The Secret by the Lake (21 page)

Later, when Viviane was back in her own room with the door closed and Julia was downstairs working on Alain’s notes, I unlocked the door, switched on the light and went into the empty bedroom. I felt tense and prickly and frightened but I made myself stand in the centre of the room. I listened … but I heard nothing.

‘Caroline,’ I said softly, ‘if you
are
here, prove it to me. No vague signs, no half-heard whispers, nothing that is open to misinterpretation. Show yourself to me.’

I waited.

I listened to the rapid pulsing of my own heartbeat but nothing happened.

Nothing was different.

The shadow of a spider, scuttling up one side of the wall, made me jump – but that was all.

The room, with its half-stripped wall like a wound too diseased to heal, its bare boards still littered with broken china, the scratched stain where the drawing had been, felt cold and empty but nothing more sinister than that.

I realized I’d been holding my breath. I exhaled, and the room was so cold that my breath made a little cloud.

‘There’s nothing here,’ I said out loud. ‘There never has been.’
It’s an empty bedroom that used to belong to a troubled young girl. We are projecting our own terrors into this room. Anything we feel in here is coming from us.

I knew about poltergeists. I’d read of hauntings in the pages of the popular Sunday newspapers that my grandmother favoured. I recalled they tended to be prevalent in homes where there was a child on the cusp of puberty, a child with some kind of energy that he or she could not disperse in any other way but psychically. Ten-year-old Viviane, robbed of her father, uprooted and alone, fitted the template perfectly. The ghost was not without, but within.

WE PRETENDED THAT
the cup incident – as Julia referred to it – had never happened. Julia and I were brisk and businesslike with Vivi, and with each other, the following morning. We chivvied one another along with bravado, pretending that all was well in the cottage. I was anxious to get Vivi out of there, on to the school bus. The moment she was on board, Kitty Dowler started talking to her, their falling-out obviously forgotten, and a couple of other girls leaned forward to chat and Viviane stopped being a frightened, confused, bereaved little girl and became a normal child with normal friends. I waved goodbye but she wasn’t even looking. I went back to the cottage. Julia had been on the phone to the estate agent.

‘He’s terribly discouraging,’ she said. ‘Nobody wants to buy older houses any more. Apparently they all want the new ones, with central heating and fitted kitchens and picture windows. His exact words were: “Imagine the opposite of your cottage, and that’s what people are looking for these days.”’

‘Oh dear.’ I bit my lip and made a sympathetic face.

‘They’re building some new houses just along the valley at Bishop Sutton and those are selling like hot cakes.’

‘But those won’t have the character of this place.’

‘People don’t want character, Amy. They want convenience.’ Julia sighed. ‘He’s going to come and take photographs. We have to finish decorating that bloody room.’

‘OK, I’ll go back to it.’

‘Only be a darling and light the fire first. My hands are so cold I can’t even turn the pages of the notebook.’

I was laying the fire when I found the advert in the
Mendip Times
newspaper. It was a small ad lost amongst myriad larger advertisements in the
Services Offered
pages. Most of them offered log-cutting, drain-clearing or mole-catching services. This one was from a psychic medium.

Her name was Violet-Anne Dando, and beneath the name and a telephone number was the simple message:
For more than 20 years I have been offering considerate friendship and advice to those wishing to contact departed loved ones. Visits can be arranged in the comfort of your own home, for your convenience. Quieting the restless a speciality.

It was comforting to know that so many people, even in this sparsely populated part of the country, had restless spirits that required professional quieting. We weren’t the only ones to be affected in this way.

I rolled up the sheet of newspaper into a paper stick, then I unrolled it. I tore off the corner with the advert and tucked the scrap of paper behind the clock on the mantelpiece. I felt cross with myself even as I did this, and slightly embarrassed, but it was a comfort to know the telephone number was there if the situation ever became so desperate that we didn’t know who else to turn to.

