“So you don’t care for your stepmother? And Pal?”
“Hates her guts.”
“But Helen took to her?”
“She was only a kid when Dad remarried. It was easy for Kay to sink her talons in. Me and Pal were older, our shells had toughened up.”
“And when your father died… when was that?”
“Ten years ago. Pal was of age so out of it. I was seventeen so officially still in need of a responsible adult to care over me. I was determined it wasn’t going to be Kay even if it meant signing up with dotty old Vinnie till I made eighteen.”
“Vinnie?”
“My aunt Lavinia. Dad’s only sister. Mad as a hatter; you need feathers and a beak before she’ll even speak to you. But being a blood relative did the trick and I was able to give Kay the finger.”
“But Helen thought different?”
“Don’t think thought entered into it. She was only nine. Pal and I tried to get her out of the clutches, but she went all hysterical at the idea of being separated from Kay. Poor little cow. Not much upstairs, and I’m sure Kay preferred it that way. She’s a real control freak. Probably hand-picked Helen’s husband with that in mind too.”
“Sorry?”
“Jason. He’s a PE teacher at Weavers, so not what you’d call an intellectual giant. But a real hunk. And hung. Known as a bit of a stud before Helen hooked him. They say he fucks like a Rossini overture.”
This was an interesting concept but not one that Ellie, in her present antaphrodisiac mode, felt it wise to pursue.
“So Helen’s stayed close to her stepmother? Which means you and Pal aren’t all that close to Helen?”
Cressida shrugged.
“She made her choice.”
“But Pal plays squash with Jason?”
“Yes, he does,” said Cressida. “Can’t think why, especially as I’m sure Jase must whup the shit out of him and Pal’s not a good loser. Still there’s nowt so queer as folks, is there? And most of us are even queerer than we think.”
She gave Ellie what could only be described as a suggestive leer, then said, “Fuck this,” and drove the broken segment of cork down into the bottle, squirting wine over her hand and forearm.
She raised her fingers to her mouth and licked the red drops off, her eyes fixed on Ellie and a tiny smile twitching her lips.
“More ways of popping a reluctant cork than one, eh?” she said. “Pass your glass.”
6 A FISHY SMELL
Moscow House was full of light, which the shuttered and curtained windows kept penned within. Only through the open front door did any escape to offer a weak challenge to the besieging fog.
Finding the electricity switched on had been a big bonus, particularly for Jennison, but he still stuck close to his partner as they went methodically through the downstairs rooms, then headed upstairs.
“Hello hello hello,” said Maycock as he pushed open a bedroom door to reveal a double bed, neatly made up, though not with fresh linen. “This looks like it’s still in use.”
“Yeah. Hey, do you think some of the girls might have been using this place to bring their punters?”
“Could be.” Maycock sniffed the air. “Smell a bit sexy to you?”
Jennison sniffed.
“Nah,” he said. “Think it’s thy haddock.”
There was only one door they couldn’t open.
Some of Jennison’s uneasiness returned. In haunted houses there was always one door that was locked, and when you opened it…
Maycock was kneeling down.
“Key’s in the lock on the inside,” he said.
Jennison said hopefully, “Maybe one of the girls heard us come in and she’s locked herself in here.”
“Could be.”
Maycock banged his fist against the solid oak panel and called, “It’s the police. If there’s anyone in there, come on out.”
Jennison stepped back in alarm, recalling tales of vampires and such creatures who could only join humankind if invited.
Nothing happened.
Maycock stooped to the keyhole again. Once more he sniffed.
“More sex?” said Jennison.
“Bit of a burnt smell.”
“You think there’s a fire in there?”
“No. Not strong enough. Listen.”
He pressed his ear to the door.
“Can you hear something?”
“What?”
“Sort of whirring, scratching noise.”
“Scratching?” said Jennison unhappily, his imagination reviewing a range of possibilities, none of them comforting.
“Yeah. Here, give it a try with your shoulder.”
Obediently, Jennison leaned against the door and heaved.
“Jesus, you couldn’t open a paper bag like that.”
