Chapter 5

I pick my way along Haverscroft’s weed-choked driveway, court shoes pinching my toes. The red-brick house hunches into a hollow, brooding under a black canopy of beech and yew. Ivy clambers up the side of the building, claims a chimney stack, smothers a dormer window. Pustules of green moss scatter the roof, a slipped grey slate here and there. A tall man, slightly stooping, is deep in conversation at the foot of the front steps with Mrs Cooper.

She leans on a bicycle, glances my way as I near them. A hurried exchange, furtive glances in my direction. A conversation about the new inhabitants of Haverscroft House.

‘Back already, love? You’ve met Richard Denning?’

The man holds an axe in one hand, raises his other to his flat woven cap and touches its brim. A hazy recollection of him deadheading roses, the dark red climber on the back terrace, his check shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows on a stifling hot day in June when we looked over the house.

‘Hello,’ I say, aware Mrs Cooper misses nothing, her eyes scanning the heavy brown envelope I’m holding.

‘Richard’s wanting to know if you’ll be needing logs. Mrs Havers always did, didn’t she now?’ The man nods. Mrs Cooper runs on, ‘Said I couldn’t think why you wouldn’t, for the stove and the other rooms.’

Something in me wants to say she’s wrong. We won’t want any such thing.

‘That would be great, thank you.’

Richard Denning touches his cap again and heads away towards the rear of the house.

‘Don’t mind Richard, none, love. Never has too much to say, but he’ll see you’re alright if you have any problems. I left you a note on the kitchen table. The new reverend called, he said he’d try to catch you at home another day. You can’t miss him, he comes over on that great motorbike of his. Terrible racket it makes.’

‘I bumped into Mr Whittle on the high street. He was asking after you.’

She doesn’t respond, continues to look steadily at me. Friendly conversation seems a good idea after our rather bumpy start this morning. I’m hoping I haven’t offended her. I try again, ‘I said you were in today. He’s the estate agent who dealt with the Haverscroft sale.’

‘I know Mr Whittle.’

Her tone is flat. Not her easy-rolling chatter. She pulls her bike onto the drive.

‘Did you get the children off alright?’

‘A bit late, but it didn’t seem to bother them.’

‘Such lovely children, aren’t they. So excited about getting a little dog.’

She mounts the bike, sets the peddle ready to head off.

‘Same time then, next week?’

‘That would be great, thanks. We’ll be a bit more organised for you by then. Would you do the bedrooms? I’ll start decorating downstairs this week.’

‘I don’t go upstairs, love, didn’t you know? Mrs Havers suffered terribly with her knees. She kept herself to the kitchen and morning room, so she did.’

She pushes off before I can respond, I step back to let her pass. ‘Don’t worry waiting in for me, I’ve still got the keys Mrs Havers gave me. See you next week!’

I watch her peddle up the drive and wonder who else has keys I know nothing about.

 

The deeds spread across the kitchen table, my mug of coffee stone cold at my elbow. Oliver Lyle is right, these give me little information other than a few old Havers family names and rough dates when they lived here. They owned quite a bit of land, running from the back lane down to the river. All sold off over the years. Somewhere to start, at least. And I feel calmer now. The interview had shaken me. So stupid. The solicitor made up his mind before he met me. Did he know something about me? Has he spoken with Mark? Perhaps Mr Whittle told him how I was in the summer, odd, vacant, strung out on stress and pills. Or was I over-analysing things, making something out of nothing? Mark would say I am.

The small, black attic key is beside Mrs Havers’ letter. Was I really not going up there until the weekend? I pick up the letter, read it again for the umpteenth time.

 

Fairfields

Weldon

1st October

 

Dear Mr And Mrs Keeling

You will have purchased Haverscroft and most likely moved in by the time you read this correspondence. You have chosen to ignore my earlier communication; I very much hope it is not to your cost. You are aware of the reasons I resisted selling the house to you or indeed anyone else. They made me sell as you know. I shall not trouble you with a repetition of my concerns.

I reside at the above address; call upon me at your very earliest convenience. I would discuss with you the business of the attic.

