From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (122 page)

It made me wonder if Laurence even knew that the bottom of his garden, where I could vaguely make out flower gardens and an old collapsing and neglected summerhous
e, probably hid the original foundations of the first house.

I
’ve met a lot of folks in my life, and it wasn’t until I was a lot older, in my seventies a least, that people started taking a little more notice of the remains of the world that their ancestors built. Maybe it was because of the second world war, or even the first, and people had lost so many of their family and loved ones that they wanted to keep hold of something from the past. I noticed that. When I was younger, people were far too busy with their own little piece of the world to take the slightest notice of what had gone before them.

So the next d
ay, I took the other path, the main road, and walked my way to the Temperance Vale Cottage, the new one, the one that the man who I believed had stolen my wife from me years before lived in. I knocked on the door, waited for a few minutes and knocked again.

No answer.

I knocked once more to be polite before I walked to the side of the house and made my way into the back yard.

The first thing that struck me was the view from the back of the house. Even with the thick line of trees that surrounded the whole p
roperty, you could see for miles around. As I stood there, gazing out across the magnificent vista, I wondered if it had been manufactured, picked specially by the first owners, as the spot in the valley that gave you the best view. The lake below sat almost perfectly central, with the town of Temperance rising out of the hill on the opposite side of the valley like some ever-increasing patch of dark, scrawling disease upon a perfect landscape. I wouldn’t have ever imagined that the original owners had intended it to be like that, but they were so long dust in their graves that it didn’t matter much.

The second thing that came to my attention as I stood there was that I was being watched. Not secretly, there was no one peering out of the window at me from be
hind a curtain, no eyes squinting to see me from the trees - no, as I turned around and looked back towards the neatly edged patio that covered the ground just outside the back of the house, I realised that I had walked straight past a gentleman sitting quietly on a bench that leaned against the back wall. He was sipping from a tea cup, and reading a book, the title of which I couldn’t make out. I had walked right by this man, who was now peering at me with a bemused smile upon his face, right past him and stood in his garden breathing in the view.

"Good morning sir," he said, his voice almost too elegant for a man, and much too genial for someone who had an intruder in their garden. You didn
’t buy a house like Temperance Vale Cottage expecting to have people just waltzing into your yard because they felt like it. But unless he was very good at hiding his outward temperament, he didn’t seem in the slightest bit put out or fazed by my presence.

"Good morning," I replied. I had walked up to the house, clutching
my expensive painting, wrapped in brown paper and cloth, prepared to meet Mr Miles, the conversation almost played out already in my mind, but that involved a knock at the door and an answer, and now of course I had to explain my intrusion.

"Are you Laure
nce Miles, the artist?" I asked.

"Indeed I am, sir."

The book snapped shut and he put down his tea cup and rose from the bench.

"And you might be?"

"I’m sorry, how very rude of me. You must think I am awfully presumptuous walking onto your property like this. I did knock at the door, but there was no answer."

He stood smiling at me. I thought he was so pleased with himself that I wanted to punch him in the face right there. Instead I continued bumbling, hating myself for starting off like this, the one with
the excuses to make.

"My name is Reginald, Reginald Weldon. I bought a painting of yours from an auction in London."

His expression changed dramatically, which I was glad of, and as I showed him the painting, I thought that I sensed an air of sadness come over him. It wasn’t in his face, just in the way he spoke, the way he stood, body language I think those psychology buffs call it. Personally I don’t hold with their study of people’s behaviour. I learned just as well how to judge the way a person feels standing the other side of a bar.

We spoke for a while, and he asked me some questions about my interest in the painting, and I lied, told him that I just loved the air of it, and the colour, the depth. I had heard those phrases thrown around at the auction
, trite spoken by folks with more money than sense, and far too much time on their hands.

He invited me to join him, so I did. This was after all what I wanted, to get to know him, to find out more than he would really want to tell anybody. I think he put
me far too much at ease, because after about half an hour, I asked a question that I should have held back for a while.

"I couldn
’t help but wonder sir, the title,
My Marie.
Was this someone you knew? I can’t help but be intrigued by the lady herself."

"Ah
, yes, quite a while ago, years ago I painted the picture, she was someone I met and courted for a while, but things just didn’t work out between us. She was a beautiful woman, but somewhat lost, she had too many demons on her mind."

"I see, well sir I do
like your work. Maybe you would accept a commission when you are not busy? I have never had a portrait painted, and I think I could certainly afford it, if you were willing," I said.

Lying bastard, there was something in there that he hadn
’t said, but then did I really expect him to reveal all to a stranger?

He invited me into the house. I
’m not sure why. I don’t think I ever would have, out there in the middle of the countryside, alone, with a sole visitor who you had never met before. But now I think about it, I wonder if that hadn’t been why he asked me to join him in the house. This wasn’t a man who needed money, and even an offer of a healthy commission for a painting didn’t warrant an invite. I think he must have been lonely.

It wasn
’t until we walked into the hallway that I realised the magnitude of my discovery. There, all the way up the stairs, laid into gilded frames, were at least a dozen other pictures of Marie. I stood gazing at his work. Even if I had resentment towards this man for enjoying a time with Marie that by all rights should have been mine, I couldn’t help but stand in awe of his skill.

"As you can see, Marie was somewhat of an obsession of mine for the time we spent together."

