The Lake House (24 page)

The figure on the other side of the glass came closer and the door opened an inch, the brass safety chain not letting it open any further.

‘We’re stopping in that caravan park next door and my phone isn’t working. These mobiles are great when you can get them to work but a nightmare when you can’t.’

Martha Beckett ran every scenario through her brain. She knew she shouldn’t open the door because he was a stranger, but then she’d already broken that rule once this week by letting that Irish man push his way into her home. And look what had happened there. This man sounded much more polite and a lot older than the Irish one, so she slid back the locks from the front door. She had spent her entire life on her own, being careful. Maybe it was time to throw caution to the wind and start being more adventurous.

The sound of the chain being slid along and taken off was like music to his ears.

‘I wouldn’t have one of those things if you gave it to me.’

The door opened and she smiled at him. He grinned back.

‘No, me neither, but I have to have it for work. We’re up here on holiday and she’s gone shopping. I hate it – the shopping, I mean, not the area, because that’s beautiful – but I’ve left her to it and she’ll go mad if I leave her stranded.’

‘Come in. I’m afraid I only have a good old-fashioned house phone but you can use it to phone her. British Telecom will think I’ve broken the habit of a lifetime by using it.’ She winked at him and Henry laughed. He liked her. She wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. She was old and frail but she had a sparkle in her pale blue eyes and a sense of humour. Nothing at all like his mother, which was a good thing for the both of them.

‘I can’t tell you how much this means. I’ll pay you for the call, of course.’

‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ve paid them every bill on time my whole life and I rarely use the thing.’

‘Thank you so much. I’m Henry by the way.’

‘You’re welcome. And I’m Miss Beckett, but you can call me Martha.’

She led him down the corridor to the sideboard with the phone and pointed to it.

‘I’ll be in the kitchen just down the hall.’

Henry smiled and picked up the phone, dialling his own mobile number to leave a voicemail. He couldn’t phone Megan because for now he didn’t want her to know what he was planning. After a minute he walked along the dark corridor, stopping to look at a heavy oak door which was covered in padlocks and bolts. He continued along to the bright, modern kitchen where the kettle was boiling.

‘Thank you so much for that. I’ll see myself out.’

‘No, you won’t. I hope she isn’t too mad at you. Would you like a drink before you go?’

‘Only if it’s no trouble. That would be lovely. I’m stuck until the car battery is charged anyway. You have a beautiful home, Martha. I can’t imagine how nice it must be to wake up to the view of the lake every day. Tell me, does a house this size have a cellar? I imagine it would have a pretty big one.’

Chapter Nineteen

They were on caravan park number two. Annie had eaten all her cake and managed to get crumbs everywhere. Jake looked across at her. ‘How did you miss your mouth? I mean, what a waste of cake.’

She couldn’t answer him because she was too busy sucking buttercream off her fingers, so she stuck one up at him.

‘Charming.’

‘Not all of us have a mouth that can fit in almost a whole piece of sponge cake in two bites.’

‘No, it’s a gift. Have you put your Christmas decorations up yet?’

‘No, it’s not December. Oh my God, I bet you’re going to, aren’t you? What are you like?’

‘You know I love it. I can’t get enough tinsel or glitter to keep me satisfied.’

Annie giggled, which was one of Jake’s favourite sounds. He grinned.

‘Don’t let Alex hear you say that. It’s very unmanly.’

‘I don’t care. He knows exactly how manly I am. Anyway we have a good excuse this year. I want Alice’s first Christmas with us to be magical, even if she won’t remember. I’m going to photograph everything and put it in an album for when she’s a stroppy teenager and hates us both.’

‘Aw, Jake, you are such a sweetie. She is one lucky kid and if she does turn into the teenager from hell I’ll remind her how lucky she is to have you both. I wish you could have adopted me.’

‘Thanks, Annie, I’ll hold you to that. Anyway, what do you mean? I feel as if you are my kid, I spend so much time looking after you.’

She reached over and poked him. ‘You love it, though, don’t you? I mean, how boring would your life be without me in it?’

Neither of them spoke. Annie was wondering if she would live past Christmas with Henry Smith lurking in the shadows.

