House of Malice

FIFTEEN

After getting caught up in traffic jams on the A40, Mandy didn’t get back to Summer Cottage until early evening. She shivered as she opened the front door, feeling a chill there that she was certain wasn’t just caused by the dropping outside temperature or the mist that hung heavy in the night air. When she flipped on the lights, they seemed to flicker uncertainly before coming on.

Buster was plainly unhappy to leave the car and she had to coax him into the cottage with a dog treat. He made for his bed in the kitchen, and sat there looking tense. Mandy stayed near him for a while, fretting, then walked uneasily into the hallway and picked up the phone to dial Sarah Grace’s number.

‘Don’t hesitate to call,’ Ellen’s daughter had said in her note. Now was the time to find out some truths. What really happened to your mother? Mandy wanted to ask. Did she ever report anything strange about this house?

Another question had begun to plague her, too. When she’d first seen the asking price Sarah Grace had put on her mother’s former home, Mandy had been too bowled over by her good fortune to think twice about it. Even after seeing the place, she hadn’t questioned why someone in her position on the property ladder could possibly afford it. But now she wondered. Why had Sarah Grace sold Summer Cottage so cheap? Did she know something?

But Mandy hung up the phone before she’d even finished dialling. How could she ask those things without being taken for a lunatic? And if Sarah did know anything, she was hardly likely to admit it to her.

She did need help, though, and fast. She ran to the study, glancing nervously up and down the passage. Her skin crawled with the feeling that, everywhere she went in the house, she was being watched. She quickly turned on the computer, brought up the Google search box and keyed in the words ‘paranormal investigator cotswolds’. She hit Enter. The search results flashed up, showing only one name. A few clicks later, Mandy was looking at the website of one Claire Baker, based not too far away in Stow on the Wold and offering services to clients who believed they were being affected by “phenomena that seem to defy rational explanation”. Ms Baker claimed several years’ experience in investigating hauntings and other paranormal activity across south and central England. Her photo showed a benevolent-looking woman in her late forties or early fifties, with short reddish hair and the puffy face of someone with a long-term weight problem.

Mandy hastily scribbled down the woman’s phone number. Email wasn’t quick enough for what she had in mind.

The feeling in the house was getting stronger. As if the unseen watchers were everywhere, circling her, moving in closer with each passing moment. She couldn’t bear it any more. ‘Come on, Buster,’ she called, throwing open the kitchen door. ‘We’re going.’

She locked the cottage and ran back to the car with the dog at her heels, dived into the Kia and sped away, fog-lights cutting twin swathes through the ponderous mist. She drove for miles further out into the countryside, putting distance between her and Summer Cottage. The feeling of relief for having got away from the place should have been immense, but she couldn’t escape the sense of dread that seemed to hang on her, on her clothes, her hair, like a putrid stink.

The layby she pulled up in was off a deserted country road. She reached into her bag for her mobile phone, little used since moving to Summer Cottage and somehow a comforting reminder of her life before coming to this place. In the darkness of the car she pressed Claire Baker’s number into the tiny glowing keys and made the call.

Dial tone.

Please, please, don’t be a fruitcake or a whacko. Please be what I need.

‘Hello?’ said a woman’s voice on the line. So far, she sounded normal.

‘Is that Claire Baker?’

‘Speaking.’

‘I’m sorry to bother you in the evening,’ Mandy said. She spoke in a hushed tone, unable to shake the feeling that other listeners could hear her. ‘Oh, Christ. I don’t know how to say this.’

‘Why don’t you just come straight out with it, dear?’ The woman spoke slowly. Her voice sounded warm and comforting.

‘I’ll try. There’s… there’s something in my house. Something bad. Something…’ Mandy swallowed. ‘Evil. It’s after me. I think it wants to hurt me.’ She broke into a sob.

‘Relax. What’s your name?’

‘Mandy.’

‘Relax, Mandy. Do you believe you’re in danger?’

Mandy sniffed. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘Is the danger present at this very moment?’

Mandy glanced around her. Shadows from the waving trees outside played against the car windows. The mist drifted by. Buster was whingeing quietly in the back seat. ‘No. I’m not at the house now. I’m safe. I think.’

