Thirteen Chairs (7 page)

J
ack looks round, and stooping Lee isn’t stooping any more. As he had told his story he had straightened iin his chair, his voice had grown stronger, his narration more assured and fluent, as if the story had filled him with new confidence. He even raised his head a little. If he’s not careful he might even reveal his eyes from beneath that ragged fringe. But now, with the story ended, he notices the attention of the others and shrinks back again, folds up, packs himself away from their gaze.

‘So, uh, that was … like I said, it’s not a very … Uh, yeah, um …’

‘I liked it,’ says Jack quietly. He doesn’t look over at Lee as he says it, and nor does Lee look back when he replies.

‘Uh, thanks. Um, yeah …’ And he seems to shrivel up a little more.

Jack can see from their expressions that the others all seem perfectly satisfied by Lee’s story, and his telling of it, but none of them says anything. Perhaps, Jack reasons, that’s just the way Lee prefers it, and he curses himself for having said the little that he did.

‘Thank you, Lee,’ says Mr Osterley, and Lee eagerly blows out his candle and pushes his chair away from the table.

With six of the thirteen candles now extinguished, the light from the remaining flames does not extend as far beyond the confines of the table as it did at the start of the evening. The shadows, previously confined to the
edges of the room, are creeping in, like gathering clouds.

Those who have told their stories and withdrawn are just grey shapes now, almost featureless. Jack can barely make out the wall beyond Mr Osterley. He wonders whether he would still be able to make out the door if he turned round. And he knows it’s silly, but he feels the absence of Lee to his left now. With his story told there are four chairs in a row pushed back round that side now, four candles blown out, four dark figures sitting back in the gloom. It feels like a dark hole has opened up there, and that he’ll need to take care not to fall into it. For all her strangeness, he’s very glad that Amelia is still there on his right, fidgeting away.

The dark gap reminds Jack too that time is running out for him to think of something to say when his own turn comes, but for now his mind feels like just another dark gap.

‘Perhaps,’ says Mr Osterley, and he pauses for a moment that Jack fills with silent panic, ‘Ms Mulligan might tell our next tale this evening?’

Jack hopes that his relief is not too obvious.

Katy Mulligan, with her short, serious haircut and her hard eyes, clasps her hands together in front of her on the table top. She’s rather small but sits up very straight, looking determined and business-like.

‘Yes,’ she says.

And that, apparently, is all the introduction she intends to give.

N
ever chase a story that starts in a pub. That was pretty much the first bit of advice that Peter’s boss had ever given him, back when he started out at the
Dunstable Gazette
. He was very fond of giving advice, that editor, and Peter was fond of ignoring it. But for some reason he’d always taken notice of that one particular warning. At least, he had until now. Because this story, the murder, was the one that had got away as far as Peter was concerned.

Peter had joined the
Chronicle
just after the murder story had come to its end. It had been an enormous story for so small a paper: L
OCAL
P
ROPERTY
M
ILLIONAIRE
M
URDERED
I
N
H
IS
O
WN
H
OME.
Peter had picked up the gist of it from conversations with his new colleagues, and read through the back issues to fill in the details: the murder weapon (an old-fashioned cut-throat razor put to fatally literal use); the gory details of the crime scene; some background character stuff on both victim and suspect; the arrest of the wife at Inverness airport; the lengthy trial, conviction and sentencing. It was a once-in-a-lifetime story for a journalist on a local rag, and Peter had missed it by days.

But then, this lunch time, there had been the man called Brian in the pub. They had fallen to talking at
the bar and it had turned out that Brian ran a specialist cleaning company. He had done some work for a letting agency in the house where the murder had happened. – and he believed the house to be haunted. Peter would normally have ignored him and moved quickly away, but he had only just been served his beefburger and chips. He wasn’t leaving anytime soon, so he feigned interest and reached for the ketchup.

‘Now, don’t go thinking I’m some kind of nutter,’ said Brian. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’ He looked down at a beer mat on the bar, picked it up. ‘I like science, me. I like things that can be explained, measured, proved. I don’t believe in fate, I don’t believe in horoscopes, I don’t believe in UFOs, I don’t believe in alternative medicines, and I certainly don’t believe in ghosts.’ He picked at one corner of the beer mat, separating the top layer of paper from those below, keeping his eyes focused on this small task, as if too embarrassed to look at Peter. ‘The only spirits I believe in are lined up behind the bar.’ He glanced very briefly at Peter’s face, offered up a smile as weak as his joke, then turned his attention back to the beer mat, tearing fragments off the corner with nervous, scratching fingers.

‘But …?’ said Peter, pausing between mouthfuls of burger.

‘But there was
something
in that place.’ Another tiny fragment of torn card dropped to the bar. The beer mat looked as if it had been nibbled at by mice now. A moment passed. Peter’s smiling expression did not
alter. Finally, Brian seemed to make a decision, looked up into Peter’s eyes and held his gaze.