I could bet on that, I knew exactly how he must have felt about her.

"She made a wonderful subject for my work, and although I mainly specialised in abstract landscapes, for a while I changed my focus to accommodate her. She was a fascinating lady."

"What made you decide that this one should be sold?" I asked.

"It was simply the most recent painting that I did of her before she...went."

"Went?"

"Before she left."

He heated up the kitchen stove as I stood leaning against the doorframe, watching him. As I was watching I noticed that his eyes had taken on a glazed edge and his mind was elsewhere. Where…I wasn't sure, but I could guess it had something to do with his parting from my wife. I had to find out just how that came to be, and where she had gone from there. So I decided that my initial plan, a plan involving making friends with him first, was pointless. Unless I pushed the right button, nudged him where it was necessary, I didn't think I would get much more out of him.

"So she just took off and left you
one day?"

"You ask a lot of questions Mr Weldon."

"I’m just fascinated with the painting, and who the lady might be."

"Well, I
’m afraid that I would prefer not to talk about Marie any more Mr Weldon, if you don’t mind. It’s personal."

The kettle had boiled, and was now making a drawn-out whistling noise. Laurence picked up a hand towel, and was about to lift it off the stove when I reached inside my coat to pull out the Berreta.

That gun had travelled with me for a long time now, ever since I received that crack on the back of the head down in Gallowshill. I found it strange for a while, and it made me nervous - the thought of being caught carrying it. But I never was, and I had soon got used to the feel of it, and came to depend on it. It sat neatly underneath my arm, in a small holster that I'd had made specially for the job, a brown suede leather holster, rigid enough to hold the gun, but soft enough that it was comfortable to wear. It was always loaded, but with the current chamber empty.

But I didn
’t have the chance to draw the gun. Laurence Miles beat me to it. You would have thought that with my years of fighting in the war, and living on Gallowshill, I would have seen it coming. I certainly think I should have, but as I watched him reach towards the kettle I realised that that wasn’t what he was reaching for at all.

Leaning against one of the wooden chairs that were tucked neatly underneath each side of the table that dominated the large kitchen was a shotgun. He reached down faster
than I could react, picked it up, and pointed it straight at me. My hand, just at that moment creeping into the front of my coat at that moment, slid back out to fall at my side. I knew when I was beaten.

We stood there for a long time, me with my hands a
t my sides, and him holding the shotgun towards me, just sizing each other up, getting a grasp of the situation, before he finally broke the silence.

"So Mr Weldon, what have you really got to say?"

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

"Oh don
’t look so shocked," he said, that same amused smile on his face that he had when we first met.

"I don
’t know what you mean," I lied.

"Don
’t play games, Mr Weldon. I know exactly why you are here, and who you are."

He moved round the edge of the table, backing me
up against the wall next to the entrance.

"I don
’t easily forget a face, and yours I certainly remember, oh yes, I remember you quite clearly, though I am surprised that you finally found me. I guess that selling the painting was a small mistake on my part."

"I
’ve never met you before in my life," I said, trying hard to remember where I might have known him from. I knew he had something to do with my wife, and possibly her disappearance, certainly that he spent a long time with her, but other than that, there was nothing else to remember.

"I see," he said, "well it would seem that I am at an advantage after all. You can take your coat off, and put the holster down on the table, Mr Weldon, and if you have any foolish notions of trying to use the pistol I assu
re you that you won’t be successful."

I did as I was told, hung my coat over the back of one the chairs, and slowly, carefully, unclipped the shoulder holster and placed the gun on the table. He was watching me the whole time, pointing that double-barrelle
d monstrosity at my face. Even though I had seen death aplenty during the war, I had never forgotten that day when I was eight, and how I had been showered with bits of Mr Holcroft. The devastating power of a shotgun was not a new thing for me. If it had been a pistol, like my own, I would have been tempted to draw against him, I was sure that I could have dodged at least the first shot he would have made, but a shotgun? No, everything this side of the room would have been torn apart.

"Now let us get comfortable out in the yard again, if you would still like that cup of tea?"

Back outside, the tea brewing in a china pot that looked expensive, him sitting back down on his bench and me on the other, the one that was directly opposite him, Laurence Miles gave me exactly the answers I had been looking for, and the reason that I had lost my wife all those years ago. It wasn’t how I had intended it. I had planned for him to be squirming as I held him at gunpoint, not the other way around, but he told me all the same.

"I remembered your face immediately, Reginald. I don
’t forget faces, and yours was one that I remember quite clearly, from that day on the way to Edinburgh. Oh don’t look surprised, you wouldn’t have known me. I was four seats back and across from you and your lovely companion, all the way from London. I watched you from across the way the whole time, or should I say, I watched Marie."

"That doesn
’t explain how she vanished right in front of me."

"No, of course not," he said, "That
really does require some explaining doesn’t it?"

He told me to pour the tea, and I did, just as he instructed, a little milk first, then sugar, then the tea, followed by a little more milk and then more sugar. He insisted that this small ritual was require
d to get the best flavour, and to ensure that the milk and sugar blended correctly. I thought he was a pompous idiot.

"When you went to relieve yourself on the train to Scotland, Mr. Weldon, I rose from my seat and went to introduce myself to Marie. Oh she
was quite friendly, though a little shy. I just couldn’t help wanting to speak to her. Did she never mention that someone spoke to her while you were away?"