Bad House (9 page)

“Yes, Louise, I think it is.”

“I’ll go and grab that free table over there. Why don’t you order us lunch while you’re at the bar?”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Anything. I don’t care. We’re not exactly here for the fine cuisine now, are we?”

He watched her departing figure, in particular the gentle sway of her slim hips beneath the sensible black trousers and the well-cut tweed jacket that drew attention to her hand-span waist. She was no Marianna in the looks department, but she was still stunning in her own way. She was tall and slim to the point of emancipated, but she wore it well. There was something distinctly elegant about her. With her mane of loose red curls and ramrod straight back, it looked like she would be more at home at a dinner party in some country-estate discussing horse-breeding rather than a boozer in Greater Manchester talking about a supposed haunted house…

“What can I get you, love?”

The same barmaid who had previously acknowledged with a nod that she would serve him next was now speaking to him. He spun round, momentarily flustered.

“Another pint, please, and a large glass of Pinot.”

Quickly regaining his composure, he proceeded to order two lots of scampi and chips before carrying the drinks over to Louise.

To his relief – as he felt sure that if anyone were to listen in on their conversation they would call the men in white coats – the table she had found was in a quiet corner.  He slid in next to her on the cushioned seat built into the wall as the chairs that should have been on the other side of the table had been nicked.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a big gulp of wine.

Ian warily eyed his pint. He really needed to take it slow and make this pint last the duration of lunch. The last thing he needed right now was to be pulled over for drunk-driving.

Oh, fuck it. What were the chances of being stopped anyway?

The beer went some way to steadying his nerves and he broke the silence that hung over them like a shroud.

“I’m so grateful you agreed to meet me, Louise. It can’t be easy for you, and it’s very kind of you…”

“I’m only here out of the most basic civic duty to warn you. Get yourself and your family
the fuck
out of that house before it kills you.”

The word
fuck
sounded strange coming from her. It didn’t fit somehow, like a little girl trying on her mother’s clothes.

Because that’s what she is, he realised.
Scared
.

Inside, she’s a scared little girl who is as terrified of that bloody house as I am...

“What happened to your parents, Louise? What made you sell the house after they disappeared?”

“They didn’t disappear. Well, of course they
disappeared
, but it was the house…”

Her voice trailed off, as if she knew how mad she sounded.

“It’s okay, you can talk to me. I believe you.”

She met his gaze when he said that, and her eyes shone with unshed tears of gratitude. “I
know
you do, Ian. And you’re about the only person in the world who does. This is why I agreed to meet you.”

“Tell me what you think happened to your parents.”

“No, you go first. Tell me what’s happened since you moved in. I have to know that you’re genuine, that you’re not some loser that somehow heard the daughter of the previous occupants of your house thought it was haunted and now you’re making the whole thing up.”

“And why would I do a thing like that?”

“Who knows? For attention perhaps? There are a lot of nut-jobs out there.”

Ian could see he was going to have to go first if she was to share any information about her parents and the house. Taking a deep breath, he began to speak.

She listened silently throughout, just nodding encouragement in the appropriate places. He told her about his reflection in the mirror, the black-outs and the incident with Jacob where he saw his doppelganger under the bed. He told her about installing the surveillance system in key rooms throughout the house. Had that really been only yesterday? He shook his head glumly.

Boy, didn’t time fly when you were having fun.

“I could go on,” he said, thinking about the nightmares where he slaughtered his wife and child. That was something he
wasn’t
about to share in a hurry. “But it’s your turn now. Do you think there’s something wrong with the house, or am I losing my mind?”

He had the sudden, ridiculous thought that this wasn’t a woman called Louise Brown at all, but a shrink out to entrap him.

Wasn’t paranoia one of the first signs of insanity?

He was just so god-damn tired…

“You’re not losing your mind, Ian.”

She reached over and squeezed his hand. Instantly, he stopped shredding the beermat, and stared down at the well-manicured hand covering his. Her skin was warm and dry, and he had a sudden flash image of that very same hand unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. His mouth went dry and his heart sped up.

He was saved from replying when the waitress came over with two plates of scampi and chips. Louise snatched her hand away and they both stared listlessly down at the plates of food placed in front of them. Ian ordered two more replacement drinks and stabbed a fat oven-chip with his fork. Outwardly, he patiently waited for her to speak, but inwardly he boiled over with a barely contained need
to know
.

“My parents were good people,” she said, after she had taken a bite of food which she chewed slowly and methodically. She put down her knife and fork with a sigh. “Especially my dad. He was the kindest, nicest human-being one could ever wish to meet. He was a factory-owner, a business he had started up in the eighties which was worth millions by the time he retired.”

“What did he make?” he asked, mainly out of politeness rather than any genuine interest.

“Bathrooms. Sinks and toilets, mostly. He sold the factory on in the early noughties, that’s when they moved out the city centre and into twenty-nine Aberdeen Road. My dad was a golf-nut and as you know the course is right behind the house. My dad thought he had moved to heaven. But what they really moved into was hell.”

She went quiet and he almost groaned aloud in frustration. “Go on.”

