Читать книгу The Stranger in Our Home - Sophie Draper - Страница 13

Clack, clack, clack.

The noise broke into my thoughts. Where was that stupid sound coming from? I leapt to my feet. It wasn’t the Aga, or the trees outside. It was coming from somewhere else in the house – upstairs. I thought maybe one of the bedrooms on the first floor.

I turned towards the stairs. I didn’t want to go up there. I was okay down here, where the rooms were familiar, where the outside was easily accessed. But at night, upstairs was something else. Even my old room. Unexplored rooms that hadn’t been used for all those years, their memories struggling under a thick layer of dust.

There it went again, louder and more persistent. The noise. I couldn’t ignore it.

I climbed the stairs, one step at a time, one hand sliding on the banister. It was a long way down, the grand height of the building soaring over my head and beneath too. The wood was smooth beneath my touch and as I reached the first floor, the point where my stepmother had fallen, I gave a small cry and snatched my hand away. A large splinter stuck out from the fleshy part of my palm. I stared down at the banister. I hadn’t noticed before that it was scratched. I pulled the splinter out and sucked my hand. But now the bare wood jarred against the finely polished surface. Had that been something to do with Elizabeth’s accident?

My other hand reached for the wall switch, flicking it on/off, on/off … the electricity still wasn’t working. It seemed deliberate, vengeful – why would I think that?

Clack, clack. Don’t be ridiculous, I thought. It’s only a noise, a branch against a window, a pipe knocking in the wall. Suddenly, the hall flooded with light, the power back on, and I blinked. I looked down. Even from the first-floor landing, the drop to the hall below seemed dizzying. There was the front door, the table by the wall, the space on the floor where the rug had been, the ground still bearing a faint tell-tale stain of red.

Then I heard a different sound. The familiar ping of an incoming Skype call, my laptop in the kitchen. I almost skipped down the stairs, dashing into the kitchen, grabbing for the mouse to answer the call, cursing as my mug of tea crashed to the ground.

‘Hi, Sis.’ It was Steph. ‘Sorry it’s so early.’ Her face quivered into focus on the screen.

I didn’t reply. I looked at the clock. It was almost seven in the morning. Dawn wasn’t far off. It would be two am in New York.

‘Caro? Are you there? I saw you were online – I’ve just got in from a night out. Thought I’d see if the connection worked. Are you okay?’

‘Yes … no, really I’m fine.’

I spoke too quickly, actually not sure that I was. But I was pleased to hear her voice. The electricity coming back on must have triggered a reconnection to Skype. Blood welled slowly from my palm and I was unsettled.

‘How’s it going?’ she said.

‘Okay – well sort of. There was this guy in Ashbourne who was a bit nasty.’

‘Nasty? Oh Caro, what happened?’

I gave her a potted history of the incident outside of the artists’ shop.

‘That’s horrible, some people are prats. Don’t let it get to you. But this man who tried to help, he sounds nice – what did you say his name was?’

‘Craig something. He said he’s my neighbour, the cottage down the road.’

‘Oh, I think I know that name.’

‘You know him?’

‘Sort of. That sounds like Craig Atherton.’

I waited, expecting to hear more. ‘And?’

‘Well, there’s not much to say. I remember him from school. He was cool. You won’t have known him, he’d have been in the older class. I heard he’s a carpenter now, he’s on Facebook.’

The village school had been tiny, only two classes, that much I did remember. And Steph was right, I had no memory of a Craig Atherton. I tried to picture the man as a boy, kicking a ball around in the playground with his mates … No, it didn’t gel – I couldn’t remember him at all. But that didn’t surprise me, most of the kids had kept their distance, I’d always been the outsider.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Steph was before me.

‘Look Caro, I’ve gotta go, it’s really late over here. I just rang to check in with you. I wanted to know that you’re alright.’

I felt the warmth of her voice enclose me. Only Steph could have understood how I must be feeling, back here in this house.

