Peter James - The House on Cold Hill

‘Come and see me again sometime. You’re a nice chap. Don’t be put off by all that’s happened. Remember what I said, the light can only shine in darkness.’

‘I’ll remember that, thank you,’ Ollie said.

‘I’ll give you a bit of advice though — I’ll tell you what I think you should do — I’d have done it myself for you if I’d been a younger man, but I’m too old now.’

Five minutes later, as Ollie drove away, the old clergyman stood by the front door, holding his dog and giving him a strange look that unsettled him.

It was the look of an old man who was seeing something — or someone — for what he knew might be the last time.

It made Ollie shiver.

Manthorpe closed the front door feeling deeply shaken. He needed to make an important phone call, and urgently. He looked around and remembered he had left the handset up in his den on the first floor.

The conversation of the past hour with the decent young man had confirmed so much that he already feared. The Harcourts needed help, and he knew the right person to speak to. He began to climb the narrow stairs, his knees aching, his heart pounding. He was out of breath before he’d reached halfway. Soon he was going to have to find the money for one of those stairlift things. Or else move.

With one step to go to the top, a shadow suddenly crossed in front of him, and stopped.

The old man halted in his tracks and stared up. He wasn’t afraid, just angry. Very angry. ‘What the hell do you want?’ he said.

‘Mr Simpson, the music teacher, has asked me if I’d like to play a solo in the school concert at the end of term!’ Jade said, bubbling with enthusiasm as she climbed up into the car.

‘Wow, that’s great, lovely! What are you going to play?’

‘Well, I’m not sure yet — he’s got a few ideas.’

‘I’m very proud of you!’

All the way home she told him about her day and about how much she liked her new music teacher. The discussion about ghosts they’d had this morning, when he’d been driving her to school, seemed to be gone from her mind — for now at least.

At a few minutes past 6.00p.m., as they drove up the drive and the house came into view, looking stunning in the evening sunlight, his spirits lifted. He was cheered and buoyed by Jade’s happy innocence and her growing enthusiasm for her new school. And she had added two more new friends, in addition to Charlie and Niamh, to the ones she wanted to invite to her birthday party, she told him.

He saw Caro’s black Golf parked outside the house, and then, as they drew closer, he saw she was still in the car, talking on her phone.

He pulled up beside her, and climbed out. Jade jumped down, clutching her guitar and rucksack, and ran happily to the Golf. Moments later, Caro ended her call and emerged, holding her briefcase. Jade hugged her and delivered the same excited news she’d given her father. Then they went inside and Jade disappeared up to her room.

‘How was your day, darling?’ Ollie asked.

‘I need a drink,’ she said. ‘A large one. Several large ones!’

They went through into the kitchen. Caro plonked her briefcase down on the floor. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got a good hour’s work to do,’ she said. ‘But I really do need a drink first. God!’

Ollie went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine, then began to cut away the foil. ‘Have you only just arrived home, darling?’

‘No, I got here about twenty minutes ago. I was waiting for you to come home. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry about what?’

She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. ‘I was too scared to come in here on my own. I–I didn’t want to be alone in the house.’

He turned to look at her. She was hunched over the table, looking deeply vulnerable.

He walked over and put an arm round her. ‘Darling, I understand.’

‘Do you? Do you really? Do you understand what it’s like to be scared to go in the front door of your own sodding home? Aren’t you scared? What’s going to happen tonight? Tomorrow? It’s like something doesn’t want us here. What the hell have we done? What have we got ourselves into? Do you think we should move? Ollie, what are we going to do?’

She was wondering whether she should tell him about the message on her phone that had appeared — then disappeared — whilst she was having lunch with Kingsley Parkin. But she still couldn’t be sure if she had simply imagined it. So she said nothing.

‘We need to sort this out,’ he said. ‘Sort the house out. Find out just what the hell is going on. I went to see the previous vicar here, a nice old boy called Bob Manthorpe. He said the house had a bad history but that all old houses have some tragedies in their past.’

‘And beds that rotate one hundred and eighty sodding degrees during the night?’

‘I still think there’s got to be an explanation for that.’

‘Good, I’m glad one of us does.’

He returned to the wine. ‘It’s not physically possible to have rotated — without being dismantled first. I took Bryan Barker up to the room earlier, and he had a good look at it. The nuts and bolts holding it together haven’t been touched in years — decades. They’re all corroded.’

‘I went to see someone too, today.’

‘Who?’

‘A client. I didn’t want to tell you about him because I didn’t want to upset you. He came to see me on Monday. He’s a new client, a weird guy, an old rocker called Kingsley Parkin — he had one big hit back in the sixties — who says he’s psychic.’

‘What was the hit?’

‘I can’t remember — not something I’d heard of. I think he said his band was called Johnny Lonesome and the Travellers — or something like that. Anyway, he started getting messages about the house when he was in my office on Monday — messages from my auntie Marjorie. Marjie. Remember her?’

‘Of course.’ The cork came out with a loud pop. ‘She was lovely, I liked her.’

‘She liked you, too. He knew her name, Ollie. Isn’t that strange? How did he know her name?’

‘What kind of messages — what was she saying?’

‘He said she was telling us to leave. To leave while we still could.’

Ollie wiped fragments of cork from the neck of the bottle, thinking. If Caro’s mother, despite being a magistrate, was a tad bonkers, her auntie Marjie had been seven miles north of bonkers. He’d genuinely liked her, but she really was wired on a different circuit from everyone else. ‘Did your auntie have anyone in mind to buy this place and pay us back all we’ve sunk into it?’

‘I’m being serious, Ollie.’

‘So am I.’ He filled two wine glasses and carried them over to the table. ‘Look, I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about any of this. I can’t explain the bed, and I can’t explain what you saw in the mirror. But moving here is the biggest thing we’ve ever done. We can’t just walk away because some drug-addled old rocker with a fried brain is getting messages from your dead auntie. Is that what you want?’

‘Kingsley Parkin said that if we wanted to stay we should consider asking for an exorcism. But he’s offered to come out here himself and see what he picks up.’

Ollie sat down opposite her. ‘An exorcism?’

It was along the lines of what Bob Manthorpe had suggested to him earlier, although he had used less dramatic words, a Christian Service of Deliverance, he had called it. And he had told Ollie he knew a good person to do it if they decided to go that route.

‘Parkin said we should talk to the current vicar,’ continued Caro. ‘Apparently there’s an exorcist in every diocese in the country. They get called in when things happen that people can’t explain. Like they’re happening here.’