Short Shockers

  SHORT SHOCKERS

  COLLECTION ONE

  PETER JAMES

  PAN BOOKS

  CONTENTS

  12 BOLINGBROKE AVENUE

  NUMBER THIRTEEN

  JUST TWO CLICKS

  DEAD ON THE HOUR

  VIRTUALLY ALIVE

  MEET ME AT THE CREMATORIUM

  VENICE APHRODISIAC

  TIME RICH

  CHRISTMAS IS FOR THE KIDS

  12 BOLINGBROKE AVENUE

  It was a pleasant-looking mock-Tudor semi, with a cherry tree in the front garden and a stone birdbath. There was nothing immediately evident about the property to suggest a reason for the terror Susan Miller felt every time she saw it.

  ‘Number 12’ – white letters on the oak door. A brass knocker. And, in the distance, the faint sound of the sea. She began to walk up the path, her speed increasing as she came closer, as if drawn by an invisible magnet. Her terror deepening, she reached forward and rang the bell.

  ‘Susan! Susan, darling! It’s OK. It’s OK!’

  The dull rasp faded in her ears; her eyes sprang open. She gulped down air, staring out into the darkness of the bedroom. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘The dream. I had the dream.’

  Tom settled back down with a grunt of disapproval and was asleep again in moments. Susan lay awake, listening to the steady, endless roar of the traffic on the M6 pouring past Birmingham, an icy fear flooding her veins.

  She got out of bed and walked over to the window, afraid to go back to sleep. Easing back the edge of a curtain, she stared out into the night; the large illuminated letters advertising IKEA dominated the horizon.

  The dream was getting more frequent. The first time had been on Christmas Eve some ten years back, and for a long while it had recurred only very occasionally. Now it was happening every few weeks.

  After a short while, exhaustion and the cold of the late-October air lured her back into bed. She snuggled up against Tom’s unyielding body and closed her eyes, knowing the second nightmare that always followed was yet to come, and that she was powerless to resist it.

  *

  Christmas Eve. Susan arrived home laden with last-minute shopping, including a few silly gifts for Tom to try to make him smile; he rarely smiled these days. His car was in the drive, but when she called out he did not respond. Puzzled, she went upstairs, calling his name again. Then she opened the bedroom door.

  As she did so, she heard the creak of springs and the rustle of sheets. Two naked figures writhing on the bed spun in unison towards her. Their shocked faces stared at her as if she were an intruder, had no right to be there. Strangers. A woman with long red hair and a grey-haired man. Both of them total strangers making love in her bed, in her bedroom. In her house.

  But instead of confronting them, she backed away, rapidly, confused, feeling as if it were she who was the intruder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m—’

  Then she woke up.

  Tom stirred, grunted, then slept on.

  Susan lay still. God, it was so clear this time – it seemed to be getting more and more vivid lately. She had read an article in a magazine recently about interpreting dreams, and she tried to think what this one might be telling her.

  Confusion was the theme. She was getting confused easily these days, particularly with regard to time. Often she’d be on the verge of starting some job around the house, then remember that she had already done it, or be about to rush out to the shops to buy something she had just bought. Stress. She had read about the effects of stress, in another magazine – she got most of her knowledge from magazines – and that it could cause all kinds of confusion and tricks of the mind.

  And she knew the source of the stress, too.

  Mandy. The new secretary at the Walsall branch of the Allied Chester & North-East Building Society, where Tom was Deputy Manager. Tom had told her about Mandy’s arrival a year ago, then had never mentioned her since. But she had watched them talking at the annual Christmas party last year, to which spouses and partners were invited. They had talked a damned sight too much for Susan’s liking. And they emailed each other a damned sight too much.

  She had not been sure what to do. At thirty-two, she had kept her figure through careful eating and regular aerobics, and still looked good. She took care of her short brown hair, and paid attention to her make-up and her clothes. There wasn’t much else she could do, and confronting Tom without any evidence would have made her look foolish. Besides, she was under doctor’s orders to stay calm. She had given up work in order to relax and improve her chances of conceiving the child they had been trying for these past five years. She had to stay calm.

