Peter Robinson - Before the poison

My anxiety persisted, and in the end, when I thought I could hear the sound of a child crying, I knew that waiting for sleep was futile, so I slipped out of bed, got dressed and headed for the stairs. I think I even searched under the bed first. There was nothing there, of course, nor was there anybody in the corridor, and only my own footsteps made the ancient floorboards creak. No crying child. No abandoned governess hanging from the rafters. Nothing. Too much M. R. James. Or was it Henry James?

It had been my intention, when I first got up, to go down to the kitchen to make myself a pot of tea, then perhaps sit and read for a while until I felt tired again, but I was so edgy by the time I got downstairs that I changed my mind. I knew I shouldn’t, but instead of putting the kettle on for tea, I poured myself a stiff tumbler of duty-free Highland Park, something to take the edge off, to calm my nerves.

I had reconnoitred the downstairs of the house very quickly the previous evening after Heather’s visit, so I knew that the television room was on the eastern side, the opposite side of the vestibule from the kitchen. Perhaps I was risking the wrath of the television licence people, as I hadn’t sorted that out yet – perhaps they had a van lurking down the lane right now – but I didn’t care.

I flipped through the DVDs I had bought in London, mostly old British classics, some I had seen in my youth, or later, and a few others I hadn’t seen at all but had always wanted to watch. The TV set was a good one – I had chosen a brand name I knew I could rely on – and its fifty-inch plasma screen fitted comfortably on the far wall. The picture was excellent, the BluRay player and surround sound ideal. I settled with my whisky into the reclining armchair, which was the perfect distance away to recreate being in a cinema, only I didn’t have to put up with obnoxious people talking behind me, texting on their mobiles, crinkling cellophane bags, or with my feet crunching popcorn and sticking to the cola-flooded floor.

In the end, I decided on Brief Encounter. For many years it had been one of my favourite films, and as it began, I sipped my whisky, snug in my armchair, a blue and white striped blanket I’d found in one of the cupboards wrapped around me, legs propped up on the footrest. The wind raged outside, the bumps and creaks continued within, and I tried to push the sense of uneasiness from my mind as Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson played out their tragic and so-very-English little drama in the old Carnforth railway station against Rachmaninov’s lush romantic piano concerto.

I awoke in the armchair with a stiff neck at about nine o’clock in the morning, the heavy curtains blocking out any early sunlight there might be. When I shuffled to my feet and flung them open, I saw that last night’s wind and rain had washed and scrubbed the landscape clean. It was all blue sky, green grass and silver limestone again, all planes, curves and angles like an abstract landscape, autumn leaves drifting across. A David Hockney Yorkshire Dales, perhaps. Even better than I had imagined it would be.

The TV screen was still showing the menu for Brief Encounter with a snippet of Rachmaninov playing over and over again. I couldn’t recall getting to the end of the film. Half my whisky was still in the glass on the arm of the chair. I walked into the vestibule, expecting to find a newspaper jammed in the letterbox and letters all over the floor, but there was nothing, only the refracted light through stained glass dancing on the walls and carpet.

I wandered into the kitchen and checked the cupboards, but I soon realised with a sinking feeling that there was no coffee-maker. Heather Barlow had brought me a vacuum pack of Douwe Egberts filter roast, and the previous owner may have left me a grandfather clock, a grand piano and any number of other odds and ends, but no one had left me a coffee-maker, alas, not even a simple Melitta filter or Bodum cafetiere.

Starting to panic a little – I can’t function without my morning coffee – I tried desperately to think of a solution. There was roll of kitchen paper, which looked strong enough to work as a filter, so I put the kettle on and doubled up a piece. When the kettle had boiled, I spooned what I thought was enough coffee on to the paper and tried to hold its edges over a cup with one spread hand, while I poured, slowly and carefully, with the other. It didn’t work very well, and the soggy paper dropped to the bottom of the cup, though fortunately it didn’t burst open. I left it there for a few minutes then used a spoon to try to fold it and lift it out and drop it in the rubbish. The result in the cup tasted a bit like metallic dishwater, but it was better than nothing.

As I sipped the dreadful liquid, I realised that I was hungry. Despite all the food Heather Barlow had brought me, I hadn’t actually eaten anything but a chocolate digestive since the previous lunchtime. Luckily, I’m a fair cook – Laura and I often had to share cooking duties owing to the vagaries of our respective jobs – so it was no great chore for me to whip up a plate of bacon, a cheese and mushroom omelette, and toast. After that, I felt much better and decided I needed a cup of tea to take away the taste of the coffee. Morning sunlight streamed in through the east-facing window and bathed the kitchen in gold. I decided I liked it the way it was and wouldn’t make any changes there. I wasn’t too sure about the rest of the house. It was time to make my daylight inspection.

I carried my tea with me and walked through the door beside the stairs into the living and dining area at the back of the house. It was big enough to hold a society ball. The grand piano at its centre was an old Steinway, its black lacquered surface chipped in places, ivory keys worn over the years, and stained yellow, like English teeth. It looked as if a dog had been chewing at the legs. It didn’t take me more than a few notes to realise that Heather Barlow had been right about finding a piano tuner.

At the eastern end of the room, to the right of the piano as I faced the back windows, the tan three-piece suite was arranged in a spacious semicircle around the glass-topped table in front of a huge stone fireplace. I found myself mentally claiming the chair on the right, angled so that it showed the view, with just enough flat space on the arm to rest a glass without its falling off.

At the western end stood another fireplace and a simple, sturdy dining table with eight chairs, though there was space enough for more, a large mirror hanging on the wall and a swing door leading through to the kitchen on the left. Perhaps I would throw large dinner parties when I got to know a few people. I loved to cook for company. The walls were painted in light earth, terracotta and desert shades, all a bit Santa Fe, but I saw no reason to change that. I had always liked Santa Fe. I guessed that the room had probably once been divided into two, perhaps even three, but I liked the openness, the sense of light and space. A hangover from life in southern California, perhaps.

This was the back of the house, facing the dale’s northern slope, and it had no side windows. There were, however, two large picture windows, one by the dining area and another by the three-piece suite. At the centre, between them, French windows led from the room into the garden, where an ornate circular wrought-iron table with six matching chairs stood on a stone patio under the shade of a copper beech. A perfect spot for a barbecue, another item to add to my list.

I went outside. Though there was a definite autumn chill in the air, it was pleasant enough to sit for a while in my sweater, sip my tea and watch the leaves fall. Other than the slight rustling or scratching sound they made as they fell, it was quite silent. There was a little garden shed, and on inspection I found the usual tools, weedkiller, spiders and plant pots. Perhaps I would take up gardening. There was no wall at the back. The garden simply sloped up from the patio through long grass to the treeline. I imagined sitting outside in spring and summer enjoying morning coffee, toast and marmalade, reading the papers, watching the flycatchers and warblers, robins, finches and thrushes flit from tree to tree, listening to the blackbird’s song. How my father would have loved it. How Laura would have loved it.