S. Bolton - Dead Scared

Mind you, the sunset that evening as Joesbury and I had driven back had been awe-inspiring. There had been plenty of cloud cover all afternoon, and as the sun went down the wind picked up and the heavens began to swirl with endless shades of orange, crimson and gold. If someone had told me the sky was on fire, I might just have believed it.

The awesome skyscape seemed to have affected Joesbury too. He was silent for most of the journey back and dropped me off with barely a goodbye. Now, colour had largely fled the world and just a few ribbons of gold broke up the unrelenting blackness. Like memories of a day I really hadn’t wanted to end.

I spotted the gap in the hedgerow Evi had told me to watch out for and turned off the road. A few yards down the lane I switched off the Black Eyed Peas album I’d been listening to. There was something about the farm track, stretching for what seemed like miles ahead of me before disappearing into a black void, that made hip-hop seem entirely out of place.

The surface wasn’t great and I had to go slowly, rocking and lurching from one rut to another. I seemed to have left civilization behind, my headlights the only break in the darkness for miles. Nor could I rely on anything astral. Someone had taken a vacuum and cleaned the sky of stars, and if the moon had come up at all this evening, it had changed its mind and gone in again.

On a whim, I slowed right down and switched off the headlights, just to see. The night seemed to solidify. It leaped closer, surrounding the car. I swear I could hear the metal of the bodywork groaning under the pressure. Completely freaky! I switched my headlights back on quickly. I’d had no idea that night-time could be so intense.

I carried on past farm buildings on the right-hand side of the track and what could even have been a house. No lights though. No parked cars. Nothing to indicate a gathering. I think I was almost considering giving up when I passed through two tall stone columns and saw the farmhouse ahead. Several vehicles were parked at the front and there were lights on in the downstairs windows. I parked and got out. The email Evi had sent me earlier had warned against wearing heels. Easy now to see why. This wasn’t even a rough gravel drive. This was rock-spattered earth.

The house was two storey, square built, of stone construction. It looked like a haunted house in a children’s story book: carved window ledges, elaborate crest over the front door and those nasty imp-like statues that leer down at you, tongues dangling, from the roof edge. There was a large iron ring centrally placed on the door. I lifted it, was about to let it fall.

‘That door hasn’t been opened since the old Queen died,’ said a voice from the side of the house. I turned to see Nick Bell heading towards me, lit cigarette in one hand.

‘This is your house?’ I asked when he was closer, cursing my stupidity for not asking Evi whose party she was inviting me to.

‘I rather think it owns me,’ he replied. ‘Laura, isn’t it? Evi told me you were coming. Good to see you again.’

He bent lower and kissed me on one cheek. The skin of his face was cold and his breath smelled of smoke and red wine. I couldn’t help a shudder as his lips made contact.

‘So did the old Queen die here?’ I asked, more to cover my confusion than because I have any interest in deceased royalty. The house looked old enough for any number of dead queens to be associated with it.

‘Quite possibly,’ he replied. He was wearing jeans and the same blue and brown flecked woollen sweater I’d seen him in at the hospital. ‘Her rotting corpse could still be in one of the attic bedrooms,’ he was saying. ‘We get some very odd smells from time to time.’

I followed Nick round the side of the house, past smokers huddled around a fire-pit and in through a boot room that smelled of dogs. On a counter I saw what looked like a cardboard box of fluffy yellow chicks. I leaned closer. Chicks all right. Dead ones. I was about to ask Nick why he kept dead poultry in his boot room when he ushered me into the kitchen. A slim woman in her early fifties with shoulder-length dark hair claimed his attention and a couple of pointers grabbed mine.

I have very little experience of dogs but it’s difficult to resist creatures that are so unashamedly pleased to see you. Both were predominantly white with speckled markings. The smaller and slimmer of the two had a chocolate-brown face with ears so active they almost seemed to be talking at me. The other, with red-brown face and markings, looked older, its big cocoa-coloured eyes both wise and friendly. The name tag on the older one said Merry. The younger was Pippin.

In my experience, people who are very keen on The Lord of the Rings can be a bit odd. On the other hand, I was quite a Tolkien fan myself.

Nick was searching around in a kitchen drawer. I put down a bottle of wine and poured myself an orange juice.

‘Wonderful house,’ I said, when Nick had emptied the drawer of cutlery and I had his attention again.

‘Belonged to my parents,’ he replied. ‘I inherited a few years ago. I’m going to sell it to someone who can afford to renovate it just as soon as I can get it safe enough to show estate agents round. The place is falling apart.’

Someone else came over to speak to Nick and I took myself through to an oak-panelled dining room awash with old Toby jugs and willow-patterned plates. The fireplace was massive. A second later I realized it needed to be. There was practically a breeze running through the room from ill-fitting windows on opposite walls. I counted two buckets and a bowl on the stone-flagged floor to catch the rain. And this was the ground floor.

There were around a dozen people in the room and not much space for more. I carried on walking into another stone-flagged room with easy chairs, a shiny black grand piano, an even larger fireplace and, cliché though it was, the decapitated head of a large mammal on one wall. Evi was perched on a window seat at the far end. An older man was sitting next to her, leaning rather closer than would have felt comfortable had I been in her position. Evi was dressed in bright scarlet this evening: red sweater that came down to mid-thigh, black jeans tucked into red boots. Her hair had been gathered up and was held in place by a red clip. Tiny, sparkly red earrings. She had a long neck, I noticed, and she held her head high.

She caught my eye and gave me a smile. I was about to cross the room and join her when someone spoke to me.

‘Dried off, have you?’ asked a boy I thought I recognized. He looked a little older than the average student, his skin a little more papery, deeper lines around the eyes. He was about five foot seven and thin. Pinched around the face. Runty was a word I might have used, had I been feeling mean.

‘Is it raining out?’ I replied, although I knew exactly what he meant. He saw the look in my eye and almost turned away. I was being Lacey.

‘I take it you were on the green on Tuesday night,’ I said, grabbing a nearby bowl and offering it to him. He glanced down and a confused look took hold of his face. Well, I was offering him pot pourri. Curled wood-shavings and dried leaves, to be specific. Lacey would have put one in her mouth just to prove a point. Laura put them back down on the piano and looked sheepish.

‘I’m Laura,’ I said.

‘Will,’ he told me. ‘What are you reading?’

I bit back the temptation to say Dan Brown. ‘Psychology,’ I replied. ‘You?’

‘I’m doing part three of the mathematical tripos,’ he told me and I nodded, as though it meant something.

‘Who were those boys?’ I asked him. ‘The ones on the green the other night wearing masks?’ Scott Thornton I already knew about. Wouldn’t hurt to put names on the others.