Home From Home

A death in the family - a tragedy, good fortune, a coincidence? Or even more?

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(This story was originally published in Chorley and District Writers' Circle magazine, Aware, issue 3, November 2007, on the theme Home and Away.)

I stepped into the familiar hallway over a dune of junk mail circulars and free-sheet newspapers. The air was at once familiar yet cloyingly strange – the house had been shut up for many weeks. It was tomb-like, yet I breathed the air I knew from childhood. So different from the boiled cabbage, urine and disinfectant soaked atmosphere I had had to tolerate recently.

I entered the living room. Brown wallpaper, some faded floral pattern whose colour scheme seemed to be based on recycled teabags. The fusty armchair, seat bellowed inwards. Dull books on the shelf, dull ornaments and pictures. All this would have to change. Not a problem now. This chair would be first to go. This was where my father died.

At least, that is to be assumed. That is where they had found him. It was a fair assumption. It’s where I had last seen him alive.

‘What am I going to do?’ he had asked. ‘Everything was going to come to you. And I’ve tried to keep going on my own, but it’s too much.’

‘You are very ill, father,’ I had agreed.

‘But I can’t look after myself anymore.’

‘I look after you, father.’

‘I know you do.’ He tried, painfully, to readjust himself in his chair, and grimaced. ‘Pass me one of my little friends, will you.’

I handed him the book-sized bag – it had been a sort of pencil case, I think. But, instead of pencils, it contained spliffs of cannabis, papers, lump of ‘substance’ wrapped in Clingfilm. He took one, lit it, and drew deeply on it. Hot tiny cinders fell from the end and burned pinprick holes in his old shirt – I was surprised the health visitor never picked up on this. ‘If I go into a care home, this is the one thing I will miss,’ he said at length, hoarsely. ‘You know, this is the only thing that gives me any relief from the pain?’

‘Yes, I know, father. You’ve told me many times. Many times. You forget, don’t you?’

‘Do I?’

I reached for his other medical kit, the one with the insulin, and, as I did so, I couldn’t help feeling how life could be so unfair, inflicting a man with two severe illnesses, diabetes and MS, either of which could, if left untreated, kill him. I checked his blood sugar tester and absent-mindedly looked up the dose – I already knew the table pretty much by heart.

‘The thing is, I can’t go into care unless I sell up the house. I will need the money to pay for the home.’

‘Not on medical grounds,’ I reminded him, patiently, for the umpteenth time.

‘But I will need the residential care – I need somewhere comfortable where I’ll be properly looked after.’

I passed him his syringe. ‘The Health Service will look after you.’

‘No they won’t,’ he insisted, as always. He equated National Health Service care as being in hospital, incarcerated, waiting out his days.

‘Here you are.’

He started to cough intermittently, the smoke irritating his lungs. God help us, I thought, if he also ended up getting cancer. However, I noticed that, apart from the shaking from each minor spasm, the tremor in his hands had eased. I wondered if he would make the injection himself. It would be easier.

‘You do it, son. My little friend is making me a bit woozy.’

‘You can do it, Dad,’ I reassured him. ‘Your hand’s much steadier now.’

I had left shortly after and that’s how they found him. When the post-mortem showed he had died from a pulmonary embolism, that there was air in the injection fluid and my fingerprints on the syringe, I was arrested and charged with murder. I had means, opportunity and, with the chance of being bequeathed an entire house, the motive. They made it sound like I had almost been sloppy. Some rising star was picked by the CPS to make the prosecution case just for the practice, so sure were they of winning, of sending me away for a long time. I should get used to my prison cell. It would be my home for many years to come.

I had my own hot-shot lawyer, however. While I was on remand, waiting interminably for the case to come to court, we went over my defence. Counsel is not allowed to coach a witness, even one speaking in his own defence. There is no law against doing things the other way around, however.

I merely suggested that my father had increasingly relied on illicit drugs for pain relief. It was perhaps no surprise that he had graduated from just cannabis to intravenous heroin. And the post-mortem also concluded that my father had enough of the stuff in his bloodstream to anaesthetise a horse. Certainly that would have been enough to kill him. I often gave him his insulin injections because of his hand tremor. Of course my fingerprints would be on the syringe. It would not be possible, with his prints and mine both present, to say who handled the little glass tube last.

Why, if I had wanted to kill my father, would I use two different methods to finish him off, especially one that was so easily detectable?

This was sufficient to sew doubt in the mind of the jury. Much more reasonable to assume the old man had been ham-fisted in preparing the injection for himself, before I even arrived for my daily visit. That I’d already left before took it. The simplest explanation is always thought the most likely.

And so, the case had collapsed. I was discharged, a free man, not put away to rot out the remainder of my life, any more than my father had needed to be put away to see out his own.

I stood in the house I had grown up in, and had now inherited, without a stain on my character, nor, for that matter, on my conscience.

The fact that I had prepared the fatal injection containing both heroin and the bubble of air that had formed a clot in my father’s lungs, swiftly and painlessly killing him, was irrelevant. I was in the clear, I was home free.

I was home.

The end

The Valletta Deal

What not to do on your holidays - short story with a mystery-thriller tinge

The taxi that dropped me off in the late afternoon sunlight at Malta International Airport at Luqa took just about the last of my Maltese money. Some places would still accept Sterling, after all these years, but with no greater preference than other European currencies. It was all a bit academic, seeing as I had no money in other currencies either, and, in any case I was leaving. The job that I’d flown out to Malta for had fallen through, I was broke, and all I wanted to do was get home. At least I had my return ticket. Resigned to being processed like a piece of cargo, I shuffled up to the departure desk and dropped my ticket on the counter. The flight attendant, in her prim, Air Malta uniform, flicked through it.

"Mr Bishop?" said the slightly accented voice.

"Yes?"

"This ticket is for the six o’clock flight to London Gatwick."

"Yes. That’s right."

"Oh-six-hundred hours. The flight was at 6 a.m. this morning."

I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe it. All the years I’d been travelling to various corners of the world, some of them loosely describable as flesh-pots, some of them not even loosely describable, and never once had I confused the 24 hour clock for normal, "What time do you make it?" and glance-at-your-watch time. I understood perfectly the difference between a.m. and p.m. and zero hours through to 23 hundred and fifty-nine hours and I had never got them mixed up. Until now. I had arrived expecting to catch a flight at 6 p.m. that had left twelve hours earlier at 6 a.m.

I could only put it down to exhaustion. Exhaustion and frustration. Frustration at having come all this way for a job, when I so desperately needed money, and the job had fallen through – if it had ever existed, and I had felt utterly at a loose end. Exhaustion, frustration, and bonehead stupidity.

The flight attendant evidently could read my thoughts from the expression on my face. "Don’t worry, Mr Bishop. Providing there is room, we can move your ticket to tomorrow morning. All you need to do is to find a place to stay for the night."

She consulted some kind of computer terminal, and, after some tapping of keys and fiddling with bits of paper, she printed me a fresh ticket. As she handed it to me, she said, with an encouraging smile, "Don’t forget – tomorrow morning."

I tried to smile back, but I felt like I’d just stepped out of a dentist’s with a face full of Novocaine. Where could I spend the night? I could not go back to my hotel in Valletta, the capital, as I had no money left, and the rows of airport bench seats looked like instruments of torture. I had just about enough money for one bottle of Hopleaf and that was it.

