‘Excuse me, what are you doing in our house?’ Jason Danes asked, as the well-dressed couple, the man in a suit, the woman in jeans and a leather jacket, followed Paul Jordan up the spiral staircase and walked straight past him and Emily, into his studio.
All the furniture and his easel were gone. The room was bare.
‘This is a fabulous room, Mr and Mrs Middle – I’m sure you’ll agree,’ the estate agent said.
‘Fabulous!’ the man echoed, looking around.
‘It is!’ his wife said, enthusiastically. ‘Stunning!’ She went over to each of the windows in turn, looking out. ‘It has a real wow factor!’
‘I’m sorry, what are you doing here?’ Jason asked.
No one heard him.
‘The wow factor indeed, Mrs Middle!’ Jordan said. ‘It could be an office or an amazing bedroom! This is such a wonderful house. It’s the best house on the entire development, I can assure you of that, no question. To be honest, the build quality of a Forest Mills home is second to none. They don’t scrimp on anything; all the fittings are the best that money can buy. It is a rare opportunity to find this house back on the market so soon after the completion of the development, I can tell you.’
‘The kitchen is stunning, too,’ she said.
‘Quite stunning!’ Paul Jordan echoed. His eyes darted to the doorway, to the figure of a man and a woman standing, watching them, then back to his clients.
‘Oh, look!’ she exclaimed, peering down. ‘Primroses are out on the front lawn! I hadn’t even noticed them! See them, Kevin?’
‘Well, it is Primrose Day today,’ Jordan said. ‘April nineteenth. Such a wonderful time of year this, everything coming up in the gardens and in the countryside. The perfect time to be moving into a new home, I always think.’
‘The lake is awesome – what a beautiful view.’ Her husband was peering out. ‘Ducks, coots, moorhens. Mallards, and what are those with the long necks?’
‘Indian-runner ducks,’ Jordan replied, again glancing at the doorway. The figures were still there.
‘So,’ Kevin Middle said, checking the compass app on his phone. ‘This way is facing north, right?’
‘Yes, indeed, Mr Middle, and the hill beyond the lake forms part of the South Downs National Park, so it can never be built on.’
‘Unlike the other directions?’
The views through the other windows were across rows of modern houses.
‘The estate is complete,’ Paul Jordan said, ‘So there won’t be any more building. I can genuinely say this is the best-designed modern development I’ve ever had the privilege of working on. I don’t think there’s a single house here that is unsympathetic to the location. The architect, in my humble opinion, is little short of a genius. This particular house is inspired, of course, on a smaller scale, by the original mansion that stood here. Cold Hill House. You’ll find an interesting history if you look online.’
The couple looked at each other, smiling. ‘What do you think, Sarah?’ her husband said.
‘Darling, you know what this room feels like to me?’ Sarah Middle said. ‘An artist’s studio! This would be such a wonderful room to paint in. The light in here is just amazing.’
‘You’re an artist, Mrs Middle?’ Paul Jordan asked.
‘My wife is very talented,’ her husband said, proudly.
‘Cold Hill village has a new gallery that specializes in showing the work of local Sussex artists,’ the estate agent said. ‘I’m sure they would be most interested in your work.’
Blushing, Sarah Middle replied, ‘I don’t know if I’d be good enough to have an exhibition. I’m a rank amateur, self-taught. I’m what professional artists call a Sunday painter. I do watercolours – I specialize in flowers. I love it but I’m not sure I’m really any good.’
Her husband put his arm around her. ‘Sarah, darling, don’t put yourself down, you’re very talented.’
She blushed. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, Mrs Middle, it’s very odd you should say that, about this room being a studio.’ Jordan hesitated. The figures were back in the doorway, watching him. ‘No, sorry, forget I said it.’
‘Odd?’ Kevin Middle quizzed. ‘What do you mean by that?’ He suddenly sounded like the lawyer he was.
The agent looked flustered. ‘Well really, I shouldn’t have – er – said anything.’
Even more the lawyer now, Kevin said, sternly, ‘Mr Jordan, you are trying to sell us this property – I don’t think you should be concealing anything from my wife and me.’
‘No – honestly – it’s not any nasty secret or anything of that nature. It’s just a little bit of history.’
‘History?’ his wife asked.
‘Yes – you see, the extraordinary thing is that this room actually was an artist’s studio! Quite a famous artist, in fact. He and his wife actually lived here, albeit briefly. What attracted them most of all was this room, which he made into his studio.’
‘Why did they move?’ she asked.
‘Well – they didn’t actually move.’ Suddenly, Jordan began stepping from foot to foot and didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. ‘It was the freakiest of coincidences – one you simply could not make up – and frankly wouldn’t want to. Shortly after they moved into this property, there was a terrible tragedy. A completely freak accident with the people who lived across the road.’ He pointed through the window, his discomfort becoming more and more intense and urgent. His face looked hot and clammy. ‘Shortly after the couple moved in here –’ he hesitated – ‘do you really want to hear this?’
‘Yes,’ Kevin Middle said, and his wife nodded in agreement. ‘We do.’
Jordan continued. ‘The Penze-Weedells, across the way, had one of these new electric cars, with all the automatic features such as self-park and autonomous driving. It went wrong one afternoon, shot out of the drive and hit a van owned by the couple who had only recently bought this house, head on. The husband was killed outright. His wife remained in what I think they call a persistent vegetative state for some time, before passing away, too.’
‘I think I read about this,’ Sarah Middle said. ‘It rings a bell.’
‘Of course!’ her husband said. ‘Jason Danes, right?’
Jordan nodded, glancing again, uneasily, at the figures in the doorway. ‘Yes. I imagine one day there will be a blue plaque outside.’
‘They lived here?’ Kevin Middle said. ‘What an amazing coincidence!’
‘It is,’ Jordan agreed. ‘Truly horrendous. Less than a couple of weeks after moving in.’
‘Oh no,’ Middle said. ‘I didn’t mean about the accident.’ He smiled. ‘You see, my wife and I are big Jason Danes fans. In fact, we were among his earliest patrons, we like to think.’
‘We went to his very first private viewing,’ Sarah Middle chipped in.
‘We did!’ her husband confirmed. ‘There was something about his work that reminded us of an artist whose prices were way beyond us – Lowry.’
‘We have over a dozen of Jason Danes’s works,’ his wife said, proudly. ‘He lived here? I can’t believe it.’
‘It would be so very fitting to hang them here,’ her husband said.
‘Of course,’ Jordan said. ‘Oh yes, of course, absolutely. What a tribute!’
‘Such a tragedy that Danes will never know our passion for his work,’ Sarah Middle said.
‘If he’d lived, he’d be up there, one day, among the greats, no question,’ her husband added.
Paul Jordan glanced again at the doorway. At the two figures who were still standing there. Watching them.
He smiled back at his clients, who were both in their late thirties. ‘Indeed. For sure. Oh, absolutely.’
And he knew for sure, absolutely, that one day soon they would both be meeting Jason Danes.