Slade House, Page 5

  · · ·

  “Good evening, here are today’s headlines at six o’clock on Saturday, October the twenty-ninth. Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz announced at a press conference in the White House that the American embassy in Moscow is to be entirely rebuilt, following the discovery of listening devices in the walls of the building. President Reagan expressed his—” Who gives a shit, honestly? I turn off the radio, get out and lock my car. Same space as seven days ago, smack bang outside The Fox and Hounds. What a god-awful day. This morning a pisshead on speed attacked the desk sergeant just as I was passing and it took four of us to drag him to the cell—where the stupid bastard died an hour later. The toxicology report’ll clear us, eventually, but we’re already under the Spotlight of Shame courtesy of the Malik Inquiry—whose initial findings, we found out at lunchtime, have been leaked to the bloody Guardian. Force Ten Fucking Shit Storm Ahoy. Doolan said he’d “do his best” to shield me from the flak. “Do his best”? How half-assed does that sound? To add yet more grit to the Vaseline, a final demand for payment from Dad’s care home arrived before I left for work, along with a final final demand from the credit card company. I’ll have to extend my overdraft, come Monday. Or try to. The one ray of sunshine to brighten up this nightmare of a day was Chloe Chetwynd calling this afternoon. She sounded nervous at first, but I told her I’d been thinking about her since last Saturday. She said she’d been thinking about me, too—and at least two of my organs went Yes! So after leaving the office I got myself a twenty-quid haircut at a poofter parlor and drove here via Texaco, where they sell carnations and condoms. Be prepared and all that, right? I hurry along the pavement, whistling “When You Wish Upon a Star,” swerving to avoid first a jogger in black and dayglo orange running togs, then a guy my age trundling a pushchair along. The brat’s screaming blue bloody murder and the guy’s face is saying, Why oh why oh why did I shoot my wad into an ovulating female? Too late now, pal.

  There’s no sign of the traffic warden at the mouth of Slade Alley tonight. Into the cold alley I go, down to the corner, turn left, onward twenty paces, and here we are again: one small black iron door. I give it a hefty shove but tonight it stays shut. No rattle, no give, no nothing. A new frame, concreted in, with freshly laid brickwork along the bottom edge. Nice work. You couldn’t even jimmy in a crowbar. I set off down towards the Cranbury Avenue end of the alley to find the main entrance to Slade House, but I’m stopped by a click and a thunk from the door behind me. Here she is, stepping out through the munchkin-size doorway: “Good evening, Detective Inspector.” She’s wearing an Aztecky poncho thing over thigh-hugging black jeans, and holding something against her breasts. I come back, peer closer and see a small ginger cat. “ ’Ello ’ello ’ello,” I say. “What’s all this, then?”

  “Gordon, Bergerac. Bergerac, Gordon.”

  “ ‘Bergerac’? As in Jim Bergerac, the TV detective?”

  “Don’t say it so incredulously. Getting a cat was your idea, so it seemed appropriate. He’s too cute to be a Columbo, too hairy for a Kojak, too male for Cagney or Lacey, so I settled on Bergerac. Isn’t he adorable?”

  I look at the furry bundle. I look at Chloe’s eyes. “Totally.”

  “And how about my new improved door, Gordon: Will it deter unwelcome visitors, do you think?”

  “Unless they’re packing knee-high antitank missiles, yes. You can sleep safe in your bed from now on.”

  A little silver shell dangles on a black cord around Chloe Chetwynd’s neck. “Look, it’s so kind of you to drop by. After I put the phone down I got in a tizzy about wasting police time.”

  “This isn’t police time. It’s my time. I’ll spend it how I like.”

  Chloe Chetwynd holds Bergerac against her soft throat. I smell lavender and smoke and I get that off-road feeling you get when anything’s possible. She’s had her hair done, too. “In that case, Gordon, if I’m not pushing my luck, would you mind inspecting the door from the garden side, too? Just to ensure that my state-of-the-art triple mortice lock meets industry standards…”

  · · ·

  Chloe lowers the sizzling side of beef onto her kitchen table. I sniff it in, filling my head with the gorgeous salty, greasy aroma of dead cow. The table’s old and massive, as is the kitchen. Julie used to drool over pictures of kitchens like this in that magazine she got, Country Living. Oak beams, terra-cotta tiles, recessed spotlights, a view of the sloping garden, fancy blinds, a Welsh dresser with a collection of teapots, a cooker big enough to roast a small child, a Swedish stainless-steel fridge-freezer as vast as they have in American films and a built-in dishwasher. There’s a fireplace with a big copper hood over it. “You carve the meat,” says Chloe. “That’s the man’s job.”

