Dream Cottage (16 page)

As Max and Greta arrived at Greenacres, Greta’s mobile phone rang. It was a withheld number.

“Mrs Berkley?”

“Yes, speaking,” Greta replied.

“This is PC Henry. I have some news regarding the break-in at your property.”

“Oh, I see. Would you please speak to my husband, Max, he’s with me.” Greta handed the phone to Max, placing her hand over the mouthpiece.

“It’s the police,” she warned him.

Max nodded and took the call. He continued to nod as he listened to the information being passed to him. He walked away from Greta and started to pace around the garden. He spoke in a lowered tone. At length Greta heard him say
goodbye
. He handed Greta her phone.

“So?” She was desperate to hear the news.

“Sorry, but you aren’t going to like what I am about to tell you, love.” Max sighed.

“Why? What do you mean? You are starting to worry me!” Greta felt a wrench in her stomach.

“The policeman told me they had received a report of a missing person.”

“And? What has that got to do with us?”

Max swallowed and continued.

“They had an anonymous phone call in the early hours, reporting a man had gone missing from the local area. It was the same day as the break-in at Greenacres. When the glazier came, the police were still here. They could hear someone calling out. It was from all accounts very faint. They could hear the voice coming from the direction of the well…”

“Oh god!” Greta held her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were wide.

“They shone a torch down the well and saw a man’s body lying on the ground. He had fallen down there. They called for an ambulance and got one of their people to climb down on a rope to reach him. When they did, they found he had broken his ankle. In a bit of a state from all accounts.”

“Great! So now we have a bungling burglar. What the hell was he doing down there?”

“That’s the thing. They cannot be one hundred per cent sure. You see the person they found was…” Max hesitated before he spoke again, “… was Leo…”

“What?” Greta was shocked. “Leo? How come?”

Max shook his head.

“Leo told them he was looking for you. You weren’t in, so he decided to try one of the windows to get in but broke it by mistake. He said he called here when it was nearly dark. He didn’t see the hole in the kitchen floor and fell through it.”

Greta was shocked.

“So where is he now?” she whispered.

“In hospital; he’s suffering from dehydration, obviously a broken ankle and hyperthermia. He’s lucky to still be alive. He’s been down there for days!” Max paced around
the garden. “The police have telephoned your parents and they are at the hospital with him.”

“Is Ardi with him too?” Greta asked, her mind flashed back to the incident with Rev Oli and Nonie. She remembered the voice from the well. She believed it to be Barnabas.

“I don’t know,” Max replied.

“Surely she would have realised that Leo wasn’t around. Those two are joined at the hip most of the time.” Greta was trying to fathom out Leo’s story.

“Well, obviously not on this occasion.”

“I wonder who made the anonymous call to the police.” Greta was thinking aloud.

Max shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “We need to get to the hospital to find out what exactly is going on. This is really, really weird.”

“You go. I will have to stay here and wait for the fitters. We need to crack on with the work now. The sooner it is done, the sooner we can move in.” Max squeezed Greta’s hand. “Go on, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Greta was concerned as Max was clearly deflated by the news.

“Quite. Go and see what your stupid brother was playing at.” He tried to make a joke of the situation, which felt flat at Greta’s expense.

“I will call you when I have more news.” Greta ran to the car, jumped in and sped off up the track.

Max looked at his watch. It was nearly 9.30am. The fitters were due at any time. He continued to pace around in the garden. What had Leo been trying to do? The story he had spun to the police was pretty lame. Max wondered if it was one of Leo’s attempted pranks that had gone horribly wrong. Or could it be more sinister than that? He
suddenly thought about Nonie. If Greta’s parents were at the hospital, where was Nonie?

“Hi Max!” a familiar voice called out from the driveway.

“Oh shit!” Max murmured and faked a smile. “Nonie! How did you get here?”

