Haunted (24 page)

But when he started walking, it was in the opposite direction.

This was the one, this was the exit from the motorway that she wanted.

Edith indicated left and soon was relieved to leave the fast-lane lemmings for the quieter country roads. At a more comfortable speed she passed through towns and villages, pleased to come upon the open stretches of countryside, to see the soft hills in the distance.

The first lights began to blink on as the day dulled to dusk.

Ash’s stride had lost any briskness by the time he reached the outskirts of the village; his shoulders were slumped, his eyes cast down at the roadway, the two-mile journey having all but drained him of his newfound (and swift to diminish) vigour.

The houses became more regular, less of a stutter, some now joined at the hip, soon running into terraces along the high street. Lights inside were being switched on, and here and there he glimpsed the warm glow of firesides. There was something irresistibly comforting about these homes, a soothing reassurance for the lone traveller; yet that very cosiness also served to emphasize the isolation of the outsider. Ash felt completely alone.

The puffs of white air he breathed before him dissolved around his face, as insubstantial as fleeting thoughts; the evening’s bitterness was countered by the exertion of his body. He passed by shops, their larger brightness harsh to his eyes; but in the distance was a more welcoming light.

His pace increased a fraction and his throat seemed drier in anticipation.

Edith stood next to the Fiesta as the elderly pump attendant filled the tank, grumbling to her about the nights drawing in, winter comin’ on, lack of decent summers, and the price of meat (it was a small garage on a B road, and pumping fuel wasn’t the most interesting job in the world although it at least gave occasion for conversation with itinerant customers).

Oh yes, Ravenmoor weren’t far, not far at all, and yes he knew of a place called Edbrook, a big old house, lotsa ground ’round it, and no, that weren’t far neither, less’n three miles further on, before you got to the village, and no, he weren’t sure who lived there, not the name anyways, the place was sort of there an’ weren’t there, if you know what I mean, just a house set back off the road with no nearby neighbours and the folk – whoever they were – kept to themselves, not that he would know them anyways (he chuckled here) because he was a new boy in these parts, only moved to the area with his second wife – widowed again two years later – ten or ’leven years since and anyways he had no cause to socialize with people who lived in big places like that although a lady who
did
live there stopped by for petrol every so often in one of them lovely ol’ cars, in perfect nick it looked, as if it weren’t taken out much, and he knew she came from there because once she’d had no cash and had to pay him by cheque and he’d had to ask her to jot down her address, blowed if he could ’member her name now, but she never said much when she called in, weren’t one for a chat, not like him, he enjoyed a good jaw, and if you foller the road, missus, take the secon’ right, then watch for the first small lane left, foller it round ’til you hit a bigger, but not too big, road, hang a left (his six-year-old grandson in Plymouth had taught him that one), then Edbrook was just a bit further on.

He paused for breath and another chuckle.

Knew the place, oh yes, and didn’t care much for it. Passed it a few times and got bad vibes (his grandson had taught him that one, too). When you were into your seventies – yep, seventy-two and still working, afternoons and odd evenings, mebbe, but still at it, wouldn’t want it no different – when you were into your seventies you got feelings ’bout such things, know what I’m saying, missus? You get to
know
. There you go, full to the brim an’ ready to race, need a bill for the tax man? No? Then I’ll get your change, how about oil? You okay for oil? No, these little tin cans never drank the oil like the big old brutes used to, still that’s progress, so they say, though I reckon some things have
re
gressed, if you know what I mean, things aren’t the same no more, but times don’t stand still an’ you gotta keep up . . .

To Edith’s relief, the attendant went off to his office of whitewashed stone and she called after him to keep the change. She was already sliding into the driver’s seat and reaching for the safety belt before he had time to turn around and wave her a thanks.

The landlord of the Ravenmoor Inn had barely opened the door to sample the evening’s climate (cold wasn’t a problem, nor even icy, but rainy tended to keep the punters – save for the die-hards – indoors) when the dark-coated man virtually stumbled into him. No local lad, this one, and a bit untidy. A clean shave wouldn’t have hurt his appearance. He stepped back to allow the customer across the threshold.

Ash mumbled an apology as he brushed by the landlord. He made his way through the vestibule into the saloon bar, while his host took his time in following.

‘Cold evening,’ the landlord offered in conversation as he strolled around the bar counter.

Ash merely nodded in agreement and pointed at the row of spirits inverted over optics behind the other man. He singled out the vodka bottle.

‘A large one,’ he said. ‘A
bloody
large one.’

Edith slowed the car, her face close to the windscreen as she peered at the gate-posts ahead. She switched her headlights to full-beam in order to see more clearly.

Yes, this was the place, for as she drew closer she could just discern the name EDBROOK etched into the brick pillars on either side of the drive. The gates were drawn back and she pulled off the road, bringing the Fiesta to a halt inside. In the evening light she was able to make out the shadow of a large house at the end of a long, straight driveway. There were no lights on inside the house.

She sensed nothing.

It could have been an empty shell down there.

‘David . . .’ she said quietly, as if the whisper could rouse him at such a distance.

No, she sensed nothing. Yet she had no desire to enter that darkly unhappy place. If only David . . .

Edith eased her foot from the brake and drove onwards.