  I get to work with the knife. “This beef smells incredible.”

  She brings over the roast veg. “My mother’s recipe: red wine, rosemary, mint, nutmeg, cinnamon, soy, plus a few secret ingredients that I can’t reveal or I’d have to kill you.” Chloe removes the lid: parsnips, spuds, carrots, cubes of pumpkin. “Spiced beef needs a wine with a bit of oomph. How about a punchy, dry Rioja?”

  I make an It’s fine by me if it’s fine with you face.

  “Rioja it is, then. I’m perrritty sure I still have a Tempranillo ’81 stashed away.” When Julie spoke about wine she sounded like a beautician with no O levels aping a wine buff, which is what she was. Chloe sounds like she’s stating facts. She comes back and hands me the bottle and a corkscrew. With a glint in her eye? I twist the pointy bit into the cork and think carnal thoughts until the cork goes Pop! “I love that sound,” says Chloe. “Don’t you? Wine Nazis say that you let these heavy reds breathe for a quarter of an hour, but I say life’s too short. Here, use these glasses…” Their crystal bases trundle over the wood. “Pour away, Jeeves.”

  I obey. The wine goes glug-glug-glugglugglugglugglug.

  · · ·

  The tiramisu is a stunner, and I say so. Chloe dabs at a fleck of cream on her lip with her napkin. “Not too cloying, not too sweet?”

  “Like everything else you’ve fed me, it was perfection. When did you find time to train as a chef?”

  Looking pleased, she sips her wine and dabs away the red stain with her napkin. “Flatterer.”

  “Flattery? What motive could I possibly have for flattering you? None. There. Case dismissed.”

  Chloe pours coffee from a pot shaped like a dragon. “Next time—well, I mean, if you ever want to help me out with my overcatering again—I’ll do you my vodka sorbet. Tonight, I didn’t—”

  Right here, right next to us, a girl calls out, “Jonah!”

  Clear as a bell. But there’s no girl here. But—

  —I heard her. Right here. A girl. She said, “Jonah!”

  There’s a clattery noise from the door—

  I jump, my chair scrapes, tips and falls over.

  The cat flap’s swinging. It squeaks. It’s quiet.

  Then I hear the girl again: “Jonah?”

  I didn’t imagine that.

  Again: “Jooo-naaah!”

  I’m standing in a fight-or-flight crouch, but Chloe’s not looking shocked, and not looking like I’m a nutcase either. She’s watching me, calm and cool. My legs are trembling. I ask her, “Did you hear that?” My voice is a bit manic.

  “Yes.” If anything, she looks relieved. “Yes, I did.”

  “A girl,” I check, “right here, in the kitchen.”

  Chloe shuts her eyes and nods, slowly.

  “But…but you said you didn’t have children.”

  Chloe breathes in, breathes out. “They’re not mine.”

  Which is clear as mud. Adopted? Invisible? “Who are they?”

  “Her name’s Norah. She’s Jonah’s sister. They live here.”

  The hairs on my arms are standing up. “I…You…What?”

  Chloe takes one of my cigarettes. “You hear a voice; there’s no one here; it’s a very old house. Any thoughts, Detective?�
��

  I can’t say the word “ghost”—but I just heard what I just heard: a girl saying “Jonah” when there’s no girl here.

  “Those footsteps you heard last Saturday,” Chloe goes on, “round the house. You thought they were kids next door. Remember?”

  I’m cold. I nod once.

  “There are no kids living next door, Gordon. That was Norah and Jonah. I think they’re twins. Here. Smoke. Sit down.”

  I do as she says, but my mind’s reeling and my fingers are clumsy as I light my cigarette.

  “I first noticed them back in January, this year. In the garden, at first, like you did; and like you, I assumed it was neighbors. Then one afternoon when Stuart was flat out and asleep after chemo—Valentine’s Day, as it happens—I was on the stairs when I heard a girl humming on the little landing, by the grandfather clock. But there was nobody there. Then a boy’s voice called up from the doorway, “Norah, your boiled egg’s ready!” And the girl said, “I’ll be down as soon as I’ve wound up the clock!” I thought—or hoped, perhaps—they were kids who’d got in somehow, for a lark, for a dare, but…I was there, on the stairs, for heaven’s sake. By the clock.”