Yours truly

Mrs Alice Havers

 

I don’t know what to make of her letter. I’ll be none the wiser if I read it a dozen more times. What happened to her earlier letter? Did her solicitor send it to us? I’m inclined to think he would. My memory had been non-existent in the days and weeks after the breakdown. By the summer though, it was back, confused and muddled, but I’m confident I’d remember a letter from Mrs Havers. I was desperate to hang on to any reason not to come here. Was that why Mark, perhaps, kept it from me?

I pick up the attic key and turn it between my fingers. Does Mark know what’s up there? Wouldn’t he have spoken to our surveyor, even if he hadn’t had access himself? He’ll never know if I take a look.

 

The staircase is opposite the front door on the left side of the hall. At the top it sweeps right to a dingy, galleried landing. I’ve forgotten to buy batteries for Mark’s torch. Mrs Cooper’s leaves are correct about the weather. Clouds scud past beyond the tall casement windows either side of the front door. Light and shadow flicker across the floor tiles, wind puffs and whistles into the fireplace beneath the stairs. My breath is short and shallow. I’m being absurd. At this rate I’ll be like Mrs Cooper, never going upstairs in my own home.

My fingers tighten around the cool, polished bannister. The tiles drain the warmth from my stockinged feet as I listen. No creaking floorboards. No unexplained noises. No doors slamming. Only the occasional tick and gurgle in the ancient radiators. The landing, the entire house, is silent. I have to get used to this place, being alone here. I head up the stairs.

The doors to the spare bedroom and office remain closed, the peculiar odour, faint. We need to strip out all the upstairs carpets, get rid of the smell. I don’t try the light. Our final bulb blew last night. Even Mark’s running out of motivation to replace them. The torch from his box of essential stuff stands at the top of the stairs, useless without fresh batteries. I’ll shop in Weldon before I collect the twins tonight.

I head in the half-light past our room, past the twins’ rooms, the bathroom and stop just before the office. To my left is the narrow attic door. I’d assumed it was a cupboard when we first looked around Haverscroft. Set flush with the wall, the paint, yellowed and chipped, it blends into the grimy paper and is close to invisible.

My hands fumble with the tiny metal key. It rattles in the lock. There isn’t absolute silence in London like there is here. Always the murmur of traffic, a siren or the bustle and voices of neighbours through partition walls. I’d failed to understand how comforting sounds of life are until there are none. I jiggle the key, it lodges into place, turns effortlessly. The door swings open towards me.

A narrow space, no more than a shoulder’s width. Deep wooden stairs rise and curve to the left, a black metal handrail spirals upward out of sight. My feet slither into hollows worn in the centre of each tread as I climb. Mrs Havers’ knees wouldn’t have managed these in years if Mrs Cooper’s to be believed. Cramped, steep and twisting, they must be a nightmare to descend. A short stretch of handrail and half a dozen spindles guard the room against the drop to the stairs. I stop on the third from top step, peep between the spindles at a long, low room.

A narrow section of ceiling runs centrally between two sides of steeply sloping roof, striped green and cream blinds sag at four dormer windows. Two single beds, tucked under the eaves, tumbles of covers and sheets on them as if their occupants had just left. A washstand, a low chest of drawers between the small beds.

I clear the stairs and duck my head as I step into the room. The bare floorboards are covered in dust, a grittiness between my toes, a snag in the foot of my tights running for my ankle. I should have kept my shoes on. At the furthest end of the room is a small grate, the mantel crammed with trophies and photographs.

The first bed has a golly lying across the jumble of sheets, his red felt smile peeling at the edges, black button eyes fixed on the ceiling. Most of his curly hair has worn away, his ­sailor-blue jacket and striped red and black trousers are grimy. I can’t imagine a child playing with such a sinister rag doll.

I pass the first bed, a sock abandoned on the floor, a cream Airtex shirt pushed under the second bed. Next to the fireplace, a chair in faded chintz, a book in the well of its seat. I pick up the book, its pages are dead and lank between my fingers. I don’t recognise the title and drop it back onto the chair.

The row of framed photographs on the mantel are interspersed with cricket trophies. I pick up the nearest photograph and rub my forefinger through the dust on the glass. A woman leans against the terrace outside the morning room, her arms around two blond boys. A young Mrs Havers with her children? I replace the photo, look along the length of the mantel. Another of the same woman, again, standing on the terrace, a summer’s evening. Fair and slim in an evening gown, she looks frail beside her taller, dark-haired companion. He leans on a cane, very dapper, smoking a cigarette, he has a bored look about him, perhaps the photographer is taking too long. I replace the photograph on the mantel.