“You try then. Didn’t I hear you once had a trial for Bradford? Or were that a trial at Bradford for masquerading as a rugby player?”
Provoked, Maycock hit the door with all his strength and bounced back nursing his shoulder.
“No go,” he said. “Bolted as well as locked, I’d say.”
“Better call this in,” said Jennison.
He spoke into his personal radio, gave details of the situation, was told to wait.
They went to the head of the stairs and sat down.
“Not one of my best ideas, this,” admitted Maycock. “We’d have been better off eating our nosh outside the chippie, and bugger Bonkers.”
Jennison surreptitiously crossed himself and wished he had some garlic. He knew that at times of psychic stress it was a dangerous thing to name evil spirits as that could easily summon them up. So it came as a shock but no surprise when out of the air came a familiar voice, saying, “So there you are, making yourselves comfortable. OK, what’s going off here? And why does your car smell like a chip-shop?”
They peered into the hallway and found themselves gazing down at the slim athletic figure of Sergeant Bonnick who’d just come through the open door.
They scrambled to their feet but were saved from having to answer by the radio.
“Keyholder to Moscow House is a Mr Maciver, first name Palinurus. Just say if you need that spelt, Joker. We’ve rung the number given and got hold of Mrs Maciver. She got a bit agitated when we told her we wanted to talk to her husband about Moscow House. She says she doesn’t know where he is, in fact nobody seems to know where he is, and he’s missed some kind of appointment this evening. I’ve passed this on to Mr Ireland. Hold on. He’s here.”
Ireland was the duty inspector.
“Alan, you’re sure there’s a key on the inside of that locked door?”
“Certain, sir.”
“Then I think from the sound of it you ought to take a look inside. You need assistance to break in?”
Bonnick spoke into his radio.
“Sergeant Bonnick here, sir. No need. I’ve got a ram in my boot. I’ll get back to you soon as we’re in.”
He tossed his keys to Jennison, who set off down the stairs.
“Be prepared, eh, Sarge?” said Maycock. “Good idea carrying everything you might need around with you.”
“Not always, else you’d be towing a mobile chippie,” said Bonnick. “Show me this locked room.”
He examined the door carefully and stooped to check through the keyhole.
“Key’s still there,” he said.
“Well, it would be,” said Maycock. “Seeing as I just saw it.”
“Not necessarily. Not if there’s someone in there to take it out,” said Bonnick.
“We did shout.”
“Oh well then, they were bound to answer,” said the sergeant. “God, when did you last take some serious exercise?”
Jennison had returned, carrying the ram. He was slightly out of breath. Outside, with the mist turning even the short journey from front door to car into a ghostly gauntlet run, he hadn’t been tempted to hang about.
“All right, which of you two still has something resembling muscle under the flab?”
“Al had a trial for the Bulls,” said Jennison.
“That right, Alan? Let’s see you in action then.”
The constable hit the woodwork four or five times with the ram with no visible effect except on himself.
“They knew how to make doors in them days,” he gasped.
“They knew how to make policemen too,” growled Bonnick. “Give it here.”
He swung it twice. There was a loud splintering. He gave Maycock a told-you-so look.
“Yeah, but I weakened it,” protested the constable.
“Let’s see what’s inside, shall we?” said Bonnick.
He raised his right foot and drove it against the door. It flew open. Light from the landing spilled into the room.
“Oh Jesus,” said Bonnick.
But Jennison, whose fear of the supernatural was compensated for by a very relaxed attitude to real-life horror, exclaimed, “Ee bah gum, he’s made a reet mess of himself, hasn’t he, Sarge!”
7 A BRITISH EURO
The company of her stepdaughter was always a delight to Kay Kafka. They shared an affection which went all the deeper because it involved neither the constraints of blood nor the coincidence of taste and opinion. Indeed, during these regular Wednesday evening encounters, they rarely strayed nearer the harsh realities of existence than a discussion of films and fashions and local gossip, but what might (in Kay’s case at least) have been tedious in the company of another was here rendered delightful by the certainty of love.
