Rose has to drive past number 42 to the other end of the road to look for a parking space. But, as she passes the property, it’s clear something’s going on outside.
Finding a space at the far end of the road, she hurries back.
Anton Fuller is outside the front of the house, cradling his left arm and shouting up at the house next door. Gwen stands in the doorway, watching. The woman is literally wringing her large, red-knuckled hands together.
‘Are you trying to kill me? Is that it?’ yells Fuller, apparently at no one.
‘What’s going on here?’ says Rose. Fuller doesn’t seem especially surprised to see her. Gwen, on the other hand, attempts a weak, apologetic smile.
‘Oh golly, you shouldn’t have bothered coming out,’ she says. ‘Anton, don’t you think we should get you checked over?’
But Fuller is having none of her attempts to placate him. If anything, his face seems to be getting redder by the moment. Rose pictures his skin bursting like an overripe tomato.
‘I climbed up my ladder to take a look at the guttering,’ he says. ‘The ladder that was in my front garden, I should add, and I almost bloody broke my neck! Take a look at this!’
Obviously in pain from the way he’s holding his arm, he kicks an old wooden ladder that’s lying at an angle on the ground and then winces. In Rose’s opinion it should have been thrown away years ago, but one of the struts is clearly broken in the middle.
‘Go on!’ he says to Rose, eyes bulging. ‘Look at it!’
‘I am looking at it, Mr Fuller,’ says Rose patiently, ‘and I can see that it’s damaged. Are you suggesting someone did this deliberately?’
‘Of course I bloody am!’ he yells. ‘That bloody chav next door did it!
At this the door to number 40 opens suddenly and Eric Quinn comes charging down the steps.
‘Did you just call me a chav, you stuck-up piece of shit?’
As he starts to come through the gate into 42, Rose blocks him with one hand raised.
‘I suggest you calm down, Mr Quinn,’ she says, sorely wishing she had Adam here. But Quinn stops, even though he has a very unpleasant look on his face that doesn’t seem only meant for Fuller.
‘Right,’ she says, ‘kindly step back over to your own property, Mr Quinn, while we try and sort this out.’
Quinn hesitates then does as she says, muttering something under his breath that sounds very much like ‘filth’ but Rose can’t be sure.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Now do I need to call for back-up and get the two of you down to the station? Or can we all behave like adults?’
Both men remain silent, looking like large, sulky boys.
‘Are you alleging that Mr Quinn deliberately tampered with your ladder?’ says Rose.
‘Well, who else would have done it?’ says Fuller.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ says Quinn. ‘I’ve been inside my house for the entire evening trying to get my old mum settled. My wife and daughter are at her school play, which I have had to miss. Why would I even do something like that?’
Fuller merely barks a sarcastic laugh in response.
The old lady, Quinn’s mum, comes shuffling to the front door at 40 now.
‘Eric?’ she says in a querulous voice. ‘I can’t find any of my things.’
Quinn rubs his face with his hands in a manner of extreme irritation. ‘Please go inside, Mum,’ he says. ‘I’ll be with you in a tick. You’ll catch your death out here.’
‘Anton?’ pleads Gwen. ‘Come in and let me look at your arm. You might need to go to A&E. And please, all this shouting in the street … Think of our boy upstairs.’
The old lady turns to look towards Gwen, an expression of what appears to be fear on her face.
‘That boy?’ she says. ‘He’s a wicked, wicked lad! Don’t think I don’t know about the things he gets up to!’
Gwen blanches and lifts her hand to her mouth.
‘Mum!’ Quinn looks horrified. ‘Go inside, I said!’
The old lady glares at him and, after a pause, shuffles off back inside, muttering to herself.
Everyone seems a little cowed by her words. Gwen still has her hand across her mouth, her eyes wide and shocked.
‘You mustn’t pay any mind to Mum,’ says Quinn. It might have been an apologetic tone, if it weren’t for the thunderous expression on his face. ‘She’s not …’ He pauses. ‘You mustn’t mind what she says.’
‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,’ says Rose, ‘I’m going to take that ladder away and get it forensically tested to see if it’s been tampered with. And we can check for Mr Quinn’s fingerprints too.’ She allows a small pause, meeting Quinn’s stare directly. She doesn’t need to say his prints will be on the database. He gets it, all right.
‘Meanwhile,’ she continues, ‘everyone is going to go inside and calm down, or arrests will be made for breaching the peace. Got it?’
‘Loud and clear,’ says Fuller sullenly. Quinn doesn’t say anything before going back into the house, closing the door softly behind him.
Rose would very much like to get the hell away from here as soon as possible. But she isn’t done yet.
‘Can I come in for a minute before I head off?’ she says.
‘Oh,’ says Gwen. ‘Well …’
‘Thank you,’ says Rose, not giving her the chance to refuse. ‘You lead the way.’
Once inside the hallway, Anton disappears off towards the kitchen. Gwen and Rose pause at the bottom of the stairs. Rose is about to speak when Gwen cuts across her.
‘I’m sorry you were called out by that horrid man,’ she says. ‘There was no need to come. Really.’
‘It wasn’t Mr Quinn, actually,’ says Rose. ‘That’s what I was about to ask you.’
‘Oh?’ says Gwen, a frown pinching the space between her eyebrows. ‘Then who …?’
‘I had a call from your number,’ says Rose. ‘No one spoke but I think Gregory was on the other end. I thought I’d better come over.’
