The House on Cold Hill (12 page)

Ollie stood in the steeply banked graveyard at the rear of the Norman church. Beyond the far wall, sheep grazed on the hillside. He stopped at this large marble headstone, with carved angels on either side. It had the air of a family mausoleum, and was much grander than the rest of the headstones here, many of which were so weather-beaten their engravings had almost faded completely, or were partially masked by lichen and moss. Some were leaning over at angles.

He read down the list of O’Hares. A whole family wiped out. Was it a car crash, he wondered. Very sad and poignant. For some reason the name ‘O’Hare’ rang a faint bell, but he couldn’t think why. He took a photograph of the headstone, then moved on with his search through the graves until he found what he was looking for.

The plain headstone looked much more modern than most of the others here. An elderly lady in a headscarf was placing flowers beside what looked like a very recent grave, a few rows away, the mound of earth along it still well above ground level, not yet settled.

Ollie knelt and photographed the headstone. As he was standing back up he was startled by a cultured voice behind him.

‘Is that a relative of yours?’

He turned and saw a tall, lean, rather gangly man in his late forties, wearing a crew-neck Aran jumper with a dog collar just visible, blue jeans and black boots. He had thinning fair hair and a handsome face with an insouciant, rather world-weary expression that reminded Ollie of a younger version of the actor Alan Rickman.

‘No, just someone I’m rather interested in!’ He held out his hand. ‘Oliver Harcourt – we’ve just moved into the village.’

‘Yes, indeed, Cold Hill House? I’m Roland Fortinbrass, the vicar here.’ He shook Ollie’s hand firmly.

‘A very Shakespearean name,’ Ollie replied, thinking of the odd coincidence of Harry Walters mentioning Shakespeare in his dream.

‘Ah yes, a very minor character, I’m afraid. And he only had one “s” – I have two. Still, it has its advantages.’ He smiled. ‘People tend to remember my name! So, are you all settling in? I was planning to pay you a visit soon to introduce myself, and see if I can encourage you into joining a few of our activities.’

The drizzle was coming down more heavily now, but the vicar did not seem bothered by it.

‘Actually, my wife, Caro, and I were saying that we should try to get involved in village life a bit.’

‘Excellent! You have a little girl, I believe?’

‘Jade. She’s just turning thirteen.’

‘Perhaps she’d like to join in some of our youth activities? Does she sing?’

Privately, Ollie thought Jade would rather take poison than join in any local church activities. ‘Well . . . I’ll have a word with her.’

‘We could do with a few more in our choir. What about you and your wife?’

‘I’m afraid neither of us would be much of an asset.’

‘Pity. But if you’re keen to join activities, we’ve plenty on offer. When would be a good time for me to pop up?’

‘Caro’s at work all week – she’s a solicitor. Perhaps Saturday sometime?’ He looked back at the grave for a moment. ‘Actually, there is something I’d—’ He stopped.

‘Yes?’

‘No, it’s OK.’ He looked back at the tombstone. ‘Did you know this man – Harry Walters?’

‘Before my time, I’m afraid. My predecessor would have – Bob Manthorpe. He’s retired now, but I have his contact details. May I ask what your interest is?’ The vicar shot a glance at his watch. ‘Look, tell you what, I’m free for half an hour or so – I’ve got a couple coming to talk about their wedding plans at one o’clock. Fancy coming out of the rain and having a cuppa?’

‘Well – OK – if it’s no trouble?’

Roland Fortinbrass smiled. ‘I’m here for the community. It would be a pleasure. My wife’s out but she might be back in time to meet you.’

The vicarage was a small modern box of a house, spartanly furnished. Ollie sat on a sofa, cradling a mug of scalding coffee, while the vicar sat, legs crossed, in an armchair opposite him. Copies of the parish magazine lay on a simple wooden table between them, next to a plate of gingerbread biscuits. A crucifix hung as the central decoration on one wall and, rather incongruously, a framed colour photograph of a 1930s British Racing Green Bentley three-and-a-half on another. A row of birthday cards was on the mantelpiece, above an empty grate.