"Your name is Bishop, yes?" said a voice by my shoulder. A small, middle-aged man, with receding black greasy hair, was talking to me. "You are English?"

"That’s right."

"Good. I like English very much. I hear what happened. You go to England in the morning."

"Yes."

"You have no place to stay?"

"No."

"It will be my pleasure to offer you a place for the night. If you wish. I like English."

"I’m afraid," I could hardly talk, I was so embarrassed, "I’m afraid I have no money."

"It does not matter. I like English. My name is Camilleri. Come. You stay the night. Perhaps you can do some time something for me."

I wondered what he had in mind.

Mr Camilleri was a perfect host. He drove me in a blue Vauxhall Cavalier that seemed to have dusted embedded into its paintwork. We headed past Valletta to his flat in Sliema, on the northern side of the Grand Harbour opposite the city, where he got me a light meal of salad and fish, mercifully finished off with a bottle of Asbach Uralt brandy. He showed me to a small, clean room that had a bed made up ready and waiting as if he had been expecting me. Next morning, he woke me very early with some incredibly strong coffee, and some toast and marmalade. Then we set off back to the airport.

In some countries they drive on the left, in some on the right. In Malta, they drive in the shade. It was not yet five in the morning and a Mediterranean dawn was just preparing to launch itself into a riot of colour. With some light and little traffic, Mr Camilleri, with typical Maltese zeal, drove like a man possessed, even though there was plenty of time to spare.

He waited while I checked in, this time with no problems. I was so relieved to be going home, yet I had enjoyed my evening with this stranger. I was grateful but didn’t know how to thank him, and I said so.

Again, it was almost as if he had been ready for this moment. "You will be passing through London?"

"Of course?"

"Then I was wondering if you would be so kind as to drop off this postcard?" He pulled a small picture postcard from his inside pocket.

"Don’t you have a stamp?"

"The post!" he turned up his hands in a mild gesture of dismissal. "So slow. A small detour? You can do this for me? There is some money to cover your fares." He also handed me an envelope. Inside was a small collection of £20 notes.

I took the card. It was a picture of Valletta harbour. On the reverse was an address in Belgravia, in slightly shaky capitals. I could not read what was written on the correspondence side of the card, which appeared to be in Greek. It would mean a couple of Tube journeys, nothing more, a lot less than the cash. How could I refuse?

My flight was called and I said goodbye to Mr Camilleri. On the other side of the boarding pass gate were some shops. I bought some overhead projector marker pens. My only souvenir.

At Gatwick, I was diverted, as if by random, by a customs official as I went through Nothing To Declare. He went through my one bag nonchalantly yet thoroughly, as if following a practised routine. He found nothing – there was nothing to find – but he noticed the picture postcard of Valletta harbour. He studied both sides of it with more interest than I felt it warranted. "Forget to post this?" he said.

"I ran out of stamps. Guess I’ll just have to hand it over in person."

He seemed to read the back of the card. Then he lost interest and let me go.

In the toilets, with a damp tissue, I wiped off the English I had written in large print, with the water-soluble overhead marker that I had used to cover the original message. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t like the idea of carrying a message in a language I couldn’t understand. I took the card to the Belgravia address, handed it personally to a man who could have been Mr Camilleri’s younger cousin, and went home.



Mehmet Ertegun – known as "the banker" by those who had dealings with him – was delighted with the picture postcard. It told him just what he wanted to know, and that was the number of a safety deposit box that contained $500,000 in Kruger rands. He used his own method of communicating with his colleague that payment had been received and delivery of the merchandise could go ahead. Duly, thirty-four Kalashnikov AN-94 "Abakan" assault rifles, with a maximum fire rate of 1,800 rounds per minute, and 22,000 rounds of 5.45 calibre ammunition left Piraeus in Greece by ship for Marseilles. They had been moved from Russia, through Chechnya to Albania and on to Greece, and this was probably not the end of their travels.

No banking system in the world had handled any part of the financial transaction. No radio, telephone call, email, or telex had been transmitted that could be picked up at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. No mail intercept had taken place. The deal might never had existed.

Face-recognition software attached to the surveillance cameras at Malta International Airport had spotted Mr Camilleri, and soon had a host of other names for him. Mr Bishop’s face the software did not know. Still, MI6 put Bishop’s name and description on a watch-list at airports around the world.

The next time Mr Bishop showed up late for a flight on which he was booked, he would have a lot of explaining to do.

THE END.

A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare

Mysterious tales are, for some reason, usually set in the depths of winter. This one is different.

"What’s that star?" asked Lamienne.

"That’s not a star!" sneered Reece.

The Volvo estate negotiated a tight bend in the winding country road as it climbed the rugged hill, taking the bright point of light out of view of the two children in the back seat, for the moment. Several seconds passed before another bend revealed it again.

"Look," said Lamienne, "that’s a star!"

"It’s not a star," insisted Reece.

"What is it then?"

"It’s a planet," explained Reece triumphantly. "Girls know nothing."

Lamienne digested this information, or, rather, tried to. "Daddy?" she said at length, "what’s a planet?"

Donald looked through the window into the depthless bowl of the midsummer night. "That star’s called Venus." Lamienne’s father considered carefully before continuing. "A planet is a special kind of star."

"See," said Lamienne, "it is a star."

"It’s not a star, it’s a planet," insisted Reece.

Mary, in the passenger seat, turned to her husband at the wheel of the Volvo and said, quietly, "Nice try, Donald."

Their two children, Reece and Lamienne, continued to argue in the back. Reece was nearly two years older than his sister and this undoubtedly gave him an unfair advantage. However, Lamienne had enough determination to hold her ground, nevertheless. Donald decided to try again. "Not all stars are planets, but all planets are like stars."

There was silence from the back seat while each of the youngsters tried to determine who had won.

"So you’re both right," added Mary.

Before the children could dispute this, Donald continued, "That planet is called Venus, which is sometimes called the Evening Star."

"Because you only see it in the evening," said Mary.

"Except for when you see it in the morning," whispered Donald, for Mary’s benefit only.

Venus hung like a brilliant jewel in the blue-black sky of late evening. It was approaching the final week of June in what had been a glorious summer. The embers of the day still gave colour to the mantle of darkness overhead, though midnight was approaching. It looked like it might never go completely dark that night, as the Remington family’s car climbed the West Pennine moors towards their farmhouse home.

They had spent the day with family friends, the Caufields. The Caufields had just returned from a holiday in the Caribbean, to their home in Cannock, Staffordshire, while the Remington family were themselves returning from a vacation in Cornwall, all steep-cliffed harbours, fishing boats and all. Donald and Mary had known Susan and Geoff since before either couple had married, though the Caufields had had no children – at least not so far. In a way, in the meantime, it was as if the Caufields had almost adopted their friends’ children as their own. Reece and Lamienne enjoyed the trips to the Caufield household despite the long drive south. This particular visit – as was customary, and the first for some months – had been a relaxed and happy affair.

In fact, the four adults and two children had especially enjoyed themselves together, perhaps more than usual. So it was that a tired but cheerful family were approaching home and a welcome bed, feeling content and peaceful, after day full of pleasant memories.

How much that was about to change.

