MOUSE (a psychological thriller and murder-mystery)

by D. M. Mitchell

  Casper shook his head. ‘This is hard for me, Laura, because I have something to tell you. Something I have meaning to let you know for a long time now.’

  ‘I understand. You don’t want to marry me…’ she said.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Not at all! It’s not that. Of course I still want to marry you. Look, there is no easy way to say this so I will have to say it straight. I have been having trouble with a lump.’ He prodded his chest. ‘They say it’s lung cancer. Please, Laura, don’t look like that. Really, it’s nothing. They can work wonders these days and they were quite hopeful for me. I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow morning to pick up the results of a few tests they’ve been carrying out. I’ll be up and leaving early tomorrow so I could be gone before you’re up.’

  Laura’s face had drained of colour. ‘Casper, why didn’t you tell me? That’s awful!’ She suddenly felt very faint, as if her legs had turned to weak rubber and were unable to take her weight.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything to trouble you, dear,’ he said, holding her close to him. ‘Not when you look so happy. Don’t worry about good old Casper Younge; I’m built like an ox. I just need to get tomorrow over and done with, that’s all. It’s been preying on my mind somewhat.’

  She wanted to collapse and burst into tears, but he made light of the entire thing. It bothered her the remainder of the evening, even though it wasn’t mentioned again. They paused on the landing a few hours later and he kissed her lightly before tramping along the landing to his own room.

  ‘Please wake me tomorrow if I am not up to see you go. I want to see you go,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you go worrying your pretty little head over me. I promise I’ll come straight back after my appointment and let you know the lie of the land.’

  He blew her a kiss and closed the door on her troubled face. The room was cool and cheerless, just like everything else about Devereux Towers, he thought. He went over to the long, arched window and looked out. Through the darkness he could see the twinkling of Langbridge’s street lights in the far distance, but little else. A light wind whirled around the tower like a forlorn spirit.

  Casper got ready for bed and lay there for a few hours, listening to the eerie noises old houses make at night. Disconcerting clicking, scrapings and scuttling sounds. Eventually he looked at his watch. It was way past midnight. He slipped out of bed, crept to the door and opened it quietly, listening intently. All was still. He padded softly across the landing, paused once to look at Laura’s room, and then went down the flight of stairs to the blue-painted door. He tried the door handle again and it was still locked, as he’d expected. What on earth was in there, he thought? He bent down to the keyhole to see if he could see anything at all.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Laura said crisply from behind him.

  He started at the sound of her voice, looking round to see her black, shadowy form looming over him, the details of her face lost in the dark. ‘Sorry, Laura,’ he stammered, ‘I was looking for the dratted bathroom. I felt sure you said it was down this way.’

  ‘That’s not the bathroom door,’ she said coldly. ‘The bathroom is that way.’

  He passed her sheepishly. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘The old memory is playing up.’ He was conscious she was watching him all the way up the stairs to the bathroom door. ‘I thought you must be asleep,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘I hardly sleep,’ she said, her voice as monochrome as the gloom. ‘I don’t much like the night time.’

  * * * *

  12

  The Well

  The weekly visit to Caldwell’s office to collect his wages had become something of a nightmare for Vince. It had been fine until Monica had pushed old Mrs Kimble out of the nest. He paused outside his manager’s office door, sucked in a deep, calming breath, and knocked. There was no reply, even though he knew someone was inside. He knocked again, louder.

  ‘Come,’ ordered Monica’s distinctive voice.

  He entered. She was sat as bold as brass behind Caldwell’s desk. She glanced tiredly at him and pointed at a space in front of the desk which she expected him to occupy. He hesitated. ‘Well, do you want your money or not?’ she said smartly.

  Vince went up to the desk. She didn’t raise her head, rummaged around in a drawer and removed a small, square wage packet, which she tossed unceremoniously onto the desk. She slid a piece of paper over to him, slapping a pen on top of it. ‘Sign,’ she said.