I’m like a thief in the night trespassing on other people’s lives. I glance toward the stairs and at the room. Mrs Havers’ children’s things. Their room. Two little boys of eight or nine years old, I’d guess. Tom’s age or thereabouts. What happened to them? Something so dreadful their mother kept this room, never altered or cleared it? I can’t contemplate losing the twins. How does a parent deal with it, whatever the circumstances. The anxiety when Tom struggles to breathe is unbearable. I can’t sleep, sit beside his bed listening to each struggling intake of air, willing them to continue and never stop. The attic is disturbing, creepy, a little ghoulish. More than anything, desperately sad. I’ve seen enough, time to head back to the warmth of the kitchen.

The tap, tap is soft and barely audible.

I spin around, a turn in the pit of my stomach. Nothing is here to make a sound. Is this the noise that so concerned the children, annoyed Mark? He said sometimes it’s loud, sometimes soft. It seems to be in this room, close behind me, but at the same time coming eerily distant from another part of the house.

I wait, straining my ears although there is no need, the noise was clear. I don’t move a muscle as I hold my breath, seconds then minutes pass, certainty ebbs away. My eyes roam the attic, the golly grins its lopsided grin, clothes still scatter the floor, nothing that’s a likely culprit is here.

Two slim doors are set flush into the alcove beside the fireplace and behind the armchair. I hadn’t noticed them before. Painted the same pale green as the room, their only give-a-way are two brass knobs, no larger than a fifty-pence coin and just visible above the chair back. The doors stand the height of the room. Cupboards, perhaps?

I focus on them and wait, hear nothing. I could stand here for hours and not hear anything. There was nothing yesterday, although Sophie says she heard the knocking this morning. Open the doors, how hard can it be?

The chair is heavy as I drag it away from the cupboard, its feet scrape against the floorboards. Nothing’s been here. No footprints have disturbed the floorboard’s coating of dust until my feet did earlier. I reach out my hand and grip one of the knobs, ball-shaped, with grooves running around it like ripples in water. The cold metal sinks into the palm of my hand.

I tug.

It’s a half-hearted movement with little strength in it. The door doesn’t shift. Stepping back, my arm almost fully outstretched, I pull hard. The door jerks open, I stumble backwards and collide with the chair. I hadn’t intended to scream. I glance over my shoulder, an empty room, no one to hear me. I look back at the cupboard, a stink of mould leaches into the air. A rail runs across the top of the space, packed tight with jackets, shirts and blazers. Children’s clothes, similar in size to the twins’.

Below the rail is a series of shelves neatly piled with folded jumpers and shirts. I pull the second door towards me. Something on the edge of my vision moves, flies at my face. I hold up my hands, scream again. A shoebox clatters to rest in the dust near my feet.

A pair of white cricket shoes have spilt across the floor. A black metal box lies beside the shoes. I thank goodness it didn’t hit me on the head. Other boxes are piled behind the door and look precarious, the cardboard failing, collapsing in the dampness. I’ve been screaming at a pair of cricket shoes. The metal box is the type lawyers kept deeds and documents secure in years ago. It has handles at each end. I pick it up.

Tap, tap.

Twice. Much louder than before.

I stare at the cupboard, the packed space. The mouldering smell, thick with damp. The chimney breast is to my right, the sound seems to come from there, although from above me too. My eyes scan the crease where the ceiling meets the wall. A great patch of black spore-filled stain spreads like canker across the ceiling. Triangles of cobwebs in corners, strands of them hang lankly down the walls. I put the metal box on the chair and reach out my hand to the chimney breast. The painted plaster is blistered and crumbles under my touch. The noise comes again, more faintly but this time I feel it too, the vibration under my hand as though the dankness tries to shiver itself under my skin.

I snatch my hand away. My palm, peppered with green flakes, looks deceased and rotting. Still staring at the chimney breast I press my hands together, rubbing, trying to remove the slivers of paint. They stick to my skin. I rub them against my hips, snatch-up the metal box and head back through the room. I can’t think what can be making the noises. I glance over my shoulder at the fireplace, no sound, just the thud of my stockinged feet on the boards as I run for the stairs.