Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

Such a Nice Girl STORM CONSTANTINE

The residents of Willowdale Farm Estate were united in the opinion that Emma Tizard was such a nice girl. Nothing bad could possibly have happened to her because she was so sensible. She never walked out at night alone, never invited strangers beyond her security chain and would never, ever dream of stopping her smart new car on a deserted stretch of road at night. Her mysterious disappearance must have some straightforward explanation.

The first time anyone got to know Emma was actually missing was when her employer, Michael Homey, knocked on Cynthia Peeling’s door that Tuesday morning. Mrs Peeling lived in the bungalow next to Emma’s. Cynthia belonged to that breed of women whose hair became blonder as they grew older, whose clothes became more youthful, and who got away with it because of sheer panache. Michael explained that Emma hadn’t turned up for work the day before, hadn’t telephoned to give an explanation — which she always did if she was ill — and was still absent today.

‘It really isn’t like her,’ he said apologetically. ‘That’s why I felt I ought to come round. I know she lives alone and wondered, well, if she’d had an accident. There doesn’t seem to be anyone at home. ’

Although Cynthia could hardly claim to be an intimate of Emma’s, she knew the girl sometimes disappeared for days at a time. Usually, she popped over to ask Cynthia to keep an eye on the bungalow for her, never giving any explanation for her absence, other than a bright remark such as, ‘Time to recharge my batteries!’ This made Cynthia think of open spaces, sporty pursuits. Emma always looked so healthy, and gave the impression she could look after herself more than adequately. Therefore, Cynthia was not that perturbed by Michael Homey’s worrying. She invited him in for coffee and Viennese fingers, in the hope of calming his fears. He refused to be convinced by Cynthia’s gentle arguments.

‘We should check she isn’t lying unconscious in the house,’ he said. ‘I would never forgive myself if something’d happened to her, and I’d done nothing to help.’

Peering through the spotless windows of Wren’s Nest, they were joined by elderly Mr Godleigh from number 10 and young Mrs Treen with her toddler, Danny, from number 15. Everyone tried the windows, which were all sensibly locked from inside. The bungalow looked immaculate, not a cushion out of place, not a single item of crockery left on the kitchen drainer. In the bedroom, the pale grey duvet was undented and there were no clothes lying around. Admittedly, they couldn’t see into the bathroom, and curtains were drawn over one of the frosted windows. Through the garage door, the red gleam of Emma’s car could be seen. ‘Do you think we should break in?’ Lily Treen suggested.

‘That’s against the law,’ Mr Godleigh said. ‘Perhaps we should call the police.’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Cynthia responded hurriedly, visualizing Emma’s alarm should she turn up again. She really didn’t feel that Emma was inside but didn’t want to say so, not having any proper foundation for her feelings. ‘There’s bound to be a good reason why she’s not here. She might have caught a train to visit relatives, got a cab to the station. Do you know any of her family, Mr Homey?’

Michael Homey shook his head. ‘Perhaps Mr Godleigh is right,’ he said. ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

‘I think we should wait until tomorrow,’ Cynthia insisted, and her tone of voice brooked no argument. ‘Emma is a respectable young woman. I don’t think we should have policemen breaking her windows just yet.’

At five past six that evening, a long ring on the doorbell disturbed the Peelings from their salad and quiche. Cynthia opened the door to a rather sinister-looking couple, who turned out to be detectives. They asked if the Peelings had a spare key to Wren’s Nest, as Emma Tizard’s parents thought they might.

Taken aback, Cynthia shook her head. Was anything wrong? Her guts, ahead of the subsequent information, began to churn. She could see two police cars parked at the kerb: uniformed officers were looking in through the windows of the bungalow next door.

Emma Tizard was dead. Her body had been discovered by children playing truant from school. It appeared she’d been brutally murdered, horribly mutilated as if with mindless fury.

If the police found any evidence in Wren’s Nest, they presumably removed it from the property. As the last car pulled away, the two plain-clothed detectives came back to interview the Peelings. Cynthia felt utterly sick, guilty for not having suspected something was wrong after all, and confused as to why her instincts hadn’t alerted her.

‘Did Miss Tizard tell you what she was planning to do over the weekend?’

Cynthia shook her head. ‘No. We weren’t that close.’

The male detective made a swift note on his pad.

The body had been found still clutching a handbag. The authorities had had no difficulty discovering who Emma was. ‘And you never met any of her friends?’

Cynthia uttered a brittle laugh. She was still deeply shocked. ‘No, no. None of us in Cherrytree Lane know much about Emma at all.’

‘So you don’t know what kind of interests she had?’ The female detective seemed to conceal an unpleasant implication in the words.

