The Shadows Call Read online

  ‘Frightened of what? You haven’t been hurt; I’m the only one with the bump on his head.’

  ‘About you! God, what a thicko you are at times! I’m worried that you’re going to get hurt. Jesus, I told you it was a bad idea moving into this house.’ Sarah pulled off the headphones and stood. She bent at the waist, standing over me, her face a picture. ‘You should move out before things go too far.’

  ‘I’ve paid the full lease,’ I reminded her.

  ‘But that was before you knew the place was haunted. Under the circumstances you could demand your money back; Muir should have warned you.’

  ‘About what exactly? I only tripped.’

  ‘So you say, but there’s more to it. Tell me the truth, Jack.’

  I reached for her, putting my hands on her hips. I gently tugged, but she resisted, pulling back and away.

  ‘I am telling the truth,’ I said as she fidgeted from foot to foot. She drew a stray lock of hair between her fingers and twiddled it.

  ‘No you’re not. I’m not comfortable with lies. Maybe you are.’ She wasn’t referring to the fact I’d blatantly lied to our boss to get a day off work. ‘But if we’re going to be friends I need you to stop lying to me.’

  How quickly the tide had changed. She had gone from concerned, to frightened, to angry all in the space of a few minutes. All of those emotions aimed at me.

  ‘I haven’t lied to you,’ I tried.

  ‘Just been selective with the truth,’ she finished. ‘Jack, if you want help you need to tell me everything that has been going on.’

  ‘I have told you.’

  Sarah shook her head, and now she looked desultory. She began looking for her bag and jacket, huffing and puffing in exasperation.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I said.

  ‘I have to. I told you I’m going out.’

  ‘Stay with me. Let’s talk this through.’

  Sarah snorted.

  ‘Don’t leave while you’re still mad at me,’ I said. ‘It makes coming back difficult.’

  ‘I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at your reticence to talk.’

  I sat there, numb. Finally I managed to say, ‘I am speaking to you.’

  ‘I’m talking about you being frank with me. Telling me the truth. Not sharing only what you think I need to hear and keeping the rest a secret. We can’t base a relationship on lies, Jack.’

  I’d no comprehension of having stood, or following her towards the front door, but we were in the entrance vestibule when I put an arm around her. She felt small, fragile, my arm encircling her waist like that. I held her from opening the door. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I have to.’ Her eyes were hard.

  ‘I…I will tell you everything if you stay.’

  ‘I can’t stay. I’m going out. I already told you.’ Now a film of moisture made her eyes gleam.

  A fist clenched around my gut and gave it a squeeze. Going out with Daniel was more important than talking about our relationship, was it? No, I understood that wasn’t what she meant. She needed to leave now before we both said something we’d later regret.

  ‘Will you come back tomorrow?’ I asked softly.

  ‘Don’t you have the kids over?’

  ‘Only during the day. I’ll be taking them home tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Maybe I should leave it til Sunday,’ she said, and it was enough to put off the nagging doubt she’d ever return.

  ‘Yeah, Sunday’s good. I’m getting the kids again, but they’ll be home with Catriona by tea time.’

  Sarah pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘OK. So you’re adamant you’re not leaving this house, then? If that’s the case we need to do something. Do you remember we talked about bringing in some people with more experience about the paranormal?’

  ‘Your Facebook mates,’ I said, trying not to sound derisory.

  ‘I spoke with them earlier, and they’re free Sunday evening.’

  My pause was palpable.

  ‘I was thinking that we could maybe get a bottle of wine and a Chinese take away,’ I began, but I could see Sarah wasn’t giving me a choice. It was Sarah and her Facebook buddies or nothing. ‘But I suppose we can do that another night.’

  She nodded, lips pulled tight.

  ‘How many of these friends are we talking about?’ I had visions of a mob invasion: weirdoes with dousing rods and crystal pendants.

  ‘There are three of them available, but it should be enough.’

  Only three. That was something, at least. I nodded, sealing the deal.

  ‘Sunday evening, then?’ I prompted as Sarah opened the door.

