The House of Susan Lulham (Kindle Single) (8 page)

‘You may not be far out, my dear. I know that, at one stage, he was blaming Johnny Morgan for causing actual damage to his building site. Johnny had even tried to buy the land back at some stage, when his financial situation improved. Well… Clifton wasn’t having that at any price. Confidentially, wouldn’t have surprised me too much if Johnny
had
done some damage. Relations, by this time, were somewhat beyond repair. Especially after the trees were sawn down.’

‘Sorry…?’

‘After the old chap blew his head off, Johnny’s father, Jim Morgan planted about twenty trees - fast-growing conifers - below the house. To block it from view. So that the half-finished house couldn’t be seen from the farmhouse.
And the farmhouse couldn’t be seen from… from up there. Wouldn’t have dared to do that when Grenville was alive, but now…’

‘He didn’t want to be looking up all the time at the place where his father… ?’

‘Yes, that’s… that’s one way of looking at it.’

Merrily glanced at him.

‘Well,’ Mr Unsworth said. ‘You’re the exorcist.’

‘You mean he was worried that his father might still be…’

‘…watching over his farm?’ Mr Unsworth laughed. ‘Well, who knows? Never catch Jim Morgan talking like that. And yet I doubt he ever went up there. Let the skeleton of the house become overgrown. When Johnny took over the farm, he did some clearing up, but the trees remained. Both would’ve denied any suggestion of superstition, but you know what farmers are like, even today.’

She nodded. When you inherited a farm, you accepted responsibility for more than the health of the land and the stock.

‘Almost came to violence when those trees came down.’

‘Clifton had them taken down?’

‘I’d guess to show he wasn’t intimidated by Johnny. Who goes storming up there soon as the chainsaws started up. Dire threats made. But then Harry Clifton wasn’t a man who reacted well to threats. If you showed weakness, or even sympathy, you’d never get what was owed to you. Was this why he did it? I don’t know.’

‘I’m sorry - did what?’

‘Built that house… as it
is
. Abandoning his original plan, for a fairly traditional dwelling in favour of something more on the lines of the commercial buildings he designed. Only more so.’

‘You mean—’

‘Well, this was the 1960s, anything
new
… And of course, Clifton knew a number of useful councillors by now, having designed extensions and whatnot for their homes. At bargain prices. Or even free. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how these things work.’

‘No. No, you don’t.’

‘So Johnny Morgan had to look up at
that
. Planted what was virtually a new wood just beyond his farmhouse to block it out. Block himself in, more like.’

‘So are you… are you saying the house was built partly out of a kind of…’

‘Malice?’ Memory clouding his eyes. ‘No one could say there wasn’t a vindictive side to Harry Clifton.’

‘Where’s Johnny Morgan now?’

‘Oh, still alive. Living the other side of Leominster. Eventually sold up. Sold everything.’

‘And now the New House is on the edge of a housing estate.’

A
wful eyesore
. Anita Wells last night.
There used to be more trees in front and a high hedge. Zoe was so proud of it she had to have it all cleared
.

‘In full view of a lot of people now,’ Merrily said.

Thinking of the show it had put on last night. A quiver.
Jesus, stop me
.

‘Hard to say which of them won in the end,’ Mr Unsworth said. ‘Clifton or Morgan.’

‘You said Clifton died…’

‘Yes, he… Oh dear, this all sounds far more disquieting than it would have done at the time. He was said to be unwell. Balance of his mind was upset. That was the wording at the inquest. He was found in his car. Carbon monoxide. Hose from the exhaust. Parked on some spare land, on the edge of the commercial sprawl next to Roman Road.’

‘You mean at the bottom of Aylestone Hill. Did he live anywhere near there?’

‘He lived a dozen miles away in Ledbury. Look, I… I’m not a superstitious man, Mrs Watkins, but after the business with Susan Lulham I confess I never wanted to sell that house again. But Grace Lulham… Susan didn’t leave a will, so the property went to her parents, and with Grace Lulham working just around the corner… I rather hoped they’d go somewhere else. But what can one do? Grace wanted it off their hands as soon as possible, at whatever price. The
people who bought the New House - for a song, of course - bought to let, but nobody seemed to stay long.’

‘Do you happen to know if…?’

‘No more suicides, but no one stayed long. I think four or five of them, before the owners decided to get rid. Didn’t come to us this time. Put it in the hands of the chaps over the road.’

