The Shadows Call Read online

  ‘Sure. Come in.’ I held open the door for him. As he moved past me I got a whiff of body odour and cigarettes off his clothing. Behind his back I puffed out my cheeks. He hadn’t prepared for this visit; it was obviously off the cuff. I leaned outside, checking that Sarah wasn’t approaching. Thankfully she wasn’t and I closed the door. Muir had naturally headed for the living room, but had paused at the wedged open parlour door. It didn’t take a great detective to deduce that it was my main living space.

  ‘You want a cuppa or something?’ I kind of figured that having come inside he wasn’t planning on leaving immediately.

  ‘Nah, I’m awright, Mr Newman.’

  ‘Just Jack,’ I said. ‘When you call me Mr Newman it sounds as if I’m in some kind of trouble.’

  My comment was loaded. What other reason was there for Muir to abandon his Sunday afternoon on the sofa to come and perform a visit? When signing the lease, Muir had told me he reserved the right to do spot check visits, but had also been relaxed about it. He said that if he ever intended coming over he’d give me ample notice. I hadn’t checked my mobile phone for an hour or two but was certain he hadn’t called or left a message. Even engaged in spackling the bedroom wall I’d have still heard the phone in my pocket.

  Muir rubbed his face again. Almost knocked off his spectacles, which he had to settle on his nose as he took a brief glance around the parlour. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble,’ he intoned. ‘But there is…well, somethin’ I have to mention.’

  I indicated the settee, but he pointedly ignored my invite to sit. I stood too, my thumbs tucked into my waistband. There was dried spackling paste on my knuckles. Muir smoothed down the edges of his moustache, obviously ordering the words in his mind. He took another look around as if checking for evidence of something.

  I waited.

  Finally, Muir took off his glasses and cleaned them on the front of his shirt. He put them back on and blinked at me through the thick lenses. There was a little rainbow coming off the right corner, grease working as a prism. ‘You’ve been here, what, two weeks already?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I moved in a fortnight ago yesterday.’

  He nodded as if confirmation added weight to whatever he wanted to impart.

  ‘Like I said: is there a problem?’ I gave him my wide-eyed innocent look.

  ‘I’ve had a few complaints.’

  ‘Complaints?’

  ‘Uh-hu. About noise.’

  ‘I’ve been moving in, doing some decorating…’

  Muir waved a dismissive hand. ‘No. It’s not that. I told them in the office next door to expect a little noise while you got settled.’

  ‘So what’s up?’

  ‘The other stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’ve been doing most of the decorating during the weekend or on an evening, after the office is closed. I’m out at work most of the time they’re there.’

  ‘Have you had your lady friend around?’

  I wasn’t aware of anything in the lease agreement that forbade visitors. It was odd that he’d used the same words to describe Sarah as Gemma had yesterday. Stranger again that he’d said it with the same undercurrent of reproof. ‘Sarah’s been round a couple times. Why?’

  Muir looked at the floor, as if he’d find the right words etched in the grain of the skirting boards.

  ‘There have been a few complaints about her.’

  ‘Hold on! What are you talking about? I can’t even think of a time when she’s been here when the office was open.’ I could feel my cheeks growing hard. My thumbs slipped free of my waistband and I was conscious of making fists. I struggled to uncurl my fingers. ‘What exactly are they saying about her?’

  ‘The screaming, man,’ Muir said, and this time he was more pointed. He straightened his back. He was bigger, heavier than me. He was the one in charge.

  Shoving my hands in my jeans pockets, I turned partly away from him, looking in the general direction of the neighbouring building. ‘Whatever they complained about they’re talking bollocks. Screaming? There’s been no screaming.’

  ‘I’ve had two telephone calls from them. Once last week, again on Thursday.’ He looked up at the ceiling, but I knew he was picturing what might have been going on in one of the bedrooms overhead.

  ‘I can assure you there’s been no screaming,’ I said. ‘Not from Sarah, not from anyone that I know of.’