  *

  Unexpectedly, the solution presented itself when Tom arrived home that evening.

  ‘Promotion?’ she said, her eyes alight with excitement.

  ‘Yup! You are now looking at the second youngest ever branch manager for the Allied Chester & North-East Building Society! But,’ he added hesitantly, ‘it’s going to mean moving.’

  ‘Moving? I don’t mind at all, darling!’ Anywhere, she thought. The further the better. Get him away from that bloody Mandy. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Brighton.’

  She could scarcely believe her luck. In their teens, Tom had taken her for a weekend to Brighton; it was the first time they had been away together. The bed in the little hotel had creaked like mad, and someone in the room below had hollered at them and they’d had to stuff sheets into their mouths to silence their laugher. ‘We’re going to live in Brighton?’

  ‘That’s right!’

  She flung her arms around him. ‘When? How soon?’

  ‘They want me to take over the branch at the start of the New Year. So we have to find a house pretty smartly.’

  Susan did a quick calculation. It was now late October ‘We’ll never find somewhere and get moved in within a month. We’ve got to sell this place, we’ve got to—’

  ‘The Society will help. They’re relocating us, all expenses paid, and we get a lump-sum allowance for more expensive housing in the south. They’re giving me the week off next week so we can go there and look around. I’ve told the relocations officer our budget and she’s contacting some local estate agents for us.’

  *

  The first particulars arrived two days later in a thick envelope. Susan opened it in the kitchen and pulled out the contents, while Tom was gulping down his breakfast. There were about fifteen houses, mostly too expensive. She discarded several, then read the details of one that was well within their range: a very ugly box of a house, close to the sea, with a ‘small but charming’ garden. She liked the idea of living near the sea, but not the house. Still, she thought, you spend most of your time indoors, not looking at the exterior, so she put it aside as a possible and turned to the next.

  As she saw the picture, she froze. Couldn’t be, she thought, bringing it closer to her eyes. Could not possibly be. She stared hard, struggling to control her shaking hands, at a mock-Tudor semi identical to the one she always saw in her dream. Coincidence, she thought, feeling a tightening knot in her throat. Coincidence. Has to be. There are thousands of houses that look like this.

  12 Bolingbroke Avenue.

  Number 12, she knew, was the number on the door in her dream, the same dream in which she always heard the distant roar of the sea.

  Maybe she had seen the house when they had been to Brighton previously. How long ago was that? Fourteen years? But even if she had seen it before, why should it have stuck in her mind?

  ‘Anything of interest?’ Tom asked, reaching out and turning the particulars of the modern box round to read them. Then he pulled the details of the semi out of her hands, rather roughly. ‘This looks nice,’ he said. ‘In our b
racket. “In need of some modernization” – that’s estate agent-speak for a near wreck. Means if we do it up, it could be worth a lot more.’

  Susan agreed that they should see the house. She had to see it to satisfy herself that it was not the one in the dream, but she did not tell Tom that; he had little sympathy for her dreams.

  *

  The estate agent drove them himself. He wore a sharp suit, white socks and smelled of hair gel. ‘Great position,’ he said. ‘One of the most sought-after residential areas in Hove. Five minutes’ walk to the beach. Hove Lagoon close by – great for kids. And it’s a bargain for this area. A bit of work and you could increase the value a lot.’ He turned into Bolingbroke Avenue, and pointed with his finger. ‘There we are.’

  Susan bit her lip as they pulled up outside number 12. Her mouth was dry and she was shaking badly. Terror was gripping her like a claw; the same terror she had previously experienced only in her dreams.

  The one thing that was different was the ‘For Sale’ board outside. She could see the cherry tree, the stone birdbath. She could hear the sea. There was no doubt in her mind, absolutely no doubt at all.

  She climbed out of the car as if she were back in her dream, and led the way up the path. Exactly as she always did in her dream, she reached out her hand and rang the bell.

