Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

Now I knew what the noise had been. The rattle of the extractor fan. Someone had been in the bathroom.

I refused to look directly at the shadowy figure now framed in the doorway of my living-room. But I couldn't help hearing the muffled voice.

'Clare.'

I chanted a mantra to myself; I'd read somewhere it was what you were supposed to say if the film you were watching became too frightening. It's only a movie. Only a movie. Only a movie. The trouble was, I knew this wasn't a movie. This was really happening. This was real.

I forced myself to hold my head up and look straight at him. After all, it couldn't be any worse than my worst imaginings. Could it? Would I see Arthur Mowbray, his hands dripping with entrails? Robert Jamieson with the edges of his cut throat flapping? Hugo Baudelaire with his crisp-fried skin? The headless drummer?

I saw none of these things.

What I saw was a glowing green skeleton.

'You scared the shit out of me,' I said.

I felt like howling with laughter. Whatever I'd been expecting, it hadn't been this pantomime Mr Bones in a black Lycra body-suit with a luminous skeleton design appliqued on to the front. The voice had been muffled because the face was covered by a plastic skull mask, but even without the mask, I wouldn't have been able to see who it was because he was holding up a camcorder and was even now intent upon observing me through the viewfinder.

'Aren't you going to tell me who you are?'

Mr Bones exclaimed in surprise, as though only just realizing he couldn't be seen properly, and pushed the mask on to the top of his head.

'So that's where you got to,' I said.

Walter Cheeseman nodded. He seemed impatient to get the pleasantries over with so he could start filming again.

'So what are you doing back here?'

'Collecting rent,' said Walter.

I laughed. You're kidding.'

'Afraid not,' said Walter. 'Everyone pays rent.'

'Except me.' I laughed again. 'I'm here for free. No one knows I live here, not even the landlord.'

I knew the words were a mistake before they were even out of my mouth.

Walter laughed too. 'But I am the landlord,' he said. 'And I think it's time you made a contribution.'

'I don't mind paying,' I said quickly. 'I wasn't trying to get out of it.'

'Of course not.'

'I can write you a cheque. Or if you'd rather have cash I could go to my hole in the wall.'

'Foolish girl,' said Walter. 'I don't mean money .'

I was feeling aggrieved. I'd honestly believed we'd had the makings of a firm friendship — romance, even. 'You've been lying to me all along,' I complained. 'And I thought you were different.'

'I wouldn't call it lying,' said Walter, giving me a flash of his famously humourless grin. 'But I am different. The difference is, I know what I'm doing.'

'How do you mean?'

Walter dipped his head modestly, as though responding to a tumultuous round of applause. 'I'm booking my ticket to The Afterlife,' he said. 'And I intend to travel First Class.'

I was back on that roller-coaster, and it was teetering on the brink of a drop so vertiginous that I couldn't see where it would end. All I could do was cling on for dear life, and pray.

'It's roughly a twelve year cycle,' Walter was explaining. 'Every twelve years or so, the house must have blood. Doesn't make any difference whether it's murder, or suicide, or an accident, but once the place has had its fill, it goes back into hibernation. Until the next time.'

We were sitting on the floor cushions, though I deliberately hadn't made myself too comfortable in case I was suddenly presented with the opportunity for a quick getaway. Occasionally Walter would point his camcorder at me, making me feel like a rat in a lab, but more often he would pan around the room, even though there was nothing there to see. I kept telling myself to keep calm, but my stomach was lurching like a drunk on a cross-channel ferry. Walter Cheeseman was very definitely round the twist. I decided it was safest to humour him, at least until someone came upstairs to rescue me.

But who would want to rescue me?

'So what stage are we at now?' I asked.

Walter cocked an eyebrow in surprise. 'You hadn't guessed? We're approaching endgame.' He checked his watch. 'Always the end of October, always coming up to midnight. I'd say something should happen… within the next… hour.'

This was all I needed. 'Oh, that's great ,' I said. 'Don't tell me. The house is going to burn down and we're all going to die. I knew I should have gone to Gran's.'

'We're not talking apocalypse, you know,' said Walter. 'Just one person will do.'

My voice sounded very small. 'Who did you have in mind?'

'I was hoping you could enlighten me on that score,' he said, stretching out his skeleton legs and elegantly crossing his skeleton ankles. The camcorder lens had swung once again in my direction. 'Have you seen anything… unusual? '

'You mean like Sophie and Ann-Marie?'

Walter's finger slipped off the button for a second. Ann-Marie?'

'The girl in your movie.'

Walter thought for a moment. 'Oh, that tart. What about her?'

'Sophie saw her. Even though she was dead.'

'Really?' Walter lowered the camcorder into his lap. 'And you've seen nothing like that? Nothing at all?'

'Nothing,' I said.

'Not even in the bathroom mirror?'

'Especially not in the bathroom mirror.'

'Your washbasin is definitely some kind of hot spot,' said Walter. 'The vibes are extraordinary. I suppose you know that's where Jamieson carved himself an extra mouth.' He leaned back and looked pensive. 'So, who's it to be? You, Sophie, or one of the others? It doesn't make much difference to me.'

I'd lost the thread. 'Who's what to be?'

Walter Cheeseman shook his head sorrowfully. 'How can I possibly make it any clearer? Somebody's got to die before the evening's over.'

It took a while for this to sink in. Walter made sure he had his camera trained on me when it finally did, of course.

' Die?'

'Look on it as a fascinating adventure.'

'I will not ,' I said, struggling to my feet. I wasn't going to listen to any more of this sick nonsense.

'A voyage into the unknown,' Walter continued with a faraway glint in his eye. 'The idea of it fills me with awe.'

'Why don't you do the voyaging, then?' It was all I could do to stop myself bouncing off the walls. I began to pace up and down instead.

Walter became evasive. 'I shan't take that step until I'm ready.'

'Or perhaps, like every other film director who ever lived, you just prefer your victims to be young and female.'

He didn't hear me. 'Maybe in another twelve years I'll have it under control. That's why I bought this house in the first place, you know — I'd heard it had a history. Nicolas Wisley, you've heard of him? How about Bertram Van der Kleist? Maurice Defryss? Arthur Mowbray I know you've heard of, and the Boats. Of course it was dirt cheap back in those days. Property in the Piggeries wasn't quite so desirable back then.'

'So you acquired this place in the spirit of scientific research,' I said. The headache that had been sending out exploratory feelers for the past half hour was now launching a fullscale assault on my frontal lobes.

'I've been conducting the occasional experiment,' said Walter.

I thought back. 'The tapes in your wardrobe.'

You've been sneaking around,' he said admiringly. 'I rather hoped you would.'

'So what are you telling me? You've captured the ghosts on film?'

'It wasn't always clear what I captured,' he said. 'I missed it by a whisker when Jamieson jumped the gun. But this time I'm going to nail it. This time I'm going to be in the right place at the right time.'