“Greta’s parents had a phone call not long after you left and they had to leave immediately. They dropped me off on the way to go to the hospital. Have the police been in touch with you?” she gasped, trying to regain her breath. She held her hand tightly on her chest. “They phoned the house.”

“Yes, they have, thank you for asking. As you are here, you may as well have a look around, see if you can see anything… if that’s what you do. By the way, I am not totally convinced about all this,” Max added, clearly wanting to vent his feelings on her presence.

“Not many people are, Max. But of course, I will do my very best,” Nonie replied curtly.

“I’ll leave you to have a ponder as the fitters have just arrived. Oh, by the way, keep everything low key, will you? I don’t want any more gossiping about Greenacres.”

Nonie smiled in acceptance and wandered slowly from room to room. She walked through the dining room to the drawing room. She stopped near the window and looked at the view. It was uninterrupted and she could quite clearly see in the distance the Smuggler’s Hide Inn, high up on the hill. Periodically there was a flash of light as the window of a parking car caught the sunlight. It looked like a form of Morse code. She turned from the window and looked at the ornate mirror, which was leant against one of the walls. She bent down and picked it up and gazed at her reflection. She sighed and was about to replace it back on the floor when something caught her
eye. She blinked and looked again. Clearly her own reflection was not alone. She nodded to herself and replied to the mirror.

“Is that you, Willow? If it is, you are very pretty.”

The reflection of a young girl’s face beamed back at Nonie. Her little white teeth shone like wild pearls. The girl giggled. Nonie smiled back at the little shade. Her smile quickly evaporated when the giggling became mocking laughter. The depth of the laugh was clearly not that of a child. Nonie stared again at the reflection; this time the child’s face has transformed into the form of a male face. Rugged, unshaven and dirty. A toothy grin of blackened teeth and red raw gums snarled back at Nonie, black eyes and rugged weathered skin. Nonie was startled as the face began to speak. As it did so, Nonie noticed that, as the body materialised in front of her, the man only had one arm.

“You will not be rid of me, witch! Don’t think you will ever get me to leave this place. You do not have the power or the strength. Leave this place!” it roared back at her.

Nonie stood her ground.

“Barnabas! You must be Barnabas,” she murmured; taking heed of what Max had instructed. She tried not to raise any suspicions.

“Yes!” the reflection replied and in a split second, the mirror was snatched with invisible hands from Nonie’s firm grasp. It was thrown up into the air, where it hit the ceiling and came crashing down on to the uncarpeted floor. It smashed into hundreds of shards, which spread like a huge cobweb all over the floor.

“Oh! Ha, ha! You ought to be more careful!” Barnabas mocked. His voice was travelling around and around the room until Nonie was immersed by his uncontrollable
laughter. “Seven years’ bad luck; but not as many years of bad luck that I have suffered! Don’t try to cross me, heathen!”

Nonie turned around and around in the room like she was being spun in a vicious, endless spiral. She held her head as the feeling of vertigo made her plunge to the floor. She landed on a shard of glass, which bit into her forearm. She winced from the pain and tried to remove the offending glass. She held her breath as she carefully removed the glass and threw it onto the floor. As she reached for a tissue to mop the speck of blood on her arm, she felt another sharp pain on the side of her face; and another, and another, until the side of her face, arm and legs had been pierced by numerous flying shards of glass; each in turn had lifted from the floor in succession and had been expertly aimed at Nonie like spear-shaped javelins. Nonie screamed and ran from the drawing room. She found Max in the kitchen talking to one of the fitters. Max took one look at her and immediately urged her outside to the garden.

“What the hell is going on?” he hissed. “Didn’t you listen to what I said earlier? I don’t want any fuss from you!” He stopped as he looked at Nonie’s blood-stained face. She dropped to the floor in pain. “What the hell has happened to you?” Max was horrified by Nonie’s injuries.

“I’m so sorry, Max. I tried not to make a scene. It was the mirror in the drawing room. It fell to the floor. I think I must have fainted and fell on to the glass,” Nonie lied. She panted with the pain as each shard clung to her flesh.