‘Art,’ Cynthia said, ‘History too. She borrowed books from me once, well, from my son. Ancient history.’

‘She never mentioned anything a little more…unusual?

‘What kind of unusual?’ Cynthia didn’t like the tone of the question.

The female detective shrugged. ‘Well, anything to do with the occult.’

Cynthia had to laugh. ‘What? Emma? Certainly not. She was a very down-to-earth person. What are you trying to say?’

The male detective cleared his throat. ‘Certain items in the house suggest she had an interest in that sort of thing. Books and so on. ’

‘She must have used them for her art,’ Cynthia said lamely. She could think of no other explanation. Emma had been such a nice, ordinary girl.

The detectives wanted to know when Emma had last been seen. Cynthia couldn’t clearly remember, but thought it was before the weekend. ‘She used to paint and draw a lot. Sometimes we’d never see her at weekends. She used to work then, you see. She worked very hard.’ Cynthia felt tears come to her eyes, remembering the water-colour that hung above her bed, a haunting scene, painted by Emma. Soft Emma, gentle Emma; a quiet, artistic soul.

‘And there was never any mention of the time she lived in the city?’ The female detective’s voice had taken on a softer note as she registered Cynthia’s distress.

Cynthia shook her head. ‘No.’

‘It may just be a coincidence.’ The male detective carefully re-capped his pen. ‘But the young lady Miss Tizard used to share a flat with in London disappeared under strange circumstances too. Unfortunately no trace of her was ever found. Are you completely sure Miss Tizard never mentioned this to you?’

‘Quite, sure.’ Cynthia collected herself, straightened her spine. ‘How dreadful. Do you suppose the same person.?’ She shuddered eloquently, pressing a handkerchief to her lips.

The female detective shrugged. ‘It was several years ago. Perhaps, as my colleague said, a coincidence.’

Numbed and troubled by this ghastly event in her life, Cynthia Peeling started sleeping badly. She had horrifying and revolting dreams, which left a sour taste in her mouth, but the details of which she had difficulty recalling. The only one she could remember was that in which she had witnessed a coarse and brazen Emma Tizard violently making love with Mr Peeling. To make it worse, Cynthia had enjoyed the dream. Her waking self found sex rather ridiculous and unnecessarily messy. Rodney Peeling had been puzzled by the peculiar looks his wife had given him over breakfast on Thursday morning.

The police could not solve the mystery of Emma’s death. During the next week, television reconstructions of Emma’s supposed last movements, and flashes of telephone numbers which people could contact to give information served only to remind Cynthia of the grotesque horror of her neighbour’s murder. The tabloid press found out about the occult angle, and lurid headlines suggested the dead girl’s involvement in Satanism, inferring she had been the victim of a ritual killing. Everyone on the estate who had known Emma agreed that the occult stories were rubbish.

The day of the funeral dawned unexpectedly dull and overcast, after a week of sunshine. A sizeable group of Willowdale Farm residents gathered in cars around Wren’s Nest to escort the funeral cortege to the crematorium. Emma’s mother and father, who introduced themselves as Ruby and Steven, had arrived the night before. Ruby Tizard was a frumpy sparrow of a creature who wore grandmotherly hats. The Peelings had kindly offered them accommodation for the night, because Mrs Tizard was obviously too upset to spend it in her dead daughter’s bed, the only one available in Wren’s Nest. The Tizards were strangely reluctant to enter the bungalow at all. Cynthia supposed that was because of their grief, and was sorry she couldn’t offer them more comfort. She wondered whether she should comment on the newspaper stories, and make it clear how wrong they were, but decided it was too soon to broach such an intimate subject.

To make things worse, the funeral, which should have been a dignified occasion, was fraught with minor mishaps and irritations. The minister whom the Tizards had especially wanted to lead the service telephoned at the last minute to tell them with unctuous apology that a family emergency prevented him travelling south. A quick replacement from the local church proved unsatisfactory, since the man knew nothing of Emma, save what he’d read in the papers, which didn’t give him much scope for a moving, personal sermon. As he swayed before the congregation, singing the praises of a girl he’d never met, the lights in the chapel flickered, threatening a total failure that never quite happened and the public address system, which should have carried his voice to the furthest ear, spluttered and buzzed, reducing the earnest tones to a wobbling fart. Halfway through the service, Lily Treen’s young son began to scream inexplicably. When Lily took him into the hall outside, he threw up with gusto on to the marble tiles. Everybody must have heard. Mrs Tizard began to cry. Afterwards, when questioned and consequently disbelieved, the child gabbled incoherently about a nasty lady who had put out her tongue at him. From what the adults could gather, the tongue had been black

The following morning, Cynthia Peeling offered to accompany the Tizards to Wren’s Nest to look over Emma’s belongings, so they could decide what they wanted to keep once the police had finished with everything. Cynthia thought this was the most forlorn and depressing of post mortem tasks.