Jake knew what she was thinking, and he was thinking about just how much pain he was going to cause the sick bastard for making his best friend have to worry about her own mortality. Annie couldn’t sense anything when it came to herself. She knew she was in trouble but had no idea how much. She was relying on them catching Henry before he could catch her. It was like a grown-up game of Mousetrap with Annie as the bait.

Jake indicated to turn off at the next site. A small silver van drove past them. The driver didn’t even give them the time of day. Annie assumed it must be the camp maintenance guy; Jake didn’t look because the road was so narrow it was a work of art getting the car around it without scraping one side. They drove down to the site office. After getting out of the car they took the clipboard and knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

As they walked in the face behind the desk dropped, the smile gone in an instant.

‘Now then, Michael, how are things?’

Annie bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. Michael Houseman didn’t like the police, especially not Jake, who had arrested him three weeks ago for being drunk and wanting to fight everyone in the chip shop one Sunday night.

‘What do you want?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Is that a nice way to greet an old friend?’

Annie stepped forward, passing pictures of Megan and Henry to him.

‘We need to trace these two as soon as possible. Do you know if they are stopping here?’

He gave them a cursory glance then threw them on the desk. ‘Nope, never seen them before in my life.’

‘Are you sure? The man’s very distinctive. He has burns all down one side of his face.’

‘Definitely not. Now do me a favour and piss off out of my office.’

Jake stepped closer, pushing the pictures back towards him. ‘If you see either of these two it’s really important you let us know.’

Annie turned to leave and Jake followed her, slamming the door behind him.

‘Bollocks. He wouldn’t tell us even if they owed him three months’ rent.’

Jake nodded. ‘I think you’re right, my friend. We’ll have to check this one out ourselves. Get some plain-clothes officers to do a search.’

Annie wrote it down on her list. They got back in the car and he began reversing. Annie spotted the roof of Beckett House over the hedge.

‘Can we nip next door and see how Miss Beckett is? She was really upset the other day about that guy who was last seen at her house. I just want to check she’s okay.’

‘Fine by me.’

He drove back along the winding road to get out of the exit then took a sharp left into her drive. He parked in front of the house. Annie got out. ‘I’ll only be five minutes. Are you coming in?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’ll wait here. I want to phone Alex.’

She ran to the front door and rang the bell. The woman came to the door. Opening it wide, she smiled at Annie.

‘Hello, dear, have you come to tell me some good news about my missing man?’

‘I’m afraid not. I just wanted to see if you were okay.’

‘Oh that’s a shame, but it’s very kind of you. Do you want to come in? There’s something I would like to talk to you about.’

Annie turned and waved to Jake, mouthing the word ‘sorry’ to him. He gave her the thumbs up and she followed Martha into the house, where less than thirty minutes ago Henry Smith had been. Annie followed her down to the kitchen, shivering as she passed the cellar door. Martha, who was as bright as a button, watched her reaction. As they went into the kitchen she shut the door.

‘That cellar scares you as much as it scares me.’

‘You saw that?’

‘I did. What am I going to do, officer? I’m getting older. I can’t be the gatekeeper for ever. If I die and a young couple with children were to buy the house, what would happen then? I can’t sleep at night worrying about whatever it is that lurks down there, stealing children and grown men who are then never seen again. Whoever said that monsters aren’t real didn’t know about this house.’

‘Have you ever seen it? Do you know what it looks like?’ Annie was thinking about the scary face she had seen in the mirror last time she was here.

‘No, I haven’t, but I remember Davey our gardener was terrified of the drainage hole in the cellar. He saw something the night he went looking for Joe. I overheard him telling Mary, our cook, that it was like a man, but it wasn’t, and it had a grey face, with the reddest of eyes and huge sharp claws. I ran from the kitchen and up to my bedroom, terrified of this monster man that lived in our house and ate children.

‘I never left my bedroom for a whole month and my parents were so grief-stricken at not being able to find Joe they didn’t even notice. For a whole month they were out searching the grounds and the lake. So many people – almost everyone who lived locally and owned a boat – joined in the search for Joe. My father was positive he had to carry on searching but my mother knew; she knew all along that Joe had been taken. She had gone down into the cellar that night on her own because she thought she heard him calling to her, and she saw it. She said she had never seen anything so frightful, and she had to run for her life up the stairs and slam the door shut.’

