The Grey Girl (7 page)

‘I didn't sleep,' I admitted. ‘And no, I've not eaten yet.'

‘Well, that won't fill you up.' She nodded at the hot chocolate in my hands. ‘Let me fix you some food and then you can go back to bed and try to snooze for a couple of hours.'

I watched as she opened the fridge and started to pull out bacon, eggs and milk. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?' I asked.

‘One of the guests said a red-haired girl came charging into the library in the early hours of the morning and interrupted a private party.'

‘If by “private party” you mean “scandalous liaison” between two guests, then yes I suppose I did interrupt them.'

‘What were you doing stalking around the house in the small hours?'

‘I just told you, I couldn't sleep last night.' I winced at the memory of barging into the library in the hope of finding an explanation for my misplaced notepad.

‘Well, next time you feel like a midnight adventure please try not to involve the guests. And if you must talk to them then please make sure you do so in costume.'

I nodded and turned away from Aunt Meredith, aware of Nell's eyes on me as I shuffled my feet about on the floor awkwardly.

After a cooked breakfast I went back upstairs. I showered and crawled into bed, too tired to bother with the pretence of closing the curtains. I knew I'd only find them open when I woke up. As I lay there I thought about what Nell had told me, about the house once being a school and a building holding more than just dust and furniture. I wondered if that was why she wouldn't venture upstairs. Maybe she knew something about how Dudley Hall wasn't quite right. Whatever presence I could feel in the house – the cold breath on my cheek, the crying in the attic, the ghostly girl who walked in the moonlight – maybe she felt it too. As I drifted off to sleep with the afternoon sun shining through my bedroom window, I wondered what would be worse – to be mad, or for this to be real.

I slept right through until the next morning – a deep and dreamless sleep. After I woke I showered and went downstairs. I liked the feel of Dudley Hall without the murder mystery guests filling the place with noise; the house had an emptiness to it which suited it. An emptiness that matched my mood.

Toby was eating cereal alone at the breakfast table. I poured myself a bowl and sat down next to him. ‘Hey, Toby, what's up?'

‘I'm bored,' he said.

‘You should never be bored,' I smiled at him. ‘There's far too much to explore in the world. Music, poetry, art – you can always find some way to entertain yourself.'

‘Are you going to be writing today?' he asked.

I thought for a moment. ‘No.' I didn't feel ready to go back to
The Ghost of Dudley Hall
, not yet. ‘Wanna hang out?'

He looked at me cautiously. ‘Okay. What do you want to do?'

‘I don't know.' I lifted my eyebrows playfully. ‘What do you want to do?'

‘Play detective.'

An idea quickly popped into my head. ‘Cool, detectives. Great idea, Toby.' I smiled. ‘Let's investigate the top floor of the house.'

‘It's spooky up there,' Toby said, looking slightly embarrassed.

I agreed with him, and even in the cold light of day I didn't particularly want to go up there alone, but somehow going up there with my kid cousin seemed bearable. ‘But we'll be together, we'll look out for each other.'

‘Okay,' he smiled back. ‘I'll get my fingerprint kit after breakfast.'

So after breakfast, fingerprint kit in hand, Toby and I ascended the top flight of stairs up to the third floor. I looked along the long corridor to my right, which I'd foolishly walked down two nights before. I wasn't quite ready to go back there.

‘Let's go this way first.' I walked in between the rusted hinges on the broken door frame to the left. The corridor beyond the door looked smaller than it did the other night. And lit by daylight, not flashes of lightning, it almost didn't look creepy. Almost.

‘You go first.' Toby pushed me further into the corridor.

Full of bravado, I charged straight up to the first door on my left and reached for the door handle. It swung open easily. Behind it was a small empty room, nothing but dusty wooden floorboards and an old fireplace. No pictures on the walls, no old furniture, nothing. ‘Let's go to the next room,' Toby announced.