“They lived there for six months before they disappeared. My dad’s whole personality changed after they moved. He grew surly and withdrawn, he used to be always laughing, so full of life. But then they moved
there,
and it all changed.
He
changed. I didn’t visit as often as I should’ve done, I worked in the city for a graphic design company, I was a young woman with my own life and own problems. But when I did, it was like my mum was actually
scared
of him.”

Was Holly scared of me?
The thought made him feel ill. “How was she scared of him?”

“It wasn’t so much what she said, it was what she
didn’t
say. In the old days she used to tease him about stuff, like not being able to cook, and the fact he used to sneak away to check the football scores, you know,
normal
stuff. She became the shell of the woman she once was.”

“Did they ever say anything to you about the house?”

“My mum didn’t, not once. My dad did, though. He confided in me one time, but I dismissed it and after that he closed off even more. I just thought that retirement was sending him round the bend, or something. He said strange things had been happening since they moved in. Like, he would hear voices whispering in the middle of the night. And out of the corner of his eye he would claim that rooms would subtly alter their shape.” She shook her head sadly, looking like she was on the verge of tears again. “Mostly he complained about not sleeping, about the nightmares…”

The nightmares…
Did Louise’s dad dream about murdering his family, too?

“Did you ever see or feel anything strange when you were in the house?”

“No, never.”

“Just like me and Holly,” he said quietly, more to himself than to her. “Whatever’s happening, it’s happening to me, and me alone. And Jacob…”

I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll slice you up
…

He shuddered.

“You’ve gone quite pale, Ian.”

Ian took a swig of his pint to steady himself. Just
thinking
about his son made his stomach twist into knots, and a hot, then cold sweat break out all over his body.

He cleared his throat to speak. “Did you ever do any digging? Did you ever find anything out about the house or anything about the people that lived in it before your parents? Because that’s my next move. I need to know as much about that house as possible.”

“That’s the thing. Do you believe in ghosts, Ian?”

The question caught him off-guard. “Up until two weeks ago, no, not a chance.”

“And now?”

“I’m sorry, but what has this got to do with the people that lived in the house before your parents?”

“I did do some digging after my parents disappeared. Something awful happened in that house and I think it made the house
bad,
like it got contaminated by evil.”

Ian shuddered as Jacob’s words echoed in his head:

The house is angry, Daddy
…

“Who had the house before your parents? What happened to them that was so terrible?”

“They were a Mr and Mrs Everett. James Everett was an upstanding businessman who commissioned the house to be built in seventy-seven, just after the golf-course came into existence. Before that, Aberdeen road was fields. James Everett was a bad man, Ian. A very bad man. He reported his wife missing ten years before their bodies were found dead in the house.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not long after the house was built, James Everett reported his wife missing. For ten years he kept her prisoner in her own home before he killed her then committed suicide. The things he did to her… When their bodies were found, she was missing her hands and feet and her body was horribly mutilated.”

“Why have I never heard of this? Surely a story like that would’ve made it into the news?”

Louise shrugged. “Remaining family of the couple paid for it to be kept out the press. It was all so
shameful
for them. Only the police knew about it.”

“How did you find this out?”

“After my parents disappeared, I saw
a lot
of the police. I ended up marrying the Detective who was investigating my parent’s disappearance, so you could say I got inside information.” Ian glanced down at her left hand and she followed his gaze. There was no wedding-band. “He left me last year.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Although from the sadness in her eyes, Ian guessed it probably wasn’t. He got back to the matter at hand: “So what are you suggesting? That the ghost of Mr Everett resides at twenty-nine Aberdeen Road? Or perhaps his abused wife roams the rooms seeking revenge on the man that wronged her and taking out her rage on any hapless fool that happens to live there?”

“You can take the piss all you want. I know what I believe.”

“And what do you believe?”

“I believe that the house is haunted. Not by them, exactly, but by the negative energy they left behind. That poor woman died in terror and pain; I believe that the house became
infused
with powerful negative energy. And I believe that hateful energy spread throughout the house, seeping into every nook and cranny. It made the house diseased
, evil
.”

This is a bad house, Daddy
…

“That sounds…”
Sounds what? Crazy?

At the moment, what wasn’t crazy about any of this?

“I know I sound mad, but I’ve had a lot of years to think about it and it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. I think that my dad picked up on the energy in the house because he was more sensitive than my mum.”

“That’s all very well, but your parents
disappeared
. What has that got to do with the house?”

“I don’t know, exactly. All I know is that the house had something to do with it.”

Ian mulled over what she had said about some people, like her dad, being ‘sensitive.’ He conceded that much made sense. He was an artist, wasn’t he? He might not feel particularly in tune with his feelings half the time, but sensitivity and creativity were supposed to go hand in hand. And as for Holly, she was a Maths teacher, they didn’t come more practical than that. Jacob, on the other hand was a kid, and if every spooky film and book he had ever seen or read were to be believed then Jacob was sensitive alright; he had a private fucking hotline straight to the dead.

“What are you thinking, Ian? Do you think I’m mad? You’ve gone quiet.”

“My wife left me last night, and she took our six-year-old son with her.”

He wasn’t even aware he was going to share that with her until it was out his mouth.