I laid wood and then coal on top of the paper. Something was niggling away in my mind. I had the power to help Julia and Viviane. The potential solution to all their problems lay in a matchbox in a satchel under my bed. I’d thought about selling the pendant a million times and couldn’t decide if it was the right thing to do, or not. There would be no harm or compromise of morality in having it valued, I thought. It might be worth less than I imagined, in which case there would be no point in selling it, but my instinct was that it was worth a small fortune, certainly enough to enable Julia and Vivi to move into pleasant, rented accommodation for a few months while they waited for the cottage to sell. If the piece was valuable, and I were to sell it, I’d have to take it far away from Blackwater, away from anyone who might recognize it or know of its provenance. First, I needed to find out what it was worth. Then I’d make the decision.

Thinking of the pendant always made me uneasy, and it was worse now that I knew for certain that it had belonged to Mrs Aldridge’s mother who had, presumably, given it to her daughter Jean. Perhaps I should talk to Daniel. Perhaps I should just be honest with him. I could explain how it had come into my possession – it was he who had found the satchel, after all – and then tell him the truth about how desperately cash-strapped we were. But there were two problems with this. Firstly, I didn’t want Daniel to think – ever – that I was after his money. And secondly, although Daniel would be sympathetic, of that I was certain, his father was a different kettle of fish. There was a very real danger that if he knew the pendant had been in the Cummingses’ possession for all these years, he would make as much trouble for the family as he could. Was it possible to bring a posthumous conviction? Could a fine or punishment be conferred on Caroline’s surviving relatives? I did not know and dared not risk it.

I lit the fire for Julia, then went upstairs and began, once again, the thankless task of chipping away at the wallpaper in the empty room. It was frustrating, cold, miserable work. The glue seemed to get everywhere, as did the tiny fragments of the vile paper. The skin on my hands was dry and raw, and I felt as if I smelled of glue, as if the taste of it was in my mouth all the time. Julia and I had been working at the paper for weeks now and we were still nowhere near finished. How much easier it would be if we could simply hire a professional to come and do the job. Somebody who knew what they were doing would have the paper off and the room repainted within a day or two. And if that were to happen, then the estate agent could come and take his pictures and the advert could go in the newspaper and people would come and look at the cottage and everything would be fine. How much would it cost to hire a man in to do the work? Three or four pounds maybe? That wasn’t really a lot.

I went downstairs, made sandwiches, put two on a plate and took the plate into Julia. She was sitting at the dining-room table reading back through the notes she had made.

‘Ham and mustard,’ I said, putting the plate down beside her.

‘Ham? Can we afford ham?’

The butcher had given me a couple of slices for free but I didn’t want Julia to know that we were, by that point, surviving on little more than the kind-heartedness of the shopkeepers. ‘They were selling it off cheap,’ I said.

Julia took off her glasses and rubbed the place between her eyes. ‘I do so miss French bread,’ she said. Then she smiled and reached out her hand to me. ‘The bread you bake is wonderful, dear, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t, but sometimes I long for bread I can break between my hands, bread with a brown crust and the dough inside light as air and still warm. I could kill for a fresh baguette, some creamy yellow butter and a good slice of Brie to go with it – and some of those juicy grapes straight from the vine that grew at the back of Les Aubépines …’ Her voice drifted off.

My mouth watered at the thought of those sweet black grapes. I went back into the kitchen, considered my options while I tidied up, then put on my coat.

‘I’m going out for an hour,’ I called to Julia.

She did not answer.

The rain was coming down in sheets. The grass was sodden, silver-puddled; it was slippery beneath the soles of my boots. The day was drawing away, light tucking itself behind the clouds shadowing the sky. I walked down the garden, past the pile of rotting timber, past the locked-up shed that had been Julia’s father’s pride and joy. I went through the rickety old gate at the bottom of the garden and into the field behind, and I stood beside the old sofa by the fence where there was a little shelter from the rain. I pulled the hood of my coat as far forward as it would go and I made myself small and I gazed out into the greyness. The lake was disappearing behind the rain. There were no boats on the water that evening, no patient, sou’westered fishermen drenched on the banks with their keep nets and bait boxes; there were no birds, no walkers, no deer, nothing but greyness as far as the eye could see and, on the other side of the lake, the distant sprawl of the Sunnyvale Nursing Home.

I took a deep breath and headed down towards it.