The next two rooms along the corridor were exactly the same. Floorboards, fireplaces and dust, nothing more. The windows looked out into the sprawling grounds, the winding river and, from up this high, you could just about see the rickety old boathouse.

‘Let's investigate the other corridor too,' Toby said, obviously enjoying himself. ‘I've wanted to explore up here since we moved in, but no one would come with me.'

‘You were sensible not to come up here on your own,' I said seriously. ‘Exploring should always be done in teams.'

‘But I'm the detective and you're my assistant,' he reminded me.

‘Lead the way, Sherlock.' I gestured to the other corridor.

Toby merrily skipped past the staircase and along the other corridor, the same corridor I'd walked down the night I'd heard crying coming from the room at the very end. The corridor door was still open, pushed back against the wall. I shuddered as I walked over the corridor's threshold; it seemed colder in there than the rest of the house.

Just as we'd done with the first corridor, we investigated room by room. And just like the first corridor, the first two rooms were empty. Dusty floorboards and fireplaces, that's all we could find. I stood staring out of the window in the second room, studying the grounds, the river and the boathouse, trying to put off the moment we approached the third room – the locked door I had heard crying seeping through. My fingers moved over scratches in the wooden window frame. I looked down and noticed there were letters and words carved into the rotting wood. Girls' names, mostly: Catherine, Caroline, Beth, Mary, Lavinia. The room had once been a dormitory. I'd forgotten that for the briefest of moments. So many other lives had passed through these rooms and halls.

I heard the rattle of a door handle, pulling me from my thoughts. ‘Toby, wait …'

‘This room is locked,' he announced in frustration. I walked out into the corridor to see Toby battling with the locked door at the end. ‘I'll see if I can pick it.'

He pulled out a little pouch of screwdrivers and tools from his pocket. ‘Part of my detective kit,' he informed me, as he began to try to pick the lock. He fiddled with the stubborn lock for several minutes before he gave up in frustration. ‘Let's dust the other rooms for fingerprints instead.'

‘Okay, you do that and I'll have another go at picking this lock,' I told him. He disappeared into the room next door and began to try and lift fingerprints from the windowsill.

Alone in the corridor, I pushed one of Toby's pins further into the lock but nothing happened. Toby moved on to the next room and I stayed where I was, struggling with the door. Suddenly, the only thing in the world that was important to me was getting into that room and seeing what was inside. I stood up and pushed my weight into the door, then I kicked it, hard. It wouldn't budge.

Toby emerged from the room at the end of the corridor. ‘Don't break the door down, Suzy. Richard will be mad.'

‘No, he won't,' I reasoned. ‘He's going to have to break it down eventually anyway to renovate the room. I may as well do it for him.'

Toby shook his head. ‘You'll make him angry. Maybe there's a key downstairs.'

‘Fine, I'll go and ask.'

‘I'll stay here and look for more fingerprints,' he said.

I frowned. ‘You sure you'll be okay on your own?'

He nodded and smiled. ‘It's not scary up here. It's just rooms.'

I flashed Toby a false grin. I wanted more than anything to agree with him.

I left Toby upstairs as I went down and into the kitchen. I found Aunt Meredith hunched over a juicer, working her way through a pile of fresh lemons. ‘I'm making lemonade for this weekend,' she said as I came into the room. ‘Here, try some.'

She passed me a glass of pale, cloudy liquid. It was sharp and sweet. ‘Great, thank you. Aunt Meredith, is there a key for the attic rooms?'

‘What?' She looked up from the juicer.

‘I need a key for the attic rooms. Toby and I are exploring.'

‘No, I shouldn't think so. Although Richard will be back later this week and we can check with him then if you really want.'

‘I could just break the door down …'

‘No, you won't. I don't want broken legs and sharp wooden spikes to worry about, thank you very much. I promised your mum I'd look after you,' she said sternly. ‘Like I said, Richard will be back soon, you can ask him about a key then. There are plenty of other rooms for Toby to explore in the meantime.'

I huffed loudly. ‘Fine, I'll wait.'

