He was just pleased to hear Caro laugh. Neither of them seemed to have done much laughing recently.
Their bedroom, reeking of fresh paint and new plaster, was dark, the curtains drawn, the overhead light off. He felt desperately tired, drained. Caro was tired, too. Just a few minutes ago she had dozed off, but now she was awake again, watching the show. He had always loved their Friday nights in, with the whole weekend stretching out ahead of them. A time to unwind with frivolous television. Past favourites had been Have I Got News For You and Peep Show and now this.
After a few more minutes he found himself drifting off, then woke up with a start, some while later. Graham Norton was teasing an American actor whom Ollie recognized, but could not remember his name.
‘Who’s that guy?’ he asked Caro.
He turned towards her and saw she was asleep again.
‘Guy?’ she murmured.
‘It’s OK, doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep, babes.’
She blinked, staring at the screen. ‘Nightcrawler. We liked that film.’
‘Jake Gyllenhaal,’ he said.
‘Yes. Shlake Shillenhaal.’ Her eyes closed again.
He picked up the remote and turned the television off. Then he reached out and pressed the switch on his bedside light.
As the room became almost pitch dark he rolled over, slipped an arm under Caro’s pillow, then nestled up to her and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Night, my darling.’
‘Love you,’ she said.
‘Love you so much.’
He lay, holding her, for some minutes, then rolled onto his back. As he did so he heard a faint click, somewhere close by.
Something sent another ripple of shivers through him. He thought back to the message on his screen up in his office, earlier. The feeling that something had been in the room with him.
He had that same feeling now.
Goose pimples spread down his body; hard, icy, sharp as pins.
Right in front of the bed a green light was moving towards them.
Moving closer.
Closer.
Human height. An ethereal human form.
He was gripped with terror.
Closer still.
Closer.
‘GO, GO, GO!’ he yelled.
‘Wasser?’ Caro stirred, then she screamed, too, a deep, almost preternatural terror in her voice.
‘OLLIE! OLLIE!’
Closer still.
‘OLLIE!’
He flung his arm out for the light and sent the lamp, his glass of water and his clock radio crashing to the floor. ‘WHO ARE YOU?’ he yelled. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT? GO AWAY!’
Then he heard a small voice: ‘Woooooo, wooooo, wooooo! I am the ghost of Cold Hill House!’
Jade’s voice, he realized.
Then she said, ‘Chill, Dad! Mum! GOTYA!’
An instant later the overhead light came on. He saw Jade holding up a torch inside a transparent green outfit of some kind draped over her head, standing by the door.
‘Christ, Jade!’ Ollie said.
Jade pulled the robe up and off, revealing her face, and stood there, grinning.
Caro lay still, too stunned to speak.
‘That is really, really, really not funny, darling,’ Ollie gasped.
Jade jigged up and down. ‘I’m the phantom of Cold Hill!’
Ollie moved to get out of bed, then realized he was stark naked. ‘Joke over, OK!’ he said sternly.
‘You scared me,’ Caro said. ‘You scared the hell out of me, darling.’
‘I thought I’d wear this at my party. What do you think?’
‘I think you should go to bed, NOW!’ Ollie said.
‘But do you like it, though, Dad?’
‘Go to bed. I’ll tell you what I think in the morning.’
‘I did scare you, though, didn’t I? A bit?’
‘Just go to bed, OK?’
‘Wooooo, woooooo wooooo!’ She pulled the robe over her head again. ‘Wooooooo, I am the ghost of Cold Hill House. Wooooooooooo!’
She danced out the room, closing the door behind her.
Ollie turned to look at Caro. She was staring, wide-eyed, up at the ceiling. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s her way of dealing with it. At least she’s cool with all that’s been happening.’
‘Lucky her,’ Caro said.
39
Saturday, 19 September
Ollie barely slept a wink for the rest of the night. Caro tossed and turned beside him, awake much of the time also. He was thinking. Thinking. Churning everything over.
WHO’S NEXT? JADE? CARO? YOU?
Those words on his screen – where had they come from? He toyed with the possibility that it was another prank by Jade, but dismissed it. There had been something in his office, something dark and malevolent. Something watching him with unseen eyes. Some energy force?
He shivered. He was feeling it again now. That there was something here in this room, up on the ceiling looking down at them. Mocking them.
Hating them.
Or was he just losing the plot?
He took several deep breaths to try to calm himself – and to convince himself that this was all in his mind. He wanted to turn the light on, and go to sleep with it on, something he’d not done since he was a small child. But he did not want to disturb Caro any more than she had been already. And at this moment she seemed to be asleep.
He stared constantly at the green digits on his clock radio: 12.20; 12.50; 1.25; 2.12; 2.45; 3.15.
He had a headache that was becoming increasingly insistent.
Bob Manthorpe.
Dead.
The old cleric had seemed so alive, enjoying retirement. Could there possibly be any link between his visit and the man’s death?
Ridiculous. It was just coincidence. Unlucky timing.
He got up, went to the bathroom and swallowed two paracetamol. As he returned to bed, Caro asked him, her voice sharp, clear and wide awake, ‘Are you OK?’
‘Just a bit of a headache.’
‘Me too.’
He felt the bed move as she climbed out, heard her cross the floor, then the bathroom door close. He heard the toilet flush. The sound of running water. Then her footsteps approaching. Then the faint boing of a spring beneath them and the bed rocked a little. Sheets rustled.
Some moments later she asked, her voice quavering, ‘Ollie, what are we going to do? We can’t live like this.’
He reached across, took her hand and held it tight. ‘We’re going to deal with it. We’re going to get it sorted. Trust me. I know what we have to do.’
‘I’m scared. I’m scared for Jade, I’m scared for us.’
He swallowed, not wanting to tell her that he was scared too. He had to be strong for her.
And for himself.
3.38; 3.59; 5.03.
The room was filling with a very faint grey light. From outside Ollie could hear the sporadic birdsong of the dawn chorus. Looking at the clock again, he realized he had actually slept for over an hour. He could just make out the ceiling now; the shape of Caro’s dressing table; the chaise longue beneath the window, strewn with their clothes. Dawn. A new day.
He felt calmer now. Caro was asleep, breathing deeply. Then, suddenly, he was back in his parents’ house in Yorkshire. But on the walls of every small room he entered was written, in thick black letters,
WHO’S NEXT? JADE? CARO? YOU?
Ollie’s mother was admonishing him, saying, ‘You’ve brought this on us all. You and your stupid ambitions.’
‘Told you so,’ his father kept saying, repeating it over and over and over.
In sudden panic Ollie remembered he’d left his laptop, with all the Cholmondley website information to be uploaded, in the garage. He rushed through the door, but the garage was empty. His father followed him and lowered his voice. ‘Cholmondley’s a crook, you know that, son, don’t you? You don’t want to get involved with a man like that. Get yourself a proper job. Do something decent.’