by Peter James
There was another massive bang above them, like a door slamming in wind.
Emily looked at her husband in alarm.
‘The wind?’ he suggested.
‘There is no wind,’ she said in an edgy voice.
He walked to the stairs then hurried up them again.
‘Darling,’ she called out. ‘Be careful!’
He reached the landing at the top of the staircase, checking out their bedroom then each of the three spare rooms again, in turn. All the doors were still open. He climbed the spiral staircase to the loft.
The door there was open, too.
Had it been fireworks somewhere nearby? Had they imagined it?
But they had both heard it. Very distinctly. The sound of a door slamming.
He went back down into the living room. Emily was looking shaken.
What? she mouthed.
He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t see anything. Maybe we imagined it.’
‘We did not imagine it. We both heard it. A door slammed.’
‘OK, so – this is a new-build house. They’ve used a lot of oak. A lot of woods expand and contract as the temperature and humidity change. Maybe they didn’t age the oak enough and that noise was made by some of it expanding.’
‘And if it wasn’t that?’
‘Could be our ghost!’ he said, jokily.
‘That’s not funny,’ she said. ‘We heard a door slam.’
‘Hey, darling, come on, lighten up.’ He kissed her.
‘There’s something weird going on,’ she said, flatly. ‘It’s starting to freak me out. I don’t know what it is but I’m feeling it.’
‘I’m feeling the love of the Penze-Weedells,’ he retorted.
‘Be serious, Jace. It was the sound of a door slamming. Doors don’t slam by themselves, unless there’s a wind blowing.’ She opened a window. ‘Stick your head out – there is no wind.’
‘Maybe it was fireworks?’
‘Our neighbours said there’s no one else living here.’
‘They’re wrong. There are people across the road. Probably other people here too that they’ve not met yet.’ He grimaced. ‘I mean, who in their right mind would want to meet them?’
‘Yep, maybe all the other neighbours here are hiding from them, and us mugginses got caught.’
‘That’s because we are PLOs!’
She punched him, playfully, looking brighter.
17
Saturday 15 December
‘What cheapskates, not giving us prosecco,’ Claudette Penze-Weedell said, back in their house and removing her hat and coat. ‘Honestly!’ She was slurring her words.
‘My love,’ Maurice replied, hanging his coat on the hook next to hers. ‘That was Pol Roger, a very classy champagne – it was Winston Churchill’s favourite, I read somewhere. Personally, I thought it was absolutely the badger.’
‘Hmmmph,’ she grunted, heading for the kitchen. ‘More like the mole’s urine if you ask me. I’m ravenous. How rude they didn’t give us anything proper to eat – they could have had some decent canapés at least. Nuts, crisps, sausage rolls and mince pies, all shop-bought – and she a professional caterer – you’d have thought they’d have made more of an effort, wouldn’t you?’
‘Give them a chance, they’ve only just moved in – I thought they were very kind inviting us at all, on their first full day in their home.’
‘That’s your problem,’ she said, opening up the freezer and searching through the contents. ‘You always let people walk over you. That’s why they’re all lah-di-dah, lording it over the estate in the grand house while we’re here in our little serf’s cottage – when we could have been there.’
‘I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, dear,’ he said, from the hall. ‘This is hardly a serf’s cottage – we paid seven hundred and fifty thousand for this house, I’d like to remind you.’
‘And now I’m going to have a proper drink,’ she said defiantly. She lifted up a frozen Tesco Finest fish pie. ‘Would you like that?’
‘With peas.’
‘You always want peas.’
‘I like peas.’
‘They are so common.’ She pulled out a second item. ‘We’ll have green beans.’
‘Very good, my dear.’
‘I can’t believe the size of their house. How much bigger than ours is it?’
‘Quite a lot bigger.’
Angrily, she removed the packaging, pierced the lid of the fish pie and placed it inside the microwave. ‘Command, microwave on, please. Full power, twelve minutes!’
The cooker whirred into life.
She removed a bottle of prosecco from the wine fridge, opened it and poured herself a large glass and carried it through, unsteadily, to join her husband. ‘I just do not understand. Why did they not make that house the show house? I thought a show house would surely be the best property on the development?’
‘I thought we liked this house very much, my dear,’ he said as the television came to life.
‘I did,’ she said. ‘Until tonight.’ She swayed a little, then hiccupped. ‘But we don’t look out onto the lake.’
‘I do believe we looked at the property on the plans and it was quite a bit above our budget.’
‘Hmmmph.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Now, this is what I call nice. That Winston Churchill always had a cigar in his mouth. Probably numbed his taste buds – that was why he liked that muck they served us tonight.’
‘I thought it was very nice – and extremely generous of them,’ Maurice said.
‘There’s another thing. Didn’t they clearly say there was no one else in the house, Maurice?’
‘Yes, I think they did.’
‘Well, I saw someone – a woman walked across the hall.’
Maurice didn’t mention the woman’s face he had previously seen at the window.