The family tumbled into the farmhouse, which seemed awoken by their sudden presence. Lights came on, decimating the shadows. Mary went into the kitchen, closely dogged by the children. The chance to move around again after the confines of the car had galvanised them, and Mary knew from long experience that the best way to get them to settle was to feed them. She took out a packet of Cheerios from a cupboard and filled two bowls, adding fresh milk that she had, planning strategically ahead, bought at the last convenience store they had passed. Then she went back to the hallway. Donald had taken all the cases out of the hatchback of the car and placed them on the paved flags before the front step. She picked two of the lighter bags – an overnight bag and her small valise – and took them upstairs. Along the banistered landing, past the bathroom and into the adults’ bedroom. She snapped on the light, and then stopped.

She looked round the room, as if expecting to see something out of place. But everything was just as it had been left a week earlier. Yet something was amiss. What was it? She took a step into the room, shrugging off the feeling, but stopped once more. What was it? The room seemed exactly as it should be, yet the feeling would not leave her.

She walked over to the bed, placing the bags upon it. Should she unpack now? It was late, but the journey had made her restless, and she knew it would be little while before she would be able to get her head down. And then there was… She listened carefully. Downstairs, sounding miles away, she could hear the children in the kitchen. At least they were not arguing. Through the open front door, she could also hear Donald, still attending to the car. She opened a bag, and debated with herself whether to put anything away in drawers or just tip everything into the laundry basket.

Something checked her again. This time, she noticed that there was a faint odour in the air, that reminded her of the sea. She sniffed the contents of the bag. "I bet there’ll be sand in everything," she said to herself, and took both bags over to the lidded laundry basket. She picked out a few items not for washing – bath bag, hair brush, shoes – and tipped the rest into the basket. She did not see whether there was anything else in the basket. As she turned, she suddenly realised what had held her before. The room was frigidly cold.

Automatically, she touched the radiator, although she knew it would not be on. "Donald, could you turn on the central heating?" She called. "Righto," she heard him answer, from far away. She picked up the two empty bags and went to place them in the top of a set of fitted cupboards. In order to open the cupboard, she had to close the bedroom door first. Reaching up, she pulled upwards on the handle. Normally it opened with a swish of the sliding support struts. It didn’t give. She pulled harder. Nothing happened. She gave the handle a firm twist and tug, and, at last, the cupboard door swung upwards, reluctantly.

She wondered what the matter had been with the door. She’d mention it to Donald in the morning. She gathered up the two bags, reached up, and slid them in to the cupboard. She felt very cold. She turned her back to the cupboards and wondered if there was something warm she could slip into while the heating came on.

The shock of one of the bags falling on her head was more sudden than painful. She tried to turn to catch the wretched thing as it tumbled onto her shoulders. The second bag caught her full in the face, making her cry out. The first bag, slipped though her hands to the floor. Another bag, not one she had just put away, then struck her on top of the head. This was heavy and hard, as if fully laden, and a corner seemed to catch her viciously. She stumbled under its weight.

It was then as if bag after bag was raining down on her. She heard the clink of glass, like bottles, and felt pain as something else hit her from above, and knocked her to the ground. She found herself shouting Donald’s name over and over, until one more impact was so severe she let out a scream.

"What is it?"

Donald was standing over her. She was slouched against the wall cupboards. "I’m sorry I took so long, but I couldn’t get the bedroom door open – I thought you’d locked it at first."

"I don’t know – all these – " she gestured around her. The valise and the overnight bag were all that lay on the floor by her side.

"Something… fell on me. From up there." She indicated the high cupboard that she still yawned open. Donald, somewhat taller than his wife, looked inside. "There’s nothing in there," he said.

He helped her to her feet. For a moment, she looked confused, trying to recollect what had just happened. The two empty bags still lay on the floor. There was little weight in either of them.

"I must be getting clumsy," she said. "Maybe I’m more tired than I realised."

Donald was still holding her arm. "Come downstairs and I’ll fix you something to drink. You’re trembling. Are you cold?" She didn’t answer as he led her out of the room on to the landing. Neither of them noticed the laundry basket.

It was on its side, the clothes spilled out over the floor, with a blackened pool of water spreading out slowly across the floorboards and soaking into the carpet.



"What happened, dear?" Donald asked as he led Mary down the stairs. He was beginning to appreciate that there was more that just tiredness from the journey, or a clumsy slip in the bedroom, when she didn’t answer him. "I tell you what," he joked, trying to raise her spirits and get a response from her, "we’d better get that washing machine going – those bags were smelling really high!."

Mary suddenly looked up into his face, but, for a moment, didn’t speak.

"I could really do with a hot drink," she said.

"Could you eat something too? It’s been a long journey."

"Very long."

Donald realised he was supporting most of her weight on his arm.

When they got to the kitchen, the children were still seated at the table, finishing the Cheerios. "You’d better not have had extra helpings," said Donald, as he helped Mary into a chair. He went over to the gas cooker, lit the grill. He looked inside the fridge for something he could cook quickly, such as bacon or sausages. There would probably be hamburgers in the freezer. He stuck his head in, and thought he heard a faint chiming noise. He looked round to see what it was, but couldn’t see anything. He was about to ask Mary had she heard anything, but, he could judge from her vaguely distracted air, she had not, and didn't speak, except to ask, "What do you fancy?" She didn’t answer. He closed the fridge, and walked over to her, putting his hands on each arm of the chair.

"Would you like a good, old-fashioned bacon sandwich? Mustard and ketchup, all the trimmings?"

She wasn’t looking at him. "Why did you open the kitchen window? It’s so cold in here."

"I didn’t." He looked round. The kitchen window wide open, latched on its fastener. Outside, the blue-black mid-summer night was turned to complete darkness by the contrast of the house lights. Donald looked at the children, but chose not to say anything. They had probably been looking for stars again.

He picked up the electric kettle and crossed to the sink below the window, and filled it. He returned to the power cable, plugged it in, switched it on, confirmed by the glow of a small red light on the top of the handle. He crossed back to window. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw movement outside. Could be a fox, he thought, though they seldom came this far up the hillside away from the cover of the trees. He reached over the sink to the window latch.

There was a rush of air and a deep, baffled flapping sound, that made him jump back. A large, black bird, like a crow or raven, had settled on the window ledge. The creatures feathers seemed dark, even against the night background, its feathers shone with an iridescent oily sheen, blocking his way to the window latch. It’s beak was a pale yellow, as long as and thicker than his thumb, curving down like a scimitar to vicious-looking point. The one eye turned towards him, looking him up and down, as if giving a silent message of warning.

Donald laughed at himself for being so startled. He recovered the involuntary step back he had made, and shooed the bird away from the window. It shuffled from side to side but did not fly away. Donald looked round at Mary, and gave an embarrassed smile. "It’s quite beautiful," he said. "Don’t you think?"

"Get rid of it," said Mary.

He waved his arms at the bird, It did not react, but continued to stare at him.

"Beautiful plumage. That black sheen. You can almost see rainbows in it. Like oil on water."

At the word, "Water," the bird gave a cry and hopped, in an ungainly fashion, on to the draining board, narrowly missing sliding on the on the grip-less stainless steel into the sink. It’s wing stuck out awkwardly, like it was broken. The bird cried out again, as if in pain, and attempted to negotiated its way across the draining board to the adjoining work surface.

"Don’t let it in here!," said Mary.

Donald tried first of all to block the bird’s progress, then to gather it up in its arms. But it seemed in pain and avoided his grasp. It let out another cry.

"I – I can’t get hold of it, " said David.

"Get rid of it!"

"Daddy, make it go away, said Lamienne. The two children bracketed Mary.

