The Secret of Cold Hill

by Peter James

  The Harcourts.

  On his phone, Jason flicked through to the photograph of the Harcourts’ headstone and family grave, which he’d also taken earlier. He read their names. Oliver, Caroline, Jade.

  Fears told him the final owners of the house were a fund manager and his wife, Sebastian and Nicola Molloy. With a fortune close to a billion, Molloy had the money to do a proper job of the restoration. But he’d had a better idea, Fears had said with a sarcastic laugh. Molloy wanted to tear the old building down and put up a big, modern mansion. The local planning authorities told him he wouldn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of getting plans through to do that.

  One night, soon after permission had been rejected, the house burned down. The fire investigation team believed, but could not prove, it was arson – almost certainly by the owner himself. But no one would ever know the truth, as the whole Molloy family had perished in the blaze. The gossip was that Molloy had planned it but must have miscalculated how fast the fire would spread.

  He looked back at the photograph of Roland Fortinbrass. The vicar. Confirmed dead.

  But the man had been in their house yesterday, talking breezily to himself, Emily and Louise, and trying to recruit them for the church choir.

  He shivered suddenly, involuntarily. Someone walking over your grave, his mother used to call it. Was that a time-slip?

  A shadow fell across the table, and he looked up to see Lester Beeson towering above him. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked, warmly.

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Albert’s a funny old bugger,’ he said. ‘This is a pretty friendly village, but you know, you always get the odd one or two in the countryside who don’t like change.’

  Jason smiled. ‘Or don’t like anything.’

  ‘Hope he didn’t spook you too much. But actually, you should feel privileged he talked to you at all. He never normally speaks to anyone who isn’t a local.’

  ‘Someone else said the same. So, how long do you have to live here to become a local?’

  ‘For old Fears to regard you as one? You have to be born here.’

  ‘Does dying here make you one?’

  Beeson laughed, heartily. ‘I’d prefer if you didn’t, Mr Danes – we never like losing a customer.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve lost quite a few in recent years.’

  The landlord sat down opposite him. ‘Can I offer you a drink – on the house?’

  ‘Well, thank you – maybe an espresso would be nice, thank you.’

  Beeson shouted the order out, loudly, to someone in a back room, then turned to Jason. ‘You know, country folk can be very superstitious. They can’t look at a coincidence without calling it a curse. All communities get their share of tragedies – they get twenty old folk dead in a coach crash on what should have been a jolly outing, or an entire village church choir wiped out in a minibus. That doesn’t make the place cursed, it’s just terrible luck and dreadfully sad. You need to maintain perspective. The village of Cold Hill dates back centuries, and the old mansion, Cold Hill House, was a very grand place, owning most of this village, and had a lot of land – over five thousand acres, once. Everyone in the village in former times worked for the estate. I’ll bet that if you took all the recent deaths here and up at the old house, plus all the historical ones, and then divided them up evenly over the past centuries, you’d end up close to the national average, maybe even below it.’

  Jason stared hard at him. ‘Did you say church choir?’

  ‘Yes, sadly.’

  ‘Do you mean the church choir from this village was in a minibus accident?’

  ‘Yes. It was terrible. There were twelve of them, all from the village and around here, the youngest was eight. They’d been invited to sing in a festival of church choirs at Canterbury Cathedral. Reverend Fortinbrass was driving them in a rented vehicle and they broke down on the motorway on the way back, in pelting rain. He left them all in the minibus on the hard shoulder of the M25, to stay dry, and went off to find the SOS rescue phone. When he came back, there was nothing left of the bus – it was like matchsticks, I’m told. A lorry driver fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road, hitting it at 60 mph. Dreadful.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Eight years – be nine, next March.’

  ‘Bizarre in a way,’ Jason said, ‘that he kind of escaped death by going to phone for help, only to be killed in a road accident some years later.’

  ‘Yes, you could say bizarre. But he was never right after that tragedy. He always blamed himself – and struggled with his faith. He was pleasant outwardly – but –’ Beeson fell silent for a moment – ‘inwardly, he was broken. From that night it happened, onwards, he was like a dead man walking. That choir had been his passion, he lived for it.’

  48

  Tuesday 18 December

  Jason drank his coffee hastily, making small talk with Beeson. His mind was in turmoil, and he paid his bill and walked swiftly back out to his car. As soon as he was inside, he dialled Emily’s mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. He tried Louise’s number. She answered after a couple of rings.

  ‘Hi, Louise, it’s Jason, is Emily still with you?’

  ‘No, I left her at the wholesalers – she was just heading home with a full van-load of food. She might need some help unloading it all.’

  ‘I – I’m heading home now. I’ll – I’ll give her a hand.’

  ‘Are you OK, Jason? You sound a bit strange.’

  ‘Yes – well – no, actually. No really. I mean . . .’ He tried to collect his thoughts, to make sense of everything. ‘Look, the vicar who came to the house yesterday – the Reverend Fortinbrass – who was going to arrange for an exorcist – a Minister of Deliverance or whatever – there’s something very strange going on.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jason did you say vicar?’

  ‘Yes. The chap who came yesterday – said his name was Roland Fortinbrass – the Reverend Fortinbrass.’