18
Saturday 15 December
Jason Danes stood in the kitchen, staring down at the command device. He was aware he had drunk far more than normal – was that it? Was he off his face? He had switched the thing off, but it was very definitely back on. This time he pulled the power cable out, placed it on the table and weighted it down with a cook book.
As he walked back out, he bumped into the island unit, then almost knocked over a chair.
Shit. I’m pissed.
He collided with the door frame as he re-entered the living room. Emily was carefully wiping their precious wedding album.
‘God, what dreadful people, putting their sticky paws all over this. Did you notice they totally ignored the napkins you gave them?’
‘It made me angry – but I couldn’t say anything. Did I drink a lot tonight?’
She stared at him. ‘Like, yes! You were knocking it back. We all were.’
‘I feel a bit smashed.’
‘You look it; you’re stumbling.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Nine o’clock. We’ve done over three bottles of champagne and all I’ve eaten is a couple of peanuts.’
‘We’ve got one of those pies we bought at the garden centre. Fancy that with some baked beans?’
‘I fancy you.’
‘Ha ha,’ she replied, but a little flatly. ‘So, what’s going on with our wonderfully teched-up home?’
He shrugged. ‘Do you want a top-up?’
‘No!’
‘Probably a good idea. I don’t know – I thought I’d switched that command thing off. I know I did. How did it switch itself back on?’
She was looking at him strangely.
‘What?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.’
‘In what way?’
She stared down at the table, looking pensive. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What, darling? In what way?’ He went over to her, stood behind her and nuzzled her neck. ‘Tell me? What doesn’t feel right?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m probably just being hypersensitive. They say
moving is very stressful – that’s probably all it is.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ He removed his arms and picked up a glass that still had some champagne in it and drained it.
‘Let me ask you something – do you think ghosts exist?’ she asked.
‘Ghosts?’
‘You said something about them, earlier.’
‘I was joking.’
‘But do you? Do you think they exist?’
‘Why are you asking?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just . . .’ She fell silent.
‘Just what?’ he prodded.
‘You’re an artist, you’re a very sensitive person, and you are open-minded.’
‘You think we have a ghost here? One that switches back on that box and slams doors?’
‘My pissed husband might have thought he’d switched it off and hadn’t. But he was downstairs, here with me, when that door slammed.’
‘Darling, ghosts inhabit ancient houses. This is a new-build, brand-new. No one’s lived here before.’
‘It’s on an historic site. We don’t know what went on before, in the old mansion that was here.’
‘Hey, we heard a sound like a door slamming upstairs – but all the doors are open. As I said, it’s probably the wood moving, that’s all.’
‘It’s not all.’
He looked hard at her. ‘What do you mean?’
She shook her head.
‘Tell me – what do you mean, it’s not all?
She shook her head again. ‘Nothing.’
He continued looking at her. Her face was pale, or was he imagining it? ‘What do you mean, nothing?’
‘Forget I said it.’
‘Something’s bothering you. Come on, share it with me.’
‘I’ll go and sort the food out,’ she said. ‘What time did we book the pub for tomorrow in the end?’
‘One thirty, and they said they need it back at three, because they’re so busy in the run-up to Christmas.’
‘That’s fine, great.’
She headed through to the kitchen. He followed her, relieved to see the home command box was still unplugged, as he had left it. ‘Come on, we always promised each other no secrets. What is it?’
‘Honestly, nothing. Forget I ever said it.’ She smiled. ‘OK?’
‘OK,’ he said hesitantly.
They kissed.
‘I was planning to work tonight but I don’t think I can,’ he said.
‘I was going to get on with unpacking and I don’t think I can, either.’
‘Let’s have supper in front of the telly. There’s a couple of Netflix things I really want to see.’
‘Good plan,’ she said. ‘If I can stay awake.’
‘Everything’s going to be fine. I love this house. I can work here, I know I can.’
She smiled. ‘I love it too. It is – it’s going to be great for us both.’
‘What was it Penis-Weewee said tonight? Happy wife, happy life?’
Emily laughed. ‘Don’t you ever dare say that to me!’
He raised his arms. ‘Would I ever need to?’
Playfully, she raised her right hand, curled her fingers and gave him the bird.
19
Sunday 16 December
Sleep was one of the few things on which Jason and Emily disagreed strongly. She needed a full eight hours and preferably nine; he resented sleeping more than six. Resented, as he called it, sleeping his life away.
Shortly after 7 a.m., having woken once during the night with a headache and taken two paracetamols, he slipped out of bed feeling very hungover. He dressed in his warm winter cycling gear, which he’d unpacked late last night, went down to the kitchen and plugged the command box back in. Then he went through the integral door to the garage, checked the tyres on his road bike, secured his helmet, gave the command for the door to open and wheeled the bike out on to the silent street, commanding the door to shut behind him.
He was delighted to see the Sunday papers, wrapped in plastic, lying on the doorstep. The village store certainly was efficient, he thought. He would bring them inside when he returned; Emily was unlikely to get up before then.
Five days shy of the shortest day, there was very little light. It was a mild morning with a faint drizzle. Although there were no vehicles around, as a precaution he switched on his bike lamps and his head torch, before mounting and heading off, clicking into the pedals.