Donald turned to face them, and as he was distracted, the bird leapt into the air landed awkwardly on the table, scattering cutlery and knocking over the milk jug, the liquid, blue-white, dripping on the stone floor. The creature sprawled in a disarray of black, like a dishevelled shroud, in the centre of the table, and struggled to stand upright. It took a sudden lurch towards the mother and her two children.

Lamienne screamed.

Donald rushed around the table to put himself between the children and the bird. He had his arms outstretched as if to guard them.

Behind him, the bird suddenly took off from the table and flew smoothly out of the window into the night.

For a moment, nobody spoke. Them Mary said, "It must have been shamming."

"I’ve never known a crow – or any member of the crow family – do something like that, Donald said. "I thought it was just skylarks or something, to lead you away from their nests."

"Shut the window."

"Let’s go to bed. We can clean this up in the morning."

"No," insisted Mary, "do it now. Children, go up to bed."

Donald gathered the pieces of broken crockery and Mary tidied away the other remnants of supper. On the table he found a black feather. He picked it up and looked at it, unsure what to do with it, and failing to notice the speck of blood where it had lain on the table cloth. Just as he was trying to decide what to do with it, he heard both the children, upstairs, scream.

Mary and Donald were out of the kitchen in a s hot. Sprinting up the stairs, Donald able to move faster but Mary blocking his way. Across the landing. To the children’s’ room that they shared. They burst in.

The two children had clearly barely entered the room themselves. The room was brightly lit, almost dazzling against the midsummer night beyond the window. Buzzing dully, drifting lazily as if stupefied by the heat of the just-gone day, crawling over every surface and hanging in slowly swirling clouds, were flies. Huge great bluebottles. Everywhere.

Donald slowly crossed the room. The very air was full of the low, erratic buzzing of the black, docile blobs. It was as if they had all gathered for something that the humans’ arrival had interrupted.

He got to the window and opened it. He tried sweeping the flies towards it with his arms, to no effect. He retrieved a towel, and attempted to waft the fizzing clouds. But the flies had no idea what he was trying to do, they settled on the walls and basked as if in the warmth of evening sunshine.

"Well, there’s no way your sleeping in here tonight," said Donald in his good news tone of voice. "You can come and sleep with us."

"Oh, can we?" said Reece.

"What about the flies?" said Lamienne, cross.

"We’ll get rid of them in the morning," said Mary. "Now, come along. I think it’s time for bed. For all of us."

Donald put out the light and closed the children’s bedroom door.



Donald led the way to their room while Mary, her hands around the shoulders, shepherded them up the landing. Donald open the bedroom door and switched on the light.

"Poo!" said Reece, "what’s that smell?"

It might have been more correctly described as several, pungent, unpleasant smells mixed together. There was a recognisable smell they had met on their holiday in Cornwall, before their trip had taken them to their friends in the Midlands. It was the kind of tide-gone-out, rotting seaweed, with dead fish and a hint of sewage smell, which had been their least endearing memory of an otherwise enchanting holiday. The dead fish smell was amplified by a more gruesome, distressing stench of putrefaction, as if something larger had somehow crawled into the room and died. Incongruously, with all that, was something that had a kind of solvent base to it, artificial, oily, but equally stomach-turning – especially if one were prone to travel-sickness.

"It’s like Daddy when he spilt petrol at the petrol station," said Lamienne.

Donald walked slowly into the room. "No, it’s not petrol, it’s more like – " but at this point his voice trailed off, as he could not think quite what it was like. He noticed something else. As he moved across the room, the mixture of stink seemed to move through its own kind of spectrum of vileness, first this odour was predominant, then that. His first reaction was to look towards the bedroom window, in case the stench was drifting in from outside. But all the windows were firmly closed.

Mary had squeezed gently past the children, and was moving slowly around the bed. "Donald," she said, "You said, something like petrol?"

"Yes,"

"Well, I can smell something more like burning."

He rushed over to her, putting his hands on her arms, and sniffed. "Are you sure? Is something burning?"

Mary concentrated, then clamped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, Donald," she cried through her fingers, "it’s like burning hair!"

Donald moved round the room. As vile as the smell was, it was elusive, stronger here, almost absent there, and ever-changing. Mary moved also. Suddenly, she let out a stifled scream, staring at her feet.

"What is it?" Donald was at her side in a second. He looked down. There was the upended laundry basket, the ghastly stain on the carpet. He pressed down tentatively with a toe. Moisture oozed out.

Donald felt a slow anger build within him. It fed on an inconsequential train of thoughts. They had just been on a lovely holiday. They had just spent a wonderfully happy day with their best friends. Now they had returned to their home, his wife and children and himself, a place they had once longed for, planned for, finally achieving – Mary and Donald had even joked about it as their dream house – where they had raised their children and always been so content together. Now, they had returned to the place, and it was as if they were under some kind of attack, something which wanted to undermine them, threaten them, destroy their piece of mind forever, such that, wherever they might go afterwards, they would seek for it, in vain.

Donald snatched up the laundry basket and its foul contents, and stormed over to the window. Wrestling with the catch with fumbling fingers, he finally threw open the window and hurled the offensive bundle into the night. He stopped, and sniffed.

Cool fresh air from the midsummer night gently flooded into the room. It dispersed the foetid atmosphere of the enclosed space, like a subtle fragrant scent. Stepping closer to the window, Donald looked out to the northern horizon. The day just gone, June 21st, the day just about to come, June 22nd, with the shortest night in between, had seemed overrun with disturbing – distressing – events like a multiple pile-up on a motorway. On a clear night such as this, in midsummer, it never went completely dark. The sky due north was the deepest indigo, but it was not the impenetrable blackness of a winter’s evening. The sun lay tantalisingly close below the northern horizon – 900 miles further north it would not have set at all. In just a couple of hours the sky to the north-east would begin to brighten, heralding the onset of the new day, the dawn at last on its way. Donald longed for the daylight, where nothing more could clothe itself in shadow.

The air in the room improved steadily with the little eddies and drafts from the outside. Mary told the children to take off their shoes and outer clothes and get into their parents’ bed, while she and Donald did the same, lying down beneath the quilt with the children between them. Mary put out the bedside light, sinking the room into blackness. Darkness in the countryside is a shock to people used to town night-time. There is not street-lamp, no headlight, no reflected glare from another window – just no light at all. At first, they could see nothing, but as their eyes accommodated, the slight iridescence from outside silhouetted the window. But that was all. Soon, however, dawn would start to steal its way across the hills behind the farmhouse, like an ill-behaved youngster hoping to sneak back home late from a first date without being detected.

It was cool but not unpleasant with the window open, and they gained warmth from each other. The discomfort of clothing in bed receded, and they began to doze.

"Lamienne?" The whispered voice was close to her ear.

"Yes, Daddy?"

"Speak very quietly. Is your brother asleep?"

"No, Daddy." His hoarse reply suggested he was just about to drop off.

"Listen to Mummy and Daddy."

"Yes, Mummy."

"Mummy and Daddy are going to get up now."

"Where are you going?"

"Lamienne, you know that Daddy loves you very much, don’t you?"

"And, Reece, you know Mummy loves you very much also?"

"Yes."

"And you love us don’t you?"

"Yes, Mummy," said Reece.

"And we’re always going to be very happy together."

"But where are you going?"

"We’ve got to get up and go, and you’re to come with us."

