by Cavendish
“OK.”
* * *
The workmen had arrived and there were sounds of shouting, laughing and the thumping of tools and equipment when Mairead opened the door to Henderson Close. With so much coming and going, they had left the entrance unlocked. She stepped inside and the door swung shut behind her, as always. With the main lights off, the place was gloomy and Mairead had forgotten to bring her torch.
She grabbed hold of the handrail and felt around the nearside wall, touching the familiar cold stone.
A breeze lifted her hair. The workmen had put on a fan perhaps. She found the little crevice and her fingers touched cold metal. She retrieved her keys.
“Kirsten…Kirsten.…”
“Oh please, no,” she breathed. “I didn’t hear that.”
Something brushed her shoulder, caressed her hair, stroked her ear. An insect. God forbid, a spider. She put up her hand to brush it away and touched nothing but herself.
Whatever it was had moved. It was on her shoulder. She couldn’t breathe. It didn’t feel like an insect anymore. More like.…
No, please, no.
She saw it out of the corner of her eye. The hand in her nightmare. Black, scaly, clawed. Filthy. Crawling down her arm.
Mairead screamed.
Chapter Five
“Mairead? Mairead.” Hannah felt her way down the stairs, the atmosphere gloomy with only the emergency lighting to light the way. Her voice echoed along the Close, seeming to resound back at her from every nook and cranny. She listened hard for Mairead’s answer but there was no reply. Where could she have got to?
Uneasiness swelled inside her as she stepped on the uneven surface.
“Mairead!” Still nothing. Hannah peered through the few open doors, entered the printing shop, stopped. Listened for the tiniest sound. Maybe Mairead had tripped and fallen. Hit her head. Knocked herself unconscious.
But she only came to get her keys. And they were at the foot of the stairs. Why would she go any further than that?
Hannah pressed on, pausing at Miss Carmichael’s corner. She glanced down at the ‘blood’. Nothing unusual there. The stain was visible, as always. Dry. Old.
“Kirsten…Kirsten…”
Hannah caught her breath. The voice was male, but it sounded faraway, almost a whisper.
A sudden sound. A sort of pattering, as if someone with small feet…a child…running down the Close. Hannah shivered.
A man’s cough. Hannah stifled a scream.
“You all right, lassie?”
She could have kissed him. One of the workmen.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Hannah forced a light laugh. He might not be far off the truth there. “I’m looking for one of my colleagues. She came down here about ten or fifteen minutes ago. Have you seen her?”
He shook his head. “No. You’re the only one I’ve seen. I thought everyone else had gone home. Then I heard a noise and thought I’d better investigate.”
“I must have missed her somehow then. She’s definitely not here.”
“She’s probably waiting for you in the shop.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.”
Hannah left the workman, who continued on his way to start his night’s work.
Upstairs, the shop was dark, empty. No sign of Mairead. Hannah couldn’t even call her because she didn’t have her mobile number. Maybe she had gone straight to the pub, thinking Hannah had gone there already.
Hannah had intended suggesting the nearest one and hoped Mairead would have had similar ideas. She made her way over to the busy bar, and squeezed through happy, laughing tourists and office workers newly released from a day’s work.
She searched the main and small bars and even tried the Ladies’. No sign.
She bought herself half a pint of cider and found a seat near the door. If Mairead came in now she definitely wouldn’t miss her.
Half an hour later, she drained her glass and gave up. She would see her friend at work tomorrow and find out what had happened then. No harm could have come to her. After all, she had only gone to grab her keys. There would be a simple explanation.
* * *
But Mairead wasn’t at work the next day. Nor the day after that. No one had seen or heard from her. It was as if she had simply vanished. Hannah now had Mairead’s number. She rang it repeatedly but there was no answer.
Hannah racked her brains to think of any explanation for the sudden disappearance, but failed every time. None of the other staff could understand it either. Hannah had been the last one to see her as far as anyone knew and Mairead wasn’t the type to not turn up for work.
* * *
Hannah knocked on Ailsa’s office door.
“Come in. Hello, Hannah. What can I do for you?”
“It’s about Mairead. I wondered if there was any news? She’s been off nearly a week now and I can’t get her to pick up on her phone.”
Ailsa’s brow creased. “I know. We’re all very concerned. As I told you before, someone left a message on the voicemail, saying she was sick with flu and wouldn’t be coming in. That was on her first day of absence and since then…nothing. She’ll need a note from her doctor from tomorrow. Have you called round to her house at all? She lives with her mother, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, but I don’t know her address.”
“I do. I can’t give it to you, I’m afraid. Confidentiality. But I think I’ll go round this afternoon. I’ve been calling the landline but it seems to be disconnected.”
“That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”
Ailsa sighed. “Maybe. But I think a lot of people are relying on their mobile phones these days. Telephone rental is so expensive.”
“I just thought. With her mother living there as well.… I think I would always want my mother to have a landline. In case of emergencies.”
“Me too.” Ailsa stood up. “Right that settles it. I’m going round there now. I’ll let you know what happens tomorrow. Lock up for me, will you? The builders aren’t in tonight.”