Shooting a glance at the house opposite, where there were no signs of life, he passed the infernal Santa’s grotto, which had been left on all night, and pedalled along the silent street, passing empty houses with their sale boards on both sides until, after a short distance, the road ended in metal fencing and trespasser warning signs. He turned around, cycled back past the Penze-Weedells, the Noddy house next door where he had seen the couple with their children, which looked dark and empty, then around the curves of the long close, passing the as-yet-unfinished and fenced-off shells of houses.
It was rapidly getting lighter. As he reached the end of the estate, he turned right onto the lane, and rode hard up the steep hill, changing down to the lowest gear, standing up for the leverage to keep going, breathing in the heady scents of the wintry country air. After some minutes of hard slog, determined not to give up and walk, he finally crested the hill, and an awesome view of Sussex countryside greeted him, as some kind of reward for his effort. Fields of farmland. Random houses and farm buildings. He could just make out the county town of Lewes in the far distance, in the breaking light. He freewheeled joyfully and at breakneck speed down the far side, passing a field full of alpacas, and nearly lost it on a sharp right-hander.
The exercise and the rush of cold air exhilarated him, and his hangover was going. He felt happier than he could ever remember. A townie all his life until now, he had always hankered to live in the country. Their new home, Lake House, seemed like a fulfilment of his dream. He could paint there for sure. Right now, his mind was like the lake he could see from his studio window – teeming with inspiration. At first the idea of living on an estate had bothered him, but now he realized, and especially after meeting the Penze-Weedells, that on his doorstep would be an endless supply of characters to surreptitiously photograph and use in his work.
He wound on along a country lane, and through a small, sleepy hamlet, then after another quarter of an hour, he checked his Garmin. Seven miles. Coming up to 8 a.m. Time to head back.
Time to get to work and start painting. A million ideas were jostling for priority inside his head.
Never before, in all his life, had he felt so creative. He would deliver to Susan Burton at the Northcote Gallery, for his one-man exhibition on 8 February, twenty-two paintings that would knock her socks off.
He pedalled like fury, a man on a mission, towards home.
20
Sunday 16 December
There had been a time when Jason would spend an hour and sometimes longer in the shower, washing his hair, soaping himself and scrubbing every inch of his skin, before rinsing off and repeating the procedure over and over. Once, at the height of his OCD, he had spent an entire morning – four hours – in the shower. That was the trigger moment when Emily had insisted on him seeking help.
Their GP had referred him to a clinical psychologist, Dr Dixon, who worked with him on his obsessive rituals, and had connected his behaviour to his very deep fear, as he neared forty, of never succeeding as an artist. The real signs of change in his behaviour had come after his successful one-man show at the Northcote Gallery. Now he was down to an average of only ten minutes in the shower, and on some days even less than that.
While Emily slept on, he set a personal best of just two minutes, dressed and hastily ate a breakfast of porridge, and downed a double espresso while glancing through some of the Sunday papers. When he had finished, he hurried into the hall, pausing to scoop up the Cold Hill Village Parish Magazine, which had landed on the doormat, and put it on the hall table before c
limbing the two flights to his studio, as he now called the loft.
Entering the room, he closed the door behind him. On his left, stacked against the couch, were the paintings and pencil and charcoal drawings he had unpacked from his discarded collection. Much to Emily’s dismay, he had a habit of removing from view any pictures he had not sold after six months on display in either the local gallery, the Bluefern, which took his pictures, or the Northcote in London.
As was his ritual before starting to work, he first opened his laptop and scanned down his emails – always looking with an especially keen eye for enquiries about commissions, either from existing clients or from potential new ones. He would follow that by reading through new messages on Facebook and Twitter and checking the number of followers, before lastly checking Instagram on his phone. His most recent post, a painting he was very pleased with, depicting a local landscape looking fiery in a red sunset, had 210 likes when he had last checked – his record so far – and he hoped there had been more likes for it overnight.
But instead of the laptop screen coming to life in its usual way, with a request for his password, it remained dark all over except for a single row of numbers, in white, which appeared in the centre.
Before he could even read them they disappeared and were replaced an instant later by the familiar password request.
He frowned, wondering what on earth the numbers meant. On Friday, both he and Emily had experienced problems connecting their computers to the new router in the house, and their Mac guru, Matt, had talked them through it over the phone. Since then, there had been further glitches with the high-speed fibre on the estate, and it had taken several more calls with their techie before everything was working. ‘It’s a Mac thing, they don’t always like new routers until they get used to them,’ the techie had said, as if he was talking about a family pet.
He entered his password and his blue desktop screen, littered with his familiar icons, appeared.
Five minutes later, having checked everything, he walked over to the window and peered out at the Sunday-silent building site, which started just a hundred yards or so away. Phase two, the agent had called it. It was an ocean of mud, trenches, holes, metal fences, wheelbarrows, bendy poles and warning signs. On one side were two Portakabins, and there were several diggers and bulldozers seemingly parked randomly, some yellow, some orange. He saw a pile of rubble, another of bricks under blue sheeting, and a vast stack of steel beams.