by Sue Wallman
I try one last thing. “Why didn’t Alice tell the police?”
Mrs Lupin says, “I told her to tell the police. She says she’s going to. She didn’t say anything at first because she didn’t want to wake the dog.”
“The dog?”
“Let sleeping dogs lie. I think she was scared of the dog and after the dragon got him, she was happy with her baby.”
Aaron rejoins the conversation, saying, “Ah, we’re back to the dogs and the dragons.”
Mrs Lupin says yes and she wants him to know that someone called Mrs Talbot is a pain in the arse.
Aaron laughs. “I’ll have a word with her.” He explains to me, “Mrs Talbot plays the radio very loudly in her room. And she prefers it when the radio isn’t tuned in.”
Mrs Lupin mutters, “She’s a terrible menace to society.”
“I’ll see Leah out now, Mrs L.”
“Right you are, Aaron. I won’t get up – my feet hurt,” says Mrs Lupin. “Bye, dear. Drive carefully and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tatum is standing by the back door when I walk back into Roeshot House.
“Hey!” I place my hand on my heart. “You made me jump.”
She doesn’t smile. “Why did you go to Silverways without me? You should have waited for me.”
“You were busy making the newspaper article sound like a ghost story with Poppy,” I say. “And it was easier me going on my own. Less intimidating.”
“What did you find out?”
“Let me have a drink of water first,” I say, moving past her to the cupboard where the glasses are kept.
“Evan came round,” says Tatum, as I run the tap. “It’s a shame you weren’t here. He said he might get a chance to come back later.”
I wish I hadn’t gone out now. I’ve probably blown saying goodbye to him. “Where’s he this morning?”
Ivy comes into the kitchen carrying a holdall bag. I think it belongs to Auntie Gabs. She’s overheard our conversation; she says, “Evan has to go do some repairs on another property. It’s turnaround day – their busiest day. He said he hopes to see you later.” She dumps the holdall by the back door. “I’ve packed most of Mum’s things. She’s going to stay in bed until it’s time to go.”
I sag against the fridge. “I’m so annoyed I missed him.”
“Tell us about Silverways,” says Tatum. She’s less aggressive now. “I’m not filming you, just asking.” She sits at the table, legs crossed, a focused expression – like a teacher who’s suddenly giving you one-hundred-per-cent attention.
“Did you find your ghost?” asks Ivy.
I nod. “Yes. Her name is Mrs Lupin. She knew Alice. She was very confused but she said she’d come to the grave to help Rose. She used to deliver babies, so I think that was the link in her head. She said what happened wasn’t Alice’s fault. She kept saying it was his fault – definitely a male, but she couldn’t remember a name. And then she told me that the dragon had brought Alice luck in the end by striking him dead.”
“The dragon we saw?” asks Ivy.
“I guess so,” I say.
“Literally striking?” asks Ivy. “As in, Alice hit the man with the dragon?”
“Alice’s husband died not long after Rose, but he had a heart attack,” says Tatum. “I don’t suppose Alice could crush her husband and then pretend it was a heart attack.”
“No,” I say. “That would be impossible.”
“So you didn’t get the impression that Alice had anything to do with Rose’s death?” asks Ivy.
I shake my head. “It was more that she knew what had happened and did nothing. Why didn’t she explain everything before she died?”
“Perhaps she thought she had more time,” says Tatum. “She should have filmed an explanation, or written it down. But it’s been fun trying to unravel it.”
“Hmm.” I’m not sure in the end how much fun it’s been. “I’m going upstairs to pack my things,” I say.
Tatum says she’ll go to the attic and film a segment about my trip to Silverways. “By the way,” she says, as she leaves the kitchen. “Have either of you noticed the grooves in the window seat up there?”
“Of course,” I say.
“I have a theory they were made by fingernails. By someone holding on as best they could,” says Tatum. She mimes leaning backwards on the seat and scraping the wood. “They fit my fingernails perfectly.”
“Maybe,” I say. The idea sounds far-fetched, but no doubt it will have a big place in her documentary.