"OK, Mummy."

"Where are we going?" asked Lamienne.

"We’ve just got to go down stairs. Alright? But we can’t put on the light. OK?"

"OK. But how are we going to know where we are going if we can’t see?"

"Sh! Quietly! Just hold hands, then hold on to Mummy-and-Daddy’s hands. OK?"

"OK"

"Lamienne, give me your hand."

"I can’t find it."

"Here it is."

"And, Reece, you give Mummy your hand."

"Yes, Mummy."

"Are you holding each other’s hands?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Now, we want you to push back the quilt, and stand up. And you must be as quiet as little mice. OK?"

"Yes, Mummy."

"Then stand up, and we’ll lead you to the door."

"How can you see the way to the door?"

There was a pause. "Just hold Daddy’s hand tightly. I can see clearly."

"But how can you see?" insisted Reece.

"Just hold Mummy-and-Daddy’s hands very tightly."

"Daddy, you’re –" Lamienne began.

"Quiet!"

"Daddy, you’re hurting my hand."

"Mummy! Mine too!" Reece’s voice rose to more than a whisper. "Mummy!"

"What is it? What’s the matter?, said Mary, snapping on the bedside light. She was heaving herself upright in the bed, looking drowsy. Donald, next to her on his side, opened an eye.

The two children were beneath the quilt. They, and it, were on the floor, leaning against the wall, a few inches from the open doorway, – far from the two adults who lay, uncovered, in the bed, on the other side of the room about twelve feet away.

The children sat frozen together clutching each other’s hand. "What’s the matter?" said Mary. "What an Earth are you doing over there?"

An Earth-shattering thump shook the house.

The children screamed and fled across the bed to their parents. Donald and Mary grabbed them, uncomprehending, as another thump shook the house as if a giant footfall had landed on the ground outside. The window was still open, outside still dark. The impact had not come from beyond the window. It was inside the house.

"What the Devil’s that?" said Donald, hugging Lamienne to his chest. He realised his own heart was pounding in his ears, confusing him. Lamienne was speechless, terrified. Mary, too, could not speak. She was staring out through the open bedroom door to the darkness of the rest of the house. Reece clung to her, his arms coiled around her shoulders.

"Could it be… could it be an earthquake?" said Mary at length.

As if to answer her, another terrific impact shook the house. The door swung slightly on its hinges. Floorboards in the landing gave a creak. A little inverse fountain of dust strayed from the ceiling.

"That was like something…" Mary trailed off, not wishing to complete the sentence. "Something downstairs."

"I know," said Donald. "Reece, Lamienne, what were you doing out of bed?"

"Somebody was talking with us," said Reece.

"Talking with you? Who?"

"I don’t know," said Reece, close to tears.

"We thought it was you," said Lamienne.

Donald listened for a moment. There was nothing about the sound he could recognise. Except for the certainty that it was from within the house itself. "What did the person talking to you say?"

"It was both of you," said Reece.

"You were asking us to go downstairs."

There was a shattering impact, greater than the others, that made the bed shake. The terrified occupants hung on closer to each other. A wardrobe door swung slowly open.

"Downstairs?" There was another large "wump," as if in answer. "There’s something downstairs?"

Wump.

"I’m going to have a look," said Donald. He sprang out of bed.

"You can’t leave us here," said Mary.

"No," Donald considered. "Follow me. Stay close, but keep behind me."

Mary kept the children in front of her with guarding hands. Donald went first, and put on the landing light. He looked down the stairwell but saw only the hallway furniture. "Come on."

He crept down the stairs and turned on the hallway light. Nothing was out of place. Ahead of him, in the direction of the kitchen, he could make out dull, thumping sounds, almost like a boat banging along a jetty. He moved towards the closed kitchen door. When he was close enough, he flung open the door and snatched at the light switch.

The kitchen, too, seemed perfectly in order. The cereal bowls were still on the table where the children had left them.

There was another thump.

Donald’s eyes scanned the kitchen. The sound had come in the direction of the door, beneath the stairs, that lead to the cellar. There were more nondescript bumps and bangs, nothing compared to the great impact of a few moments earlier. Donald was certain the noise was coming from behind the cellar door.

"Follow me."

Donald moved across the kitchen and collected off a hook a large brass poker they sometimes used with the Aga stove. Then he moved over to the cellar door. There were creaking and scraping sounds coming from the other side, but nothing more. He reached out for the handle. "Are you ready?" Mary looked as if she would rather have done anything than find out what was beyond the door, but at the same time she knew she must. She nodded, holding the children more tightly to her.

In a swift grab, Donald threw open the door and reached for the light switch. The light came on, nothing happened, and he felt foolish with the poker held in mid-air. He threw it on the kitchen floor.

Only it was not quite nothing. The sounds had stopped. Donald looked down the stone steps into the cellar. They used it as a utility room, a chest-freezer and tumble-drier were down there. Toys that had fallen from favour. Tools, paints, an assortment of home-made pickles – even some better wines they had bought – usually abroad. The single, naked light-bulb seemed to struggle to drive away the shadows. Donald scanned the expanse of the cellar as far as he could see it from the top of the steps. Corners were elusive in gloom. Nothing, again, seemed out of place in the cellar. Donald stared. There was something wrong. What was it?

"Mary?"

Mary was just inside the doorway, with the children still close in front of her. "What is it?"

"Nothing – I just – … Pass me the torch, will you?"

There was a large, durable, rubber-coated torch hung from a hook by the back door. She would have to cross the kitchen to fetch it. "What is it?"

"Just get the torch."

She didn’t like to leave the children, but they were stood at the top of the steps, close to Donald. She fetched the torch, reached forward and gave it to him.

"What’s the matter?"

"I can’t see… I can’t see the floor of the cellar." He took the torch from her, flicked on its heavy duty beam, and aimed it downwards. "That’s funny. I still can’t see – "

He was cut off by the abrupt failure of both the kitchen and cellar lights, and by the cellar door slamming shut. In doing so, it knocked Mary sideways and sprawling across the dark floor of the kitchen, and trapped Reece and Lamienne on the top of the cellar steps with their father. Startled, he attempted to turn, but lost his footing. The torch careered crazily from his grasp, stabbing light into their eyes before falling through the air. Donald found himself grabbing for the torch and plunging headlong from the steps and falling into empty space.

Instead of the bone-shattering crunch of hitting the cellar floor, he was plunged into icy cold water.

Choking and spluttering, he surfaced to the sound of both Reece and Lamienne screaming in the stygian dark. He could feel no ground beneath his feet, and the water was salt. He thrashed to steady himself. The screams of the children were above him and away to his right. The nerve-tingling thrill of shock echoed through him.

"Don’t worry. Daddy coming."

He struck out in a crude dog-paddle towards where he imagined the steps should be. But where was all this water from? The children’s screaming was joined by another noise. It was Mary, calling desperately through the closed door, scrabbling to get it to open. But she could not.

Another stroke, and he barked his knuckles on stone. The steps. He kicked and got both hands on to a step, and started to heave himself out of the water.

He felt arms reach out to him.

"Lamienne, Reece, stay back. You may fall in."

But it was not a child’s hand that now grabbed his face.

"Give us the children," a voice hissed. It was not Lamienne or Reece. "Give us the children."

