“Mirri, who exactly did you see when you first came here with me?”
“Darling, I told you at the time, I didn’t get a good look at them.” Miranda cradled the phone in her neck and lit a cigarette. The offices were No Smoking but, hell, she paid the rent. Let them prosecute her! She inhaled, tried to speak again but ended up coughing. When it abated, she said, “Why?”
“Because someone has dug up Teddy.” Beth said it as calmly as she could, but her emotions were in turmoil, and she was close to tears.
Why? She kept asking the question over and over again. It was rattling around her brain like a walnut in a tumble dryer.
“What do you mean, dug him up?”
“I couldn’t be more specific. I’ve just been outside. The grave’s been desecrated and his body’s gone.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. “A fox could have done it…you know…after fresh…excuse me…after fresh meat.” She heard Beth groan. “I’m not saying that’s what happened,” she added quickly. “I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”
“The sides of the hole are very neat, straight, and there are no claw marks.”
“Okay, a fox who brought his own spade.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I’m sorry, honey, but how do you expect me to react? It was a cat, for God’s sake. It’s hardly body snatching, is it? Not up there with Burke and Hare.”
“I know,” Beth said. “But you have to admit it’s bloody strange.”
“Beth,” Miranda said calmingly. “You’re a city girl. You’re living in the country now. I’m sure these things happen all the time. Foxes, badgers…all manner of wildlife are hunting for food during the night. I think you’re reading too much into this.”
Beth bit back an angry retort. Miranda didn’t, couldn’t, understand, but then there was an awful lot Beth hadn’t told her, so how could her best friend see the full picture?
Beth realized the phone call was a mistake. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m overreacting. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Of course you should. What are friends for? I’m just saying, you shouldn’t get so worked up over something that is probably quite commonplace in rural Suffolk. Now, how’s the book coming along? Are you on schedule?”
They talked for another ten minutes or so until Beth finally ended the call with a promise to get together soon, and to carry on writing in the meantime. She went to the back door and stared out at the hole and scattered earth that had once been Teddy’s grave.
She was starting to firm up her theories about what was happening there at Stillwater. A fractured family living in a state of antagonism: Dolores, the whore wife, Bernard, the weak and cuckolded husband and father, and Jessica, the repressed and isolated wild child. Their disturbed and volatile lives produced ripples and echoes in the house that seeped into the very fabric of the walls, where they lay dormant until being unleashed by another life force—in this case hers—inhabiting the house. She was the catalyst.
And it was messing with her mind. The incident in the bathroom, and the attack by the wheelchair, had only happened in her imagination. James’s seduction had never happened at all—but he had confirmed it had. So what was that? Wish fulfillment? Or was it just the house showing her how easy it would be to smash her dreams, and bring her face-to-face with her own demons?
A pathetic cripple. Wasn’t that really how she saw herself? The house had recognized the truth behind the bright smile, and studied cynicism, and fired it back at her; taunting her with her own words, put into the mouth of a ghost.
But her cat had died. There was nothing fake about that.
So show me the body.
“I can’t. It’s gone!” she shouted at the empty space, frustration and anger jostling for position.
How can you be sure you didn’t imagine that too?
With the questions rattling around in her head she went back to her computer and woke it up.
The picture of Dolores and her acolytes had gone, replaced by a 404 error message. She swore and hit the back button that took her back to the Google screen. She scanned down the headings, but there was no mention of Dolores Franklin this time. Irritated, she typed the name in again, with the same negative result.
Exasperated, she plunged her hands into her short hair, kneading her scalp with her fingertips, and tugging her hair at the roots. “It was there,” she said to herself. “Gwen saw it. Arthur saw it. I didn’t imagine it!” But the Google screen remained unhelpful.
“Fuck!” she spat at the computer, and wheeled away from it, heading toward the kitchen. She snapped down the switch on the kettle, and grabbed her mug. She spooned two heaped mounds of coffee into the mug and, as the kettle came to the boil, filled it with water.
