The Curse of Wetherley House Page 21

  “I want you to arrange for the house to be properly valued,” I continue after a moment.

  “I'll call you back.”

  “I also -”

  Suddenly the call cuts out.

  “Huh?”

  I look at the phone's screen, and sure enough she hung up on me. Feeling a flicker of irritation, I try calling her back, but this time she doesn't even deign to answer. Usually it's incredibly difficult to end a conversation with Hannah, but this time she seems to have suddenly decided that something else was more important. I'm half-minded to send her a message, telling her to show me some more goddamn respect, but a moment later I hear Louisa coming through from the front room and I turn just in time to see my heavily pregnant wide waddling into the kitchen.

  “Hey, you shouldn't strain yourself,” I tell her. “I can fetch anything you need.”

  “How about a pair of new ankles?” she gasps, leaning against the counter as she runs a hand over her belly. “The only thing I need right now is to get off that sofa and actually walk around. Junior's really kicking this morning. How did the call go with Hannah? I thought she'd keep you on the line for at least another hour.”

  “She's being her usual self,” I mutter as I start checking the mail. “Sentimental. Indecisive. Annoying. She doesn't seem to understand that Wetherley House is a bloody goldmine. I know there's history attached to the place, but it's not our history. It's time to let someone else take over.”

  “Who's that woman?”

  Turning, I see that Louisa is looking out the window. Heading over to join her, I immediately see that there's a woman standing at the far end of the road, seemingly staring at our apartment.

  “Beats me,” I mutter. “Some local nut-job?”

  “She's watching us.”

  “You can't tell that from here. She's just standing around. She's probably waiting for a taxi.”

  “No, she's looking right at us. Can't you feel it?”

  Reaching up, I pull the cord that brings the blinds down.

  “There,” I say as I peck her on the cheek and head back to the mail. “Is that better?”

  “Why would she be watching our apartment?” she asks, peering between the slats of the blinds. “She's still there, Johnny. You have to go out there and tell her to go away.”

  “It's a free world, honey,” I mutter, separating the mail into one pile for bills and another for junk. “If some random woman wants to stand a few hundred meters from our apartment and stare at the world around her, I can't stop her.”

  “I want you to go and make her leave.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Johnny!”

  Turning, I see that she actually seems serious about this.

  “You want me to go out there into the street,” I say, unable to stifle a faint smile, “and approach some random woman? She might be a psychotic ax murderer for all I know. Or a drugged-up hobo. Forget about her, she's probably already wandered off by now.”

  She turns and peers back out between the blinds.

  “No,” she says after a moment. “She's still there.”

  “Then she'll leave soon.”

  “She's staring right at this window, Johnny.”

  “No she's not. Your eyesight isn't that good, honey.”

  “I can feel it. She's looking right at us.”

  Sighing, I glance at Louisa again. She's still looking out the window, and I can't help thinking that she's letting her hormones get the better of her. I knew stuff like this might happen during the pregnancy, but I didn't think it'd manifest in this kind of extreme paranoia.

  “I'm not going out there,” I tell her after a moment. “I'm not going to approach a random stranger and accuse her of watching our apartment. No way. I'm not doing it.”

  ***

  “This is ridiculous,” I mutter as I make my way along the bright street, heading toward the corner at the far end where the woman is still standing. “Why the hell did I agree?”

  Stopping for a moment and waiting for a break in the traffic so I can cross the street, I glance over my shoulder and see that Louisa is peering out at me from the window, still watching between two slats in the blinds. I force a smile and offer a little wave, but she doesn't respond and to be honest she's starting to look just a little crazy. These pregnancy hormones really seem to be doing a number on my usually-sane-and-reasonable wife, but at least I know it'll only last a few more weeks. Once the baby pops out, she'll simmer down.

  Finally I get a chance to cross, so I hurry over to the other side of the road and make my way toward the far corner. As I get closer, however, I see that there's no longer any sign of the woman, and I feel a flash of relief as I realize that maybe I'm not going to have to confront some random stranger after all. Still, I head all the way to the corner and stop in the exact spot where the woman was standing earlier, and I make a real show of looking around in case there's any sign of her. Hopefully this should persuade Louisa that I've done my best. Turning to look back at the apartment building, I squint as I try to spot my wife in the window, but my eyesight isn't good enough.

  “So that was a complete waste of time,” I mutter, as I start heading back toward the building. “Not an overreaction at all. I should always go running around in the street, chasing after fu-”

  Suddenly a brief scream rings out nearby, and I immediately look toward the apartment. When the scream returns a moment later, I realize I recognize Louisa's voice.

  Racing across the road, dodging the traffic as horns blare at me, I run toward the building. A couple of concerned onlookers are already at the front door, but I push them out of the way and swipe my key-card before rushing into the foyer and up the steps. I can hear voices shouting at the top, and Louisa is yelling my name over and over again. Sheer panic sends me bounding up the stairs three steps at a time until finally I reach the door to our apartment.

  “Out of the way!” I shout at the idiots who are trying to get inside.

