Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

When the chocolate was ready I placed six pastries in the microwave and shouted for Robin. We munched our way through the pastries and drank our chocolate without saying anything while the wind continued to squeeze the house and nudge its way in through the cracks. I was picking up bits of sugar by pressing my finger down on them when Robin suddenly said: “Did you know a murderer used to live here?”

I stopped with my finger halfway to my mouth. “What are you talking about? A murderer?”

“Yes. His bed used to be where mine is now.”

“Who is this murderer, and who’s he supposed to have murdered?”

“Children. He murdered children. And his bed used to be where mine is now.”

“Where did you get this from?”

Robin finished off his chocolate and an impotent wave of tenderness swept through me as I noticed that he had a chocolate moustache. When I pointed to it he rubbed it off and said: “I heard it.”

“Who from?”

Robin gave his trademark shrug and got up from the table, then went and placed his cup in the sink.

“Hang on,” I said. “Where are you going with all this?”

“Nowhere. That’s just the way it is.”

“I don’t understand. do you want to move your bed or something?”

Robin considered this for a moment with a frown. Then he said: “No, it’s fine. He’s dead,” at which point he left me alone with my empty cup and the wind. I sat there for a long time staring at the streaks of chocolate in the bottom of the cup, as if there were something to be interpreted from the pattern they formed.

He murdered children. His bed used to be where mine is now .

The television aerial began to sing, as it sometimes does when the wind is coming from a certain direction. It sounded as if the house itself was moaning or crying out for help.

I found it difficult to sleep that night. The aerial’s lament combined with Robin’s strange assertion kept me awake, and I lay tossing and turning in my narrow bed.

The double bed from the years with Annelie had been the first thing I dragged outside for disposal when I was getting ready to move. Night after night I had lain awake in that bed, tormented by the phantom pains of grief just below my collarbone where she used to rest her head when we settled down to go to sleep.

The new single bed went some way towards helping me cope with her searing absence, but I still sometimes reached out to touch her when I was half-asleep, only to find myself fumbling in the empty space beyond the edge of the bed.

“Annelie,” I whispered. “What shall I do?”

No reply. Outside the bedroom window sleet had begun to fall; the wind was driving it against the pane, and it sounded like little wet feet scrabbling across the glass. I crawled out of bed and pulled on my dressing gown with the idea of sitting down at the computer and idly surfing the net until I felt tired enough to sleep.

When I opened the screen I was confronted by the document I had left half-finished in the afternoon. I read through the account of my responsibilities in the greengrocery department, my experience in negotiating with suppliers and with quality control, my social skills and—

What the hell?

I had no recollection whatsoever of writing the final section, and it sat badly with the rest of the text, to say the least. I read the whole passage once again.

During my three years in charge of the fruit and vegetable section my areas of responsibility have included among other things the dead speak through the notes, but how can a person bear it?

There was a cold draught blowing through the house and I shivered as I sat there in my thin dressing gown, staring at the words I had written. The dead speak through the notes . I understood which notes it was referring to, of course, but where had I got such an idea?

I’m losing the plot. Soon I’ll be singing along with the TV aerial .

I felt a strong desire to smash the computer to pieces, but I pulled myself together and deleted the whole passage instead, then settled down to rewrite it.

The next morning, the previous afternoon and evening felt like a bad dream. The wind had abated, and the sun was peeping through gaps in the cloud cover. When I drove Robin to school he allowed himself a big hug before he got out of the car. On the way to work I switched the radio on and was rewarded with “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay.

I drummed along with the beat on the steering wheel and managed to convince myself that it was loneliness, grief and my anxiety about Robin that made it feel as if reality was slipping through my fingers. That I just needed to pull myself together. Life could work if I could just manage to slough off the old skin and accept things as they were. From now on I would make it work.

I spent the morning inspecting the fruit counters and making some adjustments to Thursday’s order, as well as putting up posters announcing this week’s promotion: fifty kronor to fill a plastic bucket with your choice of fruit, and you get to keep the bucket into the bargain.

Kalle Granqvist from the deli counter took his lunch break at the same time as me, and we sat in the staff room talking about this and that. Kalle is a permanent fixture at the store; he’s been there since it opened in 1989, and is due to retire next year. Since he’s also something of a local historian I took the opportunity to tackle the issue that was niggling away at me.

Over coffee I asked: “Apropos of nothing, do you have any idea who used to live in our house? Before, I mean.”

Kalle stroked his short grey beard and said: “Benke Karlsson.”

“Benke Karlsson?”

“Yes.”

He said the name in the way you might say “Olof Palme” or “Jussi Björling”. A person everybody is expected to know, with no further explanation needed. Kalle assumed that everyone was as well up on the recent history and characters of the area as he was.

“Should I have heard of Benke Karlsson?” I asked, relieved at the everyday sound of the name.

“I don’t know,” said Kalle. “I mean, it’s a while since he was up to his tricks.”

“Up to his tricks? What does that mean, up to his tricks ?”

Kalle grinned. “Why are you looking so worried? He was a musician. He used to play at parties and such like, until. ” Kalle jerked his head a few times, which could have meant just about anything.

“Until what?”

“Oh, you don’t want to go poking into all that.”

“What happened?”

“Well, his wife died. And he took it badly. After a few years he killed himself. That’s all it was.”

Kalle gathered up his dishes, rinsed them and placed them in the dishwasher. I knew I shouldn’t ask, that it was probably better not to know, but I couldn’t help myself: “How did he kill himself? And where?”

Kalle sighed and looked at me with a somewhat sorrowful expression. He seemed to be searching for a more sympathetic way of putting it, but the only thing he could come up with was: “He hanged himself. At home.”

“In the house where we live now?”

Kalle scratched his beard. “Yes. I assume that’s why you got it so cheap. Shall we go?”

I didn’t believe in ghost stories, which was just as well, I thought as I tidied up after lunch. But still I felt a tinge of unease and my hands were shaking slightly as I drank a glass of water. I thought I had an idea where Benke Karlsson had chosen to leave this earthly life.

What I called my bedroom was in fact just a part of the living room. Fixed to the ceiling in the centre of the room was a substantial hook that had probably supported a heavy lamp. I went through the rest of the house in my mind and couldn’t find any other fixture on a ceiling that would bear the weight of a grown man’s body. Benke Karlsson had hanged himself two metres from the spot where I slept.