  Acquiescing to her plan seemed to have thawed her. She leaned in and kissed me. Not as passionately as she had last night, but I was just as glad to receive it.

  ‘Sunday evening,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll come over a little earlier than the team. You can tell me everything that’s been happening before the others get here.’

  Taking her fingers in mine, I held on. She stared at me, waiting. In the end I promised. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’

  She bobbed her head around my shoulder. ‘Just checking you haven’t got your other fingers crossed behind you,’ she said, and offered a smile. I laughed without much humour, and felt her fingers slip from mine. She went out the door without looking back. I didn’t watch her along the street, just shut the door.

  That evening I was consumed by bitterness.

  Not about the electronic voice recording, or my crazy mantra as I scraped the same words into the bedroom wall. I was thinking about Sarah and how much she was enjoying her night out, away from me. With Daniel.

  By the time I fell asleep, fully clothed, on the settee in the parlour I’d grown to hate my smug boss with a passion. I dreamed about Sarah again, and it was erotic. The only problem was that it wasn’t me I watched her screw, but my limp-wristed boss. In the dream it was as if I was on the other side of a stained glass window, spying on them through chinks in the crimson glass. I screamed and beat at the glass with my balled fists, but except for a disdainful turn of Sarah’s head, I received no response. Not even when I smashed bodily through the glass and pulled Sarah away from him. Daniel just lay there, nonplussed, while I wrapped my fingers round her throat and throttled the life out of an equally unresponsive Sarah. All the while I screamed in her face: ‘Why, Sarah? Why? I want you. I WANT YOU!’

  I think I was shouting the same thing when kicking my way off the settee, sweat lashing down my face, my hands held in a rigor mortis-tight grip.

  23

  Bloody Old Dive

  ‘Why can’t we see your new house, Dad?’

  It was a fair question my daughter Gemma asked. I didn’t have an honest answer.

  ‘I thought you liked Mickey D’s,’ I said.

  We were sitting at a table in our local McDonalds, Jake and I on one side, Gemma opposite. Piled between us were three trays overflowing with stuff off the food outlet’s saver menu: French fries, assorted condiments and sauces in sachets, burgers wrapped in greaseproof paper. I’d got a cup of coffee, the kids had elected for Diet Coke and Fanta orange. The children had also asked for a round of sweets – a Smarties McFlurry apiece – but I’d told them they must eat their dinners first. The restaurant was busy, families sitting at the tables, those without time to waste standing in the queue in an effort to grab and run. It was noisy and smelly. I hated the place, but knew the kids loved their weekly visit. Catriona didn’t allow them to indulge in fast food, but screw her.

  ‘I do,’ Gemma said with a self-satisfied nod to a nearby kid who was chomping down on a ketchup-dripping bun. ‘But we could take it back to yours.’

  ‘You’ll get to visit soon,’ I promised.

  ‘How soon?’ Jake was my mini-me. He even had the same type of cowlick in his hair I’d struggled to control most of my life. ‘As soon as we finish eating?’

  ‘Not as soon as that, Son. Maybe next weekend.’

  ‘Awk!’ Jake said. That was a word I’d only ever
read before in comic books. It made me chuckle. Jake gave me a searing look of reproof. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said.

  ‘I’m still decorating your room.’

  ‘We don’t mind. Mum said your house is a dump, but I don’t care.’ Gemma reached for her cheeseburger but picked up my mayo chicken. I swapped them out.

  ‘Your mum say that did she?’

  ‘Yeah. She said it’s a right old dive.’

  ‘What’s a dive, Dad?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Something you do in a swimming pool,’ I retorted and received another reproving glance, this time from both my kids. ‘Your mum’s right in one respect: It still needs some tidying up before you can stay over.’

  ‘We could help you clean up.’ Gemma’s offer was delivered without conviction.

  ‘Like you’re always keen about cleaning your bedroom?’ I looked at her.

  Gemma shrugged, and transferred her energy to unwrapping her cheeseburger.

  Jake burst a sachet of salt over the table. He picked up some grains and tossed it over his shoulder; superstitious in a way I never was.