I found Dr Croucher in his wheelchair in Sunnyvale’s day room reading the newspaper. He dominated the room. The other residents were smaller than him, more silvery, not nearly so well-groomed and somehow less substantial. He gave no indication of having noticed me come into the room but I was certain he knew I was there. I went to stand beside him and he continued to read. I said: ‘Excuse me, Doctor,’ and only then did he look up.

He folded the newspaper methodically and laid it down on the table beside him. He took off his glasses and put them on top of the paper.

‘Amy,’ he said. ‘How nice to see you again. Sit down. Would you like a drink? The girl will get us one,’ and he looked towards Susan Pettigrew who was spoonfeeding soup into the mouth of a trembling old lady.

‘No, I don’t want anything, thank you,’ I said.

The doctor stroked his beard. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve walked all the way down here and you’re soaked to the skin. It must be something important. What can I do for you?’

I spoke quietly. ‘I was wondering if you could lend me ten pounds.’

‘Ahh,’ said the doctor. He said nothing else until the silence between us had become uncomfortable. ‘Ten pounds? Why do you need that kind of money?’

‘To have one of the rooms in Reservoir Cottage redecorated. It’s not for my benefit, you understand, but so that Julia can sell the cottage as quickly as possible.’

‘Does she know you’ve come to see me?’

‘No. She would be mortified. And there’s no reason for her to know. I’ll make up some excuse for having come by the money and pay to get the work done myself. As soon as the cottage is sold, Julia will pay me what she owes me and I’ll give the money straight back to you.’

The doctor was silent for a moment but I knew, in my bones, that he was pleased that I had come to him. He enjoyed the power it gave him, the fact that he now knew we needed help, that we were desperate.

He decided to milk it.

He steepled his fingers, rested his chin on the tips and gazed at me. ‘Why did you come to me?’ he asked. If he wanted to be flattered, I would oblige. I gave him a shy smile.

‘Because I know you’re a good man and that you care about Julia,’ I said. ‘And also because I knew you’d appreciate
why
the particular room I’m talking about needs attention. You helped Mr Cummings attend to it in the past. Julia and I had started stripping the paper and we realized too late why it had been glued so firmly in place.’

Now the doctor’s eyes widened and the colour drained from his cheeks. He cleared his throat and straightened his tie.

‘You’re talking about Caroline’s bedroom?’

‘Yes.’

The doctor nodded and fidgeted for a moment, brushing dust from his knee, polishing the handle of his wheelchair with the palm of his hand.

‘What, exactly, have you exposed?’ he asked.

‘We’ve only cleared the wall to the left of the fireplace. There’s a drawing, do you remember?’ I leaned closer. ‘
A hanging man,
’ I whispered. ‘We scrubbed it away but now the wall is a mess. We can’t paint over it as it is, we can’t do anything until the rest of the wallpaper is removed, and oh, Doctor, it’s taking so long to do it ourselves.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see. And of course I’ll help. Let me think for a moment. Obviously this needs attending to quickly. Why not leave it with me? I’ll find somebody to replaster and paint the room, somebody you can trust not to say anything about what is hidden beneath the paper, and I’ll be responsible for paying them. I’ll need a day or two. When that is done, I’ll call you.’

‘No, you can’t telephone. Julia will almost certainly answer and then she’ll know we’re in cahoots. Couldn’t Mrs Croucher bring a message to me?’

He paused. ‘Mrs Croucher doesn’t know about Caroline’s graffiti. It’s best she’s not involved.’

‘Then how will I know what’s happening?’

‘Come back the day after tomorrow. I should have everything in place by then.’

‘All right.’ I nodded. ‘It’s terribly kind of you, Doctor.’

‘No, it’s the least I can do. I’m glad to help Julia in any way I can. Dear God.’ He rubbed the space above his nose with the back of his thumb. ‘You shouldn’t have to be worrying about such things and neither should Julia. Beinon and I should have done the job properly the first time around.’ He looked genuinely upset.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t mean to distress you.’

The doctor waved away my concern. ‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ he said, ‘you just take care of Julia. Lock up that room. Don’t let her or the child inside.’