House of Bones Read online

  Courtney was at the bar, talking to two rival estate agents – a man with a clipped moustache and a clipped accent to go with it, and a woman in a violent red dress who smoked incessantly and smelled as if she had tipped a whole bottle of perfume over herself.

  Courtney made his excuses and led John and Lucy over to a corner table. It was early, so the pub wasn’t too crowded, and there was nobody near to overhear what they were saying.

  “So what happened at Abingdon Gardens?” asked Courtney. “Is that where you got those bruises?”

  John nodded. “I know this is going to sound as if we’re bonkers, but I swear it’s the truth.” He told Courtney everthing that had happened at Mountjoy Avenue and at Abingdon Gardens that morning. At first Courtney started to smile and shake his head, especially when John told them about the statue, but Lucy reached out and touched his hand and gave him a look which meant it really happened, all of it.

  Courtney said, “I’ll tell you something, this is all very hard to believe. No wonder you haven’t told the police.”

  “It’s true, Courtney,” said Lucy. “On my life, it’s all absolutely true.”

  “Do you think you’re going to be safe? I mean, if Mr Vane’s got this statue-thing coming after you…”

  “We don’t really have any proof that Mr Vane sent it. But so far we’ve only seen it when we’ve been visiting Mr Vane’s houses. It could be a kind of guardian, you know. A watchdog. Something he uses to keep away unwelcome visitors.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Courtney. “It has to be a guy in fancy dress.”

  Lucy emphatically shook her head. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw it.”

  “So how does it know where to find you? And how does it get from house to house? Unless there are more than one of them.”

  Lucy shrugged. “We really don’t know. I’m not sure that we really want to find out. But I think we’re going to have to.”

  “Why?” asked Courtney. “Can’t you just give Mr Vane’s houses a very wide berth? The police are investigating all those old bones in the Norbury house and the odds must be that they’ll find some way of connecting them to Mr Vane.”

  “It’s more personal than old bones,” said Lucy. “Go on, tell him, John.” And John, with his eyes fixed on the table, one hand endlessly rotating a beer mat, told Courtney all about Liam. By the time he had finished they were all in tears.

  “I have to go away and think about this,” said Courtney. “This has come as such a shock.”

  “I just didn’t know what to do,” John told him.

  Courtney said, “You should have come to me before. If the three of us go to the police they’re bound to believe us. They’re bound to look into it, anyway.”

  “But what if they can’t find anything?”

  “Forget it, John. This isn’t something we can handle on our own. Let’s sleep on it tonight. Then we can have a meeting in the office in the morning and decide what we’re going to say to the CID.”

  “All right,” John agreed, and gave Lucy’s hand another non-damp, non-floppy squeeze.

  It was dark by the time they left the pub. Lucy said, “Come on, John, I’ll give you a lift. It’ll take you ages to get home on the bus.”

  They drove southwards through the crowded evening traffic. “Are you glad we told Courtney?” Lucy asked him.

  John said, “Yes. But I’m still worried that Mr Vane’s going to get away with it. When you think of all the people who must have gone missing over the years – all of them sucked into those houses – and yet there’s Mr Vane walking around free, a respected member of the community.”

  They turned into John’s street and drove towards his house. His father’s old B-reg Morris Marina was parked outside under the streetlight. “Just stop behind it,” said John, unfastening his seat-belt and preparing to get out.

  “Hold on a minute,” said Lucy, as she switched off the engine. “There’s somebody standing outside your house.”

  John looked up and frowned. He hadn’t noticed until now that there was a tall, dark figure waiting in the shadow of their privet hedge.

  “I wasn’t expecting anybody,” said John.

  But then the figure took one step forward out of the shadows and he saw who it was. Or rather, what it was.

  “Go!” he shouted to Lucy, slamming the car door shut. “Go! It’s him! He’s been waiting for us!”

