House of Bones Read online

  “Well, all right,” said John, uncertainly, looking up and down the street. There was nobody in sight except for an old woman toiling up the incline with a tartan shopping trolley.

  Liam went back to the car and returned with a black leather case. “Lock-picks,” he explained. “I took a locksmith’s course, once upon a time. I was going to follow my dad into the hardware business. I did some work for a couple of estate agents and then I realized that they were making ten times more money than I was.”

  He fiddled around with the door for a while, and then abruptly opened it. He pushed back all the papers and letters that were stacked up behind it and stepped inside. “Smells damp. It could do with an airing.”

  John waited on the doorstep. He didn’t like the house at all. It smelled not only of damp, but of decay: of dry rot and dust and something else, too – something deeply unpleasant, like blocked drains, or rotting seaweed, all tangled up with dead dogfish.

  “I don’t know, Liam,” he said, cautiously.

  “Come on, will you?” Liam encouraged him. “It was your idea, after all. And I agree with you. Ever since I first worked for Mr Vane I thought that he was up to something queer. Now we can find out what it is.”

  John hesitated a moment longer, and then he stepped inside. The house was in a desperate state of repair. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls like dead skin, and there were spots and smudges of mould on the ceiling. The house was unfurnished and uncarpeted, and as they walked along the narrow corridor to the kitchen at the back, their footsteps echoed flatly in every room.

  The kitchen overlooked a small, dark yard, overgrown with weeds. Liam opened the larder but there was nothing in it except an ancient packet of Scott’s Porridge Oats and a spattering of rat droppings. John turned the tap over the stainless steel sink but there was no water.

  “So what are we looking for?” said Liam, as they went back through to the sitting-room. There were dusty rectangular marks on the walls where pictures had once hung. “Mr Vane is up to something or other with all of these properties, but what?”

  “I don’t know,” said John. “But 66 Mountjoy Avenue felt like this, too. You know – it had the same kind of horrible atmosphere.”

  “Most empty houses have a horrible atmosphere,” Liam told him. “It isn’t houses that make homes, it’s the people who live in them. Houses, on their own, are nothing at all. They’re dead.”

  They looked around the tiny dining-room. A single fork lay on the floor, as if somebody had dropped it years and years ago and never bothered to pick it up.

  They climbed the steep, uncarpeted stairs. “You’d never guess it, but this is a good sound property,” said Liam. “Some attention to the roof, and a lick of paint, and you could get a good price for this.”

  “I wouldn’t buy it if you paid me,” said John. He was beginning to wish that he had never come.

  They looked into the bathroom and all the bedrooms. Empty, their bare walls patterned with fingerprints and screw-holes and Sellotape marks. In one of the smallest rooms, a cut-out picture of a teddy bear still remained, stuck to the side of the fireplace.

  “Well,” said Liam. “That’s it. Nothing here at all, as far as I can see.”

  They were about to go back downstairs when John thought he heard a footstep in one of the bedrooms.

  “Stop,” he said. “Did you hear that?”

  “Did I hear what?” asked Liam.

  They waited and listened, and then they heard another footstep, and another. There was no doubt about it. Somebody was walking across the bare boarded floor.

  “John, you wait here,” Liam cautioned him. He tiptoed across the landing and gently nudged open the bedroom door. From where he was standing, John couldn’t see anything, only the bedroom window, and a dark horse-chestnut tree outside. Liam went into the room and the door swung back.

  John waited for almost a minute. Then he called, “Liam? What’s going on?”

  There was no answer. “Liam?” John repeated. “Come on, Liam, stop messing about. Let’s go.”

  Still no answer. John went over to the bedroom door and opened it a little way. “Liam?”

  He looked around the door and what he saw he couldn’t immediately understand. He felt as if his entire skin surface was prickling and his stomach was tightening up into a tennis ball.

  “Liam?”

