn’t convinced, not convinced at all. He’d have to see one in the flesh to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And anyway, he’d explained to Mrs Morbid that he wasn’t a paranormal investigator, didn’t have any specialist equipment, talents or skills in that respect, but she was adamant that she wanted him to investigate the problem, find out what was going on and fix it. Well, he’d shook hands on the agreement, even though the assumptions underpinning that deal were false. He’d understood that Mandy had been taken off the post, which she had, so he’d gone to see Mrs Morbid in Administration with a view to getting Mandy re-instated, but then discovered, once the deal had been finalised, that Mrs Morbid had already put her back on the post earlier in the day without any intervention on his part.
But what could he do? An Englishman’s word was his bond. Even though he felt hornswoggled, bamboozled and duped, he had no choice but to meet the terms and conditions of the agreement.
So, here he was – outside 66 Copperfield Street in Southwark. He shrugged deeper into his duffel coat and made his way to the front door along a crooked flagstone path. The skies were an ominous gunmetal grey, and dark brown diseased autumn leaves from the larch, oak and beech trees in the front garden swirled about his feet.
He used the unpolished brass door knocker that resembled a screaming man with hollow eyes to announce his arrival. He banged the knocker three times, but could have sworn that four echoes came back to him. He heard someone approach, and then the heavy wooden green door creaked open.
An attractive woman in her late thirties was standing there. She had frizzy brown hair tied back in a bun, dark sad eyes and a long thin neck.
‘Mrs Humblin?’
‘Yes, and you must be Mister Quigg?’
‘Detective Inspector Quigg,’ he corrected her.
‘On a Sunday?’
‘Well, I suppose I’m a Detective Inspector every day of the week.’
‘Would you like to come in?’
‘That is why I’m here.’
She opened the door a little wider.
He stepped inside and squeezed past her. The entrance hallway had a mosaic tile path that led into the house. A number of key Victorian features had been retained, such as the elaborately carved ceiling cornices, the single electric light fitting and the dado rail at hand height running the length of the hall. The air was heavy with an unusual smell . . . He sniffed, but he couldn’t identify the odour with his olfactory system.
‘It’s a mixture of herbs to ward off evil,’ Mrs Humblin said. ‘Rue, rosemary, juniper, basil, osha, angelica, copal, garlic and marigold.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Clearly not, because you’re here, but it does make the house smell nice.’
‘If you say so.’ “Nice” wasn’t a word he would have used to describe the smell, but each to his, or her, own.
‘Don’t you have any equipment, or assistants with you?’
‘No. Your mother did tell you I was a murder detective, didn’t she?’
‘Well yes, but I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.’
He half-laughed. ‘You probably had the idea that I’d look like an old doddering paranormal investigator, with pince-nez glasses perched on the end of my nose, and a couple of student apprentices from the local university in tow, didn’t you?’
‘Maybe. I did have an ideal person in my mind, but you don’t resemble that picture at all.’
‘That could be a good thing.’
‘Possibly.’
She closed the door.
A man appeared out of a room further along the hallway. Behind him, were a set of stairs that led to the upper floor.
‘This is my husband, Stanley,’ Regina Humblin said.
Quigg took three paces towards him with his hand outstretched and said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Stanley Humblin didn’t reciprocate with his hand or the greeting.
‘I don’t want you here.’
‘Well, to be honest, I don’t want to be here.’
‘I want him here, Stanley,’ Regina said, close to tears. ‘Somebody has to do something. Things can’t go on the way they have been doing.’
‘I’ll put up with this intrusion for your sake Regina, but I’m not happy about it.’ He swivelled on his heel and went back into the room he had com
e out of.
‘I’m sorry about that, Inspector Quigg. My husband is a very private man.’
‘That’s all right, Mrs Humblin. I’ll take a quick walk around your house, jot down some details and then get out of you and your husband’s way.’
‘Don’t forget why you’re here. My mother said you’d carry out a comprehensive investigation, find the root cause of our troubles and solve the problem.’