  Louise sounded puzzled. ‘Emily didn’t mention this – when did he come?’

  He frowned. ‘Yesterday morning, when you were at the house, you were there, you met him.’

  ‘No one came while I was there – it was just you, Emily and myself.’

  Was she having a memory lapse or something? ‘Louise, he came into the kitchen, we were all chatting with him. He tried to recruit Emily and me into the church choir, then he asked you, too. You told him you lived too far away.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘He must have come after I’d left.’

  ‘You must remember!’ he insisted. ‘He asked you if you would like to join the church choir and you told him you lived in Brighton, not in the village. Remember now?’

  ‘Jason, I honestly don’t know what you’re saying. Are you sure you’re OK?’

  He suddenly felt hot. He was perspiring. ‘Yes – I – I’m . . .’ His head felt like it was spinning. ‘I – I’m . . .’

  ‘Jason?’

  Her voice sounded distant, as if she was calling out to him from the bottom of a well.

  He’d felt like this once, he remembered, after eating a duff prawn in a cocktail. Food poisoning. Had the chicken been off? The bacon?

  ‘Jason? Jason?’

  Trying to get a grip, he said, ‘I’m OK, Louise. Look – are you saying you really didn’t see him?’

  ‘No,’ she said good-humouredly. ‘I didn’t see anyone apart from you and Emily. Are you sure you didn’t imagine him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have a very vivid imagination – you must have, to do all those brilliant paintings.’

  ‘Thanks, Louise, but however vivid my imagination, I didn’t conjure up a vicar walking into our kitchen and trying to recruit us all for his church choir.’

  ‘Just saying . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Where are you, Jason?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m in the car – but it’s OK, I’m in a car park.’<
br />
  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘No way! I’ve had a Diet Coke and a coffee.’

  ‘Do you want me to call Emily and ask her to come and get you?’

  His head was cooling. Clarity was returning. ‘It’s OK, I think I’ve realized what’s happened. I’m fine, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. Are we seeing you before Christmas?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a babysitter. Des and I are coming out with you both – we’ve booked a table at the Ginger Fox on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Ah, great, brilliant. OK, see you then, if not before.’

  ‘You really sure you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m OK, thanks.’

  He ended the call and sat still in the car, staring at the windscreen, which was opaque with drizzle. Remembering. Emily had told him that when Louise went into one of her psychic trances it was like she had gone to another planet, and could never remember anything afterwards. That must be it. It made sense now.

  Except it didn’t.

  She might not have seen the Reverend Fortinbrass in their kitchen, but he sure as hell had, with his own eyes.

  49

  Tuesday 18 December

  He started the car, drove out onto the road, headed through the village and back up the hill. There was a simple landmark, a red postbox, directly opposite the entrance to Cold Hill Park. He turned right between the stone pillars and drove in, then along Lakeview Drive.

  As he neared their house, he could see from the empty driveway that Emily was not back yet. To his amusement, the Penze-Weedells were still bumbling around outside in their front garden. Maurice was standing, enveloped in a spaghetti tangle of Christmas lights that had evidently fallen from the wall onto him, and he and his wife were gesticulating at each other, clearly having a row. He waved at them as he passed, but neither noticed.

  At the end of Lakeview Drive he carried on around the estate, looking for the Cadillac and the removals lorry he’d seen arriving earlier. He drove along silent roads that were not still closed off with barriers, having to make U-turns a couple of times at dead ends, looking at each of the empty houses in turn, some of them finished, some of them just fenced-off shells. He passed a police car parked across the entrance to the still-silent construction site, noticing some police officers beyond, then carried on.

  The Cadillac and the lorry had to be here, somewhere. He’d only been gone an hour and a half – no way could the removals men have unloaded the entire juggernaut in that time, surely?

  Unless he’d imagined the Cadillac and the removals lorry. Imagined the vicar.

  A Cadillac in which a family of four had died outside Cold Hill House?

  The O’Hares.

  Oh, sure, a ghost car – and a ghost removals lorry. And a ghost vicar.

  After fifteen minutes, when he reckoned he had now covered the entire estate, he headed home, perplexed. Emily’s van was now outside, the rear doors open, as was the front door of the house and the double garage’s up-and-over door. The Penze-Weedells were nowhere to be seen – presumably gone indoors. The stepladder and tangle of wiring remained on the front lawn.

  He pulled on to the driveway just as Emily appeared through the front door. He climbed out and greeted her with a kiss.

  ‘Hi, darling!’

  ‘All OK with David?’ she asked. ‘Will he get the framing done?’

  ‘In the nick of time – I’ve got to remember to collect them before midday tomorrow, before he shuts up for Christmas. How did the shopping go?’

  She pointed at the packed rear of the van. ‘We’ve got everything we need for the anniversary do. They had an amazing offer on prawns – we have to make prawn cocktail starters for everyone, so we’re nicely in profit on that dish!’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  ‘They’re still in their shells. It’s a pain to remove them, but they’re so much yummier than the ready-peeled.’

  ‘Darling, it’s your eye for detail that’s made you such a success.’

