The Hoarder

by Jess Kidd

  At the dead centre there is a mended breach, a gap in the defences backfilled by VHS cassettes.

  Over this repair a sign has been pasted up:

  By Order of Cathal T. Flood

  PRIVATE

  STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE

  The wall is patrolled. Run your fingers across it, give the magazines the smallest tap and you’ll see what I mean. The door to Mr Flood’s workshop, lying just across the hallway, will fly open. And from this door he will emerge with the uncanny speed of a trapdoor spider.

  During the raid on Mr Flood’s hoard it is alleged that council workers broke through this wall. No doubt with the same trepidation as Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon knocking on Tutankhamen’s tomb. One party of stalwart volunteers lured Mr Flood away from his lair with malt whiskey and endeavoured to keep him distracted. The other party jimmied away at Mr Flood’s defences. Eventually the wall yielded and they were through with a rush of stale air, and, as the dust settled, a nervous troop of men in high-visibility jackets briefly glimpsed the wonders beyond.

  Before the wrath of Mr Flood descended on them.

  In the days that followed many of the men took sick, some handed in their resignation, all of them chain-smoked cigarettes with shaking hands and stared into space. The wall was hurriedly resealed and the rest of the house went uncharted.

  I stand in the hallway looking up at the Great Wall of National Geographics most days, like David turning up at Goliath’s with rubber gloves and a risk assessment and wondering where the hell to aim.

  On my very first day at Bridlemere I vowed to open it again, to pass through it and find a bathroom. And on finding one, make the filthy old bastard take a bath.

  Experimentally, I run my hands along the barricade. I glance at the door to the workshop and steel myself, waiting for Mr Flood to come springing out, gnashing his dentures and rolling his eyes, like a grizzled jack-in-the-box.

  Not a peep.

  I try pushing at the stacked piles and rumpling the sign a bit, then I walk up and down, stepping heavily and coughing.

  Still nothing. The door to the workshop remains firmly shut.

  Then I see him, and only because he moves his eyes.

  He is standing behind a pile of packing crates. Disguised as a bundle of clothes and a hat stand. I only just stop myself from blessing the heart that has turned crossways in my chest.

  It’s hard to tell but I think he could be smiling; at least his lips are pulled back and his dentures are bared. Perhaps he has forgotten our altercation yesterday. Or perhaps he is about to start a new one.

  Perhaps he’s going to have another hop and a point.

  ‘Can I help you, Drennan?’

  I point to the barricade. ‘Bath through there, upstairs?’

  He leans forward very slightly into the light so that the scarves that are wound about his head slip a little. ‘There’s no bath.’

  ‘No bath, in the whole of this house?’

  He fixes me with a stern blue eye but the corners of his mouth betray amusement. ‘There’s no bath.’

  I don’t believe a word of it. ‘So what’s beyond then?’

  Mr Flood frowns slightly, as if I have asked him a complicated question. He thinks for a while. ‘The past, Maud, and we don’t go there.’

  ‘Not even for a wash?’ I ask, but he has melted back into the shadows.

  There is no sign of Mr Flood in the kitchen. I have checked the pantry and under the table, although a tall old fella would have to go some to curl up under there. Even so, I have a strong feeling I am being watched as I set about making his dinner: sausages and mashed potato with onion gravy. But perhaps the cats are my only observers. They lie stretched out on the doormat or sit on chairs around the kitchen table, as if waiting to be served. We have reached an agreement: the hob and the work surfaces are out of bounds and anywhere else is fair game.

  As I stand at the sink by the window peeling potatoes I see a flash of colour outside. There’s a fox on the path, its coat lit to copper in the afternoon sun. It is prick-eared, sharp snouted and looking straight at me.

  I walk to the door. It glances into the bushes, then back at me, meaningfully.

  I’m halfway down the stairs with a potato in my hand before the fox moves. Even then it just sidles, weaving its bright flank through an abandoned bed frame, glancing over its shoulder, dog-like, as if willing me to follow. Like Lassie but with more stealth and less barking.

  I follow, past rusting bikes and decaying sheds, through bushes and forests of saplings, into a small clearing. In the clearing is a caravan. The fox bounces up onto the roof and disappears.

