It’s been a long day.
After Gregory dropped his bombshell about a murderous ghost in his bedroom wall, he became tight-lipped and distressed, so Rose brought the meeting to a close.
His words prompted action anyway, and various calls had to be made under the umbrella of the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub, which is involved whenever there is a potential crime involving a child. He was to be seen by the GP and social services might be involved. It was an unusual set of circumstances. After much discussion about whether he was in any actual danger, it was decided that Gregory would be allowed to go home to his mother. While he may be having harmful delusions, he wasn’t himself at risk.
As for Anton Fuller, he was going to be kept in overnight for further observation and hopefully released in the morning.
‘We need a bloody drink,’ Moony had said once everything was done for the day. There was no nearby pub at Reservoir Road, but to Rose’s surprise, Moony suggested that everyone come over to hers for dinner and drinks. Scarlett had plans – she and her wife were going to their Lindy Hop class. Rose had expected Adam to decline, but he’d said he was child-free and that he’d love to. The hopeful look on his face as they waited for Rose to reply had propelled the words, ‘Oh, okay then, thanks,’ out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
Rose drove home to drop off the car and spent half an hour putting on make-up and then wiping it off again. She didn’t want to look like she was trying to impress anyone. Not that she was. Trying to impress anyone.
Now, she sits in Moony’s North Finchley home, looking around at her surroundings. She’s not sure what she expected but it was definitely something a little more eclectic and colourful. They are sitting in a room decorated in various shades of pale grey. Apart from a huge painting over the fireplace – an abstract series of splashes that Rose finally realizes is a motorbike on its side at speed going through a puddle – everything is tasteful and minimalist in here, from the white dining table and chairs to the pale sofas and rugs.
Rose takes a sip of the crisp, cold wine, her taste buds recognizing that it’s more expensive than any she’s had before. Moony is such an enigma. She rides a motorbike and smokes like a chimney when she isn’t mainlining Haribo sweets. But she also has the tidiest house Rose has ever seen. Even if it does smell so strongly of fags that Rose can feel her resistance to one slipping through her fingers like water. It’s been a year since she stopped and the urge still sometimes hits her. But she resists. She doesn’t need any more reasons to feel bad about herself.
‘So,’ Moony says as they settle back into the soft grey sofas, facing each other across the coffee table. ‘Gregory Fuller. What do we think?’
Rose doesn’t really know what she thinks. Gregory had been adamant that the ‘boy in the wall’ was behind every odd thing going on at number 42 Wyndham Terrace, from the mysterious banging to the damaged photo and cut flowers, to the even more disturbing ‘accidents’ that had befallen Anton Fuller over the last few months.
Rose takes a slightly too-big sip of her wine and waits for Adam to reply first. Thankfully, he obliges.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we either have a very disturbed little boy who needs psychiatric care – and we’ll find that out after he’s been assessed – or there is some kind of presence in that house as he claims there is.’
Moony nods and sparks up another cigarette, her small hands fluttering, inhaling deeply.
‘What do you know about poltergeists, Rose?’
Rose puts her glass down on the coffee table. ‘Not a lot, to be honest. I mean, I’ve seen the old film of that name and that’s about it.’
Moony looks expectantly at Adam.
‘So the most famous case was probably the one that happened in Enfield, in the 1970s,’ he says, sitting back. ‘I suppose it all happened not that far from where we’re based.’
His shirt has come slightly undone and a small triangle of brown skin appears at his waistline. The skin at Rose’s throat gets warmer. She takes another sip of the wine, finding with disappointment that she has somehow finished her glass.
Adam goes on to describe the case that became famous around the world, after a single mother called Peggy Hodgson, living in a council house in North London with her two daughters, called the police in 1977 to report that furniture was being moved around and that there was knocking in the walls. The two girls, thirteen-year-old Margaret and eleven-year-old Janet seemed to be the focus of the events, which progressed to supposed attacks on them and episodes of levitation.