Fortinbrass noticed Ollie looking at the car. ‘My grandfather’s,’ he said. ‘He was a bit of a motor-racing man. Shame we no longer have it.’

‘I have a client who has one up for sale at £160,000,’ Ollie said. ‘With a decent racing pedigree it could be double that.’

‘He raced it at Le Mans, but didn’t finish! What line of business are you in – something to do with the web, I believe?’

Ollie grinned. ‘Caro and I have always been townies. When we made the decision to move, someone told me that in a village everyone knows everything about you within minutes!’

‘Oh, we’re townies, too! My first church was in Brixton. Then Croydon. This is my first foray into the countryside. And I must say, I love it – but you are right, it can be very parochial. I fear I’ve upset some of the older folk here already by introducing guitar music into some of my services. But we have to do something. When I took over in 2010 we had just seven people coming to Communion, and twenty-three at Matins. I’m happy to say we’ve increased that now. Anyhow, tell me a bit more about your interest in that grave? Harry Walters?’

‘How much do you know about our house, Vicar?’

‘Please call me Roland. I always think
vicar
sounds dreadfully old-fashioned and rather stuffy!’

‘OK, and I’m Ollie.’

‘It’s very good to meet you, Ollie.’

‘Likewise.’

‘So, Cold Hill House. I don’t know a great deal, really. I gather it’s been in need of some TLC for rather a long time. A big restoration project that needs someone with passion – and quite deep pockets.’

‘I was talking to a local, Annie Porter?’

‘Good, you’ve met her. Now she is a really delightful lady! And quite a character. Her late husband was a hero in the Falklands War.’

‘So I understand. I really like her.’

‘She’s most charming!’

‘She said there had been a number of tragedies at the house – I think I’m going back a few years here. That’s part of my reason for my interest in Harry Walters. He was killed in an accident at the house – or rather, in the grounds.’

‘Oh?’

‘He drowned in the lake – a mechanical digger he was driving toppled over.’

The vicar looked genuinely shocked. ‘That’s simply
dreadful.
I hope it hasn’t put you off in any way?’

Ollie thought for some moments. This was an opportunity to quiz the vicar on his views on ghosts, and yet he didn’t want to come across as a flake on their first meeting. ‘Absolutely not. The past is . . .’ He fell silent.

‘Another country?’ Fortinbrass prompted.

Ollie sipped some coffee and smiled. ‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

20

Tuesday, 15 September

‘So did you find that fellow you were looking for?’ Lester Beeson asked, placing a Diet Coke on the counter. ‘You wanted ice and lemon you said?’

The landlord was distracted today, as there were a dozen elderly, noisy ramblers in the bar, all in soaking wet cagoules, brightly coloured anoraks and muddy boots, a couple of them poring over a soggy map at a table.

‘Yes, thanks, ice and lemon is fine. Yes, I’ve found him.’

‘Good.’

‘Where are the toilets, please?’ a woman called to the landlord.

Beeson jerked a finger over to the far wall.

Ollie ordered a prawn salad, carried his drink over to an alcove, as far away from the ramblers as he could get, and sat down. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened his photos and looked at the two he had taken an hour earlier in the graveyard, of Harry Percival Walters’s headstone. Born May 1928, died October 2008. That made him eighty when he died, he calculated. Then he swiped across to have another look at the photograph of Harry Walters himself.

It was no longer there.

Puzzled, he checked through his albums. All the most recent photographs he had taken, over the weekend and yesterday, chronicling every step of the restoration work on the house, were still there. Even though he backed up all his photographs to his laptop and iPad and to the Cloud, he usually kept them on his phone too, for quick reference.

It definitely wasn’t there.

While he waited for his food to come, he phoned his computer man. From the crackling noise on the phone, it sounded as if Chris Webb was either driving or in a poor reception area.

‘I’m just on my way home from a client,’ Webb said. ‘Can I call you back when I get home?’