‘Well, I don’t know about the latter, but I’m a man of my word. I’ll certainly carry out a comprehensive investigation, and then we’ll go from there.’
‘That’s all I ask.’
‘Is there somewhere we can sit down, so that you can provide me with a brief history of what’s been happening, Mrs Humblin?’
‘Call me Regina, Inspector. Come through into the kitchen.’ She led him along the hallway and through a doorway at the end. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Coffee would be good – milk and two sugars please.’
‘Strong or weak?’
‘Strong.’
He sat down in a wooden chair at the large matching cook’s oak table in the middle of the kitchen and looked around. The alternate black and terracotta-coloured floor tiles had been laid diagonally beneath his feet. Some of the features had been modernised, but essentially it was a traditional Victorian kitchen with racks holding upended plates on the walls; a free-standing dresser for other crockery and glassware; stainless steel utensils, copper jelly moulds and kettles hanging from hooks beneath the ventilation duct; ornate cornicing, twisted pilasters and Cathedral arched doors; dentil moulding and intricately carved corbels; a pulley clothes dryer fixed to the high ceiling above the range cooker; only one small window to let the daylight in; a large square porcelain butler’s sink; and cream brick-sized tiles on the walls to match the cream-painted cabinetry with oak worktops.
The kettle whistled.
He hadn’t heard a kettle whistle since his childhood.
‘We bought the house seven years ago from Marley-Martin Estate Agents . . .’
He took out his notebook and began taking notes.
She placed a steaming blue and white Wedgwood cup and saucer on the table in front of him, and a small plate of chocolate digestive biscuits. It crossed his mind that it might be too early for biscuits, but it wasn’t far off elevenses, so he helped himself.
‘The old couple who used to live here died lying in bed together upstairs holding hands. I thought that story was really beautiful. A building company then acquired the property and they tidied it up a bit, but basically they left everything as it had always been. We came to view it and fell in love with the place. I was six months pregnant with Nellie and we were looking for the perfect house to bring up our children in, and we thought we’d found it. It had been standing empty for seven months . . . Of course, we thought nothing of it at the time. I mean, the house was on the market for £800,000, which is a lot of money now, never mind seven years ago.’
He pursed his lips, nodded and said, ‘It certainly is.’ He began thinking of his mother’s Victorian terraced house in Upton Park, Newham – Number 5 Boleyn Gardens. He’d previously been a keen follower of West Ham United, but not so much now. If they were playing at home, he made sure he was somewhere else. The noise from the football ground reduced the value of the house to a peanut – unsalted. He’d been trying to sell the house to provide funds for his mother in Burma, but following an explosion in the house, builders had discovered a Roman Temple of Mithras beneath the foundations and it was now tied-up in the bureaucracy of an architectural dig for at least two to three years.
Where was his pregnant eighty-seven year-old mother now? Not knowing her whereabouts was causing him sleepless nights. She was meant to be in Bago, Burma. She’d married a Burmese national and was running an English cafe with Maggie Crenshaw, but on a recent trip out there he’d been unable to find her in the two weeks he had available.
‘Everything seemed to be fine until after Nellie was born,’ Regina continued.
‘What happened then?’
‘Only little things in the beginning. In fact, it was only much later that I actually realised anything had happened at all.’
‘Such as?’
‘At the time, they were hardly noticeable; noises that could easily be explained as part of the house moving – footsteps, scratching, knocking and banging; doors and cupboards that I knew I’d shut, but then I’d find them open; lights on or off that I’d switched off or on; items going missing for hours or days, like keys or ornaments, that would turn up somewhere unexpected . . .’ She wrung her hands. ‘I thought I was slowly going crazy.’
He took a swallow of coffee and helped himself to another chocolate digestive. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘We bought the house in late September 2011. Nellie was born three months later on January 2, 2012. During this period we were deliriously happy and if there was anything happening, I didn’t take any notice.’
‘You refer to yourself, but not to your husband – didn’t he experience these strange phenomena?’