‘I’ll call again, if you like, tomorrow evening, your time. Take care of yourself. Bye!’

‘Bye!’ I said.

I felt unexpectedly bereft. But Steph had already signed off.

As the morning progressed, the weather didn’t improve. The sky was heavy and grey and whirling with large snowflakes. The house was like a fridge and I went to find another jumper. When I got back to the kitchen my mobile rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Miss Crowther? Is that Miss Caroline Crowther?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hello, Gareth Briscoe here, from Briscoe, Williams and Patterson.’

‘Oh, hi.’

I gripped the phone and sat down. It was the lawyers, the ones who were handling probate. They were Elizabeth’s lawyers really and it had been Briscoe who’d organised everything. His voice was low and deep. I imagined a portly fellow, propping up the bar at his gentleman’s club, cracking open another bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

‘I understand you’re now at the house.’

‘Yes.’

‘And all is well, you have what you need to settle in?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. Everything’s fine.’ Sort of.

‘Wonderful.’

Briscoe sounded uncomfortable, I wasn’t sure why.

‘I’m glad you felt able to move in for a while,’ he carried on. ‘And deal with the contents, it’s not an easy job after losing a loved one.’

Loved one – didn’t he realise? Probably not and why would he? I’d never met him, and it didn’t seem likely that Elizabeth would have ever discussed with him the exact nature of our relationship.

‘It’s a big old house and not in the best of condition. It’s been a bit neglected over the years too. And I don’t know to what extent the funeral directors …’ he gave a cough ‘… cleaned up.’

After Elizabeth’s fall – that’s what he meant, didn’t he?

‘I’m sorry, I’ve no wish to distress you,’ he said.

I began to warm to the man; did he have a family, grandchildren? He sounded genuinely concerned.

‘No, it’s okay – I’m fine.’

I thought of the rug that had been in the hallway, the stain underneath. Briscoe, with the best of intentions, was serving only to remind me of what had taken place. Elizabeth lying dead in the house. I suddenly wondered who had found her. How long had her body been lying there? A few hours, a day, longer? Slowly decomposing in this house? No one had said. Had that been the reason for the musty smell? It hadn’t occurred to me when I’d agreed to come that I would be living in an isolated empty house where someone had recently died. Or that there would be visible evidence of her death. I shifted on my feet, straightening my back. I wasn’t superstitious about that, was I?

Briscoe coughed again.

‘Good. Don’t worry about the bills, heating, et cetera, they’ll be charged to the estate whilst probate is still pending. Just send me any invoices and statements that you find, or anything that comes through the post, and I’ll deal with them. It’s all in hand, but I have to warn you, in a case like this, probate can take a while.’

‘A case like this?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh well, only that the property in the estate can take time to value and unravel. Everything has to be totted up, for inheritance tax purposes, you understand. We’ve had an estate agent visit the house already, but the investments may take a little longer, and the trust is quite complicated.’

The trust – Steph had already explained about the trust.

‘Hang on, did you say investments?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t know anything about any investments.’

‘Ah, well, it’s mainly stocks and shares that are bound into the trust, and the estate includes a small cottage.’

‘A cottage?’

I heard a murmur of voices in the background. Was that the rattle of a tray being placed on a desk?

‘Yes, Lavender Cottage. I believe it was rented out. The tenant is still there, a Mr Atherton.’

‘Oh.’

I felt my heart sink. Craig, the man in Ashbourne, had been Elizabeth’s tenant. And was presumably now my and Steph’s tenant.

‘So it might take us a while to settle things and resolve probate, but I promise you that everything’s in hand.’

‘Thank you, Mr Briscoe. I appreciate the call.’

After he rang off, I sat there looking through the kitchen doorway, into the hall with its pool of light from the window on the stairwell. I felt the blood rushing to my head. The rug might be gone, but there was still that stain, a disturbing reminder of what happened. I’d never been one to get superstitious, but now all those films and stories about restless spirits and ghouls lurking in abandoned houses came rushing into my head.