  The caravan is old, circa 1950s, the bottom half baby blue and the top half dirty cream, with a lick of chrome in the middle. It was once a thing of utilitarian beauty; now it is painted with mildew and moss. There is an oval window at the side and a rectangular window at the nose. Both have been boarded up from the inside, although the glazing is still intact. There are two new padlocks on the door.

  I hear a scratching sound and listen, a faint scrabbling coming from inside; maybe the fox has got in and made its lair there. I look down at the half-peeled potato in my hand and throw it into the weeds, under the van. The noise stops but no fox comes out.

  As I walk back to the house I see it straight away, stuck to the kitchen window. I go inside, cross the room, climb up on a chair and balancing on the edge of the sink I make a grab for it. It flutters unstuck; I catch it before it lands amongst the dishes.

  A photograph: a field in sunlight, a woman holding a little boy by the hand.

  The woman’s face is gone. A hole, a burn, circled by a raised welt.

  Otherwise she is untouched, from her white patent shoes and long pale legs to her yellow dress. The cloud of red hair that surrounds the space where her face should be is unnaturally bright, backlit.

  Beside her a boy looks up at the camera with a familiar scowl.

  Gabriel is a little older here. His face and the knees below his shorts are translucently pale. His hair is the same unlikely red as the woman’s. Behind them is the caravan. The same windows, the same shape, the same colours, but glowing with the warm cast of a long-forgotten Kodak summer. The sun belts down on field and trees, on the roof of the caravan, and the bright ellipse of water in a paddling pool. I turn the photo over. There is no tape or glue. I glance up at the kitchen window.

  Static. Magic.

  On the back, written in small neat letters, are the words:

  Mary and Gabriel, Langton Cheney, 1980.

  At the end of the garden path, by the garden gate, the leylandii is smoking.

  This is not the work of a saint. A saint will not cross into Bridlemere, if Dymphna is anything to go by. Moreover, saints, to my knowledge, do not smoke (although Padre Pio was partial to snuff and likely still partakes in the afterlife, peppering his soutane with invisible flecks).

  Then I notice boots, not sandals. This confirms my previous observations: I have never seen closed-toe footwear on a saint.

  The boots shuffle and smoke drifts into the air.

  ‘You there,’ I say. ‘I can see you.’

  The trees shake and a stranger steps out onto the path.

  I rapidly consider my arsenal of personal weaponry: a dangerously sharp crossword pencil, a swift right knee and a Wing Chun taster session.

  The stranger holds up his hands in a gesture of supplication and possibly pacification.

  ‘Maud, are you Maud?’ he asks.

  I nod.

  He smiles at me.

  Consider the smile of this perfect stranger: at the epicentre is an eyetooth. A singular snaggle-arsed tooth set in an otherwise straight white row of teeth.

  This one rebellious, rank-breaking tooth, which, combined with a jaunty scar above the right eyebrow, imparts a powerful variety of roguish charm. I smile back, immediately and without reserve.

  Then I wonder how this mugger knows my name and if he’ll still mug me knowing it an
d if I’ll let him. I think about asking him as I gaze into the lustrous depths of his grey eyes.

  Or should I know him after all?

  Then it strikes me. I know exactly who he is.

  ‘You’re Sam Hebden,’ I say.

  His smile widens.

  My kneecaps melt.

  He lets me do the talking all the way to the bus stop. He won’t admit to a topknot, although his dark blond hair is past his ears; his tattoo isn’t of a cobra (and it’s not on his neck) and he doesn’t ride a motorbike. Otherwise we had him pegged, he admits.

  All of this with a twist of a half-smile and laughing glances.

  Sam Hebden is in his early forties and, fair play to him, he has a shirt tight enough to display a wholesome set of shoulders. In every movement of his body there is that animal alertness that comes from running fast and lifting things. Of time spent, sweat-bathed and naked to the waist, delivering uppercuts to punchbags in dirty cellars or bench-pressing small cars.

  Or playing rugby. Almost certainly playing rugby.

  Running down the pitch in a snug pair of shorts, the roped muscles in his thighs glistening, the ball nuzzled in the crook of his iron bicep, his eyes blazing icily as he scores a try.