  ‘I’m only saying what I’ve been told. The first time, the manager said it was bad, but I kind of appeased him, telling him you’d just moved in. Probably christening the place.’ He offered a leer to get his meaning over. I didn’t reply. ‘On Thursday when he called he was angry. He said the screaming had been going on for hours.’

  ‘Thursday? I wasn’t even in on Thursday. I was at work, and so was Sarah.’ I didn’t think it pertinent to mention the car crash I was involved in during Thursday lunchtime, or that I’d gone back to work after. ‘Sarah didn’t come over until the evening and the office was already shut by then.’

  ‘This was just after mid-day,’ Muir said.

  I jiggled my hands out and showed him my palms. ‘We weren’t here then.’

  ‘I know. I came round.’

  ‘You did? Why didn’t you let me know?’

  ‘I was passing, so I called by. When I got no answer, I, uh, let myself in.’ His eyelids flicked down at that last admission. He was about to launch into how he reserved the right to enter the property at any time, but I cut him off.

  ‘So you know that Sarah wasn’t here. Neither was I. So it couldn’t have been either of us causing the racket.’

  He nodded. ‘I thought I might’ve just missed you.’

  ‘We were at work,’ I said again, this time coolly.

  I thought about something. ‘Remember when I thought someone was down in the cellar? Maybe someone got in again…’

  ‘I thought about that, but nobody could have got in. I checked the hatch outside. You did a good job of securing it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. But that only made the alternative sound more plausible, that Sarah and I had been home and causing a lot of noise. Screaming. ‘It wasn’t us,’ I reiterated.

  He shrugged, brushing off the issue. ‘Maybe someone was out in the lane at the back. They mistook the noise for coming from the house.’

  ‘That’s probably it,’ I said. ‘Sure as hell wasn’t us.’

  Muir scuffed his feet on the new carpet. ‘I’ll let them know.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you did,’ I said. ‘I don’t want any trouble, especially with my neighbours. I…I like living here.’

  Muir waved down any concern. ‘There’s nowt to worry about, man. I just wanted to clear things up. Give you a friendly head’s up.’

  ‘Except it wasn’t us.’

  Muir paced to the front window and looked out over the street. The traffic flow had died down this late on a Sunday afternoon. He turned and looked at me, gave a brief nod to himself. ‘We’ll leave it at that then.’

  I was about to agree, show him to the door, but something was troubling me. ‘When you came in the house on Thursday, how far into the house did you get?’

  Muir frowned, made it look as if he was racking his brains. ‘I got as far as the first landing. I just called out from there.’

  ‘You didn’t go all the way up to the top?’

  ‘There was no need. I already knew the house was empty. I could, uh, feel it.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘Why do you ask? I wasn’t poking around your belongings if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  Now it was my turn to wave down any concern. To be honest I wondered if he’d been in the kids’ room and was the one responsible for rubbing at the edges of the faint lettering making them more visible to Sarah and I during our EVP session on Thursday night. If he had been there, he might have brought up the subject of the lettering, blaming me for it. ‘No. It’s nothing. I was just wondering if there had been someone else in the house and if
you checked the full place. Nobody else has keys, have they?’

  ‘Just you and me, Jack.’

  ‘What about previous tenants?’

  ‘There haven’t been any for years. And any way, after that small business moved out, I had the locks changed.’ He stood eyeing me a moment. ‘Has there been something else goin’ on?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I dunno. It sounded like you wanted to ask me something.’

  ‘Why haven’t there been any other tenants? You just let the place sit empty for years?’

  He allowed a self-deprecating laugh, but his expression was guarded. ‘You’re not worried the place is haunted or anything?’

  I also gave a laugh. ‘I don’t believe in all that tripe. But there has to be some reason the place has stayed empty?’