‘I was in that place three days. It wasn’t just the blood and such that needed cleaning up; the police had been in and out for days and made a right old mess. But I’ve done these kinds of jobs before, and it doesn’t bother me much any more. But I swear, in that place … It sounds corny, I know, but there was this …
presence
there. Normally there’s two of us does the work, me and a lad. But the lad’s off sick so I’m doing this one on my own. The whole time I’m there I’m alone. But it doesn’t
feel
like I’m alone.’

Peter dipped a thoughtful chip into his ketchup. ‘Easy to imagine stuff when you know something like that’s happened in a place, I would think,’ he said.

‘Maybe,’ said Brian. ‘But like I say, I’m used to this kind of thing, more or less. Never bothered me before. Odd thing was, it was all the rooms
except
the one where the murder was.’

‘Really?’ The next chip halted on its way to Peter’s mouth as he considered this.

‘Yeah. All the time I’m working in the main bedroom, where, y’know … all the time I’m in
there
, it’s fine. But every other room I feel like there’s somebody else there. And it’s not as if it feels like anything threatening or bad or anything, but it’s still creepy. And I can do without creepy, if I’m honest.’

Peter thought Brian probably
was
honest. But it was all very vague. He’d briefly thought there might be the
germ of a story in it, but even with a good dose of his usual enthusiastic embellishment this looked pretty thin.

‘And then there was the weird thing with my kit,’ said Brian.

‘Mm-hmm?’ said Peter, most of his attention back with his burger now.

‘See, the first day I took everything back out at the end of the day and packed it in my van, cos I needed it for another little job somewhere else the next morning. Second day I just left everything where it was at the end of the day: vacuum, carpet cleaner, buckets, cloths, sprays, what have you. Needed it there again the next day, so it made sense. When I get in the next morning, though, it’s all moved.’

‘Moved?’

‘Yeah. I’d left it all just, y’know, scattered about wherever. Nobody else was gonna be there so I hadn’t bothered clearing up. Now it’s all tidy. Cloths all folded neatly in piles; bottles and sprays all lined up against one wall, evenly spaced, in order of height; vacuum and carpet cleaner look like new; gleaming, they are. I thought maybe the lad had got better and got in somehow, but no, he’s still home in bed. There’s only two keys: I’ve got one, the agency’s got the other, and they swear blind nobody’s come near the place from there. Well, now I’m proper jumpy about it all, so I finish up the work right quick like, and I pack up and get out.’

Peter put down his glass with a last mouthful of
beer in it. It still wasn’t much of a story. If you looked closely enough there’d probably be a boringly rational explanation. But he’d remembered something that Sally from the news desk had told him about the dead man.

He’d been obsessively tidy.

Properly, clinically obsessive-compulsive. All the tins in the cupboard with the labels facing the same way, all that kind of thing. It’d come out in the trial along with a dozen other odd quirks that had driven his wife nuts. So maybe – if he got an appointment to view the property, and took some sneaky pictures on his camera phone while he was there – he could put together a jolly little two-page spread about it. It was worth a try.

It looked ordinary. That wasn’t good.

In fact, it was worse than ordinary. It was nice. And nice was disastrous.

Peter had been hoping that the house might look haunted. He’d imagined something dark, dilapidated and gothic; something bleak; something menacing. Window boxes overflowing with perky geraniums really didn’t fit the bill. He thought about not bothering at all, but then he saw a ruddy face at the front window, smiling out through the flowers. He figured this must be the posh-sounding bloke from the agency – Justin or Jeremy or Julian, something like that – and decided he might as well take a quick look around now
he was here.

Three stone steps up to the substantial front door and an old-fashioned bell pull. The red-faced man opened the door, smiling widely. He looked even posher than he had sounded on the phone, dressed in a slightly garish tweed three-piece suit (which was surely too heavy for this warm spring day), a striped shirt and a flowery cravat.

Who wears a cravat these days? I mean, really?

‘Ah! Good afternoon! Splendid! Splendid!’

‘Hello,’ said Peter. ‘I’m a little early …’

He offered up his hand, but his host had already turned round and was striding off down the hallway. Peter followed, closing the door behind him. Inside was as disappointing as out: clean, bright walls in good repair, varnished bare wooden floorboards that failed to creak as he walked across them, and no sign of a cobweb anywhere.

‘Nice, isn’t it?’ said the tweedy man as he stopped at a door on his left.

Disastrous, thought Peter.

The man opened the door and Peter followed him into a depressingly cheery, light, spacious and distinctly unsinister front room.

‘Lovely room, this!’ said the man, beaming with irritating enthusiasm and gesturing extravagantly with both arms, as if to emphasize the space. ‘Just beautiful! All the furniture is Edwardian! In terrific condition!’

‘Great,’ said Peter.