  He signed for his wages. ‘Does Mr Caldwell know you’re sat at his desk?’ he said, clutching the brown paper packet. He didn’t dare look up at her as he said it.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ she snapped. She watched him as he put the wages into his pocket.

  Vince noticed Caldwell’s Oscar statuette standing lopsided on the desk. It had a massive dent in the base. He knew how it had happened, of course, but couldn’t resist saying something.

  ‘What’s happened to the Oscar? That was a present from Mr Caldwell’s wife. She won’t be pleased about it being damaged.’

  Monica peered contemplatively at it from under her heavy lids. ‘His wife, yes…’ she said. She put out a casual hand, lifted the statue by its head, swung it over the side of the desk and dropped it with a clatter into the waste bin.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ said Vince. ‘That belongs to Mr Caldwell.’

  ‘You don’t know who you are dealing with, do you, squirt? Let me tell you this for nothing, your days at the Empire are numbered,’ she said, a cruel twist to her brightly coloured lips.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like I just said. You’re not indispensable, you know.’ She rested her chin on a bridge made by her hands. ‘I’ve suggested to Martin – Mr Caldwell – that we need someone better suited to the job of projectionist if this place is ever going to improve. People like you are dragging it down.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ he said, horrified. ‘What does Mr Caldwell say? He’s never told me I’ve been bad at my job.’

  ‘So what if he hasn’t? I can do as I please, Vince,’ she said. She crooked her little finger. ‘I have him just where I want him. You see, that’s the trouble with men; they’re controlled more by what’s in their underpants than what’s in their heads. He’ll do whatever it is I want him to do.’ She waved her hand, looking away again. ‘Shoo, fly, don’t bother me.’

  Vince stifled his annoyance, felt a fire raging in his insides that he could not quench. ‘That’s not fair,’ was all he could manage to utter as he turned about to face the office door.

  ‘Life’s not fair,’ she said. ‘By the way, Mr Caldwell is looking for you. You’d better go find him fast if you don’t want to upset him.’

  ‘What does he want me for?’

  She grinned. ‘You’ll have to go and see won’t you? He’s down in the basement somewhere.’

  He found Martin Caldwell down in the boiler room. He was rummaging through a bunch of keys, standing before a door in a corner of the room.

  ‘You wanted to see me, Mr Caldwell?’ Vince asked uncertainly.

  Caldwell spun round, looking faintly agitated. ‘Yes I do, thanks, Vince.’

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘What? Course not. Here,’ he said, handing him the keys, ‘which is the right one for this blasted door?’

  ‘That leads to an empty cupboard, Mr Caldwell; are you sure you need to go in there?’

  ‘A cupboard? I thought it led down to the old part of the Empire.’

  ‘The basement?’

  ‘That’s right. I have to look over a few things to do with the refurbishment, and all that,’ he said vaguely. ‘There’s an old well in there, right?’

  Vince nodded. ‘Yes there is. It’s basically a hole in the ground that’s been covered over with an iron grating. It’s medieval, they say. The Empire was built on the foundations of a much older building. Some say it was the site of a medieval tannery. The door you’re looking for is this
way.’

  Vince led him out of the boiler room, down another flight of stairs to another door. Beside it an old fire-axe hung on rusted hooks, above a positively ancient-looking fire extinguisher. He found the correct key. They felt the intense cold from the darkened room creep up the steep stone steps to greet them.

  Caldwell paused at the top of the steps, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. ‘Is there a light?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Mr Caldwell. Electricity doesn’t come this far down.’

  ‘So nobody ever comes down here?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s no need. I’ve been in recently to store some old films I found in the loft, but before that the last time was when someone came in about seven years ago to bolt a metal grating over the well because it was deemed dangerous.’

  Caldwell took out a box of matches and stuck one. ‘Let me see,’ he said, treading carefully as he descended the uneven stone steps.