  ‘Personal choice and private business,’ Muir said, tapping a finger alongside his nose. Then he shrugged. ‘I didn’t buy this building. It was left to me in a will: my grandfather’s. But I didn’t have sole ownership. My sister also had a part share. I wanted to sell, she didn’t. So we came to an arrangement where we’d lease it out. We did for a while, but when that business moved out we started squabbling again. My sister wanted to keep the place as a family home, I didn’t. So it just sat empty all those years til she died.’

  ‘She died recently?’

  ‘Year or two ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. We didn’t get on. She was an old cow, if I’d to be honest. She didn’t have any family, and I was her sole heir. I got the building back. It was mine to do with as I pleased, but I was in no rush. First time I put it up for lease I had a bunch of job seekers around. A young couple came close to renting it, but backed out at the last minute. They signed the agreement and everything, but after staying for one night they left. Didn’t say why, but I got this impression the wife didn’t like the place that much. You know what she said?’ He waited for me to ask, and when I didn’t, he went on, ‘She said it creeped her out. Said there was something wrong with the place. I guess she did believe in ghosts, eh?’ he chuckled at the absurdity of it. ‘Me, I just think she was jumping at her own shadow.’

  ‘Shadow?’ I said, trying not to show my discomfort.

  ‘It’s an old house; the light comes in at funny angles. That’s all.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I grinned, though I suspect I might have looked a little manic.

  ‘You were the first person I showed the house to after they did a bunk. To be honest, I thought your lady friend was gonna put you off movin’ in. I got the impression she didn’t like the place either. Must be summat to do with lasses, that “women’s instinct” thing they go on about, eh?’ He made it sound as if he was joking, but I’d gained the impression that he knew more than he was letting on.

  ‘The house has grown on her,’ I lied.

  We were going round in a circle. Had he really come around to warn me about the noise, or was he searching for answers to another mystery? Was he trying to determine if I’d heard anything strange, and did it threaten the promised rental payment going into his account at the end of each month?

  ‘Like I said: we’ll leave things at that, eh?’

  ‘Fine by me.’ Sneaking a look at my watch, I wanted Muir out of the house. ‘When you speak to the manager from next door, tell him there’ll be no more noise. Not coming from us, any way. But if he’s got any problem in future he should just come and knock on the door. He can find out for himself that I’m a good neighbour.’

  In hindsight my words did sound like a less than subtle warning, and from the rapid blinking of Muir’s eyelids he thought that the manager might not be the only one who’d be an unwelcome visitor at my door should the issue be raised again. He cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles, then gave me a nod. ‘I’ll be off then. Oh, before I do.’ He gave a satisfactory tilt of his head at the room. ‘You’ve got the place looking nice already.’

  I’d thrown around a bit of paint, got a few new carpets and some second hand furniture. But it was his way of making peace. I said, ‘Thanks.’

  I walked him to the door.

  Once out on the street he looked back at me, before his gaze slid to the adjoining building. ‘He’s a miserable twat, the manager. He should think himself lucky I didn’t rent to a bunch of dole boys instead of a decent bloke like you. He’d know what “nuisance neighbours” meant then.’ Muir winked conspiratorially then walked off. His tiny Nissan Micra was parked under a tree about thirty yards away. It was dotted by bird shit. I could hear the starlings in the tree as they came in to roost. Evening was on its way, and so should Sarah be. I checked she wasn’t walking towards me from the other direction, but she wasn’t. I was thankful. I’d rather Muir left before she arrived and gave him reason to wonder if I’d been lying to him about how often she visited. As he drove by, Muir honked his horn and waved as if we were old pals.

  Smiling, waving at him, I said under my breath, ‘Fuck off.’ And I meant it literally.

  Not so much at his coming round to tell me off, or perhaps to dig for information on something else, but that he’d placed another burden on my shoulders. I didn’t doubt that the manager of the insurance office had heard screaming, and that it had come from my house. I’d heard plenty of strange things myself since moving in; saw things that were very odd indeed. I thought of the shadow man chasing the female figure through the basement and up the stairs. Sarah’s description of a residual haunt took on more meaning: perhaps the ghostly figures played out that scenario time and time again. Sometimes they would appear as insignificant shadow beings, silent and insubstantial, but maybe on other occasions they were full-blown apparitions given voice. It was something else I was going to have to tell Sarah about, alongside everything else I’d only offered half-truths on to date.

