Peter James - The House on Cold Hill

‘That,’ he said, ‘is the best plan I’ve heard all day.’

‘It’s a beautiful evening in Brighton — I was hoping we’d take a walk around the grounds but look at the rain! Amazing how the weather can be so different here — we’re only a few miles away, on the other side of the Downs, and it can be like a different climate sometimes.’

‘Glass of wine?’

‘I’ll wait, I’ve got some work to do first.’

‘OK.’ Ollie carried the bag up to his office, pulled out the heavy stack of photocopied documents held together by a thick elastic band, removed the band and placed the sheaf of contents on his desk. He began to read through them. As he went back much further than the O’Hare family, as Caro had said, the deeds became increasingly wordy and hard to decipher. Some were written in copperplate, and others in a variety of semi-illegible handwriting.

He started from the top. The O’Hares, who had bought this place on 25 October 1983, had died on 26 October of that same year.

Before them the owners were Lord and Lady Rothberg, who had bought Cold Hill House on 7 May 1947. Prior to them were a couple called Adam and Ruth Pelham-Rees-Carr. They had bought the property on 7 July 1933. The next previous owners were a Sir Richard and Lady Antonia Cadwalliston, who had bought it in 1927. Before them — and the name stopped him, momentarily, in his tracks — were a Wilfred and Hermione Cholmondley.

With such an unusual surname, were they relatives of his client, he wondered? He would ask him — it would be a lovely coincidence if so.

He wrote down their names and the date of their purchase, 11 November 1911. As he did so, his phone rang. He answered it, expecting it to be Bob Manthorpe. But it was Caro and she was sounding strange.

‘Darling, there are two policemen — detectives — here downstairs — who want to talk to you.’

‘Police — detectives? What about?’

Detectives. He felt a sudden chill. What had happened, had there been an accident? His parents? Brother or sister?

He went downstairs and saw a tall, thin, unsmiling man in his thirties, in a sharp suit, and a smartly dressed woman in her late twenties, he guessed.

‘Good evening,’ Ollie said.

The man held up a warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Robinson of Eastbourne CID and this is my colleague Detective Constable Louise Ryman. Mr Oliver Harcourt?’

‘Yes.’ His mind was whirring. Police always made him nervous.

‘We’re sorry to intrude on your evening, would you mind if we had a quick word?’

‘Not at all — come through.’ He led them into the kitchen and ushered them to chairs at the table then, joined by Caro, sat opposite them, moving her laptop and briefcase and the papers she had been working on aside.

‘So,’ he asked. ‘What’s the reason for your visit?’

‘Would it be correct that you’ve been in contact with the Reverend Robert Manthorpe of number two, Farm Cottages, Beddingham, recently?’ asked DC Robinson, producing a notebook.

‘Yes — I — went to see him yesterday.’

‘And what time would that be, sir, and what was the reason for your visit?’

‘It was mid-afternoon, before I picked my daughter up from school.’

The detective constable made a note in his book.

‘Why are you asking?’ Ollie looked at the female detective. She stared back at him stonily. DC Robinson gave nothing away, either.

‘Can I ask you why you’re here? I really would like to know what this is about.’

‘If you could just finish answering my question, sir?’

‘Maybe you’d like to answer mine?’

‘Ols,’ Caro cautioned.

‘Would you prefer that we arrested you, Mr Harcourt, and brought you in to Eastbourne police station? Or would you like to cooperate?’

Caro interjected. ‘As a solicitor I know you have no grounds to arrest my husband and we are within our rights to ask you to leave.’

‘I’ll give you one more opportunity to answer my question, Mr Harcourt,’ the DC said, blankly and unemotionally.

‘I went to see him at the suggestion of our local vicar, the Reverend Roland Fortinbrass,’ Ollie replied sullenly.

‘May I ask why?’

Ollie hesitated, intensely disliking the officious tone of the man, and the hostile stare of his sidekick. ‘Because we are having problems with this house, and I wanted to know if he had heard of any problems here when he was the vicar of this parish.’

‘I see,’ the detective constable said, writing it all down and flipping over to a new page in his notebook. ‘Exactly what kind of problems?’

‘We think this house may be haunted.’

Ollie watched him as he wrote this down, interminably slowly, lip-reading as the DC mouthed every word he wrote.

Then Robinson looked back up at him. ‘Is anyone able to verify the time you arrived and left the Reverend Manthorpe’s house, Mr Harcourt?’

‘I picked up my daughter, Jade, from school in Burgess Hill at five thirty that afternoon,’ Ollie said.

Again he had to wait while Robinson wrote this down.

‘Can you tell us what this is about?’ Caro asked. ‘Has something happened to the Reverend Manthorpe?’

‘Yes,’ DC Louise Ryman said. ‘Something has.’

Caro blanched. Her eyes half closed and Ollie thought for a moment she was going to faint.

Both detectives were staring at her, uncertainly.

‘Is he all right?’ Caro’s eyes darted to each of them in turn, almost feral with desperation.

The detectives shot each other a glance. ‘The Reverend Manthorpe’s neighbour was disturbed by his dog barking all through the night,’ Robinson said, his tone less hostile now. ‘When it didn’t stop this morning, the gentleman became concerned, as his neighbour always walked it first thing, and he called the police. The Reverend Manthorpe was subsequently found dead in his house, and we’re trying to establish who the last person was to see him alive.’

Caro grabbed Ollie’s arm to steady herself. ‘God. Dead? Not another. I don’t think there’s much more I can take.’

Both police officers looked at her, curiously.

‘My wife’s very upset,’ Ollie explained. ‘Someone she knows dropped dead yesterday — and now this.’

‘The Reverend Manthorpe’s neighbour is the local Neighbourhood Watch coordinator,’ DC Ryman said, also more pleasantly now. ‘And he had made a note of a Range Rover car that was parked outside the house the previous afternoon, which we established was registered in your name, sir, although at an address in Carlisle Road, Hove. We understand from the occupants that you’ve recently moved?’

‘Yes, I meant to update the DVLA — sorry.’

‘That is technically an offence, sir, but we’ll ignore that. I’m sure that’s in process?’

‘Yes, I’ll get on to it, thank you. Can you tell me anything about how he died?’

‘I’m afraid not at this stage, no,’ DC Robinson said. ‘How did the Reverend Manthorpe seem when you saw him?’

‘Fine. Elderly and a bit frail, and he told me his memory wasn’t too good, although it seemed pin-sharp to me. I was asking him about his time here in Cold Hill as vicar. He was a very nice old boy. The dog sat on the sofa with me for most of the time. Jasper. ’

Robinson made some further notes, then he said, ‘We won’t keep you any more tonight. If we need you to make a statement, could you come into Lewes police station sometime?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Ollie answered. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really very shaken by this. We both are. Please let me know what you find out about — how he died.’

He saw the two detectives to the door and watched them hurry through the rain, climb into a small grey Ford, and drive off. When he returned to the kitchen Caro was still sitting at the table, her face drained of colour, shaking her head.