  The walls were constructed of large pieces of stone, mossy-green in places with the damp. ‘Are those the films?’ asked Caldwell nodding towards a pile of rusting old cans in the corner.

  ‘’Yes, Mr Caldwell.’ Vince went over to them. There were about twenty in number. ‘I found them stashed away in the loft, like I said. When I looked there were a load of shorts by Laurel and Hardy, the Keystone Cops, Buster Keaton, and a few Charlie Chaplin films dated around 1915 – In the Park and Work, that kind of thing.’

  He struck another match. ‘I don’t care what they’re about, what are they doing here?’

  ‘They’re film history, Mr Caldwell, classics. There won’t be many copies left of some of them. And they’re on nitrate film.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it’s not as stable as modern film. It’s flammable, can self-combust if it gets hot. That’s why I put them down here, to keep them cool.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing keeping piles of worthless old junk that nobody wants and might even catch fire? Get rid of it.’

  ‘But Mr Caldwell, you can’t throw things like this away.’

  ‘Do as I say, Vince,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Don’t argue. So, this is the well, huh?’

  At the far end of the square room was a rusting iron grid about three-feet-square and flat to the floor. It had been bolted down with four bolts, one at each corner. Caldwell went over to it, tossed away his spent match and lit another. He bent to his haunches, holding the flickering flame over the grating. He peered down into the black hole it covered.

  ‘How deep does this go, Vince?’

  ‘Dunno, but it goes down a long way, I guess.’ Vince picked up a small stone and dropped it down through the iron grating. They listened in silence for what seemed quite a while before hearing a faint splash echoing up the circular well. The match fizzed out, plunging them into almost total darkness except for the light spilling in from the open door at the top of the stairs.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Vince asked.

  Caldwell rose to his feet and made for the stairs. ‘Hazardous thing to have,’ he said. ‘Before any work could begin down here they’d have to check the water table and fill the well in.’

  He seemed satisfied with his discovery. At the top of the stairs, as Vince re-locked the door, Caldwell asked for the key to be taken off the ring. He pocketed it.

  ‘Is that all, Mr Caldwell?’ Vince said. ‘You’ve nothing else you have to tell me?’

  ‘No, that’s fine, thank you, Vince.’ He frowned at the young man. ‘Everything OK?’

  Vince said everything was just fine, but he felt disconcerted with what Monica had told him. There were precious few jobs in Langbridge, and even fewer that he wanted to do. He loved being a projectionist. He’d be lost without the Empire. It must have shown on his face because he was stopped by young Edith. She was carrying a mop and bucket and he hadn’t expected her to be there at that time in a morning.

  ‘I’ve just got a morning job as one of the cleaners,’ she said, rather too brightly as far as Vince was concerned. He didn’t know how she could get excited by the job of cleaner, but Edith seemed blessed with being able to see the best in everything. ‘I’m on my way to mop out the lavatories,’ she added.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Vince without an ounce of passion.

  Edith nudged him with the top of her mop pole. ‘What’s the matter with you, you glumbum you? Things aren’t that bad, are they?’

  ‘Monica is after getting me the sack, if you must know,’ he said with a desultory sigh. ‘And why are you always so bloody happy?’ he said.

  She recoiled slightly, as if the comment had physically struck her. ‘Well there’s no sense in being miserable, is there? Don’t worry about Monica. Things are never as bad as they seem.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ he said, exasperated. ‘You’re weird.’

  ‘You’re not still mad at me, are you? Is that why you’re being so horrible to me? I said I was sorry, and you can’t blame me for Monica’s nastiness.’

  ‘I’m not mad at you,’ he said.

  ‘I see. Then you’re still pining after that Laura Leach woman, that’s what it is.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Oh yes you are. It’s written all over that sour little face of yours.’

  ‘So what’s it got to do with you if I am or if I’m not?’ He brushed past her, determined to put an end to the conversation; he didn’t like where it was headed.