I spent the rest of the day helping Toby dust the other attic rooms for fingerprints. The only ones we found in the thick layers of dust were his and mine. The frustration I felt at not being able to go into the room at the end of the corridor was subdued slightly by Toby's obvious enjoyment of the day. After he'd collected the prints he lovingly taped them into a scrapbook and I helped him label them all up. Before I knew it the day had passed and it was time for me to get ready for dinner at Nell's house.

‘Thank you for keeping Toby entertained,' Aunt Meredith said as she caught me on the second-floor landing, just about to go into my room. ‘He likes you.'

‘I like him too.' I grinned.

‘It's good to see you smiling, Suzy,' she said gently. ‘Sometimes you remind me of your mum when she was younger. She had that same twinkle in her eye.'

What happened to her?
I wanted to ask, but Aunt Meredith reached forwards and pulled me towards her. She held me tightly in her arms and squeezed me. ‘I'm glad you're here, Suzy,' she whispered. ‘I'm sorry Dudley Hall's not the most exciting place in the world, and I'm sorry your mum couldn't look after you, but I'm glad you're here.' I wasn't sure how to respond, so I just smiled and awkwardly wriggled out of her arms, putting space between us.

‘There's more than enough excitement at Dudley Hall,' I said, trying to sound positive. Aunt Meredith had been nothing but kind to me since I arrived, even though it wasn't her job to make sure I was well – Mum should have been doing that. In that moment I couldn't bear to let her know just how much I hated the house and how difficult I found it living there, how I'd leave in the blink of an eye if I could.

‘You better hurry up and change for dinner.' Aunt Meredith nodded at me. ‘I know Nell's looking forward to having you over tonight.'

I walked away to my room feeling suddenly deflated at the thought of dinner with Nell and Nate. Sitting around a table making small talk with them was the last thing I wanted to do with my evening. Still, at least it would only be for a few hours. I showered quickly and picked out a short black skirt and a bright blue vest I'd stitched a peace sign onto the front of last summer. I put on my heavy DM boots and wrapped a fake ivy wreath I'd bought from Camden Market around my head. I painted on my make-up, taking the time to draw small flowers at the corner of each eye.

With every minute that passed I felt myself grow less sure that leaving Dudley Hall was what I wanted. Instead of feeling relieved at leaving the house I was beginning to feel dread. Dread at having to see Nate again, dread at having to make small talk and answer questions I didn't want to answer. As the sun set in the sky and the evening grew colder, I felt my stomach tighten up in knots as if I was about to walk onto a stage in front of a room full of people.

‘Suzy, Nate's downstairs.' Aunt Meredith banged on my door, making me jolt with nerves.

I felt my stomach fall through the floor, and my legs shook beneath me as I walked slowly out of my room and down the stairs.

Turning the corner of the grand staircase, I saw Nate standing just inside the front door wearing his uniform white T-shirt, leather jacket and jeans. His eyes met mine before looking me up and down. I gave him a nervous smile that wasn't returned, and a scowl quickly spread across my face as I realised Nate was obviously dreading the evening as much as I was. All of a sudden I had no idea what I was doing – why on earth was I leaving Aunt Meredith and Toby to spend the evening in the company of someone who thought so badly of me? My feet numbly moved towards him, and I noticed that he held a motorbike helmet in each hand. ‘This is for you,' Nate said, pushing one of the helmets towards me. I took the helmet from him and looked down at it with a frown. I opened my mouth, desperate to tell Nate where he could stick his helmet, I was staying right where I was. But my voice froze in my throat and I looked up at him blankly. His expression had softened, and there was the faintest hint of a smile upon his lips. ‘You'll need a jacket,' he said, looking me over once again. ‘It's cold outside. Let's go.'

Nate's bike pulled up outside an old cottage next to the village church. He stopped the engine and pulled his helmet off. ‘We're here.'