“No problem.” Hannah closed the door of Ailsa’s office. Mairead might be sick, but why wasn’t she at least answering her phone? Sending a text? Responding to voicemails? Anything other than this awful silence. It wasn’t as if her mobile phone was switched off either. Before long, if she wasn’t recharging the battery, it would die. Not only was it worrying, but she was also risking her job. Ailsa seemed OK about it now, but if it went on more than a day longer, it could be a very different story. If she didn’t produce a doctor’s note – certifying her absence – after seven days off work, she could lose her job.
“Come on, Mairead. Pick up.” The phone continued to ring. At the seventh ring, the voicemail kicked in as usual. After the tone, Hannah spoke. “Hi, Mairead. Look, we’re all really worried about you. Ailsa is on her way round to see you. Please call me as soon as you get this message.”
She clicked off her phone and opened the door to the deserted gift shop. George had changed into his own clothes and was about to leave. “Oh there you are.” He smiled at her. “I’ll leave you to it then. Didn’t want to go until I knew you were here to lock up after me. Still no news of Mairead, I hear?”
Hannah shook her head.
George frowned. “It’s not like her. I mean, first off, she’s never sick. I don’t think she’s had one day off, apart from holidays, since she started here a couple of years ago. And she’s always so conscientious. She’s the last person I would have thought would fail to keep in touch. We all know to ring in every day unless the doctor has signed us off. I can’t understand it. Hope she’s all right.”
“Me too,” Hannah said, and wished the heavy weight pressing on her chest would go away. “No doubt Ailsa will update us tomorrow.”
“If Mairead still has a job tomorrow.”
&nb
sp; “That thought had crossed my mind too,” Hannah said.
“See you, lass.”
“See you, George.”
She locked the door securely behind him and switched off the shop lights, leaving only the emergency ones casting their dim glow across the store.
Alone in the building, she pushed away the increasing sense of unease and walked quickly to the entrance to Henderson Close, grabbing a torch as she did so. She would now have to go all round, making sure no one had managed to separate themselves either deliberately or accidentally from their party. Her heart beat faster with each step she descended. Down here, all the lights remained on, but they would go off automatically at any moment.
Her footsteps echoed off the walls. Hannah forced herself to maintain a steady, unhurried pace as she moved around the meandering narrow passageways. She peered through the windows and checked the doors were locked. As she passed the Henderson House, she noted the tidiness of the print shop. Someone had cleared it up on the day it had been ‘ransacked’, though how that had happened in the first place remained a mystery. Hannah’s gaze took in the dirt floor, tools and printing machine and a memory flashed into her mind.
Murdoch Maclean setting his type blocks. Asking if she wanted anything. It seemed more real when she stood here. She gave a little shiver and moved away, turned into the alley and—
Whispering, like the echo of some far-off conversation. “Who’s there?” she called, her voice echoing all around her. Silence. It came again. Closer now. Indistinct. Chatter.
“Who is that? Who’s down here?”
Silence.
Giggling.
More angry than scared, Hannah’s anger rose from the pit of her stomach. “This isn’t funny. No one is supposed to be down here. Show yourself. This instant.”
“I don’t think you’d like that.”
Hannah gasped. A male voice. Stronger than the last time. Different. Where had it come from? Unlike last time, she’d heard it – not with her ears. In her brain.
She breathed heavily. “You can stop playing your silly games now because I’m not having it. You shouldn’t be down here. Come out before I call the police and have you arrested for trespass.”
“I don’t think so.”
Laughter. Behind her. Hannah spun around.
A shadow flashed across the wall and vanished.
Hannah stared, her mouth desert dry.
She stumbled back, past Miss Carmichael’s corner and the printer’s shop, back up Henderson Close. She staggered up the steps, her clammy palms clinging to the handrail.
She was almost at the top when the main lights went out, thrusting the Close into the gloom of the emergency lighting. Six-thirty. The lights always go out at six-thirty this time of year.
She reached the door and slammed it shut behind her, locking it. She leaned against it, breathing hard. Dear God, let me have imagined that. Now it was her inner voice speaking to her. Last time? A stranger.
* * *
Ailsa handed Hannah a cup of coffee and sat behind her desk. She was frowning. Hannah waited while she collected her thoughts.
“I’ll tell you, Hannah, I don’t know what to make of it all. It keeps getting more and more crazy. I rang the doorbell, knocked at the door. Nothing. There’s a gate that takes you down a path to the side door, so I went down there. The garden is all overgrown with weeds and briars, so it looked as if no one had been down it in weeks. Months probably, because all that growth must have happened last summer at the latest. Anyway, I knocked hard at that door and that’s when a neighbor came out. Bit of a stern old wifey. Asked me what my business was. I told her I was Mairead’s boss and she looked surprised. Apparently she hasn’t seen Mairead in a couple of years or more. Thought she’d moved out when…now get this, when her mother died.”
“Died?”
