The House on Cold Hill

‘Why?’

She shrugged.

‘Something on your mind?’ He reached out and stroked her hair.

Almost instantly she shook her head, brushing his hand away. ‘Daaaaddd!’

The light changed to green and the traffic began to move. Ollie put the Range Rover into ‘drive’ and they inched forward. ‘Why did you ask about ghosts? Do you believe in them?’

She looked down at her phone for some moments, then stared ahead, through the windscreen, playing with the strap on her bag. ‘Phoebe was pranking with me last night, she really freaked me out.’

‘How come?’

‘I was on FaceTime chatting to her, she was just being silly.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘She told me she could see Gran standing behind me, in my room.’

‘Gran?’

‘She wasn’t here last night, was she?’

He thought for some moments before replying. Wondering, remembering the first Sunday night when Jade had asked if her grandmother had come up to her room. ‘No, she wasn’t.’

‘She said she saw this creepy-looking old lady in blue.’

‘I don’t think your gran wears blue much, does she?’

Jade shook her head. Then she said, ‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’

‘No.’

‘Would you be scared if you saw one?’

‘I’m not sure how I’d feel,’ he replied, openly.

‘Can ghosts hurt people?’

‘I think it’s the living who hurt people, lovely. Not ghosts. If ghosts exist.’

‘I think Phoebe was just being mean.’

‘It sounds like it. She’s coming on Saturday for a sleepover, right?’

Jade nodded.

‘We could play a trick on her, if you like? Scare her? I could put a sheet over my head and appear out of a cupboard – what do you think?’

A huge smile appeared on her face. ‘Yes! Will you, Dad? Will you? Then I could put it in our video!’

‘Great! Are you looking forward to your birthday party – it’s not long now. Will you invite anyone from St Paul’s?’

‘There were so many a

‘There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to be friends with you, lovely. That’s a nice thing, isn’t it?’

‘Just so embarrassing. I want my friends.’

‘You still have your friends. But it would be nice to make some new ones at the school. Was there anyone you particularly liked?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Well, there’s a possible one called Niamh. I don’t know yet.’ She was silent again for some moments, then suddenly, looking worried, she asked, ‘I know I’m going to have to wait till the Saturday for my party, but I will still get my presents on the Thursday, won’t I?’

‘Of course! From all the family, anyway. You might get some more from your friends on Saturday – so that’ll be like having two birthdays.’

‘Brilliant! Hey, maybe next year we could have a pool party for my birthday? That would be epic!’

He smiled. ‘Maybe!’

Then his thoughts returned to his strange and disturbing dream last night.

Ask someone to tell you about the digger.

No one leaves your house. They all stay.

Cholmondley rang Ollie as he drove back from the school to say he was happy with everything, and could he now get the website live as soon as possible. Ollie told him he would upload the site to his server and it would be live within the next hour.

Then his thoughts returned yet again to the weird dream, and the words of the old man, and the photograph that had appeared on his phone overnight. Then his daughter’s question in the car a short while ago. Coincidence?

He wished it was as simple as dismissing it that way. But he couldn’t. There was one burning question in his mind right now: was he going crazy?

People said that moving house was the most stressful thing a human being could do. Was the stress of this, the stress of his financial worries and the stress of trying to build his new business getting to him? Had he forgotten he’d taken a photograph of the strange old man when he’d met him last week? Or was it some weird thing that had happened through the Cloud? Ever since synching his iPhone, iPad and laptop to the Cloud there had been the occasional oddity. Was this just one of them?

It had to be.

There was one possible way, he realized, of finding out.

18

Tuesday, 15 September

Arriving back home shortly after 9.00 a.m., Ollie was disappointed by the absence of any vans outside the house. Not one of the small army of workmen had turned up so far. Ollie hurried up to his office and spent the next hour getting the Cholmondley website up and ru

Then he phoned his computer engineer, Chris Webb, who knew everything there was to know about Apple Macs, and more, to discuss the photograph of the old man that had appeared on his iPhone overnight. While they were talking, he emailed it to Webb.

‘Maybe you went sleepwalking?’ Webb said.

‘But this photo was taken in daylight!’

‘It’s odd,’ he said after a while. ‘I’m looking at your albums stored on the Cloud – everything’s dated, except for this one photograph. There’s no date and no geo tag. It’s sort of appeared out of nowhere, mate!’

‘Yep, it has.’

‘You know what I think may have happened?’ Webb said.

‘What?’

‘One possibility is you took a phone call while you were talking to this old boy, and you accidently took a photo?’

‘Possible – but I’m sure I didn’t take my phone out while I was talking to him,’ Ollie said. Except in my dream, he thought.

‘I find Photo does odd things sometimes. I’ve not heard of it happening – but I suppose it could.’ Ollie heard a slurp – it sounded as though Webb was having a drink of something. Then he continued. ‘Remember in the old days when you took actual film into a shop to get it developed?’

‘That does seem a long while back!’

‘Yeah. Well, in those days – it happened to me a couple of times – when I got my photos back sometimes there’d be a rogue one slipped in among them somehow – totally random – another couple’s baby, or holiday snap.’

‘And that might have happened here? Chris, the coincidence would be – insane! I saw this old boy last week, chatted to him, then I wake up this morning and there’s his photograph on the phone. Come on, what are the chances of that happening – that somehow the Cloud has delivered someone else’s photograph of him to me? How many gazillion to one?’

‘Coincidences happen.’

‘I know, but this. I just . . .’ He fell silent.

After some moments Webb said, sounding bemused, ‘I’m sorry, Ollie, it’s the best explanation I can give you. Otherwise I’m stumped. I’ll have a word with someone I know at Apple and see if I can find out how often something like this does happen.’

‘I’d be very grateful, Chris.’

Ollie ended the call and stayed at his desk, staring down at the old man. He couldn’t place the background, which was indistinct. He enlarged his face, as he had done several times earlier, to make absolutely sure he wasn’t mistaken. But it wasn’t just the face, it was his briar pipe, that gnarled walking stick, that strange quiff-like hairstyle, the rheumy eyes. Chris Webb was usually right, and what he had said, however far-fetched, was the only possible explanation.

He went downstairs, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and pulled on the new wellington boots Caro had given him as an early birthday present last month. He had already told Caro his birthday was to be a quiet affair – just di