  After a few moments the door was opened by a woman in her forties with long red hair. She had a pleasant, open-natured smile at first, but when she saw Susan, all the colour drained from her face. She looked as if she had been struck with a sledgehammer.

  Susan was staring back at her in amazement. There was no mistaking, it was definitely her. ‘Oh my God,’ Susan said, the words blurting out. ‘You’re the woman I keep seeing in my dreams.’

  ‘And you,’ she replied, barely able to get the words out, ‘you are the ghost that’s been haunting our bedroom for the past ten years.’

  Susan stood, helpless, waves of fear rippling across her skin. ‘Ghost?’ she said finally.

  ‘You look like our ghost; you just look so incredibly like her.’ She hesitated. ‘Who are you? How can I help you?’

  ‘We’ve come to see around the house.’

  ‘See around the house?’ She sounded astonished.

  ‘The estate agent made an appointment.’ Susan turned to look at him for confirmation, but could not see him or Tom – or the car.

  ‘There must be a mistake,’ the woman said. ‘This house is not on the market.’

  Susan looked round again, disoriented. Where were they? Where the hell had they gone? ‘Please,’ she said. ‘This ghost I resemble – who . . . who is . . . was she?’

  ‘I don’t know; neither of us do. But about ten years ago some building society manager bought this house when it was a wreck, murdered his wife on Christmas Eve and moved his mistress in. He renovated the house, and cemented his wife into the basement. The mistress finally cracked after a couple of years and went to the police. That’s all I know.’

  ‘What . . . what happened to them?’

  The woman was staring oddly at her, as if she was trying to see her but no longer could. Susan felt swirling cold air engulf her. She turned, bewildered. Where the hell was Tom? The estate agent? Then she saw that the ‘For Sale’ board had gone from the garden.

  She was alone, on the step, facing the closed front door.

  Number 12. She stared at the white letters, the brass knocker. Then, as if drawn by that same damned magnet, she felt herself being pulled forward, felt herself gliding in through the solid oak of the door.

  I’ll wake up in a moment, she thought. I’ll wake up. I always do. Except she knew, this time, something had changed.

  NUMBER THIRTEEN

  For 353 days a year – and 354 in a leap year – N.N. Kettering put the fear of God into restaurants around the world. On those dozen remaining days, something put the fear of God into him.

  A number.

  Just a simple, two-digit number.

  Thirteen.

  Just the sight of it was enough to make beads of sweat appear along his brow. And he had a vast expanse of brow, providing ample accommodation for whole colonies of sweat beads.

  Nigel Norbert Kettering hated both his first names. When he had first started out as a restaurant critic, for a small English provincial newspaper, he decided a degree of anonymity was a good thing – and it gave him the opportunity to lose those two bloody names. For the past two decades, N.N. Kettering had been, undisputedly, the most influential restaurant critic in England, and in more recent years, his eagle eye and sharp palate, and even sharper writing, had made him a global scourge.

  Kettering analysed everything. Every single aspect of any meal he ate. From the table at which he sat, to the quality of the paper on which the menu was printed, to the glasses, the tablecloth, the plates, the balance of the menu, the quality and speed of the service, and, far above all else, the food.

  This attention to every detail, even to the quality of the toothpicks, had taken him to the top of his profession – and the top of the list of people many of the world’s most renowned chefs would have liked to see dead.

  His daily online postings, the Kettering Report, could make or break a new restaurant within days, or dramatically enhance the reputation of an established one. No amount of Michelin stars or Gault Millau points came close to the rosette rankings of the Kettering Report. Of course, he had his favourites. Before it closed, El Bulli in Spain regularly received a maximum score of ten. So did The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and The Fat Duck in Bray, Vue du Monde in Melbourne, and Rosemary in Sardinia, and the Luk Yu Tea House in Hong Kong for its dim sum.