"No!" he yelled. The hand’s grip was brutal, as it pushed his face beneath the water and held him there. Water flooded into his gagging throat and on into his lungs. He kicked and struggled, but the vice-like grip was unyielding. Suddenly, the hand in the darkness plucked him by his face above the water.

"Give us the children!" The voice was more insistent now.

"Give us the children," said another voice. Inconsequentially, there was something familiar about the voices.

Donald spluttered and choked for a moment before he could answer. "No!"

The hand pressed him down beneath the icy water once more. This time he had just managed to grab a breath before the liquid poured into his nostrils. He almost waited for the hand to let him up. But it did not. Held in total darkness, beneath water, he felt resistance ebbing from him. The desire to suck in a breath was becoming overwhelming. He knew that if he attempted that breath, it would be his last as his lungs filled with water. Just when he thought he could endure no more, the hand, gouging its fingers into his cheeks, pulled his face from the water.

"Give us the children, and we will let you live!"

It was several seconds before he could muster the breath for a response. He could hear the children sobbing, sounds from the door, all amplified in the darkness.

"You can," he gasped, "never have the children. They’re our life! Take me, if you want a life."

The hand opened and let him drop back into the water. He heard, or thought he heard, one of the voices saying, "We wanted a life, a life with children."

He felt the last of his strength had gone as he slipped beneath the water for the final time.

Suddenly, the door above him opened. Mary stood at the top of the steps. She was holding the big Maglite, that they carried in the Volvo for emergencies, in one hand, and the poker, which she’d used to prise open the cellar door, in the other. The children were on the steps, distressed and tearful. Donald lay, spread-eagled, on the bone-dry cellar floor.

Scrambling, stumbling, toes stubbing, elbows banging into unseen walls, the family, grabbing handfuls of each other’s clothing, fled up the stairs and along the darkened landing to the main bedroom. Donald pushed past Mary, halting their path, and scanned the bedroom with the Maglite. There were no flies, no odours, no voices, just the bedroom with the large bed against the far wall and the quilt on the floor at its foot. He shoved the group into the room, wedged a chair behind the door – the old-fashioned lock no longer had a key – and they flung themselves on the bed. Donald threw the quilt over them. The bedside digital lamp had failed in the loss of power, but the luminous dial on his watch showed 1:38. He went over to the window and looked desperately to the north-eastern hills. Sunrise would not be till 4:35 and then there was the height of the hills to climb above, but there should be pre-dawn twilight at least an hour before that. He estimated that the sky would start to lighten by three. God grant that it were sooner.

He climbed quickly into bed and drew the quilt around them, with the Maglite, still on, resting on the quilt, between his knees.

"Everyone hold tightly to each other. We mustn’t go to sleep. Everyone understand?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Yes, Daddy."

"We will stay awake till morning. We’ll tell each other stories to keep awake."

"Yes, Daddy."

"Right. Well," Donald managed to suppress the urgency that had built in his voice. "What shall we talk about?"

"I don’t know," said Mary. "What we did on our holidays?"

"Good idea. What did we do, children?"

"I don’t remember, Daddy," said Lamienne.

"Well – what about what we did today?"

"What day is it today?" said Mary.

"It’s going to be Friday. Friday the 22nd. When the sun comes up. Technically, it’s Friday now. Remember, we said we would come back from Cornwall a day early so that we could see the Caufields? They were flying back from the Caribbean the previous night."

"That’s right," said Mary. "So by today, you really mean ‘yesterday.’ Thursday."

"Yes," said Donald. "What did we do all day, children?"

"We spent the day with Auntie Susan and Uncle Geoff."

"They’d just got back from their holidays too," said Reece.

"They had been to – what’s that word?" said Lamienne.

"The Caribbean. They had just flown back from the Caribbean."

Donald thought about the night flight the Caufields had been on. Flying eastward, towards the heart of the sunrise, the night was very brief. He had experienced a similar thing himself.

"Can we go to the Caribbean for a holiday?"

"Maybe next year."

"Maybe we could live there."

Mary looked at Donald in the darkness. "Perhaps moving wouldn’t be such a bad idea," she said.

The children chatted on, hesitantly at first, with only the reflected glow of the Maglite showing their faces. Eventually, they talked more freely, as Donald and Mary kept reminding them of events through the day in Staffordshire. Inevitably, though, they begin to tire as the minutes dawdled past. The Maglite appeared to be dimming. Donald wondered how much battery power was left in the lamp. Then he began to realise that it was not just the lamp growing weaker, but that the hue of the sky outside the window was changing. An uncountable number of indescribable shades of blue quietly displayed themselves at the window, before yielding to lilacs and pinks.

"Daybreak," he said, as if planting a flag on a hard-won battle-ground. Mary and the children were silent. Without realising it, he too drifted off into sleep.

He was awoken by the sound of someone whistling. Brilliant sunlight dazzled through the window, and the hillsides glowed with a day in full glory. The digital clock was back on, flashing. This meant that the power-cut was over, but that clock would need resetting with the time and the date. Without power, its electronic memory wouldn’t work. It was a nuisance resetting it, Donald thought to himself. Outside, the whistling approached. The paperboy, who had a long climb on his bike to deliver to the farmhouse, often announced his triumphal ascent with a whistle.

Donald got up, leaving the family undisturbed, and went downstairs. Opening the door, the day burst in, hurting his eyes. He was just in time great the paperboy.

"Hello, Tom."

"Morning, Mr Remington. Am I glad you’re here. We couldn’t remember at the shop if you were due back today or tomorrow. I’d’ve been mad if I’d had to cycle all this way for nothing. Here’s your paper."

Donald took the paper and looked at it, only half-noticing its headlines at first. "Just a minute, Tom."

"What’s the matter?"

"This is yesterday’s paper."

"You sure?"

"There it is, look. Thursday June 21st."

"But it is Thursday. That’s why we were unsure. We thought Thursday was an odd day to be coming back. Then I remembered Mrs Remington saying you’d be back a day early for something."

"Yes, but that was in order for us – " he broke off, distracted by a story on the front page of the paper. The headline told of a plane crash. The plane had ditched in the Irish Sea.

"Something wrong?"

The plane had developed severe engine trouble and the pilot had decided to ditch rather than risk coming down over land. Emergency services had reached the aircraft within minutes. The overnight flight had been from the Caribbean.

"No. I – I don’t think…"

It had been a miracle that so many of the passengers and crew had been rescued, the story went on. The only fatalities had been a couple, trapped inside the aircraft when it sank, who were believed to have come from Cannock, Staffordshire.

They were named as a Mr and Mrs G Caufield.

"Well, whatever it was, I don’t get paid till Friday, so today is definitely Thursday," said Tom, and rode off.

The End

The Hobbyist

Short story of a young man brought up in a repressive household, by straight-laced father with a sinister, obsessive secret after meeting a curious visitor.

I’ll never forget the time I first saw him. It was a fine summer day in early May and Father was almost finished getting dressed for church, when there came a knock at the front door.

"Who on Earth can that be calling on a Sunday?" said Mother. Father glowered but didn’t speak, as he was still struggling to fasten his tie over his stiff collar. "Should I answer it?" said Mother, reading something in Father’s silence.

"Whoever it is, send him packing. It’s not Christian to call unplanned on a Sunday."

