Your Turn to Die

by Sue Wallman

  I reach for my phone on the bedside table, take frantic photos for a couple of seconds. I want to see her expression. Is it sorrowful or gleeful? For a moment, I’m paralyzed by the window, torn between waiting and watching, and the urge to run downstairs and outside.

  “Tatum?” I say. Then louder. “Tatum, wake up.” I prod her, while still keeping an eye on the ghost.

  Tatum rolls towards me and swears.

  “There’s a ghost. It’s Poppy’s ghost.”

  “There is no ghost. Leave me alone. Go back to sleep.”

  I take a couple more photos then tussle into a sweatshirt and jam my bed-socked feet into my trainers. I tie the laces too tightly, but there’s no time to redo them.

  Rushing back to the window to check one last time before I run downstairs, I see the woman turn towards the gates at the end of the drive, as if she’s leaving. I skitter down the stairs, taking a few at a time, half-stumbling, half-springing. The front door is locked with a key that turns easily, but there’s the security chain to navigate. It takes a few goes to open with shaky fingers.

  The crisp air startles me, shocks me into taking a bigger breath than I need to. I can’t see the woman. She’s melted away, as I feared she would. I run to the end of the drive and I look up the road. Nobody to be seen. There are two side roads, though – she had time to vanish down them.

  “Nooo,” I say out loud, and a bird flies out of a tree nearby, wings flapping too close. I crouch instinctively, hyper-alert.

  But lower to the ground, I see very faint footprints that peter out to the right of the entrance. I follow them backwards to the grass, where they are firmer, and here there are two sets, one leading to the site, and another back towards the gate. Human feet pressing down on grass, picking up the dew, and leaving damp prints on the concrete drive for a bit. Bare human feet in winter?

  I don’t want to trawl the eerie early morning Pinhurst streets half-dressed, so I go back inside. Tatum is still asleep, making muttering noises as if she’s dreaming.

  My trainers are hard to force off my feet because I’ve done them up so tightly, but as soon as they’re off, I huddle under the duvet. In the dark, I check my phone. There are photos. I have seven shots of a blurred figure in a dress. Evidence.

  I enlarge each photo to big fuzzy pixels. I’ve occasionally seen photos with alleged ghosts posted online. They usually turn out to be superimposed photos or shadows, or objects that combine to make a face. Why would someone stand next to the grave with no shoes and a flimsy dress in the middle of winter? There’s no logical explanation.

  Has Tatum set me up? Am I part of an elaborate prank?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  There’s something hard under my hip when I wake up: my phone. It’s just gone nine o’clock. I look across at Tatum’s bed. She’s not there. I check the photos of the ghost are still on my phone – I didn’t make her up … so neither did Poppy.

  I get up and look out of the window. No ghost. The official checkout time today is four o’clock, but I can’t see Clive making too much of a fuss if we’re later; I doubt anyone else has booked the house anytime soon. Mum and Steve’s arrival depends on the road conditions up north, and Elaine and Marc won’t want to race back for their belongings until after Jakob’s operation. As soon as I’ve had some breakfast, I’ll go down the drive to check my messages. I really hope there’s one from Jakob. And Evan.

  Last days at Roeshot House have always been the same up until now. A walk to Porrit’s Corner. Hot chocolates in the cafe there. Thoughts of going back to school. The feeling of a good time coming to an end.

  Not this year. I add a few more layers of clothing before going downstairs.

  “All right?” asks Ivy. She’s in the kitchen putting things into a plastic crate. Tatum and Poppy are sitting at the table, doing a puzzle with matchsticks. “Mum’s not feeling too bright still, so I’m packing up the stuff we won’t need for lunch. I’m not sure who’s going to be here for lunch, though.”

  “No one’s worried about lunch,” I say, dropping a slice of toast into the toaster, but then I regret being so flippant. Ivy’s doing her best to keep the show on the road. “Let me know what you want help with,” I say.

  Tatum flicks her eyes up at me. “Leah, see these four squares? Make three equal-size squares moving just three matchsticks.”

  I stare at the squares. “Nope, can’t see it.”

  “Mmmmm,” says Tatum, as though I’ve confirmed what she suspected.