  Lucy twisted the key in the ignition and the starter-motor whinnied and whinnied but at last it caught. She tugged the gearstick into reverse and skidded away backwards, just as the statue pummelled the bonnet of her car with its fists.

  “Faster!” John yelled at her, and the Metro snaked wildly down the road with its transmission whining. Lucy tried to turn the car around so that she could drive away forwards, but as she did so she collided with a parked van, which jolted John so hard that he knocked his head against the window. Lucy wrestled the gearstick into first, but when she tried to drive away the tyres spun on the roadway with an acrid smell of burned rubber and they didn’t move at all.

  John twisted around in his seat. “Your bumper’s locked!” he yelled at her. Only metres away, the statue was coming towards them with one arm lifted, its face expressionless.

  John opened his door and hurried around to the back of the car. The Metro’s rear bumper was caught beneath the van’s front wing. He tried kicking it free but he couldn’t dislodge it. He looked up and the statue had almost reached them.

  “When I say ‘hit it!’ – put your foot down!” John shouted.

  The statue came remorselessly up to the car. Out of its cloak it drew a long knob-ended stick. It swung the stick around, and smashed the front headlight. Then it swung again and the windscreen burst inwards, showering Lucy in glass. John spread his hands flat on the car’s roof, jumped up as high as he could, and shouted, “Hit it!”

  Lucy revved the engine and let out the clutch, just as John landed on the rear bumper with both feet. The Metro surged forward with John clinging to the back of it. As it sped away, the statue swept its stick around in one last desperate attempt to catch them, and hit John a blow on the shoulder that almost knocked him into the road.

  Lucy stopped and John scrambled back into his seat.

  “What do we do now?” he panted, as she pressed down hard on the accelerator and they roared away.

  “We can stay at my uncle Robin’s house. Mr Vane doesn’t know where he lives. I’ll just have to go back to my flat and get a change of clothes.”

  John twisted around in his seat but he couldn’t see the statue any more. “How did it find out where I live?” he wanted to know. “And how did it get here?”

  “I don’t know how it got here, but think about it: Mr Vane knows where you live, doesn’t he? I think this is proof that he knows about the statue and if he knows about the statue he probably knows about the skeletons, too.”

  “I hope the statue doesn’t hurt my mum and dad, that’s all.”

  “When we get back to my place, you can ring them, can’t you?”

  “Yes,” said John, worriedly. As they drove back through Streatham, his shoulder began to throb and he realized how hard the statue had hit him.

  They reached a small parade of shops opposite Tooting Graveney Common, and parked outside a greengrocers’. “My flat’s upstairs,” said Lucy. “Come on, I won’t be long, and you can give your parents a quick call. But I think it had better be quick. Mr Vane knows were I live, too.”

  She took out her key and unlocked the door. John waited while she picked up a scattering of post and pressed the time-switch to turn on the lights. A ridiculously steep flight of stairs led directly up to the first-floor landing. John followed her up, still nursing his shoulder.

  They were only halfway up when the lights abruptly went out, leaving them in total darkness.

  “Stupid time-switch. Can you feel your way up?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  They carried on climbing the stairs, sliding the
ir hands up the handrail to guide them. “It’s the landlady, she’s so mean she only gives you about three seconds to get to your flat. I’m surprised that nobody’s been killed, falling down these stairs.”

  John heard Lucy reach the top. “Switch is here somewhere,” she said, groping against the wall. “Hang on, it’s next to this picture.”

  The lights popped on again. As they did so, John blinked and saw a narrow corridor with a single low-watt light-bulb dangling from the ceiling. It was hardly enough to illuminate the doorway at the very end of the corridor. But it was just enough to shine on the chilling white face which was waiting for them in the shadows.

  12

  John snatched Lucy’s sleeve and without a word the two of them hurtled back down towards the front door. But the stairs were so steep that Lucy lost her footing halfway down. She collided into John, and then the two of them tumbled the last six or seven stairs until they landed in a tangle in the hallway.