In recent months, however, the approach of harsh reality in the form of the soon-to-be-born children had provided another topic, which could have kept them going for the whole visit if they’d let it. Even here, there wasn’t much harshness in evidence. It had been so far a comparatively easy pregnancy, and, bulk apart, Helen seemed to be enjoying her role as serenely glowing mother-in-waiting. So they would move easily over the wide range of pleasurable preparations for the great day-baby clothes, pushchairs, nursery decoration and, of course, names. Here Helen was adamant. Superstitiously she’d refused all offers to identify the gender of the twins, but if one were a girl, she was going to be called Kay.
“And I don’t care what you say,” she went on, “they’re both going to call you grandma.”
Which had brought Kay as close to tears as she’d been for a long while. She’d told the children to call her Kay when she married their father. The two elder ones did their best to avoid calling her anything polite, but Helen was young enough to want, eventually, to call her mum. Realizing the problem this would give the girl with her brother and sister, Kay had resisted.
“I want to be her friend,” she explained to her husband. “The lady’s not for mummification.”
But she never explained to him just how very hard it was for her to resist.
Grandma was different. She had no resistance to offer here. And even if she had, she doubted if it would have made a difference. Helen had powers of obduracy which could sometimes surprise. In this at least she resembled her dead father.
So she’d smiled and embraced the girl and said, “If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll be. Thank you.”
It had been a good moment. One of many on these Wednesday evenings. But tonight seemed unlikely to contribute more. Somehow Jason’s phone call had disturbed the even flow, then the fog delayed the pizza delivery and when they finally turned up, they were what Kay called upper-class anglicized-pale, lukewarm and flaccid with not much on top. But the real downer was the fact that, as she entered the finishing straight of her pregnancy, it seemed finally to be dawning on Helen that the birth of the twins wasn’t just going to be a triumphal one-off champagne-popping occasion for celebration, it was going to change the whole of her life, for ever.
Kay tried to be light and reassuring but the young woman was not to be jollied.
“Now I know why you would never let me call you mum,” she said. “Because it would have made you my prisoner.”
“Jesus, Helen,” exclaimed Kay. “What a weird thing to say.”
“I come from a weird family,” said Helen. “You must have noticed. Talking of which, I wonder if Pal turned up.”
On cue the answer came with the sound of the front door opening. A moment later Jason looked into the room. In his mid-twenties, six foot plus, blond, beautifully muscled and with looks to swoon for, he could have modelled for Praxiteles. Or Leni Riefenstahl. If his genes and Helen’s melded right, these twins should be a new wonder of the world, thought Kay, smiling a welcome.
“Hi, Kay,” he said. “It’s all right, sweetie, I’m not going to disturb you. Any word from Pal?”
“No, nothing. He didn’t show at the club then?”
“No. What the hell’s he playing at? I hope nothing’s wrong.”
The phone rang.
He said, “I’ll get it,” and retreated to the hall, closing the door firmly behind him.
“Why’s he so worried?” said Helen irritably. “It’s not as if Pal was ever the most reliable of people.”
“Oh, I always found him pretty reliable,” said Kay sardonically.
She regretted it as soon as she said it. Family relationships were a no-go area, again one of her own choosing. Many times in the past it would have been easy to swing along with Helen as she took off in a cadenza of indignation at the attitude and behaviour of her siblings, but, as she’d explained to Tony, “In the end, they’re blood family, I’m not, and nothing’s going to change that.” To which he’d replied in his mafiosa voice, “Yeah, family matters. You may have to kill ’em, but you should always send a big wreath to the funeral. It’s the American way. That’s one of the things I miss, being so far from home.”
She sometimes thought Tony made a joke of things to hide the fact he really believed them.
Helen gave her a sharp look and said, “OK, I know he’s been an absolute bastard with you-me too-but things change and lately you’ve got to admit he’s been trying. These games of squash with Jase, a year ago that wouldn’t have been possible, but it’s a kind of rapprochement, isn’t it? You know Pal, he would never just come straight out and say, ‘Let’s forget everything and start over,’ he’d have to come at you sideways.”