“Either of you want to come and try it out with me? I don’t mind who does the filming.”
Ivy shakes her head.
“Like I said, I’ve got packing to do,” I say. “Unless, Ivy, you want me to be with Poppy for a bit?”
“She’s OK, thanks. Watching TV and slurping a milkshake,” says Ivy. “The usual.”
“I’m going to go into the woods later,” says Tatum. “I need some long shots of the back of the house. I’d also like to pose some questions about why Rose’s body wasn’t buried in the woods.”
“Because the Billings didn’t own that land,” says Ivy impatiently. “It’s obvious.”
“I know,” snaps Tatum, “but it’ll look good visually. Come and join me if you change your minds. I’ll let you say some closing thoughts about the case.”
“Thanks but no thanks. I’m done,” I say. “I have to pack.”
“Same here,” says Ivy.
The bedroom is a mess and Tatum hasn’t packed either. I sweep my clothes off the floor and deposit them in my suitcase, pulling out an unfamiliar black top from my bundle that must be Tatum’s. I open her kitbag to chuck it in, and see a black leather strap curled up against a white T-shirt. I recognize that strap. The leather is slightly cracked along one edge. I tug. It’s attached to something heavy. I push aside the clothes and see the leather case.
Binoculars. Steve’s binoculars are in Tatum’s bag.
My chest tightens as I lift them out, and blood pounds in my ears.
Tatum can’t possibly want them for herself. Has she taken them purely to make the prediction about something precious being lost look as if it’s come true? Was she planning on having them “turn up” at the last minute, or would she have gone home with them? Anger balloons inside me, for making fools of us and perhaps a tiny bit on Steve’s behalf.
There’s another explanation – somebody else has planted them in her bag for a joke, but I’ve seen Tatum take clothes out of there all holiday, so she would have seen the strap for sure, and it’s not the sort of joke Amigos would play. I take her bag and tip it upside down on my bed, searching for anything else she’s been hiding. I make sure every last thing is out of the bag by shaking it and running my hand along the bottom. A folded piece of paper falls out. I open it and it’s a printout of a very short online article. The headline is Body of Teenager Discovered Nearly 60 years After her Death. There is no printer at Roeshot House. Tatum must have brought it with her.
I sit on her bed and rifle through her clothes in case I missed anything. I did – hidden in a sock, inside another sock, is a packet of dried rose petals.
TWENTY-NINE
I find Ivy on her knees in the little lounge, deflating Poppy’s airbed.
“Look!” I hold up the binoculars and wait for her to register what they are. “I found them in Tatum’s bag.”
Ivy lets go of the bed and it falls away from her arms. “That’s mad. That’s the stupidest thing.”
I hand her the article and the rose petals. “She had these in her bag too. She obviously knew about Rose’s death before she came here. She’d printed this to bring with her.”
I sit on the sofa, the binoculars heavy on my lap as Ivy scans the article and sniffs the petals.
“What a bitch!” says Ivy. “She totally used my family. And us Amigos.”
I nod. “We were so nice to her too. She came here knowing about this, imagining how we would react on camera.”
“If we’d been aware a body had been dug up in the garden, we probably wouldn’t have come,” says Ivy. She perches next to me on the sofa. “We gave Tatum everything she wanted – a way of getting to meet Donna and Margery and all our reactions… The predictions were a gift for her. We should never have told her about them.”
I wind the strap of the binoculars round my forefinger and watch it go red before unwinding it. “I bet Tatum pushed Jakob down the stairs because of the predictions,” I say. “She might even have dislodged the iron bar, just to make us think this place is haunted. That’s assault! Attempted murder – one of us could have died! It’s serious.” I bite my lip. “I think we should tell your mum…”
Ivy places the article and petals on the floor and sinks her head into the palms of her hands, before lifting it and saying, “I should have said so before, but Mum takes more pills than she should. She does it to sleep, when things get too much.”
“We have to wake her up,” I say. “She needs to know. We can’t wait until Mum and Steve get back. They could be ages if Steve’s driving, and the roads are snowy.”