  Liam was kneeling on the other side of the room. Except that it wasn’t all of Liam. Half of his head had disappeared into the wall, so that all John could see of it was his right eye and his right nostril and the right side of his mouth, dragged wide open in agony. His left arm had disappeared and most of his chest, too. His left knee had gone, but his left foot was still free, even though it was trembling uncontrollably, like the hoof of a recently-shot stag.

  John stood and stared at him in horror. Then he hurried over and crouched down beside him and shouted, “Liam! What’s happening to you? What can I do?”

  Liam grasped frantically for John’s hand. He was tense, tight, shivering. “Help me,” he croaked. “Help me, John, for the love of God. It’s pulling me in.” John grabbed hold of his arm, but Liam was being sucked into the flowery-patterned wallpaper as smoothly and steadily as if he were being sucked into quicksand. John pulled at him, lodging his feet against the skirting board to give himself as much leverage as he could, and for a moment he thought that he had managed to stop Liam from going into the wallpaper any further.

  “Get me out, John,” Liam begged him. “You have to get me out of here.”

  But then his head was pulled even deeper into the wall, and his mouth disappeared with a last choking cough. The last that John saw of his face was his single right eye, as green as glass, staring at him in absolute terror. Then that too was gone.

  “Liam!” he screamed at him. “Liam”!

  He wrenched at Liam’s polo shirt, but all he succeeded in doing was tearing the collar. He wrenched again and again, but Liam’s chest disappeared, and then his shoulder, and then his legs. At the very last, John was pulling at nothing but his arm, but that was sucked in, too, right up to the wrist. For a few seconds his hand reached out of the wall, his fingers splayed wide as if he were still pleading to be rescued. Then even that was gone, and the wall was bare.

  John stood up, so shocked and shaky that he had to lean against the wall to regain his balance. But he felt something stir beneath his hand – something that seemed to crawl right underneath the wallpaper.

  He rushed down the stairs so quickly that he lost his footing and had to snatch at the handrail to stop himself from falling. He ran into the street and stopped, circling wildly around and around, panting in terror. What was he going to do? What was he going to do? There was nobody in sight, as if all the residents of Madeira Terrace knew what was happening, and stayed well away.

  He ran a little way up the hill but then he stopped and went down again. He stood by the gate but he was too frightened to go back into the house. What was he going to do? Call the police? But who was going to believe that Liam had vanished into the wall? The police would probably think that he had murdered Liam and buried his body somewhere.

  He couldn’t think of anybody else he could call. They shouldn’t have been trespassing in the house in the first place, so he couldn’t expect any help from Mr Cleat. The only thing he could do was get away from Brighton as quickly as possible and go back home.

  He could have driven Liam’s car, but Liam had the keys, wherever he was, and John didn’t know how to hot-wire it. He kept pacing up and down outside the house, fretful and undecided. There was one thing he knew: he didn’t want to go back in. Whatever had taken Liam could just as easily take him too.

  John began to walk uphill, in the direction of Brighton station. When he reached the top of Madeira Terrace, he began to run, and he didn’t stop running until the station concourse came into sight.

  9

  He called Lucy and said, “Liam’s gone.”

  “What do yo
u mean, ‘Liam’s gone’?”

  “Something terrible’s happened. I have to see you right away.”

  “I can’t. I’m supposed to be going out with my boyfriend at eight.”

  “Lucy, I have to see you! I just have to see you!”

  “Come on, John. This isn’t a weekday at work, when I’ve got nothing better to do. This is Saturday night.”

  “Lucy, don’t you understand me? Liam’s dead. At least I think he’s dead.”

  “What? What do you mean, dead? You’re joking.”

  “We went into the house in Brighton and he was sucked right into the wall.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, John. You had me worried there for a moment. Now listen, I’m in a hurry. Paul’s coming round in a minute and we’re going to Volts.”

  “Lucy, listen. It’s the truth. Liam was sucked right into the wall and now he’s dead.”