‘How did you find this out?’

‘She told me before she died. When she knew I was going to be left alone in this house she made me sit with her one afternoon while she talked me through everything that happened back then. Of course I knew most of it, but I never knew that she had seen it with her own eyes. After that my father made the cellar as secure as he could.

‘I’ve spent numerous years researching it. I would go to the libraries in the cities and I’ve read just about every book on folklore that has ever been published, but I’ve never come across a story like this one. A part of me wonders whether it’s time to stop hiding the truth and ask a team of investigators to come in and look for it, but I’m scared to involve anyone else. I can’t sleep as it is most nights, wondering about Joe and now this man Seamus. Tell me, did he have a wife, a family?’

Annie couldn’t lie to her and nodded. ‘Miss Beckett, I think if I were you I would want to get someone in to look for it and make my cellar safe. I can’t imagine how scared you must be living here on your own with that thing in your cellar. But where does it go? You said yourself the cellars have been searched many times over the years. It has to have a home somewhere.’

‘I don’t know. If I knew, that I would go there and kill it myself. My mother believed that it lived in the sewers. We sent poor Davey down there unarmed and then the next day the farmer who used to live across the road came with his guns and the police. He said he wasn’t afraid of any monster, no matter how big it was, and he went in that tunnel watched by my father, the police and Davey. The only thing he came across was a horrific stench, which the police assured my father wasn’t my brother because he hadn’t been missing long enough to smell that bad. My mother made my father promise to seal off the cellar and that no one should be allowed down there. He died four years later and to this day I’m convinced he never got over losing Joe. I think if it had been my mother who had passed first my father would have dug the entire house up looking for whatever it was, but he couldn’t because of us.’

Jake walked through the kitchen door and they both screamed, which made him jump.

‘Bloody hell! Sorry, but what are you talking about to scare yourselves that much? My heart almost stopped. You scared me.’

Martha laughed. ‘Sorry, that’s my fault. I was telling spooky tales.’

Annie laughed too. ‘Jake, you could have coughed or something.’

‘Did you know the front door wasn’t locked, Miss Beckett? You need to be really careful. There are so many thieves and con men around this time of year. They could sneak in and out before you even knew it, this house is so big.’

‘I’m sorry. I was distracted. I do normally keep it locked at all times.’

Annie stood up. ‘I’ll have a think and come back and see you. There must be something we can do, especially with all the technology there is now. We could send in some cameras or something. Leave it with me.’

Martha stood up and nodded her head. ‘Thank you, that would be a relief. Please call in any time you’re passing. The kettle is always on and I’m tired of being on my own so much.’

Jake took hold of Annie’s arm to lead her away. ‘Oh she will, don’t you worry. She likes nothing better than a hot drink and a chat. She’ll do anything to get out of work will this one.’

Annie frowned at him but followed him out. They heard the locks being turned as the house was made secure once more.

Neither of them spoke until they got into the car.

‘Bloody hell, I was worried sick. I was on the phone for ten minutes. By the time the conversation had finished I’d convinced myself that bastard was hiding in there and the pair of you were dead.’

‘Why would he be hiding in there? He won’t know Miss Beckett. You don’t get any better do you, Jake?’

‘How can I, working with you? I should be bald by now. Thank God I got my mum’s hair and I’m wearing my lucky socks.’

‘Eh? Oh never mind. Sorry, she’s lonely and scared about where that Seamus guy has disappeared to. Right, where next?’

‘Dinner time. I’m starving. Let’s go back and see what our top team have found out. For all we know they might have already caught the bastard while we’ve been out doing care in the community.’

Annie hoped to God they had, but Will would have been the first to phone her if that was the case. Still, a bit of wishful thinking couldn’t hurt. They went back to the station, neither of them speaking. Annie was wondering how she could find the monster that lived in Martha Beckett’s house and Jake was wondering how he could find the monster called Henry Smith. Annie wanted to tell him about Beckett House but she knew it would freak him out. He had enough to worry about with being her bodyguard once more. So did Will. In fact he was under even more pressure than the rest of them because the powers-that-be would want to blame someone for Henry Smith being let out to kill again, even though it wasn’t anything to do with Will. But she knew he would blame himself, and God forbid Henry did get hold of her. She shivered so violently Jake jumped.