“OK,” nods Ivy. I gather up the binoculars, article and petals and she leads the way to her mum’s bedroom in the adults’ part of the house. Their landing is wider than ours, with room for a chest of drawers. Auntie Gabs’s door is closed. I can picture the inside of the room from when we were little and used to run in and out of our parents’ rooms in the mornings. It’s large with wooden floors that gave us splinters, long faded curtains, and a big wooden bed with a headboard and footboard. My uncle once told us it was called a sleigh bed, and for a while we used it for lots of Christmas-themed role plays.
Ivy knocks on the door, lightly at first, frowning. There’s no response.
I knock next, with more urgency, the sound ringing out into the landing. “Shall we go in?” I say.
Ivy’s lips seem to disappear as she thinks.
“We have to,” I say. I turn the handle slowly and push the door inwards. It’s dark, the curtains overlapping in the middle. The room smells of body odour and stale air. “Auntie Gabs?” I call.
She has her back to us, facing towards the curtains on the far side of the bed, breathing noisily as if she has a cold. There’s still no response when I call her name again more loudly. I look at Ivy, worried.
“We’ll have to try later,” says Ivy, turning away. “She’s like this sometimes.” She beckons me out of the room and I follow, pulling the door behind me until it clicks. “Tatum’s up in the attic, isn’t she?” she says.
I nod. “You think we should go and confront her? I don’t.”
Ivy shakes her head briefly, and says, “No, but I need to keep Poppy away from her. I don’t trust her. She’s probably got something planned for a big finale.”
We look at each other. “You think she’d hurt her?” I whisper.
“She’d do anything for her film,” Ivy says.
“Tell Poppy she has to be with one of us until Mum and Steve get back. She’s done her bit today anyway, reading out that article,” I say. “Bring her into the little lounge… I’ll meet you there and help you pack up Poppy’s things.”
Ivy runs on ahead to the main lounge to fetch Poppy. In the little lounge, I glance again at the article. It’s from an obscure online news website. I wonder what came first – Tatum finding the article and realizing she had a connection to the house through her mum, or if her mum suggested coming to Roeshot and Tatum researched the area and found the article.
I place the printout with the petals and binoculars on a coffee table where I can see them, and ram the airbed into its bag. Poppy’s pile of things that was next to it looks like an abandoned island in the sea of blue carpet. It’s mostly made up of her art projects, including the paper-doll people. I pick up the one that was supposed to be me, with the stuck-on skirt. She’s given it chickenpox. I almost laugh out loud when I see “Steve” – he has a moustache and is wearing a bikini top and bottom. Auntie Gabs has been given rotten teeth, Mum’s eyes have become two enormous love hearts, Marc and Elaine’s outfits have turned black, and Tatum has a bleeding scar on her forehead. Her own paper-doll person has a twisty, climbing plant tattoo drawn all over. I pick up the Ivy one – she hasn’t been touched. There’s one more left: Jakob. Half of Jakob. He has an arm and leg missing.
“Leah!” Ivy’s voice is far away but urgent.
I put the paper-doll people down.
“Leah – Poppy’s gone!” screams Ivy.
I run into the hall as she flies towards me. “I’ve looked all over for her. She’s gone. And so has Tatum.”
She’s so agitated she can’t stand still; one of her knees is going back and forth like crazy. “Tatum’s taken her to the woods. I know she has. Why did Poppy go with her? She must have forced her. We’ve got to find her.”
I run to keep up with her – she’s heading for the kitchen and the back door. “They can’t have been gone long,” I say. “Tatum was filming in the attic a few moments ago. Why didn’t we hear them leave?”
Ivy turns round, doing up the three big buttons of her coat already. “Tatum must have sneaked out with her. Poppy knows she can’t just leave the house without telling Mum or me, so Tatum must have lied and told her I was OK with it. See this?” She unpegs Poppy’s furry-hooded coat from the hook by the door. “Poppy didn’t even take her coat. What’s Tatum playing at? It’s minus something out there and Poppy gets cold more easily than other people.”