  There was a very long silence. In the background, John could hear pop music playing. Eventually Lucy said, “This isn’t a wind-up, is it? I know what Liam’s like.”

  “It’s true,” he told her. There were tears in his eyes and he could barely speak. “I don’t know how it happened but it’s true.”

  “You’d better come round then, as quick as you can. Where are you?”

  “Streatham Common station.”

  “In that case, I’ll come and get you.”

  When Lucy arrived outside the station she was all dressed up in a short purple dress and dangly hoop earrings. She smelled strongly of some musky perfume. “I’m sorry,” said John, as he climbed into the car. “I couldn’t think of anybody else to call.”

  She looked at him seriously. He was very pale and puffy-eyed. “You’re sure Liam’s dead?”

  “He must be. It happened right in front of my eyes. The same thing must have happened to Mr Rogers. The same thing must have happened to all of those people at Laverdale Square. Mr Vane’s houses can suck people in.”

  They had stopped at the top of Greyhound Lane. Lucy turned to John and her face was bathed in red light from the stop signal. “This isn’t a joke, is it?” she asked him. “This isn’t you and Liam pulling my leg? Because if it is, I’ll never forgive you.”

  John started to cry. He was desperately embarrassed but the shock of what had happened to Liam was too much for him. Tears dripped down his cheeks and his throat was so choked up that he could hardly breathe. Lucy reached over and squeezed his hand and said, “I believe you. Don’t worry. I believe you.”

  She drove him home. His mother was sitting in the living-room in her dressing-gown, and his father was feeding her with Horlicks. Bruce Willis was flickering across the television screen but they weren’t really watching.

  “Dad – Mum – this is Lucy, from work.”

  “How do you do, Lucy,” said his father. “There’s some Horlicks to spare, if you’d like some.”

  “Um, no thanks,” said Lucy.

  “John, you’re looking a bit peaky,” said his mother, out of the side of her mouth. “What about something to eat?”

  “No thanks, Mum, honestly.”

  John took Lucy to his bedroom. As they went upstairs, he heard his father saying, “Nice to see John bringing a girl home.” John thought, if only you knew why.

  John sat down on the bed. “What’s the matter with your mum?” Lucy asked him, looking at all his football posters.

  “Oh. She had a stroke. Dad has to do everything now. Well, Dad and me. My sister’s always out.”

  “Sounds tough,” Lucy said, sympathetically. John shrugged. “So what are we going to do about Liam, then?” she continued.

  “I don’t know. I thought about calling the police but suppose they don’t believe me? I mean, suppose they think I did it?”

  “Why should they think that?”

  “Because I was the last person to see him alive, wasn’t I? He’s gone missing but they won’t be able to find his body and they’re bound to think it was me.”

  “All right, all right, calm down,” said Lucy. “Just tell me again how it happened.”

  John pressed his hand flat against his bedroom wall. “He was just sucked in. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it now.”

  Lucy thought for a moment, and then she said, “If you’re really worried that the police are going to think it was you, you’re going to need some evidence, aren’t you, to prove that it wasn’t? I think we ought to go down there. Down to Brighton, I mean. I think we ought to knock down the wall and see if we can find Liam’s bones.”

  “Liam’s bones?”

  “Listen, John, if the house in Brighton is the same as the house in Norbury, then that’s the explanation for all of those skeletons, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t get what you mean.”

  “They said on the news that the skeletons were all bricked up, didn’t they? But the bricks were really old and some of the skeletons were new.”

  “So perhaps they weren’t bricked up at all,” said John. “They were sucked through the wall, the same as Liam.”

  “Exactly. So why don’t we go down there tomorrow and take a look?”

  John shook his head. “I don’t want to go back there, Lucy. I really don’t.”

  “I don’t blame you. But I don’t see what choice we’ve got.”

  “You should have seen Liam’s face. It was horrible.”

