Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

There were two stops in the village. The first was by the duck pond at the bend in Hospital Lane and almost directly opposite Dennis’s house. Several passengers prepared to get off. It took a little while. They were loaded down with shopping and one woman with a toddler had a pushchair, which the driver got out of his cab to help her with.

As all this was going on Polly sat staring out of her window directly into the garage of Kinders. No sign of a car – presumably Dennis drove to work. No sign of that odious cleaner either. In fact, no sign of life at all. As the driver got back into his seat Polly jumped up, calling, “Just a minute,” and got off the bus.

In the lane most of the disembarking passengers had wandered off but a couple remained, heads close together, talking in low voices. Polly crossed over to the pond and felt their glances follow. She sat on a little bench and observed the ducks. Uptailing, skimming, fighting. Then there was a sudden outburst of fierce quacks and by the time they died down the two women had gone.

Polly looked about her. A man in a cheese-cutter cap was walking his Labrador further up the lane, moving away in the opposite direction. Quickly she crossed the road, opened the gate of Kinders and entered the garage. There was the large Peg-Board and keys, just as she remembered it. What a fool the man was. Even though she could see no main house keys he was still asking for trouble. You could almost say she was doing him a favour, drawing attention to the risk he was taking before anything serious took place. A man should always be on his guard. Polly unhooked the bunch marked “Office” and slipped them into her pocket.

She made her way down the lane, the weight of the three keys pulling on the skirt of her soft cotton dress. So, there it was. She had them. No one else knew she had them. She was safe. Yet Polly still felt uneasy. Having taken them on impulse she now had to think about how soon she could safely put them back. In an hour or so Dennis would be returning from work. Of course he might not check out the board. And he’d hardly be leaving the keys of the beautiful dark blue Lexus Polly had spotted on the day of the funeral hanging there. But he was bound to lock the garage at some point. How late might that be?

Slowly it dawned on Polly that if she was going to make use of the keys – and having stolen them she certainly intended to – she simply could not risk trying to put them back at all. Even if Dennis hadn’t noticed their disappearance, finding a safe opportunity could prove extremely difficult. And if he had, and they then turned up on the board again, he’d get seriously worried. An impression could have been taken. He might even contact the police. But if she left things as they were Dennis would probably just think he’d mislaid them. Old people were like that. Always losing stuff.

In the kitchen, having wisely picked up a few Diet Cokes in the post office that morning, Polly took one out of the fridge, rolled the cool metal against her burning cheek, listened with pleasure to the soft hiss of escaping gas and drank deep. She removed the severe black ribbon and shook her hair out, running her hands through the glowing mass, lifting it away from her face. Then she eased her dress away from her sweating skin and splashed cold water over her neck and face, leaving the pearls of moisture to dry naturally.

The house appeared to be empty, which suited Polly fine. The last thing she wanted was non-stop wittering. Perhaps Benny was in the church. She had mentioned that morning being on the flower rota. Polly was incredulous. If God had made her that ugly and that stupid she would not have been playing the handmaiden at his altar. She would have been pissing on him from a great height. If not worse.

Now that she felt cooler Polly decided to sit outside. She thought first of the banks of a stream, which ran under a little bridge just a few yards from St. Anselm’s. The thought of resting her feet in the clear running water was most appealing, but in fact Polly got no further than the front door. A heavenly scent of lavender, mixed with rich perfume from a huge swag of honeysuckle smothering the porch, changed her mind. She sat on one of the wooden seats – just a shelf really – put her feet upon the shelf opposite and, for a brief moment, felt almost sorry that first thing tomorrow she would be returning to London.

But back to business. There were two things she had to work out and the first was how soon she could safely return to Causton and let herself into the offices of Brinkley and Latham. What time had it got dark last night? Half-nine? Tennish? What time did the pubs turn out? And did it matter if the odd drunk noticed someone slip a key into a door through which they had no right to enter?

Secondly, although she could come and go as she chose while at Appleby House, Polly decided it would be prudent, bearing in mind possible future conversations between Benny and her parents, to have a reason for her nocturnal rambling. She planned to ring her mobile using the house phone and mock up a conversation with a friend who, briefly in the area, wanted to take her out for a drink. No—he wouldn’t be coming to the house. She would be meeting him at the village pub. This invention caused Polly to laugh aloud at her own cleverness. She drained her Coke, tossed the can into a clump of honesty, looked at her watch and sighed. Another three hours to get through. Polly was already dissing her earlier notion that peace, quiet and assorted herby fragrances held any sort of appeal. They were, in fact, excessively boring. The country sucked.

She thought about getting Benny’s radio from her room—there was still some Emma B to go – but decided she couldn’t be arsed. What she really wanted was a nice line of charlie, a Vodka Zhenya and the latest figures from the floor click-clicking, tackata tackata, through her hungry fingers.

But then something happened that wiped this irritation completely. Judith Parnell came out of the house opposite, got into an old grey Mazda and drove off, turning right, presumably aiming for the Causton road. Polly watched open-mouthed. The town was at least ten miles away. Even if she had only a couple of errands to do and came straight back it should take around an hour. And in an hour…why, the whole world could change.

Polly walked slowly towards the house called Trevelyan, the tarmac spongy beneath her feet. She made her way slowly down the side of the house, past a cloud of delphiniums and summer stock, fragrant in the blinding heat.

The back door was heavy and quite solid enough to be at the front. It had a letter box too and a brass knocker in the form of a lion’s paw. Polly lifted it and rapped very gently – far too gently to be heard by anyone inside. Then she lifted the latch and walked in.

The sunlight vanished as the door closed behind her. She was in a tiny hall in which three white-painted doors stood open. Polly waited, motionless, for a long moment, almost holding her breath, then quietly called, “Hello?”

But there was only silence. Perhaps he hadn’t heard? In spite of her intense pleasure at the thought of the coming meeting, Polly was not entirely averse to extending this second-by-second delay. She had dreamed and dreamed of being with Ashley again. She didn’t count their brief exchange of closely monitored smiles the last time she saw him.

Inevitably she had pictured their meeting. Played a few emotional variations, tried out some dialogue for style and content, wondered how soon they would touch and what the excuse – if any was felt to be necessary – would be. But of one thing she was quite sure: Ashley would be pleased, very pleased indeed to see her.

And if there should be any awkwardness – though no way could Polly imagine any such thing – she planned to say she was there purely to ask himself and Judith over to Appleby House for a glass of wine before supper. A simple transparency. She knew Judith would refuse and guessed that Ashley would recognise the invitation for the cover story that it was and have the nous not to pass it on. Indeed, with a bit of luck, by the time she left they would have reached the sort of understanding that would render any such subterfuge quite unnecessary in the future.