‘Then calm down and tell me your problem, in your own words.’

Over the next couple of minutes Mandy gave a halting, broken account of the events since her arrival at Summer Cottage. ‘Please help me. I didn’t know who else to call.’

‘You did the right thing, dear.’ Claire Baker’s voice was warm and soft. ‘Let me tell you that virtually all of the phenomena attributed to the paranormal turn out to have a perfectly rational explanation. A large part of the work investigators like myself carry out is to help soothe the anxiety that comes with the false belief that we’re dealing with some harmful or malevolent power.’

‘That’s what I so want to believe,’ Mandy told her. ‘That I’m just imagining the whole thing. That life can be normal again. Otherwise I just don’t know what I’m going to do.’ Her voice was near cracking.

A pause on the line. ‘Did you say Fairwood? That’s not far for me to travel. I could come out to you tomorrow morning, say ten-thirty?’

Mandy felt her heart sink. The idea of waiting that long was unthinkable. ‘Please, I’m desperate. Couldn’t you come now?’

‘Now?’

‘This evening, as soon as possible. I’m begging you. I’ll pay you double your normal rate. Name a price.’

A longer pause. Then: ‘That won’t be necessary. Give me your address, dear. I’ll get there as soon as I can.’

Slowly and with a sense of apprehension that grew stronger with every mile, Mandy drove back towards Summer Cottage. When the dark shape of the house loomed through the trees she pulled up within sight of it, no closer. And waited.

After half an hour she was beginning to think Claire Baker wouldn’t show; then headlights glowed on the lane and a car trundled slowly past the property, as if searching for an address. It stopped. The driver’s door opened and as the car’s inside light came on, Mandy recognised the woman from her website photo.

Mandy emerged from the parked Kia, clutching the carrier bag containing the library books, and stepped out into the cold mist to greet her. ‘Thank you so much for coming, Ms Baker,’ she said with real gratitude as they shook hands.

‘Please, call me Claire. You sounded as if you were serious about needing help. I notice—’

‘That I waited in the car for you to arrive?’ Mandy nodded. ‘I can’t be in there alone.’

‘Well, you’re not alone now, dear,’ Claire said with a warm smile, and took her arm. ‘Shall we go inside? Let’s talk about it over a nice cup of tea.’

‘So how does this work?’ Mandy asked nervously as they entered the cottage. Noticing that all the investigator had brought with her was a small, slim briefcase, she asked, ‘Don’t you use — I don’t know — special equipment or something?’

‘Sometimes,’ Claire said. ‘Cameras triggered by movement, sensors to pick up sudden temperature drops, electromagnetic frequency meters, things like that. But I don’t tend to use them as much as some others in my line of work. I rely a lot on instinct, but that’s just my personal preference.’

‘By instinct, you mean, psychic ability?’

Claire smiled. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t make any great claim to special powers. But I have a lot of instinct.’ She gazed around her for a moment at the hallway, as if drinking in the atmosphere of Summer Cottage. No expression showed on her face. ‘Now, wherever’s most comfortable for you to sit down and talk—’

‘The kitchen,’ Mandy said, with a nervous glance up the passage.

‘Then let’s go into the kitchen,’ Claire said in that calm, patient manner.

The investigator was very professional, very organised. From her briefcase she produced a notebook and a paranormal incident report form, on which she quickly filled out Mandy’s name and address together with the date. Her hands were chubby, with red nails. Taking out a small digital voice recorder she asked if she could record their interview. ‘Good. Let’s begin.’ She turned on the recorder.

As they talked, her questions were deliberately open, letting Mandy tell her story, never leading her. Mandy could tell she was being discreetly assessed to ensure she wasn’t a fraud or hoaxster. Claire must get a lot of those, she thought.

The investigator made notes as Mandy talked. ‘Would it be possible for me to speak with Todd? I’d like to get his side of the situation.’

‘Todd doesn’t believe me. Thinks I’m going mad, or that I’ve burned myself out working too hard.’

‘I see. Now, you say you’re a writer. What is it you write about?’