  Lucy sat down beside him and took hold of his hand. “If we don’t do it, then the chances are that Mr Vane will get away with it. All he has to do is say that he didn’t know anything about it, and what can they charge him with then? But if we can prove that all of his houses are the same, and that he knew…”

  Finally, John nodded. Lucy had managed to calm him down a little. All the same, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Liam’s one green eye, staring at him in utter desperation before it was dragged right into the wall. He knew that he would remember that eye for the rest of his life.

  They caught the train to Brighton because Lucy didn’t fancy driving all that way. It started to rain when they reached Haywards Heath and by the time they came out of Brighton station it was pouring. They took a taxi to Madeira Terrace and told the driver to stop by Liam’s car.

  “What a dump,” said Lucy, looking up at the house. “Let’s go inside before we get soaked.”

  They stood in the porch and John tried the door. “Locked,” he said. “Liam opened it with a lock-pick.” He had brought his father’s hammer with him in a Sainsbury’s bag but he didn’t want to break a window.

  “Try the old credit-card trick.”

  “I haven’t got a credit card.”

  Lucy took out her Barclaycard and tried to slide it down the gap in the front door to release the latch, but she couldn’t force it in far enough. John stepped out into the rain and peered into the sitting-room windows. He tried rattling them, and one of them seemed loose. “Look, the catch isn’t fastened. If I can find a lever or something…”

  There was a rusty gate hinge lying in the front garden. He picked it up and wedged it into the bottom of the window frame. The window was jammed with years of paint, but at last he managed to lift it a centimetre clear of the sill. Another pull, and it was open.

  “Anybody around?” he asked Lucy.

  Lucy shook her head. “You should have been a burglar, instead of an estate agent.”

  John didn’t say anything. He was so frightened about going back inside the house that his mouth was all dry. He hesitated for a moment, and then he climbed through the window into the musty-smelling sitting-room. Then he went around to the front door to let Lucy in. She sniffed and said, “I’m not surprised you didn’t want to come back here. It’s horrible.”

  “Just be careful of the walls,” John warned her.

  He led her up the stairs to the landing. Outside they could see the rain sweeping in from the sea, and the grey clouds rushing over the Brighton rooftops like a pack of mad dogs.

  “This is the room,” said John, and he was
actually shaking.

  “Did Liam say anything before he was sucked into the wall?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Lucy eased the door open and looked inside. It was very gloomy in there, and the rain dribbling down the windows made it seem even more depressing and threatening.

  “It was over there,” said John, pointing to the place in the wall where Liam had disappeared.

  Lucy approached it and stared at it closely. “You can’t see anything, can you?” She reached out to touch it but John said, “Don’t!”

  “All right, then. Try knocking off some of the plaster.”

  John took the hammer out of the bag and went up to the wall. The plaster was dead, and his first blow made a deep circular dent. He hit the wall again, and then again, and a large lump of plaster dropped off and scattered across the floorboards.

  He swung at the wall for over five minutes, until he had exposed the plaster right the way down to the brick. His hammering made so much noise that every now and then he stopped to listen, in case he had disturbed the neighbours next door. But Madeira Terrace was as wet and silent as a neglected graveyard, and if anybody had heard him, they obviously didn’t care.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m beginning to feel like I imagined it.”

  “Liam’s car is still outside, and Liam’s car is his pride and joy. That’s how I know you didn’t imagine it.”

  John said, “Maybe the wall sucked him in completely. Maybe there’s nothing left.”

  “The skeletons they found in the Norbury house were hidden behind the bricks. Why don’t you try pulling a few out?”

  John banged away at the bricks for a few minutes more, and at last he succeeded in dislodging one of them. After that it was easy to pull out another four or five. He peered inside the cavity. It was completely black, and there was a faint draught blowing up it.

  “See anything?” asked Lucy.

  John shook his head.

  “Let me put my hand in and feel.”

  “You can’t! Supposing it starts to suck you in, too?”

  “Then you can pull me back out again.”