Mr Tizard opened the front door of Wren’s Nest and the three of them shuffled inside. This was only the third time Cynthia had ever set foot in the place. Emma had often popped over to share a quick coffee with her neighbour, especially in the summer, but reciprocal invitations had been non-existent. It certainly couldn’t have been because Emma was ashamed of her home. The walls were papered in the most modern, expensive prints that money could buy and the furnishings bore the stamp of a top interior design house.

‘What a peculiar smell!’ Mr Tizard exclaimed as he went into the lounge. Cynthia Peeling followed him and sniffed.

‘What is it?’ queried Emma’s mother querulously from the hall.

‘Nothing alarming!’ Cynthia was conscious of her voice being too loud and jolly. ‘Some kind of perfume. A bit stale, that’s all. The windows have been closed.’ The smell was strange. It caught at the back of the throat, half pleasant, half noxious. Had Emma Tizard been burning incense of some kind? Cynthia firmly dismissed a rising sense of unease.

‘She was such a tidy girl,’ Mrs Tizard said, standing pathetically in the doorway, holding her handbag in front of her. The place didn’t look lived in. No ornaments, no books, no magazines, no sense at all of occupation.

It looks like a show home, Cynthia thought. She examined the gleaming hi-fi system and television. It appeared they had never been used.

‘I don’t think she lived in this room much,’ Cynthia said.

Moving close together, the three of them advanced into the dining-room. Here, the same clinical tidiness prevailed. In a drawer, Mr Tizard discovered a stainless steel cutlery set still wrapped in plastic. ‘Emma didn’t entertain much, it seems,’ he said.

‘No, she never brought friends home, not that we saw,’ Cynthia Peeling said. She eased herself past the Tizards and went quickly through the dove grey and pale lemon kitchen that bristled with factory-new appliances. ‘Perhaps we’ll find more sense of her in her workroom.’

When Cynthia opened the door to Emma’s workroom, all three of them uttered shocked sounds. Not because of anything unpleasant exactly, but just because of the contrast between the workroom and the rest of Emma’s home. There was a choking stench of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol. Thick blue velvet curtains were drawn across the window. Cynthia quickly went to open it, craving fresh air. She threw back the curtains. Beyond them, the window was frosted. It was not a big room, perhaps partitioned off from the bathroom. There was barely space for the large, ancient desk under the window and the huge cupboard against the far wall. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, apart from a place opposite the door where a huge, gilt-framed mirror hung. Papers were strewn everywhere; ashtrays overflowed on to elderly coffee-mug rings; an easel stood folded in a corner draped with rags. Empty gaps in the clutter suggested items which had been taken away by the police.

’Yes, well, I certainly think we have a sense of Emma here,’ Mr Tizard said dryly.

‘You think so?’ Cynthia Peeling was not so sure. What they had found here had little link with the girl she’d thought Emma to be. It was so sloppy, almost aggressively so. Books leaned everywhere on the shelves; there were volumes on mysticism, erotica, occultism and a pile of cheap, tawdry novels. Cynthia shook her head. She picked up a small book that had been lying open on the desk. A chapter entitled ‘Higher Levels of Awareness’ had been heavily underlined in places. ‘Polarity disposition. Ritual dissimulation and embodiment.’ It made no sense but still disturbed her, made her skin prickle. Unpleasant thoughts were starting to form and, superstitiously, Cynthia had no wish to think ill of the dead.

Mrs Tizard was collecting up a selection of gin bottles from the floor. Her mouth had become a thin, disapproving line. Cynthia had no wish to speak to her.

‘Well,’ Cynthia said to Mr Tizard, hating the brightness in her voice, ‘it would appear Emma lived mostly in this room. I told you she worked very hard. It’s not really surprising that she allowed the place to get a bit messy.’

Mr Tizard didn’t respond. He had picked up a sheaf of sketches and was impatiently leafing through them. ‘Do you know this man?’ He thrust a sketch into Cynthia’s hands.