  Unlocking the door, I hurry into the hallway and immediately hear Louisa sobbing in the kitchen. Running through, I spot her crumpled on the floor, leaning against the wall in the corner and shivering as tears stream down her face.

  “What's wrong?” I ask as I run over and kneel next to her. There's no sign of blood. “Is it the baby? Did something happen with the baby?”

  She tries to speak, but she's trembling too much and all I can do for a moment is put my arms around her and hold her tight.

  “It's okay,” I continue, kissing the side of her head. “I'm here. Everything's okay. I just need you to tell me what happened and -”

  Suddenly she lets out another cry and clings tight to me. Turning, I see that a couple of our neighbors have reached the doorway, and now they're watching us with expressions of concern. We don't really know our neighbors at all, but frankly I can't blame them for being a little worried right now.

  “It's alright,” I tell them. “Everything's under control. Thank you for coming to check, but you can go home.”

  “Should we call someone?” one of the elderly men asks.

  “Absolutely not. Please just leave.”

  As they turn and head away, I look back at Louisa and see that she seems genuinely terrified.

  “Come on,” I continue, wiping tears from her face, “just tell me what upset you. I won't make fun, I promise. I just need to know. Was it something to do with the baby?”

  “It was that woman!” she blurts out.

  I can't help sighing.

  “It was her!”

  “What about her?”

  “I was watching you out the window,” she stammers, “and I saw you go over to her. What did you say?”

  “I didn't say anything. She wasn't there.”

  “You were standing right next to her.”

  “No, I got the street corner and there was no sign of her anywhere.”

  “You were right next to her!” she hisses. “Johnny, you were next to her and she was looking at you, a
nd then...”

  Her voice trails off, as if she's remembering something awful. Already, I can see fresh tears welling in her eyes.

  “Okay, let's skip the part on the street,” I tell her. “What happened next? What made you scream?”

  “I lost sight of you for a moment,” she continues, “and when I saw you again, you were alone on the corner.”

  “That's right. I was alone.”

  “I thought you'd told her to go away. I was relieved, I thought it was over, but then...”

  She pauses, and now she seems close to another full-on breakdown.

  “But then what?” I ask.

  “Then I turned around,” she whimpers, “and I saw her right there!”

  She points past me. Turning, I realize she means the doorway that leads through to the hall.

  “You saw a woman standing inside our apartment?” I mutter, starting to feel just a little worried about my wife's mental state.

  “She was there!” she hisses, her finger trembling as she continues to point. “I don't know how she got in, but she was staring at me and she didn't leave until you started unlocking the front door. You must have seen her! She was naked and old, and so thin, and there were...”

  Her voice trails off for a moment, and then I notice that she's wriggling her fingers.

  “Maggots,” she continues, “like... Thousands, all in her flesh...”

  I look over at the empty doorway for a moment, before getting to my feet. Louisa clings to me, not wanting to let go, but I gently ease her hands away.

  “I'm going to double-check that there's no-one else here,” I tell her. “Will that make you feel better?”

  “I'm not crazy!”

  “No-one's saying you're crazy.”

  Well, I guess that's true. I mean, I haven't said that she's crazy. As I spend the next few minutes checking the rest of the apartment, however, I can't shake the feeling that Louisa could do a slightly better job of keeping herself together. She's a smart woman, she shouldn't be letting her hormones affect her like this, and I've got this horrible dull feeling in the pit of my belly as I start to realize that the final few weeks of her pregnancy might be a little tricky. Finally, getting back to the kitchen door, I see that at least she's managed to get up off the floor and sit on a stool at the breakfast bar.

  “There's no-one else here,” I tell her, as she dabs at her eyes with tissue paper. “There was never anyone else here.”

  Johnny

  One week later

  “That must be it,” I mutter, leaning down and peering out the window as I drive the car slowly along the street. “Wetherley House. Doesn't look bad, does it? Must be worth a few quid.”

  “Great,” Louisa mutters, her voice tense with irritation and travel sickness. “Can you stop this thing? I think I need to puke again.”

  “Nearly -”

  “Johnny, now!”

  Sighing, I hit the brakes just as Louisa opens the door. Stumbling out of the car, struggling to move with her huge pregnant belly bumping against the frame, she steps toward the back of the vehicle and leans down, and a moment later I hear her gagging slightly. I can't help rolling my eyes as I take the keys from the ignition and get out of the car's other side, and to be honest I'm slightly amused by Louisa's constant insistence that she's still suffering from morning sickness. She's ready to pop in a couple of weeks, so she should be well over that phase by now. It's all in her head.

  “Why did I let you talk me into this?” she gasps, standing up and leaning against the side of the car. “I must need my head examined.”

  “It's not my fault,” I reply, taking my phone from my pocket and bringing up Hannah's number, before tapping to call. “If either of my bloody sisters would actually answer when I ring them, this could all have been sorted out days ago. After all the grief Hannah gave me over the phone, I can't believe they didn't bother to show up for Dad's funeral.”

  “Remind me to give them a piece of my mind,” she groans.