He showed polite interest as his tweedy host showed him around the ground floor, but his heart sank further with each moment. Brian seemed to have done an unhelpfully thorough job, leaving each room spotless. And not a hint of anything supernatural, though admittedly, he might have struggled to notice such a thing anyway with Mr Tweedy accompanying him closely at every step, enthusing about each room with as much pride as if it were his own home.

Peter’s last hope was that he could somehow gain some time alone in the bedroom where the murder had taken place, perhaps find some remains of a bloodstain to photograph to add a little spice to his prose. So throughout his tour of the bathroom, study and guest bedrooms he tried to think of some excuse to free himself from Mr Tweedy. But, as it turned out, he needn’t have bothered.

‘This is the main bedroom.’ A tweedy sleeve indicated the appropriate door, but the man from the agency made no move to go through it himself.

Tentatively, Peter turned the handle and pushed the door open, expecting his host to follow him in. But he only looked away, somewhat awkwardly, remaining shuffling on the landing as Peter entered. A stroke of luck at last, or so he thought. But here again, Brian had been thoughtlessly diligent. There was not the faintest trace of a bloodstain remaining. And still he felt no mysterious presence.

He looked in vain around the room for something,
anything, that might offer proof of the murder or, even slightly, support the idea of some supernatural presence, but there was nothing. Of course there wasn’t. What a waste of time! Peter cursed his own stupidity. He should know better than to chase so flimsy a story.

‘Never chase a story that starts in a pub,’ he muttered. He smiled to himself. What had he expected anyway? To meet the ghost in person and sign him up for an exclusive interview?

‘Ha!’ Peter laughed at his own ridiculousness.

‘Is everything all right?’

Peter turned to face the doorway. Tweedy was still out on the landing.

‘Yes, everything is fine. Thank you.’

He had a thought: Tweedy was obviously not coming into the bedroom because he was spooked by what had happened there. But he hadn’t mentioned anything about the murder, naturally. Plenty of detail about the lovely Edwardian furniture and the original architectural features but, oddly, no information about the recent – and very bloody – murder. Typical letting agent! But if he was spooked about the room then maybe there was a particular reason. Maybe
he
had seen or felt something in there. Worth asking him a question or two, at least. Give him a bit of a push.

‘It’s a lovely house,’ said Peter.

‘Thank you,’ came the reply from the landing.

‘But, well’ – Peter moved toward the doorway so that
he could see out to Tweedy, shuffling awkwardly, his eyes studiously averted – ‘to be blunt, I’m surprised you haven’t lowered the rent, under the circumstances.’

‘The rent? I don’t …’ Tweedy looked uneasy, almost confused. Still he faced away from the bedroom.

‘It’s just that, well, I would have thought that what happened here might put a lot of people off.’

‘
What happened?
I’m sorry, but what do you mean,
what happened
?’

Oh, don’t try to play the innocent.

‘I mean the murder, obviously. The murder that happened here.’

Not subtle, but perhaps he could shock something out of this odd little man.

‘Murder?’ Mr Tweedy half turned his head in Peter’s direction now, and managed a fair impression of dumb surprise.

‘Yes, murder. I would have thought something like that might make you put the rent down a bit.’

‘Murder?’ He was really nervous now, staring down at the floor.

Caught out, thought Peter. You’re not so chatty now, are you? Encouraged, he pressed harder. ‘Blood everywhere. Throat slit with a cut-throat razor. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’

But looking at him closely now, the tweedy man really did seem genuinely shocked, and Peter realized he had pushed too hard. The poor man was shaking now, his eyes wide, his mouth half open, trembling. His
fingers nervously fidgeting at his ridiculous cravat.

‘Did you say a
cut-throat razor
?’

An old-fashioned cut-throat razor.

Who uses a cut-throat razor these days?

I mean, really?

The man in the tweed suit – who, now he thought about it, did not sound very much at all like the agent Peter had spoken to on the phone earlier – was very pale now. He had finally turned his head, with great effort, forcing himself to look into the bedroom.

‘I forgot,’ he said.

His face quite blank, he shuffled past Peter into the room. There was a dressing table in the far corner and he slumped into the chair before it and stared horrified at his reflection in the mirror. Peter watched him, dumbstruck by realization.

His phone rang. Keeping his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the seated figure at the dressing table he answered it.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello. Mr Watson?’

Peter recognized the voice at once. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, transfixed, as the man in the tweed suit, still staring into the mirror, raised trembling hands to his face and gently traced inquisitive fingers across his features.

‘This is Jolyon, from Burlingham Lettings? I was just phoning to say I’m so sorry that I’m not there yet to let you in. I’m afraid I’m stuck in traffic. I do hope
you’ve not been—’

Peter ended the call. His hand dropped to his side and the phone fell to the bare wooden floorboards with a thump.

‘How could I forget?’ said the man at the dressing table. He dropped his shaking hands to his neck and Peter watched his reflected face, his pale fingers fluttering at the cravat, fumblingly loosening it. ‘How could I forget such a thing?’