‘Er. no. I don’t think so,’ she replied, feeling heat suffuse her face. The subject of the drawing was naked, sporting an undisguised erection. She dropped the paper quickly on to the desk. Mr Tizard had slumped heavily into the swivel chair in front of the desk. Cynthia empathized with what he must be feeling. She started to tidy the scattered papers into one pile. Apart from reams of illegible notes, there must have been hundreds of sketches and water-colours, many of them depicting the same naked man. Some of his poses were so explicit, Cynthia had to keep averting her eyes while tidying them. She was also distressed to find his face becoming more and more familiar to her. Could it be Michael Homey? No, of course not, and yet she’d seen no other man with whom Emma had had any connection. Apart from these disturbingly erotic sketches, there were also many water-colours similar to the one Emma had given to Cynthia; strange, unearthly landscapes in flowing, muted colours; ethereal beings floating in clouds that looked like palaces. Holding them up one by one, Cynthia was tempted to keep some of these for herself. Emma Tizard had been unbelievably talented. Then Cynthia came upon a series of violent, horrifying scenes, where grinning demonic shapes inflicted torture on bodies that spouted blood, and in some cases, entrails. She glanced through them with horrified fascination. No one had spoken in the room for several minutes. Mrs Tizard opened the cupboard. She uttered a dismal squeak and Cynthia turned round.

‘What is it?’

‘I… I don’t know. Not really.’ The door swung back and forth. A yellowed skull, perhaps of a ram or goat, was the first thing to catch Cynthia’s eye. Everything else in the cupboard looked as if it belonged to a mediaeval apothecary. There were jars of roots and powders, an ornate, spired incense burner (that explained the smell), curly-handled knives, an abundance of other strange paraphernalia. A bizarre diagram, surrounded by what appeared to be foreign words, was scrawled in chalk on the back of the cupboard. ‘Why?’ Mrs Tizard said, weakly. ‘Why?’

Mr Tizard led her quickly from the house.

In the comfort of Cynthia’s front room, Mrs Tizard announced that as soon as the police had finished with her daughter’s belongings, she wanted the lot burned. There was nothing of Emma there that she wished to keep. To lose a daughter under such awful circumstances was bad enough, but to discover she had some kind of weird alter ego was even worse. Cynthia was now convinced that sweet, innocent Emma had become unwittingly involved with unsavoury characters, who had undoubtedly been instrumental in her death. An ingrained sense of decency, along with her superstitious dread, made her feel that no one but the three of them should ever know exactly what had been found in Wren’s Nest. Let it be burned and forgotten. Nobody could do anything about it now.

Some weeks later, after the inquest had taken place, and press interest had died down, Mr Tizard came down alone to see to the disposal of Emma’s belongings. The police had come up with no further leads, and it seemed the murder would remain a mystery for ever. The Tizards had put Wren’s Nest on the market. Obeying, or agreeing with, his wife’s desires, Mr Tizard packed everything, including Emma’s smart, expensive clothes, into plastic bin liners. Cynthia Peeling drove him in her estate car up to the borough dump and disposed of the lot. It was late afternoon by the time the job was finished. Cynthia was in two minds about what they were doing. She couldn’t help feeling it was wrong that all Emma’s beautiful clothes and the more expensive of her books had been destroyed, yet she must respect the parents’ wishes, and part of her could understand why they felt the need to dispose of everything so finally. However, what really went against the grain was throwing all Emma’s drawings and paintings into a skip along with other paper rubbish. Whatever the Tizards might think of the subject matter, Emma had been a superb artist and her work deserved to survive her death. For this reason, Cynthia surreptitiously rolled up about two dozen of Emma’s paintings and stowed them in her bedroom while Mr Tizard was occupied elsewhere. Why she also pocketed the book that had been lying open on Emma’s desk, she didn’t consciously examine.

Cynthia was relieved when Mr Tizard told her he was going home that evening. She quickly agreed to keep the keys for Wren’s Nest and to show prospective buyers round it. For some reason, Mrs Tizard hadn’t wanted to leave them with an estate agent. As she drove him to the station, Cynthia took the opportunity to direct a few more questions at Mr Tizard. They had been forming in her mind all day. She didn’t normally like to pry into other people’s affairs, but felt she just couldn’t exist if her questions weren’t answered.

‘What was Emma like?’ she asked. ‘When she was a child, what was she really like?’

‘You’ve lived next door to her for two years,’ Mr Tizard answered. ‘You’ve probably seen more of her than we have. She left home at eighteen, went away to college. We only got about two visits a year out of her after that. Sometimes she asked for money, but it was always paid back.’

‘But as a child…?’

‘She was a very private girl,’ Mr Tizard answered. ‘Quiet, well-behaved.’ There were a few moments’ silence. ‘I don’t think we ever knew her.’

‘What about boyfriends? She was such an attractive girl. She must have had boyfriends.’

‘Not that we knew of. Did you ever see her with a man?’

Cynthia shook her head, quickly passing to the next subject, thinking of the drawings they’d seen. ‘And the girl she lived with in London, the one who disappeared, did you know about that?’