  25

  Vengeful Spirit

  To get into her good books and help smooth over our little moment of unease the other night, I elected to tell Sarah about Peter Muir’s visit the minute she arrived. I even told her the manner of the complaint, that the office workers thought that it might have been her screaming.

  ‘Unless they worked very late on Thursday night, I doubt they’d have heard more than a yelp out of me.’ She’d winked coyly, and I was pleased to find from her remark that I was forgiven. ‘Maybe we should pop back one lunchtime and give them something to really talk about.’

  ‘I’m up for that,’ I said eagerly.

  ‘Ha! Steady on there, stud. I’m only joking.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘I know.’

  She pecked me on the cheek. Then slapped me on the butt, and headed for the parlour. We sat on the settee.

  I told her about the previous tenants doing a runner after only staying one night, and how Muir had alluded to the woman jumping at shadows.

  ‘You think he was quizzing you? To see if you’d had any similar experiences?’

  ‘That’s the impression I got.’

  ‘He knows more than he’s letting on,’ Sarah concluded.

  ‘He gave me some lame excuse why the house hasn’t been let for years. I think there’s more to it. I think he knows the place is haunted and that’s why he couldn’t get a tenant to move in.’

  ‘The way things are these days a haunting might be a real selling point. He’s missing out on a huge marketing opportunity. Any way, get you! I notice you aren’t embarrassed admitting that the house is haunted now.’

  ‘How can I be? Not that I’m fully convinced we’re talking about ghosts – uh, spirits, I mean – but there’s definitely something weird going on.’

  ‘Hopefully tonight we’ll find out exactly what. My friends should be here-’ she grabbed my wrist and tilted my watch towards her ‘-in about an hour.’

  My eyebrows raised an inch or two.

  ‘You’re still uncomfortable about them coming over?’

  ‘No. Not really. Just, well, it would’ve been nice to have the time to ourselves.’
/>   ‘We’ll get time afterwards,’ she promised. ‘But don’t you want to know the truth about what’s going on here? Oh, wait! Is it because you’re afraid they’ll find concrete proof and then you’ll have to believe in ghosts?’

  ‘I’m already coming around,’ I pointed out.

  ‘You’re still in denial. You told me about seeing Naomi when you crashed your car, and how you’ve seen and heard her in the house. Yet you still won’t accept the possibility of life after death.’

  ‘After hearing that voice on the recorder it has made me think.’

  ‘The other day you made excuses, said you couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘I’m allowed to change my mind.’

  ‘No. That’s a right reserved for women.’ She nudged me with an elbow and I laughed on cue. She grew serious. ‘There’s a lot more you haven’t told me, Jack. I’d’ve thought I could be trusted by now.’

  ‘I haven’t held anything back. What haven’t I told you?’ I began to list the phenomena, beginning with the shadows, the sticky door, the laughter, the matrixing of faces from the reflection on the landing wall, even my nightmare. ‘You were there when the bumping in the wardrobe happened, and when your iPhone got teleported to the bathroom. And I told you what happened after my fall.’

  ‘I still don’t buy your story about how you fell.’

  I hung my head. ‘OK. I didn’t tell the entire truth and I’m sorry. I was trying to make out Naomi’s face in the pattern, but I was closer than I admitted to. I just didn’t tell you because you were concerned enough about the bang I took to the head, if I’d told you the full truth then you’d have definitely thought I was off my rocker and dragged me to hospital.’

  ‘So tell me now.’ She moved a little closer on the settee, her thigh touching mine. She rested a hand on my knee and I folded my fingers over it.

  ‘I touched her face.’

  ‘That was all?’

  ‘No. She tried to bite my fingers off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t laugh. See, that’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d bloody laugh at me.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’ She was. She was sniggering.