  ‘Mum said you don’t want us to stay with you.’ Gemma managed to mouth the accusation without releasing her bite on her burger.

  ‘I do. Your mum must have mistaken what I meant. I just said I couldn’t take you this weekend.’

  ‘Mum says you’re more interested in your new lady friend than us.’

  Typical of Catriona, being spiteful like that, but I wasn’t going to say anything bad about her to the kids. ‘Like I said, your mum misheard me. I told her you could come and stay but after I’ve got the house ready.’ I paused. News sure did travel fast these days. Maybe Sarah had mentioned our intimacy to some of her friends at work, after all, and it had got back to Catriona. That was the way of small towns, even without the assistance of social media networks. ‘What “lady friend” are you talking about?’

  ‘Your new floozy.’ Jake quoted Catriona without shame.

  I shook my head. It was time to change the subject. ‘OK. After we finish here, what next? Cinema or bowling?’

  ‘Bowling,’ said Gemma.

  ‘Cinema,’ said Jake.

  ‘We can’t do both,’ I said. ‘Not today. I’ll tell you what; we’ll go bowling today, the cinema tomorrow. How does that sound?’

  ‘Awk!’ said Jake, but Gemma grinned showing a mouthful of cheesy teeth.

  ‘You can choose which film we see,’ I offered as a conciliatory gesture to my son.

  Jake fist-pumped the air. ‘Yes!’

  With the children sufficiently appeased, we continued our meal then headed off to the bowling alley. We had a fun time. Then we spent some time at the public park in the shadow of Carlisle’s Norman era castle, taking a walk along the paths where the River’s Eden and Caldew converged. Not too long ago, those rivers that once served as protection against raiders from the north had proved the undoing of this part of the city. They’d flooded, bursting their banks and sending a large part of the city under water. There was no sign of the devastation now, but new flood defences had been erected, embankments where previously there had been none, and they felt unfamiliar to me who’d regularly played there as a kid. We returned to the car, and I followed the dual carriageway to the central hub of the city’s roads. Called Hardwicke Circus, the huge roundabout was built on the ground where the northern exit to the city once stood. The huge and ugly edifice of the Civic Centre – thankfully Carlisle’s only tower block – dominated the skyline to one side, and on the other was the Sands Centre – Carlisle’s main leisure complex. We headed north over the bridge spanning the Eden on the unimaginatively named Scotland Road.

  I dropped the kids at the front door of my old home. Catriona didn’t come to meet them. She stood glaring out the living room window at me. Her arms were crossed beneath her breasts. Her mouth was pinched around a half-done cigarette. She was probably pissed that she didn’t get enough time to finish it before the kids returned. I gave her a wave, mouthing, “I’ll pick them up at ten in the morning.” Catriona only plucked out her cigarette stump and turned away. ‘Enjoy your night in front of the telly,’ I said aloud.

  I didn’t enjoy mine.

  In fact, I didn’t stay in. I had no desire to see or hear anything unusual; because there was enough I’d to relate to Sarah the following evening, and to come up with feasible half-truths about, without gathering more. I walked to a nearby pub, ordered myself a pint and sat quietly in a corner where I wouldn’t be bothered. It was the first beer I’d had in a long time, and I wondered why the hell I’d denied myself the pleasure. I had a few more pints. When I arrived home near midnight, slightly worse for wear, I made sure that I looked straight ahead as I went upstairs and then flopped in my bed. I slept. This time without nightmares.

  In the morning I went out for a walk, spending some time wandering around the grounds of the cathedral, the reason why Carlisle was named the Border City and not known as the glorified town it really was. Returning for the car I went north over the Eden Bridge and picked up Gemma and Jake. Catriona gave instructions to have them back by three. The movie we watched – the latest Pixar cartoon – didn’t finish until three twenty, but again I decided, screw her. I got them home by four o’clock and my estranged wife was almost volcanic. Mark Wilson’s car was parked on the drive.

  ‘Say hello to your floozy for me,’ I said.