The last thing I wanted to do was to get down on my hands and knees and scrub Elizabeth’s blood from the stone floor.

I decided to distract myself. I turned out the drawers of the hall table, emptying leaflets, maps and business cards onto the floor, kneeling to rifle through them. The business cards were illuminating: Dave’s TV aerials, Ashbourne Window Cleaners, Larkstone Butcher’s. So, Elizabeth had been a regular at the butcher’s? Not really a surprise, but did that have something to do with their apparent snub to me? I shook my head. I pushed the papers and cards into a pile to throw away.

There was a knock on the door. I started, not expecting visitors in this weather, well, in any weather for that matter. I clambered to my feet, scooping the papers into my arms. I unbolted the front door and opened it cautiously.

My eyes widened. It was Craig. I kept the door half shut in front of me.

‘Hello?’

His jeep was parked on the drive behind him, with a trailer full of logs, huge tyre marks in the fresh snow.

‘Log delivery,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I didn’t order any logs.’

‘No, but your mum did. Before she died.’

‘She wasn’t my mum.’ It was all I could think of to say.

‘Oh, yes, right, sorry.’

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His weather-worn face was framed by a thick grey scarf and the upturned collar of his jacket.

‘Well, she ordered and paid for them in October and I never got the chance to deliver them, given what happened. So, I thought I might as well deliver them now that you’re here. You’ll be in need of them in this weather. We’re about to get snowed in. Have you had a power cut?’

‘Yes.’

I supposed it must have happened to him too if both houses were on the same line.

‘Hmm, thought so. It’s back on now, but it’ll go again, always does. I’m guessing these logs will come in handy.’

I stood there, papers from the clutch in my arms drifting to the floor.

‘Well, come on, I can’t stay here too long or my car will get stuck on your drive.’ He lifted his hands, catching snowflakes floating in the sky. ‘And then you’ll have to invite me in! Do you want them or not?’

‘Paid for, did you say?’

‘Yup.’

‘Okay.’ I gestured to the wall to the far side of the driveway. ‘Can you pile them up under there, please.’

‘Sure thing, ma’am!’

I grimaced as he turned back to the trailer.

I disposed of my papers and watched him from the safety of the sitting room window. It felt mean not helping him, but for the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to join him, to talk to him. It had only been a couple of months since … I hadn’t spoken to Paul and the thought of interacting with any man after … Craig wore a path across the snow, to-ing and fro-ing, neatly stacking logs. He moved with a sure-footed smoothness, bending, lifting, reaching. My eyes couldn’t resist following the lean line of his body. He was a strong man, practical, you could see it in the way he moved.

But I’d always felt uneasy with the physical, outdoors type of man. Those like Angus, the man I’d crashed into. I winced at the memory. He’d been the epitome of everything I disliked, brawny, aggressive. I was more attracted to the intellectual, creative type, wasn’t I? Like Paul. But look where that had got me.

I had moved in with him after about a year. He’d seemed impatient by then, anticipating the closeness our relationship had brought. I was intoxicated, eager for the next stage in my life. Here was someone who wanted me, loved me. He hadn’t said those words, not quite yet, but I wasn’t mistaken by the way his eyes followed me, the pressure of his hands upon my arm in the street, the way he rang me every day. It was like it was a relief to him when I moved in. He’d driven to fetch me from my old digs. He looked surprised at the amount of stuff I had – there were a few suitcases with clothes and shoes and the like, but mainly it was boxes filled with painting gear, paints and brushes and folders overflowing with my work. He’d scowled when he saw all that piled up in his flat; his place was always neat and strictly ordered. But he knew I worked from home, he’d been to visit me many times, so he must have known what to expect, surely? I had my eye on a corner of his dining room, by the window that faced north. The light was bright but unheated, perfect for what I needed. I’d mentioned it and he’d nodded absent-mindedly. I’d got it so wrong. As I was to discover.

So why did I now find myself watching Craig?

