Peter James: The House on Cold Hill

Minutes later, as the removals van crested the hill, all the driver and his crewmates could see was a small mountain of stonework, slates and timber. And above the sound of the howling wind, they could hear the monotone blare of a car horn.

Ollie Harcourt was an eternal optimist. A glass half-full guy, who always believed things would work out for the best. Thirty-nine, with rugged good looks, an unruly mop of fair hair, and arty spectacles, he was dressed in a baggy cardigan, equally baggy jeans and Wolverine work boots, and sported an IWC wristwatch.

Caro was the polar opposite. Three years younger, with neat dark hair, wearing a brand-new blue Barbour jacket, tight-fitting trousers and black suede boots. Just as she always dressed appropriately for the office, so today, on this wet and windy September morning, she was dressed appropriately — if a little too perfectly — for the countryside. A born worrier, all the more so in the twelve years since their daughter, Jade, had come along, she fretted increasingly about everything. If Ollie’s mantra was, Hey, everything works out for the best , hers was, Shit happens, constantly.

And she should know. She worked as a solicitor in a law firm in Brighton, doing conveyancing. Not many people went to lawyers because they were happy. She was burdened daily with non-stop meetings, calls and emails from clients fretting over their house purchases or sales, quite often as a result of bitter divorces, or equally bitter disputes with other relatives over inheritances. And because she cared so much, she carried most of their woes home in her heart, and in her briefcase, every weekday night, and often at weekends, too.

Ollie joked that if worrying was an Olympic sport, Caro could represent Great Britain.

She didn’t find that funny, particularly as right now, while Ollie worked hard on building his website design business, she was the principal breadwinner. And at this moment, heading towards their new home on the big day of the move, although she was excited, she was also saddled with worries. Had they taken on too much? As a born and bred townie, how would she cope with life in an isolated country house? How would Jade take to it? And she wished Ollie wasn’t driving so fast. Especially in this pelting rain, which the wipers were struggling to clear.

‘Thirty limit, darling!’ she cautioned, as they approached a sign announcing COLD HILL. ‘There might be a speed trap. It wouldn’t be good to be seen being stopped on our first day here.’

‘Tummy tickler!’ Ollie said, blithely ignoring her, as the Range Rover became airborne for an instant over a humpback bridge.

‘Fail, Dad!’ shouted Jade, bouncing up on the rear seat and struggling to hold on to her iPhone and the carriers containing their two cats on the seat beside her.

They passed a cricket pitch to their left, then a Norman church to their right, its graveyard carpeted with fallen leaves. They carried on up a gradient, passing a row of cottages, one with a handwritten sign offering ‘Free-range Eggs For Sale’, a drab-looking pub, The Crown, a smithy, a ‘Bed & Breakfast’ sign and a village store. Finally, as they passed rows of detached houses and bungalows, then a small cottage to their left, Ollie braked hard.

‘Dad!’ Jade protested again. ‘You’re upsetting Bombay and Sapphire!’ Then she focused back on the photographs of the journey to their new home she was sharing on Instagram.

It was Ollie who had jokingly suggested naming the cats after the gin brand, and both Jade and Caro had instantly liked the names, so they had stuck.

To their right, opposite a red postbox partially engulfed by an unruly hedge, were two stone pillars, topped with sinister-looking wyverns, and with open, rusted, wrought-iron gates. A large sign, in much better condition than the pillars and gates, proudly proclaimed: RICHWARDS ESTATE AGENCY — SOLD!

Ollie stopped, indicating right, as a tractor towing a trailer spewing strands of straw came down the hill towards them at an almost reckless speed, passing them with just inches to spare. Then he swung the car in through the entrance, and sped up the steep, winding, potholed drive, bounded by railed fences in a poor state of repair. On one side of them was a herd of gloomy-looking brown and white cattle; on the other was a field full of alpacas. As the car lurched and bounced, Jade shouted out, again, ‘Dad!’ Then she saw the animals.

‘Oh wow, what are those?’

‘Llamas,’ her mother said.

‘I think they’re alpacas!’ Ollie said. ‘Aren’t alpacas smaller?’

‘They’re so cute!’ Jade watched the animals for some moments, then returned her attention to her screen.

A quarter of a mile on they rattled over a cattle grid, and the house came into view. Ollie slowed down, scarcely able to believe this was now their home. It looked almost magical, but with a melancholic air. He felt as if he were a century or more back in time. He could see a horse-drawn carriage pulling up here. It looked like something out of a romantic novel or a movie, perhaps Rebecca’s ‘Mandalay’.

He pulled the car to a halt on the crunching mossy gravel, behind Caro’s Golf, which they had left here earlier in the day when they’d brought their first load of stuff over. The rain rattled down on the roof, as loud as hailstones, and the Range Rover rocked in the howling wind. ‘Home sweet home!’ he announced.

‘Why’s it called Cold Hill House?’ Jade asked, still focused on her iPhone and tapping away hard.

‘Because we’re in Cold Hill village, lovely,’ he said, unclipping his seat belt.

‘Why’s it called Cold Hill village?’

‘Probably because it’s north facing,’ Caro replied. ‘So it doesn’t get as much sun as some places — and it’s a bit of a wind trap.’ She looked up at the recently restored grey facade, the white-painted sash windows and the metal wall-ties high up — the few parts of the property that had been worked on — filled with worry about the work that would be needed.

She wished she had put her foot down when they had first seen this place. But it had been high summer then. The surrounding fields had been full of yellow wheat and rape. The paddock had been full of wild flowers, the five acres of sweeping lawns had been neatly mown, and the lake was flat as a millpond, filled with lilies, the willow tree on the tiny island shining golden in the brilliant sunlight. There had been dozens of ducks and ducklings and a pair of coots.

Now the fields were a barren wilderness of mud and stubble. The front lawn was overgrown, and the windows of the house, which had seemed then to be filled with light, were now dark and gloomy, like the sunken eyes of a fish that was past its prime.

The porch also looked as if it had aged two decades since they had last been here. The paintwork, which had been new and fresh back then, was already flaking. The brass lion’s-head knocker, which she had been certain was shiny and gleaming last time they saw it, was a dull green-hued colour. And the circular driveway was more weed than gravel.

The house had been empty for over thirty years, after part of it had collapsed, the irrepressibly jolly estate agent, Paul Jordan, had told them. A property development company had bought it, intending to restore it and turn it into an old people’s home, but they had gone bankrupt in the last property crash after only completing a small part of the renovation work. It had so much scope, Jordan had enthused. It needed an owner with vision. And Ollie, who had great taste — and vision — had convinced her. They’d already moved house three times in the fifteen years since they were married, buying wrecks, doing them up and moving on with a good profit. It was that, and the lump sum Ollie had received from selling his property-search website, which had enabled them to afford this grand old wreck of a place. And, Ollie had persuaded her, they could double their money in five years’ time — if they wanted to move again.