I hopped off the bike, my legs still shaking from the ride, and removed my helmet. I turned away from Nate as I tried to mess up my hair and give it some body before I put back the ivy wreath that I'd had to take off to wear the helmet.

‘Very pretty,' Nate said, walking around me.

‘Oh, ha, ha,' I joked. ‘Motorbike hair is such a good look.'

Nate began to walk towards the house. He stopped abruptly and turned around. I just managed to stop myself crashing into him and looked up to meet his eye. ‘Look, you should know that this wasn't my idea.'

‘What?' I asked, confused.

‘Dinner, here, tonight,' he said, looking me dead in the eye. ‘Trust me, I can see you don't want to be here and I don't particularly want you here either.'

That stung. I could tell by his behaviour that Nate didn't want me here, but he didn't actually have to say it out loud. ‘Well, I'm here now,' I said bitterly. ‘So get over it.'

He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak but then quickly stopped himself. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't quite make out – an apology? An explanation? ‘Look, Suzy …' he said slowly. I waited for him to finish, but his words hung in the air unspoken. The hazel flecks in his eyes glinted in the twilight, and his gaze burnt into me as if there was something I should magically understand. ‘Come on,' he said eventually. ‘You'll see for yourself.'

He led me down a cobbled garden path and then through a narrow arched door into a warm, softly lit hallway. He hung his leather jacket on a wall hook and put his helmet down on the hall table. I put my helmet next to his, shrugged my jacket off and hung it up. I cast him a cautious glance, still feeling hurt by what he'd said to me outside, but Nate didn't look back at me.

After spending over a week at Dudley Hall the cottage felt incredibly small. The tiny rooms and low ceilings were such a stark contrast to the cavernous and endless rooms I'd grown familiar with. Nate led me into a space that was both a sitting room and a dining room. A fire roared in the grate on one side of the room and a door leading to the kitchen sat on the other. Nell poked her head out from the kitchen. ‘Hi, Suzy. Take a seat.' She gestured to the dining table that had been set for supper. ‘Dinner's almost ready.'

I sat down opposite Nate and picked up my serviette, placing it over my lap. I looked up and caught him staring at me. I widened my eyes and mouthed, ‘What?' at him.

‘You make your own clothes?' he asked.

‘Yes,' I replied proudly. ‘Fashion is an important form of self-expression. What you wear says a lot about you.'

He raised his eyebrow at me mockingly. ‘Really?'

Before I could knock out a witty reply a woman walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of mashed potato. She was willowy and pale, her clothes hanging off her in a way that they shouldn't have. Her tired eyes cast me a quick glance as she said, ‘Hi, Suzy. I'm Fiona, Nate's mum.'

‘Nice to meet you,' I replied automatically. I looked over at Nate but his head was cast down; he was picking at the table cloth, his forehead creasing in a frown.

Nell came out of the kitchen with a large plate of sausages, a bowl of baked beans and an array of condiments on a tray. ‘I thought I'd keep it simple.' She grinned at me. ‘Sausages and mash.'

‘Perfect.' I nodded, silently thankful that I wasn't currently going through one of my vegetarian phases. Fiona and Nell dished up the food and Nate poured us all glasses of juice. I noticed that Fiona was already drinking wine. It was Nell whose voice filled the silence; she chatted on about the trials and tribulations of cooking dinner on their ancient oven. Fiona moved through the room like a ghost, never looking at anyone or speaking. She eventually sat herself down and began to pick at her food. Once or twice I tried to catch Nate's eye, but he seemed to be looking anywhere in the room but at me.

Once my plate was piled high with steaming food I began to tuck in. ‘This is lovely,' I said after my first mouthful.

Nell smiled as she chewed. ‘I get so bored of cooking up at Dudley Hall when it comes to dinner here it's all I can muster to mash a potato and put a few sausages under the grill.' She was wearing her trademark orange turban and dangling gold earrings. Her pink top clashed loudly with the red coral she had draped around her neck.