  Edith, on the other hand, was determined to keep it burning a little while longer and followed hot on his heels. ‘It’s probably best you forget her anyway, knowing what I know about her.’

  He stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not only is she at least five years older than you, which is just ancient, she’s quite mad,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say about someone, Edith,’ he said, failing to hide his displeasure.

  ‘But it’s true. She’s a bit crazy, they say.’

  ‘They say? Who says?’

  Edith came up close to him, keeping her voice low. ‘My aunt knows all about her, because she saw her in Bartholomew Place.’

  ‘Bartholomew Place? Never heard of it. What is that?’

  ‘It’s an asylum, you know, for people with problems up here,’ she tapped her temple with an index finger. ‘She was in there years and years apparently.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘God’s honest truth, Vince. I heard she’d been in there since she was a young girl and she’s not been out long. Those kinds of places give me the creeps. I mean, they can do something to your head even if you had nothing wrong with it in the first place, they’re that bad. Now you don’t really want to go pining for someone like that, do you? Perhaps it’s a good thing she found someone else. You had a lucky escape.’

  ‘You are a horrible, horrible young woman, Edith,’ he said, walking away.

  ‘I was only trying to help, Vince!’ she called, her lip beginning to tremble. ‘I’m not really horrible. Honest I’m not. You’re not annoyed with me, are you, Vince? I was only trying to help.’

  Vince Moody made a determined effort to stamp hard on the steps up to the projection booth just so anyone within earshot would know how fuming he was. He slammed the door shut and slumped down at the long table.

  Why must people be so continually awful, he thought? And why was life so unfair?

  * * * *

  13

  Bonnie and Clyde

  She looked good and she knew it. Someone once said she had the figure of Bridget Bardot and the face of Sophia Loren, compliments she lapped up like a cat at a bowl of cream. But she couldn’t argue with them, even if she’d wanted to, because the mirror didn’t lie. She was beautiful and if anyone knew how to spend the currency that is beauty then it was Katherine. Kat for short.

  She applied her eye-shadow her lipstick, pouted at her reflection, ran a combing finger through her dark, glossy hair. She hankered after slightly bigger breasts, if she
had to be honest, but that was perhaps being a bit too picky. She smiled at her reflection. As Mary Poppins said, practically perfect in every way…

  Katherine had always been aware of her looks, ever since she was a kid at school, and she found she had an early talent for playing the opposite sex like they were toys laid on for her amusement. Precocious, a teacher had once said. Forward, said another, older than her years. Better watch her with the boys, one had joked, perhaps a disguised warning to her parents.

  She soon learned she could hide behind her prettiness – how could such a sweet thing do something like pour a full pot of paint over a fellow pupil’s head? She hasn’t got a cruel bone in her body. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Saint Katherine.

  She smoothed down her dress, hands sliding into the hollows of her waist, out across the mound of her ample hips, down to her thighs.

  Practically perfect.

  But in spite of her aching beauty, the army of men willing to fall at her feet at her merest command, love had been hard to find. It worried her for a time that love was a game in which she got enjoyment only in breaking other people’s hearts, treating them as something disposable like plastic bags, which once they were emptied of their contents, could be trashed like so much rubbish. And she’d worked her way through a lot of plastic bags, wondering why, at the end of the day, she felt desperately lonely and unfulfilled.

  Lonely till she met him. Till she met Felix – the most beautiful man she had ever seen. For the first time she knew what it felt like to experience love, not to use and abuse it. They were soul mates, if such a thing exists; shared so many things it could only have been Fate that threw her into his path. Because, for one so beautiful, he too had that same cruel streak running through him. Not with her. Never with her. But when she saw how he used his looks, his unresistingly believable charm as emotional weapons to get what he wanted she knew she had found her Mr Right. Together they laughed at the pitiable vulnerability of others, at their weaknesses, at how gloriously easy it was to eat and spit them out. He jokingly called her the Bonnie to his Clyde. United in their robbing others of their love and the murdering of their delicate emotions.