  He’s nearly a foot taller than me. If we slow-danced right now he could rest his chin on top of my head comfortably. He would have to stoop in order to put his hands on my backside, if he felt so inclined. I would need to be wearing heels with this man, not the second-hand gardening trainers of an agoraphobic transvestite.

  ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, hiding in the hedge there.’ He throws a sly look at me with the corners of his lips curled.

  ‘Were you waiting to see me or casing the joint?’ I ask.

  ‘Both.’ He laughs.

  ‘You’re off the case with Mr Flood?’ I lower my voice. ‘After what happened with the hurley and all that.’

  ‘Yep, and all that.’

  ‘So what brings you back?’

  Sam shrugs and looks away. I fill in the gaps.

  He has returned to exact revenge on the old man. For blotting his immaculate work record and for sending him mad.

  Although Sam Hebden doesn’t appear mad, but then if he has escaped from an asylum he’d need to be disguising the old lunacy. I eye him carefully, thoroughly. He still has his shoes and a belt on his trousers, which, in my experience, is a good sign.

  He points down the road. ‘Is that your bus?’

  ‘I can miss the bus.’

  ‘I’ve somewhere to be,’ he says kindly, apologetically.

  ‘Of course you have, that’s grand.’ I nod.

  Sam glances at me. ‘Look, can I meet you again? Not here, somewhere we can talk?’

  Where to meet? A cafe? A pub? As a care worker Sam Hebden will have full disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau. He will have references and a traceable history. He will have passed through multiple checks and safeguards. He will have been cleared to work with the vulnerable and the needy, unsupervised, in their own homes. I am neither vulnerable nor needy.

  I write down my address on his cigarette packet with my fatal crossword pencil.

  As the bus pulls away I watch him turn and walk down the road with the easy stride of an honest cowboy. He could be at a rodeo, the sun beating down on his leather chaps, his shirt open at the neck, his hair golden in the late-afternoon light.

  He licks his lips, narrows his eyes and mounts his horse in one easy, effortless move. He swings his horse round, his hands on the reins, masterful, yet relaxed, and surveys the horizon with his grey-eyed gaze—

  ‘Watch yourself,’ says Renata. She’s sitting in a kimono at her kitchen table supervising the unwrapping of the chips. ‘He’s on to you; he knows that you suspect him of killing his wife and that you’re on the hunt for evidence.’

  St Rita of Cascia (marital strife, spousal abuse, lost and impossible causes) is standing sentinel in the corner by the fridge freezer. She is of grave appearance: dressed in monochrome robes. Far fainter than St Dymphna, less fully realised, with the slippery transparency of onion skin. St Rita never talks, although she often exudes sympathy.

  ‘I don’t suspect Mr Flood of anything of the kind,’ I say. ‘And I’ll hunt for nothing in that house.’

  St Rita shuffles slightly. Her face is a little pained inside her veil. She has the medieval style about her: all heavy eyelids and negligible eyebrows. Her stigmata, an ulcerated thorn wound on her forehead the size of a two pence piece, turns from dull mulberry to raw crimson. She glances around her and draws her cape over her shoulders.

  We eat in the kitchen most evenings. Its distinguishing feature is its liberal use of wood cladding. Anything that isn’t clad in wood is tiled with a representation of a Victorian street scene. Like the rest of Renata’s flat, the kitchen is unreasonably clean. Renata doesn’t believe in labour-saving devices because she never cooks, barring the fondue she serves at her monthly Transgender Friends evenings, otherwise it’s a mixture of takeaways and what Lillian leaves foiled in the fridge.

  ‘Don’t deny it, Maud.’ Renata accepts a jumbo saveloy and half the chips, inspecting them carefully in her phobic little way. ‘I’ve told you, there’s a case unfolding up at Bridlemere.’

  The two photographs and the milk bottle lie on the kitchen table in plastic freezer bags; they are labelled with the date of their discovery, like police exhibits.

  ‘Mrs Flood wasn’t murdered, Renata. She fell.’

  ‘So you say. But what about this?’ Renata gestures at the freezer bags. ‘Nasty, no?’