Nell and I exchanged small talk for a while about food and the guests that she would cook for up at Dudley Hall. ‘I once had a fruitarian at one of Meredith's parties,' Nell told me. ‘Ate nothing but fruit – I couldn't even cook her an apple pie because she refused to eat the pastry.' Both Fiona and Nate remained silent, Fiona pushing her food around her plate as though it were poisoned and Nate eating so quickly I doubt he even tasted it. I could only assume his haste wasn't because he was starved but because he couldn't wait to get away. As he shovelled the last forkful of mashed potato into his mouth he let his cutlery fall onto his plate and he pushed his chair back to go.

‘So, Nate,' I said before I could stop myself. He looked over at me, startled. ‘You're at college?'

He cast his mum a nervous glance before looking back at me and answering. ‘I'm doing my AS-levels at a college in the next town.' He leant forwards in his chair, resting his arms on the table, and I felt suddenly glad that he wasn't about to leave. ‘I get to drive my bike there every day,' he continued, looking straight at me. ‘I used to have a moped but I graduated on to the bike this year.' Fiona tutted and shook her head in disapproval as she raised her glass to her lips. I realised that whilst she'd barely touched the food on her plate, she seemed to have poured herself another glass of wine since we'd all started eating. ‘You studying for AS-levels?' Nate asked me.

‘Not quite yet,' I replied, suddenly wanting to change the subject. I didn't want to have to talk about myself. I hadn't been in school for months, thanks to my breakdown. I had no idea if I'd finish my GCSEs or not, let alone ever graduate to AS-Levels.

‘You like living at Dudley Hall?' Nate asked me quietly, as if we were alone in the room.

I finished the last of my food and placed my knife and fork in the centre of my plate. ‘It's okay. Better than being at boarding school, which is where I was before.' I skipped out the part about the lunatic asylum in between school and Dudley Hall.

‘If you knew what's good for you you'd get yourself back to school as soon as possible,' Fiona said quietly. I looked over at her, feeling slightly annoyed, expecting her to launch into some kind of lecture about the importance of education, but that wasn't what I got. ‘It's not right, a young girl living in that house. It's bad enough that Nell goes there every day, but at least she knows what to expect.'

I stared at Fiona, dumbfounded, unsure what to say, as silence fell across the table. Nate stood up, reached for my plate and began to tidy up the table, a mild look of embarrassment on his face. Nell just looked down at the table, studying the food on her plate silently.

‘I don't like being here in this village but we've got nowhere else to go,' Fiona added, completely unaware of how her words were making everyone else feel so awkward.

‘What have you got against the village?' I asked without thinking.

‘It's not the village. It's the house,' Fiona replied.

‘That's enough, Fiona,' Nell said gently.

‘What's wrong with the house?' I asked.

Nate walked away into the kitchen and I heard him drop the plates down onto the kitchen counter with a loud clang. Fiona and Nell exchanged a look and I noticed Nell give her sister a warning glare.

‘It's … it's nothing,' Fiona said, standing up. She drained the rest of her wine before pouring herself another full glass. ‘Excuse me, I'm overtired. It's this weather – I don't know if we're having thunder or blue skies. It makes me anxious. It was lovely to meet you, Suzy, good night.' And then Fiona turned and left the room, taking her wine glass but leaving her untouched plate of food behind.

I looked at Nell for an explanation, and Nell just shrugged as if that explained everything. She hadn't warned me that her sister had obviously nothing good to say about Dudley-on-Water and especially about Dudley Hall. Nate had tried to warn me about his mum before I came into the house. And now Nell just wanted to shrug off Fiona's behaviour as though there was nothing strange about it at all.

‘Is the reason Fiona doesn't like Dudley Hall the same reason you won't step foot upstairs there?' I asked Nell.

Nate came back into the room with a steaming teapot and mugs on a tray. His mouth was set in a hard line. ‘They're both superstitious old biddies,' Nate said quietly, pouring the tea. ‘They got it from my grandmother, she was even worse. She was a schoolgirl at Dudley Hall back in the day, and she used to say that the house was cursed.'