That’s a bad sign, and I know my face is only confirming Ivy’s worries. I thrust my arms into my own coat and as Ivy opens the door, I clasp it round me. There’s no time to do it up because she’s gone, down the side passage into the back garden. “I think they’ll have gone this way,” she calls.
Ivy shouts Poppy’s name with increasing concern. I have a flashback of the night we went looking for Baz, and my stomach twists.
In the back garden, we strain to listen, and hear something that could be voices in the distance.
In the woods.
Ivy takes off at a run, and I follow.
It’s easy to step up on to the raised flowerbed at the end of the garden and climb over the waist-high stone wall. The clearing is smaller than I remember, just the size of a small room, before the trees begin, growing so close together some of their branches overlap. The air smells of earth. We stand in the muddy leafy mulch, listening, and then, finally, we hear the voices again.
“Poppy?” screams Ivy.
There’s the sound of footsteps snapping brittle twigs and leaves under foot, then, “Is that Ivy?” It’s Poppy’s high voice. “Why’s she here?”
“Poppy?” shouts Ivy again.
The two of them come into view then. Tatum’s wearing a black puffa coat, the sort that scrunches up really small and fits into a little bag. She has sunglasses on her head and a clipboard in her hand. Poppy has Tatum’s furry turquoise coat over her shoulders. She looks like a monster from a kids’ TV show. She’s holding a large piece of silvery reflective fabric attached to a frame.
“Why aren’t you wearing your own coat, Poppy?” says Ivy, her voice a few pitches higher than normal. “I brought it for you.”
Poppy looks back and forth between Tatum and Ivy, panicked. “Tatum said I could wear hers if I came with her. I’m helping her with lighting.” She holds up the reflector.
“What are you doing here?” asks Tatum. “I thought you didn’t want to be filmed.” She seems angry, and I can’t work out why.
“The question should be, ‘What exactly are you doing?’” I say. “I found the article you brought here, Tatum. You knew all about Rose even before you arrived!”
Tatum looks startled for a second, caught out…
“Listen, Leah—”
“No, you listen, Tatum! You’re sick. You planned that documentary long before you ever stepped foot in Roeshot House. You’ve been trying to get us to react to a stupid ghost story that you made up.”
“
I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s enough craziness going on here without having to invent anything else,” she said, glaring at me, and Ivy in turn.
“You stole Steve’s binocolars!” Ivy hisses.
“And you brought rose petals,” I added. “And lied about it!”
Tatum opens her mouth a few times, as if she’s changing her mind about what to say. Then eventually she shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Ah. Well. Yes, it’s true, I did know about the body in the garden. When my mum mentioned the house I looked it up, of course. I mean, I still can’t believe no one here knew anything about it.”
“That’s why you asked your mum to ask mine if you could come with us, isn’t it?” says Ivy.
Tatum raises one shoulder. “I had to go somewhere, and this was a great opportunity. It had potential. So yeah, I brought the rose petals with me. I was going to use them for a title sequence but then I heard about the predictions. They were easy to find because you kept staring at the floorboard. Poppy’s ghost started it, and things kept falling into place. I went with it… And yeah, maybe I borrowed Steve’s binoculars for a bit, so you lot would freak out a little over it. He left them outside by the bins. They might have been taken away as rubbish and they’d have been lost anyway.”
“Freak out?” I say angrily. “So how did you think we would react when you pushed Jakob down the stairs? Was it everything you hoped for?!” My voice breaks at the memory of Jakob’s fall.
Tatum head jerks back at this. “What? You think I pushed Jakob down the stairs? You’re really accusing me of that? This is ridiculous. Poppy, come on, let’s go,” she says, holding out her hand. “The two of them are crazy.”
“Crazy?” Ivy shouts. “You’re the crazy one. Poppy, get away from her. Right now.”
Poppy looks between Ivy and Tatum. She stands frozen to the spot, on the brink of tears.
“Poppy, come on,” Tatum says, wiggling her outstretched fingers. “Remember our talk, and all the things you told me. I said it would all be OK, and I meant it.”
“What talk? What did she say?” asks Ivy, her voice strained, arms folded tightly over Poppy’s coat.