No, this man was different, I realised, from both Angus and Paul. I didn’t know what to make of his kindness, not just the logs but the stacking of them too. I resisted the urge to offer him a mug of tea, to be grateful, friendly. What was he after? Was he checking me out? Or had he decided to keep his new landlady sweet? The thought hovered in my mind.

A little while later, he knocked on the door.

‘All done. There’s enough there to see you through a good few weeks. It’s well-seasoned wood, so you can use it straight away.’

He’d put some plastic sheeting over the top. He followed my eyes and nodded.

‘That’ll keep it dry. By the looks of things, we’ll be snowed in for several days. They never clear this road, it only comes to you and me, then loops round the hill to the other side of the village. It’s not worth their time. Have you got plenty of food?’

I dipped my head. We’d been snowed in so many times – Elizabeth and Steph and I, and later just Elizabeth and I. It came with living in this house. To most kids it would have been exciting, the thought of all that snow and no school. But it had filled me with dread, the long days with nowhere to go, hiding in my bedroom, trying not to be noticed, to not get into trouble. To avoid Elizabeth.

The winter when I turned eleven had been particularly bad. The snow blew in great drifts through the hedges and filled up the lane. Out the back of the house the entire garden had been buried under four feet of snow – reaching half way up the back door to the kitchen. At the front it was even worse – the car had been buried completely and the wind blasted a layer of snow against the windows so that you could scarcely see through the glass. There was no way I was getting into school, even on foot.

Steph had left two years earlier and it was just me and Elizabeth in the house. She’d sat in the sitting room by the fire most of the day and I’d kept to myself upstairs on the top floor. After Steph had gone, Elizabeth had stopped cooking a sit-down family meal. She’d eat on her own on a tray in the sitting room, leaving a meal for me to eat in my room. Now, with the snow, it was like someone had flipped a switch. For the first time she told me to cook for myself. I was old enough now, she’d said. All day, every day, and I didn’t speak to a single person, living off baked beans and cereal until the milk ran out, then it was cheese and biscuits and anything I could scrounge from the fridge. There was no radiator in my room and it was so cold that I wore fingerless gloves and a triple layer of jumpers, sitting under the blankets in my bed by the window, tracing the myriad star shapes of the frost flakes that grew on the inside of the glass.

It was then that I’d got frightened. What if the snow never melted? What if the snow queen flew down from the North Pole and breathed ice on the whole house, turning it into a giant iceberg marooned in a sea of white? What if the noisy geese that migrated in autumn returned early to break chattering and gobbling through the windows to steal all the rest of our food? What if I awoke to hear the wolves howling hungry in the distance and came down to find my stepmother frozen solid to the sofa, a human block of ice? How would I get out, how would I eat? Who would ever come looking for me?

But it wasn’t like that now. I wasn’t a frightened, over-imaginative child. And the house was mine, I could roam each room to my heart’s content, enjoy my solitude and the time to paint. Thanks to Craig I had a huge pile of winter fuel and could sit in front of a roasting fire, and I’d seen plenty of tins in the cupboards.

‘Caro?’ he said quizzically.

‘Yes,’ I said, coming back to reality. ‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’

‘I’m that way,’ he pointed north. ‘About five minutes on foot. You have any problems, you call me, okay?’

He pushed a business card into my hand. Atherton Woodcrafts and Log Supplies. There was a picture of a log fire, a kitchen and a web address.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘No problem,’ he replied.

I clutched the card in my fingers. He was smiling and the warmth of his expression made me feel ungracious. I knew I’d been rude before. All he’d done was honour a purchase Elizabeth had made before her death – what was wrong with me? I tried to think of something to say, something more friendly.

‘How’s your dog?’ I said.

‘Patsy? She’s at home, having a snooze. Well, bye then.’

He loped back to his jeep, turning towards me before climbing in.

‘And she’s not my dog,’ he said. ‘She was Elizabeth’s.’

Before I could respond, he’d got into his car. As he drove away, the swirling snow dropped like a curtain behind him.