Peter James - The House on Cold Hill

Seizing the chance, he raised the phone and pressed the red button to kill the call, but pretended to answer it. ‘Hi, darling!’ he said. ‘I’m just chatting to a lovely gentleman in the lane. Call you back!’ While he was speaking, the camera viewfinder returned, and still holding the phone up, he took a clear photograph of the man, before pocketing the phone. Then he said to the old man, ‘Apologies, my beloved.’

‘So,’ the old man said again, more insistently. ‘Have you seen her? Have you?’

‘I think both my in-laws may have done.’

Suddenly, gripping his stick with a clenched fist, he looked around, wildly, with fear in his eyes. ‘I have to be on my way now, I have to be off.’

‘Wait, please, can’t you tell me more about this — this thing you saw here? The lady? Is it something we need to be worried about, do you think? There was a big piece on ghosts in the Sunday Times I’ve been reading. It talks about imprints in the atmosphere, energy they’ve left behind, that sort of thing, trapped in a space — time continuum. There’s tons of stuff on the web, all kinds of theories. One is they’re the spirits of people who don’t realize their bodies are dead and haven’t found their way to the next plane. Earthbound souls , I think is the expression. Or that they have unfinished business. They’re spooky, but does anyone actually need to be afraid of them? I mean — can ghosts ever actually do anything?’

‘What about that Hamlet’s father?’ the old man replied.

‘That was a play, it was fiction, just a story,’ Ollie said, surprised to have Shakespeare thrown at him by this man.

Abruptly, the old man turned away, just as he had done the previous time they’d met. ‘I have to go now,’ he said, and started walking off.

Ollie hurried after him and drew level. ‘Please — please just tell me a bit more about her, this lady.’

‘Ask someone to tell you about the digger.’

‘You mentioned it last time — tell me what about the digger?’

‘The mechanical digger.’

‘What digger do you mean?’

‘No one leaves your house. They all stay.’

‘All stay? What do you mean?’

‘Ask about the digger.’

‘What about the digger?’

But the stranger quickened his pace, striking the ground with his stick, staring fixedly ahead in silence, his face livid with anger, as if he resented Ollie’s presence.

Ollie stopped and watched him walk on, feeling confused by the encounter. He turned to go back up to the house, but instead of the long driveway, he was suddenly staring at the front of their old home, their Victorian terrace in Carlisle Road in Hove. He walked slowly towards the front door, feeling as if it were the natural thing to do. As he reached the porch, the door opened, and there was Caro, smiling happily.

‘Darling,’ she said. ‘We have a visitor!’

It was the old man. He appeared in the doorway, looking very comfortable, as if he had come to stay and was settling in nicely, and raised his pipe in the air. ‘Mr Harcourt, nice to see you, welcome home!’

Then a steady peep ... peep ... peep ... peep intruded.

His alarm clock.

He had been dreaming. A weird dream — or a nightmare.

Caro leaped out of bed instantly. ‘Got to get in really early today,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a completion going on this morning and I have to go and see a client who’s in the Martlets Hospice.’

As he heard the sound of Caro in the bathroom, Ollie sat up, remnants of the strange dream still going around his head, and silenced the alarm repeat. 6.30 a.m. God, it had seemed so real, so vivid.

He reached out for his phone to check Sky News, as was his ritual, and saw to his surprise the red low-battery warning. He was sure it had been fully charged last night. Then he realized that the camera app was running.

He wondered if he was still dreaming. Out of curiosity, he clicked on Photos. There was a new image in the bottom left of the screen.

And now for sure he knew he was dreaming.

He jumped out of bed and ran over to the bathroom, his heart pounding. Caro was stepping out of the shower, one towel wrapped round her body, another, like a turban, round her head.

‘Take a look at this!’ he said, urgently, and held up the screen. ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming, please?’

She peered at it for a moment then said, in the acidly pleasant-but-dismissive tone she sometimes adopted when she was required to be polite about something she really did not care for, ‘What a sweet little old man. Why did you photograph him?’

The heatwave was over and the morning sky was grey and laden with rain. A light drizzle was falling and the wipers, on intermittent, swept it away every thirty seconds or so. He glanced at his daughter, proudly and with deep affection. In her smart uniform, with her hair neatly pulled back into a ponytail, he could see that in a few years’ time she would blossom into a beautiful young woman. And he wondered what kind of boyfriend trouble would then lie in store for him. Her relationship with Ruari amused him; it seemed a kind of innocent puppy-love. But this wasn’t a world where innocence lasted long. He hoped he and Caro could get her childhood to last as long as possible. And she was, at least, a very sensible girl. They’d always talked openly with her, and encouraged her to be open back to them. He tried never to shirk from any question she lobbed at them.

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Dad?’ Jade said suddenly, shaking Ollie out of his troubled thoughts, as they waited in a long line of traffic at roadworks for a temporary traffic light to change. He looked at the car clock, anxious that she would be late.

‘Why?’

She shrugged.

‘Something on your mind?’ He reached out and stroked her hair.

Almost instantly she shook her head, brushing his hand away. ‘Daaaaddd!’

The light changed to green and the traffic began to move. Ollie put the Range Rover into ‘drive’ and they inched forward. ‘Why did you ask about ghosts? Do you believe in them?’

She looked down at her phone for some moments, then stared ahead, through the windscreen, playing with the strap on her bag. ‘Phoebe was pranking with me last night, she really freaked me out.’

‘How come?’

‘I was on FaceTime chatting to her, she was just being silly.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘She told me she could see Gran standing behind me, in my room.’

‘Gran?’

‘She wasn’t here last night, was she?’

He thought for some moments before replying. Wondering, remembering the first Sunday night when Jade had asked if her grandmother had come up to her room. ‘No, she wasn’t.’

‘She said she saw this creepy-looking old lady in blue.’

‘I don’t think your gran wears blue much, does she?’

Jade shook her head. Then she said, ‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’

‘No.’

‘Would you be scared if you saw one?’

‘I’m not sure how I’d feel,’ he replied, openly.

‘Can ghosts hurt people?’

‘I think it’s the living who hurt people, lovely. Not ghosts. If ghosts exist.’

‘I think Phoebe was just being mean.’

‘It sounds like it. She’s coming on Saturday for a sleepover, right?’

Jade nodded.

‘We could play a trick on her, if you like? Scare her? I could put a sheet over my head and appear out of a cupboard — what do you think?’

A huge smile appeared on her face. ‘Yes! Will you, Dad? Will you? Then I could put it in our video!’

‘Great! Are you looking forward to your birthday party — it’s not long now. Will you invite anyone from St Paul’s?’