Sitting at the kitchen table sipping the strong and bitter drink she tried to center herself. Slowly the house was beating her into submission, but she wasn’t prepared to give in. Not yet anyway. She remembered the packet of cigarettes she’d bought at the supermarket. Her bag was on the seat next to her. She took out the pack and peeled off the cellophane, leaving it in an untidy pile along with the silver foil liner. The lighter she’d bought was a green plastic disposable. She wouldn’t need a lighter once this pack had gone. She was only going to smoke the one pack, and after that she’d kick the habit again. But for now…
She took a cigarette from the pack, and rolled it between her fingers. The one she’d begged from Miranda had whetted her appetite for nicotine but, at the moment, it wasn’t a constant craving. Maybe once she’d finished the entire packet things might change, but for now she would smoke with the confidence that this was only a momentary aberration. She just needed the stimulation that smoking would give her.
She stuck the cigarette between her lips and flicked the lighter. Offering the cigarette to the yellow flame she drew in hungrily, sucking the smoke down into her lungs. She exhaled with a sigh she quickly drew down again, holding in the smoke in her lungs this time, and enjoying the sensation of light-headedness.
As she sat there enjoying the smoking ritual she was waiting. Waiting for the woman’s voice to sound again, waiting for it to disabuse her, to pillory her for giving in to her desire. “Well, fuck her,” Beth said, took out another cigarette and lit it from the stub of the first.
Five cigarettes later, and with less than a centimeter of coffee left in her mug, she was feeling energized, but slightly sick. She needed fresh air. She pushed herself out of the house and down the ramp to the garden.
There was a light drizzle in the air, nothing serious, just a fine mist that dampened her skin and coated her hair with tiny droplets of water. The spray on her face was refreshing, cooling her down, and washing away some of the fuzziness in her mind.
The soil around Teddy’s grave was becoming muddy, the rain giving a sheen to the recently turned earth that made the footprint visible to her.
She hadn’t seen it earlier, but then, she hadn’t got this close to the grave. But she could see it now. She edged forward and stared down at it. At first she thought it might belong to a child or a young woman, someone barefoot. There must be more than just the one, she thought and backed up slightly to get a better view of the surrounding area.
She spotted a second print a couple of yards away. This one was deeper and more clearly defined, and there was yet another footprint eighteen inches away, again deeper and clearer than the first. They were heading away from the grave in the direction of the trees and the lake.
The rain was increasing, the fine spray growing stronger, raindrops heavier. The rain had soaked her hair, and was starting to soak into her clothes. It was also having an effect on the footprints, filling the indentations and smoothing them out. It wouldn’t be long before they were washed away completely. More evidence destroyed.
With a curse she spun around, and headed back to the house.
Once she had dried herself off, she went back to the office, and called her novel back to the screen. She read through the last section she had written and tried to focus her mind. It was difficult, but after a few false starts she found herself back in the flow and a couple of hours passed quickly.
Eventually she minimized the page on the screen, leaned back and stretched, yawning as she did so. Her eyes felt gritty and tired, but she was satisfied with what she’d produced. She marveled at her ability to compartmentalize her brain. When she was into a book it seemed to be an easy matter to switch off from the rest of the world and concentrate on the world she was creating. Then again, the chaos the house was causing in her life seemed to be inspiring her writing rather than preventing it.
The meowing brought her back to reality with a crash.
She spun round in her chair trying to focus, trying to locate where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be just outside the office window. She rolled across to it, gripped the windowsill, and hauled herself upright to peer out. Even at full stretch she couldn’t see. She had a view of the garden but it ended a few yards from the house. What was below the window was hidden from view, out of her eye line.
Frustrated, she flopped back into the chair, wheeled herself to the back door, swung it open and pushed through. From here she had a clear view of the windows at the back of the house. There was nothing, no cat, nothing.
The meowing continued, a pathetic, plaintive wail, but now it seemed to be coming from inside the house.
“Teddy!” she called, even though common sense told her it couldn’t be her cat. Her cat was dead and, up until last night, buried. But the mewling continued, and she did a sweep of the ground floor, pausing every few yards to listen. The sweep took her to the bottom of the stairs, and she stared up into the gloom. The meowing was coming from there. The cat was upstairs.