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As he ran on down past the field of alpacas he lost sight of the lights. Still he kept going, his chest tight, the steel grip tightening, tightening, tightening. The pain was excruciating.
It worsened.
Worsened.
Like daggers pushing into his chest and then twisting. He could not breathe.
Then, all at once, he felt unseen hands pulling him backwards.
‘Noooo! Lemmego!’
It felt as if he was ru
‘Lemmego!’
The faster he ran, the more the band hardened, tightened. The more the daggers twisted.
And suddenly he was treading air as if he was treading water.
The pain stopped.
He was being dragged backwards.
‘Nooooooooo!’
He was pedalling air. Floating. Rising skywards.
‘Noooooooo! Caro! Caro! Caro!’
Something was pulling him back towards the house. Faster and faster. Accelerating. Accelerating.
He saw the silent Range Rover right below him. He was going to be smashed to pulp against the front of the house.
Then, suddenly, he was in the kitchen. Everything was calm. All the pain around his chest was gone. Caro and Jade were seated at the table looking at him, and smiling. They were bathed in shimmering green light, as if a powerful lamp was shining behind each of them.
‘Darling!’ Caro said.
‘Dad, epic!’ Jade greeted him.
‘Welcome home!’ Caro said.
Jade nodded, enthusiastically.
The television on the wall was switched on. There was an aerial shot of emergency vehicles. A lorry at a skewed angle on a country road he recognized as being on the way to Caro’s parents. The remnants of a Volkswagen Golf lay on its side a short distance away.
‘See!’ Caro said, happily. ‘That’s us! The dead have no more fears! We’re in a good place now, aren’t we, Ols?’
‘We can stay here forever now, can’t we, Dad?’ Jade said.
As he looked at them both, they began to fade, the light behind each of them dimming.
‘Come back! Come back!’ he cried out.
His own voice was becoming weaker.
Then a stranger, a smartly dressed man in his late thirties, with slicked-back fair hair, wearing a grey suit with loud socks and buckled loafers, came into the kitchen, holding a clipboard with a notepad on it, a digital measurer and a camera.
He took several photographs from different angles.
‘Excuse me, who are you?’ Ollie asked.
The man ignored him, as if he had not seen him. He began to ping a laser off the walls, measuring the width and length of the room, jotting them down on his pad.
‘Hello?’ Ollie said. ‘Excuse me, hello?’
The man moved on, without responding, through into the scullery.
59
Wednesday, 21 September 2016
‘Are we nearly there yet?’
Co
‘Just a few minutes now.’
Why the hell couldn’t his son be quiet, like his sister, Seb wondered? Leonora was sitting next to Co
Nicola glanced at the satnav and turned to Co
They passed a sign saying Cold Hill – please drive slowly, then moments later the car, gliding fast and silently on electrical power, almost took off over a humpback bridge.
‘Whoops!’ Seb said.
‘Slow down, darling,’ Nicola cautioned him.
‘Dad!’ Leonora chided.
‘Can we do that again, Dad?’ Co
It was a fine, late summer day. The roads from London had been clear all the way and they’d made good time. Seb was excited. He’d been a townie all his life, as had Nicola, but moving to the country had always been his dream. Now the takeover, by an American bank, of the wealth management company he’d been employed by for the past ten years had given him a massive windfall on his share options, enabling them to afford this country pile a few miles north of Brighton.
He shot a glance in the mirror and saw his son’s excited face. ‘This is where we’re going to be living, Co
‘Yeahhh! Coolio!’
‘Coolio!’ Seb replied.
He had never felt so happy in all his life. They were now minutes away from their new life.
It was going to be incredible!
Cold Hill House.
They’d already had the headed notepaper printed. Cold Hill House.
Not bad for a state-school-educated chap, whose dad had been a London postman. Not a bad achievement for a man who had not yet reached his fortieth birthday. Not bad at all, he thought, the grin on his face growing wider by the second.
They drove past a Norman church on their right, with an ornate wooden lychgate, a row of terraced Victorian artisan cottages, then the poshed-up gastropub, Bistrot Tarquin, where, just two months ago, he and Nicola had lunched on Oysters Rockefeller followed by grilled lobster, washed down with a rather fine Pouilly-Fuissé, and made the decision to offer on the house.
They passed a building with a sign, YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE. The road wound steeply uphill, past detached houses and bungalows of various sizes on either side.
The satnav read: 150 yards to destination. An arrow indicated right.
Seb slowed the car down and flicked the right-turn indicator. ‘Here we are!’
On their right, opposite a red postbox, were two stone pillars, topped with savage-looking ornamental wyverns, and with open, rusted, wrought-iron gates. Below the large Richwards ‘Sold’ board, fixed to the right-hand gatepost, was a smart gold-on-black sign a
A minute later they crested the drive, and the house was directly in front of them. Seb’s heart did a little flip at the beauty of the location. ‘We’re here!’ he whooped with joy.
Nicola, peering through the windscreen, said, ‘Who’s that in the house?’
‘Where?’
‘I saw some people – there’s a man, a woman and a young girl up there – in that window above the front door. The one with the Juliet balcony.’
Seb slowed down and stared up to where she was pointing. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘I must have imagined it,’ she smiled.
‘It looks pretty spooky!’ Leonora shouted.
‘Maybe it’s full of ghosts!’ Co
Seb halted the car in front of the porch, and glanced at the house through the windscreen. ‘Just as soon as we get the pla
Nicola leaned over and kissed him.
A moment later his phone pinged with an incoming text. He looked at the screen and saw the message on it.
OVER MY DEAD BODY.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe an enormous debt of thanks to the Rance family – Matt, Emma and their daughter, Charlie – for allowing me to use the lovely and smart Charlie as the model for my character Jade Harcourt. She and her parents were massively generous in their help and advice and I could never have conjured such a personality out of thin air.
In addition I’d like to thank others who helped so much with my research, including Gary, Rachel and (superstar!) Bailey Kenchington, Jim Banting, Richard Edmondson (Senior Partner, Woolley Bevis Diplock solicitors), Michael Maguire, Robin and Debbie Sheppard, Jason Tingley, and the Reverend Dominic Walker.