‘Emma came home for a couple of days after that. I think she was quite upset. She slept most of the time. Never spoke much about it though.’

Could a parent really know so little of their child?

That night, Cynthia lay awake in bed next to her snoring husband thinking about Emma Tizard. Had it really been Emma who’d lived in that workroom? Cynthia had never seen Emma smoke and she’d always politely refused any alcoholic drinks at the Peelings’. Gin bottles and overflowing ashtrays? It didn’t seem real.

Cynthia tried to sleep. Dream fragments swooped around her, all of Emma. Emma laughing, her long red hair blowing in an angry wind. Emma hunched over her work table, frowning in concentration, one hand plunged into her hair, the other lovingly shading in an outline of male genitalia. And there was Emma, naked, arms raised to the sky, dancing herself to a frenzy beneath a full, pale moon. Now she and Emma were walking arm in arm through a park, Emma chatting girlishly, no longer shy or withdrawn. ‘Of course, it takes so long and there are always errors,’ she was saying, ‘but it doesn’t matter, the result is always the same.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ Cynthia said.

‘Of course you don’t, you’re so fucking normal! Frigid bitch!’ And Emma was laughing at her.

Cynthia woke up, panting. She felt that a noise must have awoken her but could hear nothing. There was a movement in the corner of the room, in the shadows, where Cynthia’s plump, decorative armchair stood; the chair behind which she had stowed Emma’s paintings. Cynthia blinked. Was someone sitting there? A movement, a shift of moonlight. Someone rose, snake-like, from the chair and came towards the bed. It was Emma Tizard herself! The witch Emma, the secret Emma, and possibly a vengeful Emma. Cynthia could make no sound. She couldn’t see Emma’s face, but the hair was unmistakable, not bound, not plaited, but loose and glorious in the half-light. The figure moved to the dressing table and picked up the photograph of Cynthia’s son, Richard. Cynthia saw the pale flesh, the long fingers, the perfect unvarnished nails. Emma looked at the photograph and chuckled. She turned to Cynthia. ‘What a white little worm. Bet he’s a lousy fuck,’ she said.

Cynthia Peeling could not scream, but her muffled, petrified squeaks woke her husband. He turned on the bedside light. ‘Cyn, what’s the matter love?’ He shook her. ‘Wake up! Cyn!’ She opened her eyes puffing and gasping, as if she’d been drowning. The bottom sheet had come untucked and had wrapped itself around her hot legs.

‘She!’ Cynthia gasped, unable to say the name. ‘The dead girl from next door. My God, Rod, she was here!’

Rodney put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Come on, love, bad dream, that’s all.’ He made soothing noises and arranged the pillows under her head. ‘Get back to sleep. You’ll soon forget.’

Cynthia felt her breathing slow down. She closed her eyes. No one could ever have called her an imaginative person. She did not believe in ghosts and thought witchcraft was an excuse for bizarre sexual practices, but if her husband had known what was going through her head at that moment, he would have thought her a stranger.

Next morning, once Rodney had gone to work, Cynthia had to go into the lounge and draw the curtains on the window that overlooked Wren’s Nest. She thought with dread of the rolled-up paintings behind her chair in the bedroom, and the little book in her dressing-table drawer. However, by lunch-time, she’d managed to pull herself together and examine rationally the way she was feeling. She drank a glass of milk and made herself a salad sandwich. It’s over now, she thought, We will never know what happened to Emma Tizard or find out any of her secrets, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know.

Having comforted herself, she went to wash her glass, plate and knife at the sink. Leaves had begun to fall from the apple trees in the garden. The season was changing and the sun looked low in the sky. Cynthia put the radio on to listen to the afternoon play and went to open the curtains in the lounge. No more of this! she thought, briskly pulling the drapes apart.

There was a light burning in Wren’s Nest. Cynthia’s first thought was that the estate agents were showing someone around the place, but that was impossible because she had the only keys. Almost automatically, she slung a jacket over her shoulders and ran out of the house, over the lawn towards Wren’s Nest, before she realized what she was doing. She felt sure that someone was in Wren’s Nest to whom Emma had already given a key. Cynthia was aware that it could be dangerous to confront whoever it might be, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Breathless, she rang the doorbell. Nobody came to answer it, but she felt the presence of someone pausing inside, looking up from what they were doing, waiting. She rang again. Nothing. She thought of the keys hanging up in her kitchen that had come from Emma’s handbag. Should she fetch them? Should she go back and call the police? She took a step backwards, hesitating.

The front door to Wren’s Nest opened. A tall, pale girl stood there, long blonde hair falling over her face. She wore a dark coat, hanging open. She and Cynthia stared at each other for a moment. Cynthia was unsure of what to say. ‘I’m Emma’s neighbour,’ she said at last, gesturing back towards her house.