Gwen’s expression does that closing-down thing again. Rose gets the impression that she’s adept at switching between masks she thinks are socially acceptable. Maybe we all are, she muses. But with Gwen Fuller it’s very hard to know what’s artifice and what’s the real her.
‘Well, I apologize. That was naughty of him,’ says Gwen, lips a thin line. ‘But there’s no need for you to hang around.’
‘Nonetheless,’ says Rose, meeting her eyes directly, ‘I’d like to see him before I go.’
Gwen’s expression switches from being appalled to annoyed and offended in one smooth sequence.
‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting.’
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ says Rose. ‘Can you call him for me?’
There’s a moment’s standoff and then Gwen calls Gregory’s name. Again, he appears at the top of the stairs suspiciously quickly.
‘Yeah?’ he says, then: ‘Oh hello,’ in an unsurprised way at the sight of Rose.
‘Don’t say “yeah”,’ says Gwen. ‘Say “yes”. Now did you ring this busy police officer?’
Gregory shifts on the spot. He’s wearing a fleecy dressing gown over pyjamas.
‘It was a mistake,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to ring. Sorry. I was fiddling with the phone.’
It’s not a very likely story. But he seems fine, which is the most important thing.
‘It’s okay,’ says Rose with a smile. ‘Everything all right though?’
‘Yes,’ says Gregory. ‘Can I go back to my book now?’
‘Of course,’ says Rose and he pads back up the stairs. ‘I’ll be off,’ she says to Gwen, ‘but can I use the toilet before I go?’
Gwen hesitates before replying, ‘Upstairs, third door on the left.’
At that moment there’s a shout from the kitchen.
‘Gwen! Where’s the ibuprofen? This medicine box is a bloody mess! I can’t find anything useful in it at all!’
With an apologetic wince Gwen hurries down the hall.
Rose climbs the stairs, which are covered in a dark burgundy carpet that’s shiny with wear. It’s a steep staircase and there’s a sensation of the space narrowing as she gets to the top, like the air is somehow becoming thinner.
Probably low blood sugar, she thinks.
At the end of the corridor there’s another short staircase, presumably leading to an attic room. It is totally silent up there but she knows, somehow, that someone is present at the top, listening and still. Gregory?
She hurries to the toilet.
After she’s finished, she notices one of the doors on the landing is now wide open when it wasn’t before. A flickering light spills out and there’s an unusual clicking sound, like crickets, or when a tiny piece of paper has become trapped in the blades of a fan.
Rose pauses, listening intently. From downstairs she can make out Anton’s loud voice honking away, with Gwen’s softer conciliatory words in an undertone. They’re not listening out for her so she walks to the room and steps inside, curious to see what’s going on in there.
It appears to be an office and spare bedroom in one, with a large oak desk with neat files and paperwork in a pile, and an old orange futon in the other corner.
But what grabs her attention are the images dancing across the wall. It’s like someone is projecting an old film onto it, with the clickety, whirring sound to match. Rose looks around the room for the sort of old-time projector she has seen in films but there’s nothing like that here. It seems to be coming from the wall itself but she can’t see how.
She walks over and peers more closely. At first, the effect is like watching pigment drops spreading and swirling in water but then the colours – muted orange and browns – begin to take shape. A picture forms. Two women are dancing together, slim arms outstretched, palms together, hips swaying. One of the women has short dark hair and a thin face. She’s mouthing words, perhaps singing, and gazing intently at the other woman, who is startlingly pretty, with thick blonde hair down her back and a flower crown on her head. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted.
A tall, slim man with a handlebar moustache comes into the frame. He’s dressed in a close-fitting shirt and flared, tight trousers. It looks like this is the Sixties, Seventies maybe? The man grins as he turns to the camera and he puts his arms around the two women, drawing them both into his chest. But something is happening to his face now. A hole with black edges appears in the centre of his forehead and begins to grow, like fire devouring him from the inside. It spreads and spreads and then the image is gone – the wall blank again, so fast it makes Rose flinch.
She’s still staring at the wall in confusion when she feels a shivery sort of tickle on her left breast, quickly followed by a sharp pain. Frantically stretching open her top, Rose pulls the elastic of her bra away from her skin and looks for the insect, or whatever it is that has bitten her. The skin near her nipple is red and sore-looking but there’s no insect and no tell-tale pinprick of blood.
An insect bite in March? Inside?
If she didn’t know better, it would have felt exactly like a pinch from cold, mean fingers.
Heart hammering and skin crawling, Rose hurries out of the room.
Just in time, as it happens.
‘Are you all right up there?’ Gwen sounds as though she is having to make a major effort not to be impatient.
‘Yes, yes, all fine,’ says Rose as she comes quickly down the stairs to see the other woman waiting for her by the door.
‘I heard a noise and popped my head into one of the rooms,’ she says as casually as she can. ‘I think it was your study? And there was some sort of film playing on the wall.’
‘Film?’ says Gwen blankly. ‘I don’t know what you mean. What sort of film?’
She’s only half paying attention because Anton calls her name again from the kitchen. Her head turns and it’s like he’s literally tugging a string to reel her back into his orbit. It’s clear she has no idea what Rose is talking about.
‘No worries,’ says Rose after a beat. ‘You get back to your evening.’
As she gets into her car a few minutes later, her hands are trembling. There’s something very wrong at 42 Wyndham Terrace.
And bad neighbour relations are the least of it.