My Mother went down the dark hallway to the door and opened it, letting a torrent of sunlight in from the chasm of the terraced Aigburth street. For the moment I was blinded, nor could I hear the muted conversation from the door. The uninvited stranger was not in retreat, it seemed. Father, having mastered the knot in his tie, strode up the hallway, shouldering my mother aside. Perhaps I followed a step or two in his wake. There I could see a man, dapper, in his late fifties, grey hair at the temples. On seeing my father he raised his trilby hat.

"Er-oh, hello," he said politely, in a gentile, public-school accent. "My name is Tibbets. Have I the pleasure of addressing the man of the household?"

"And what might your business be?" said Father, his tone none too friendly.

"Business, ah, business. Yes, it is a business. But not in the conventional sense. Not an enterprise, not that kind of business at all, my dear fellow."

I could see Father stiffen at this trite pleasantry. "Tell me what you want and be quick about it, so the sooner you can be on your way."

"Yes, of course, of course. But perhaps not here on the doorstep. It is a matter of some discretion."

"It’ll be on the doorstep or nowhere at all."

The stranger, replacing his hat, gave the merest flicker of a glance in my Mother’s direction. "Very well," he said, a faint hint of regret in his voice, "but it is something only you and I should discuss. A lady," he flashed the briefest of smiles at my Mother, "might be, how shall I say? – disquieted."

Father bristled, caught in indecision. Mother intervened. "I’ve the Sunday tea to be getting on with," she said, diplomatically. "Excuse me." With that, she retreated down the hallway to the kitchen that lay at the back of the house. I, still in the doorway of the front parlour, continued to listen astutely.

"What is it then?" Father demanded.

"Sir," said the stranger, in his cultured, well-educated voice, "I have a certain – adeptness – a skill, if you will, granted me by a Higher Power. Or at least, I assume it is from a Higher Power, for I have certainly made no effort to cultivate it myself. This – adeptness – gives me a sensitivity to things."

I was wondering how much of this circumlocution my Father would tolerate before he slammed the door in the stranger’s face so that he could return to his Sunday habits. But the slam I anticipated did not come. The stranger appeared to have captivated my Father’s normally impatient attention.

"Things?"

"Things," continued the stranger. "Things that are not of this corporeal world."

Whatever I had expected my Father to say, what he did say surprised me.

"What’s that got to do with this household?"

"As I say, I have a sensitivity. I happened to be walking past your home on this glorious afternoon," – he paused to indicate the sunlight hammering off the brickwork of the terraced houses – why anyone should just happen to wander down our street, or any of the dozens like it in this part of Liverpool, was itself a mystery – "when I sensed that all was not well with this house." Suddenly, the polite flippancy of his earlier speech was gone. His tone became grave. "Not well at all."

I was certain my Father would have no more of this conversation. But I was mistaken. Still he held open the door to the stranger.

"What’s wrong with it?" he said.

The stranger looked almost uncomfortable. He lowered his voice a note and I had to strain to hear. "Sir, I must speak plainly. Your house is in habited with spirits. Many spirits. And these spirits are in torment."

I saw my Father's shoulders raise – surely now the door-slam would come. But then they sagged, as if he had been caught out with some accusation he could not deny.

"What is that to you?" he said, lamely.

"I have come to take these spirits away, and let them move on to a happier place."

"An exorcist?" I could not tell whether my Father spoke in surprise, derision, or merely resignation. Or possibly even fear. His tone was so ambivalent, so unlike him. His usual religious leanings were strictly conventional, the Bible, fire and brimstone, and that was about it. It was almost as if he had become a stranger to me. As strange as the caller standing in our doorway.

"A guide," corrected the stranger. "A messenger, a healer, no more." His voice recovered some of its earlier levity.

"And what’s your fee?" my Father demanded, more like his brusque, usual self.

"My dear fellow, there is no fee. It is a service, the use of a talent that I never aspired to. Regard it as a hobby, if you wish. What I can promise you is that you will not be sorry by the time I am finished."

To my astonishment, my Father said, "You’d better come in." I nipped out of the parlour doorway sharply and pretended to be busying myself before the mirror. My Father ignored me as if I were not even there and guided the stranger into the parlour, closing the door firmly behind him. It was more than I dare risk to listen at the door, so I have no idea of the conversation between the two men, but it was more than an hour later before the stranger and Father reappeared. The stranger seemed to be in the same, chipper mood with which he had arrived, though my Father was quiet, ashen in appearance.

"Good day to you, sir," said the stranger, tipping his hat once more. "I shall see you again within the week." With that, he was gone. My Father, without speaking, retreated to the bedroom. I did not see him again that day, and he did not attend church, as was his custom.

True to his word, Mr Tibbets returned one evening later in the week. This was to be the first of many such visits. My Mother, myself and my Mother’s sister, Minnie, who lived with us, were all banished from the front parlour during his visits, which we had to sit out in the breakfast room with no consoling explanation until Mr Tibbets left. We could hear the faint murmur of conversation between the two men, but of what they spoke we had no clue. On the third or maybe fourth visit, I heard my father come out of the parlour and climb the stairs to the bedroom then descend. Evidently, he had returned with the key to the cellar, the access to which was by a door below the stairs that was always kept locked. From time to time in the past, my father would disappear down there, in the darkness, maybe for an evening, or early in the morning before the rest of the household rose, but would never give any explanation of his actions. Indeed, even to ask of one was to invite at best a brusque and at worst a harsh rebuttal from my father. On more than one occasion – not a frequent event but one that would come around from time to time, I had found myself alone in the house – my mother, father and aunt would all be occupied elsewhere – and I had searched my father’s room for the key to the cellar, without success. I had absolutely no idea in what activities he was engaged whilst down there. Evidently, however, he had no reservation in letting Mr Tibbets enter this private domain.

After this first time, my Father took Mr Tibbets down to the cellar on a number of occasions. Always, after they had entered, I would hear the key turned in the lock from the inside and some time would pass before its sound was to be heard again. No-one ever asked my Father why he and Mr Tibbets descended to the cellar as there would have been no point – he never would have answered.

It was hard to gauge my father’s mood before and after Mr Tibbets’ visits. Subdued, mollified would be about it, and a contrast to Mr Tibbets’ own, which was on a borderline between conviviality and deference. Polite, cheerful but earnest, as if he were about some purpose of servitude. But what this purpose might be, my father never explained. And when he had nothing to say on one matter, he was wont not to speak at all.

This changed in an unexpected manner. On one of his visits, for some reason – maybe he was early – the door was opened to him by my Aunt Minnie. Minnie was, I realise now, looking back, a bit of a dotty creature who had never married nor worked. Aside from seeming a little simple, she was pleasant enough, sharing my mother’s good looks with an added note of facile charm, a kind of innocence. On seeing her, as I observed slyly from the entrance to the breakfast room, he seemed delighted. A smile of genuine pleasure, rather than the polite demeanour he normally adopted, lit up his countenance. My father, hearing Mr Tibbets’ arrival, virtually bundled him away from Minnie and into the parlour, where the door was closed with a bang.

After that, Mr Tibbets’ calls became more frequent, and he would consistently appear to arrive ahead of expectation. If ever Aunt Minnie opened the door to him, he always beamed with delight, exchanging pleasantries or something more – I wasn’t on every occasion able to hear. That this was not to my father’s approval was easy enough to infer, but was confirmed beyond all doubt, when, on one evening, conversation from the front parlour increased in volume and became more heated, climaxing with my father clearly exclaiming, "You are in my house to do your business, Tibbets, but on no account are you to have dealings with my family, especially my sister-in-law!"