‘Erm… if they
had
come back to you, Mr Unsworth, would you… perhaps have felt obliged to tell Mr and Mrs Mahonie about the previous owners?’

He laughed.

‘Good lord, Mrs Watkins, I’m an estate agent!’ And then his face was solemn. ‘Yes, I probably would have. Been in this business over sixty years and … well, I have to say you do come across them. Unhappy houses. Houses that seem to attract ill-fortune. Sickness, marital discord, violent death… But it’s all nonsense, isn’t it? We put things together in our minds and make all kinds of horrible patterns. But that’s all it is… it’s in our minds. Don’t you think?’

He was smiling. He knew she couldn’t think that. Merrily felt almost physically sick. She hadn’t believed Zoe Mahonie, so her inquiries had been perfunctory. When she’d suggested to Sophie that she should be trying to trace other people who’d lived in the house, Sophie hadn’t thought it necessary or even likely that she’d find out anything. Merrily hadn’t pushed, had accepted it, maybe with relief.

And now Jonathan Mahonie lay dead in a drawer somewhere.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Mrs Watkins?’ Mr Unsworth said.

12. Bells

There was a public car park next to the Gaol Street police headquarters, a building she usually avoided entering. She called Bliss’s mobile and he came out. He liked to come out because of what artificial white light did to his knocked-about head.

‘The problem is, Merrily…’ Leaning on the Freelander, his voice raised against the traffic. ‘How can I put this? The Crown Prosecution Service has never exactly been big on metaphysics.’

‘Yeah, well, if the CPS wants to shrink the world… fuck
them
.’

She stiffened. Her voice had slipped into a break in the traffic, and an elderly woman had turned sharply around. Merrily’s hand instinctively covering the dog collar she wasn’t wearing.
Jesus, get a grip
.

Bliss came away from the car.

‘So what specifically crashed into your world this time?’

She shook her head.

‘You wouldn’t thank me. Little bells I’m supposed to listen out for have started ringing. Bells I can’t ignore, but you probably should.’

The bells said Zoe might not be lying. Even if she thought she was, she might not be.

Bliss said, ’You want to give me the bottom line?’

‘The house has form. I mean
before
Suze. Nothing you’d be aware of. No blood, no crime. Just things I should’ve found out that might’ve sent me back to Zoe before it all escalated.’

‘I’ve seen the Facebook stuff,’ Bliss said.

‘Nothing to do with that.’

She was looking across the road at the redbrick magistrates’ court where Zoe Mahonie would presumably be making a short appearance, for commital to Crown court.

‘Only, in my experience,’ Bliss said, ‘exposure to social media makes daft people even dafter.’

‘It’s irrelevant. What I was wondering - did you find any books? In the house?’

‘Loads.’

‘I’m thinking non-Jonno books. Zoe gives the impression she avoids anything that might give her the creeps, but she apparently had a collection of paranormal DVDs and non-fiction books. None of which were on show when I went in.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘The neighbour.’

His eyes had gone still.

‘All right, yeah. POLSA found some items in a little storage loft under the eaves. DVDs of
The Exorcist
and
The Amityville Horror
. Also the collected Susan Lulham daytime TV hairdressing tips. Called
Hair of the Bitch
. Cute, but not paranormal.’

‘I didn’t even know that existed.’

‘Not to criticise your coiffeur, Merrily, but I’m guessing she’d be out of a vicar’s price range.’

‘Plus, I don’t do stripey bits. Anything else?’

‘Some books. Including a paperback called
Deliverance
. Orange cover.’

‘And black? Orange and black? Sub-title
Psychic disturbances and occult involvement
?’

‘From what I can remember.’

‘So Zoe had acquired a copy of the Church’s official source book on exorcism. Not something lay people normally buy.’

Bliss looked interested.

‘And what’s that tell you, Merrily?’

‘Might tell me - if I didn’t already know - that she’s cleverer than she wants us to think she is. That she wanted to… I dunno, get into the Church’s mindset. Work out what she could invent to convince me. Make sure I brought out the holy water. Are the socos still in the house?’

‘They’ll be out by mid-afternoon on account of we’re not made of money.’

‘Where’s Zoe now?’

‘In a cell. Darth’s having another go at her when I get back. I think she likes Darth, and I’m letting him run with it. He’s also been flashing his Oxford graduate credentials in the faces of various education officials and discovering that Mrs Mahonie had some very good, entirely earthly reasons, for puncturing Jonno.’