  It hasn’t escaped my attention that Norah the invisible girl has the same first name as Lady Grayer, but what this might mean, or whether it’s a meaningless coincidence, who knows? “Did your husband hear them?”

  Chloe shakes her head. “Never. Around Easter, Jonah and Norah—the ‘ghosts’—walked right through the kitchen, chattering away about a pony called Blackjack, and Stuart was sitting right where you are. He didn’t even look up from his crossword. I asked, ‘Did you hear that?’ and he replied, ‘Hear what?’ ‘Those voices,’ I said. Stuart gave me a weird and worried look so I pretended I might’ve left a radio on upstairs.” Chloe lights her cigarette and gazes at the glowing tip. “Stuart was a biochemist, an atheist, and he just didn’t do ghosts. A few weeks later we had a dinner party here, and as I served up the starters I heard Jonah and Norah walk right by, singing, ‘Here comes the bride, a million miles wide’ and giggling like drains. Loud as real children. We had eight guests sitting around the table, but not one of them heard.”

  In the fireplace the flames snap. My CID brain telexes in the word schizophrenia. But I heard the voice too, and I sure as heck never heard of shared schizophrenia.

  Chloe empties the last of the wine into our glasses. “I was terrified I was losing my marbles, so—without telling Stuart—I visited three separate doctors, had a brain scan, the works. Nothing sinister showed up. I was Stuart’s round-the-clock carer, he was going downhill fast, so two of the three consultants put it down to stress. One told me the voices were caused by an unfulfilled yearning for children. I didn’t go back to him.”

  I drink the wine. I puff on the cigarette. “So apart from me, nobody else has heard them?”

  “That’s right. I—I can’t tell you how relieved I was, last Saturday, when I saw you’d heard them too. How less lonely I felt. God, just to be able to discuss them like this, without being afraid you’ll think I’m a nut…You’ve got no idea, Gordon.”

  Blue eyes. Gray eyes. “Hence my invitation?”

  A shy little smile. “Not the only reason. Don’t feel exploited.”

  “I don’t. Hey, Bergerac sensed them, too. He legged it.” I pour myself coffee from the silver pot. “Why do you stay here, Chloe? Why don’t you sell up and move somewhere…less haunted?”

  Chloe grimaces the way I’ve noticed she does when faced with a thorny question. “Slade House is home. I feel safe here, and…it’s not as if Norah and Jonah go ‘Wooooooh’ or drip ectoplasm or write scary messages in mirrors. I…I’m not even sure they know I’m here. Yes, I hear them, once or twice, every one or two days, but they’re just going about their business.” Chloe balances a teaspoon on a dish. “There’s one other voice I call Eeyore because he’s always so negative, but I’ve only heard him a handful of times. He mumbles things like ‘They’re liars’ or ‘Run away’ or stuff that makes no sense, and I suppose he’s a bit disconcerting, but he wouldn’t qualify as a poltergeist. I’m not leaving Slade House just because of him.”

  Bergerac rubs his back against my shins. I hadn’t noticed him come back in. “I still think you’re made of sterner stuff than most people, Chloe. I mean…well…ghosts.”

  Chloe sighs. “Some people keep boa constrictors, or tarantulas; surely that’s weirder and scarier and riskier than my innocuous housemates? I’m not even convinced they’re real ‘ghosts’ at all.”

  “Innocuous” means “harmless,” if I’m not wrong. “If they’re not ghosts, what are they?”

  “My theory is that they’re ordinary children, living in their own time, doing their thing, whom I overhear. Like the telephone lines of our times have crossed. The wall between our ‘now’ and their ‘now’ is thin. That’s all.”

  The big window shows a reflected kitchen with a ghostly Chloe and me superimposed onto a dark garden. “If I hadn’t heard them myself,” I say, “I’d be thinking you’d watched too many episodes of Tales of the Unexpected or something. But…I did hear them. Have you thought of finding out who used to live in Slade House? Maybe you’d find a pair of twins called Jonah and Norah.”