The girl frowned. ‘Where are her things?’ she demanded. ‘What have you done with Emma’s things?’

Cynthia felt small. ‘Well, her parents came. ’ she began lamely.

‘They had no right!’

‘Well, no one else came!’ Cynthia said indignantly. ‘It’s been so long! Was there something of yours Emma had?’ She was wondering whether she ought to invite this strange person over for coffee, a natural instinct for hospitality. ‘You missed the funeral? I’m sorry. A friend of Emma’s were you?’

The girl smiled grimly. ‘There’s nothing left here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so late. I thought I’d be in time.’

‘Well. ’ Cynthia shrugged awkwardly. ‘Would you like a hot drink? It must be cold in there and. the. electricity’s. turned. off.’ She tried to peer past the girl to see if the lights were on. Perhaps a candle?

The girl considered for a moment, then said, ‘Yes please, I would like a drink. I’m Felicia Browning.’

The name seemed familiar to Cynthia. Where had she heard it before?

The girl looked out of place in Cynthia’s kitchen, too large somehow, too awkward, yet she was graceful and slim. As Cynthia plugged in the kettle, Felicia Browning said, ‘Can you help me get Emma’s things?’

Cynthia dared not look at her, fiddling with the on/off switch needlessly. Never a person to lie, she now had the strongest reluctance to confess she’d virtually stolen some of the paintings and the little book. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s impossible. You see, Emma’s parents took her effects to the dump.’ It sounded sordid now, a foul and spiteful act.

‘The stupid bastards!’ Felicia Browning exclaimed vehemently. ‘That was years of work! Years of it!’

‘I’m sorry. I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Cynthia said, ‘But unfortunately Mrs Tizard was adamant. She found some things that quite upset her, you see.’

The girl nodded. ‘Yes, Em was careless. She should have cleared things away. She should have told me earlier. Now, it’s all gone!’

‘What do you mean exactly? Was Emma planning on leaving anyway?’

Felicia looked at Cynthia with an unattractive furtiveness, then shrugged. ‘She was making preparations but the timing didn’t quite work out.’

‘It certainly didn’t!’ Cynthia said cynically. She poured hot water into the coffee mugs. ‘Have you known Emma long?’

‘I suppose so. We used to live together in London.’

Cynthia looked up sharply. Of course, the name! She must have read it in the papers, or had the police mentioned it? Emma’s erstwhile, disappearing flatmate.

Felicia took her mug and sipped, speaking to Cynthia over the rim, confirming her hostess’s suspicions without further prompting. ‘I can see you’ve heard about me. I’ve been away for a while.’

‘Away!’

‘Don’t worry about it!’ Felicia said, laughing.

Cynthia felt herself flush. ‘It’s just that. people had assumed. ’ She gestured helplessly with one hand.

Felicia narrowed her eyes, ignoring Cynthia’s lame comments. ‘Emma was going to join me, fucked everything up, which is why I’m here now. Totally disorganized she is, totally! I’m not sure what I’m even supposed to be looking for here. There’s a communication problem at present.’

Cynthia was beginning to wish this person would go. There was something eerie about her, disturbing. As if reading her mind, the girl stood up.

‘I’ll be off now. Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Would you like to leave an address? If anything should turn up, I could contact you..’ Cynthia offered vaguely.

Felicia laughed. ‘That’s not likely!’ She strode out of the house, leaving the door open.

Cynthia had to sit down and compose herself again. Whatever Emma had been mixed up in, Felicia Browning had been part of it, and she had sat in Cynthia’s kitchen and drunk her coffee! Cynthia quickly picked up the half empty mug and dropped it into the sink, running hot water over it for several minutes. She worried about Felicia having another set of keys to the bungalow. Later, she had better phone the Tizards and tell them. It was their problem, not hers.

Rodney rang to say he would be late home and not to hold dinner. Cynthia ate early, making herself a mixed grill, and drank two glasses of wine. After eating, she went into the bedroom and fetched Emma’s paintings and book. Using ashtrays, mugs and ornaments, she laid the paintings out on the floor and sprawled on the sofa to study them, drinking another glass of wine. She had only taken one study of the naked man, one of the less erotic sketches. Now, it seemed to stand out from all the rest, commanding her attention. He was quite beautiful, almost effeminate, slim but with a hint of strength within the litheness. The face was disturbingly familiar. Of course! Cynthia realized the drawing was reminiscent of Emma herself. Did the Tizards have a son? Cynthia shuddered. Good God, was incest, or at the least the thought of it, another of Emma’s dark secrets? No brother had been mentioned though and surely he would have come to the funeral… if he was alive. Still glancing at the drawing, she opened the little book and tried to read some of it. A hopeless task really. It was not a work written for the uninitiated and she could barely understand a quarter of it. Was this research for Emma’s unearthly paintings, or something darker, more personal? Sighing, Cynthia put the book down. It would not give up its knowledge to her.