‘Women?’

‘And older schoolgirls. Of course, that’ll not stop the defence from introducing the spooky stuff to muddy the waters. And when the defence accuse you of inflaming Zoe’s delusions - this is the important bit - you shouldn’t expect any support whatsoever from the prosecution.’

‘Who don’t do metaphysics.’

‘They’ve seen the YouTube video of you sprinkling holy tap-water around the terrace. I could hear the wincing over the phone.’

‘I’m on my own.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Fair enough.’

Bliss stood there, watching her in silence. The dispiriting rain started up again.

‘But you’re still my mate,’ she said dully. ‘In a discreet way.’

‘I’m giving you worst case scenario, just so you know. Don’t go near the house, don’t talk to anybody about it. This is still a small town and word gets round. It gets back.’

She nodded - a nod meant nothing - and asked him if he could find out a few things for her.

13. Serious

‘Who is this?’ the woman said.

Merrily shifted the phone to her other hand, moving the chair away from the office window. Her car was gone from the Bishop’s palace yard. She wasn’t here.

‘You left a message for me,’ she said. ‘I’m the phony.’

‘Shit.’

‘Or maybe just a sham.’

Silence. Sophie was sitting down on the other side of the desk, an open packet of Paracetamol by her elbow. Unprecedented.

‘Wasn’t me,’ the woman said.

‘Really?’

‘She borrowed my phone, OK?’

‘Who did?’

‘A friend. Kind of.’

‘Kind of? You mean a Facebook friend?’

‘If you like.’

‘Which are you then? Lou?’

‘God, no.’

‘But you obviously know who I mean.’

‘Look, they turned up this morning - she brought a couple of mates. They came to support Zoe, kind of thing.’

‘How?’

‘She’s just fascinated. She seems to have a lot of free time. Unlike me. She wants to be like close to the action? I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was gonna phone you.’

‘This is Lou?’

‘Louise. We used to work together.’

‘OK, I’m sorry… which one are you?’

‘Look, I’ve got a young baby, I need to—’

‘Nattie?’

‘You’ve read the stuff, then. God, I still can’t believe this has happened. It’s horrible.’

‘But to Lou…’

‘Horrible, but exciting. This is probably the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to Lou. Zoe killing Jonno, for Christ’s sake. Shit, what is she
like
?’

Merrily said nothing.

‘It was my phone,’ Nattie said, ‘and I’m sorry. They’ve left, and I hope they don’t come back. I’ve come off Facebook, all right? Wiped it off this morning. For good. Takes you over and you come out with all kind of crap that you think about two minutes later and wish you’d kept it to yourself.’

The screen lit up in Merrily’s head.

Don’t!!! Don’t let her in. U hear me Zoe?

‘Can I talk to you?’

‘Look, I don’t really—’

I’m not laughing about this. If u hear her saying let me in again, whatever u do don’t do it. DON’T U 4king LET HER IN!!!!!!!

Merrily shifted the phone again, sitting up.

‘I don’t think you’re coming from quite the same place as the others. Am I wrong?’

Silence.

* * *

‘They worked together,’ Merrily told Sophie. ‘They worked for a firm that provided meals for schools. Nattie was the youngest. Lou was the most volatile and… irrational, probably. Zoe was the quietest. Also the best looking. It was Lou who encouraged Zoe to make a move on Jonno.’

‘And they kept in touch, presumably,’ Sophie said.

‘Mainly through social media. Social media at its best - or worst - is non-stop, personalised reality TV.’

‘Facebook friends are seldom your friends,’ Sophie said. ‘You don’t know what they really are, often just the glamorized side they want to project through glamorized pictures.’

‘Might not even be them in the picture. But these three obviously knew each other of old. So when Zoe got married and moved to Hereford with Jonno, leaving the others behind in the Forest of Dean, Lou was always keen to know what Zoe was doing in her posh new house. When Jonno was away, she’d go over and visit.’

‘She knew whose house Zoe was living in?’

‘Not in the early days. Neither did Nattie at first. Jonathan wouldn’t let her put outside pictures of the house on the Net. He said it was how some burglars targeted places. Then they went to visit, Lou and Nattie, and Nattie recognised the house from the papers, but said nothing because Zoe seemed so happy. So proud of her new home.’