Peter James: The House on Cold Hill

Maguire shook his head. ‘A mystery.’

‘But they’re damp, right? Where’s it coming from — upstairs again?’

‘They’re hardly damp — a tiny bit, I suppose — enough to loosen the old wallpaper paste.’

‘A tiny bit? They were sopping wet last night. We had to move down to the drawing room and sleep on the sofas.’

The plumber shook his head again, looking baffled. ‘We’ll go up there, if you like?’

Ollie followed him up the stairs, and into their bedroom. He went over to each wall in turn, laying the palm of his hand flat against the paper, and across to where the strips had fallen. Maguire was right. The walls felt almost bone dry. ‘I don’t understand — they were sopping in the middle of the night. They can’t just have dried out, it’s been raining all day.’

‘I spoke to Bryan Barker earlier,’ Maguire said. ‘He’s got a meter for measuring damp, and we’ll do some checks tomorrow if I get time. Got a busy day — the new boiler’s arriving first thing. You won’t have any hot water for a few hours, but I’ll make sure it’s all up and running by the evening.’

‘Do you have a sledgehammer?’ Ollie asked, suddenly.

‘A sledgehammer ?’ Maguire looked surprised.

‘Yes.’

‘Planning to crack a nut, are you?’

‘Something like that.’ Ollie gave him a weak smile.

‘I’ve seen one lying around...’ The plumber frowned, pensively. ‘I think there’s one down in the cellar.’

‘Great, thanks.’

Ollie stared around at the two bare patches of wall which the paper had fallen from, and several other places where it had begun to peel. He walked around the room as he had done in the middle of the night, placing the palm of his hand against the wall.

Maguire was right. The dampness of the middle of the night had gone.

How?

But he had a bigger worry at this moment. He perched on the edge of the bed, pulled out his phone and went to the Argus online, which carried the latest Sussex newsfeeds. He searched down through them for Traffic. There was a three-car accident on the A27 at Southwick which had happened an hour ago. A pedestrian was in critical condition after being struck by a van near the Clock Tower in central Brighton at midday. An elderly man had been cut out of an overturned car at the Gatwick intersection of the A23 earlier in the day.

No fatalities.

No mother and daughter in a collision with a lorry.

His mind playing with him again?

Or a deadly time-slip?

The two cats, Bombay and Sapphire, came into the room, and both in turn nuzzled against him.

He stroked them for some moments, changed out of his business suit into jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers, then went back downstairs and into the kitchen, feeling badly in need of a drink.

He had always tried to make it a rule, apart from the occasional glass with lunch, never to have a drink before 6.00 p.m. But today he grabbed a bottle of Famous Grouse from the kitchen shelf, twisted off the cap, and necked a gulp straight from the bottle. Its fiery warmth sliding down his throat and into his belly instantly made him feel a little more positive. He took a second swig, replaced the cap and put the bottle back on the shelf. Then he went down into the cellar.

Barker’s workers had been busy here. Huge chunks of wall had been knocked out, exposing raw red brick, supported in several places by steel Acrow props. Lying by one wall was a large metal tool box, next to which was an angle grinder, a power drill, and, on the floor, a sledgehammer with a long wooden handle.

He lifted the heavy tool and carried it up, through the kitchen, and on up to the first-floor landing. Music was, as ever, coming out of Jade’s bedroom door.

Good, he thought. Hopefully, she wouldn’t hear him — or would assume it was the builders.

He entered the blue bedroom, walked straight over to the right-hand wall, and swung the sledgehammer hard against it. It struck with a dull thud, making a tiny indent, and throwing up a small shower of plaster. He swung it again in the same place. Then again. Again. The indent slowly grew larger.

Suddenly the head of the hammer embedded itself into the wall. He pulled it back and swung it again, exposing raw red brick. As he did so, he became aware of someone standing behind him in the room.

He turned.

There was no one.

‘Just fuck off!’ he shouted, then swung again, again, again, the hole in the wall steadily getting larger, more and more pieces of brick crumbling and falling onto the floor.

Finally, after ten minutes, sodden with perspiration, and out of breath again, another chunk of the wall fell away, and the hole was just about big enough to crawl through.

He stepped closer to it, his heart thudding, knelt and peered through. There was a stale smell, of old wood and damp. But the light was so dim he could barely see anything. He switched on the torch app on his phone and shone the beam inside.

A shiver ripped through him.

It was a tiny room, no more than six feet wide. Another spare bedroom — once?

Except it was completely bare.

Apart from what was on the far wall.

More shivers rippled through him.

Shit. No. No.

A pair of manacles, on the end of short lengths of rusty chain, were bolted to the wall. Protruding from each manacle were bones — part of what once would have been a hand and wrist. Several fingers were held together by black sinews, but most were missing.

And he could see where they were.

They lay scattered on the floor, along with the skull and all the other bones of the person who had once been imprisoned here. Also on the floor were the decayed remains of a blue dress, other strips of clothing, a pair of yellow silk slippers with tarnished gold buckles and a dusty fan.

He stared, shaking with shock, unsteady on his legs. Stared at the skull. At the scattered bones. He could make out legs, arms, ribcage. He stared at the grinning skull again.

He felt as if a current of electricity was running through him. It seemed as if every hair on his body was standing on end, and that a hundred tiny, ragged fingernails were plucking at his skin.

Then he felt a sharp prod in the small of his back.

‘SHIT!’ he screamed, cracking his head on the top of the hole as he jumped backwards.

And saw his daughter right behind him.

‘Sheesh! You scared the hell out of me, Jade!’

‘What are you doing, Dad?’

‘I’m — I’m — just tracing the wiring in the house.’

‘Can I have a look?’

‘There’s nothing there. Go back to your homework, lovely. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’ He put an arm round her and hugged her tiny frame. After the shock he’d had driving this afternoon it felt so good to feel her, smell her, hear her sweet, innocent voice.

Just to know she was alive.

‘I’m doing some geography stuff, Dad. What do you know about tectonic plates?’

‘Probably less than you do! Why?’

‘Stuff I have to do.’

‘They shift, apparently.’

‘Can we go to Iceland? You can see a join there! You can walk along it, I was reading about it and saw some cool pictures!’

‘Iceland? Sure. When do you want to go — in half an hour?’

‘You know, Dad, sometimes you’re just so — so — so annoying.’

Ollie waited until she had gone back out of the room. Shaking again, it took him several minutes before he plucked up the courage to look back through the hole. He shone the beam down on the skull. Was this Lady De Glossope — formerly Matilda Warre-Spence?

Had he finally cracked the mystery of her disappearance two and a half centuries ago?