‘Over that time,’ says Adam, ‘lots of different people got involved, from a psychic investigator who wrote a book about it, to the Mirror newspaper and others. Even the police at the original call-out claimed to have witnessed something if I remember rightly.’
‘I remember it,’ says Moony, tapping her cigarette into a small, crystal ashtray on the table. ‘Was all over the news at the time. The family were quite the stars.’
Her arch tone makes Rose turn to look at her. ‘So it was all bullshit?’
Moony makes a face. ‘I’ve read quite a bit about it, for obvious reasons. There was some evidence that the girls had faked some of the events. For example, one of them was caught on camera trying to bend a spoon. So my feeling is that there wasn’t necessarily a ghost.’ She pauses. ‘The girls themselves seem to have got so caught up in the whole thing and it may have been attention-seeking. But there is also an argument that poltergeist activity is somehow caused by the children themselves.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m not sure I believe that. And it doesn’t feel quite like what Gregory is saying anyway.’
All three are silent for a moment.
‘Poor kid,’ says Rose. ‘Whatever’s going on in his head, or in that house, that’s one unhappy little boy.’
Adam sighs. ‘I’m not a psychiatrist but it’s possible that the military regime his father makes him live under is giving him murderous impulses that he’s trying to name as something else. You know, in order to cope with them.’
‘Hmm,’ says Rose. ‘That might be the case. But maybe we ought to look at the house a bit more closely anyway.’ She is quiet for a moment before continuing. ‘I don’t know which is worse, really,’ she says, ‘if you’re him.’
This disturbing thought seems to subdue them all. The harsh buzz of the doorbell then makes Rose flinch.
Moony gets to her feet.
‘The Gods of Deliveroo have smiled on us at last,’ she says. ‘Come on.’
They eat the Indian takeaway at the dining room table, which Moony has laid out with a tasteful white cloth and heavy cutlery. There are even candles. It all seems a bit much for a Wednesday work meal. Rose is more used to sharing a bag of Chilli Heatwave Doritos with Mack across the desk, but she settles in, grateful for the soft, rosy comfort of the light.
‘You still with us?’
‘What?’ She starts at Adam’s voice, realizing she has drifted away from the conversation. The curry sits heavily in her stomach as she blinks her gritty eyes. The cumulative lack of sleep is taking its toll.
‘I need to piss,’ says Moony with her characteristic bluntness and Rose finds Adam’s eyes, a smile on his lips.
‘TMI,’ he murmurs and takes a sip from the glass of whisky he’s moved on to.
Rose smiles and drinks from her glass of water. Needs to slow down on that wine.
In the hall Moony’s phone rings. She says, ‘Yup?’ then lowers her voice to something more intimate.
Adam raises an eyebrow at Rose, who laughs.
‘Has she got a man, do we think?’ she says.
‘No idea,’ he says, ‘but she’s certainly been in a different mood lately. Maybe that’s the reason?’
They exchange grins and then Rose gazes down at the table, suddenly lost for anything else to say. The silence seems to expand between them.
‘You doing okay?’ says Adam. He looks far too attractive in this candlelight and for a moment Rose pictures herself shocking him by leaning over and pressing her lips to his. This forces a weird laugh out of her mouth, which she hadn’t intended. Adam looks puzzled.
‘Yeah, sorry!’ she says, too brightly now. ‘I’ve not been sleeping all that well, you know. Bit tired.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ says Adam. ‘I’m not sure I’d ever sleep again if I’d been through what you did last year.’
Rose looks down again, shocked at the emotion that has come over her, stoppering her throat.
‘You know we have to watch out for PTSD, don’t you, in this line of work?’ he continues. ‘Did you end up having the counselling you’re entitled to?’
She shifts uncomfortably. Rose moved to a new department not long after it happened and there was clearly an admin error of some kind because she never received the paperwork. The trouble is, the very last thing she wants is to have to sit across from some therapist and lie about the weirdness of her living arrangements. No, she doesn’t have PTSD. She just has a complicated life. But she’ll cope with it on her own, as she has always done in the past.