  “Still no answer,” I continue, as I cut the call and try Katie. Wandering away from the car, I swing the gate open and make my way along the path that leads to the house, but I've got to admit that so far this whole scene looks rather unpromising. The windows are all dark and there's no sign of life, so I'm starting to think that my initial theory might have been correct after all. Hannah and Katie simply did a runner and never bothered to tell me. They can be so childish sometimes. I guess they think they're teaching me some kind of lesson, but in truth they're just making me more and more pissed off.

  “It's me,” I say as soon as I'm put through to Katie's voicemail. “Listen, enough's enough, okay? If you're not mature enough to actually speak to me, you could at least send me an email letting me know what's going on. This place looks like it could fetch a nice sum on the market, so we just need to get on with the process.” Glancing back toward the car, I see that Louisa is bent double again. “And don't think that this trip was easy, either. In case you'd forgotten my wife is more than eight months pregnant. You're putting us through a lot of unnecessary stress.”

  I look at the house.

  “I'm right outside. Are you in there?”

  I wait.

  Finally, sighing, I realize that Hannah's probably laughing at me.

  After I've cut the call, I make my way up the steps to the front door. I try the handle, not really expecting to have any luck, but to my surprise the door swings open and I step into a gloomy hallway. Hearing a buzzing sound, I look over at a nearby table and see a bowl filled with rotten oranges. A dozen fat flies are circling the fruit, with several more crawling all over the rind and the wall. Grossed out by the stench, I wave the flies away and grab the bowl, quickly carrying it outside and tipping the oranges into the bushes. Fortunately, most of the flies go buzzing down after their prize, and I set the bowl on the steps as Louisa finally lumbers this way along the path.

  “Anything?” she asks.

  “No, but they very usefully left the house unlocked. God knows what they were thinking.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  “How would I know? I've never been here before in my life.”

  “Even though it's been in your family?”

  “I told you, it was left empty for years. Some kind of family superstition about bad things that happened here. Dad never liked to talk about it much. Or, in fact, at all.”

  “And you thought the house had been flogged off years ago?”

  “I reckon the old man was planning to do something with it, but then the dementia took over.” Sighing again, I step back into the hallway and wander to the foot of the stairs, taking a look up toward the landing. “It's a nice enough place, but you wouldn't catch me dead here. It's so far from everywhere, and it's not exactly modern.”

  Reaching out, I grab the railing and give it a firm shake, and sure enough the wood creaks loudly.

  “Nice wallpaper,” Louisa mutters, running her hand across the wall before taking a torn section of paper and pulling it away. “I think you'll have to put it on the market as a fixer-upper. Still, someone somewhere'll absolutely love to get their hands on a country house like this. Someone with time and money could spend years making this a pretty decent home.” She turns to me. “How much do you think it's worth?”

  “A million, maybe.”

  “That much?”

  “Could be. It comes with a fair spread of land. Split three ways, a million'd be more than three hundred grand each. Not bad for a day's work.”

  “Think what we could do with that money,” she replies, leaning back against the wall and placing a hand on her swollen belly. “We could go on the holiday of a lifetime. We could go on a cruise!”

  “With a baby?”

  “No, silly. We'll wait 'til a few months after the birth, and then my parents'll look after the kid while we go off for a couple of weeks. We could go to the Bahamas or Bermuda, somewhere really warm. God, after carrying this weight around for eight months, I think I d
eserve to be pampered. And the baby wouldn't know we were gone.”

  “I just need to make my sisters see sense first,” I mutter, before cupping my hands around my mouth as I look back up the stairs. “Hannah! Katie! Where are you? Come on, we need to talk about this place!”

  “This is creepy.”

  Turning, I see that Louisa has opened a door nearby. Leaning through into the darkness, she seems engrossed for a moment by whatever she's found.

  “Looks like a basement,” she continues finally, as she starts stepping through.

  “Careful!” I call out, hurrying over and grabbing her arm.

  “I think you're right,” she replies, stepping back as a creaking sound rings out. “I don't much fancy those stairs.”

  “Where the hell are my sisters?” I mutter, heading to the next room and looking through into the old kitchen. “I know they're not at home, so I assumed they were still here, pottering about and coming up with dumb schemes. Instead, they seem to have vanished off the face of the planet.”

  “I wish,” Louisa mutters under her breath, followed by a loud bumping sound.

  “What are you up to back there?” I ask, heading through to the hallway.

  “That was you, wasn't it?” she replies.

  “I thought it was you.”

  “Whatever it was,” she continues, “it sounded close. Must be a ghost. That settles it, then. There's no way we're staying here for even one night. Either we set off home right now, or at a push we can check into that homely little pub we passed as we drove through town. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume there's not much in the way of luxury in this part of the world. God, I'd kill for a bath.”

  “We can manage one night in the house,” I point out, before turning to see the expression of extreme, extreme disinterest on her face. “Or maybe you're right. We could just try the pub.”

  Johnny

  “So no-one's seen them since last week?” I ask, as I hand the barman some money for the drinks and food. “Did they not even come into town for supplies?”