Ailsa nodded. “That’s what I said. Anyway, the woman could see I was shocked and asked me in for a cup of tea. Turns out she’s got a kind heart underneath the gruff exterior. She told me Mrs. Ferguson had been ill for a long time. Multiple sclerosis. She developed it in her thirties when Mairead was only a child. I never knew any of this but Mairead grew up as her mother’s caregiver.”
“I had no idea.”
“The neighbor – Mrs. Lauderdale – wasn’t wholly surprised at that. She said the two of them lived in their own world mostly. Mairead went to school and then on to university to study English and Drama, but she always lived at home and Mrs. Lauderdale doesn’t ever remember her bringing friends home. No school friends or boyfriends. Probably didn’t want to disturb her mother. She gradually deteriorated and it was clear Mairead was having trouble coping toward the end. Her mother couldn’t walk, and some days, she could barely use her hands, or speak. One day, Mairead went out shopping and when she came home, she found her mother slumped over in her chair. She’d been saving up her painkillers. Morphine. Took a massive overdose. She left a note. Must have taken ages for her to write even though it was quite short. She said she didn’t want to be a burden any longer and that Mairead should have a life. Heartbreaking stuff. Must have been devastating for her daughter.”
“And this was all a couple of years ago?”
“Yes. Must have been around the time she started work here.”
“And she never mentioned it?”
“She never really talked much at all about her private life. Just that she lived with her mother. No details. Certainly not to me.”
“Nor me, now I think about it. But some people like to keep themselves private, don’t they? Even with their friends. They tell people what they want them to know.”
Ailsa gave her a knowing smile. “Yes, they do, don’t they?”
Hannah quickly returned to their original subject. “You said this neighbor hadn’t seen Mairead for a couple of years?”
Ailsa nodded. “According to Mrs. Lauderdale, Mairead left quite abruptly a few weeks after her mother’s funeral. The house belongs to the council and, for some reason, it still hasn’t been re-let yet, even after all this time, but you know what councils are like. Never do today what you can put off for a few years.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Not to Mrs. Lauderdale. She wouldn’t have known when she’d gone, but she happened to be dusting her windowsills and saw Mairead piling bags into a taxi. Mrs. Lauderdale waved at her, but Mairead totally ignored her, as if she hadn’t seen her, but Mrs. Lauderdale was sure she had. A few weeks after she left, Mrs. Lauderdale could see mail piling up behind the door. It’s glazed so a dead giveaway to any potential burglar that no one was at home. She rang the council and they had no idea she had gone, beyond the fact that they weren’t receiving any rent. It was paid by direct debit out of Mairead’s mother’s account and when that was closed after her death, no more payments were made. They hadn’t been able to contact anyone and were about to issue an eviction notice.”
“I don’t know what to make of it,” Hannah said.
“Join the club. I can’t understand it. I mean, where has she been living and why did she give that old address? I can kind-of understand the moonlight flit – although it was in broad daylight apparently – I mean, if the girl was in financial difficulties and couldn’t afford the rent.… But where has she been these past two years? Sleeping on a friend’s couch? Living rough?”
“Hardly,” Hannah said. “She’s always so smartly dressed. Always clean…no, she couldn’t have been living rough.”
“Did she ever speak of any other friends?”
Hannah thought back over their brief acquaintanceship and shook her head. “Not that I remember and I think I would. Oh, this is ridiculous. She can’t vanish into thin air. Where on earth is she?”
“People do though, don’t they? Vanish. Years ago, that politician. John Stonehouse. Disappeared for years and then turned up again. Then ther
e was Lord Lucan. They never found him, did they?”
“But he was supposed to have murdered the nanny and, as far as we know, Mairead’s done nothing illegal. Apart from running out on the council rent that is. But she hasn’t murdered anyone, committed fraud, robbery.”
“Not that we know of, but as we’ve now discovered, there’s so much about Mairead that we hadn’t a clue about until now. How much more is there to uncover?”
“Shouldn’t we report her as missing or something?”
“I’ve already done that. I called in at the police station on the way back and told them everything I know. I need to drop her staff photo in later.”
“Let’s hope they can find her. And that she’s safe and unharmed.”
“They want the voicemail message that person left, so they can try and analyze it. I heard it back again and you can’t even tell if it’s male or female. Do you want to listen?”
“Please.”
The voice was indistinct, muffled, as if the caller were holding something over the receiver to disguise his or her voice. The accent was distinctly Scottish but Hannah couldn’t place it any closer than that, not that she was any expert on Scottish regional dialects. The tone sounded gruff and Ailsa was right. Impossible to tell whether it was male or female – or even Mairead herself. The girl was a good enough actress to pull that one off, for sure.
“Mairead Ferguson won’t be in to her work today. She has the flu.” The phone cut off.
Ailsa switched off the voicemail. “See what I mean? Male or female?”
Hannah shrugged. “No idea.”
“Good thing the police have these sophisticated machines these days. They can analyze wave patterns, tones, pitches, all sorts. They should even be able to tell us where that accent comes from.”
“Assuming whoever it was wasn’t putting it on.”
“That thought crossed my mind too. But why do this?”
Hannah left soon after, not sure whether she should be confused or scared for her friend – and feeling both.