  “Get up!” John screamed, trying to pull Lucy to her feet.

  He looked up the stairs and the statue was gliding down towards them, almost as if it were floating a few centimetres above the treads. One of its hands was resting lightly on the handrail, and John would never forget the sound that it made – a hollow, descending hiss, like the softest of slide-whistles.

  He managed to haul Lucy up, but immediately she cried out and collapsed again. “My ankle! I’ve twisted my ankle!”

  “Hold on to me!” John told her, and wrapped her left arm around his shoulders. Together they staggered to the front door, just as the statue reached the foot of the stairs. Lucy opened the door and they hop-hobbled out on to the pavement and across to Lucy’s car.

  “I can’t drive! My ankle hurts too much!”

  “Give me the keys, then!”

  John opened the car door and lifted Lucy into the passenger seat. He ran around to the driver’s side and threw himself behind the wheel. The statue had almost reached them, and as he started the engine it beat on the roof of the car so loudly that Lucy shrieked and covered her ears.

  They drove away from the kerb in a series of wild jerks, and when John changed into second it sounded as if he were tearing the gearbox into small jagged pieces.

  “Have you passed your test?” Lucy shouted at him.

  “Not yet. I’m going to take it when I’ve had some lessons.”

  “What? You’ve never had any lessons?”

  He changed quite smoothly into third. “Don’t worry about it. I know how to drive. My dad taught me when we were on holiday.”

  The wind whistled in through the shattered windscreen and Lucy looked around at her car. The statue had dented the roof in so deeply that it almost touched their heads. The bonnet looked like a West Indian steel drum and only one of the headlights was intact. “Oh, well,” she said, “I don’t suppose a few more scratches will make any difference.”

  John glanced in the rearview mirror. “I think we’ve lost it again.”

  “It must have been sent by Mr Vane, if it knows where I live, too.”

  “What I want to know is, unless there’s more than one statue, how did it get to your place so fast? And your door was locked. How did it manage to get in?”

  Lucy winced as she tried to find a comfortable place to rest her ankle. “I don’t know, John. But it’s not going to stop until it gets us, is it?”

  John reached Streatham High Road and stopped. “Where do we go now?” he asked her.

  “Uncle Robin’s. He lives on Mitcham Common.”

  “Who’s Uncle Robin?”

  “My dad’s older brother. Very much older brother. He was the only child of my grandfather’s first marriage.”

  A car had been waiting behind them and it gave John an impatient toot. “Come on,” said Lucy, “turn left and head for Mitcham. I’ll direct you.”

  John found driving much harder than he had thought it would be. How could drivers look so relaxed when they had to steer and change gear and make signals and look where they were going, all at the same time? When he turned into Greyhound Lane he drove over the nearside kerb and almost collided with a bollard. His teeth were clenched with concentration and salt perspiration stung his eyes.

  “Dear God, I hope that thing can’t follow us,” said Lucy.

  To John’s relief, they arrived at last outside a small end-of-terrace house facing the scrubby heathland of Mitcham Common. He helped Lucy out of the car and up the path. The front garden was concreted over and populated by small conversational groups of concrete gnomes and concrete rabbits.

  Lucy rang the door chimes and they played the first bars of The White Cliffs of Dover. The door was opened by a small bespectacled man with a large bald dome surrounded by a halo of fine white hair. He had protuberant blue eyes and a nose that looked as if he had bought it in a joke shop.

  “Goodness me, if it isn’t Lucy! What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a surprise,” said Lucy, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Why didn’t you ring to tell me you were coming? I could have bought you some Battenberg cake.”

  “Uncle Robin, I haven’t eaten Battenberg cake since I was six.”

  Lucy managed to hop into the hallway and John followed her. The house was very small and smelled of pipe tobacco and meat pie.

  “What have you done to your ankle, young lady?”

  “I’ve had a bit of a crash in the car. This is John, from work. He was very kind and drove me here.”