Tibbets could be heard protesting his case, but to no avail, it seemed. Father effectively threw Mr Tibbets out, their business, whatever it had been, concluded. Mr Tibbets barely had chance to retrieve his trilby from the coat-rack. I never saw him again.

I never saw my Aunt Minnie again either. She simply did not return to the house next day, having apparently gone on some errand or other. The police were eventually informed, but no trace of her was ever found. There was nothing of hers missing from the house. But after a period of searching, the police merely concluded that people went missing all the time and there was nothing further of any practical value they could do. There was simply no reason to suspect foul play and that was that.

Time passed, and nothing was heard of Mr Tibbets, nor my Aunt Minnie again. It seemed indelicate even to discuss the matter, let alone suggest the two disappearances might have been connected. When my school exams came up and I got good grades that enabled me to read English literature at university in London, it was, I later realised, with some relief that I was able to leave that claustrophobic household. My only regret, which I realised too late, was that I had turned my back on my Mother, and her death from a sudden stroke, while I was still away, hurt me grievously. I should have kept in touch and I felt guilty. I had no such inclinations towards my Father. At her funeral, all he said was, "Brutal, but mercifully quick." There was some speculation that Aunt Minnie would suddenly appear at the burial of her sister but to no avail. I went back to London, without concern for my Father now living alone in the empty, draughty household and I did not make any attempt to keep in touch with him.

I lacked any idea of a career. I started writing little pieces and submitting them to the quality newspapers and certain magazines and, to my mild surprise, they were accepted and I received payment. After graduating, it was an easy way of making money. It’s funny how you can do something once, then repeat it until it becomes a habit and before long it is taking up all of your free time. Without any formulated plan I realised that become a freelance journalist. Yet it didn’t feel like an occupation and the money, though adequate and pleasant, was almost irrelevant. It was more like a pastime. I had settled into my new life comfortably, when, one day in early summer, I received a phone call out of the blue.

It was the police. My father, with whom I had had no contact since my mother’s funeral, had died suddenly, a fact that had been detected by the milkman who noticed that his deliveries were not being collected off the doorstep. The police explained that the coroner’s office had been notified, which was standard procedure in the case of a sudden death, but would I travel back home as soon as possible? They needed somebody to identify the body.

When I got off the train at Lime Street I was met by two CID officers who said they had some questions. I tried to determine whether I was under arrest for something. They remained vague on the point, saying that I would merely be helping with enquiries, but the supposition was that, had I refused, they would indeed have arrested me.

"Enquiries into what?" I asked, and repeated the question when we reached the police station.

"Enquiries into how fourteen bodies come to be buried in the cellar of you family home."

Shock is such a short word for the conflicting tumult of emotions that struck me now. A whole series of questions sprang to mind at once with the effective result that I was unable to speak at all for several seconds. When I did, it was to ask what, in retrospect, may have seemed an odd question: "How long of they been there?"

"None of them is recent," said a quietly spoken senior officer whom I suspected of being rather sharper than he looked. "In fact, some form of embalming or preservative process seems to have been carried out on them."

Then he added, in a tone I did not like at all, "You were probably still a child when the last of them was, what shall we say? – laid to rest."

"Who are they?"

"We were hoping that you might be able to shed some light on that matter."

This detective took some considerable convincing that I could not, that I did not know anything at all of their existence and had no idea how they had ended up as they had. But there came a point at which the officer suddenly seemed to become satisfied. "The bodies are all male, men in late middle age."

A thought struck me. "Are you sure none of them is female?"

"A forensic pathologist has been over every corpse. Why, were you expecting someone in particular?"

"Of course not." I don’t think I sounded too convincing, even to me. But the officer continued.

"We were doing only a routine search of the house when we became suspicious. The floor of the cellar was bricked, but it was way too uneven and the bricks came up too easily. Much later on, we were going through your father’s possessions and we came across this." He produced a hard-backed note book, the sort that had that curious cobweb-like pattern in dark blue bands across the cover. Not unlike my old school exercise books.

"What is it?"

"It’s a kind of diary. Meticulously kept. The first entry relates to an incident that occurred while you, your Mother and your Aunt were all out. He stresses this point several times. A gentleman came to the door in some distress, asking your father for help. He was having some kind of attack it seems. Your father went to make him a cup of tea and by the time he returned from the kitchen, the gentleman was deceased. Your father found some medication on him, digitalis – it used to be prescribed for heart conditions. Your father records here," he rested his hand on the page, "that he felt guilty for not having checked with the gentleman first about his health before leaving him on his own.

"He goes on to say – I won’t go into detail – that your father decided to attempt to lay him to rest in your cellar – some kind of act of contrition - he says here – ‘a kindness.’"

"That’s odd," I said, dumbly, "my father wasn’t noted for his kindness."

"That’s the only thing you find odd?" said the detective with a curious stare.

"I mean, I – " I stumbled for words. "No," I managed at last.

"Well, it seems his kindness didn’t end there," the detective sniffed. "After that, your father committed a number of ‘kindnesses’ on various old fellahs that he came across, usually at the church mission. Chaps he identified as lonely old blokes who’d no family, no friends, generally fallen on hard times – and, of course, wouldn’t easily be missed. He used the digitalis on the first few – it’s related to deadly nightshade, of course – and when that ran out he employed other means. Then he wrote it all up in his log book," he raised the note book to my face, "names, dates, any other details…" he closed the book, steepled his big bony hands underneath his chin, "then stuck ‘em in the ground below where you were living." There was that stare again, as if he could see right to the very back of my mind.

"I – honestly – I swear – I knew nothing about this."

The detective leaned towards me conspiratorially. "And I believe you. Your father makes it perfectly clear he kept his private activities to himself. But, of course, I had to check. I think if you’d known anything I’d have got it out of you by now."

I felt as if I ought to thank him; then again, he had suspected me of conspiracy to murder, and, while I thought this over, the moment passed. Then something else occurred to me. "You say all the victims’ names are recorded – written down – in – in that book."

"Yes. Of course, we’re still checking them, but there were various personal effects that you father had also kept and so far they all tally with the bodies."

"There was no mention of a Mr Tibbets in there, by any chance?"

"Who’s Mr Tibbets?"

"He is – was – is – a stranger who came to the house while I was still at school. He and Father seemed to have some kind of business, then my Father had a sort of falling-out with him and threw him out of the house. I never saw him again."

"When was that?"

I gave a date accurate to the best of my recollection.

The detective shook his head. "There’s no Mr Tibbets mentioned in here. And the last body your Father laid to rest was some months earlier."

"There were no more deaths after that?"

"Not according to this, and the pathologist agrees."

When I got back to the house, it was after sunset, but there was still an afterglow out over the Mersey. Under the circumstances, it was rather eerie. Despite my long absence, I still had a key and let myself in to dark, silent house. The interior was, as ever, cool, the heat of the day had never penetrated those sullen bricks. I snapped on a light, a bare bulb, in the front parlour. What should I do now? It was too late to get back to London tonight. It was a grim prospect, the thought of spending the night trying to sleep over a graveyard. Yet I’d done it, apparently, for years.

Suddenly I had an idea. I realised what an astonishing story this was. I could sell it for a big fee, and live high in the hog for months. I found some paper in the old bureau, laid it and my pen on the parlour table, and sat down to write.

It was then that I noticed the trilby hat, hooked over the back of the chair opposite me.

THE END