  But there were legions of other establishments, hailed as temples of gastronomy by some of the greatest newspaper critics, which received from Kettering a scornful three, or a withering two. One of the greatest French chefs committed suicide after Kettering downgraded his rating from a nine to a devastating one in the space of a single year.

  In the current harsh economic climes, few people would risk the expense and disappointment of a mediocre night out without first checking the latest opinion online at Kettering’s site.

  N.N.’s appearance at a restaurant was enough to render the most seasoned maître d’ and the most assured sommelier quivering jellies, and when whispered word of his presence reached the kitchen, even the most prima donna of chefs turned into a babbling, begging wreck.

  Some years ago, his identity had been revealed by a tabloid newspaper. Now, he no longer bothered to book his tables under an assumed name. Every restaurateur in the world had N.N. Kettering’s photograph pinned discreetly to an office wall. Besides, the man was hard to miss. He was tall and lean, despite all the food and wine he packed away, with an elongated neck, on top of which perched his egg-shaped head, his eyes distorted behind round, bottle-lens glasses and his short black hair brushed forward, rather like a modern take on a monk’s tonsure, the fringe barely reaching the start of his high, sloping brow.

  He was always dressed the same – in a dark, immaculately tailored suit, white shirt and red or crimson tie – and sat ramrod straight, with perfect posture, as if he had a ruler jammed down the back of his jacket. One great London restaurant owner had described the sight of his head rising above the menu he was reading, accompanied by his beady glare, as being like staring into the periscope of a submarine. Fortunately for this man’s establishment, N.N. Kettering never got to hear the remark. Of course, Kettering’s tastes became more and more esoteric. One year, the appearance of snail porridge on the menu of The Fat Duck caused him to devote two whole pages of lyrical praise to Heston Blumenthal’s skills as a chef. The following year, he devoted an unprecedented three-page review to a single dish at El Bulli – chef Ferran Adrià’s creation of oysters with raw marinated rabbit brains.

  And his demands for greatness and excellence became ever higher.

  Almost uniquely among restaurant critics, N.N. Kettering employed no assistants. He ate lunch and dinn
er out seven days and nights a week. Sometimes breakfast, too. Food was his life. He had never married, never even had a girlfriend – or boyfriend. And he always paid for every meal in crisp, new banknotes. He never accepted anything free.

  He never tipped.

  He felt fulfilled. As if he had been put on this planet to be the custodian of its restaurants’ standards. He was married to tomorrow’s restaurants. His reviews were his babies.

  Once, early in his career, in a rare interview, he declared, ‘The best number for dinner is two – myself and a good waiter.’

  But not on the thirteenth of any month.

  On the thirteenth of any month, it all changed.

  From as far back in his life as he could remember, N.N. Kettering had been a triskaidekaphobic. He had a morbid fear of the number thirteen. And the worst possible date was a Friday the thirteenth. Because not only was he a triskaidekaphobe, he was also a paraskavedekatriaphobe.

  Someone who has a total fear of the date Friday the thirteenth.

  He knew that the number thirteen was out to get him. It was around him all the time. It was there on car number plates. It lurked in the number of grains in the breakfast cereals he ate. In the number of berries he added to his cereal. In the number of mouthfuls he took to eat his breakfast, and his lunch, and his dinner. In the number of steps he would take from a taxi to the restaurant. In the number of steps from the front door of the restaurant to his table.

  He would never sit at table thirteen. He would never choose the thirteenth item on a menu. Nor on a wine list. Nor anything that was a multiple of thirteen.

  Whenever it was a Friday the thirteenth, he would prepare himself in advance. All kinds of danger lurked out in the world. So it was best not to risk it. Stay home. But home was dangerous, too. He had read that the place where you were most likely to die was in your own home, especially your kitchen. So, on every Friday the thirteenth he stayed in bed, in his small flat in London’s Notting Hill. The night before, he prepared everything he would need up until midnight the following day. He would spend the time reading, and watching television– mostly food programmes – and visiting, anonymously of course, a number of networking sites and online discussion groups about restaurants.