  “Come and sit down. Here – put this pouffe under your ankle. You haven’t hurt yourself anywhere else, have you? Haven’t got whiplash?”

  He helped Lucy to make herself comfortable and then he said, “How about a cup of tea? Nothing like a cup of tea after a nasty turn. What about you, John?”

  “No, no thanks,” said John. He looked around at the sitting-room. The mantelpiece was cluttered with pipes and half-dismantled clocks and family photographs and all kinds of assorted junk. But there were six or seven framed diplomas on the wall, showing that Uncle Robin was a doctor of anthropology and a winner of the Blackwell history prize and all kinds of other awards.

  “Perhaps you’d like to ring your mum and dad – let them know where you are.”

  “No thanks, Uncle Robin. I don’t want to worry them.”

  “They’ll want you to spend a few days at home, won’t they? You won’t be walking on that ankle for a bit.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if John and I could stay here for a couple of days.”

  “Here?” Uncle Robin frowned at Lucy and then at John. “Why would you want to stay here? I mean, you’re very welcome. But you’re not in some kind of trouble, are you?”

  “Actually, yes,” said John. “Lucy and I got mixed up in something at work. Now we’ve got some people looking for us and we don’t want them to know where we are.”

  Uncle Robin took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what this ‘something’ is that you’ve got mixed up in?”

  “It’s very complicated,” said Lucy. “It’s all to do with property deals.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve found out about something you shouldn’t have.”

  “Yes … you could say that.”

  “Then without knowing any of the details, I really think your best answer is to go to the police. There are some pretty nasty types around this area.”

  “We can’t go yet,” said John. “We don’t have enough proof. But when we do…”

  “Do you need any help – apart from somewhere to stay?”

  “No, thanks. We’re fine for the moment.”

  “And you really don’t want to tell me what this ‘something’ is all about?”

  “If you don’t mind – if you don’t think we’re being too rude…”

  “All right,” said Uncle Robin, raising his hands in mock-surrender. “If you don’t want to tell me, I really don’t mind.”

  Uncle Robin poured out tea while John telephoned his father. “It’s all r
ight, Dad. I’m staying with a friend tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You could have rung me before I put the chicken in the oven, couldn’t you? That’s the trouble with you, you never think.”

  “No, Dad. Sorry, Dad.”

  “Your mother says what are you going to do for clean underpants?”

  John was put up in a small room at the back under the eaves. The sheets were cold and unfamiliar and there were no curtains at the window so that the moon shone in and illuminated an ironing-board and a chair with a huge grimy doll in it, her enamelled face affected on one side by a kind of leprosy.

  He heard Lucy hobble to the bathroom and then hobble back to her bedroom. Probably taking another paracetamol to dull the pain of her twisted ankle. He heard Uncle Robin come creaking up the stairs and flush the toilet. Then the house fell silent and he lay awake wishing that he had never meddled in Mr Vane’s affairs, and feeling so guilty about Liam that it gave him a physical pain in his stomach.

  Next morning they phoned Courtney at the office and told him what had happened.

  “That’s it, I’m going to call the police,” said Courtney.

  “Courtney, please. Not yet. They won’t believe a word of it.”

  “Come on, man. What more evidence do you need?”

  “We need proof that Mr Vane knew what his houses would do to people before he put them on the market – but that he still sold them, regardless. It’s almost like he was feeding his houses, do you know what I mean?”

  “And this statue-thing that’s chasing you, what about that? What if it catches up with you? What if it kills you?”

  John said, “As far as we can guess, Mr Vane is sending it after us. Well, either him or Cleaty, and I don’t think Cleaty’s got anything to do with all this. If we can’t produce enough evidence to have Mr Vane arrested and put away, then that statue’s going to keep on coming after us and it’s never going to let us go.”

  There was a long pause. Then Courtney said, “All right, then. I won’t tell the police just yet. But tell me if there’s anything else I can do to help you.”