The light had faded completely from the sky outside and Cynthia sat in darkness, drinking and staring through the window at Wren’s Nest. Her eyes were narrow, her gaze strangely vacant. Her breathing had become shallow and misted on the air. Something nagged at her inside her head; a voice almost heard, but not quite. She felt she knew the answer, had all the pieces to reveal the picture, yet was too close to see it as a whole.

I must go back. It’s there. Felicia missed it. I must go back. The compulsion could not be ignored.

Cynthia raised herself jerkily from the sofa and padded into the kitchen. She put on her shoes and her coat and lifted down the keys to Emma’s bungalow. From the back of her pantry she took a flashlight down off its hook and marched out of her home, with purpose, to the house next door.

Nothing happened when she tried the light switch in Emma’s hallway. For a moment, Cynthia was afraid of the dark, but the fear had to be ignored. Feeling her way along the wall, she went into the lounge. Here, she turned on the flashlight, illuminating the ghostly clouds of her breath. The incense smell had gone. The Tizards had left all the furniture in the house; most of it was brand-new. She herself would not want to sit or sleep in the furniture of the dead.

In the kitchen, all the cupboard doors were open. Felicia Browning must have made a thorough search, but all were empty. Cynthia closed them, took a deep breath, and went out into the hall again, pausing before the workroom door.

It looked much larger now that all Emma’s belongings had gone. The desk had been polished, the floor cleaned. Cynthia went inside. There was nothing there. What had she been expecting? Her body gave an involuntary jump, as if responding to a sharp, unheard sound.

What the hell am I doing here? An empty house, there’s nothing here. Too much wine? Am I obsessed? You stupid creature, get out of here! Go home, draw the curtains, put on the lights, watch TV.

But the thoughts were separate from her. She realized she hadn’t the will, nor even the desire to move from the room. Was she afraid? She felt electrified, apprehensive, somehow out of control. None of these feelings were familiar to Cynthia Peeling.

Opposite her, the ornate mirror on the wall had misted over with condensation. Cynthia pulled herself together with rational, organizing thoughts. Perhaps she should arrange to have the heating turned on. New residents wouldn’t want to cope with problems caused by damp. The mere invocation of these mundane ideas seemed to change the atmosphere in the room. Cynthia swept the light beam around her, still strangely reluctant to leave. She went to the mirror and wiped it. Her reflection looked ghastly, surprised, in the stark light. ‘You’ve gone, Emma, haven’t you?’ she said softly. Her breath fogged the glass again and, mistily, it seemed to Cynthia that her reflection wavered and convulsed, twisting her dimly-seen reflection into something different; more strange yet more familiar. It seemed she stood against a background of rock and cloud.

Cynthia uttered an alarmed mewing sound and abruptly wiped the glass. Relieved, she found her own, accustomed image looking back at her. An illusion. I’ve had enough of this place, enough of Emma. Sniffing, Cynthia turned around. This time she meant to leave.

A tall figure stood in the doorway, caught in the beam of Cynthia’s flashlight. She cried out in alarm. It was a young man, arms above his head, resting his hands on the door frame. There was a certain proprietorial air about the pose. The silence lasted only seconds but in that time, Cynthia saw and realized who he was. She recognized the beautiful face, the red hair, the long, white hands. This man had Emma’s face, Emma’s hair, Emma’s eyes, Emma’s cruel smile of the nightmares. She had seen his image in a hundred of Emma’s sketches and paintings. She had seen him naked.

The man came into the room, leisurely closed the door and, folding his arms, leaned back against it. He said nothing, although he didn’t seem surprised to find Cynthia there. Had he watched her enter the house?

Cynthia tried to take a step backwards and found she couldn’t. Her shoulders were against the mirror. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded, aware of the tremor in her voice. She realized she was trapped. Fear paralysed her.

‘I might ask the same of you,’ said the man.

‘My husband and I look after the place. He’ll be over here soon. ’

The man laughed. It was a melodious, musical sound. ‘You’re a good woman, Cynthia,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you liked my paintings. I’m glad you saved them. You’ve been a good friend to Emma.’