  She smiled. ‘I just like to give peeps food that I would eat – so long as they’re willing to pay for it.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand in with everything.’

  For the next fifteen minutes they worked together, removing the bags from the van and stacking the shelves of the upright freezers that lined most of the wall space in the garage.

  ‘How much food do these people eat?’ he asked, in wonder.

  ‘It’s not just the anniversary event; we’ve stocked up on basics, too.’

  There were fourteen tall freezers in the room, all of them full by the time they had finished.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t have a power cut,’ he said.

  She blanched. ‘They don’t happen very often, I hope. And when they do, we don’t open any of the doors. Everything will stay frozen for several hours.’

  ‘Good.’

  They went into the house. The kitchen clock showed it was 2.55 p.m. Emily glanced around at the spotless work surfaces and empty sink. ‘Did you have any lunch?’

  ‘Yes. I thought I’d pop down to the pub – do the local thing.’

  ‘Did you indeed? Down the old boozer, eh?’ she ribbed.

  ‘I had a Diet Coke. And a soggy sandwich.’

  ‘See anyone? Our lovely neighbours?’

  ‘Just the landlord and that creepy old farmer we saw on Sunday.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘I actually went to the village to see if I could chivvy up the vicar.’

  ‘Vicar?’

  ‘The guy who came yesterday, Roland Fortinbrass.’

  ‘Yesterday? Roland Fortinbrass? Fortinbrass was a character in Hamlet, wasn’t he?’

  ‘The Hamlet character only had one “s” in his name. The vicar has two, he told me.’

  ‘When did you see him? You didn’t mention this.’

  ‘Emily, hello!’ He gave her a pointed look. ‘The vicar who came when Louise was here, and we discussed getting a Minister of Deliverance, or whatever it’s called, to come to the house.’

  Her face was blank. ‘Came when Louise was here?’

  He felt his skin squirming.

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘Nobody came, Jason,’ she said. ‘There was no one else here.’

  ‘Babes, we all chatted with him. He asked if any of us could sing, because he needed recruits for his church choir.’

  She was looking at him as if he was mental. ‘Yesterday morning?’

  ‘Yes! Just when Louise was doing her trance thing. The doorbell rang, and I went and brought him into the kitchen.’

  ‘How many pints did you have in the pub?’

  ‘None, I promise you! What were you and Louise on?’

  ‘Peppermint tea with ginger.’

  ‘And a half a pound of cannabis?’

  ‘Ha ha!’

  ‘You must remember him!’

  ‘If you’d brought a vicar in here, into this kitchen, then yes, I would remember him.’

  He shook his head. ‘I did.’

  ‘Was he very small? Perhaps I didn’t notice him?’

  He smiled, fleetingly. ‘I – I just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on, unless you and Louise are having a laugh on me. I rang her when I left the pub. She told me she hadn’t seen him either.’

  Emily was studying his face hard, in a way that worried him. Was he looking strange? Cracking up? His mind scrambled, clawing and trying to grasp reason. Yesterday morning the Reverend Roland Fortinbrass had rung their doorbell, he’d invited him in, they’d chatted in the kitchen: the vicar, Emily, Louise and himself. He’d asked them if they would join the church choir, and in turn they’d asked him if he could contact the diocesan Minister of Deliverance, which he promised to do.

  A promise he would not be able to keep. Because he was dead. Lying in the churchyard at the rear of St Mary’s. His name inscribed on his headstone
, the epitaph beneath.

  HE LOVED AND SERVED THIS PARISH.

  50

  Tuesday 18 December

  He’d seen the man’s grave; he’d read his obituary only a few hours ago; he had met the man who had been in the accident where Fortinbrass had died. He could hardly have more proof that Fortinbrass was dead.

  But the vicar had come to their house yesterday. He’d talked to him. They all had, but now neither Emily nor Louise could accept it. Why were they denying it? He knew the human brain could do strange things, sometimes to protect people from shock or horror. He’d also read about a study of a remote South American tribe, who lived in a rainforest and had never been exposed to the outside world. One experiment that had been done was to fly a helicopter over their village, and then ask members of the tribe to describe what they had just seen. Almost all of them denied they had seen anything. It turned out it wasn’t because they were being difficult, or because they were stupid, it was that the helicopter was so far beyond anything they’d ever seen or experienced, they did not know how to process it.

  Was this what had happened with Emily and Louise?

  ‘Jace?’ Emily’s voice was calm but sharp.

  He stared at her, his head starting to feel hot again. Swimming.

  ‘Jace, darling, are you ill? Do you need to go to bed? I think you might be suffering from exhaustion – or stress – or maybe a bit of both. You’ve been working flat out and through the night.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said, not feeling at all OK. ‘Look, there’s something . . .’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘Something what?’

  There had to be a rational explanation, he thought. Had to be. Might Louise, in her trance state, have hypnotized them both? Could that be it? Had she put them into a trance without their realizing and somehow conjured up the spirit of the dead vicar?

  He clung to that thought.

  Could that be it?

  ‘Something what?’ Emily asked again.

  ‘It’s fine, nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yep. I’m going to go up and get on. And I’ve still got stuff to unpack. You?’