Lawns soon spread out on either side, woods beyond them, and then there were gardens. In the half-light she could not tell if they were well tended. She gasped – for a moment she had thought there were people standing in the grounds, but she quickly realized that their sinister stillness had the frigidity of stone. She ignored the impression that these statues were observing her approach.

The house grew larger in the windscreen, soon filling the view completely, the car’s headlights brightening its façade, but only to dreariness.

She parked the vehicle beneath a tree whose branches overhung the gravelled yard in front of Edbrook, and some distance away from the steps leading up to the house’s entrance. A safe distance away, she taunted herself, embarrassed by her own lack of nerve. She regarded the edifice with uneasy curiosity, wondering why it could make her feel so, for still she sensed nothing, no hint at all of its history, nothing of what was contained within those stained walls.

Then why the fear? It was there, deep inside her like some small rotting core, a cancered cell quietly corrupting others around it with almost somniferous slowness, working its way through her system, growing horribly towards fulfilment, encouraged by forces outside . . . outside but inside this grim house . . .

There, Edith, she told herself. You do sense something. An awful clutching blankness, whose root cause was very real. There was horror here and David Ash had become part of it.

Edith had set out on this journey with enough resolve to counter her trepidation, her purpose being to warn David of the danger surrounding him, a threat rendered obscure to him by the self-denial of his own gift. It was as if the sensing, unable to break through whatever psychological blockage he, himself, had imposed, this tenuous yet unyielding barrier between the conscious and the subconscious, had chosen another route. No, not quite right. The part of him that mediated between what he believed in and that which, through logic, he rejected, this intrinsic arbitrator common to us all (or nearly all, she had to modify) – which might be termed perception – had been forced to send off these thoughts in another direction. Edith was the one who had collected them, as the arbitrator had hoped she would. David had beaconed his own distress signal and probably wasn’t even aware (oh, the fun a psychoanalyst could have with a mind like David’s). And now the trepidation had seriously subjugated her resolve.

Edith considered turning the car around and driving away from this unpleasant place. There appeared to be no one at home, anyway; no lights were on. Perhaps David had already returned to London, his investigation completed. Perhaps her fears were in error. No, no, she resisted. Supposition could be argued against, sensing couldn’t be. If David really had left, all well and good. If there was no one at home, perhaps even better – she could leave in the knowledge that at least she had been willing.

Still she felt nothing from the house itself. It was as though only a void was within its shelter, that clutching blankness perplexing to her. But if there was truly nothing there, then there was no need to be afraid. Nothing was nothing to be afraid of, was it, Edith?

She opened the car door. She shivered. She crossed the gravelled yard. She mounted the three broad, stone steps.

One half of the double-door was ajar, the wedge of shadow in the gap as black as velvet.

Edith jabbed the bell button set in the wall beside the entrance. When no sound came from inside the house, she pushed hard, leaving her stiffened finger there for several seconds. Still no ringing.

She rapped on the closed side of the double-door, knuckles instantly reddening with the force she used. When again there was no response, Edith reached in and swung the other door wide. The black velvet barely retreated.

‘Hello?’ she called, poking her head inside. ‘Hello? Can anyone hear me?’ She almost smiled: she had nearly asked, ‘Is there anybody there?’

Her head flinched as the stench hit her, a noxious smell of age and damp and . . . and other things. Oddly, one of those things was charcoal.

Curious, Edith slid sideways through the open doorway.

Because it was dusk, it did not take long for her eyes to adjust to the inkiness of Edbrook’s interior. It was as if parts of the velvet had become threadbare.

‘Oh dear God . . .’ she said under her breath.

And further along the spacious hall, from a doorway beneath the stairs, a shadow rose as if summoned by her quiet cry.

Ash leaned both elbows on the bar and showed his empty glass to the landlord. ‘Another large one,’ he said.

The landlord took the glass, eyeing the man warily. Drinking for this one wasn’t just a social event: it had a more serious intent. He turned his back on Ash and pushed the glass under the vodka optic. ‘And a bitter, too?’ he asked over his shoulder.

Ash stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. ‘Why not? I’m not driving.’

The inn had more customers now, although it was far from full; the night was too bleak to stray far from home comforts. Conversations were low-key, a general murmuring broken only by the muted cries of frustration or elation from the darts players in the smaller and starker public bar next door.

The vodka was put before Ash and his empty pint glass taken away. The landlord pulled the bitter pump, watching the dishevelled man as he did so. ‘You say you’re staying locally . . .?’ he ventured.

Ash dipped his hand into the ice bucket. ‘Local enough. A bloody long walk though.’ He dropped ice into the vodka.

‘Out of the village then, is it?’ The landlord slowly eased up on the pump.

‘Yeah, about a hundred miles.’ Ash summoned up a weary grin to show the other man he was joking. ‘No – a couple of miles, I think. It just feels like a hundred. Out at Edbrook. You know it?’

‘Edbrook?’ the landlord said with mild interest. ‘Yes, I know the place.’

‘With the Mariell family.’ He shook his head, smiling to himself.

The landlord put the pint on a mat and leaned forward on the bar. ‘Out of the way little spot all right. You staying there long?’

‘Not if I can help it.’ He handed over two pound coins. ‘I’m thinking of getting the train back to London tonight, as it happens. If it wasn’t for . . .’ He shrugged and took a swallow of vodka.