  Poppy strikes a match from the matchstick box and blows it out. “I don’t want to go home,” she says.

  “Neither do I,” I lie. I sit down next to her and bring up the photos. “Poppy,” I say. “Is this the ghost you saw the other day?”

  She scoops my phone up in both hands and peers. “Yes,” she says, her mouth partially open. “Yes! It is! You saw her – that’s Alice.” She looks at me with relief. “I told you. I wasn’t making it up.”

  Tatum and Ivy are right beside her now, wanting to see, asking me for an explanation, Tatum demanding to know why I didn’t wake her up. She doesn’t remember me trying to. “That’s so creepy,” she murmurs looking over Poppy’s shoulder. “She looks really evil.”

  Ivy enlarges the photo and says, “It’s an old lady.”

  “Give it to me,” says Tatum. She snatches the phone and makes the photo normal size again. “Text me these later for backup, yeah? But it’ll look more authentic if I film them on your phone for now.”

  Ivy says, “Oh my God, Tatum,” but Tatum is already filming, talking about a confirmed sighting of Poppy’s ghost, believed to be Alice.

  I swipe my phone back. “Why was an old lady wearing a shift dress and no shoes?” I ask as I enlarge the photo again. “In the cold. In the middle of the night.”

  “It’s an old lady in a nightie,” says Ivy.

  “Let’s see.” Tatum makes a big show of looking more closely and says, “Oh dear. Ivy’s right. You’ve confused a mad old woman with a ghost.”

  Of course. I understand now. Silverways is within easy walking distance. I remember the note on the back of the porch door of Silverways about a woman not being allowed out on her own.

  “So not an actual ghost, then,” I say, deliberately echoing the predictions.

  “Not this one,” says Tatum, unfazed. “But it’s intriguing.”

  I butter my toast and as I eat it standing up I think about what she said last night when I tried to wake her up. There is no ghost. However groggy she was, she didn’t believe in Poppy’s ghost for one moment. Does that mean she’s been making the predictions come true?

  Still. Within a few hours I’ll never have to see Tatum again.

  I go to the fridge to get some juice and hear someone running up the driveway. My stomach flips, hoping it’s Evan, but when I reach the window I see it’s a young boy in a woollen hat with a rolled-up newspaper. There’s an adult at the end of the driveway with a bag on a trolley thing. The boy runs towards the porch with what must be the Pinhurst and Riddingham Gazette.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, leaving the warmth of the kitchen for the cheerless corridor.

  The newspaper is lying face down on the mat. When I pick it up, it’s slightly damp from being outside. I turn it over and see the headline Dead girl in garden latest: Rose was PREGNANT.

  I shiver. That dream I had last night. How did I know there was a baby involved?

  There’s a photo of Rose that we haven’t seen before. I wonder if it was found among Alice’s things, or if it was supplied by her son. Rose is looking straight into the camera, laughing, the sort of person who seizes life, who you wouldn’t be able to tear your eyes from. I skim read the article. Rose Strathmortimer was four or five months’ pregnant at the time of her death. She had injuries consistent with a fall from a significant height. She is believed to have been in the care of her sister and brother-in-law for the previous six months.

  I take the newspaper to the kitchen and leave it on
the counter so the other two can look at it without Poppy seeing.

  But it doesn’t even occur to Tatum to keep it on the down-low. She gasps and says in a loud voice, “Pregnant at sixteen and not married. Scandal! And omigod, she jumped!” She sits with it at the table, where Poppy reads over her shoulder and asks what an inquest is.

  “An investigation,” says Ivy, annoyed. “Take the paper away, Tatum.”

  I shouldn’t have brought it into the kitchen. I should have taken it up to the attic, or even to my bedroom.

  Tatum says, “OK. I need to film someone reading out the article on camera. Any volunteers?”

  Ivy and I give her stony looks.

  “Do you want to do it, Poppy?” asks Tatum.

  “Of course she doesn’t want to do it,” I say.

  Poppy says, “I don’t mind. I’m good at reading out aloud and acting.”

  “That’s what I thought,” says Tatum. “Let’s go into the lounge, Poppy. We’ll do it there, near the fire. We’ll make it sound like a ghost story.”