Adam places a hand on her arm, only for a moment, but the effect of his warm skin on hers is electric. Her breath hitches in her throat. Their eyes meet and she knows she has betrayed how she feels because an expression of confusion crosses his face. It was simply a friendly pat on her arm, part of his concern for a colleague, nothing more. And now she has made it weird and uncomfortable by wearing her lust like a neon sign on her head. It has been a long time since she has been touched, that’s all. The last time someone touched Rose’s skin, they wanted to kill her.
This thought, as clear and bold as if someone has whispered it into her ear, is a cold clamp around the heart.
Rose has never felt lonelier in her life than she does in this moment, sitting in uncomfortable silence with her colleague as the candlelight flickers.
Moony comes back into the room now, brandishing a fresh bottle of wine.
‘Time for a top-up?’ Her eyes are bright and there’s something Rose can’t read in them. But she doesn’t have the energy to think about it. She stands up hurriedly.
‘Not for me,’ she says. ‘I think I’m going to get off.’
‘Oh.’ Moony looks visibly deflated. ‘You’re no fun. It’s only ten thirty!’
‘Sorry.’ It feels claustrophobic in here all of a sudden and she wants to be outside.
‘Can’t I get you an Uber though?’ says Moony and there is a note of desperation in her voice that comes as a surprise.
‘I feel like a bit of air so I’ll walk up to the tube station,’ says Rose. ‘No problem.’
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ says Adam, getting to his feet.
‘No,’ says Rose hurriedly. ‘I don’t mean to be a downer. I’m knackered, that’s all. It’s been great!’ She knows she sounds shrill and her smile is too wide, lips drawn back in a rictus. But she can’t seem to be normal right now. ‘I’ve had a really nice time,’ she says. ‘I think I’ll get off all the same.’
As Rose walks down the elegant black-and-white-tiled path and through Moony’s gate, she groans inwardly. How can she be a professional woman of thirty years old – someone who has put actual killers away – and somehow still feel like such a child? She may as well have written ‘I FANCY YOU, ADAM’ in black marker ink across her forehead back there. If she could climb right out of her own skin and walk away from it, she would.
Is she ever going to have that feeling of being with family again with her work colleagues? The way she had at Silverton Street?
Rose contemplates calling Mack for about five seconds until she dismisses the idea. Far too late in the evening for a social call. She could never tell him about why she’s cringing so much anyway.
On the High Street, Rose gets out her phone to look for exactly where Woodside Park station is and is distracted by music seeping out of a busy pub a few doors down. It looks like some sort of craft beer pub and it’s humming with life.
She needs to get home and into her bed. Maybe a decent night’s sleep will help sort out her muddled head a bit. The very last thing she needs is another drink.
But as she looks in the window, she sees a group of people about her own age, quite well dressed but all having a riotous time. There’s a woman with similar colouring to Rose and for a minute she imagines she is her. She works for a marketing company, perhaps, and is getting engaged to the guy opposite, who is looking at her with clear adoration. They don’t want kids yet but when they do, her lovely mum will help out. She can’t wait to be a grandma; everyone says so.
Then Rose pictures herself turning the key in her own front door and coming carefully into the hall to see whether Adele’s ghoulish presence is hovering inside the living room. Rose will walk past her and go upstairs to the bedroom, where she will climb into cold sheets, alone, and picture the moment when she woke up to a darkness so thick it had a texture.
James Oakley had disabled the two streetlights outside her bedroom that night and was waiting, like a malignant mass, outside her door. Her body starts to shake, almost involuntarily, and she clenches her fists at the wave of revulsion that threatens to engulf her.
No one has touched you since someone tried to kill you.
The sentence plays through her mind again, cruel and daring at the same time.
Go on, it seems to say, as she pushes open the door of the pub and orders a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Go on, it seems to say, as she opens the dating app on her phone for only the second time.
Go on, it seems to say, as, five minutes later, with a glass of Dutch courage inside her, she swipes right.