  She rolls up her napkin. “I’ve thought about it, but since Stuart died, I just haven’t had the get-up-and-go.” Chloe makes an apologetic face. I realize I want to kiss it.

  Bergerac nestles into my crotch. May his claws stay retracted. “The property records at the town archives go back to the 1860s,” I tell Chloe. “We—CID, I mean—consult them now and then. I’ve got a tame archivist called Leon who looks into certain matters for me, without asking the whys and wherefores. A big old house like this leaves footprints in local history. Shall I have a quiet word?”

  “First a door fixer, now an archivist.” Chloe looks impressed. “You’re a one-man Yellow Pages. Yes please. I’d be jolly grateful.”

  “Leave it with me.” I stroke Bergerac. He purrs.

  My host reties her hair. “Honestly, Gordon. Most men would be dashing for the door by now.”

  I breathe out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not most men.”

  Me and Chloe look at each other longer than you’re normally allowed to. She reaches over and puts my dessert plate onto hers. “I knew that telephoning you earlier was a smart move.”

  I wish I had a snappier line than “More coffee?”

  “Golly, no. I shan’t be able to sleep for hours.”

  Exactly, I think. “Then let me do the washing-up.”

  “That’s why God made dishwashers, my friend.”

  I notice her wedding ring is off. “Then I’m jobless.”

  Blue eyes. Gray eyes. “Not necessarily.”

  · · ·

  Rasping and gasping for breath, soaked, salty and sticky, I collapse onto her pillow. I’m fed, I’m fed, I’m fed, and the finest thing to be in God’s glorious creation is a youngish well-fed male. We just lie there for a while until our breathing and heart rates slow down a little. I say, “If you let me have a rerun, I’ll pace myself a bit better.” Chloe tells me, “Make an appointment, I’ll see if I can squeeze you in,” which makes me laugh so my deflating truncheon slips out. She gives me a fistful of tissues and rolls onto her side, dabbing her own loins and wrapping herself in the gluey sheet. She didn’t tell me to use a condom, so I didn’t: a bit of a risk, but it’s her risk, not mine, and any successful businessman’ll tell you, risk transfer is the name of the game. The four-poster bed is hung with maroon curtains so everything’s warm and dark and smothered. I tell her, “Well. Your triple mortice lock most definitely meets industry standards.”

  She biffs me gently with the back of her hand.

  “Serious crime, that—assaulting a police officer.”

  “Ooh. Will you get out your handcuffs?”

  “Only in my smuttiest dreams.”

  Chloe kisses my nipple. “Then sleep.”

  “Fat chance of that, lying ne
xt to a naked goddess.”

  She kisses my eyelids. “Sweet dreams, Detective.”

  I yawn, enormously. “I’m honestly not sleepy…”

  · · ·

  Next time I wake, she’s gone. My meat and two veg are simmering nicely. In the walls, ancient plumbing’s groaning, and water’s slapping the floor of a nearby shower. I find my watch under a pillow: 1:30. The wee small hours. No problem, it’s Sunday. I’m not due in to the office till Tuesday. Bugger Tuesday. Bugger work. Bugger the Malik Inquiry. Bugger Trevor Doolan. Bugger the Great British Public. Me and Chloe should stay in and do this all Sunday, all week, all month…Only something’s niggling me. What? A thought. This one: Why is this classy, clever, sexy-as-hell female falling into bed with a guy she hardly knows? This happens in Pornland or in men’s bullshittery, but here in the real world, women like Chloe simply don’t shag men on a second encounter. Do they?

  Hang on, Gordon Edmonds, hang on. “Second encounter”? This is your fifth visit to Slade House, you plonker. Count the meals: on the first Saturday, Chloe cooked steak; second Saturday, cod on shredded potatoes; venison and Guinness pie on the third; last week was pheasant; and tonight, roast beef. There. See? Five dinners, five Saturdays, five bottles of wine, and five long talks for hours about big stuff and small stuff and stuff in between: childhoods, attitudes, politics; her deceased husband and my ex-wife; John Ruskin, the Victorian scholar of art. You’ve been phoning each other every night just to say “Good night” and “Sweet dreams” and “Can’t wait till Saturday.” It’s not been a long courtship, true, but it’s been intense, sincere and not remotely slutty or porny. You’re a good-looking cop and you’re obviously amazing in bed. What’s the problem? Chloe Albertina Chetwynd loves you.