‘Well, normally I write historical romance novels.’ Hesitantly at first, Mandy explained how all that had changed soon after she’d come to live here. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like it before, or had such ideas. It’s frightening how clear they were. Still are. And now I’ve discovered that the author who lived here before me — the same thing happened to her. She wrote these.’ Mandy opened up the carrier bag she’d brought from the car, and showed Claire the Lucinda Darke books. ‘That was just another name Ellen wrote under,’ she explained.

Claire spent a few moments examining the books. If she was shocked by the covers or the content, she didn’t show it. She laid them aside, was quiet for a moment and then said, ‘You mentioned this neighbour—’

‘Mrs Bannister.’

‘Perhaps I could talk to her, too? It’s important for me to gather as much information as possible, from all sources and angles.’

Mandy gave a sour laugh. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve already been warned to stay away. One false move and I’ll be arrested by her copper niece.’

‘Very well,’ Claire said, signalling the end of the interview. She reached for her briefcase and replaced everything back inside, apart from the digital sound recorder which Mandy noticed she slipped into her pocket.

‘That’s it?’ Mandy said.

Claire smiled. ‘More or less, for now. I’d just like to take a few minutes to walk about the house alone, if I may. Just to gain my own impressions.’

‘Then you’ll excuse me if I wait outside.’

‘Of course, dear.’

Mandy returned to the car, feeling somewhat deflated and quite unsure what to make of the interview. She’d expected more, somehow. She sat in the Kia with Buster for nearly twenty minutes before she saw the paranormal investigator emerge from Summer Cottage. Claire walked calmly to Mandy’s car.

‘Well?’ Mandy said, trying to gauge the woman’s expression. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Was that a good thing?

‘That’s it,’ Claire said. ‘Thank you, dear, you’ve been very helpful.’

‘And now what?’

‘Now I go back and reflect on my notes, assess the case and decide whether to investigate further.’

‘But I thought you’d agreed—’

Claire held up a hand. ‘Please be patient. I know it’s not easy.’

‘But what do I do if you don’t take the case on and—’

‘Try and remain calm. Do you have another place to go, if you prefer to stay away from home for now?’

‘I can find a place,’ Mandy said.

‘That’s good. I’ll be in touch. Good night, dear.’

And with that, Claire Baker walked back to her car, leaving Mandy very much alone again. Mandy watched her drive away. She obviously thinks I’m crazy, she thought. Maybe the woman was just a crank, after all.

Whatever the case, there was no way Mandy was going to sleep at Summer Cottage that night. ‘Let’s get out of here, Buster,’ she muttered disconsolately as she started the Kia.

There was a cosy inn in the village, but they had no rooms vacant. Next, Mandy tried a bed and breakfast she’d noticed near the solicitors’ offices, but was turned away by the surly woman there on the grounds that they didn’t allow pets.

‘Please, I can’t leave him in the car alone. He’ll pine.’

‘Not my problem.’ The woman closed the door in her face.

She tried calling Todd’s number. There was no answer, so she drove to his terraced house a little way from the pub on Main Street and rang the doorbell. He wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t, she realised with a sinking feeling as she remembered him mentioning that upcoming job in Cornwall.

But as she was returning to her car, she noticed the Volvo estate a few yards down the street. Surely he wouldn’t have gone off by train to a photo shoot, she thought. Not with all that gear he had to lug about with him. Peering through the grimy back window of the estate, she could see the aluminium boxes piled up inside by the glow of the streetlight.

Then maybe he hadn’t gone to Cornwall after all! The job could have fallen through at the last minute. With a flash of hope, it occurred to her that she might find him at his favourite hangout, the nearby Fox and Hounds.

After making sure that Buster was safely locked inside the Kia, she ran down the street and burst inside the warm, lively pub. A young couple sat at the table nearest the fire where Todd liked to sit. Mandy went to the bar and asked the barman if Todd had been in that night. ‘Not seen him since yesterday,’ was the reply.

She walked back to the Kia, feeling lonely and frightened as it dawned on her that there was nothing for it but to spend the night in the car. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me, boy,’ she said to Buster.

Mandy drove and drove, trying to get as far away as possible from what had once been her ideal home. When the emotions became too strong for her to carry on driving, she pulled over in the leafy, whispering shadows of a rural picnic area and fell sobbing against the steering wheel.

‘Oh, Todd, where are you?’