  If Catriona had been holding something heavy or sharp she would have thrown it at me as I retreated up the path. I got in my Volvo and sped off before she could fetch something applicable.

  I headed home to wait for Sarah.

  My day out with Gemma and Jake had proved enjoyable, all but for those last few minutes while dropping them at home. It might sound as if I took some selfish glee in upsetting Catriona, but really I was hurt. I could never throw a decent punch, but I was all right with pointed barbs. It’s never good for a man’s ego when he knows that the man now sleeping with his wife is sitting comfortably in his house, and he has to return to some rented dwelling in much need of repair. I paid for that fucking house he was in, that fucking furniture he’d settled his arse on, that fucking drive Mark had parked his car in, and I was the one forced to drive away. I didn’t wrong my wife; it was Catriona who’d cheated on me. Where was the justice in any of it? She was sitting pretty. I was sitting in – as she’d aptly called it in front of my son - a bloody old dive.

  I turned on the TV.

  Nothing playing on it caught my attention.

  I was too angry.

  I turned it off.

  Sarah hadn’t set a time for her visit. She’d only said she would arrive before her Facebook pals, but with no idea when to expect them I couldn’t approximate her arrival time either. I thought about ringing her. But didn’t. I didn’t want to sound needy. Not after our uncomfortable moment on Friday. Maybe if I pushed her for a time it would give her an excuse to pass. No, she wouldn’t do that. Despite being a bit miffed with me and with my lies, she had also been excited about bringing round her friends to do a full paranormal investigation. She’d subdued her excitement, but I didn’t require any outward signs to tell she was practically jumping up and down at the opportunity. I could see it behind her eyes when she made that joke about me crossing my fingers behind my back. She was anxious to get back in the house, but if I sounded like I was being too controlling she might hold off until her friends arrived. I wanted some time in private with her before those weirdoes joined us.

  To kill some time, I went and dragged out some spackling paste and mixed up a batch in a bucket. Equipped with a small trowel I headed up to the top floor.

  In the children’s bedroom I stood before the vandalised wall, reading the repeated phrase. For a second I considered putting off the job, maybe it would be helpful to show Sarah’s friends the writing on the wall, but decided no. There was nothing paranormal, supernatural or even mildly unusual about the words. Not anything I was about to admit to them any way. In fact, I made up my mind
that, despite my promise to Sarah, there were still some things I wasn’t going to come clean about. I began filling in the scrapes and gouges, smoothing extra Polyfilla on the walls around them so that they could no longer be read.

  The oldest letters were easily covered, but those words I’d scored into the plaster after my fall were deep. I’d also added to the problem when later attacking them and prizing off chunks of plaster. Before I was done I ran out of spackling paste. The words weren’t decipherable, but I knew what they’d said. Looking at them, I felt a trickle of unease run through me. Remembering whom I’d said those words to ten years earlier.

  ‘I want you,’ I said softly.

  The air chilled around me. I thought I’d be able to see my breath if I exhaled, but it was caught in my throat. I backed away. Dropped the trowel into the damp bucket and fled the room.

  I was almost to the ground floor when the front door knocker resounded through the house.

  24

  Nuisance Neighbours

  ‘How you doin’, Mr Newman?’

  Expecting Beauty, I got the Beast. OK. Maybe that’s a little unfair. Peter Muir, my landlord, wasn’t exactly a beast, but neither was he a vision easy on the eye. What little hair remained on his head looked greasy, his skin dull, and he hadn’t stood too close to his razor that morning. His white moustache looked bushier than I remembered. His clothing was rumpled and there was a gravy spot on his shirt collar. He looked as if he’d aborted his late Sunday lunch to come visit. I noted wariness to his question, not the pleasantry he intended it to sound.

  ‘I’m, uh, good,’ I replied. Notwithstanding the uneasy shiver that still played down my spine, of course. ‘Is there some kind of problem?’

  Muir glanced once towards the insurance brokers’ office next door. He rubbed his nose with the palm of one hand, sniffed snot back. ‘You mind if I come in?’

  He was my landlord; I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.