  “No, stay here, Poppy,” says Ivy.

  Poppy doesn’t know what to do, so she brings her head down to her folded arms on the table.

  “She can make her own mind up,” says Tatum. “Or isn’t that allowed?” She tilts her head on one side, questioningly.

  Ivy clenches her jaw. “It’s allowed, but I’m watching.”

  Tatum sighs. “Suit yourself. This way, Miss Poppy.”

  Ivy and I stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the lounge. Poppy sits on the little stool by the fire, and reads the article fluently and clearly. It’s creepy hearing such a hard-hitting article being read out by a small, innocent-sounding kid. When she’s finished, she looks up and smiles at Tatum, wanting her approval. She gets it.

  “That was perfection,” says Tatum.

  “I feel sorry for Rose,” says Poppy. “I don’t think Alice and her husband did a very good job of looking after her.”

  “I know, right?” says Tatum. “I think I’m going to turn this school project I’m doing into a campaign. Hashtag Justice for Rose. You think that would be good?” I can’t tell if she’s making fun of Poppy.

  Poppy nods solemnly. I know Tatum is still filming. It’s sickening. I can’t stay here another minute.

  “You know what?” I say to Ivy. “I’m going to Silverways. I’m going to find out what that lady was doing here by the grave.”

  Ivy nods. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Poppy.”

  The footsteps from the old lady ghost have long since evaporated. I lean against the wall and check my messages. Jakob has finally got in touch and sent me and Ivy a photo of him with his arm in a cast. The operation on his leg is scheduled for this afternoon. His face is scabbed from where it came into contact with the glass. He’s looking glum, an exaggerated sort of glum, for the photo, but if it’s meant to make me smile, it doesn’t. Still alive is the caption. I tell him how worried I’ve been and wish him luck for this afternoon. Evan’s sent me a dancing pancake gif, and says he’ll be round this morning when his dad lets him have a break, and I reply with laughing face and a heart. I find him on Instagram, quickly glance through his photos of campfires, artistic log piles, tractors, drinking with friends and some of his carvings, and follow him.

  There’s a message from Mum saying she and Steve are setting off mid-morning but they’ll be taking it slow, and could I make sure I’ve packed in good time. I Snapchat Sophia and say I have a lot to tell her when I get home.

  The village is quiet, still in holiday mode, with some outdoor fairy lights switched on in the gloomy daylight. I walk past a man sitting on a wall with a cigarette. Further along two women with pushchairs walking side by side, blocking the pavement, stare at me as I step on to the road to let them pass.

  I wonder what this place was like when Rose was here. How easy was it for her to sneak out of Roeshot House and meet the father of her baby? I imagine exuberant, beautiful Rose’s shock at finding out she was pregnant. Margery said she was unconventional – I wonder if she ever imagined herself keeping the baby.

  Did she tell her sister? Is that when everything went wrong?

  Knocking on the door of an old people’s home and asking if one of their residents has been wandering about in the early hours in only a nightie isn’t like anything I’ve done before. I ring the bell and hope it’s Donna who opens the door. It’s not, but neither is it the lady who gave us the brochure, who thought we were interested in work experience. It’s a man with a pierced lip and a navy-blue uniform tunic. He steps into the porch and opens the outer door.

  “Morning,” he says.

  I take a deep breath and get straight to the point, saying I thought I saw a ghost in my garden but I realized it was an elderly person with no shoes and he cuts in and says, “Oh dear. That sounds like Mrs Lupin. She must have broken her new window lock and climbed out. My shift started a few minutes ago so I haven’t seen her yet. Thanks for letting us know. I’ll look into it.”

  He goes to close the door, but I say, “If she’s awake, d’you think I could have a word with her? Just for five or ten minutes? I want to ask her if she knows anything about the house I’m staying in. I think she’s wandered there before.”

  The man weighs this up a moment.

  “I know Donna,” I add. “And I’m staying in Alice Billings’s old house. Mrs Lupin was standing by where the girl was buried.”