‘No probs.’

Half an hour later, Ollie strode up the drive towards the house, his head bowed against the rain which was now pelting down. He was pleased to see a row of workmen’s vans outside the house, and that a skip had been delivered.

He hurried inside, where there was a hive of activity in several of the downstairs rooms and the cellar. As he climbed back up into the kitchen, his phone pinged with a text. It was from Cholmondley, requesting an addition to the website. While he stood reading it, the plumber, Michael Maguire, wriggled out backwards from under the sink and looked round at him. ‘Ah, Lord Harcourt! How are you, sir?’

‘I’m OK – how’s it going?’ Ollie raised his phone and took a photograph of the pipework beneath the sink, to add to his photo record of the restoration work.

‘I don’t know who did this work before, but they were real bodgers!’ the Irishman said.

Before he could reply, Ollie’s phone rang. It was Chris Webb.

‘I’m back now, how can I help?’

Ollie waved for the plumber to carry on, and as he spoke to the computer man he walked back out of the kitchen and headed upstairs, needing to change out of his wet clothes, looking around warily. ‘It’s OK, Chris, it’s just that the photograph I emailed you earlier has gone from my iPhone and I needed you to send it to me. But it’s OK, I’m home now, it’ll be on my computer. Thanks.’

‘No problem!’

Ollie changed in their bedroom, taking a pair of jeans out of the huge Victorian mahogany wardrobe they’d brought from Carlisle Road, a fresh T-shirt and a light sweater, then climbed up the tower to his office, thinking again about the newspaper article about ghosts. Energy seemed a key factor. One of the theories it posited was that energy from dead people could still remain in the place where they had died. Could the energy of some elderly lady who had died here still be around? Was that what his mother-in-law had seen on the day they were moving in? Did that explain the spheres of light he had seen in the atrium?

Why had Jade asked him about ghosts this morning? Had it really been a bad dream that had spooked her on Sunday night – or something more?

What the hell was in this house? Something, for sure. He needed to find out – and find an explanation – before Caro saw something, too, and really freaked out.

Buying this place had been a stretch beyond what they could really afford. They were hocked up to the eyeballs. Moving out and selling right now was not an option. Whatever was going on, he needed to get to the bottom of it and sort it. There were always solutions to every problem. That had always been his philosophy. It was going to be fine.

He sat down at his desk and realized his hands were shaking. They were shaking so much it took him three goes to tap in the correct code to wake up his computer.

He went straight to Photos and checked through it carefully.

All the photos he had taken of the work in the house were there, and the photographs of Harry Walters’s headstone, as well as the one he’d just taken of the pipework. But there was no photograph of Harry Walters.

He turned to his iPad, and opened Photos again. It was the same. Everything else he had taken was there. But no photograph of the old man.

Was he going mad?

But Caro had remarked on the photo this morning, and Chris Webb had received it and talked about it. He dialled his number.

‘Chris,’ he said, when he answered. ‘I’m sorry, I do need you to send that photograph. I can’t find it.’

‘I’ve got a bit of a problem with that,’ Webb replied. ‘Must be a bloody iCloud issue, like I said. I’m sorry, mate, it’s vanished.’

21

Wednesday, 16 September

Sometimes Caro nudged him gently, or touched his face, to let him know he was snoring. But tonight Ollie was wide awake, unable to sleep. He had watched the dial of his clock radio go from midnight to 00.30 a.m., 00.50 a.m., 1.24 a.m., 2.05 a.m. Now it was her who was snoring, as she lay face down, her arms wrapped round her pillow.

He was thinking about the photograph of Harry Walters. And the name O’Hare that he had seen in the graveyard. Why did that name seem familiar? He heard the hoot of an owl somewhere out in the darkness. Then the terrible squeal of something dying. A rabbit caught by a fox? The food chain. Nature.

Then another sound.

Running water.

He frowned. Where was it coming from? Had he left a tap running in the bathroom?