‘No. He works long hours as an air traffic controller at London City Airport, and when I tried to tell him what was happening he thought I was neurotic, so I stopped saying anything.’
‘And things continued to happen?’
‘Yes, but they were intermittent. I fell pregnant again in November 2013, and Briar was born in July 2014. Again, either the events had stopped happening, or I failed to notice them.’
‘But they started again?’
‘Yes – the noises, the doors opening and closing, lights going on and off, items going missing, whispering and I began seeing shadow people.’
‘Shadow people!’
‘Fleeting half-formed shadows that I’d see out of the corner of my eyes.’
‘And your husband never noticed anything untoward?’
‘If he did, he never admitted it to me. Then, in June 2016 I fell pregnant again and Baxter was born in February 2017.’
‘They’re lovely names for two boys and a girl.’
‘I have three girls, Inspector.’
‘Oh! Well, I suppose a lot of names are gender-neutral these days. So, what happened next?’
‘It began again three months ago.’
‘And Baxter is ten months old now?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, about sixth months after the birth of each child the happenings occur again?’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s about right, but each time things get worse.’
‘Oh! In what way?’
‘Well, this time, I feel as though I’m being watched, and the other day I could have sworn someone touched my . . .’ She pointed to her breasts. ‘I was in the shower and I was sure I felt a hand squeeze me there.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I walk out of a room and the door closes behind me.’
‘Are there other people in the house at the time?’
‘Well no, apart from Baxter, but she’s too young to understand what’s going on. Nellie goes to primary school and Briar is at the crèche. So no, there’s no one else in the house. Stanley leaves for work at around seven in the morning, and doesn’t get home until eight o’clock – just in time to read Nellie and Briar a bedtime story. We’re both usually in bed by ten o’clock.’
‘Is that it?’
‘No. I’ve heard my name being called, and muffled voices, as well.’
‘Do you know where they’re coming from?’
‘They’re always just out of reach, if you know what I mean? When I heard my name, it was as if someone was standing behind me, but when I turned there was no one there. I get whiffs of perfume, but it isn’t mine, and there’s an unusually cold place in the dining room.’
He finished his coffee, closed his notebook and stood up. ‘I suppose I should take a look around now, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Of course,’ she said, moving the cups and saucers to the draining board. ‘We
have a long back garden.’
He stared through the window at the back garden. It was long – about thirty feet, but it was narrow, only a couple of feet wider than the house itself.
‘I like to go out there and keep it nice, but the weather hasn’t been conducive to gardening for a while now, so it’s looking slightly the worse for wear.’
‘The English weather has a lot to answer for,’ he said, as if he had some say in the matter, which he didn’t.
She led him back into the hallway, opened a door on the left with an old brass key that she took from a pocket of her dress. ‘This is the basement,’ she said, switching on the light and leading the way down the concrete steps. ‘I keep it locked because of the children. They know they’re not permitted to come down here, but you know what children are like?’
‘I certainly do,’ he said with more knowledge and experience than he had about the weather. He thought about following it up with: “I have ten of my own and another two on the way,” but decided that it wasn’t something one slipped into a casual conversation.
‘As you can see, there’s not much to it.’
She was right. It measured about twelve by fifteen feet and was used for storage. Wooden shelving had been attached to the wall and held tins of paint, tools, and knick-knacks; there were cardboard boxes stacked against one wall, old battered leather suitcases, and two antique Victorian steamer trunks.
He didn’t sense any malevolent presence, and if there was going to be such an entity in an old house, this was usually where it would be holed-up. He’d seen movies, read books, been on guided tours – the poltergeist was always in the basement. Of course, he wasn’t the last word on ghosts. He’d have to do his research. Or, more accurately, he’d need to ask Lucy, or maybe Ruth and Duffy, to do the research for him. In fact, either or all three of them, might help him, act as his assistants because, after all, he did have a real job that usually required his full attention. Yes, he’d speak to them when he returned home, although it all depended on what they’d want in return . . .