  I glance down at Mary Flood: her yellow dress, her pale legs, her cloud of russet hair and her burnt-out face. Then I look at the little girl: her navy coat, her red patterned tights, her cloud of russet hair and her burnt-out face.

  ‘The boy, though, he is perfectly unscathed,’ observes Renata.

  I look at Gabriel, scowling at the camera in both instances.

  We sit in silence for a while. St Rita is motionless but for her lips, which betray a speechless prayer. Now and again her halo, an understated burst of rays, glows with a pleasant light.

  Renata regards me slyly. ‘Mr Flood told the police that his wife had climbed up on a chair on the first-floor landing to dust a light fitting.’

  St Rita’s halo flares and gutters. She stops mid-prayer and blesses herself.

  ‘According to Mr Flood,’ says Renata, ‘Mary lost her balance and went straight down the stairs. She died in hospital as a result of her injuries.’

  I frown. ‘And you know this, how?’

  ‘Lillian looked it up. Mary Flood’s tragic death was in the local paper.’

  ‘You told Lillian? Now why would you tell Lillian?’

  ‘Why not? She’s very discreet and she likes solving murder mysteries.’

  ‘Renata, what are you even talking about?’

  Renata pauses. ‘He pushed her, Maud.’

  ‘Ah no—’

  ‘He did. He killed her and made it look like an accident.’

  ‘I’m losing the will—’

  ‘You ought to keep an open mind.’ Renata sifts through her chips. ‘Murder is possible even in nice parts of West London, you know.’

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘Mr Flood is a malignant old fecker but that doesn’t make him a murderer.’

  ‘But still, there’s something not right up at that house. The old man builds a labyrinth of junk and then defends it.’ Renata blows on a chip, then eats it with an air of distaste. ‘Beating up care workers, threatening council staff. Now I would say that those are the actions of a man with something to hide.’

  ‘He’s a hoarder; they were coming for his rubbish!’

  ‘Well, I fail to—’

  ‘They had a skip, Renata.’

  Renata finishes her chips and starts to scrutinise her saveloy. ‘You don’t see?’ she asks finally.

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Flood has been sizing you up. He suspects you are psychic and that his murdered wife
may well try to communicate with you.’

  ‘Get a grip.’

  ‘Why else did he tell you about his sister’s second sight?’

  ‘Honestly? I’ve no idea. He was making polite conversation?’

  Renata stabs at her saveloy with a fork. ‘A man like Cathal Flood doesn’t make polite conversation—’

  ‘You don’t even know Cathal Flood.’

  ‘Darling, you must watch your back in case the old man is considering finishing you off too. He won’t want to run the risk of you gathering supernatural evidence against him.’

  I nearly choke. ‘You’re as mad as a spoon.’

  ‘Haven’t I always said that you are gifted? It’s obvious from your aura.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my aura?’ I ask.

  ‘Things happen to you, Maud. Messages in milk bottles.’

  ‘Mr Flood probably set the whole thing up.’

  Renata thinks for a while. Then: ‘This has nothing to do with Mr Flood. This is the work of Mrs Flood. These are clues from the afterlife.’

  I laugh, but not comfortably.

  ‘Mary Flood wants us to solve her murder.’ Renata’s face is grave. ‘She is a woman silenced, a woman faceless. To say nothing of this little girl; who is she even?’

  St Rita adjusts her veil. My eyes are drawn to the movement. She drops her hands before her and suddenly they are very clear to me, her hands, very sharply in focus. Gentle, capable hands with strong fingers and neat, square nails – hands so real I could reach out and touch them.

  I look up at her in surprise and she looks back at me, her prominent hazel eyes bright with a suffering kind of lustre. She smiles sadly and is gone.

  ‘You’re cracked,’ I murmur.

  Renata bites her lip. ‘We are dealing with a poltergeist of course.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have you been bitten, Maud?’

  ‘By fleas I have.’

  ‘Poltergeists are attention seekers; this type of spirit is accompanied by moving or levitating objects.’ She muses. ‘You have difficulty finding things in the house, when you put them down?’

  ‘There’s a lot of shit in there.’

  Renata nods sagely. ‘A tip-top poltergeist can turn a room upside down in minutes. Are there cold corners?’