‘Nate,' Nell warned. ‘Suzy has to live there. Don't go filling her head with your grandmother's mumbo-jumbo.'

‘They're just stories, Aunt Nell, you said so yourself,' Nate replied.

‘What stories?' I pressed.

‘Enough,' Nell warned Nate, before he could say anything else.

The three of us took our tea onto the sofas and sat around the fire sipping it. Nell worked hard to steer the conversation away from Dudley Hall. She asked me about the clothes I made and the screenplay I was writing. Nate sat there quietly, staring off into space and seeming to be lost in his own thoughts. I noticed Nell didn't ask me anything about school or about my time in Warren House. She obviously knew it was something I didn't want to talk about, and I was incredibly thankful that I didn't have to answer any awkward questions in front of Nate, even if he didn't seem interested in anything I said.

The light outside had completely faded and the fire was dying out when Nate offered to give me a lift back to Dudley Hall. I thanked Nell for dinner and made her promise to say goodnight to Fiona for me – she hadn't come back downstairs again since walking off.

I lifted my jacket from the hook in the hall, picked up Nate's spare helmet and took my ivy wreath from round my head before I put the helmet on and clambered onto the back of Nate's bike. I wrapped my arms around Nate's waist and squeezed my knees against his hips as the bike began to power down the road. I'd never been on the back of a motorbike before that night. The feeling was intoxicating. I loved the sensation of the wind rushing against my limbs and the gush of air hitting the helmet. The cobbled houses and streetlights of Dudley-on-Water moved past us in a blur as we sped through the night together. I closed my eyes and imagined I was flying.

The ride was over too quickly, and before I knew it Nate was pulling up in front of Dudley Hall and switching off the engine. I passed him back his helmet and smiled before I could stop myself. ‘Thanks for the lift, Nate.'

I turned around and began to walk towards the house, stopping when Nate said, ‘Suzy, wait.' I spun around. ‘I'm sorry about what I said earlier, about not wanting you to come for dinner.'

I shrugged at him and looked away, staring off into the dark night. ‘Your mum seems nice,' I muttered.

He let out a small laugh. ‘My mum
seems
crazy.'

I looked back at him. ‘Is that why you didn't want me to come over tonight?'

‘Can I have your number?' he asked without warning, ignoring my question.

‘I don't have a phone,' I replied quickly, feeling slightly confused. Nate hadn't seemed interested in a word I'd said all evening, he hadn't even wanted me there, and now he was asking me for my number.

‘Who doesn't have a phone? Well, do you have an email address?'

‘Not one that I check.' My teeth began to chatter in the cool night air.

‘Well, you are a mystery, aren't you?' He smiled – a genuine smile, one that I hadn't seen on him all evening.

I smiled back.
‘The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.'

He laughed. ‘Excuse me?'

‘Oscar Wilde,' I explained, shivering in the moonlight.

He nodded his head, his eyes softening as he looked at me. ‘Well,
I'd rather die enormous than live dormant
.' He looked at me expectantly and I shook my head in confusion. ‘You can quote Oscar Wilde but I can quote Jay-Z.' He laughed and shook his head. ‘I want to know what
you
think, Suzy, not some dead guy.' Nate put his helmet on and revved up his bike engine. I stood back as the bike prepared to speed away, wishing I could think of something clever to say. Maybe Nate was right, maybe I shouldn't hide behind other people's words. But in truth I had no idea what I was thinking, and no idea what to say to him. I'd only met Nate a handful of times, but I couldn't quite work him out. One minute he was cocky and full of it, the next he was quiet and lost in thought. And in one evening he'd gone from telling me he didn't want me over for dinner to asking for my phone number.

‘Well, I guess I'll just see you around then, Suzy,' Nate shouted over the noise of the engine.

‘I guess so, Nate,' I whispered into the wind as I watched him spin the bike around on the gravel and speed away into the night.