Cynthia’s mouth had turned to glue. Her jaw ached and she was conscious of a numbness creeping through her limbs, as if presaging a faint. Images of her own comfortable, safe living-room flashed before her eyes. A mockery; she was neither comfortable or safe and further away from home than she’d ever been. An image of violence and murder superimposed itself over the fading memory of her familiar setting. ‘Who are you?’’

‘A friend,’ he answered. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ He unfolded his arms, rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve been waiting to speak with you. I want you to help me.’

This apparently reasonable request slightly reassured Cynthia. Perhaps everything would be all right. ‘You had better come over to the house. My husband.. ’

‘Who is still at work. ’ The man laughed again. ‘I want you to help me here, Cynthia. It won’t take a moment.’

Panic slipped back into Cynthia’s mind. He knew her name. Her voice was a squeak. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s quite simple. I want you to turn around, very slowly, and take down tie mirror from the wall.’

‘Why?’

‘Please do as I say.’

Cynthia’s mind quickly juggled the thoughts of whether it would be wiser to comply or refuse. She would be helpless with her back turned. Why did he want her to move the mirror? But even as she was still trying to come to a decision, she could feel her body moving by itself, turning round. Her neck felt wrenched; she did not want to take her eyes from the intruder. An urge to scream built up within her, a scream she knew would never escape the constriction in her chest.

‘That’s right,’ said the man. ‘Gently now.’

A weird sound, that of strangled sobbing, whined from Cynthia’s throat as her neck cricked round to face the wall. She watched as if from a distance as her arms moved automatically to ease the glass from its hanging. Its damp surface pressed against her cheek and she staggered under its weight. The man didn’t move to help her. ‘I still need it, you see,’ he said. ‘Just for a while, until I know what I’m doing. You can help me, Cynthia, because I don’t think the new residents of this place would want to, do you?’

Cynthia was draped over the mirror, mouth hanging open, fighting for breath. ‘Who are you?’ she managed to whisper and then the fatal question, the one she didn’t want to ask but couldn’t stop. ‘Did you kill Emma?’

The man smiled. ‘I suppose I did, in a way, but not in any manner you could imagine or comprehend.’ The smile faded from his lips. He moved quickly towards Cynthia and put his hands on her face, ignoring her cry of horror. ‘Cynthia, please know me! Please! I need your help!’

Cynthia’s flesh chilled. She wanted to pull away from the warm, slim hands. ‘No!’ she said, but it was a weak sound.

‘Yes! Yes!’ There was fire in the man’s eyes, a dancing light. ‘Cynthia, I had to do this. I can’t explain why to you, because you wouldn’t understand. It’s something that’s been with me for a long time. I created the image, and put it into the mirror. With my eyes, with my sex.’

‘Emma,’ Cynthia said.

‘I had to undress myself from the flesh, for the new flesh to become.’

The man moved away from Cynthia’s tense, crippled stasis. He glanced around the room. ‘Everything’s destroyed. It’s as it should be, but you.. ’ He turned to her again. ‘You kept some of it back. You are my gateway, Cynthia. Felicia is my guide, but I’ve missed her somehow. ’

‘She’s been here,’ Cynthia said.

The man nodded. ‘I know. She’s waiting for me, somewhere. Once the image was fuelled, it could act, it became. I know this all sounds bizarre to you, but there are wondrous things in the world, things you can be, and do, if you only admit the possibility. I’m here now, Cynthia. This is me as I want to be.’

‘You killed yourself,’ Cynthia said. Her instincts hadn’t lied to her the day Michael Homey had turned up. Emma had been fine, more than fine. Cynthia wanted to sit down; her skull felt as if it was about to crack with the weight of the unbearable knowledge it now contained.

The man smiled at her gently. ‘Do I look dead? You have touched me, haven’t you?’

‘What is the mirror for?’ Cynthia asked.

‘I’m not fully out of it,’ replied the man. ‘Not yet.’ He shivered. ‘It’s yours now, Cynthia. You must put it on your bedroom wall.’

‘No,’ Cynthia said, uselessly.

‘Come on, it’s cold in here. Let’s go home.’

Back in her own house, the mirror propped up against the wall, Cynthia curled up in an armchair and drank a large tumbler of Scotch. She was alone. The back door had been left open and all the rooms were in darkness. She hugged herself tightly, cold. Cars passed the house, lights from the other houses glowed into the dark. Behind other doors, husbands talked about their day to wives, and children splashed in steaming, bedtime baths. Dreams would settle, and when the new residents of Wren’s Nest moved in, memories would fade. Life would go on.

Cynthia, sitting somewhat apart from this world of cosy domesticity, gazed into the mirror and drank her Scotch. The moment when the unseen becomes seen changes life for ever. There is a sense of loss, when ignorance dies. Emma Tizard seemed such a nice girl.