“You need to get to the hospital. I will call for an ambulance. I can’t leave here.” Max fumbled for his mobile phone and dialled 999.

“Max, please don’t worry. I’ll be fine. It is just a few scratches from the glass. Nothing I can’t deal with. Besides… I also can’t leave here…”

Max hesitated before he pressed the call button.

“Why can’t
you
leave here?” he asked incredulously.

“Because of… well, because of Barnabas. Sorry, but it was him who caused the mirror to shatter. It is his way of trying to get rid of me.”

“I don’t believe this!” Max held his hands to his head, still clutching his phone.

“You must trust me on this, Max,” Nonie panted.

“Seems like I don’t have any choice. But I am telling you, God help you if this is one of your stunts!” Max cancelled the call and placed his phone back into his trouser pocket. “Here, go to the bathroom. Take this and keep your mouth shut!” He handed Nonie a pack of tissues. “There is a first aid box in the kitchen, I will bring it up to you. Go and get yourself cleaned up,” he ordered.

Nonie obeyed and began to walk upstairs. Max shook his head in disbelief. He was beginning to regret the day Greta had set eyes on Nonie. He returned to the kitchen where the fitters had begun.

“Are you clear on what to do, guys? If you make a start in the top bedrooms and stairs, ensuite and then the bedrooms on the first floor,” Max instructed.

“Yes thanks, boss. No problem. Uh, is everything all right with that lady? She looked a bit shaken up.”

“Oh her, yes. Bit of a liability, that one. Broke a mirror, got a few cuts from the glass. I am going to sort her out now. I don’t know; some people!” he joshed and hoped he had allayed any suspicion from the fitters. Instead they laughed and took their tools upstairs to start laying the carpets. They talked amongst themselves. Max sighed with relief. He thought about Greta and what was happening with Leo.

“Are you going to tell me honestly what the bloody hell you were playing at?” Greta yelled at her brother, who was lying in a hospital bed with his ankle suspended.

“Oh. Hello sis,” Leo weakly replied.

“Don’t
hello sis
me, you little idiot!” Greta slammed her handbag on to the bed and dragged a chair up so she could sit as close to Leo’s face as she could.

“Darling, your brother is very poorly!” Jeanne scolded as Greta pushed her mother to one side.

“My arse he’s poorly. You will do anything to gain attention, eh, Leo? I’m right, aren’t I?” Greta snarled. Her face was inches away from Leo’s as she pretended to kiss his cheek.

“Please, Greta, be a little more compassionate. He had a terrible fall, a dreadful shock!” Jeanne tried to reason.

“Oh and I wonder why he had such a terrible fall? Maybe it was because he was trying to
break into our home
! So, what were you trying to achieve, little brother? Do tell, the suspense is surprisingly, like myself, wanting to kill you!”

Leo smiled awkwardly.

“It was nothing more than what I told you earlier. I arrived at the cottage, you weren’t there, so I tried to get in by opening the kitchen window.” Leo took a deep breath. “But it wouldn’t budge and somehow, I put my elbow through it, broke the glass…”

“You must be super-strong, then. The window was double glazed!” Greta yelled.

“Darling! Please! Think of the other patients!” Jeanne tried to speak.

“Not now, mummy… please!” Greta tried to stay calm.

“Well, it broke quite easily. Then when I climbed through, it was pitch black. I didn’t notice the hole in the floor and went headlong through it. Felt like I was pushed. Next thing I know, I am at the bottom of a pit.”

“Isn’t that a shame?” Greta mocked. “Poor little Leo! My heart bleeds for you! Well, it serves you right for breaking in. You have your just reward. Hopeless! Talking of hopeless, where is Hardy?”

Leo didn’t answer. Jeanne answered for him.

“She had to go back home, darling. She is out of the country.”

Greta thought for a while.

“Have you phoned her to let her know what my stupid brother has done?”