  “I’d need to check,” he says. “It might be nice for Mrs Lupin to have some company, although I’d have to sit in on the conversation. She was good friends with Alice, and they chatted a lot in the last few weeks of Alice’s life, but she won’t make much sense, I’m afraid. The police have already tried.”

  “I’d still like to talk to her, if that’s OK?” I say.

  He waves me in. “I’m Aaron. Would you like a tea or coffee?”

  Mrs Lupin is sitting in the large residents’ lounge with a large black-and-white cat on her lap. It’s definitely her, the ghost. Even sitting down with her hair in a bun, I can tell. She has the same petite body and the right silvery shade of hair. Now she’s wearing grey wool trousers and a thick darker grey polo-neck jumper. Her feet are in beige fleecy indoor slipper-boots. But her face is calm and surprisingly beautiful for an old person.

  She smiles when I’m brought over to her. “Hello,” she says. “I won’t get up. My feet hurt, but I’ve had them bandaged.”

  I shake her hand and introduce myself. I tell her I’m staying in Alice Billings’s house and she says, “I know, my lovely. I’m nearly ninety.”

  We sit, the three of us, in a little circle. Aaron tells me that Mrs Lupin used to be a midwife and delivered babies all over the world for a charitable organization. “I love babies,” she nods. “And cats.”

  I ask if she remembers Alice Billings, and she says, “I think she was a cat, wasn’t she?”

  Aaron taps a pen against his arm as if it’s a drumstick.

  “Er, actually Alice was a resident here,” I say. “I think you might have known her. Her sister Rose was buried in the garden of the house where I’m staying.”

  “Oh, I remember. The dead baby,” says Mrs Lupin.

  I nod. I wonder how much effort the police put into interviewing her, because she seems to know a bit about what happened. “Rose was pregnant when she died.”

  Aaron stops tapping. “Oh yes, I saw the newspaper headline,” he says.

  “I looked out of my bedroom window this morning and I saw you in the garden,” I say.

  Mrs Lupin nods, “That’s right, dear. I hope I said hello to you.”

  “You didn’t see me,” I say. “But I wondered why you’d gone there.”

  Mrs Lupin looks at Aaron for help.

  “Can you remember why you were in Alice Billings’s garden?” he asks.

  “I wanted to help the girl, but I couldn’t find her,” she says. She whispers, “She was only sixteen. Alice is very upset about it. She told me the other day.”
She looks at Aaron. “Did she tell you that?”

  “Alice’s sister Rose died,” says Aaron gently.

  “It was that man’s fault,” says Mrs Lupin.

  “Which man?” I ask, leaning forwards.

  Mrs Lupin frowns. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember his name…”

  “Could it be Doug? Doug Billings?”

  “Doug? I can’t remember. That happens these days, I’m afraid.”

  I lean back with disappointment.

  “Have I had breakfast?” she asks.

  “I think so,” I say, and Aaron nods.

  “Well, thank you for talking to me,” I say. The lounge is big. There’s a man doing a crossword and another lady watering some plants on the windowsill, moving along super-slowly with a metal frame with wheels.

  “It was lovely of you to visit,” beams Mrs Lupin. “Were you a friend of Rose’s?”

  “No,” I say. I was born several decades after she died.

  Mrs Lupin strokes the cat. “Do tell Alice it wasn’t her fault. I’ve seen babies bring joy and I’ve seen babies bring sorrow.” She gazes at me with pale watery eyes.

  I nod and glance at Aaron, but he’s gesticulating something to a colleague who’s in the doorway.

  She strokes the cat under the chin and it purrs so loudly we both smile. “A policewoman came to see me and I told her about the dragon. She was very interested because she hadn’t heard about the dragon before.”

  “The stone dragon?” I say. “The one in her garden?”

  Mrs Lupin looks confused. “I’m not sure how many dragons there are. I’m talking about Alice’s dragon. He brought her luck in the end, didn’t he? Struck him down dead.”

  “Who was struck down dead?” I ask.

  “He was,” says Mrs Lupin with exasperation. “He deserved it.” She leans her face down towards the cat. “That’s what we think, anyway, isn’t that right, Pippin?”

  “Do you mean Doug Billings?”

  She squints at me, trying to work out what I’ve just said. “Doug? Does he live here?”